sir," was the reply. "He is a quiet, inoffensive fellow, but thoroughly
to be depended upon in a fight, and he is pretty long-headed too,
perhaps he may be able to help us out with a suggestion. At all events,
sir, you may depend upon it neither Mr Gaunt nor little Percy--poor
little chap!--shall be burnt, alive or dead, whilst I can strike a blow
to prevent it."
"Come, then," said Henderson, "let us go and hear what Nicholls has to
say upon the matter." And he led the way up to the parapet once more.
But Nicholls, honest man that he was, seemed completely to lose in
horror the long-headedness with which Manners had credited him, as soon
as he was made acquainted with the terms of the singular document handed
in by the Malays, and beyond the utterance of several very hearty
maledictions upon the heads of those scoundrels, and the reiterated
declaration that they should kill him before they harmed a hair of the
heads of either of the prisoners, he had nothing to say.
Henderson was reduced to a condition of absolute despair, for neither of
the trio could think of any plan of rescue promising even the remotest
prospect of success.
"Leave me, both of you," he at length exclaimed in desperation--"leave
me to watch and to think out this matter alone; lie down and rest if you
can for an hour or two, husband your strength as much as possible, for
we shall have need of it all before sunrise"--he shuddered involuntarily
as he uttered the last word--"and fear not, I will call you in good
time."
The two men turned, and without a word retired below to their room,
leaving the doctor to wrestle alone with the difficult question of what
was his actual duty in this terrible strait.
Reader, do not mistake this man's character. No braver or more gallant
Englishman--no nobler or stauncher friend--ever lived than he. Had he
been an unmarried man, or had those two women and that helpless child,
his daughter, been in a place of safety, he would have unhesitatingly
accepted the hints which Manners and Nicholls had so repeatedly thrown
out, and placing himself at their head, would have marched with a light
heart against the Malays, and either have rescued the captives or have
perished with them. But the odds against him and his companions were so
great--a little over seven to one even now, after the losses already
sustained by the enemy--that he felt he _dared_ not indulge in any hope
of success, especially as those odds would be so greatly increased by
even _one_ casualty on his side; and if failure ensued, what would be
the result to them all, including the women and the child still safe in
the shelter of the fort? It would not bear thinking about.
"God help me!" he cried in his despair. "_What_ shall I do?"
"Ay, and why should not God help him?" was the thought which followed
close upon the heels of his exclamation. And feeling that he had
already too long neglected to seek the only counsel upon which he could
safely rely, this simple-hearted, noble-minded gentleman went down upon
his knees there and then, and laying the whole case before his Creator,
humbly, yet fervently, sought for guidance and aid, for Christ's sake.
When he rose from his knees it was with a feeling of almost ecstatic
relief, for--be it said with all reverence--he had cast his burden upon
the Lord. He had sought for guidance and help; the one had been given
him--for he had formed his resolution what to do; and the other he
doubted not would be accorded to him in his time of need; there remained
therefore nothing for him to do but to make his arrangements and then to
carry them out.
He looked at his watch. Two o'clock, just four hours to sunrise; he had
not much time to spare, for when the sun next rose. Gaunt and his child
must be once more safe within the walls of the fort, or--well, that must
not be thought of.
So taking one more keen glance around, to make quite sure that all was
safe, Henderson went softly down the staircase leading to the court-
yard, and quietly directed Manners and Nicholls to rejoin him at once
upon the parapet. This done, he entered his own room. A lamp, turned
low, was burning upon the table, and by its light he was just able to
see that his little Lucille was sleeping calmly where he had laid her;
but his wife was absent, he needed not to be told where she was. He
stood for a moment looking with unspeakable fondness upon the sleeping
child, and then bending softly over her, he pressed one long lingering
kiss upon her forehead. As he did so she smiled in her sleep, her
rosebud lips quivered a moment, and then he heard her whisper, "Dear
Percy!" It was enough; had he felt the least lingering hesitation about
the carrying out of his plan, that unconscious appeal made by his
sleeping child would have effectually banished it, and dashing away the
tears that rose to his eyes, the doctor quietly withdrew. There was a
light burning in Mrs Gaunt's room; and as he passed the door on tiptoe
and stealthily, as though he had been engaged upon some unlawful errand,
he caught the low murmur of his wife's voice, and a stifled sob. That
was another appeal not to be resisted; and without venturing to disturb
the two mourning watchers--though he never before yearned so hungrily
for a parting word with his wife, or a sight of her sweet face--he
passed noiselessly on, and so regained the parapet, where Manners and
Nicholls already awaited him. To them he fully unfolded his plan,
minutely explaining not only his own but also their part in it; after
which he gave them his final instructions, and then taking _both_ of
Gaunt's magazine rifles in his hand, and thrusting a brace of revolvers
into his belt--having previously loaded each weapon most carefully with
his own hands--he quietly lowered the outer ladder, cautioning his
companions to draw it up again after him, and stepped briskly but
noiselessly out through the long dew-laden grass in the direction of the
ship-yard.
CHAPTER NINETEEN.
DOOMED TO DIE.
The story told by little Lucille relative to the first appearance of the
Malays was so graphic and accurate up to the point of Gaunt's capture,
that little or no addition is needed to complete it. The shell-
gatherers had been most successful in their quest, and returning to Fay
Island laden with their delicate and beautiful spoils, were about half-
way across the stream--which, it will be remembered, was of considerable
width at the point where they would have to cross--when the proa
suddenly hove in sight round a bend of the channel. There was only one
possible explanation of the reason why Gaunt had not seen her in ample
time to avoid capture, and that was that whilst he had been busy with
the children on the eastern beach, the proa must have been approaching
from the westward, which would cause her to be hidden from view by the
intervening high land. By what means, however, her crew had discovered
the entrance to the harbour must remain a mystery; probably it was the
result of pure accident, for--as has already been mentioned--it was so
artfully concealed that even Gaunt himself, when voyaging to and fro in
the raft during the earlier period of his sojourn upon the island, had
upon more than one occasion been puzzled to find it.
Be this as it may, the moment of the proa's arrival in the river was a
most unfortunate one for the occupants of the punt, who were seen and
chased by the Malays the moment that their vessel rounded the point.
Gaunt at once saw that escape for himself as well as for the children
was impossible; he was as near Fay Island as he was to the main, and in
whichever direction he headed he must inevitably be overtaken before he
could make good his retreat, and with his usual promptitude he at once
decided to continue his course for the islet, hoping to be able to make
a sufficiently long stand against the enemy to permit of the children
gaining the safe refuge of the fort. He was hailed as soon as seen;
but, of course, the only notice he took of this was to urge the clumsy,
heavy punt with redoubled speed through the water. Finding him so
contumacious, the Malays then fired upon him several times, and
succeeded in slightly wounding him in the head. As the proa advanced
further up the stream, and drew closer and closer still in under the lee
of the high land, the wind grew light and shy with her, and then,
perhaps fearing that after all their prey might escape them, the crew
hastily launched a boat and gave chase in her. But for that unlucky
wound in the head it is possible that Gaunt might have succeeded in his
plucky effort; but though the bullet inflicted but little actual damage
the blow stunned and dazed him, so that for a minute or two he scarcely
knew where he was or what he was doing. Trifling as was the amount of
time thus lost it was sufficient to ruin what little chance he
originally had; for when the punt at length grounded with a shock on the
sandy beach of the creek the Malays were scarcely a dozen yards astern
of her, and Gaunt had only just time to lift the youngsters out on the
sand, to give the hasty injunction, "Run away home, children, as fast as
ever you can," and to seize an oar in self-defence, when the enemy--nine
of them--were upon him. Of course, armed as he was with no better
weapon than a clumsy oar, he had no chance whatever against such
overwhelming odds, and though he managed to fell three of his
antagonists the fight had not lasted two minutes before his arms were
pinioned from behind, his feet tripped from under him, and himself made
a prisoner. He was quickly rolled over on his face and his arms
securely lashed behind him, when, this being satisfactorily
accomplished, his captors raised him to his feet, and, conducting him to
a tree, firmly bound him to its trunk. The idea then seemed to occur to
the Malays that possibly the children might not yet be beyond the reach
of capture, for two of them set off at a run in pursuit along the path
leading to the fort. Gaunt guessed only too surely at the object of
this sudden and hurried departure, and his heart sank with dismal
apprehension as he thought of the distance those little feet would have
to traverse ere the refuge of the fort could be won, of their liability
to become fagged and to lag upon the way, and of the fleetness of foot
displayed by their cruel pursuers when starting upon their relentless
errand. And when, from the prolonged absence of the pursuers,
apprehension was beginning to yield to a hope that the children were
safe, he was plunged into the bitterest distress by the reappearance of
one of the miscreants, roughly and cruelly dragging along by the arm his
darling and only son, Percy; the poor child crying bitterly with terror
and the ruffianly usage to which he was being subjected. Upon seeing
his father the little fellow managed, by a sudden and unexpected effort,
to break away from his captor, and, running up to Gaunt, embraced him,
crying:
"Oh, father, make that cruel man leave me alone; he has been whipping me
and twisting my arm and hurting it so much that I can scarcely use it.
Oh, don't let him touch me again, father," as he saw the Malay
approaching him with a scowl of hideous malignity upon his already
sufficiently ugly features.
"My darling boy, I cannot help you," groaned Gaunt. "Would to God that
I could! but you see they have bound me to this tree so that I cannot
move. Listen, Percy dear; we can do nothing at present but submit to
these men, who have us in their power, so you must just let them do what
they will with you, my precious one; go with the man very quietly, and
then perhaps he will not ill-treat you any more."
"_Must_ I, father?" asked the little fellow tearfully, and looking at
his father in vague surprise at so seemingly heartless a command.
"Yes, dear boy; yes. It is for your own good that I tell you to do
this," answered Gaunt brokenly, for he keenly felt the unspoken reproach
which he saw in the child's eyes as the little fellow forlornly turned
away and with a piteous sob quietly surrendered himself to the brute,
who now again with ruffianly violence seized upon his helpless victim.
"Oh, don't! you hurt me so," the poor little fellow suddenly screamed
out; and the father's heart swelled almost to bursting with impotent
fury as he saw the cruel clutch with which the wretch was digging his
long thin sinewy fingers into the tender flesh of the boy's shoulder as
he forced him toward an adjoining tree, to which he forthwith proceeded
to lash him, drawing the cord so tightly round the slender wrists that
the little fellow fairly screamed and writhed with the intolerable pain.
"Curse you!" yelled Gaunt, now fairly stung to madness and foaming at
the mouth with fury; "curse you, fiend that you are!" And as he hurled
forth words of rage and defiance he tugged and strained with such
superhuman strength upon his bonds that the stout rope fairly cracked
whilst it cut into the flesh of his wrists down to the bone. But the
lashing was too strong to yield to even his frenzied efforts, apart from
the fact that, with his arms lashed behind him, he had no opportunity to
exert his strength effectively, and at length, completely exhausted, he
was fain to desist, to the undisguised delight of a little knot of the
Malays who had gathered round and were keenly enjoying the scene. So
much pleasure, indeed, did they derive from it that they said something
to little Percy's tormentor which was evidently an incitement of him to
continue his ill-treatment of the child, for the fellow, with an
acquiescent grin, had no sooner finished his task of lashing the little
fellow to the tree--a task which he performed with the utmost
deliberation and gusto--than he retired a pace or two, contemplating the
helplessness of his little victim with malignant satisfaction, and then,
with a glance toward Gaunt and a few laughing words to his companions,
he stepped forward and dealt the poor child a savage blow upon the mouth
with his clenched fist--so cruel a blow that it extorted another
piercing scream of pain and terror from the sufferer and caused his
quivering lips to stream with blood. Gaunt said nothing this time, nor
did he renew his worse than useless efforts to burst his bonds, but he
directed toward the fellow a look of such deadly ferocity that the
wretch actually quailed under it, and seemed glad enough to slink away
into the background under cover of an order which another Malay,
apparently one of the officers of the proa, now stepped forward and gave
him. Possibly the order given may have been to desist from further ill-
treatment of the child, for the new-comer next said something to the
group of onlookers which caused them also to retire, with many a
backward glance of animosity at Gaunt--which he returned with interest;
and, these dismissed, the officer, if such he was, looked at the sobbing
child's bonds and, with a muttered word or two, proceeded to loosen them
sufficiently to relieve the little fellow from the cruel suffering they
had caused him--a proceeding which won for him a look of unspeakable
gratitude from Gaunt which seemed to be not wholly unappreciated.
The loosening of his bonds afforded the poor child so much relief that
he now felt almost comfortable, comparatively speaking; and, exhausted
with the pain and terror he had already endured, he soon sank into a
kind of stupor, which, if it did not amount to actual insensibility,
approached it so nearly as to afford the poor little fellow at least a
temporary forgetfulness of his situation and surroundings. Gaunt,
speaking quietly once or twice to him without obtaining a reply, at once
saw with intense satisfaction the state his child had fallen into; and
to such a state of despair had he now been brought that he would have
been positively happy could he have been assured that his darling boy
was dead and beyond the reach of further suffering. For as he now had
leisure to reflect, the future, so far as they two were concerned, was
without a single ray of hope to brighten it. He knew, of course, that
those staunch comrades of his at the fort would not abandon him and his
child to the mercy of the Malays without making some attempt at a
rescue; but there were only three of them, and what could three men,
however brave, do against such overwhelming odds unless acting upon the
defensive and behind stone walls? _There_, indeed, but not in the open
field, he had some hopes for them, and there he fully expected they
would all very shortly have their hands full, for he momentarily
expected to see the whole body of the Malays--except, of course, a man
or two to guard himself and his boy--move off to the attack of the fort.
And if the attack failed, as he hoped and believed it would, the Malay
loss would doubtless be very heavy; and he had heard quite enough of
their vindictive nature to feel assured they would take their revenge
upon him and Percy. Yes, the more he thought about it the more
convinced did he become that it was their doom to die. "Well," he
murmured, "God's will be done!" It was best, perhaps, that his child
should die now, young and innocent as he was; and as for himself, if he
could but be satisfied that the little fellow's death was quick and
easy, he cared not how soon he followed him.
But if this was to be the end of the matter so far as they two were
concerned, there was a task before him to which he must at once give his
best attention--the task of preparing his little son for the awful
ordeal before him. To paint Death in colours so attractive as that they
should rob the grim king of his terrors and make him welcome, was, he
felt, a task of no ordinary difficulty; and coupled with this was the
fact that the poor child had been dreadfully terrified already. How was
this task to be accomplished--how even begun?
As he cogitated painfully over this problem he saw a party of twelve
Malays detach themselves from the rest and move off in the direction of
the fort. Then after a considerable interval came the sounds of firing,
followed some twenty minutes later by the return of four only out of the
twelve. A sickening fear came over him at first that those in the fort
had succumbed to the attack, and that the eight absentees were remaining
behind in charge of the prisoners. But a little reflection led him to
believe that, had such been the case, the prisoners would have been
brought in triumph to the Malay camp. Could it be possible, then, he
asked himself, that the missing eight had fallen in the attack? It
might be so. The bearing of the four who had returned was anything but
triumphant; and then there was a great deal of excited talk and
gesticulation on their part, seemingly in the nature of an explanation,
and more excited talk among the others, followed, after a long and
stormy debate, by the preparation and despatch of the letter, the
delivery of which we witnessed in the preceding chapter. This last act
of the Malays completely reassured Gaunt as to the safety of the fort
and its inmates, but it also confirmed him in his belief that his own
fate and that of his child was sealed.
The messenger soon returned, a few questions were put to them and
answered; a couple of sentries were posted with loaded muskets at the
entrance to the bush-path leading to the fort; a man was detailed to
keep watch upon the two prisoners; the watch-fire was bountifully
replenished with brushwood; and then the camp sank gradually into a
state of repose.
Then again the question arose in Gaunt's mind. In what manner could he
best set about the task of preparing his child to meet death
unflinchingly? Whilst he was painfully grappling with the problem Percy
himself afforded his father an opening of which the latter at once
gladly availed himself. Stirring uneasily, and with a sobbing sigh
seeming to recover his recollection of where he was and what had
happened to him, the little fellow looked up and asked shudderingly:
"What will the Malays do to us, father?--will they kill us?"
"That is as God wills, dear boy," answered Gaunt with an affected
cheerfulness which he was very far from feeling.
"They may or they may not, I cannot tell. But if they do you will not
be sorry to die with father, will you?"
"I--I--don't know," answered the little fellow, looking terrified.
"Will it hurt us?"
"Oh, no," answered Gaunt, "not at all--nothing, that is, worth thinking
or troubling about. It will _very_ soon be over; and then--_then_, dear
boy, when we come to ourselves again, we shall find that, hand in hand,
you know, we are going up, and up, and up, higher and higher, toward
heaven. And very soon we shall see the glorious light shining upon the
jewelled walls of the heavenly city, the New Jerusalem. And as we draw
near we shall see the pearly gates unfold to admit us, and God's holy
angels coming to meet us, clad in their white robes. And we shall hear
the first sweet sounds of the celestial music. And as we enter in at
the gates we shall meet all those dear ones who have gone before us.
Dear grandpa, whom you never saw, my precious one, but about whom, you
know, I have told you so many pretty stories--he will be there to
welcome us; and--"
"Oh, that _will_ be nice!" exclaimed the child with kindling eyes. He
meditated for a moment, and then, looking up, he asked eagerly: "When
are we going, father?"
"Oh, very soon now, dear," answered Gaunt, "_very_ soon--perhaps in two
or three hours' time. We can wait patiently until then, can we not?"
"Yes," answered Percy in a perfectly contented tone of voice. And the
father was inwardly congratulating himself upon the ease with which his
difficult task had been accomplished--though he of course felt that it
would be absolutely necessary to keep the child in that frame of mind by
constant conversation until the arrival of the supreme moment--when the
little fellow looked up and with sudden anxiety asked:
"And will mother be there too?"
How little the poor child knew what poignant anguish he inflicted upon
his father by asking this innocent and perfectly natural question!
Gaunt would have given worlds, had he possessed them, for the priceless
privilege of saying farewell to his idolised wife; but he knew it could
not be--it was impossible. And the child had still to be thought of,
still to be cheered and encouraged and strengthened to meet death with a
smiling face--_nothing_ must be allowed to interfere with that; so,
choking back his anguish as best he could, the father answered:
"Well--no, dear boy; I scarcely think she will be there quite so early
as ourselves. But she will not be long in following us. When she finds
that we are gone she will be anxious to come, too; and she will not
delay for one unnecessary moment, you may depend upon it."
"Oh, father!" exclaimed the poor little fellow in sudden distress, "let
us not go without mother; it will be so lonely for her to be down here
all by herself. Let us wait for her and all go together; it will be
ever so much nicer. I don't want to go without her, father. I would
rather not go without mother, if you please." And the poor little
fellow began to cry piteously.
Here was a catastrophe! The fabric of joyous anticipation which the
father had been painfully building up within his child's breast had
collapsed completely, and in a moment, when he found that they were
"going without mother!" Gaunt argued and reasoned with the little
fellow for a full half-hour, taxing his ingenuity to its utmost extent
to recover the advantage he had lost, but it was all unavailing; to this
poor child it seemed that heaven itself could not be heaven "without
mother." His father was fast giving way to despair when a brilliant
idea shot through the childish brain.
"Father," he exclaimed suddenly, looking up with renewed hope, "cannot
God make the Malays not kill us?"
"Certainly He can, if He chooses," was the ready answer.
"Then let us ask Him," was the triumphant rejoinder. "I am quite sure
He will let us wait and go all together if we tell Him we would rather."