A LIVING DEATH.
My determination was not taken before I was halfway down the passage. I
felt myself running like the wind through the tunnel, my hand scraping
the wall as I ran. I remember that it seemed to me possible that I could
get to the aid of the young lad in the dark and bring him to our
concealed retreat. I was bumping against the sides of the tunnel as
these thoughts went through my brain, and when I came plump against the
transverse wall of what I called the home passage I turned to the left,
and was soon in the open air. I heard the footsteps of my companions, I
was sure, but they did not follow me farther than the home tunnel. I
remember the delicious smell of the fresh night air that filled my
nostrils as I emerged from the cave.
It seemed light outside after the blackness of the passage. I tore up
the hill. I forgot my bare feet. I leaped, I ran as I never had done
before, and then I heard a rustling among the leaves. He had doubled
upon his pursuers.
"Here! here!" I shouted. "This way! this way!" I was now at the top of
the hill. Some one crashed through the underbrush.
"Where? Which way?" he panted. I held my hand out to him. He seized it
in his, for even in the darkness he knew me for a friend.
"This way," I whispered, "this way. I will save you, lad. Come! come!" I
clasped his fingers tightly and together we raced for life, but there
were the sounds of many feet in pursuit. I kept in mind always that,
whatever happened, the buccaneers must not know the secret of our side
of the cavern, and so I pulled him still up the hill and back into the
deeper forest. But the lad was weak and ill from long confinement on
ship-board, and my feet were bleeding and sore. We leaped with the
strength that despair lends to weary frames, but the energy of revenge
was upon our trail, and I felt the presence of my enemy behind me. I
heard his heavy step treading almost upon my heels. I tried to double by
bending low, but fate, the inexorable, was on the other side, and I
fell, dragging the lad down with me. A rough hand caught at my shoulder,
and then other hands were laid upon me, and I was held by those about me
as if in a vise. I struggled to draw my pistol, and managed to cock it
and lay my captor low, thank God! But, for one who had seized upon us,
there were six or eight to hold us fast. We were turned about and
marched back to the cavern.
"The Admiral will settle with you for that shot, my gentleman," said a
rough voice. "I envy you very little," growled he. "That was 'The
Rogue,' next to Mauresco, the Admiral's favourite among us all."
I had, indeed, got myself into a nice mess! All of my own deliberate
choosing, too! How could I have been such a fool! The young lad must die
doubtless, but why I should have elected to die with him I could not
just then determine. While some of the men remained to look after the
villain well named "The Rogue" others haled the lad and me to the door
which opened into the Admiral's compartment. Our captors pushed us into
an archway much like the one which led to our latticed retreat. We
passed along a short tunnel. The light from within became strong, and in
a moment we were thrust in amid the company. I had hoped never to make
their personal acquaintance, and I entered reluctantly. As we came in
among them, the Admiral and Captain Jonas gazed with delight at young
Trevelyan, and with more than amazement at me.
"Two!" shouted Captain Jonas, "when we expected but one. This is luck,
great luck! What snare did you lay for this popinjay?"
The name used by chance did not bring up to me the most pleasurable
feelings.
"Faith, and begorra, I think that he was layin' of a snare for us,
Captain," answered my captor, a middle-aged Irishman.
"Another!" The Admiral craned his short neck forward. "And where did you
come from, sir?"
"You must have seen my boat as you landed. It was on the beach a quarter
of a mile below the cove."
"How did you get here? Been paying a visit to Christophe, perhaps, or
have been trying to discover our----"
"I am a shipwrecked sailor, sir," I answered. "My companions
perished----"
"Ah! Was yours the ship we fired? By George! it was a jolly blow up,
though not as successful as I could wish." The Admiral chuckled and
shook with glee. "Of what nation are you?" said he, as he turned
suddenly on me.
"I am an American, Admiral," said I, not, I confess, without some slight
tremors.
He squeezed his eyes together and scrutinized me searchingly.
"And how, pray you, do you know my title so well?"
I pulled myself together.
"Have I not heard your men here addressing you, sir? Is your title a
secret?"
"Tut, tut, I am not accustomed to be answered back. An American, hey? So
you thought Englishmen and English manners not good enough for you
rebels over there; you thought----"
The blood flew to my face, and I blurted out hastily, regardless of my
own safety:
"Is it English manners to capture a young lad like this and----"
"Ho! ho! So you take it upon yourself to question me? Let me tell you
that for a wink of the eye many a man has met with a worse death than
shall be meted out to you, Mr.----"
"Jones--Hiram Jones, sir," said I, "at your service."
"None of your insolence, Mr. Hiram Jones! Perhaps we can show you that
Mr. Hiram Jones the American is not quite the great man that he thinks
himself."
I could not help wondering if the Bo's'n and that tiresome Minion were
looking down upon me and listening to these threats and insults. It
roiled my blood to imagine the Minion's grin and his delight in what
would seem to him nothing but a very pretty comedy. I glanced up toward
the direction of the stone balcony, and I saw with great relief of mind
that there was no sign of any opening at that spot near the roof, the
vines seeming to grow flatly against the cavern wall. It looked from
where I stood as if a flea could not have sheltered behind those masses
of green.
"There is no help for you there," grinned the Admiral. "There is no
opening from our audience chamber but the opening where you came in." I
withdrew my eyes at this positive statement. Thank God, they were
ignorant of the dual nature of the cave!
"And your party, where are they?"
I wondered myself. I hoped that Cynthia was sleeping quietly in her
secluded chamber, and that the others were keeping watch at the doorway
of the latticed room.
"They are all lost, sir."
"A rather lame statement. It was a lovely day when you came ashore."
"That is true," I answered, "but they foolishly started to walk to the
cape, and----"
"Enough! enough!" squeaked the Admiral, pulling out his watch. "We can
parley no longer."
Contrary to all that I had heard of pirates and their personal
belongings, this watch was not encrusted with jewels. It was a plain
silver watch, and undoubtedly had been chosen for its excellent
time-keeping qualities.
"It's growing very late; we must be off." He looked around the group.
"Stop drinking, some of you, and prepare the sepulchre!"
I glanced at the young Englishman. He was deathly pale, for he surmised
as well as myself that it was his sepulchre of which this gnomelike
brute spoke. Captain Jonas turned to a man standing near:
"You hear what the Admiral orders? Bring the blacksmith!"
"He is here, Captain; he came with the cage."
"The coffin, you mean!" roared the Captain, with an ugly laugh which
froze the blood in my veins. "The coffin! the sepulchre! the
sarcophagus! the catafalque! Where is the Smith?"
A stout, fair man stepped forward from the group. His face was gentle,
and his kind blue eye contradicted the suspicion that he gloried in his
ghastly profession. He gave a pitying glance at the lad--a friendly
glance, I thought--then walked round behind the table where the Admiral
sat, and raised on end the mass of steel which I had seen brought into
the cave when I was in the gallery. Ah me! How long ago that seemed to
me now! Then, nothing was further from my thoughts than that I should
ever become a nearer spectator of this fearful scene.
The Smith dragged the frame to the close proximity of one of the empty
niches and spread it upon the ground. He pulled and pushed and coaxed
the thing into shape until, as I looked, I saw that it assumed somewhat
the figure of a human being. There was the skeleton cage for the head,
the band for the throat, the rounding slope to encase the shoulders, the
form of the trunk, the arms, the legs and feet--all, all were comprised
in this instrument of confinement. I cast my eyes toward the skeletons
hanging in the other niches, and discovered on nearer view that they,
too, had each one his confining cage, and I knew now, for the first
time, why the figures remained upright in these places hollowed out for
them, and why they swayed with the gusts of fierce wind, never losing
their balance and never falling from their terrible upright positions.
There was a ring in the top of the mask, and to it was fastened a chain.
It seemed to be a strong chain. The cage which the blacksmith was
handling was almost bright in places, but those upon the figures in the
niches were rusted and dull, which told me why I had not understood how
these grim remains of men had remained for so long a time in their
original attitudes.
"Is that about the size of the Lord George Trevelyan?" squeaked the
Admiral of the Red. I looked at the lad. His eyes were glued with horror
to the dreadful machine. They seemed to grow large and dilate. His
eyelids opened and closed rapidly; he seemed on the verge of insanity.
"And what about the ransom, Lord George Trevelyan?" the brutal villain
added. "Will you ask it now?" But while I looked the lad sank down in a
heap upon the floor.
"No time to dilly-dally with dead lords. Shut him in! shut him in!"
shouted Captain Jonas.
I stood petrified with horror. I may truly say that all thought of self
had flown. To see this boy, little more than a child, inclosed in this
devilish contrivance, fastened there and left to die and rot piecemeal,
was more than I could bear. My tongue, which has got me into so much
trouble, as usual added to it in this instance.
"Admiral! Captain Jonas! you don't mean to leave that poor lad here to
die alone?"
The Smith, who was slowly fastening the clasps of the cage around the
unconscious form of the boy, looked up at me quickly with a warning
glance, and I saw that I might have better kept quiet; but impulse has
always been my bane.
"Oh, no! oh, no!" sneered the Admiral. "He will have company--perhaps
not the company that he has been accustomed to, but the company of--What
did you tell me was your rating aboard the----"
"Yankee Blade," said I haltingly. "I was the First Mate, sir. I have
friends at home and friends at Christophe's court." I did not stick at a
lie, since I had heard his tone. "They will----"
"Ah! will they? I fear not. Unworthy as your position is, Mr.--Mr.
Jones--ah, yes, Mr. Hiram Jones--you shall have the honour of bearing
the Lord George Trevelyan company. Thanks to me, Mr. Hiram Jones, you
will associate with a more exalted personage than it has yet been your
lot to meet. Another cage! another cage! Bring another cage!" called out
the Admiral in excited tones. "We will see whether Mr. Hiram Jones, late
First Mate of the Yankee ship----"
The Smith left the unconscious boy, whom he had fastened in his living
tomb, and approached the Admiral respectfully. He glanced at me, hardly
perceptibly.
"There is no other cage, Admiral. You ordered only one brought ashore."
"No other cage? No other cage? Hereafter, always bring two. One never
knows what may turn up, what spies may be about----"
I broke in.
"I am no spy, Admiral. I happened to be in your neighbourhood and met
the lad running, and I----"
"How about the death of The Rogue? Answer me that, Mr. Jones. You have
shed the blood of----"
I saw that my case was hopeless.
The Admiral could hardly wait now to give his orders. He interrupted
himself, he was in such haste.
"String him up! string him up! If you have no cage, put a rope round his
throat and leave him hanging. String him up! string him up!"
A wild shriek rang out through the lofty apartment. I knew the voice. It
was Cynthia's. Then all was still. In an instant fifty torches were
alight.
"Some one has discovered us!" cried the hoarse voice of Captain Jonas.
"Sarch the place! Sarch the place! A thousand louis for the man who
finds the spy!"
Ah! she would be found! She would be found! They would seize her and
carry her away with them on their floating hell!
"String him up! string him up!" shouted the Admiral, excitedly, pointing
fiercely at me.
I saw, as if in a dream, that they had lifted the lad from the ground
and had placed him in the niche, and that the blacksmith was engaged in
riveting the chain at the top of the headpiece to a ring bolt in the
roofing of the arch. Truly these devils took much pains to be revenged
upon their enemies, the world at large! I saw the Smith's lips move, as
if he were whispering something to the lad. His face had a pitiful
expression, as if he would fain tender some help; but young Trevelyan
himself hung like a dead weight, and seemed unconscious of what was
befalling him.
At the Admiral's order of "String him up!" one man had gone quickly for
a rope which had been unbound from a coffer, and a noose was made and
placed round my throat. The men ran, urging me along with them, looking
overhead, as if to find a place where they could fasten their diabolical
instrument of death.
Then the Smith spoke, leaving the lad where he had placed him. He came
forward, trying, it seemed to me, to appear as bloodthirsty as the rest.
"The Chief Justice has hung for a long time, Admiral," he said. "A
hanging is quickly over. The other is a pleasant reminder of one's
failings for some days to come. The agony of the Chief Justice has been
finished now for some time. What do you say to taking his cage for this
fellow who shoots our brave sailors as if they were dogs?"
"Well thought of! well thought of!" roared Captain Jonas, not waiting
for the Admiral to speak.
"Yes, it's well thought of!" chimed in the arbiter of my fate.
"It is a tremenjous compliment," rejoined Captain Jonas, "I can tell you
that, Mr. Hiram Jones. Any man can die by scragging. You can scrag
yourself. But to be placed in an elegant house, which no less a person
than a Chief Justice of England has occupied before you, to be in the
distinguished company of the Lord George Trevelyan----"
"Come! come! stop this nonsense!" snarled the Admiral. "Fasten the
fellow up, and let us be off! That Frenchman will be along some time
between this and dawn. Put him in! put him in! Where is Mauresco? How
long he lingers! He should be here to read the burial service. Where is
handsome Mauresco?"
"Where he will never need service more!" shouted I, but at a nudge from
the Smith I did not repeat my scarce heeded words. The Smith then laid
me down upon the ground, and two great hulking fellows stood over me
with pistols ready cocked. The Smith left my side, and I heard a
hammering and prying, and soon there was a fall and the rattle of
something which caused a shudder to creep through my frame.
I watched them, fascinated, as they unhooked the chain and removed the
bolts with which the Chief Justice was fastened to the top and sides of
his peculiar niche. I saw them open the rusty clasps and remove the
skull and musty remains from the house that was to be mine. I heard the
bones rattle, as if in protest, as the men threw the Chief Justice
carelessly into a corner. I saw them remove a few bits of cloth and
mould from the metal before they dragged the ghastly thing across the
floor to where I lay. I saw them lay the cage upon the ground and open
its clever mechanism, the trunk, the head, the legs, the arms, to make
room for my wretched trembling body. I turned sick and faint as the
wires which had pressed those mouldering bones were bound against my
face and head. I smelled the charnel house upon that rusted frame;
corruption was in the cage which inclosed me and in the air that I
breathed.
Little time had been occupied in dispossessing the Chief Justice of his
last home. I forgot myself long enough to turn my eyes upon the poor lad
to see how he bore his dread ordeal. But he still hung limp and
lifeless. Perhaps he would awake later to the full horror of his living
death. For me, I intended to retain my senses to the last. The Smith
knelt down beside me. He bent over my head, as if to arrange more
properly the cage in which they had now laid me.
"The ring at the top is weak," he whispered; and then, "Forgive me; it
is your life or mine."
"I forgive you," I said aloud.
The Admiral and Captain Jonas set up a hearty roar, in which the others
joined.
"He forgives the Smith," said Captain Jonas. "How very polite of Mr.
Jones! Of course, you feel better, Smith?"
"I want none of him or of his damned forgiveness!" said the Smith,
leaning again close to my ear. "The fastening is a little weak." Aloud,
"Where is that other pincers?"
There were shouts and a rush to find the pincers, during which he said
in a whisper, his lips scarce moving:
"A friend could release you. I will drop the tools." And then aloud:
"It is meat and drink to me to trice up a Yankee!"
And now, as I was raised to my feet--rather to a standing posture, for I
was so closely confined that I could move naught but my eyeballs--and as
I was being carried to the remaining niche, the villains began their
burial service.
"If we but had Mauresco here, our high priest Mauresco," said the
Admiral regretfully.
"I can say the service as well as Mauresco!" shouted Jonas with scorn.
"Give me half a chance." And then there was poured forth a stream of
blasphemy more awful than any to which I had ever listened. If I must
die, give me some tender and consoling thought to while away my hours
while death is approaching. But this! I will not sully my pages with the
vile words which fell from the lips of these godless men. It was a
travesty upon the beautiful service of the Church of England, and was so
ingenious in its obscenity that I would fain forget it. Thank God that I
have forgotten it in a measure, but I do remember that, as I was being
taken to that deadly niche in the wall, my whole soul revolted at what I
could not but hear.
"It is nothing, sir, when you get used to it," squeaked the Admiral of
the Red. "You've heard of skinning eels? Usage makes all the difference
in the world." And then the old villain laughed his fiend's cackle,
which set my teeth on edge.
I suppose that I was deathly pale.
"Courage, my man, courage!" squeaked my torturer. "There is no pain
about this last sweet suit of clothes. It fits as neatly as my
own.--Give him a jorum, Smith, to calm his troubled nerves."
Need I say that I accepted the offer, and drained the cup which the
Smith held to my lips? He took that opportunity to murmur in my ear:
"I may have a chance to get back. I will forget the tools, anyway."
The liquor affected me no more than so much water. How I wished that the
poor lad might also have swallowed some! However, perhaps it was better
as it was. He had forgotten his misery. I felt them carry me to the
niche and stand me there upon my feet; but this was mockery, as my toes
only reached the narrow flooring. As the Smith riveted the chain, he
whispered other consolatory sentences to me, such as, "I must make it
strong enough to hold you, otherwise you would fall on your face." And
then to the Admiral: "There, sir, how do you like Sir Popinjay now?
Isn't he a dainty sight?" To me, "If you have friends near, they must
hold you firmly as they draw out the bolts." To the Admiral, "He'll
never move, sir, till the Day of Judgment." I must say that I was rather
of his opinion. To me, "I'll let you down as low as I can." To the
Admiral, "A dead weight, sir, a very dead weight."
"Get a new joke, Blacksmith, a new joke. That is as old as this hell of
a cave itself."
Suddenly there was the sound of a gun. Then another. They came from the
direction of the sea.
"Come! come!" said the Admiral. "There's the signal. You are slow,
Pennock, slow, slow!"
"I must secure him well, sir."
"Perhaps they'll leave me behind," he whispered.
But though my heart rose with hope at the thought, such was not to be my
good luck.
"Come, Smith, come! You seem very loath to part with your prisoner."
The gun sounded again, then several in quick succession.
"Something beside a signal, sir," said the Smith. "It's a fight, a sea
fight."
"Take to your heels, all of you!" roared Captain Jonas. "They haven't
enough men on board to work ship."
"Take me up! take me up!" squeaked the Admiral. "All go ahead. I'll see
ye all out."
The Smith loitered, pretending to gather up the silver flagons and cups
that lay strewn about.
"No time for that, Pennock, no time for that! Will you go on?"
There was menace in the tone.
It seemed to me as if I could not lose this my only friend--a friend
made in the last ten minutes, it is true, but one who could save me when
there was no one else to aid. I looked up at him imploringly; he sighed
and gave me a glance which was at the same time encouraging and
hopeless, a paradox which I explained to myself amid the confusion of my
thoughts as if he said: "You see that I must go. But if I can, I will
return and save you."
"Pick me up! pick me up!" squeaked the Admiral of the Red.
The habit of obeying him was strong. He was seized and raised on the
shoulders of two of the strongest of the band.
A messenger burst into the hall. He was breathless.
"The ship is attacked!" he shouted. "We must run for it!"
Now all was confusion, all was excitement. It was the devil take the
hindmost. The pirates tumbled over each other in their haste to be gone.
I could not but think how anxious they were to save their own worthless
lives, while not giving a thought to our terrible fate. I heard constant
sounds of firing and the noisy shouts of the buccaneers as they trooped
out of the cavern and down the hill. The Admiral saw them all leave, and
was the last to go. As he reached the door, he turned and threw me some
words over his shoulder.
"Don't tell Christophe of us, dear Mr. Jones, and I shall ever be your
friend. Are we leaving you pretty comfortable? I am so glad. We'll take
you down when we return next year. Meanwhile, good night, and God bless
you!" The bearers vanished through the archway, and I was left alone
with those dread travesties on Nature, and a young lad who perhaps had
already joined the great majority. I cast a despairing glance at the
shaded gallery. I called, I screamed in my agony; but I might have saved
my strength, for the noise made by the pirates drowned my words. I
seemed to be slipping, slipping, away out of life. I suddenly lost all
hope. I began to fear a thousand things. I felt sure that the Bo's'n and
the Minion would never dream of my being left in the great hall. If I
were left behind, they would argue, why not come to them. They would see
and hear the embarkation of the pirates, and would imagine that I had
been taken with them or else killed and left on shore. The horror of
that awful cave would be too much for a man of the Bo's'n's nervous and
exalted temperament. As he had flown from the mysterious ring, so had he
also rushed from the cave. Perhaps he would never even come and search
for me. As to the Minion, no trust could be placed in him.
I wondered how long I could live, half standing, half hanging there. My
feet were not resting upon the ground. The ball of my foot touched the
stone beneath, and I found myself making constant and ineffectual
efforts to get my entire foot into a position of rest. My weight was
almost entirely on the cage. And now I felt that my throat was pressed
by the band about it, and I feared that unless I kept myself constantly
pushing upward with my toes that I was in danger of choking. I prayed
for death. I wished to die then and there, and not hang until I should
go stark mad from the horror of it all.
Suddenly I heard a slight movement, a rustling such as one might make in
turning a dried leaf with the foot in the forest. My eyes were drawn
slowly round to the place of sound. Good God! had my terrors only just
begun? Was there more in life to drive one mad? Upon the floor of the
cave, at about ten yards distant, I saw what turned me to stone, what
fascinated me, what held me to life, what made me pray God that if he
had any pity he would strike quickly. The terror of the Haitien woods,
the scourge of the Haitien caves, was upon me. Slowly and surely it was
making its way toward the place where I hung helpless. The great, black,
hairy, terrible thing was shaping its course as directly for me as if I
had it hooked to a string and was drawing it to my feet. I started, I
jumped so that my cage quivered in every joint, and the rusty clasps
squeaked and rattled. I shouted, but the words, a roar as they left my
throat, dropped from my lips in a whisper. "Help!" I cried, "help!" But
I was like one in a nightmare, my tongue clave to the roof of my mouth,
and there was no answering sound. Nothing but the slow, measured crawl
of the tarantula, as with calculating crablike motion it came slowly on
and on. The lamp was burning low, the cave was getting almost dark, a
fitting light for the ghastly and the terrible. It brought to my vision
another dread form. Beyond the black spider, from beneath the central
bowl issued, with many a hiss and undulating movement, a long green
serpent. I saw this only when the hairy beast turned as if to protest at
the interruption. The snake coiled itself and raised its head. Its
tongue played in rapid darts from open fangs. There was a moment of rest
for the tarantula, and then again it resumed its measured walk toward
me. I hoped that the serpent would give the creature battle, and thus
draw its attention from me; but as I gazed with eyes starting from their
sockets, I saw that it uncoiled and took up its line of march also
toward the wall of the dead, but parallel with the path of the
tarantula. I tried to reason with myself as to which attack would be the
least horrible to me. I found that my lips were moving, that I was
uttering incoherent sentences! I wondered what I could be saying. The
dread creatures were approaching nearer and nearer. I watched them while
I could. I tried to shout again, hoping that the sound might frighten
them if but for a moment, but my tongue refused to move. My mouth was
dry as a plaster wall, all the blood in my body seemed surging to my
head. They were coming, coming, slowly, slowly, but surely also, near
and nearer! Then I fell down, down, down into space, and, God be
thanked! was no more.