The Red Derelict Part 41

"No; I haven't got a wife--not now."

"Ah! had, then. Family you want to get back to?"

"Only one son--a boy at school. But he won't have heard of the wreck, and if he did wouldn't connect it with me fortunately. I took pa.s.sage in the _Baleka_ at the last moment, and didn't even cable it home. By the way, some of these amiable people have relieved me of my pocket-book, and there were some notes in it. I don't know whether they can be persuaded to disgorge."

"Perhaps. But if we start from here to-morrow there'll hardly be time."

"No; I suppose not. Never mind, then," was the easy answer, for the starting to-morrow had a soothing ring, beside which the loss was a mere trifle. But the speaker little thought how his listener had already made up his mind to have those notes in his own possession before the dawning of another day--incidentally, it might be, at the cost of a life or two.

The smoky rays of the sinking tropical sun shot in through the open doorway, illumining the gloomy interior. The stranger had brought a pen and ink with him--strange accessories of civilisation in that remote haunt of barbarous man-eaters. A wooden native stool did duty as a desk, and Wagram, squatted on the floor, proceeded to affix his signature: "Wagram Gerard Wagram."

"Will that do?" he said, glancing up. Then he started in amazement, not undashed with alarm; for the other, who had been standing over him, emitted a sort of gasp. His face seemed to contract, then harden as he glared at the paper, then at the man who held it.

"That your name?" he said, and his voice took on a sort of growl.

"Yes; of course," was the wondering answer.

"That's your name--your real name?" repeated the stranger, and the growl in his voice and the stare of his eyes seemed full of menace and hate.

"Yes; that's my name, and there it is," answered Wagram firmly, yet not without a dire foreboding over the extraordinary effect it seemed to produce.

"Yes--of course. Ho-ho! That's your name--Wagram Gerard Wagram! Of course it is--of course. Ho-ho!" And, s.n.a.t.c.hing up the paper, the other went out of the hut, leaving behind him the echo of his mocking tones and savage, sneering laughter.

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.

THE CLOSED DOOR.

The stranger walked slowly across to his own quarters in a frame of mind very unwonted with him. Something had moved him--moved him powerfully.

A new vista opened before him, and what a promise of the good things of life did he behold. The past, too, came before him, but it he put aside with sneering and bitterness.

Two female slaves greeted him with subservient smiles. They were not of this race, but had been brought from much farther inland. They were much lighter in colour, physically fine symmetrical specimens, and not without good looks. Their smiles he returned with a frown that made them cower.

"No more of these," he muttered in English, staring at them. "White-- red and white--white and gold--golden hair--volumes of it--every kind.

Aha! No more of this soot."

They cowered still more before his stare, wondering which of their recent or further back delinquencies had come to his knowledge or what their fate would be. But now he ordered them to begone, and, while trying not to show their relief, they lost no time in obeying.

He got out a bottle of rum and poured out a strong, stiff measure. This he tossed off like water. The beginning of a debauch? Oh no. This man knew better than that. He was never seen intoxicated--he valued his influence too much--and were he once seen in a state of incapacity he knew full well that his influence would be gone; further, that it would not be long before his life followed. There were times, however, when he had taken enough liquor to have sent two ordinary hard-headed men to the ground, and at such times the black savages among whom he dwelt were careful to give this white savage a very wide berth indeed. That was all.

His private quarters were in no way ringed off from the rest of the town, in which was reason. No combination could thus be formed against him, or any hostile plan unknown to himself be carried out, as might be the case were he more shut away. But his huts were better and more s.p.a.cious than the rest, that mostly occupied by himself attaining almost to the dignity of a bungalow--and, indeed, in such dread was this place held that his possessions were as sacred as though guarded by iron safes. For the acquisitive savage had found it unhealthy to pilfer from this his white brother. At first he had tried it. One attempt had been met by a wholly unlooked-for shot, killing the offender. On another occasion a large and heavy knife had fallen unexpectedly from nowhere, penetrating the brain of the would-be thief, with similar result. This was the more singular in that at the time of both attempts he whom they would have plundered was about fifty miles away, so that it needed not many recurrences of further disaster--in each case mysterious, and taking a varying form--to render this man's goods absolutely safe.

The secret of the extraordinary ascendency of this white savage over the black, apart from the fact that he never interfered in the slightest degree with their manners and customs, especially when he had led them personally in some sanguinary and victorious raid, may have lain in the fact that he tolerated no opposition. If he considered his subordinate devils had a real grievance he would listen to it and redress it, and of this we have seen at least one gruesome instance. Otherwise he simply rose up and killed the offender--killed him with his own hand.

Now he went outside his house, called a name, and issued an order. In the result, about three quarters of an hour saw him in possession of Wagram's pocket-book. This he proceeded to investigate with quite unwonted hurry. A few visiting cards and the notes Wagram had mentioned were all it contained. The latter he put aside. Cash was always--cash.

For Wagram himself another long, trying, well-nigh sleepless night was in store--a night of wearing suspense, and the certainty of a most dreadful disappointment. For he could not disguise from himself the consciousness that something had gone suddenly wrong--that the train of the negotiation had, at a certain point, left the rails--for what otherwise could be the meaning of the sudden change of tone and manner on the part of the stranger directly the agreement was completed? Had he merely been fooling him with promises of escape until he had put his name to a doc.u.ment binding him to pay down a very large sum? At first blush it looked like this, but further reflection served to show that, failing his own co-operation, the doc.u.ment was useless for the purpose of obtaining one single s.h.i.+lling--in a word, was utterly unnegotiable.

Could it be that the man was touched in the brain, and subject to sudden and dangerous impulses--hence his unlooked-for change of manner--or was he a renegade, who had, perhaps, undergone the penalty of former crime and hated those of his own blood and colour in consequence? Anyway the whole affair was a mystery, which the morning might solve; and that it would solve it in a way that was speedily favourable to himself he devoutly hoped and prayed.

He fell into an uneasy sleep; and it seemed he had hardly done so when he was aroused by a touch. He opened his eyes, to meet those of a savage who was standing over him, and a shudder of loathing ran through him; and this not entirely due to the strong musky odour wherewith the new-comer seemed to be poisoning the air--the fact being that, since the scene he had yesterday witnessed, these were no longer human beings in his eyes but so many horrible ghouls. This one, however, beckoned him to get up and go with him.

Wagram obeyed. He had no immediate fears for his personal safety, in view of the presence of a fellow white man in that nest of demons; and as he followed his repulsive guide he glanced around upon the life of the place--the morose, evil-looking inhabitants, fiend-like with their long spikes of plaited wool sticking up from their heads, and their round, black progeny tumbling about like so many sooty imps. There was no trace of the light-hearted, careless good humour of the negro among these. He had never seen one of them laugh, for instance; and their grin had something malevolent about it--something that was more than half a snarl. Could it be that their awful unnatural appet.i.te affected them mentally too, and that by feeding on the bodies of their fellow-demons the spirit of the latter entered into theirs? But his speculation on this head was cut short. He and his guide had arrived at a much larger hut than the others, and there, seated on a native stool in front of it, was the strange white man.

"Well, I've got back that pocket-book of yours," began the latter unceremoniously. "Here it is; only I'm sorry to say the notes are no longer in it. Rum thing that these devils should have any idea of the value of money, especially paper money."

He broke off, and emitted a shrill whistle. A slave girl appeared. A monosyllabic order, and she reappeared, bearing a bottle and two gla.s.ses.

"Have a tot," he said. "You don't look over-bobbish, and it'll pick you up. None of your poisonous trade rum this, but real old Jamaica."

"Thanks; it may. I've had another sleepless night, and can do with a little picking up."

In fact, he felt the better for it. And what he was about to witness required some stimulating, for now the other uttered a loud, peremptory call.

It was answered with amazing and startling celerity. A number of spiky-haired blacks came crowding up in front of the place. Wagram, watching his strange host, saw the latter draw himself up to his full stature as, with a scowl that was perfectly demoniacal, he harangued them for some minutes, working himself up to a perfect paroxysm of fury.

His eyes glared, and his deep tones took on the thunderous roar of an angry mastiff. Immediately a man was thrust to the forefront of the group. The white man walked down off his verandah and stood confronting this fellow, whose brutal face blenched and lowered before the scathing, stare. Then he seized a great spear from one of the lookers-on, and, half hurling, half stabbing, he drove the blade clean through the body of the ugly, cowering savage, who sank to the earth, pouring forth his life-blood in torrents.

Wagram felt himself growing pale. The slayer, not content with his swift and sudden vengeance, had withdrawn the formidable weapon, and, his eyes rolling and bloodshot, was brandis.h.i.+ng it over the staring black crowd, literally foaming at the mouth as he roared forth his deep-toned imprecations. The a.s.sembly seemed turned to stone as those fierce eyes swept over it, lighting first on one and then on the other, while the great spear twirled and quivered in that sinewy grip. Each thought that he might be the next victim; and, indeed, it seemed so, for that towering form looked as though endowed with the strength and malevolence of a fiend. Then with a last fierce and frenzied shout he bade them begone, and they, for their part, did not wait to be told twice.

"What was it all about?" said Wagram, hardly able to conceal the disgust and horror which he felt.

The other turned on him his restless, bloodshot eyes. "Your lost pocket-book. It ought to have been brought to me, and wasn't. See?"

"Good G.o.d! And you killed a man for that!" The tones of disgust and reproach seemed to sting the other.

"Killed a man for that!" he repeated with a beast-like growl.--"Rather!

And I've killed a dozen men for far less--if you call these cannibal swine men. And I'll do it again. No; you know, all these sickening old canting ideas you were raised in don't count with me--not a straw. I'm G.o.d here, you understand--and I mean to be."

"Steady. Don't be blasphemous," said Wagram. "Oh, it's you who are going to give me orders, is it!" said the other, not loudly, but in a tone of deadly, quiet resentment. "Well, we shall see; and, by way of beginning, I may as well tell you I've changed my mind since yesterday.

In a word, I'd like the pleasure of your company here a little longer."

"But--our agreement?"

"Our agreement? Oh, here it is. That for it!" tearing in several fragments the paper he had just produced. "I don't get the advantage of the improving society of such a good and holy man as you every day, and now I've got it I mean to profit by it--for a time. See?"

Wagram was simply nonplussed. What did it all mean? Was this a madman?

It seemed like it. The doc.u.ment under which he stood to obtain a really splendid sum he had torn up in a fit of gusty rage. But the fearful look on the man's face as he stood glaring down on him was something to reckon with--and the jeering tones. He began to conceive for him an even greater repulsion than for the black, cannibal savages themselves.

"We can easily rewrite it," he said in a conciliatory tone. "Think again. It will be to both our interests; and if there is any service I can render you I will willingly do so."

"Service be d.a.m.ned!" said the other roughly. "I rather think the boot's on the other foot, since it entirely depends upon me, Wagram Gerard Wagram, whether you ever see home again, or furnish beefsteaks for the n.o.ble image of G.o.d you see around here. Upon me, do you hear? Upon me only."

"Well, of course, it does," answered Wagram, realising that the man was going through a sort of paroxysm of blind, well-nigh delirious rage.

"But I should think you would hardly hand over a fellow-countryman to the mercy of a lot of cannibal savages. I have a better opinion of you than that."

"Have you? Then keep your d.a.m.ned opinion for where it's wanted. Now, come with me."

Thinking it best to humour him Wagram did not hesitate. The other led the way through the outskirts of the town. One thing struck Wagram during their progress. The inhabitants hardly noticed them. All seemed to be hurrying towards one point. Soon the same acrid, horrible odour fell upon his nostrils as that which had sickened him on arriving at the human shambles. He stopped.