I MEET AN OLD FRIEND AND LOSE MY ALL.
I had been conscious even during the tense strain under which I laboured
that there was some stir in the hall. Messengers had come hurriedly in
and had approached the throne. The priest and priestess had seemed
disturbed, and as my speech ended they both arose hurriedly.
"Arm yourselves!" shouted the Papaloi; "the enemy is upon us!"
You may imagine what a welcome interruption this was to me. At once all
was confusion. The priestess disappeared into the red interior, I
thought that probably she had some place of retreat among the caves, but
the Papaloi bravely drew his long knife from its sheath and bade his
followers come to the rescue. The doors were opened, and the crowd
rushed forth to meet the enemy. The scouts and runners had come in and
had joined the throng, so that the numbers were well increased.
"Now's the time for us," said the guard to me. "We must appear to join
in with these wretches, but, whatever we do, we shall be badly off if we
stay with them, so I advise that we cut and run at the first
opportunity."
"Tell them that we are with them," said I to the guard.
The Papaloi had rushed quickly forward, but not without a hurried glance
at us. Truth to tell, I could not bear that even these savages should
discover me so soon in a lie, although it was a lie to save our lives.
Should we flee, that were proof positive that we had not taken that
interest in the secret sect which our protestations had claimed for us.
I caught up a machete and waved it over my head, and, though my words
were not understood, my actions were. The Skipper did not approve of
keeping up the farce any longer.
"It's all darn foolishness!" he said. "Look to your chance, and run."
"Let's keep together," said the interpreter.
"I want my pistols," said I. "Let us get them."
These words were spoken hurriedly between us as we dashed to the
banqueting hall and forced aside the red curtain. An ancient crone, who
looked more like a piece of parchment than anything that I had ever
seen, was sitting before the fire busily employed. I will not give
details, except to say that she was preparing for the feast. I heard a
loud hiss. I looked toward the back of the cavern. It was lighted up by
those fires of hell, and threw our forms upon the walls in a thousand
weird shapes. I saw some red lips, the green light of those snakelike
eyes, and the beckoning wave of a jewelled arm. I saw, too, that the
heavy folds of the serpent were still coiled about the supple waist. I
picked up my pistol, and that I did not turn it upon her was only
because she bore the semblance of a woman. I turned hurriedly. I feared
her almost as I would a sorceress, and together we three fled from that
awful place of death.
We followed the crowd as they rushed forward to meet the enemy's army. I
learned from the guard that such fights were not infrequent; that the
different communities were constantly warring against each other. These
newcomers, we learned from the talk about us, were coming from the
direction of the East, thank God! I saw the people with whom we were,
boldly rushing on to meet them. Whatever one might say about the
sectaries of the vaudoux, one could not with truth call them cowards.
"Watch your chance," said our guard, "and when the opportunity offers
make directly down the bank to the shore of the sea. If you are cut off
there, let us meet in the cave."
"What cave?" asked I.
"The pirates' cave," said the guard.
"The pirates' cave is closed," said I, wondering, I remember now, how
this man knew of its existence. "Closed by the hand of God!"
At his look of astonishment, I added, "The earthquake."
"Is your side closed, too?"
Our side? Then he knew of the cave. How strange!
We said these words as we ran, shouting some unmeaning sentences. I saw
that the Papaloi turned his head once or twice to see if we were
following him, and, as he found no change in our demeanour, he again
rushed onward, and we followed.
And now we heard the clash of arms in front and sharp battle cries. The
invaders, I found from our guard, were the followers of an indignant
father whose child was missing. Some traitor had deserted to him, and
had informed upon the Papaloi. And though, probably, he would not have
minded making his supper off the child of the Papaloi, he preferred that
his own offspring should not go to make a feast for him or those of his
sect. I heard the howls of wild men in battle. I saw the Papaloi set
upon by two great warriors, who, I hope, tortured him a while before
they put an end to him. It was every man for himself now, and I struck
down the hillside. I was pursued a short distance, but under cover of
night I got away, and was soon crunching the gravel of the seashore
under foot. I ran right into the foaming breakers. I threw off my
garments and flung them on the beach. I plunged into the delicious
water. I swam out to sea. I dipped, I dove, I disported myself, I made a
thousand brilliant drops leap high and shine with their glittering
phosphorescence. I rolled, I wallowed, and drew the water, salt though
it was, into my mouth and spat it out again, as if I would wash my
interior, my mind as well as my body, from the foul stains with which I
felt bedaubed and bedrabbled. As I thus refreshed myself, I heard a
whistle. It came, of course, from the beach.
"I wouldn't go out too far. You know there are sharks hereabouts,"
called a voice that I knew. I did not wait for the end of the sentence,
but struck out hastily for shore, for I had just escaped from the jaws
of one death, and had no wish to fall into the more literal ones of
another.
"Where is the Captain?" I asked.
"I do not know," answered the guard. "I thought he was with you. But I
am here, and I think I will get some of this stuff off me."
He squatted down close to the water's edge and began to bathe and rub
his face, nearly tearing the flesh at times.
Finally, he said with a tone of relief:
"There!"
I looked up at him. There was something familiar about the man, and I
asked, wondering, "Where have I seen you before?"
"Don't you know me?" he said. He struck a light and held it close to his
face. It flickered and went out, but it had remained long enough to
disclose his personality. It revealed to me the features of the Smith.
"You!" said I. "Where is young Trevelyan?"
"On his way to England, thank God!" said the Smith.
"And how did that happen?"
"Well, it's a long story," said the Smith, "and probably, as every one's
else stories are very tiresome, this one is, too."
"I should like much to hear----" I began.
"I won't bother you with much," said the Smith. "You know I took your
boat. I suppose that young beggar who threw stones at me told you. But
it was a fair prize--she was floating out at sea."
"Yes, we dragged it out of him somehow. He said you were going to join a
British vessel somewhere down the----"
"Yes, that's true, too. Didn't you find the note in the cork of the
bottle?"
"Yes, we found that," said I.
"I thought you would, from the Captain's nose."
"That's only sunburn," said I. "He's a very----"
"Excuse me, but we had better start. I can tell you as we walk along."
"Shan't we wait for the Captain?" said I.
"There's no chance of his finding us. See there!" He pointed to the
great ball of red just showing its upper limb over the gray streak at
the edge of the world.
"We had better get away," said I. "Come along," and we began to run
toward the West. As we ran, the Smith told me that he had come up with
the ship of whose whereabouts he had heard the pirates speak, and put
young Trevelyan on board. That the next day he had been sent ashore for
sand. That the day being fine, he had left the sailors in the boat and
had started to walk to a tree, of which he knew, where the mamey apples
were particularly fine; that while he was gone he heard firing; that he
ran down hurriedly to the shore, and, to his dismay, discovered that the
long boat was just nearing the ship. The boat's "recall" was fluttering
at the masthead. Two vessels outside seemed to be engaged in a fight.
That so soon as the small boat reached the vessel the captain wore ship
and stood down the coast, as if to avoid the sea fight, and the Lord
knew where she was heading for. They will care for young Trevelyan and
take him when they go home, if they ever do go, but the Lord alone knows
when that will be.
"And you," said I, "how did you get in with these fiends?"
"I have not much breath to tell you," said the Smith. "You walk so fast,
and it makes little difference. I knew that I should come across some
such wretches sooner or later, and so I set about staining my face at
once. I have been in the island before, nearer to l'Arcahaye, a place on
the other side of the island. There I learned the language, if you can
call it so. I also learned to dance the _chica_ and the _calenda_. It
was just for deviltry that I learned. To think that it should come to
such good use! Dear me! dear me!"
I then recited to the Smith our painful story, all the time hastening
on, for I was anxious as to what might have happened at our new home. I
asked how it was possible that the pirate Mauresco had been a Papaloi.
He told me all about Mauresco, or as much as he knew. He said that
Mauresco was a wild dare-devil, fond of adventure and hairbreadth
escapes. That he had somehow been thrown among these people, coming to
them accredited by the then Gran' Papaloi. That the Mamanloi had become
infatuated with his beauty. "And he _was_ a handsome devil!" said the
Smith. That the then Gran' Papaloi had died, and that Mauresco, through
his influence with the Pythoness, had been made the Grand Papaloi; that
he had ruled the sect as with a rod of iron, but that probably he had
become sick of his bargain.
"We picked him up off this very shore," said the Smith. "I mean the
Admiral of the Red did so, about five months ago. I remember to have
heard him speak of a wonderful ring that he had possessed and had lost.
He happened to tell me this, because he asked if I could not manage to
make him another. He said he knew where there were precious stones in
plenty. I recall his saying that he never could hope to find such jewels
as made the eyes of the magic symbol, but that I could take my choice.
The Admiral of the Red had stored many hundred pounds of coin and
precious stones in the cavern; at least, he had given them to Mauresco
to hide away. He only knew the secret. It is my belief that he meant to
slip away from those buccaneers some day, and come back and take the
jewels for himself."
"He will never do it now," said I, "for two reasons: In the first place,
he is buried as deep as hell, and, in the second place, so are they."
I then told the Smith of our killing the three knaves. He drew a long
breath over each period of my recital, and jerked out the words:
"That's a good one!"
As I spoke, I gazed out over the water, where our treasure was buried.
The morning sun had flooded the ocean now, and everything was swept with
its golden glow. And then, as I raised my eyes, I found that we were
approaching the vicinity of the cave.
"There," said I, "is the grave of your pretty friend Mauresco."
"You should thank him at least for dropping the ring," said the Smith in
answer. "I can understand why the Papaloi did not want him back again.
He, in that case, would have no more claim on the Pythoness."
And now we started to rise the hill. We had come quickly, walking on the
wet sand just where it was hard set, and so escaping the brambles and
rough gravel of the nearer shore.
As we struggled up the steep ascent, my heart began to glow in my bosom
at the thought of meeting Cynthia. How would she meet me? Would she
notice me at all? She would have the little boy whom Zalee had rescued.
That would be a new interest for her. Well, God bless her, poor soul!
Let her have any interest now and ever that would make her one tithe the
happier. We were halfway up the slope. I stopped and turned to the
Smith.
"There is something further that I must tell you," I said, "to prevent
misunderstandings. The lady whom you will see here is my wedded wife.
We were married by the Captain of the Yankee Blade, by virtue of his
position as Captain, and on the deck of his ship on the high seas. For
the present we are agreed not to consider ourselves as man and wife,
except in name. But I want you to know this, and to know that whosoever
harms or injures my wife in any way must reckon with me."
"Bless your soul!" said the Smith, "I have a good wife of my own in
Cornwall. She is the keeper of the house of the Lady Trevelyan. I can
not say that I have never looked at other women, or that other women
have not looked at me. But I have never wronged my good wife in deed,
thank God! I could not hope in any case, were it ever so, that a lady of
the standing of your wife would do more than look at one in my station."
"Stop there!" said I. "I did not dream of such a thing, but I want it
understood that this lady must be treated with all respect, the more
because of her unfortunate condition, and that no word shall be spoken
which shall offend her dignity."
"She will get no such word from me," replied the Smith. "Thank the Lord,
I know a lady when I see one."
The Smith's Cornish dialect was, I suppose, excellent. As I am an
American, thank God! I can not pretend to say as to that. I can not
speak the brogue, nor can I write it down, so that the Smith's speech
must go for as good as mine. There were many words that I did not know.
I have heard that the English say of us that we in America speak the
language of Shakespeare and the Bible. I know little of the former,
which, God forgive me, I placed before the Holy Book, but if we do speak
the language of that book, what better can they ask of us? I have
sometimes wondered if any one has ever considered what an excellent
thing it has been for our country that our Pilgrim Fathers did not hail
from Yorkshire, or from any counties but those where the purest English
was spoken. Imagine all America speaking like my friend the Smith!
Thankful also should we be that these forefathers of ours had not
remained so long in Holland as to obliterate their good old English
tongue. And let me say just here, Adoniah, that no matter what
misunderstandings we have had with the mother country in the days just
passed, and no matter how misunderstood we are of them at the day in
which I write, I see a coming time when all differences will be
forgotten and when English-speaking people shall rule the globe. I have
a way of digressing, son Adoniah. You must pardon it.
I asked the Smith as we came along why we had seen no natives if there
were so many in the neighbourhood.
He said that these natives had all come from the eastward. That we
ourselves had walked toward the eastward when we started out. That the
temple was west of all the native homes on that part of the shore. That
the vaudoux worshippers had come down from the back-lying districts, and
from the southeast. That there had been an uprising against Christophe,
and, from what he could learn, that the people from the east, who were
on Christophe's side, had been told that the vaudoux sect who had
captured us were inimical to Christophe, and, without asking any
questions, they had attacked them, their whereabouts and their
collecting together having been discovered and told by one of their
native spies. I never tried to understand why the people of the island
rose against each other. They had been rising from time immemorial, and
one tribe or hamlet had as good reason as another. Sometimes it was
because they did not like the French, who had ruled the island for a
long time, and were part and parcel of it until Toussaint's massacre.
Now they had returned to conquer it again. Sometimes it was a fight by
the blacks against the mulattoes, sometimes the griffe against the
white, sometimes the quarteron against any one of the three. They had
been subjected to French rule, and Toussaint's rule, and Dessaline's,
and Regaud's, and Petion's, and Christophe's, and fifty others, and I
learned from the Smith that there was no settled conviction about
anything. And as to one's duties toward his neighbour, it was summed up
in one word, NONE! The Smith told me that we had seen nothing as yet of
the island, as we would discover later. I told him that my discoveries
had been extended enough to suit me, and that my one hope was that we
should find a ship standing off and on one fair morning ready to take us
home. But the Smith did not encourage me in this. He said that the cave
was commonly supposed to be haunted, and that was why no one ever came
near it but the pirates. Even if they had heard the stories, they would
not be afraid. If the ghosts of the people whom they had killed did not
rise to haunt them, they need not fear the spirits of the island.
As we talked we walked onward. Now, as we rose the hill, we came to the
place where the great rock had slid downward and closed the cavern door.
"So that devil's hole is shut to the world," said the Smith, "but there
is another entrance."
I said nothing. I was willing to let him believe that the gallery of
which he knew nothing did not exist.
We struck into the path at the top of the hill which led to the new
house. I can not forget, even though I must recall it across the vast
chasm of years, the feelings with which I approached the place where my
dear girl was waiting for me. No, not waiting for me, that I knew; but
she was there, and all that I asked was that she should be there alive
and well. It seemed to me as if I had been away a year. So many events
and happenings had been crowded into the night between the hour when we
set out to snare the cooing doves and the present moment, that I could
not believe that it was at the most, eight or nine hours since I had
seen Cynthia retire to her room with her constant and devoted companion
Lacelle.
"See!" said I to the Smith, as we walked along, "there is where we cut
the palms for the laying of our floor. This is where we got the thatch."
A little farther on: "That is where we cut the uprights, and it was of
those straight young trees that we made our walls. Up that slight ascent
we go; 'tis but a few steps more, and then we are on the crown of the
hill. There we may stand and look directly down upon our house."
The poor Smith was breathless, for my thoughts and desires sent my legs
spinning ahead of him, and he could hardly keep up with me. Yes, there
was the old palm. Now we had passed the ironwood. Here, at last, was the
mahogany which crowned the slope.
"We shall have some breakfast, at all events," ejaculated the Smith,
"for I see even now the smoke of their fire."
"Down this way," said I; but even as I spoke I knew my disaster. We ran
down the slope toward the open space that we had cleared with our eager
hands, but a hotter, swifter hand had come to undo our work. I stood
riveted to the spot.
"Is that your house?" asked the Smith, with pity in his voice.
"It was," said I. I fell back against a near tree, sick at heart and
soul. The home which we had toiled so hard to make was gone. Our house
was in ashes. The place was desolate.