Latitude 19 degree Part 27

"If we but had Mauresco here, our high priest Mauresco," said the Admiral regretfully.

"I can say the service as well as Mauresco!" shouted Jonas with scorn.

"Give me half a chance." And then there was poured forth a stream of blasphemy more awful than any to which I had ever listened. If I must die, give me some tender and consoling thought to while away my hours while death is approaching. But this! I will not sully my pages with the vile words which fell from the lips of these G.o.dless men. It was a travesty upon the beautiful service of the Church of England, and was so ingenious in its obscenity that I would fain forget it. Thank G.o.d that I have forgotten it in a measure, but I do remember that, as I was being taken to that deadly niche in the wall, my whole soul revolted at what I could not but hear.

"It is nothing, sir, when you get used to it," squeaked the Admiral of the Red. "You've heard of skinning eels? Usage makes all the difference in the world." And then the old villain laughed his fiend's cackle, which set my teeth on edge.

I suppose that I was deathly pale.

"Courage, my man, courage!" squeaked my torturer. "There is no pain about this last sweet suit of clothes. It fits as neatly as my own.--Give him a jorum, Smith, to calm his troubled nerves."

Need I say that I accepted the offer, and drained the cup which the Smith held to my lips? He took that opportunity to murmur in my ear:

"I may have a chance to get back. I will forget the tools, anyway."

The liquor affected me no more than so much water. How I wished that the poor lad might also have swallowed some! However, perhaps it was better as it was. He had forgotten his misery. I felt them carry me to the niche and stand me there upon my feet; but this was mockery, as my toes only reached the narrow flooring. As the Smith riveted the chain, he whispered other consolatory sentences to me, such as, "I must make it strong enough to hold you, otherwise you would fall on your face." And then to the Admiral: "There, sir, how do you like Sir Popinjay now?

Isn't he a dainty sight?" To me, "If you have friends near, they must hold you firmly as they draw out the bolts." To the Admiral, "He'll never move, sir, till the Day of Judgment." I must say that I was rather of his opinion. To me, "I'll let you down as low as I can." To the Admiral, "A dead weight, sir, a very dead weight."

"Get a new joke, Blacksmith, a new joke. That is as old as this h.e.l.l of a cave itself."

Suddenly there was the sound of a gun. Then another. They came from the direction of the sea.

"Come! come!" said the Admiral. "There's the signal. You are slow, Pennock, slow, slow!"

"I must secure him well, sir."

"Perhaps they'll leave me behind," he whispered.

But though my heart rose with hope at the thought, such was not to be my good luck.

"Come, Smith, come! You seem very loath to part with your prisoner."

The gun sounded again, then several in quick succession.

"Something beside a signal, sir," said the Smith. "It's a fight, a sea fight."

"Take to your heels, all of you!" roared Captain Jonas. "They haven't enough men on board to work s.h.i.+p."

"Take me up! take me up!" squeaked the Admiral. "All go ahead. I'll see ye all out."

The Smith loitered, pretending to gather up the silver flagons and cups that lay strewn about.

"No time for that, Pennock, no time for that! Will you go on?"

There was menace in the tone.

It seemed to me as if I could not lose this my only friend--a friend made in the last ten minutes, it is true, but one who could save me when there was no one else to aid. I looked up at him imploringly; he sighed and gave me a glance which was at the same time encouraging and hopeless, a paradox which I explained to myself amid the confusion of my thoughts as if he said: "You see that I must go. But if I can, I will return and save you."

"Pick me up! pick me up!" squeaked the Admiral of the Red.

The habit of obeying him was strong. He was seized and raised on the shoulders of two of the strongest of the band.

A messenger burst into the hall. He was breathless.

"The s.h.i.+p is attacked!" he shouted. "We must run for it!"

Now all was confusion, all was excitement. It was the devil take the hindmost. The pirates tumbled over each other in their haste to be gone.

I could not but think how anxious they were to save their own worthless lives, while not giving a thought to our terrible fate. I heard constant sounds of firing and the noisy shouts of the buccaneers as they trooped out of the cavern and down the hill. The Admiral saw them all leave, and was the last to go. As he reached the door, he turned and threw me some words over his shoulder.

"Don't tell Christophe of us, dear Mr. Jones, and I shall ever be your friend. Are we leaving you pretty comfortable? I am so glad. We'll take you down when we return next year. Meanwhile, good night, and G.o.d bless you!" The bearers vanished through the archway, and I was left alone with those dread travesties on Nature, and a young lad who perhaps had already joined the great majority. I cast a despairing glance at the shaded gallery. I called, I screamed in my agony; but I might have saved my strength, for the noise made by the pirates drowned my words. I seemed to be slipping, slipping, away out of life. I suddenly lost all hope. I began to fear a thousand things. I felt sure that the Bo's'n and the Minion would never dream of my being left in the great hall. If I were left behind, they would argue, why not come to them. They would see and hear the embarkation of the pirates, and would imagine that I had been taken with them or else killed and left on sh.o.r.e. The horror of that awful cave would be too much for a man of the Bo's'n's nervous and exalted temperament. As he had flown from the mysterious ring, so had he also rushed from the cave. Perhaps he would never even come and search for me. As to the Minion, no trust could be placed in him.

I wondered how long I could live, half standing, half hanging there. My feet were not resting upon the ground. The ball of my foot touched the stone beneath, and I found myself making constant and ineffectual efforts to get my entire foot into a position of rest. My weight was almost entirely on the cage. And now I felt that my throat was pressed by the band about it, and I feared that unless I kept myself constantly pus.h.i.+ng upward with my toes that I was in danger of choking. I prayed for death. I wished to die then and there, and not hang until I should go stark mad from the horror of it all.

Suddenly I heard a slight movement, a rustling such as one might make in turning a dried leaf with the foot in the forest. My eyes were drawn slowly round to the place of sound. Good G.o.d! had my terrors only just begun? Was there more in life to drive one mad? Upon the floor of the cave, at about ten yards distant, I saw what turned me to stone, what fascinated me, what held me to life, what made me pray G.o.d that if he had any pity he would strike quickly. The terror of the Hatien woods, the scourge of the Hatien caves, was upon me. Slowly and surely it was making its way toward the place where I hung helpless. The great, black, hairy, terrible thing was shaping its course as directly for me as if I had it hooked to a string and was drawing it to my feet. I started, I jumped so that my cage quivered in every joint, and the rusty clasps squeaked and rattled. I shouted, but the words, a roar as they left my throat, dropped from my lips in a whisper. "Help!" I cried, "help!" But I was like one in a nightmare, my tongue clave to the roof of my mouth, and there was no answering sound. Nothing but the slow, measured crawl of the tarantula, as with calculating crablike motion it came slowly on and on. The lamp was burning low, the cave was getting almost dark, a fitting light for the ghastly and the terrible. It brought to my vision another dread form. Beyond the black spider, from beneath the central bowl issued, with many a hiss and undulating movement, a long green serpent. I saw this only when the hairy beast turned as if to protest at the interruption. The snake coiled itself and raised its head. Its tongue played in rapid darts from open fangs. There was a moment of rest for the tarantula, and then again it resumed its measured walk toward me. I hoped that the serpent would give the creature battle, and thus draw its attention from me; but as I gazed with eyes starting from their sockets, I saw that it uncoiled and took up its line of march also toward the wall of the dead, but parallel with the path of the tarantula. I tried to reason with myself as to which attack would be the least horrible to me. I found that my lips were moving, that I was uttering incoherent sentences! I wondered what I could be saying. The dread creatures were approaching nearer and nearer. I watched them while I could. I tried to shout again, hoping that the sound might frighten them if but for a moment, but my tongue refused to move. My mouth was dry as a plaster wall, all the blood in my body seemed surging to my head. They were coming, coming, slowly, slowly, but surely also, near and nearer! Then I fell down, down, down into s.p.a.ce, and, G.o.d be thanked! was no more.

CHAPTER IX.

I AM RESCUED.

How long I was dead I can not say. It seemed like death, and I shall ever feel that I have tasted of that other life which will be my portion now before many years have pa.s.sed away. I will not weary you, Adoniah, with the experiences that seemed to be mine--the years in which I seemed to be floating through s.p.a.ce. We will pa.s.s over the dreams and return to the stern reality.

My first return to consciousness was to feel a strange sensation in my fingers. I seemed to be in a cramp. I tried to stretch out my foot, but I had no power over my muscles. It seemed as if my extremities were swollen to twice their size. I tried to feel for the side of my bunk. If I were in the Yankee Blade, it seemed so strange that there was no motion. We were in port, then! If so, why had I not been on deck to take my place on the fo'c'sl? What was that gasping, sighing sound that fell on my ear? It must be the water sobbing against the sides of the old barco. I tried again to move my foot. Again there was no result, but a seasick motion of my body, a faint clink, as of metal. I endeavoured to open my eyes. The lids were closed as if glued together. If I could but get my hand up and pull at the lids. Suddenly it came back to me. I was shut up in the devil's cavern, and the tarantula and serpent were making in a straight line for my helpless body. I was one of that deathly row of counterfeits which hung against the damp wall of the cave. I was alone with the dead, myself a corpse, shut off from human kind forever.

As these thoughts jumbled chaotically through my mind, I turned my eyes to the floor beneath. The light had grown so dim, and the smoke of the oil so filled the cave, that it almost obscured my vision. I remember thinking if those fearful enemies were to strike, I hoped that they would not long delay. I was so tired, so tired. Let death come quickly and end it all. But would death end it soon? Would there not be suffering, the more intense from the poison of those denizens of the cavern than if my life were to slowly ebb away for want of food? I suddenly bore downward with all my weight. The band round my neck was tight. Perhaps I could choke myself. But beyond a sensation as of suffocation, there was no answer from the friend on whom I called. Death did not reply. Had those ruffians killed my friends, and was I to hang here as he had hung who had been removed to make room for me? Was I to be left to linger and rot, the flesh to drop from my bones, the threads of my clothing to fall in dust heaps around me? I tried to shout, but my tongue was swollen and filled my mouth. If I had been dead for so long, why had not the tarantula come closer to my helpless frame. Perhaps they would not touch the dead. I struggled, my cage swayed and struck against the walls of my open coffin. I tried to spring up or down to make my weight drop heavily on one side or the other. Perhaps the cage thus might fall. Even if it killed me in so falling, such death were welcome.

The cage might burst asunder. Strange things of the kind had happened. I had heard many tales of adventure, but nothing more wonderful than this which had come to me. Why, then, should not this incredible tale be carried on to the end? Why should not my cage burst open and set me free, even if my friends were captured or dead? Oh, for life! Only life!

That was all that I asked. Only that G.o.d would set me free. I have made many bargains with G.o.d and have seldom kept my contract. Man when in straits is p.r.o.ne to tempt his Creator into making a bargain with him, promising on his part the relinquishment of this sin, that weakness, the doing of that good or the other charity, if G.o.d will only surrender his plan and let man act the part of Providence for a while. I can not understand, with the doctrine of foreordination imbedded in the very fibres of my being, how G.o.d did really change any portion of his plans for me. But I wanted to be Providence for a little. So I prayed and promised, and it seemed that he heard me. He kept his side of the compact, and I have broken mine a hundred times.

The fitful gusts of wind blew through the cavern and rattled the dry forms hanging near, and blew the air from them to me. But they also brought to me the sound of voices. G.o.d bless them, whosever those voices might be! They meant human companions.h.i.+p and hope. The chamber was very dark, but I heard steps which groped and stumbled as they came. There was a shout. It was the Skipper's voice, but I could not answer him. "He is not here," I heard him say. O my G.o.d! would they go away and leave me? Thank Heaven, that was not their purpose. I heard a fumbling, and flashes of light shot out; then all was dark again. And then they had come to the centre of the cave and had lighted the lamp. At first, the Skipper did not discover where I hung. I heard an exclamation, and saw that he was regarding something almost beneath his foot. I turned my burning eyes to the spot from which he had sprung, and saw that my two enemies had met and had given battle. The serpent, swollen to three times its natural size, was coiled round its enemy, out of which it had crushed the life, receiving each one the death that it gave. And now that the tarantula and serpent were dead, and the Skipper had come, and the lamp was again lighted, I seemed to have nothing more to worry about, and so I fainted.

When I awoke I was lying on the ground, my head wet with water, my neck and collar soaked with the rum which the Minion had tried to pour between my clinched teeth. He was still endeavouring to reach my stomach by the outside pa.s.sage. I certainly think that a gallon of rum had been poured down my neck--in fact, I was bathed in that potent liquor, which probably saved me from taking an ague.

"Suz! suz! suz!" growled the Captain. He clicked with his tongue like an old woman, as your Aunt Mary 'Zekel used to.

"You, Minion, run and tell the Bo's'n to come here at once!"

"Did," answered the Minion.

"Doesn't he intend to obey my orders any more?" asked the Captain. "He's in my pay."

"How?" inquired the Minion.

"That's so!" said the Captain. "I s'pose he saw a serpent or something in here. Got a mark or something, 't makes him to act so. How'd ye find the Mate, boy?"

"Lookin' for somepun," answered the Minion, in the longest sentence that I had ever heard him utter.