A PHANTOM OF HOPE
The massacre of the _Pallidas_ will come down in history, for a massacre
it was. Renan and Hal leading the rebel volunteers were met that morning
with a rain of poisoned arrows issuing from every conceivable bit of
foliage on the banks of the settlement. War cries trembled in the air,
shrieks of women and children.
Hal was stunned by it for a moment, but an arrow skimming off his tanned
arm brought him to action. He leaped out of the canoe with Renan,
pulling back the trigger of his gun with every step they took up the
bank. Behind them came the rebels, shouting as they ran forward.
It was the work of minutes, but Hal lived a lifetime and he could see by
Renan’s haggard face that he did also. And when the smoke cleared away
they ran for the deserted _maloka_, deserted, save for Felice and her
grandfather, who had been tied to the pillars, preparatory to making the
supreme sacrifice for their companionship with the evil spirits.
The white men had come none too soon, she told them when she had
regained her composure. And in a few words she explained how the
_Pallidas_ had descended upon her and her grandfather and carried them
off to their settlement. Goncalves had been with them, but what became
of him she did not know.
Hal led the men on the next inspection, an inspection which he
instinctively feared the results of. But Renan urged him on, asking him
to go first and see if their worst fears were well-founded.
Unfortunately, they were.
No sound greeted Hal as he walked ahead of the men. Not even a whisper
greeted him as he stepped into the gloom of the hut. All was still as
the tomb and a tomb it was indeed! For the withered remnants of a white
man lay silent in death.
Hal brought out with him a notebook, yellowed with age and soiled. Every
page of it was written on, some of the writing rational and legible, and
other pages scribbled on in moments of frenzy and despair. Taken as a
whole, it depicted a man tortured by constant confinement and lost hope.
“For me, Hal?” Renan asked as Hal handed it to him. He took it, with
white face and trembling hands.
“It’s addressed to you, Rene. Good heavens, I’d rather spare you....”
Renan bent his head and read with misty eyes. Hal had glanced over the
first few heartbreaking pages when he picked it up in the hut. He could
even memorize a few of the lines, so vividly had they stood out before
his eyes.
“They captured me that morning,” it read, “and I guess it was because
they were superstitious about the lode. Also because it was on their
former settlement.... They were getting ready to offer me as a sacrifice
to clear out the evil spirits, when I happened to think that they were
superstitious about killing a demented man.... I saved myself but
condemned myself to eternal death and suffering. They locked me up and
here I’ve been except for occasional nights when I managed to get as far
as the door and cry for help ... but no one came, except for that
red-headed young man. They had bound and gagged me while he was here.
That is why he didn’t understand me when I cried ... hope went then ...
my son Rene, my girl Felice, my father ... oh, that we had never come to
this wretched country.... I’ve feigned madness so long, I’m going mad
now.... I’m gone....”
The pathos of that last line dwelt in Hal’s memory. He knew he’d never
forget it. And worse, he could never banish from his mind the picture of
despair and lost hope which Marcellus Pemberton, Junior, bore even unto
death.