Latitude 19 degree Part 43

CHAPTER XIV.

WE START OUT TO LAY A SNARE AND FALL INTO A TRAP.

And now began a period of experiences which was perhaps the most trying of the three chapters which make up the story of this part of our lives.

I have divided the time of our stay on the island into three portions.

The second chapter begins with the page that I am now writing.

For some days I had been reflecting upon the extreme seriousness of our situation. We should do perfectly well if left quite to ourselves, but how long would that state of affairs continue? Even if the pirates did not return, which I felt that they might do at any time, some band of marauders might discover us. There was no reason that I knew of why the place might not be well known to others, and, if it were, they might prove this later to our discomfort. It seemed to me that in any case we ought to possess two places of retreat. Our second home need not be far from the cave, and near enough the coast that we might see an American s.h.i.+p should one appear. Indeed, we might continue to live in the cave if we so chose, but that we should construct a place of shelter to which we might flee if danger threatened us there, I considered absolutely necessary on our part. I think, however, that what first caused this plan to awake in my mind was the pallor of Cynthia's look. Sleeping in that close cavern, in the bowels of the earth, was not good for any of us, and if not beneficial to strong men who slept near the outer air, how much the worse for her in that inclosed and damp interior. After thinking over this idea of mine for several days, I broached the subject to the Skipper. It seemed to strike an answering chord in his mind, and, as there was no one else to consult, we decided to begin at once.

After breakfast we went prospecting. Our little family accompanied us, with the exception of the Minion. His movements none of us cared to control, for it made but little difference to us how he came or went.

The Bo's'n trailed along behind us, but he was limp and sad and so dejected that Cynthia asked him several times if it would not be better to go back and lie down a while. He agreed with me, speaking in sad and reproachful tones, that the Admiral of the Red might return when he found Mauresco missing, and a more thorough search of the caverns might reveal our presence. Certainly if we continued to live there, having provided no place to which we could flee, we might suddenly be made to feel the weakness of such failure to reckon with the future.

It was at this time that the Bo's'n began to suffer from attacks of toothache. Perhaps I should say face-ache. His cheek would suddenly swell up to the size of a large nut, and at such times he rolled upon the ground in an agony of pain. At these moments the poor man could not articulate distinctly. The attack would come on at the most inconvenient times. Usually when the Bo's'n was needed to aid in anything like an apprehended surprise, he was at the last moment found writhing in misery, his hand held to his face.

The morning after my marriage, then, we started back into the forest with the determination to select a site for a house. Cynthia had not looked at or spoken to me since she upbraided me in the cave, and I, having some spirit of my own, acted as if she did not exist.

We carried with us the knives and machetes we had found. These had been well sharpened, and we hacked at the branches as we went along. Our chief reward was the cabbage of the young palm, which grows beneath the tuft at the top of the tree, and is sweet and tender as a ripe chestnut from the Belleville woods.

As we walked that day there were constant rumblings and groanings beneath our feet, and there were cracklings and mutterings which made the deep wood seem an uncanny and eerie place.

"_Le bruit du gouffre!_" said Lacelle, looking at the Bo's'n. "_Le bruit du gouffre!_"

"How can I tell what she means?" said the Bo's'n piteously. "I wish, Mrs. Jones, ma'm, you'd try to teach that savage a Christian tongue."

After looking about for some time, we at last pitched upon a little plateau or terrace with a gentle rise toward the eastward. This would hide our house from the sight of the cave. Below us ran a tiny brook of clear water. We were far enough from the cave to feel quite secluded, and yet so near that we could easily know what was going on there.

And now began the work of building our house. We cut young trees and saplings, we drove poles into the ground, and made what in this modern day we should call piles, and on this we laid our floor. We thatched our roof with branches--in short, we made a house much as the wild men of the forest have done from time immemorial, and the methods pursued need not be recounted here. We cleared a s.p.a.ce about twelve feet each way round our house for better protection against insects. We built two rooms, one for Cynthia and Lacelle and the other for the rest of our party. A part.i.tion ran across the centre of this floor, and that some one might be able to get quickly to the next room, if one of its occupants called, we made a doorway between, and hung the opening thickly with leafy vines, so that a curtain impenetrable to the eye was thus formed.

We were tired when the day's work was done. I felt sorry to see my poor girl working as she did, aiding in gathering leaves for her bed and Lacelle's. But she laughed when her Uncle protested, and said that she should not be happy unless she gave what help she could.

We returned home over a way more direct than that by which we had come, and it was in a little hollow that Cynthia discovered that which gave an additional horror to our stay in the island. She and Lacelle had been walking ahead. Suddenly she stopped and dropped to her knees. She gave a strange sort of cry and called to her Uncle. Her tones expressed such a mixture of feelings that I wondered what further could have happened.

There was horror in the sound of her voice, and I thought that some terrible insect or beast was in her path. But with that note was intermingled one of pity and tenderness. We ran to her a.s.sistance. We found her bending over something upon the ground. As I came close to the Bo's'n's heels I saw him leap aside, as if he had been stung, and strike into the wood with a howl as if in anguish. I came next, and there I saw, lying bound with ribbons of various colours and decorated as if for a festival, a little child of the same light shade as Lacelle herself.

Lacelle had shrieked, and was holding her hands over her eyes one moment, looking fearfully over her shoulder the next, and pulling Cynthia by the wrist, as if imploring her to flee. Cynthia, however, refused to be hurried away from this novel and sad sight. Novel, because finding a baby decked with ribbons in the depths of the forest is not a common occurrence. Sad, because the tiny thing did not open its eyes and smile at us, nor did it move its hands and feet. Cynthia laid her fingers upon the little creature. She shook her head. The child was stone cold. She felt round the heart, but there was no sign of life.

The Skipper looked at the little thing and then shook his head sadly.

"The loup garou has been about," he whispered in my ear. I asked no questions. I knew all that I wanted to know of the loup garou with which the little children in Hati have been frightened from time immemorial. This time the threat had come true. I wondered why the child had been dropped among the leaves in this way, and could only argue that either its mother had discovered the horrible theft and had restolen the child, and was afraid to take it home for fear of vengeance, or else that the murderers had been surprised and had sent some trusty person as bad as themselves to hide the body deep in the woods and away from discovery.

"What a strange thing," said Cynthia, "that a mother should leave her baby decked for burial alone in this deep forest!"

I knelt down and examined the babe, and now I discovered that it was so bound that it could not move. The contrast was so remarkable, the tiny corpse cold and stiff, bound with gay-coloured knots and bows, that I was struck dumb. The Bo's'n's behaviour had perplexed me, but I was beginning to think the Bo's'n somewhat out of his mind. I had also thought this of the Skipper, though for quite a different cause. I expected each moment to hear him express the wish to give the poor babe a Christian burial, so I took the child up in my arms and carried it hurriedly through the woods. I walked fast, the rest following at almost a running pace.

There were now continued mutterings, and suddenly, as is sometimes the case in the island, a thunderbolt shot from a clear sky and split a great tree near.

"Run!" called the Skipper, "run, the tempest is upon us!"

The rumblings underground increased. The whole earth seemed to shake. I ran with the child to the great hall, the Skipper going with the others to our own cave. When I reached the pirates' entrance I dashed in and along to the familiar apartment. One idea possessed me. I remembered the hole in the rock where the Minion had found the jewels, and it seemed to me to be a fitting place of burial for the dead babe, besides which I wished to prevent the conducting of any more ceremonies by the Skipper.

I ran to the small pa.s.sage which the Bo's'n had discovered, placed the child in the square receptacle, and raised the stone and leaned it against the opening. I turned to flee from this place of horrors.

Running out, I met the Minion in the pa.s.sageway.

"Where are you going?" asked I. I heard something about "look" and "jools."

"Come out!" said I. "There is a tremendous storm brewing. No one knows what may happen." But the Minion, intent, I knew, upon finding the fortune of which we had robbed him, pulled away from me and hurried into the cave. As I emerged from the entrance, there was a tremendous rush of wind. It whirled round and round, and then the entire Globe seemed to be cracking open. Such a crash I hope I may never hear until the Day of Judgment. The top of the cave seemed to break off and slide down. The dust and earth arose in a blinding cloud and nearly choked me. Great splashes of rain fell like blows upon my face, and then there was another fearful gust of wind, and the water poured from the clouds like an ocean. It deluged me. It threw me upon the ground. The branches of the trees waved and shook and swashed up and down, and thrashed the gra.s.s and bushes beneath them. Some of them were split off and were strewn upon the earth. Some were carried straight over the bank and out to sea. Some were whirled up in the air and came tumbling down upon other treetops. Some were uprooted and laid low. I feared to move. I also feared to remain lying there. I knew not where the Minion was. The thunder was bellowing beneath, above, around me. The lightning, it seemed to me, was playing among the very treetops over my head. I raised myself as well as I could. I advanced one step at a time. I clung to the branches and roots and vines. I was buffeted and blown about and slapped in the face and thrown again to the ground. Sometimes a branch to which I clung for safety was wrenched from its parent stem as I held it, and before I could let go I was lifted from my footing. I crawled and crept and struggled on up one side of the hill, then down the other. The fury of the hurricane was greatest on the summit, and I wondered as I fought with the elements if I should ever see Cynthia's face again. But perseverance and a strong clutch will sometimes overcome even a hurricane, and after a long bout I came off conqueror, and found myself within the welcome entrance to our side of the cave. Here I sank down exhausted.

Fortunately the storm did not last long, but wore itself out like a mad person in a foaming rage. Its pa.s.sion exhausted, there was a sudden lull, and the setting sun shone placidly upon the wrack and devastation it had made. I had not been able to look at the water during the progress of the hurricane, but those who had reached the cave before me said that the ocean was swept with great ma.s.ses and waves of foam. Its direction being outward, the swells were not tossed upon the sh.o.r.e, which was an excellent thing perhaps for us. As I stood in the window where the vines were hung with a thousand sparkling diamonds, I looked in vain for the wreck. The Yankee Blade had at last found her resting place. She had slid off into the sea and had gone down to join her sailor lads.

The hurricane had cut a path of about an eighth of a mile in width, and there devastation had been rampant. On either side of this trail of the fury of destruction, there was little evidence of the warring of the more pa.s.sionate child of Nature against his quiet and gentle brother.

Although our house stood not more than a half mile from the track of the tempest, beyond a severe tropic downpour from the eyes of Mother Nature over the violence of her wayward son, there was little evidence that the G.o.d of the wind had pa.s.sed that way.

When I lay down to sleep that night the Minion was missing, but no one thought much about it. He always turned up again to the discomfort of every one, and much too soon.

We decided to remove into our new house as soon as the forest had lost the dampness which the hurricane left behind. It does not take long in that tropic land for the sun to dry up the water left on the gra.s.s and leaves, and by afternoon we were ready to start for our new home. The Bo's'n came to me before we left the cave and said that we were to be treated exactly as other s.h.i.+pwrecked mariners had been from time immemorial, for he said that some of the cargo of the vessel had come ash.o.r.e, and that he had seen boxes and barrels floating in the water. We had no need to take the boat and pull out to meet this fresh supply of food, for the tide and regular wind of the trades washed them up anywhere from half a mile to a mile along the beach. When we had a spare moment we went down and rescued a box or a barrel. The boxes were for the most part water-soaked, but when they contained salt provisions it made little difference to us.

A description of the food that came to us in this way, like manna from Heaven, would only prove tiresome to all concerned. Few s.h.i.+pwrecked people have died for want of food, and we were not an exception. We had enough and to spare, but husbanded our resources carefully, and thus we were never in absolute want.

The first night that we spent in our new home was full of excitement in a pleasant way. The freshness of our beds of green, the odours of the sweet woods which had been so recently washed by the flood, the feeling that our abode was clean, that there were no horrors connected with it, and, above all, that in this secluded nook we should not be discovered, made the night a peaceful one to me. Every one seemed refreshed when daylight broke, and each set himself to accomplish greater tasks than heretofore, during the coming day. The rainy season would soon be here, and we had no notion of being flooded out of our new home. So each one occupied his spare hours in bringing branches and leaves to add to the thatch. The fallen palms of which there were many, were of the greatest service, as the dried leaf of this royal tree is the thatch most used to roof the native houses. The Bo's'n told us that in Santo Domingo they called it _yagua_. We made seats in and around the house for Cynthia and Lacelle, and the tough and strong vines made excellent hammocks when woven together.

I heard Cynthia asking for the Minion as I left my bed. I did not go to meet and answer her, as I preferred my bath first, beside which, her treatment of me had been so cold and ungracious that I decided to let her make the first advances.

I ran, then, through the wood and toward the cave. Our constant journeys back and forth seemed to have created a path, so that we easily found our way. As I neared the cavern I saw that at the spot of my greatest danger the day before, the ground was uptorn as if a giant ploughshare had pa.s.sed that way. Great trees with enormous roots sticking high in air were lying strewn about. I had not seen this on my way to the new house, as we had gone to it in a more westwardly direction along the slope of the hill. I struggled through the debris and down along the pirates' side of the cavern. When I came to the entrance which led to the great hall, or the place where it should be, it had disappeared. A stupendous ma.s.s of rock and earth had fallen and blocked it entirely.

And then suddenly I bethought me of emerging from the cavern yesterday and my meeting the Minion at the entrance. Yes, he had gone in, as I left the cavern, to look for his treasure, and there he must have been when the earthquake, or whatever it was, split off that great ma.s.s of rock. In that case, the lad must be imprisoned. I went close to the place and called, but there was no answer. I called louder. All was silence. Then I bethought me of the gallery, and, though I was as tired of the cave as you must be by this, I ran quickly up the hill, crossed the gra.s.sy slope at the top, and flew down the other side. I entered our pa.s.sageway, and, running through by feeling my way along the wall, I soon reached the gallery. I parted the vines in front of me and looked down at the interior. There I saw a surprising sight. Instead of finding, as I expected, the Minion alone, two figures were there--one a tall, light-coloured man, whom I at once recognised as the Hatien who had held Lacelle captive by the rope on the day that our sailors attacked the party of natives. This, then, was the fourth man. His likeness to Lacelle was very striking, and I at once made up my mind that he was her brother. What he had been intending to do with her I could not determine at the time. I watched to see if he offered the Minion any violence, but, so far from anything of the kind, he seemed to be urging him to get up on the table, the former throne of the Admiral.

The Minion, never noted for good manners, roared "No!" while the gentle Hatien urged him by mounting on the rock himself and holding out his hand encouragingly. He spoke to the Minion in words which I could not understand, but their tone was so kind and gentle that I should have translated them to mean "Come, now! Get up here! I will save you. I shall not hurt you. Do not be afraid!" I have, of course, no idea what the Hatien really said, but his manner showed that it was something of that kind, for finally the Minion was persuaded to raise one foot to the table and allow the Hatien to aid him to stand upright upon it. I then saw that the Hatien had released the great lamp from the vines which hung from the opening in the central top of the cave. He took them in his hand and busied himself in tying them round the Minion's waist. I watched, curious as to what the man intended, ready to call out and frighten him if he were to do the Minion any injury--this from a sense of duty, as the Minion was nothing but a very dead weight on the party.

The Hatien gathered the vines in his hand and wound them round the boy's body. He twisted some of them like a seat and pa.s.sed them between the Minion's legs. Yes, I appreciated now that he meant to provide for the Minion's being hauled up from above. But who did he think would perform this act, when to all intents and purposes our party knew nothing as to what had befallen the Minion? Now, I reasoned, I can go to the top of the cavern, call the Bo's'n or the Skipper, and together we can draw the Minion to the top. But I had no reason to do this, for as I watched I saw that the Hatien, having securely fastened the boy, had sprung with a great leap at the rope of vines, and, seizing it some inches above the Minion's head, he began to raise himself hand over hand to the circular hole in the roof. I thought it now time for me to run to his a.s.sistance. I gave one look in the direction where I had laid the dead child. I saw that the stone was laid upon the ground, and I caught a glimpse of some bright ribbons protruding from the cavity. I turned and ran out through the pa.s.sage and up the slope of the hill. The Hatien heard me coming. He turned and surveyed me with a frightened look, but he could not drop the Minion, who was suspended like Mahomet's coffin, and so perforce he must continue pulling the rope of vines out through the hole. I laid my hand on the rope, and together we drew the loblolly boy upward and out under the blue of heaven. I had my eye fixed on the Hatien, for I feared that he would try to escape me, and just as we had given the Minion a secure foothold I slipped my hand suddenly over his fingers. He struggled to get free, but I smiled at him and made the same sort of sounds that I heard him make when urging the Minion to let him rescue him, and after a while he ceased struggling and sat quiet beside me. The Minion untied himself and walked off as if nothing had happened. If he felt at all grateful, he did not express this feeling in words. I wondered that the boy had not starved, as he had been alone in the cave, as far as I knew, for nearly two days; but when I perceived sticking from his pocket a large piece of well-browned fish, I felt sure that the Hatien had attended to his physical wants.

And now the mystery about the strange presence was accounted for, and Lacelle, who had learned to express herself in our language, though most brokenly, told us how she had come to be where we saw her at first.

She had been captured by a party of blacks, for what purpose I will not now say. There were two of these blacks, and they had left her tied to a tree in the woods. Her brother Zalee and three other Hatiens had come to her rescue, had cut the rope, and were about to carry her away when a party of white men approached and gave battle. These were our wretched sailors, who had killed three of the Hatiens and returned to our camp with their prisoner. How their nefarious schemes were frustrated has already been told. Zalee had not had the time to release Lacelle when our sailors attacked him, and he retreated with his comrades, firing and running until the three were shot, and two of our sailors, the ones we buried in the sea, also were laid low. Zalee had witnessed all that we had done for Lacelle, as well as Cynthia's kindness to her that first night when he buried the Hatiens.

He communicated with Lacelle and begged her to escape with him, but Lacelle had fallen so desperately in love with Cynthia that she would not leave her, and she persuaded Zalee to remain near as a guardian spirit, he in his turn willing to do any menial service for the white people who had rescued his beloved sister, but also ready at a moment's notice to save her from danger.

Explanations are hateful both to him who writes and to him who reads. If you wonder why things were so, I will say only that I can not explain the motives which actuated people in that far-off land and time, and I can repeat only that I am setting down what happened with fidelity and to the best of my belief. And though some occurrences may seem unaccountable, I can only answer that they are facts, and there let all doubt end.

We found Zalee a most useful and friendly creature, and, after we knew him as a living personality, we were all much easier in our minds, for we felt sure that he knew the country and the methods of the people better than we, and that he would bring much valuable knowledge to our aid. We found that he had lived a few miles nearer Le Cap than the place where we first saw him; that he and his sister possessed a little hut in the forest; that they had often made an outing to the cave, and that was the cause of their familiarity with its construction.

I found upon touching Zalee's hands that they were moist and cold, a condition caused probably by his imperfect circulation, which was aided by his always keeping hidden in the damps of the cave. This condition of the young Hatien, while testifying to a highly nervous organization, aided, without intention on his part, the mystery of his touch and guidance through the cave. Even after we discovered that Zalee was a real personality he shrank from the light of day. His enemies had been many and his sorrows not few, so that he preferred to keep secreted, that should an enemy appear he could in some secret way, himself unseen, devise a mode of escape for his sister, if not for those of the rest of us, with whom he had so generously burdened himself.

The Skipper came to me that evening.

"What's all this about rubies and diamonds and precious stones generally?" he asked of me.

"Who is talking about such absurd things?" said I.

"Why, that d.a.m.n loblolly boy!" said the Skipper. "He says he found a fortune in the cave, and that when he woke you said it was all nonsense; that then he went back to the place where he left them, and that some one had stuffed a dead baby in on top of 'em. But he says they are all there, and he calls me and G.o.d to witness that they are his."

"I don't see what good they will do him," said I. "Supposing they are there, the place is closed to us forever; but, Captain, I am positive that there is nothing of the kind concealed in the cave. So let that end this nonsense."