THE MYSTERY SOLVED.
All day the air had been unusually sultry and breathlessly hot, even
for the tropics at that season; but when the sun sank westward, when
the air became cooler, and the shadows of the island, with its wooded
bluff and towering blue mountain, across the slope of which the light
gossamer clouds lay floating half-way up, were thrown far eastward
over that lonely sea which no keel seemed ever to furrow, we prepared
for a further exploration, or as Hugh Chute said, "to overhaul that
ere cliff from truck to keelson."
Chute and Carlton were despatched to its base, by the way of the
river bank, and to where the cascade poured over the rocks, waking
the solemn echoes of the otherwise silent ravine.
Their instructions were, to station themselves near the rock which
bore the Spanish legend--to keep a sharp look-out on the face of the
cliff and all the way up to the grove of banana trees that grew on
its summit.
Billy the cabin boy was left in charge of the hut and boat, while
Hislop, with the rest of us advanced toward the cliff, up the sloping
bank of which--its only accessible point--we proceeded to climb.
It was, or is (twelve months can make no change) a hundred and fifty
feet in height, as I have stated, rising sharply up from the side of
the great mountain, and is covered by a jungle of wild shrubs that
must have been growing there since the days of the deluge.
The creepers with gummy branches, the sharp serrated grass, the
yellow gourd vines, the wild tendrils and plants of which we knew
neither the names nor the nature, were there interwoven as closely as
a herring net, to the depth of seven or eight feet from their roots.
Amid this jungle the hum of the myriads of great insects which we
roused and dislodged was deafening; while the black clouds of
gadflies and cockroaches were very bewildering, and, to say the
least, annoying.
We floundered and fell as we waded through this sea of leaves and
verdure, but rose and scrambled on again, pausing ever and anon,
breathless and exhausted, to sit and fan ourselves, or to aid in
pulling each other out of this jungly network, for it resembled that
which sprang by magic spell around the palace of the sleeping beauty
in the old fairy tale, to baffle all intruders for a hundred years.
Hislop, who had not yet recovered his strength, was among the first
to give in, and declare, when half way up, that "he could climb no
further!"
Two or three took advantage of this admission to remain with him for
a time; but I, refreshed by a ripe banana which had fallen from the
trees at the top, and which I found just at hand, pushed on, and
being lighter than any of my companions, got ahead of them all.
After half an hour's severe toil, during which my hands and knees
were lacerated and torn by sharp blades of gigantic grass, and by the
gummy creepers to which one's very flesh adhered at times, I reached
at last the banana trees, the foliage of which waved like a gigantic
plume on the summit of this isolated rock.
The banana rises with a stem which is about six or seven inches in
diameter at the root, and from thence tapers upward to the height of
eighteen or twenty feet, to where the leaves spring like a bright
green tuft, broad, wavy, feathery, and drooping, as those of the palm
do.
I uttered a shout--an "_Io pœan!_"--to my companions, announcing
that I had gained the summit before them, and armed with my only
weapon, the teak-wood spear, pushed my way forward between the smooth
stems of the bananas, till I reached the abrupt brow of the cliff,
from the verge of which I saw, far down below, the bright blue stream
that rose on the slopes of the great mountain, running through the
heart of the isle and glittering in the setting sun among groves and
ravines, to where it poured in foam upon the white sandy beach, and
mingled with the mighty Southern Sea.
I saw also the figures of Chute and Carlton, as they stood near the
rock which bore the inscription, but they could neither distinguish
me nor hear my shout, which gave fresh ardor to those whom I had left
half-way down, and who now resumed their ascent.
I looked keenly and cautiously about me on every side, but saw only
the slender and countless stems of the tall bananas, whose broad
leaves, as they spread under or over each other, interrupted the rays
of the sun, and formed a shade that was pleasing and gloomy.
Now, when about to cross what seemed a hole or hollow in the jungle,
by stepping from the strong tendril of one creeper to another, a
naked arm and great human hand came up from amid the mass of leaves!
I was seized by the right foot, and in an instant found myself
dragged down through foliage and intertwisted plants--down--down--I
knew not where; and before I had time or breath to cry or resist, I
lay prostrate on my back in a hole--a lair _under_ the matted
jungle--with a man above me, his knees planted on my breast, his
strong hands upon my bare throat, and his fierce wild eyes glaring
like those of a hyæna into mine.
Then, how terrible were my emotions on recognizing in the light that
fell through the mass of foliage above, as through a vine-covered
trellis--now overspread with hair, as beard and whiskers all were
matted into a mass--the dark and ferocious face of Antonio, whom I
believed to be drowned and lying at the bottom of the sea--Antonio el
Cubano!
"Silenzio!" said he, in a low voice, like the hiss of a serpent in my
ear; but the injunction was unnecessary, for so completely was I
taken by surprise--so utterly at his mercy, and so destitute alike of
breath or weapon--that resistance was impossible.
Perceiving that I was almost strangled he relaxed his fierce grasp a
little, but still kept the sharply pricking point of his knife at my
throat, as a hint to remain quiet.
It would be impossible for me to describe the emotions of my soul
during this time, which seemed an eternity to me! Utter fear was
one, for I thought the fellow had something supernatural--something
truly of the _demon_--about him; that he could neither be drowned nor
destroyed; and I lay still in that dark hollow, panting in his fierce
clutch without a thought of resistance.
Now I heard my name shouted repeatedly.
"Rodney--Mr. Rodney--Dick Rodney--where are you?"
It was Tom Lambourne and others, my companions, who had now attained
the summit of the rock, and were scrambling over the jungle, and
pushing between the stems of the bananas, searching for me, rather
than for the first object of such mystery.
My disappearance alarmed them.
"Can he have gone adrift over the bluff," I heard Tom Lambourne say,
"or is he only having a game with us by hiding himself?'
"Oh yes!--that is it," replied Probart, the carpenter; "he can't have
gone aloft into one of these bananas, for they are as clear of
branches as a spare topmast; so let us sheer off to the mate, and Mr.
Rodney will soon come down after us."
"Well, my lads, there are neither wild men nor wild beasts here,"
said Lambourne; "so we shall return back to Master Hislop, who is
hanging in the wind halfway down, and then be off to the hut. We've
earned a stiff glass of grog by this bout, anyhow."
My emotions became almost suffocating, when I heard them turn away to
descend and rejoin Hislop without me.
I saw and heard them pass and repass over us, the creepers of the
jungle yielding with their weight.
The leg and foot of one, named Henry Warren, came down through the
green network of leaves, and actually touched me.
I drew a long gasping breath, and the atrocious Cubano, believing I
was about to cry aloud, compressed my throat so tightly with his
muscular hands, that a thousand lights seemed to flash before my
eyes, and I must have become senseless for some minutes, as the next
incident that dwells in my memory, is seeing him sitting in a
crouching attitude, with his elbows on his knees; his black-bearded
chin resting in the hollow of his right hand, and with his knife--his
murderous Albacete _cuchillo_--clenched in his white teeth, while he
surveyed me with a strange and sardonic smile in his deeply-set black
eyes, which glittered like those of a snake in the rays of sunlight
that struggled through the woven roof of leaves above us.
I heard no more the voices of my shipmates. They were gone, and I
was left alone and unarmed with this man or devil,--as yet I knew not
which he was; but I knew that if he had the will, he had assuredly
the power, to kill and leave me in his lair, or to cast me, a mangled
heap, to the bottom of the cliff whereon he lurked.