Latitude 19 degree Part 54

"As soon as he gets food enough collected to be able to leave us for three or four days," answered Cynthia.

The next few days we spent in collecting what food we could, and making it ready against the time when Zalee should be gone. Lacelle told us that he must make a slight detour, as he intended taking the little boy back to his mother. Lacelle looked wistful when she told Cynthia this, and I gathered that it was because her home was near that of the child; but at a cheering word from Zalee she smiled again. She told Cynthia that Zalee had said that they must be wanderers until the island was more settled. That now no one knew which side to be on. That Dessalines and Regaud had been as bad as Petion, and that Boyer was now warring against Christophe, and if one could not decide which would prove the winning side, he had better secrete himself until these unhappy days were over. I had been curious, I must confess, as to where Cynthia and Lacelle were housed, but motives of delicacy kept me from asking. Now Cynthia turned to Lacelle, and told her that she might show me the rooms which they occupied.

Upon the right side of the terrace a narrow path ran under an arch, and, pa.s.sing this, one walked along the cliff for a few feet. The path crossed a broad crack in the rock and came to a small opening, which led to two natural caves. They were very small, one beyond the other, both facing the ocean, as did the terrace. One looked out from them as one does from an Italian loggia. I did not more than glance at the entrance to the first one, but I saw that if our position was inaccessible, Cynthia's was even more so.

I have not told of the trickling stream that ran down outside of the terrace from the mountain heights above. Certainly Zalee would not have chosen a place of refuge where there was not a plentiful supply of water.

And now came the time for Zalee to start. I must confess that I saw him prepare to go with a heart full of forebodings. I wondered when he would return, if ever. But he turned to me with his sweet smile, showing his white even teeth, and taking Lacelle's hand, laid it in mine with a bow that would have done honour to a courtier. It was if he had said: "I leave my all with you. I trust her with you. You can trust me to return."

We had food prepared to last for five days at least. We should not starve. And we sat ourselves down to wait as well as we could for Zalee's return. I had given him a note to the consul, written on a sc.r.a.p of paper which Cynthia had torn from the little note-book, and he started off with it, in its double case of paper, tied round his neck with a piece of Cynthia's silk, and the little lad held safely in his arms. The child had frightened eyes, and I wondered if his reason was intact. He must have suffered terribly during the time that he was confined under the altar of the temple. He told Lacelle that he was in a box with a serpent. That the creature coiled itself round his body. That he was there for three days and nights; that he saw the light come and go three separate times. I could hardly believe this, but Zalee seemed to think it quite true.

When I asked why the serpent did not injure the child Zalee told me, through the string of interpreters, that the large serpents that are chosen as the G.o.ds of the vaudoux rites are harmless. This was at least one redeeming feature amid all the horrors of that dreadful practice.

The Bo's'n and I put the stone up against the opening after Zalee's departure, and I must confess that I wondered who would remove it.

Something that happened during our stay in this new place I almost dread to tell you, and yet it is a more than solemn fact, and will show to you a t.i.the, perhaps, of the anxiety that our stay there caused me. One morning the Smith and I had volunteered to secure some mangoes. I had heard Cynthia express a wish for some, and she so seldom asked for anything but the simple food that we had to divide among us, that I decided to skirt down the hill to a tree of which I knew and bring some to the plateau. We listened at the door of our pa.s.sage, and, hearing no sound, we removed the slab of stone and ran down the underground way, feeling the wall with our hands to guide us. When we reached the outer air we struck into the woods toward the west, and were soon at the mango tree. The Smith was an expert climber, and so I allowed him to climb up among the great branches, while I stood below to catch the fruit. I caught all that I could as he dropped them, that they might not be bruised, and when I had collected what I thought a sufficient quant.i.ty I called to him to come down.

"There are some fine ones out on that lower limb," said he. "I should like to get those for the lady, if you don't mind."

I saw him crawling out on the long, strong limb. He laid along it like a serpent, and, as it was a lower limb, he was not far from the ground.

All at once I heard an exclamation of horror, and the Smith dropped from the branch. I ran to him, and found that he was bending over a figure lying among the gra.s.s and weeds. It was that of a young man of perhaps twenty years of age. He was lying on his back, his eyes staring upward.

He was cold in death. How can I write the rest! From the region of the heart a tube or hollow sort of reed stood up perpendicularly in the air.

No! I can not write it. The "loup garou" had been there before us, and without the excuse of the vaudoux rites! They had, indeed, been wolves to their own kind. Vampires, I might say! I turned my head while the Smith withdrew the tube and the sharp instrument at its end, which had made the incision.

"First the trance," said the Smith, "and then death! Fortunately, the victims know nothing usually of the manner of their end."

We had no way to dig a grave for the poor young fellow, so we carried him to a cleft in the rock of which I knew and dropped the body down.

This terrible incident impressed me as nothing else (not even the sacrifice of the children) had. There was something so horrible in the fact of the young man meeting his fate alone in that deep, dark wood! I was ready to slay the first creature that I came across, but we met no one in returning, and got safely into the pa.s.sageway and replaced the rock. Then the horror of it all overcame me, and I dropped in the tunnel like a stone.

CHAPTER XIX.

WE MEET FOR THE SECOND TIME WITH "LE BRUIT DU GOUFFRE," AND I TAKE ANOTHER JOURNEY.

I awoke at the touch which, I believe, would bring me back from death.

It was Cynthia.

"How you _have_ slept!" said she. "I have been here several times to call you."

I did not confess my weakness nor the cause for it. I arose at once, though my knees were weak and trembling, and followed Cynthia out on to the terrace.

"That man has come back," said Cynthia. "I wonder you didn't meet him when you went to get the mangoes. What is the matter? How pale you turned all of a sudden!"

I did not answer, but walked out to the edge of the rocky plateau. I looked downward and could see the man. He was standing in a little gra.s.sy glade, and was making motions as if he wished to communicate with us. He was very far below us, and we could hear no sound, although I thought that I saw him put his hands to his mouth as if to make a tube through which to call to us. I did not know what to do. Zalee, our dependence, was gone. We had already been foolhardy in making even the short excursion that we had taken, and I did not dare further to tempt Providence.

As we looked down, the man continued waving. He seemed to have a branch of some kind in his hand. He wore almost no clothing, and limped as he moved about, seeming footsore and weary.

"Can it be Uncle?" asked Cynthia, with that womanly perception which was seldom wrong.

"The Captain is not black," said I. "No, it is not the Captain. Can it be Zalee returned?"

Lacelle shook her head when we asked her this. She said that Zalee would never go down there and make any sign or demonstration to attract the eyes of others to our hiding place. She thought that the stranger was some spy, who was trying to discover how we reached our present retreat.

"He may be one of Christophe's men come to seek us," she added.

I still continued to gaze at the man, and he to beckon and wave eagerly at us. I wished in my heart that I knew just who he was--whether we ought to help him, or whether he was an enemy who would betray our hiding place, so that Zalee upon his return would find us gone. And now I saw two men come out of the wood. They were persons of great stature, and carried clubs in their hands, and I recognised them even at that distance as two of Christophe's body guard. As the stranger turned and saw them he started to flee, but they were upon him in a moment, whirling those terrible clubs round their heads and undoubtedly ordering him to stop. This he soon did, when I saw them come up with him and bend over him, for he seemed to have fallen from exhaustion or fright. I saw them busy themselves with him, and finally he was made to stand upon his feet and march ahead, the two driving him as if he had been an animal.

They disappeared in the wood, and I saw them no more.

Cynthia was very sad and downhearted after this incident.

"Poor Uncle may be treated in just the way that those negroes treated that black man," said she. Her eyes filled with tears.

I tried to comfort her with the a.s.surance that the Skipper must be far from that spot and in safe keeping. That perhaps he had walked to Cap Hatien; but she did not smile, and I heard her in the recesses of our silent rock sobbing far into the night.

I have said little of the wonderful vines that grow everywhere in this magic land. Like those that grew downward from the centre of our first cave, they trailed long and strong from the rock overhead, reaching almost to the broad, flat surface which now made our floor. They grew downward also from our plateau toward the ground. At the place where they ended others started, I suppose, and I know that the growth was such that they overlapped, and that one standing below could not imagine the nature of the place where we had found refuge. The green of the mountain seemed to have no break. Such was the a.s.surance that Zalee had given Lacelle.

The third evening after Zalee's departure closed in sadly for all of us.

It was difficult to be cheerful in our desolate situation, and my night dreams brought to me many a fearful thought and vision. There were distant mutterings of thunder, and again that same rumbling sound that we had heard the day before the hurricane had overcome us.

"_Le bruit du gouffre!_" said Lacelle again, over and over, as she looked anxiously toward the eastward, where the thick clouds were gathering. Before I lay down to sleep I heard Cynthia calling to me. I went under the arch and stepped across the rift in the rock, which by only a few inches separated her from me. But even this was too much.

Somehow I was uneasy and nervous, and I met Cynthia with the words:

"I wish that you would come down to the terrace to sleep. Somehow I don't like to have you so far away."

Cynthia's face flushed as she said: "I only wanted some water. I can't see why we are not as well off here as down on the terrace; certainly, as no one can come through the pa.s.sage, we are all of us safe. But should any one find out our secret, they might take you off without discovering us at all."

"I wonder how you would live then?" said I.

"I wonder, too," said Cynthia, casting down her eyes. I pondered over this, and asked myself whether I could take courage and whether her tone meant more for me than the words implied.

Finding Cynthia stubborn, I went back and lay down again. Some drops of rain had begun to fall, and I got as far back under the shelter of the overhanging rock as I could. Here I was dry, as were the Bo's'n and the Smith. We lay near the western end, that the east wind might not drive the rain under our roof.

I lay awake a long time listening to the storm. The wind had grown much higher, and was soughing and moaning round our eyrie. I had terrible impulses at times. I thought, what if I should crawl near the edge of the rock and throw myself off, and so end all this misery and anxiety!

It seemed almost more than I could bear. No one would know but that I had fallen off in my sleep, and then this terrible question of how we were to get home to Belleville, or to any civilized land, would be set at rest forever for me. The desire was so strong at times to end my life in this way, that once I arose and walked halfway to the edge of the cliff. But suddenly I awoke to the horror of what I intended doing. I thought of the cowardice of leaving Cynthia to face the difficulties and dangers alone, and, with a flash of lightning to aid me, I ran back through the darkness to my shelter, and lay down and clutched at the rough projections of the wall and held to them with frantic grip, as if some being stronger than I were trying to drag me away. Thank G.o.d, my will vanquished those evil thoughts, and, after giving thanks for my rescue, soul and body, I succ.u.mbed, exhausted with the battle which the two combatants had waged within me, and was asleep before I knew it.

The rain poured down, the wind howled, but I slept on. I heard the faint rumblings of the "_bruit du gouffre_" through my dreams; then, all at once, it grew louder, there was a stupendous crash, and I sat up, the terrible sound still splitting my ears. Gradually, with a rattle and a rumble, it died away. I felt a clutch upon my arm.

"For G.o.d's sake, what was that?" said the Bo's'n. His hand was trembling, his voice shook with terror. I found myself staring out under the edge of our roof, trying to see something in the darkness. I stood up. I groped about.

"Better keep quiet till we have some light," said the Bo's'n.

I struck my flint, but the flash only showed me the Bo's'n's frightened, drawn face, and made the night blacker than ever. We heard constant rumblings and crashes all around us, but we waited for a few moments, and then during a lull heard Cynthia's voice. I made a light again, and, holding to the rock, I crawled nearer to the place where she and Lacelle were.

"Don't move!" I shouted. "Stay in your cave until we have some light."