PALE DEATH
It rained terrifically that night, lashing this way and that through the
clearing. Truly, it was a night to deter the most venturesome, but as
Hal had high regard for Señor Goncalves as a moving force, he did not
keep to his hut and hammock. Instead, with Joaquim’s invaluable aid and
two Colt revolvers, they kept vigil under a tree at the river.
“You heard Señor Goncalves say he come tonight, Señor Hal?” Joaquim
asked.
“Exactly,” Hal answered. “I think he meant to do it last night, but he
didn’t have the nerve. He said something about making it look as if the
Indians had done it—the _Pallidas_! Do you think it was they who killed
Mr. Pemberton’s son?”
Joaquim shrugged his broad shoulders.
“_Pallidas_ think evil spirits get out when white man digs deep in the
ground, Señor. They would kill him for that maybe. _Pallidas_ hate Señor
Pemberton for chasing them from settlement. Maybe they kill—we do not
know.”
“And what do you think about Señor Rene, Joaquim?”
“I think, like master, that maybe Señor Rene is being punished for angry
talk about you falling in plane. I think Ceara he hold him there a time
so he will not talk.”
“So you and Mr. Pemberton think Señor Renan didn’t like the treatment I
got, huh? Well, maybe it’s so. At least I like to think that that’s the
sort of a bird he is.”
Joaquim nodded as if to say that Renan Pemberton was exactly that kind.
Be that as it may, thinking was often convincing to Hal and he had no
further qualms in that direction. His present anxiety was on the river
and from time to time he wondered just what Goncalves had in his mind.
He did not have very long to wonder, however, for, just before midnight,
Joaquim prodded Hal gently in the ribs.
“Canoe she come,” he muttered between his teeth. “We keep back in dark.”
“I’ll say we will,” Hal whispered in return.
The canoe swished through the water and presently appeared just below
the settlement. There seemed to be no other boats with them, and Hal and
the Indian exchanged glances of satisfaction. Goncalves, sitting smug
and content while Pizella slaved at the paddle, seemed to sense nothing
unusual.
Hal noticed immediately that Pizella was carrying a bow, and arrows were
lying at his feet. When he pushed the boat into the embankment and got
out with his bare feet to make it fast he reached for them. Goncalves
smiled.
“_Pallidas_—si?” he murmured.
“Si,” responded Pizella.
“Not so fast, Goncalves!” Hal roared in a voice that sounded almost
sepulchral, coming as it did from under the rain-dripping trees.
“_We’ve_ got you covered!” He said _we’ve_ as if it constituted a
tremendous armed force.
Goncalves moved like lightning. Without a word, he shoved the boat back
into the stream with the tremendous energy of his excitement. For some
reason he seemed to have completely forgotten the wading half-caste who
stumbled and tripped through the water in his haste to clamber back into
the canoe.
Hal fired the gun then over the Brazilian’s head. But the fellow had
taken up the paddle and began to stroke vigorously off in the dark.
Pizella meanwhile had neither been able to gain the canoe or even keep
up with him. Also, it was apparent that the water was too high for him
to wade any longer.
He called frantically to Goncalves, called to him to wait, Joaquim said.
But as Hal had already aimed another bullet at the Brazilian’s sleek
head, there was no apparent slowing up of the canoe for anything or
anybody. Consequently, Pizella dove into the high water, clothes and
all.
Hal tried another shot but the darkness and the swiftly moving canoe
made a sure aim impossible. He thought he heard Goncalves scream after a
fourth shot had been fired, but as Pizella was screaming also, they
could not be certain. Be that as it may, the Brazilian kept right on
paddling and was soon out of sight.
Pizella was in a dilemma, to be sure. He could not hope to reach his
master’s canoe and he was afraid to return toward shore, where goodness
knows what horrible fate awaited him. Hal felt almost sorry for him in
that moment, for Goncalves’ desertion of the half-caste at such a time
and in such a place seemed heartless.
But Pizella seemed to have chosen the lesser of two evils and turning
his back upon the raging current began to swim toward shore. Hal and
Joaquim watched him, interested, each thinking that the man was braver
than his master ever dared to be.
In the midst of these reflections, they heard him suddenly shriek, a
blood-curdling yelp. He was by that time, too, near enough in to stand
on his feet, which he did. But even as they watched him they saw him
raise his arms and sort of stiffen from head to foot. The next second he
had plunged headfirst back into the stream.
“Electric fish, Señor—he bite Pizella!” Joaquim shouted.
Hal got to his feet ready to jump in after the half-caste, but the
Indian put out a detaining arm and pointed to the dark waters.
“Already he sink,” said Joaquim. “Señor no can find now.”
Hal looked, feeling not a little dazed by the episode and saw that it
was true. The water rushing along on its heedless course had carried the
half-caste completely out of sight. There was not a sign of him.
“Joaquim say right—no?” said the Indian.
“Too right,” Hal answered thoughtfully. “I can’t seem to gather my wits
together and remember how it all happened.”
“That is because the _Pallida Mors_ she is swift, Señor Hal. Like that
she grabs and then we look—_no more_! The Indian he say she wants all
the time death. So many drown in her, Señor. She look like death—no? She
pale for rushing river.”
“She is pale,” Hal agreed. Even in the darkness her pallid yellowish
waters gleamed eerily. He shuddered and turned his broad back upon the
stream. “This pale death business is getting on my nerves, anyway.”