THE SEAL OF SILENCE.
Yes, there was no doubt about it. Terror and horror had driven me mad.
And surely the deadly peril in which I found myself was in itself
sufficient to cause the cheek of the bravest man to pale, for from that
box there slowly issued forth a large, hideous cobra, which, coiling with
sinuous slowness in front of my face held its hooded head erect, ready to
strike.
While the Hindu played that weird music on the pipes its head with the
two beady eyes and flickering tongue, moved slowly to and fro. It was
watching me and ready to deal its fatal blow.
The woman saw the perspiration standing upon my white brow, and burst out
laughing, still standing at a safe distance near the door.
"Ah! Mr. Royle, you won't have much further opportunity of
investigation," she exclaimed. "You have become far too inquisitive, and
you constitute a danger--hence this action. I'm very sorry, but it must
be so," declared the brutal, inhuman woman.
She was watching, gloating over her triumph; waiting, indeed, for my
death.
Surely I was not their first victim! All had been carried out in a method
which showed that the paralysing drug and the deadly reptile had been
used before by this strange trio.
The music, now being played incessantly, apparently prevented the snake
from darting at me, as it was, no doubt, under the hypnotic influence of
its master. But I knew that the moment the music ceased it would be my
last.
With frantic efforts I struggled to withdraw my head and hands from the
reptile's reach, but every muscle seemed powerless. I could not budge an
inch.
Again I tried to speak, to shout for help, but no word could I
articulate. I was dead in all save consciousness.
"Oh, yes," laughed Mrs. Petre hoarsely; "we're just playing you a little
music--to send you to sleep--to put the seal of silence upon you, Mr.
Royle. And I hope you'll sleep very well to-night--very well--as no doubt
you will!" and she gave vent to a loud peal of harsh laughter.
Then, for a moment she hesitated, until suddenly she cried to the Hindu:
"Enough!"
The music ceased instantly, and the snake, whose hooded head had been
swaying to and fro slowly, suddenly shot up erect.
The spell of the music was broken, and I knew my doom was sealed.
Those small, brilliant eyes were fastened upon mine, staring straight at
me, the head moving very slowly, while those three brutes actually
watched my agony of terror, and exchanged smiles as they waited for the
reptile to strike its fatal blow.
In an instant its fangs would, I knew, be in my face, and into my blood
would be injected that deadly venom which must inevitably prove fatal.
Yes, I had been entrapped, and they held the honours in the game. After
my death Phrida would be denounced, accused, and convicted as an
assassin. Because, perhaps, I might be a witness in her favour, or even
assist her to escape arrest, this woman had taken the drastic step of
closing my lips for ever.
But was it with Digby's knowledge? Had he ever been her accomplice in
similar deeds to this?
Suddenly I recollected with a start what Edwards had told me--that the
real Sir Digby Kemsley, an invalid, had died of snake-bite in mysterious
circumstances, in Peru; and that his friend, a somewhat shady Englishman
named Cane, had been suspected of placing the reptile near him, owing to
the shouts of terror of the doomed man being overheard by a Peruvian
man-servant.
Was it possible that the man whom I had known as Digby was actually Cane?
The method of the snake was the same as that practised at Huacho!
These, and other thoughts, flashed across my brain in an instant, for I
knew that the agony of a fearful death would be quickly upon me.
I tried to utter a curse upon those three brutes who stood looking on
without raising a hand to save me, but still I could not speak.
Suddenly, something black shot across my startled eyes. The reptile had
darted.
The horror of that moment held me transfixed.
I felt a sharp sting upon my left cheek, and next instant, petrified by a
terror indescribable, I lost consciousness.
What happened afterwards I have no idea. I can only surmise.
How long I remained senseless I cannot tell. All I am aware of is that
when I returned to a knowledge of things about me I had a feeling that my
limbs were benumbed and cramped. Against my head was a cold, slimy wall,
and my body was lying in water.
For a time, dazed as I was, I could not distinguish my position. My
thoughts were all confused; all seemed pitch darkness, and the silence
was complete save for the slow trickling of water somewhere near my head.
I must have lain there a full hour, slowly gathering my senses. The back
of my head was very sore, for it seemed as though I had received a heavy
blow, while my elbows and knees seemed cut and bruised.
In the close darkness I tried to discover where I was, but my brain was
swimming with an excruciating pain in the top of my skull.
Slowly, very slowly, recollections of the past came back to
me--remembrance of that terrible, final half-hour.
Yes, Joy! I was still alive; the loathsome reptile's fang had not
produced death. It may have bitten some object and evacuated its venom
just prior to biting me. That was the theory which occurred to me, and I
believe it to be the correct one.
I could raise my hand, too. I was no longer paralysed. I could speak. I
shouted, but my voice seemed deadened and stifled.
On feeling my head I found that I had a long scalp-wound, upon which the
blood was congealed. My clothes were rent, and as I groped about I
quickly found that my prison was a circular wall of stone, wet and
slimy, about four feet across, and that I was half reclining in water
with soft, yielding mud beneath me, while the air seemed close and foul.
The roof above me seemed high, for my voice appeared to ascend very far.
I looked above me and high up, so high that I could only just distinguish
it was a tiny ray of light--the light of day.
With frantic fingers I felt those circular walls, thick with the
encrustations and slime of ages. Then all of a sudden the truth flashed
upon me. My enemies, believing me dead, had thrown me down a well!
I shouted and shouted, yelled again and again. But my voice only echoed
high up, and no one came to my assistance.
My legs, immersed as they were in icy-cold water, were cramped and
benumbed, so that I had no feeling in them, while my hands were wet and
cold, and my head hot as fire.
As far as I could judge in the darkness, the well must have been fully
eighty feet or so deep, and after I had been flung headlong down it the
wooden trap-door had been re-closed. It was through the chink between the
two flaps that I could see the blessed light of day.
I shouted again, yelling with all my might: "Help! Help!" in the hope
that somebody in the vicinity might hear me and investigate.
I was struggling in order to shift into a more comfortable position, and
in doing so my feet sank deeper into the mud at the bottom of the
well--the accumulation of many years, no doubt.
Two perils faced me--starvation, or the rising of the water: for if it
should rain above, the water percolating through the earth would cause it
to rise in the well and overwhelm me. By the dampness of the wall I
could feel that it was not long since the water was much higher than my
head, as I now stood upright.
Would assistance come?
My heart sank within me when I thought of the possibility that I had been
precipitated into the well in the garden of Melbourne House, in which
case I could certainly not hope for succour.
Again I put out my hands, frantically groping about me, when something I
touched in the darkness caused me to withdraw my hand with a start.
Cautiously I felt again. My eager fingers touched it, for it seemed to be
floating on the surface of the water. It was cold, round, and long--the
body of a snake!
I drew my hand away. Its contact thrilled me.
The cobra had been killed and flung in after me! In that case the
precious trio had, without a doubt, fled.
Realisation of the utter hopelessness of the situation sent a cold
shudder through me. I had miraculously escaped death by the snake's
fangs, and was I now to die of starvation deep in that narrow well?
Again and again I shouted with all my might, straining my eyes to that
narrow chink which showed so far above. Would assistance never come? I
felt faint and hungry, while my wounds gave me considerable pain, and my
head throbbed so that I felt it would burst at any moment.
I found a large stone in the mud, and with it struck hard against the
wall. But the sound was not such as might attract the attention of
anybody who happened to be near the vicinity of the well. Therefore I
shouted and shouted again until my voice grew hoarse, and I was
compelled to desist on account of my exhaustion.
For fully another half-hour I was compelled to remain in impatience and
anxiety in order to recover my voice and strength for, weak as I was, the
exertion had almost proved too much for me. So I stood there with my back
to the slimy wall, water reaching beyond my knees, waiting and hoping
against hope.
At last I shouted again, as loudly as before, but, alas! only the weird
echo came back to me in the silence of that deeply-sunk shaft. I felt
stifled, but, fortunately for me, the air was not foul.
Yes, my assassins had hidden me, together with the repulsive instrument
of their crime, in that disused well, confident that no one would descend
to investigate and discover my remains. How many persons, I wonder, are
yearly thrown down wells where the water is known to be impure, or where
the existence of the well itself is a secret to all but the assassin?
I saw it all now. My taxi-man must have been paid and dismissed by that
thin-faced young man, yet how cleverly the woman had evaded my question,
and how glib her explanation of her servant going into the town in a
taxi.
When she had risen from her chair and left me, it was, no doubt, to
swiftly arrange how my death should be encompassed.
Surely that isolated, ivy-covered house was a house of grim shadows--nay,
a house of death--for I certainly was not the first person who had been
foully done to death within its walls.
As I waited, trying to possess myself with patience, and hoping against
hope that I might still be rescued from my living tomb, the little streak
of light grew brighter high above, as though the wintry sun was shining.
I strained my ears to catch any sound beyond the slow trickling of the
water from the spring, but, alas! could distinguish nothing.
Suddenly, however, I heard a dull report above, followed quickly by a
second, and then another in the distance, and another. At first I
listened much puzzled; but next moment I realised the truth.
There was a shooting-party in the vicinity!