JEAN PETIT PAYS A VISIT.
The eyes of Jean Petit, like those of a glittering tiger cat, peered
intently through a crack in the slabs of Holterman’s wine-room.
The escapee saw in the twilight a stout figure mounted upon an empty
soap-box.
This figure held in one hand a jug. As the hand moved in response to the
man’s words, a dark liquid, looking like blood, splashed from the jug. It
was the blood of Holterman’s vines.
Holterman was holding forth to an imaginary audience on the corrupt state
of the Government.
The speech was given in English and German. A marvellous speech, full of
strange thoughts, but lost for lack of an audience.
Excepting an opossum, which came down the chimney, and sat gravely on the
kitchen mantlepiece, opposite the wine-room door each evening, Hans the
orator was usually without listeners.
While he babbled, Jean Petit—eye and ear alternately to the crack in the
slabs—listened attentively. It was weeks since he had heard the speech of
man, and the sounds seemed to throw him into a grim reverie.
The speech within the hut was strangely like the last talk of the men who
had been with him in the boat.
Petit, wise in experience, smiled fiendishly as he realised how matters
stood with the man inside. The lower stars began to appear like live
diamonds set in the dark leaves of the gums. The skeletons of ring-barked
trees stood up in spectral silence against a background of darkened sky.
Hans talked on and on. Much of his madness was about his treasure, the
money he had hidden in the tea tin in the kitchen chimney.
At last Petit drew his knife from its sheath, and looked at the edge
in the starlight. Then he slipped off his shoes and began to creep
stealthily round to the kitchen door. When the man in the wine-room
stopped to take breath or to refresh himself, Petit would stop also, his
eye to a crack in the wall. His breath came and went noiselessly like
an animal of the bush. He created no more disturbance than a panther
creeping through the forest on the trail of a prey.
The door creaked a little, but Holterman took no notice. A dark figure
skulked across the doorway, and, hidden in the cover of the wall, moved
towards the open fireplace. But Holterman observed it not.
The shadow of the escapee drifted darkly across the uneven floor. Once,
through an opening in the slabs, the light of a star flashed brightly for
a second upon a naked blade, as if a fire-fly had gone by.
The hand of the prowler went up, and began to feel upon the adzed-slab
which formed the chimney shelf.
It crept along inch by inch until suddenly it encountered fur and claws.
The ’possum jumped frantically from the shelf. Jean Petit, taken
by surprise, swore aloud as the tea tin fell upon the floor with a
clattering noise, and the German leaped from the soap-box into the middle
of the kitchen floor.
Hans was a powerful man, and the madness which worked in him with the
wine gave him additional strength. He clutched the invader by the throat
with both hands. Petit was thrown backwards upon the floor, partially
stunned. But the next moment, feeling the tightening grip of strong
hands on his neck, his strength and savagery came back to him in a wild,
combative rush. The knife had fallen from his grasp. He put out his hands
instinctively, and grasped his opponent also by the throat.
He stuck his knees into the German’s ribs and squeezed with all the
strength of his lower limbs, at the same time using the power of his
backbone and thighs in an endeavour to turn over upon his adversary.
They writhed and struggled like pythons close-locked in a combat to the
death.
It was a question merely of time and endurance—one maniac against
another; fighting to kill in silence—a duel with the hands.
Which would be choked first?
Jean Petit’s fingers were embedded in the German’s neck like talons.
[Illustration: The Death of the German.
_Tom Pagdin, Pirate._
_Page 124._]
Holterman’s hands clasped Petit’s throat like a compressing band of steel.
The Frenchman gasped. He had not the staying powers of the Teuton. In a
few seconds more he would be overcome. They had overturned a stool in the
struggle. The legs were broken out, and rolled under Holterman’s elbow as
they fought. Holterman, feeling the resistance of his foe lessening, and
being not too clear of thought, released his hold and picked up one of
these to beat out the other’s brains.
But before he could deal the blow, Petit was on his feet again, knife in
hand.
As the German lifted his arm to strike, the blade went home to the hilt
in his neck.
He fell like a beast at the stroke of an axe, and with a horrid growl of
satisfaction Petit finished the business by cutting his victim’s throat.
There was silence.… Presently the murderer crept to the door and looked
out cautiously.
He heard no sound except the night noises of the bush, and already the
escapee was familiar with many of these.
He found water for his hands—and the knife. Upon the latter he bestowed
great attention. Before replacing it in its sheath he lifted it to his
lips and reverently kissed the blade! The soul of Jean Petit was not
absolutely without gratitude.
Petit moved quickly, silently back to the hut. The figure, lying face
down upon the floor, had not stirred in the least.
A pool, which would in daylight have glowed angrily red, was slowly
spreading around it, darkening the slabs of the floor as if someone had
overturned a bottle of ink.
Jean Petit studied the position narrowly. He first of all picked up the
tin and removed the lid.
There was certainly some money inside rolled up in a rag. Petit undid the
rag, using his teeth to loosen the knots, and turned out a handful of
pence. Again a curse of disappointment escaped him.
He glared angrily at the figure on the floor.
Hans Holterman had deceived him!
He had gone to the trouble of killing a man for less than three shillings
in coppers!
For this he had nearly lost his own life. From which it may be seen that
it is unwise to place credence in words of those who have dwelt too long
in the bush—alone.
The convict moved about the house searching and thinking as he went.
Near the dead man’s bunk, on the packing case which had served him as a
dressing-table, lay a razor. Petit put this in his pocket; but a second
later an idea came to him, and, going out, he stooped down by the body,
with the razor open in his hand, dabbling the blade.
The reason of this was not made apparent until may days later, when the
body of Hans Holterman was found with a blood stained razor in its hand,
and the coronial inquiry resulted in a verdict of suicide whilst of
unsound mind.
Petit cold-bloodedly lit a match and found a candle-end, and surveyed the
scene without a shudder.
The light danced up and down the walls, throwing fantastic shadows as the
murderer set to work.
Having emptied the pence into his pocket, he replaced the tea-tin on
the mantel-shelf, mended the broken stool, and removed all trace of the
struggle.
He neglected no detail, even to sweeping of the floor, lest any evidence
of trampling feet should remain in the dust.
It was nearly midnight before Petit loped off into the bush with a bundle
over his shoulder.
He strode forward without once looking back. As he turned northward,
heavy drops of rain began to pelter down from a passing thundercloud,
which had suddenly obscured the stars, and a ghastly grin of appreciation
crossed his face when a livid flash of lightning reddened his path.
The elements were with him.
Before an hour a violent rainstorm had washed out all tracks, and the
Tiger of Paris curled up in the shelter of an overhanging rock, slept as
calmly untroubled by remorse as any other beast of prey.