EAGER to arrive at the appointed meeting-place, and to learn by what
fortunate means my saviour had been enabled to make his appearance at so
opportune a moment, I prepared to leave the cavern in which my nerves
had been so severely tried; but as I prepared to enter the subterranean
passage an unexpected obstacle presented itself in my path.
It was Habibrah!
The revengeful Obi had not in reality followed the negroes as I had
believed, but had concealed himself behind a rocky projection of the
cave, waiting for a propitious moment for his vengeance; and this moment
had come. He laughed bitterly as he showed himself. A dagger, the same
that he was in the habit of using for a crucifix, shone in his right
hand: at the sight of it I recoiled a step.
“Ha, accursed one, did you think to escape me? But the fool is not such
a fool after all! I have you, and this time there shall be no delay.
Your friend Bug-Jargal shall not wait for you long, you shall soon be at
the meeting-place, but it will be the wave of the cataract that shall
bear you there.”
As he spoke he dashed at me with uplifted weapon.
“Monster,” cried I, retreating to the platform, “just now you were only
an executioner, now you are a murderer.”
“I am an avenger,” returned he, grinding his teeth.
I was on the edge of the precipice; he endeavoured to hurl me over with
a blow of his dagger. I avoided it. His foot slipped on the treacherous
moss which covered the rocks, he rolled into the slope polished and
rounded by the constant flow of water.
“A thousand devils!” roared he.
He had fallen into the abyss.
I have already mentioned that the roots of the old tree projected
through the crevices of the rocks, a little below the edge of the
precipice. In his fall the dwarf struck against these, his striped
petticoat caught in them, he grasped at them as a last hope of safety,
and clung to them with all the energy of despair.
His pointed bonnet fell from his head; to maintain his position he had
to let go his dagger, and the two together disappeared in the depths of
the abyss.
Habibrah, suspended over the terrible gulf, strove vainly to regain the
platform, but his short arms could not reach the rocky edge, and he
broke his nails in useless efforts to obtain a hold on the muddy surface
of the rocks which sloped down into the terrible abyss.
He howled with rage.
The slightest push on my part would have been sufficient to hurl him to
destruction, but it would have been an act of cowardice, and I made no
movement. This moderation on my part seemed to surprise him.
Thanking heaven for its mercies, I determined to abandon him to his
fate, and was about to leave the cave when, in a voice broken with fear,
and which appeared to come from the depths of the abyss, he addressed
me.
“Master,” cried he, “master, do not go, for pity’s sake! do not, in the
name of heaven, leave a guilty creature to perish, that it is in your
power to save. Alas, my strength is failing me; the roots bend, and slip
through my fingers, the weight of my body drags me down—I must let go,
or my arms will break! Alas, master, the fearful gulfs boils and seethes
beneath me! _Nombre santo de Dios!_ Have you no pity for the poor fool?
He has been very guilty, but prove that the white men are better than
the mulattoes, the masters than the slaves, by saving him.”
I approached the brink of the precipice, and the feeble light that broke
through the aperture in the roof showed me, on the repulsive features of
the dwarf, an expression which I had never noticed before, that of
prayer and supplication.
“Señor Leopold,” continued he, encouraged by the movement of pity that I
showed, “can you see a fellow-creature in so terrible a position of
peril, without stretching out a hand to save him? Give me your hand,
master; with very slight assistance from you I can save myself—I only
ask for a little help. Help me then, and my gratitude shall be as great
as my crimes.”
I interrupted him.
“Unhappy wretch, do not recall them to my memory.”
“It is because I repent of them that I do so. Oh, be generous to me! O
heavens, my hand relaxes its grasp, and I fall! _Ay desdichado!_ The
hand, your hand; in the name of the mother who bore you, give me your
hand!”
I cannot describe the tone of agony in which he pleaded for help. In
this moment of peril I forgot all; it was no longer an enemy, a traitor,
and an assassin, but an unhappy fellow-creature, whom a slight exertion
upon my part could rescue from a frightful death. He implored me in
heart-rending accents. Reproaches would have been fruitless, and out of
place. The necessity for help was urgent and immediate. I stooped, knelt
down on the brink of the precipice, and grasping the trunk of the tree
with one hand, I extended the other to Habibrah.
As soon as it was within his reach, he grasped it with both his hands,
and hung on to it with all his strength. Far from attempting to aid me
in my efforts to draw him up, I felt that he was exerting all his powers
to draw me down with him into the abyss. If it had not been for the
assistance afforded to me by the trunk of the tree, I must infallibly
have been dragged over by the violent and unexpected jerk that the
wretched man gave me.
“Villain!” cried I; “what are you doing?”
“Avenging myself,” answered he, with a peal of devilish laughter. “Aha!
madman, have I got you in my clutches once more? You have of your own
free-will placed yourself again in my power, and I hold you tight. You
were saved and I was lost, and yet you of your own accord place your
head between the jaws of the alligator, because it wept after having
roared. I can bear death, since it will give me revenge. You are caught
in the trap, _amigo_, and I shall take a companion with me to feed the
fishes of the lake.”
“Ah, traitor!” cried I, struggling with all my strength. “Is it thus
that you serve me when I was trying to save you?”
“Yes,” hissed he. “I know that we could have saved ourselves together,
but I would rather that we should die at the same moment. I had rather
compass your death, than save my life. Come down!”
As he spoke, his brown muscular hands grasped mine with unexpected
strength, his eyes blazed, his mouth foamed; the strength, the departure
of which he had before so piteously bewailed, had returned to him
increased a thousandfold by the hope of revenge. His feet were planted
like two perpendicular levers on a ledge of rock, and he struggled like
a tiger against the root which, entangled in his clothes, supported him
in spite of himself, for he was endeavouring with all his might to shake
himself free, so as to bring all his weight to bear on me, and to drag
me more quickly into the yawning gulf below.
In his rage he endeavoured to bite me, whilst his hideous features were
rendered more terrible by their expression of satanic frenzy.
He looked like the demon of the cave seeking to drag down his victim to
his abode of gloom and darkness.
One of my knees, by good fortune, was planted in a groove of the rock,
and my arm was wrapped round the trunk of the tree, and I strove against
the efforts of the dwarf with all the strength that the feeling of
self-preservation could give me at such a moment.
Every now and then I drew a long breath, and shouted “Bug-Jargal” with
all the force of my lungs. But the roar of the cascade, and the distance
that he must be off, gave me but faint hopes of my voice reaching him.
But the dwarf, who had not anticipated so vigorous a resistance on my
part, redoubled his efforts. I began to grow weak, though in reality the
struggle had not taken so long as the narration of it. A violent pain
paralyzed my arm, my sight grew dim, bright sparks flashed before my
eyes, and a buzzing sound filled my ears. I heard the creaking of the
root as it bent, mingled with the laugh of the monster, and the abyss
seemed to rise up towards me as though eager to engulf its prey. But
before I gave up all hope I made a last effort, and collecting together
my exhausted forces, I once again shouted “Bug-Jargal.”
A loud bark replied to me; it was Rask who thus answered my appeal for
help. I glanced upwards—Bug-Jargal and his dog were gazing at me from
the orifice in the roof.
He saw my danger at once.
“Hold on!” cried he.
Habibrah, fearing that I might yet be saved, foamed with rage, and
crying, “Come down there, come down!” renewed the attack with almost
supernatural vigour.
At this moment, weakened by the long struggle, my arm lost its hold of
the tree. All seemed over with me, when I felt myself seized from
behind. It was Rask!
At a sign from his master he had leapt down on the platform, and seized
me by the skirts of my uniform with his powerful teeth.
This unlooked-for aid saved me. Habibrah had exhausted all his strength
in a last convulsive effort, whilst I put forth all mine and succeeded
in withdrawing my hand from his cramped and swollen fingers. The root,
which had been for some time yielding, now parted suddenly, Rask gave me
a violent pull backwards, and the wretched dwarf disappeared in the foam
of the cascade, hurling a curse at me which was swallowed up with him in
the whirl of waters.
Such was the terrible end of my uncle’s fool.