It must have been about one o’clock in the morning when Reuel started
out of a fitful slumber by the sound of that terrible scream. He sprang
to his feet and listened. He heard not a sound; all was silence within
the palace. But his experience was so vivid that reason could not
control his feelings; he threw wide the dividing curtains, and fled out
upon the balcony. All was silence. The moonlight flooded the landscape
with the strength of daylight. As he stood trying to calm himself, a
shadow fell across his path, and raising his eyes, he beheld the form
of Mira; she beckoned him on, and he, turning, followed the shadowy
figure, full of confidence that she would show him the way to that
fearful scream.
On they glided like two shadows, until the phantom paused before what
seemed a solid wall, and with warning gaze and uplifted finger, bade
him enter. It was a portion of the palace unfamiliar to him; the walls
presented no hope of entrance. What could it mean? Mira faded from his
gaze, and as he stood there puzzling over this happening, suddenly
the solid wall began to glide away, leaving a yawning space, in which
appeared Ai’s startled and disturbed face.
“Back!” he cried, as he beheld his King. “Back, Ergamenes! how come you
here?”
“What was the cry I heard, Ai? I cannot rest. I have been led hither,”
he continued, significantly. Then, noticing the other’s disturbed
vision, he continued, “Tell me. I command you.”
With a murmured protest, Ai stepped aside, saying, “Perhaps it is best.”
Reuel advanced into the room. The hole in the floor was securely
closed, and on the divans lay Charlie Vance, white and unconscious,
and Jim Titus, crushed almost to a jelly but still alive. Abdallah
and a group of natives were working over Vance, trying to restore
consciousness. Reuel gave one startled, terrified glance at the two
figures, and staggered backward to the wall.
Upon hearing that cry, Jim Titus stirred uneasily, and muttered, “It’s
him!”
“He wishes to speak with you,” said Ai, gravely.
“How came they here, and thus?” demanded Reuel in threatening anger.
“They were searching for you, and we found them, too, in the pyramid.
We confined them here, debating what was best to do, fearing you would
become dissatisfied. They tried to escape and found the treasure and
the snakes. The black man will die.”
“Are you there, Mr. Reuel?” came in a muffled voice from the dying man.
Reuel stood beside him and took his hand,--“Yes, Jim, it is I; how came
you thus?”
“The way of the transgressor is hard,” groaned the man. “I would not
have been here had I not consented to take your life. I am sure you
must have suspected me; I was but a bungler, and often my heart failed
me.”
“Unhappy man! how could you plot to hurt one who has never harmed you?”
exclaimed Reuel.
“Aubrey Livingston was my foster brother, and I could deny him nothing.”
“Aubrey Livingston! Was he the instigator?”
“Yes,” sighed the dying man. “Return home as soon as possible and
rescue your wife--your wife, and yet not your wife--for a man may not
marry his sister.”
“What!” almost shrieked Reuel. “What!”
“I have said it. Dianthe Lusk is your own sister, the half-sister of
Aubrey Livingston, who is your half-brother.”
Reuel stood for a moment, apparently struggling for words to answer
the dying man’s assertion, then fell on his knees in a passion of sobs
agonizing to witness. “You know then, Jim, that I am Mira’s son?” he
said at length.
“I do. Aubrey planned to have Miss Dianthe from the first night he
saw her; he got you this chance with the expedition; he kept you from
getting anything else to force you to a separation from the girl. He
bribed me to accidentally put you out of the way. He killed Miss Molly
to have a free road to Dianthe. Go home, Reuel Briggs, and at least
rescue the girl from misery. Watch, watch, or he will outwit you yet.”
Reuel started in a frenzy of rage to seize the man, but Ai’s hand was
on his arm.
“Peace, Ergamenes; he belongs to the ages now.”
One more convulsive gasp, and Jim Titus had gone to atone for the deeds
done in the flesh.
With pallid lips and trembling frame, Reuel turned from the dead to the
living. As he sat beside his friend, his mind was far away in America
looking with brooding eyes into the past and gazing hopelessly into the
future. Truly hath the poet said,--
“The evil that men do lives after them.”
And Reuel cursed with a mighty curse the bond that bound him to the
white race of his native land.
* * * * *
One month after the events narrated in the previous chapter, a strange
party stood on the deck of the out-going steamer at Alexandria,
Egypt--Reuel and Charlie Vance, accompanied by Ai and Abdallah in the
guise of servants. Ai had with great difficulty obtained permission
of the Council to allow King Ergamenes to return to America. This was
finally accomplished by Ai’s being surety for Reuel’s safe return,
and so the journey was begun which was to end in the apprehension and
punishment of Aubrey Livingston.
Through the long journey homeward two men thought only of vengeance,
but with very different degrees of feeling. Charlie Vance held to the
old Bible punishment for the pure crime of manslaughter, but in Reuel’s
wrongs lay something beyond the reach of punishment by the law’s arm;
in it was the accumulation of years of foulest wrongs heaped upon the
innocent and defenceless women of a race, added to this last great
outrage. At night he said, as he paced the narrow confines of the deck,
“Thank God, it is night;” and when the faint streaks of dawn glowed in
the distance, gradually creeping across the expanse of waters, “Thank
God, it is morning.” Another hour, and he would say, “Would God it were
night!” By day or night some phantom in his ears holloes in ocean’s
roar or booms in thunder, howls in the winds or murmurs in the breeze,
chants in the voice of the sea-fowl--“Too late, too late. ’Tis done,
and worse than murder.”
Westward the vessel sped--westward while the sun showed only as a
crimson ball in its Arabian setting, or gleamed through a veil of smoke
off the English coast, ending in the grey, angry, white-capped waves of
the Atlantic in winter.