I sprang at him with my sword, the rusty blade that I had filched from
those grim and whitened bones.
The man was at my mercy. He was unarmed, having laid aside his rifle
before he approached the Tomb. He trembled in every limb as he fled
before my onslaught, and cried out aloud for pity, as I jabbed at him in
a kind of vicious frenzy.
In the twilight his face looked pale-green in colouring, and his little
pig-like eyes seemed in danger of springing from his head. It would be
difficult to conceive an expression upon which abject terror was more
strongly marked.
Amos Baverstock was an evil man in many ways, and a brave man in others;
else he had never risked his life so often amid the dangers of the
tropic wilderness. Courage of a sort he had in plenty, but, because he
was evil in his nature, he feared death and all connected with the
grave, though I had never thought to find him as superstitious as he
was. He had always struck me as a hard, calculating man, who looked
upon the practical side of all things. And yet, without a doubt, he now
took me for a ghost.
And after all--when the full facts are considered--his mistake was
excusable; even to-day, when I call to mind that scene which was enacted
in the half-light of the woods, I am inclined to laugh at it all, for
there was something ludicrous about it.
I wore the helmet of the dead man, and had sprung at Amos out of the
Tomb, without giving him time to think. Assuredly, in his eyes, what
else could I have been but an infuriated ghost, dangerous and active
because my peace and solitude had been disturbed.
I thrust at him savagely in the darkness, whilst he hurried here and
there, in and out among the trees, yelling like a fiend. How hideous he
was! I can see him now, with his hunchback, his green face, his staring
eyes, his mouth contorted in terror. For all that he was quick and
agile, and once or twice eluded a sword-thrust that would have pierced
him to the heart.
And then, at last, I had him. I carried my sword in my right hand, and,
as I lunged, he jumped aside, towards the left. As quick as thought I
caught him by the throat. Whereat he fell down before me on his quaking
knees, and clasped his hands in the attitude of one who pleads for
mercy.
He was in my power. I said not a word, but clenched my teeth, and
looked into those eyes that even then I feared. I drew back my sword,
and then paused a moment; for I had no liking for the work, which was
the hangman's job.
"Mercy!" he groaned.
I took in a deep breath, like a man about to dive. I felt that I must
brace myself for this red task of common justice. I looked at his body,
clothed in tatters, to select a spot most vulnerable where I might
plunge my rusted sword.
"Mercy!" he cried again.
I clenched my teeth. I was on the point of speaking, but fortunately
did not.
I could hear him breathing heavily.
And thereupon, on a sudden, I was felled by some one who had crept upon
me from behind. I was felled like an ox. A single blow upon the back
of the head sent me over like a ninepin, and I lay stretched at my full
length upon the ground, but half-conscious, with a singing sensation in
my head.
Presently I sat up and looked about me. There was Amos, still upon his
knees, as green as ever. And immediately above me stood one whom I did
well to recognise as Mr. Gilbert Forsyth.
That place was dimly illumined by the white light of the newly-risen
moon, turning the leaves upon the trees above us to a glistening silver.
Forsyth was wearing the remnants of a pair of trousers, the legs of
which ended in a tattered fringe a little below his knees. He was naked
to the waist, around which was a belt, crammed with knives and pistols.
I remembered his curled whiskers and his pomaded moustache on the
morning when I had first set eyes upon him, when I lay hidden in the
gorse-bush. His fair hair now had grown so long that it reached to his
shoulders; and his whiskers had spread into a short, shaggy beard, which
was divided somewhat in the middle like that of a Frenchman or a Sikh.
I had thought of him always as a very immaculate gentleman; but here was
a desperate, piratical blade who, one might easily believe, chewed glass
and compelled his unhappy victims to walk the plank.
He looked at me and folded his arms; and then spoke in a voice quite
calm.
"And who the blazes are you?" he asked.
I was wise enough not to answer. Ghosts--so far as I knew--could never
speak. And was I not a ghost?
If I had been a fool to go down into the Tomb, I showed at least a
little wisdom in now holding my tongue. For this, however, I take no
credit. I could not foresee the course that events would take. I had
been surprised and mastered, and cursed myself because I had not killed
Amos out of hand, when the man was in my power. Disappointed, disgusted
with myself, I was stubborn as a mule. They might do what they would,
they might torture me, but still I would not speak.
Forsyth repeated his question; and for answer, I rushed again at Amos,
and even then would have killed him, had not the other caught me in his
arms and held me fast.
The man was stronger than I thought; for, though I kicked and struggled,
I could not free myself. Amos, as he watched us, regained a little of
his commonsense, and got slowly upon his feet.
"No ghost," said he. "No ghost." And he went on repeating the words as
if he were a parrot.
"Ghost!" laughed Forsyth. "If this is a ghost, he is a warm-blooded
one, and as vicious as they make 'em."
"Then, who is he?" asked Baverstock. "I swear to you, he came out of
the Tomb, as I'm a living man."
"And he's another," added Forsyth. "Who he is, or what business he has
in such a place as this, I can no more say than you can. None the less,
the circumstantial evidence is all against mortality. I am reminded, my
friend, of the Carthaginian Queen: '_Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus
ultor_'--(May some avenger arise from my bones). I call this individual
'Hannibal,' on that account."
"Who wants your Latin gibberish!" cried Amos. "Look plain facts in the
face; call a spade a spade."
"Also," said Forsyth, in his usual sing-song voice, "call a man a man,
and not a ghost."
"If he's alive," said Amos, coming even nearer, "then, who is he? I
tell you, when I lifted the tombstone, he sprang forth like a
Jack-in-a-box, and, had it not been for you, I would never have escaped
with life."
"I have told you already," said the other, "I know no more of him than
you do."
It was then that they were joined by the Spaniard, Vasco, and Joshua
Trust, who came together from the darkness of the thickets into the full
light of the moon. And when they saw me, they also were afraid; for I
still wore the helmet on my head and stood at no great distance from the
open grave.
Forsyth explained the situation in a few words, with many a wave of the
hand, as if he introduced us. Baverstock, in the meantime, was rapidly
becoming his normal self. He seemed to have forgotten, for the time
being, the very object of his journey.
"There's some mischief here!" on a sudden he exclaimed. "Rushby told us
we would find the map beneath the helmet of the Spaniard."
At this, Forsyth laughed, and pointed straight at me.
"And since our Hannibal," he observed, "wears such a headgear somewhat
out of fashion, we may safely presume that he could tell us where the
map is, if he had the power to make us understand--which, for myself, I
doubt."
The truth then dawned upon me on the instant. Mr. Gilbert Forsyth, for
all his cleverness and calmness, was as fully in the wrong as Amos
Baverstock had been; for he believed me to be a savage, whereas the
other had taken me for a ghost, the awful apparition of a bygone Spanish
soldier. If I had refused to speak before from sheer pigheadedness, I
was now resolved to play the part that I was cast for, putting my trust
in Providence and fortified by resolution. Though they burnt my flesh
with red-hot irons, I was determined I would never speak.
They questioned me in every barbarous language that they knew. Vasco
and Amos himself were my inquisitors, for Trust was no scholar, and
Forsyth's learning went no further than the dead classic tongues, and, I
believe, a little French. But I just gaped at them like a fool, and at
last they gave it up as a bad business; and Amos, by now well convinced
that I was human, struck me a cowardly blow across the mouth.
They looked in the Tomb; they searched everywhere for the map. They
made a great fire of brushwood that they might see the better, and
neglected no possible hiding-place where that little strip of parchment
might be hidden. They looked inside my quiver, and even in the hollow
of my blow-pipe. And then, at length, quite late at night, they gave it
up. And in an ill mood they were, especially Trust and Amos.
They must have thought, however, that I was likely to be of some use to
them, for they bound me hand and foot before I was permitted to lie down
to rest. They were evidently not disposed to set me free, until they
had solved the riddle I presented. They were altogether at a loss to
explain who I was or why--apparently of my own free will--I had gone
down into that grim and ancient vault. I think, even then, they
connected me in some way or other with Bannister himself.
Left alone, I was given time to think, and I lay awake that night for
many hours, wondering what would happen.
There were exactly three reasons why they should not have recognised me:
firstly, I was so altered in appearance, so brown and wrinkled by the
sun, with my hair all long and shaggy, that I do not think my own mother
herself would have known me; secondly, my face had been half-hidden by
the helmet I had worn; and, thirdly--the most potent fact of all--they
never dreamed for a moment that I was yet alive. Months before, they had
tied me to a tree, and left me to starve to death in the great forest
many miles away across the plain beyond Cahazaxa's Temple. And, as I
remembered this, it occurred to me that, even if they were to recognise
me, they might again believe me to be a ghost, since for so long they
had been certain I was dead.
These were my thoughts as I lay awake, too near the fire for comfort;
and as I was thinking, I observed a singular phenomenon, which at first
gave me cause for new alarm.
Amos, Forsyth, and Vasco were sound asleep, and Joshua Trust was on
watch, seated on the ground a little way from me. He was not
particularly alert. Indeed, he was occupied in the kind of pastime that
amused him. With a red-hot firebrand in his hand, he was killing, one
by one, the little insects that crawled upon the ground.
I looked past him into the thickets, and at once I could have sworn that
I observed a pair of eyes in which the firelight was reflected--eyes
that steadily regarded me. Now, I might have believed these eyes to be
those of a jaguar, were it not that they resembled the eyes of a man,
and I knew for a fact that John Bannister was on the trail.
I made neither sound nor movement, but at once set out upon this new
train of thought. Were a jaguar prowling around the camp, and I had
seen in his eyes the reflection of the firelight, it had been of a
certainty but a few inches from the ground; for I knew well the habits
and the nature of this most beautiful of beasts. But these eyes were
four feet at least above the ground, and, being too large for those of a
monkey, must belong to a human being--who could be none other than John
Bannister himself.
Sure of my facts, I was resolved to take no action, though my life
itself were in the greatest danger. I knew that I might safely leave
the matter in the hands of an older, wiser, and a stronger man than I.
I saw those eyes for no longer than a few seconds, and then they
disappeared. I heard no sound, not so much as the stirring of a leaf,
for the night was strangely still. There was not a breath of wind.
How can I describe the emotions that then swayed me! I knew that I must
possess my soul in patience, leaving what was best to do to Bannister
himself. And yet I longed with all my heart to grasp the hand of my
friend. I knew now, for certain, that he was near to me, watching over
me, ready to strike a strong blow in my defence when the opportunity
should offer. And for that reason--so great was my faith in him--I was
conscious of a sense of security that I had not known for months.
I remembered that I had not seen him since that day when I beheld him
running across the Sussex fields, with his brown paper parcel under his
arm, when Forsyth had struck me down with his whip and carried me away,
to begin my series of adventures. I remembered him, too, as I had seen
him, standing in the white road looking after us. And he was now quite
near to me, thousands of miles away from where I had caught my last
glimpse of him; for it is a long march, in very truth, from the South
Downs of England to the shadow of the Andes; and much lies between that
is strange and wonderful and savage--the great ocean, the mystery of
those broad and endless rivers, and the forest with its eternal twilight
and dark, silent places where death lies in wait. John Bannister had
gone forth to find me; and he had found me, at last, after all these
dreadful days.
How was it possible for me to sleep? I lay awake for hours with quickly
beating heart, and thought of all that had been and all that might be
yet to come. I saw Vasco take the watch from Trust, and then Mr.
Forsyth post himself as sentry towards the early hours of morning. And
when at length the daylight came, Forsyth looked at me and saw that I
was awake. We sat for a while, looking straight into one another's
eyes.
"Friend Hannibal," said he.
But I made no answer. At which he thought--for he was a strange man in
many ways--to test me with the classics.
"'_Tutum silentii praemium_,'" said he; "or, as we have it, 'Silence is
ever golden.' However, I believe that you could tell us much, were you
so disposed."
Still I never answered. He could think what he liked; I was determined
to hold my peace. For all that, I was considerably disconcerted; for he
continued to look at me for a long time in a very searching manner, the
while the daylight grew and the woods became flooded with that faint,
evanescent twilight that fades and seems to drift, even when the sun is
at its height.
At last he gave a start, and sat bolt upright, rubbing both his eyes.
"A strange thing!" said he, and continued to look at me, but this time
with a frown.
"A strange thing, indeed!" he repeated.
There was another pause, during which I had not the courage to look him
in the face. I had some presentiment of what was now to come; in spite
of which the suddenness with which he had made it manifest that my
secret was out, quite took away my breath.
"Allow me," said he, "to offer you my most hearty congratulations. We
have every reason to presume that Master Richard Treadgold is unloved by
the gods."
And at that, he held out a hand, and I was obliged to shake with him,
though I felt at once frightened and a fool.