Though Jezebel was terrified by the black faces of her captors and by
the strange beasts they bestrode, the like of which she had never even
imagined, her fear for herself was outweighed by her sorrow. Her one
thought was to escape and return to the side of the "Gunner," even
though she believed him dead from the terrific blow that his assailant
had struck him.
She struggled violently to free herself from the grasp of the man in
front of whom she rode; but the fellow was far too powerful; and,
though she was difficult to hold, at no time was there the slightest
likelihood that she might escape. Her efforts, however, angered him
and at last he struck her, bringing to the girl a realization of the
futility of pitting her puny strength against his. She must wait, then,
until she could accomplish by stealth what she could not effect by
force.
The village of the raiders lay but a short distance from the point at
which she had been captured, and but a few minutes had elapsed since
that event when they rode up to its gates and into the central compound.
The shouts that greeted the arrival of a new and beautiful prisoner
brought Capietro and Stabutch to the doorway of their hut.
"Now what have the black devils brought in?" exclaimed Capietro.
"It looks like a young woman," said Stabutch.
"It is," cried Capietro, as the _shiftas_ approached the hut with their
prisoner. "We shall have company, eh, Stabutch? Who have you there, my
children?" he demanded of the three who were accompanying Jezebel.
"The price of a chief's ransom, perhaps," replied one of the blacks.
"Where did you find her?"
"Above the village a short distance, when we were returning from
scouting. A man was with her. The man who escaped with the help of the
ape-man."
"Where is he! Why did you not bring him, also?" demanded Capietro.
"He fought us, and we were forced to kill him."
"You have done well," said Capietro. "She is worth two of him--in many
ways. Come girl, hold up your head, let us have a look at that pretty
face. Come, you need not fear anything--if you are a good girl you will
find Dominic Capietro a good fellow."
"Perhaps she does not understand Italian," suggested Stabutch.
"You are right, my friend; I shall speak to her in English."
Jezebel had looked up at Stabutch when she heard him speak a language
she understood. Perhaps this man would be a friend, she thought; but
when she saw his face her heart sank.
"What a beauty!" ejaculated the Russian.
"You have fallen in love with her quickly, my friend," commented
Capietro. "Do you want to buy her?"
"How much do you want for her?"
"Friends should not bargain," said the Italian. "Wait, I have it! Come,
girl," and he took Jezebel by the arm and led her into the hut, where
Stabutch followed them.
"Why was I brought here?" asked Jezebel. "I have not harmed you. Let me
go back to Danny; he is hurt."
"He is dead," said Capietro; "but don't you grieve, little one. You
now have two friends in place of the one you have lost. Soon you will
forget him; it is easy for a woman to forget."
"I shall never forget him," cried Jezebel. "I want to go back to
him--perhaps he is not dead." Then she broke down and cried.
Stabutch stood eyeing the girl hungrily. Her youth and her beauty
aroused a devil within him, and he made a mental vow that he would
possess her. "Do not cry," he said, kindly. "I am your friend.
Everything will be all right."
The new tone in his voice gave hope to Jezebel, and she looked up at
him gratefully. "If you are my friend," she said, "take me away from
here and back to Danny."
"After a while," replied Stabutch, and then to Capietro, "How much?"
"I shall not sell her to my good friend," replied the Italian. "Let us
have a drink, and then I shall explain my plan."
The two drank from a bottle standing on the earth floor of the hut.
"Sit down," said Capietro, waving Jezebel to a seat on the dirty rug.
Then he searched for a moment in his duffle bag and brought out a deck
of soiled and grimy cards. "Be seated, my friend," he said to Stabutch.
"Let us have another drink, and then you shall hear my plan."
Stabutch drank from the bottle and wiped his lips with the back of his
hand. "Well," he said, "what is it?"
"We shall play for her," exclaimed the Italian, shuffling the deck,
"and whoever wins, keeps her."
"Let us drink to that," said Stabutch. "Five games, eh, and the first
to win three takes her?"
"Another drink to seal the bargain!" exclaimed the Italian. "The best
three out of five!"
Stabutch won the first game, while Jezebel sat looking on in ignorance
of the purpose of the bits of pasteboard, and only knowing that in
some way they were to decide her fate. She hoped the younger man would
win, but only because he had said that he was her friend. Perhaps she
could persuade him to take her back to Danny. She wondered what kind
of water was in the bottle from which they drank, for she noticed
that it wrought a change in them. They talked much louder now and
shouted strange words when the little cards were thrown upon the rug,
and then one would appear very angry while the other always laughed
immoderately. Also they swayed and lurched in a peculiar manner that
she had not noticed before they had drunk so much of the water from the
bottle.
Capietro won the second game and the third. Stabutch was furious, but
now he became very quiet. He exerted all his powers of concentration
upon the game, and he seemed almost sober as the cards were dealt for
the fourth game.
"She is as good as mine!" cried Capietro, as he looked at his hand.
"She will never be yours," growled the Russian.
"What do you mean?"
"I shall win the next two games."
The Italian laughed loudly. "That is good!" he cried. "We should drink
to that." He raised the bottle to his lips and then passed it to
Stabutch.
"I do not want a drink," said the Russian, in a surly tone, pushing the
bottle aside.
"Ah, ha! My friend is getting nervous. He is afraid he is going to lose
and so he will not drink. Sapristi! It is all the same to me. I get the
brandy and the girl, too."
"Play!" snapped Stabutch.
"You are in a hurry to lose," taunted Capietro.
"To win," corrected Stabutch, and he did.
Now it was the Italian's turn to curse and rage at luck, and once
again the cards were dealt and the players picked up their hands.
"It is the last game," said Stabutch.
"We have each won two," replied Capietro. "Let us drink to the
winner--although I dislike proposing a toast to myself," and he laughed
again, but this time there was an ugly note in his laughter.
In silence, now, they resumed their play. One by one the little
pasteboards fell upon the rug. The girl looked on in wondering
silence. There was a tenseness in the situation that she felt, without
understanding. Poor little Jezebel, she understood so little!
Suddenly, with a triumphant oath, Capietro sprang to his feet. "I win!"
he cried. "Come, friend, drink with me to my good fortune."
Sullenly the Russian drank, a very long draught this time. There was
a sinister gleam in his eye as he handed the bottle back to Capietro.
Leon Stabutch was a poor loser.
The Italian emptied the bottle and flung it to the ground. Then he
turned toward Jezebel and stooping lifted her to her feet. "Come, my
dear," he said, his coarse voice thick from drink, "Give me a kiss."
Jezebel drew back, but the Italian jerked her roughly to him and tried
to draw her lips to his.
"Leave the girl alone," growled Stabutch. "Can't you see she is afraid
of you?"
"What did I win her for?" demanded Capietro. "To leave her alone? Mind
your own business."
"I'll make it my business," said Stabutch. "Take your hands off her."
He stepped forward and laid a hand on Jezebel's arm. "She is mine by
rights anyway."
"What do you mean?"
"You cheated. I caught you at it in the last game."
"You lie!" shouted Capietro and simultaneously he struck at Stabutch.
The Russian dodged the blow and closed with the other.
Both were drunk and none too steady. It required much of their
attention to keep from falling down. But as they wrestled about the
interior of the hut a few blows were struck--enough to arouse their
rage to fury and partially to sober them. Then the duel became deadly,
as each sought the throat of the other.
Jezebel, wide eyed and terrified, had difficulty in keeping out of
their way as they fought to and fro across the floor of the hut; and
so centered was the attention of the two men upon one another that the
girl might have escaped had she not been more afraid of the black men
without than of the whites within.
Several times Stabutch released his hold with his right hand and sought
for something beneath his coat and at last he found it--a slim dagger.
Capietro did not see it.
They were standing in the center of the hut now, their arms locked
about one another, and resting thus as though by mutual consent. They
were panting heavily from their exertions, and neither seemed to have
gained any material advantage.
Slowly the Russian's right hand crept up the back of his adversary.
Jezebel saw, but only her eyes reflected her horror. Though she had
seen many people killed she yet had a horror of killing. She saw the
Russian feel for a spot on the other's back with the point of his
thumb. Then she saw him turn his hand and place the dagger point where
his thumb had been.
There was a smile upon Stabutch's face as he drove the blade home.
Capietro stiffened, screamed, and died. As the body slumped to the
ground and rolled over on its back the murderer stood over the corpse
of his victim, a smile upon his lips, and his eyes upon the girl.
But suddenly the smile died as a new thought came to the cunning mind
of the slayer and his eyes snapped from the face of Jezebel to the
doorway of the hut where a filthy blanket answered the purpose of a
door.
He had forgotten the horde of cut-throats who had called this thing
upon the floor their chief! But now he recalled them and his soul was
filled with terror. He did not need to ask himself what his fate would
be when they discovered his crime.
"You have murdered him!" cried the girl suddenly, a note of horror in
her voice.
"Be quiet!" snap Stabutch. "Do you want to die? They will kill us when
they discover this."
"I did not do it," protested Jezebel.
"They will kill you just the same--afterwards. They are beasts."
Suddenly he stooped, seized the corpse by the ankles and, dragging it
to the far end of the hut, he covered it with rugs and clothing.
"Now keep quiet until I come back," he said to Jezebel. "If you give an
alarm I'll kill you myself before they have a chance to."
He rummaged in a dark corner of the hut and brought forth a revolver
with its holster and belt, which he buckled about his hips, and a rifle
which he leaned beside the doorway.
"When I return be ready to come with me," he snapped, and raising the
rug that covered the doorway, he stepped out into the village.
Quickly he made his way to where the ponies of the band were tethered.
Here were several of the blacks loitering near the animals.
"Where is the headman?" he asked, but none of them understood English.
He tried to tell them by means of signs, to saddle two horses, but they
only shook their heads. If they understood him, as they doubtless did,
they refused to take orders from him.
At this juncture the headman, attracted from a nearby hut, approached.
He understood a little pidgin English, and Stabutch had no difficulty
in making him understand that he wanted two horses saddled; but the
headman wanted to know more. Did the chief want them?
"Yes, he wants them," replied Stabutch. "He sent me to get them. The
chief is sick. Drink too much." Stabutch laughed and the headman seemed
to understand.
"Who go with you?" asked the headman.
Stabutch hesitated. Well, he might as well tell him--everyone would
see the girl ride out with him anyway. "The girl," he said.
The headman's eyes narrowed. "The Chief say?" he asked.
"Yes. The girl thinks the white man not dead. The Chief send me to look
for him."
"You take men?"
"No. Man come back with us if girl say so. Be afraid of black men. No
come."
The other nodded understandingly and ordered two horses saddled and
bridled. "Him dead," he offered.
Stabutch shrugged. "We see," he replied, as he led the two animals
toward the hut where Jezebel awaited him.
The headman accompanied him, and Stabutch was in terror. What if the
man insisted on entering the hut to see his chief? Stabutch loosened
the revolver in its holster. Now his greatest fear was that the shot
might attract others to the hut. That would never do. He must find some
other way. He stopped and the headman halted with him.
"Do not come to the hut yet," said Stabutch.
"Why?" asked the headman.
"The girl is afraid. If she sees you she will think we are deceiving
her, and she may refuse to show me where the man is. We promised her
that no black man would come."
The headman hesitated. Then he shrugged and turned back. "All right,"
he said.
"And tell them to leave the gates open till we have gone," called
Stabutch.
At the hut door he called to the girl. "All ready," he said, "and hand
me my rifle when you come out;" but she did not know what a rifle was
and he had to step in and get it himself.
Jezebel looked at the horses with dismay.
At the thought of riding one of these strange beasts alone she was
terrified. "I cannot do it," she told Stabutch.
"You will have to--or die," he whispered. "I'll lead the one you ride.
Here, hurry."
He lifted her into the saddle and showed her how to use the stirrups
and hold the reins. Then he put a rope about the neck of her horse;
and, mounting his own, he led hers out through the village gateway
while half a hundred murderers watched them depart.
As they turned upward toward the higher hills the setting sun projected
their shadows far ahead, and presently night descended upon them and
hid their sudden change of direction from any watchers there may have
been at the village gates.