Jane Clayton Again a Prisoner
Though her clothes were torn and her hair disheveled, Albert Werper
realized that he never before had looked upon such a vision of
loveliness as that which Lady Greystoke presented in the relief and joy
which she felt in coming so unexpectedly upon a friend and rescuer when
hope had seemed so far away.
If the Belgian had entertained any doubts as to the woman’s knowledge
of his part in the perfidious attack upon her home and herself, it was
quickly dissipated by the genuine friendliness of her greeting. She
told him quickly of all that had befallen her since he had departed
from her home, and as she spoke of the death of her husband her eyes
were veiled by the tears which she could not repress.
“I am shocked,” said Werper, in well-simulated sympathy; “but I am not
surprised. That devil there,” and he pointed toward the body of Achmet
Zek, “has terrorized the entire country. Your Waziri are either
exterminated, or have been driven out of their country, far to the
south. The men of Achmet Zek occupy the plain about your former
home—there is neither sanctuary nor escape in that direction. Our only
hope lies in traveling northward as rapidly as we may, of coming to the
camp of the raiders before the knowledge of Achmet Zek’s death reaches
those who were left there, and of obtaining, through some ruse, an
escort toward the north.
“I think that the thing can be accomplished, for I was a guest of the
raider’s before I knew the nature of the man, and those at the camp are
not aware that I turned against him when I discovered his villainy.
“Come! We will make all possible haste to reach the camp before those
who accompanied Achmet Zek upon his last raid have found his body and
carried the news of his death to the cut-throats who remained behind.
It is our only hope, Lady Greystoke, and you must place your entire
faith in me if I am to succeed. Wait for me here a moment while I take
from the Arab’s body the wallet that he stole from me,” and Werper
stepped quickly to the dead man’s side, and, kneeling, sought with
quick fingers the pouch of jewels. To his consternation, there was no
sign of them in the garments of Achmet Zek. Rising, he walked back
along the trail, searching for some trace of the missing pouch or its
contents; but he found nothing, even though he searched carefully the
vicinity of his dead horse, and for a few paces into the jungle on
either side. Puzzled, disappointed and angry, he at last returned to
the girl. “The wallet is gone,” he explained, crisply, “and I dare not
delay longer in search of it. We must reach the camp before the
returning raiders.”
Unsuspicious of the man’s true character, Jane Clayton saw nothing
peculiar in his plans, or in his specious explanation of his former
friendship for the raider, and so she grasped with alacrity the seeming
hope for safety which he proffered her, and turning about she set out
with Albert Werper toward the hostile camp in which she so lately had
been a prisoner.
It was late in the afternoon of the second day before they reached
their destination, and as they paused upon the edge of the clearing
before the gates of the walled village, Werper cautioned the girl to
accede to whatever he might suggest by his conversation with the
raiders.
“I shall tell them,” he said, “that I apprehended you after you escaped
from the camp, that I took you to Achmet Zek, and that as he was
engaged in a stubborn battle with the Waziri, he directed me to return
to camp with you, to obtain here a sufficient guard, and to ride north
with you as rapidly as possible and dispose of you at the most
advantageous terms to a certain slave broker whose name he gave me.”
Again the girl was deceived by the apparent frankness of the Belgian.
She realized that desperate situations required desperate handling, and
though she trembled inwardly at the thought of again entering the vile
and hideous village of the raiders she saw no better course than that
which her companion had suggested.
Calling aloud to those who tended the gates, Werper, grasping Jane
Clayton by the arm, walked boldly across the clearing. Those who opened
the gates to him permitted their surprise to show clearly in their
expressions. That the discredited and hunted lieutenant should be thus
returning fearlessly of his own volition, seemed to disarm them quite
as effectually as his manner toward Lady Greystoke had deceived her.
The sentries at the gate returned Werper’s salutations, and viewed with
astonishment the prisoner whom he brought into the village with him.
Immediately the Belgian sought the Arab who had been left in charge of
the camp during Achmet Zek’s absence, and again his boldness disarmed
suspicion and won the acceptance of his false explanation of his
return. The fact that he had brought back with him the woman prisoner
who had escaped, added strength to his claims, and Mohammed Beyd soon
found himself fraternizing good-naturedly with the very man whom he
would have slain without compunction had he discovered him alone in the
jungle a half hour before.
Jane Clayton was again confined to the prison hut she had formerly
occupied, but as she realized that this was but a part of the deception
which she and Frecoult were playing upon the credulous raiders, it was
with quite a different sensation that she again entered the vile and
filthy interior, from that which she had previously experienced, when
hope was so far away.
Once more she was bound and sentries placed before the door of her
prison; but before Werper left her he whispered words of cheer into her
ear. Then he left, and made his way back to the tent of Mohammed Beyd.
He had been wondering how long it would be before the raiders who had
ridden out with Achmet Zek would return with the murdered body of their
chief, and the more he thought upon the matter the greater his fears
became, that without accomplices his plan would fail.
What, even, if he got away from the camp in safety before any returned
with the true story of his guilt—of what value would this advantage be
other than to protract for a few days his mental torture and his life?
These hard riders, familiar with every trail and bypath, would get him
long before he could hope to reach the coast.
As these thoughts passed through his mind he entered the tent where
Mohammed Beyd sat cross-legged upon a rug, smoking. The Arab looked up
as the European came into his presence.
“Greetings, O Brother!” he said.
“Greetings!” replied Werper.
For a while neither spoke further. The Arab was the first to break the
silence.
“And my master, Achmet Zek, was well when last you saw him?” he asked.
“Never was he safer from the sins and dangers of mortality,” replied
the Belgian.
“It is well,” said Mohammed Beyd, blowing a little puff of blue smoke
straight out before him.
Again there was silence for several minutes.
“And if he were dead?” asked the Belgian, determined to lead up to the
truth, and attempt to bribe Mohammed Beyd into his service.
The Arab’s eyes narrowed and he leaned forward, his gaze boring
straight into the eyes of the Belgian.
“I have been thinking much, Werper, since you returned so unexpectedly
to the camp of the man whom you had deceived, and who sought you with
death in his heart. I have been with Achmet Zek for many years—his own
mother never knew him so well as I. He never forgives—much less would
he again trust a man who had once betrayed him; that I know.
“I have thought much, as I said, and the result of my thinking has
assured me that Achmet Zek is dead—for otherwise you would never have
dared return to his camp, unless you be either a braver man or a bigger
fool than I have imagined. And, if this evidence of my judgment is not
sufficient, I have but just now received from your own lips even more
confirmatory witness—for did you not say that Achmet Zek was never more
safe from the sins and dangers of mortality?
“Achmet Zek is dead—you need not deny it. I was not his mother, or his
mistress, so do not fear that my wailings shall disturb you. Tell me
why you have come back here. Tell me what you want, and, Werper, if you
still possess the jewels of which Achmet Zek told me, there is no
reason why you and I should not ride north together and divide the
ransom of the white woman and the contents of the pouch you wear about
your person. Eh?”
The evil eyes narrowed, a vicious, thin-lipped smile tortured the
villainous face, as Mohammed Beyd grinned knowingly into the face of
the Belgian.
Werper was both relieved and disturbed by the Arab’s attitude. The
complacency with which he accepted the death of his chief lifted a
considerable burden of apprehension from the shoulders of Achmet Zek’s
assassin; but his demand for a share of the jewels boded ill for Werper
when Mohammed Beyd should have learned that the precious stones were no
longer in the Belgian’s possession.
To acknowledge that he had lost the jewels might be to arouse the wrath
or suspicion of the Arab to such an extent as would jeopardize his
new-found chances of escape. His one hope seemed, then, to lie in
fostering Mohammed Beyd’s belief that the jewels were still in his
possession, and depend upon the accidents of the future to open an
avenue of escape.
Could he contrive to tent with the Arab upon the march north, he might
find opportunity in plenty to remove this menace to his life and
liberty—it was worth trying, and, further, there seemed no other way
out of his difficulty.
“Yes,” he said, “Achmet Zek is dead. He fell in battle with a company
of Abyssinian cavalry that held me captive. During the fighting I
escaped; but I doubt if any of Achmet Zek’s men live, and the gold they
sought is in the possession of the Abyssinians. Even now they are
doubtless marching on this camp, for they were sent by Menelek to
punish Achmet Zek and his followers for a raid upon an Abyssinian
village. There are many of them, and if we do not make haste to escape
we shall all suffer the same fate as Achmet Zek.”
Mohammed Beyd listened in silence. How much of the unbeliever’s story
he might safely believe he did not know; but as it afforded him an
excuse for deserting the village and making for the north he was not
inclined to cross-question the Belgian too minutely.
“And if I ride north with you,” he asked, “half the jewels and half the
ransom of the woman shall be mine?”
“Yes,” replied Werper.
“Good,” said Mohammed Beyd. “I go now to give the order for the
breaking of camp early on the morrow,” and he rose to leave the tent.
Werper laid a detaining hand upon his arm.
“Wait,” he said, “let us determine how many shall accompany us. It is
not well that we be burdened by the women and children, for then indeed
we might be overtaken by the Abyssinians. It would be far better to
select a small guard of your bravest men, and leave word behind that we
are riding WEST. Then, when the Abyssinians come they will be put upon
the wrong trail should they have it in their hearts to pursue us, and
if they do not they will at least ride north with less rapidity than as
though they thought that we were ahead of them.”
“The serpent is less wise than thou, Werper,” said Mohammed Beyd with a
smile. “It shall be done as you say. Twenty men shall accompany us, and
we shall ride _west_—when we leave the village.”
“Good,” cried the Belgian, and so it was arranged.
Early the next morning Jane Clayton, after an almost sleepless night,
was aroused by the sound of voices outside her prison, and a moment
later, M. Frecoult, and two Arabs entered. The latter unbound her
ankles and lifted her to her feet. Then her wrists were loosed, she was
given a handful of dry bread, and led out into the faint light of dawn.
She looked questioningly at Frecoult, and at a moment that the Arab’s
attention was attracted in another direction the man leaned toward her
and whispered that all was working out as he had planned. Thus assured,
the young woman felt a renewal of the hope which the long and miserable
night of bondage had almost expunged.
Shortly after, she was lifted to the back of a horse, and surrounded by
Arabs, was escorted through the gateway of the village and off into the
jungle toward the west. Half an hour later the party turned north, and
northerly was their direction for the balance of the march.
M. Frecoult spoke with her but seldom, and she understood that in
carrying out his deception he must maintain the semblance of her
captor, rather than protector, and so she suspected nothing though she
saw the friendly relations which seemed to exist between the European
and the Arab leader of the band.
If Werper succeeded in keeping himself from conversation with the young
woman, he failed signally to expel her from his thoughts. A hundred
times a day he found his eyes wandering in her direction and feasting
themselves upon her charms of face and figure. Each hour his
infatuation for her grew, until his desire to possess her gained almost
the proportions of madness.
If either the girl or Mohammed Beyd could have guessed what passed in
the mind of the man which each thought a friend and ally, the apparent
harmony of the little company would have been rudely disturbed.
Werper had not succeeded in arranging to tent with Mohammed Beyd, and
so he revolved many plans for the assassination of the Arab that would
have been greatly simplified had he been permitted to share the other’s
nightly shelter.
Upon the second day out Mohammed Beyd reined his horse to the side of
the animal on which the captive was mounted. It was, apparently, the
first notice which the Arab had taken of the girl; but many times
during these two days had his cunning eyes peered greedily from beneath
the hood of his burnoose to gloat upon the beauties of the prisoner.
Nor was this hidden infatuation of any recent origin. He had conceived
it when first the wife of the Englishman had fallen into the hands of
Achmet Zek; but while that austere chieftain lived, Mohammed Beyd had
not even dared hope for a realization of his imaginings.
Now, though, it was different—only a despised dog of a Christian stood
between himself and possession of the girl. How easy it would be to
slay the unbeliever, and take unto himself both the woman and the
jewels! With the latter in his possession, the ransom which might be
obtained for the captive would form no great inducement to her
relinquishment in the face of the pleasures of sole ownership of her.
Yes, he would kill Werper, retain all the jewels and keep the
Englishwoman.
He turned his eyes upon her as she rode along at his side. How
beautiful she was! His fingers opened and closed—skinny, brown talons
itching to feel the soft flesh of the victim in their remorseless
clutch.
“Do you know,” he asked leaning toward her, “where this man would take
you?”
Jane Clayton nodded affirmatively.
“And you are willing to become the plaything of a black sultan?”
The girl drew herself up to her full height, and turned her head away;
but she did not reply. She feared lest her knowledge of the ruse that
M. Frecoult was playing upon the Arab might cause her to betray herself
through an insufficient display of terror and aversion.
“You can escape this fate,” continued the Arab; “Mohammed Beyd will
save you,” and he reached out a brown hand and seized the fingers of
her right hand in a grasp so sudden and so fierce that his brutal
passion was revealed as clearly in the act as though his lips had
confessed it in words. Jane Clayton wrenched herself from his grasp.
“You beast!” she cried. “Leave me or I shall call M. Frecoult.”
Mohammed Beyd drew back with a scowl. His thin, upper lip curled
upward, revealing his smooth, white teeth.
“M. Frecoult?” he jeered. “There is no such person. The man’s name is
Werper. He is a liar, a thief, and a murderer. He killed his captain in
the Congo country and fled to the protection of Achmet Zek. He led
Achmet Zek to the plunder of your home. He followed your husband, and
planned to steal his gold from him. He has told me that you think him
your protector, and he has played upon this to win your confidence that
it might be easier to carry you north and sell you into some black
sultan’s harem. Mohammed Beyd is your only hope,” and with this
assertion to provide the captive with food for thought, the Arab
spurred forward toward the head of the column.
Jane Clayton could not know how much of Mohammed Beyd’s indictment
might be true, or how much false; but at least it had the effect of
dampening her hopes and causing her to review with suspicion every past
act of the man upon whom she had been looking as her sole protector in
the midst of a world of enemies and dangers.
On the march a separate tent had been provided for the captive, and at
night it was pitched between those of Mohammed Beyd and Werper. A
sentry was posted at the front and another at the back, and with these
precautions it had not been thought necessary to confine the prisoner
to bonds. The evening following her interview with Mohammed Beyd, Jane
Clayton sat for some time at the opening of her tent watching the rough
activities of the camp. She had eaten the meal that had been brought
her by Mohammed Beyd’s Negro slave—a meal of cassava cakes and a
nondescript stew in which a new-killed monkey, a couple of squirrels
and the remains of a zebra, slain the previous day, were impartially
and unsavorily combined; but the one-time Baltimore belle had long
since submerged in the stern battle for existence, an estheticism which
formerly revolted at much slighter provocation.
As the girl’s eyes wandered across the trampled jungle clearing,
already squalid from the presence of man, she no longer apprehended
either the nearer objects of the foreground, the uncouth men laughing
or quarreling among themselves, or the jungle beyond, which
circumscribed the extreme range of her material vision. Her gaze passed
through all these, unseeing, to center itself upon a distant bungalow
and scenes of happy security which brought to her eyes tears of mingled
joy and sorrow. She saw a tall, broad-shouldered man riding in from
distant fields; she saw herself waiting to greet him with an armful of
fresh-cut roses from the bushes which flanked the little rustic gate
before her. All this was gone, vanished into the past, wiped out by the
torches and bullets and hatred of these hideous and degenerate men.
With a stifled sob, and a little shudder, Jane Clayton turned back into
her tent and sought the pile of unclean blankets which were her bed.
Throwing herself face downward upon them she sobbed forth her misery
until kindly sleep brought her, at least temporary, relief.
And while she slept a figure stole from the tent that stood to the
right of hers. It approached the sentry before the doorway and
whispered a few words in the man’s ear. The latter nodded, and strode
off through the darkness in the direction of his own blankets. The
figure passed to the rear of Jane Clayton’s tent and spoke again to the
sentry there, and this man also left, following in the trail of the
first.
Then he who had sent them away stole silently to the tent flap and
untying the fastenings entered with the noiselessness of a disembodied
spirit.