Across the Cameroons Part 12

"The sheikh was the man," said the guide. "You should have told me before."

"I blame myself," said Harry. "I know now that I can trust you and your brother with even more than life."

Fernando continued to speak in slow deliberate tones.

"If we are to come out of this alive," said he, "you will do well to take me into your counsels. Moreover, you must follow my advice. I and the Black Dog have an old score to pay. For myself, I am determined to be a debtor no longer." Then, without changing his voice, he turned calmly to Peter Klein. "You must go back to von Hardenberg," said he.

"No, no! not that!" Klein almost shrieked.

Fernando smiled grimly. He might have been one of his own hard-hearted ancestors, presiding at the Spanish Inquisition.

"I fear to go!" cried Klein, his terror stamped on every feature. "They will kill me! I know they will!"

Fernando laughed aloud.

"You will most certainly be killed," said he, "if you refuse to go. The Black Dog has marked you for his own."

At these words the spy fell down upon his knees at Harry Urquhart's feet.

"Keep me with you!" he pleaded. "Give me your protection! It is to the advantage of those men to kill me. They brought me here to do away with my life. They do not intend that I shall live to claim my share of the treasure, if they should ever find it."

Harry, somewhat roughly, told the man to get to his feet. Klein was an arrant coward. Harry felt little pity for the man; yet he could not find it in his heart to support Fernando's heartless verdict.

"You have little right to demand our sympathy," said he. "You are an enemy to my country and a spy; you are even a traitor to the rascals whom formerly you were pleased to serve. You have merited the most severe penalty which a state of war allows."

He was about to go on, when the man, losing all control of himself, seized him by both hands and begged him to be merciful.

"I renounce everything!" he cried. "I admit my guilt, and ask you to forgive me. I will give up all claim to a share in the treasure. I swear to be faithful to you, if you will only get me out of this alive."

"We do not think of the treasure," said Urquhart. "We are here to establish the innocence of an injured man and to checkmate von Hardenberg."

"It was he who stole the Sunstone," uttered Klein.

"I know that," said Harry. "That is why we have followed him. He may have the Black Dog of the Cameroons to aid him, but we have these two gallant fellows, who do not seem to know what it is to fear, to hesitate, or to give up hope."

He half turned, and with a motion of the hand indicated the two brothers, who were seated side by side.

Fernando slowly shook his head.

"As you will," said he. "You have yet to learn that the Cameroons is no place for clemency. I had a plan to trick the Black Dog. It was a cruel plan perhaps. I meant to sacrifice this cur like a kid tied to a stake to snare a tiger. However, let that pa.s.s. From to-night, I warn you fairly, we will be even in greater danger than before. We have an enemy to reckon with in the sheikh. At this very moment he waits on the hill-side for his victim." Fernando pointed to Peter Klein.

"He means to take my life!" cried Klein, who was now pacing to and fro, wringing his hands like one demented. "The moment they saw I was likely to be of no use to them, that I was a coward who could neither handle a rifle nor do a long day's march without fatigue, they schemed to do away with me. And what a place for a crime, these unknown, savage hills! In these parts a human life is of no more importance than that of a mosquito."

The man was overwrought, his nerves had been sadly shaken. He was on the verge of lunacy with panic and alarm.

And yet, what he said was obviously the truth. To von Hardenberg his presence was worse than useless, a mere enc.u.mbrance on the line of march. In all probability Fernando was right; the Black Dog waited on the hill-side to fall upon the poor, blind fool whom avarice had led so far from the land where he could spy and inform in safety.

The two guides had listened to this dialogue with evident interest and not a little amus.e.m.e.nt at the expense of Klein. It was Fernando who again broke in upon their talk.

"We will test the sheikh," said he. "We will soon find out his intentions."

At that he turned to his brother, and for some minutes the two spoke in Spanish. After a while it was Cortes who approached Klein and touched him on the arm.

"Get out of your clothes," said he. "I intend to wear them."

Peter Klein was glad enough of the chance of disguising his ident.i.ty.

Cortes put on the tattered white ducks, torn in a score of places by the thorn-trees in the bush, the pith helmet and the leather leggings, and then returned to the fire.

There, he loaded his revolver and the magazine of his Lee-Metford carbine. That done, without a word to his brother, he squeezed himself through the crack in the wall, and disappeared beyond it.

CHAPTER XIV--Buried Alive!

They waited for many minutes in absolute silence. Peter Klein was seated at the fire. There also was Fernando, who appeared to have fallen asleep in a sitting position. As for the two boys, they remained near the opening through which the man had pa.s.sed, straining their ears to catch the slightest sound without.

Presently there came the sharp report of a shot. Then all was silent again.

Fernando immediately sprang to his feet and walked towards the boys. He must have been sleeping lightly, or else feigning slumber.

"My brother," said he, "is dead."

"Dead!"

Both Harry and Braid uttered the word in a single breath.

"That," said the man, "was the rifle of the sheikh."

"How do you know?" asked Harry.

"For a very simple reason," said the other. "There were two reports, therefore the shot was fired in this direction. If a man fires away from you, you hear but one report, which is like the crack of a whip.

But if he fires toward you, you hear two reports, each one of which resembles the 'pop' of a cork. The shot was fired this way. The trigger was pressed by the Black Dog, whose bullet seldom misses its mark. Therefore, in all probability, my brother is gone."

"And you speak of it so calmly!" uttered Braid.

Fernando smiled. "With us who live on the Coast," said he, "death is an easy matter. Sooner or later we all die; some by murder, some by malaria, some by Black Jack, which is the most deadly fever in the world. Our graves are in the bush. What does it matter whether or not a bullet finds its mark?"

The two boys were astonished. They could not understand this strange man's views of life and death.

"And you have sacrificed your brother's life," asked Harry, "merely to prove that the Black Dog of the Cameroons intended to murder Klein?"

Fernando shook his head.

"I would have gone myself," he answered, "had that been possible. As it is, I can live, at least, for revenge."

The full significance of the thing burst upon Harry Urquhart.