Томас Майн Рид - Лучшие романы Томаса Майна Рида / The Best of Thomas Mayne Reid

Whether or not she would have finished the speech is uncertain. She was not permitted to proceed. The angry father interrupted her: —

“I won’t argue with you now, Shoodith. Go to your bed, girl! go to shleep! Thish I promish you – and, s’help me, I keepsh my promish! – if thish pauper ish to be a pauper, he never marries you with my conshent; and without my conshent he never touches a shilling of my monish. You understand that, Shoodith?”

And without waiting to hear the reply – which was quite as defiant as his own declaration – the Jew hurried out of his daughter’s chamber, and shuffled off along the verandah.

The Maroon, after mounting to the summit of the cliff, paused for some moments to reflect upon a course of action.

In his bosom were many new emotions, springing from the strange revelations to which he had just listened. His mind was in such a state of chaotic confusion, that it required some time to determine what he ought to do next, or whither he should go.

The thought that thrilled him most, was that which related to the discovery of his maternal relationship to Miss Vaughan. But this matter, however strange it was, required no immediate action to be taken on his part; and though the semi-fraternal affection, now felt for the first time, strengthened the romantic friendship which he had conceived for the young lady – whom he had now seen several times – still, from what he had overheard of the scheme of the conspirators, his new-discovered sister did not appear to be in any danger. At least, not just then: though some horrid hints darkly thrown out by Chakra pointed to a probable peril at some future time.

That her father was in danger, Cubina could not doubt. Some demoniac plot had been prepared for the Custos, which was to deprive him even of life; and from what the Maroon could make out of the half-heard conversation of the conspirators, action was to be taken upon it, so early as the following morning.

Mr Vaughan intended a journey. Yola had herself told him so; and the confabulation between Jessuron and Chakra confirmed it. Cynthia had been their informant; and it was evident that upon that very night she had brought the news from Mount Welcome. Evident, also, that the piece of intelligence thus conveyed had taken both the conspirators by surprise – causing them to hasten the dénouement [557]of some devilish plan that before that night had not been quite ripe for execution.

All this was clear enough to the mind of the Maroon.

Equally clear was it, that the plan was no other than an atrocious plot to murder the proprietor of Mount Welcome; and that poison was the safe, silent weapon to be used – for Cubina was not unacquainted with the signification of the death-spell of Obeah . Before that night he had reason to believe that his own father had fallen by that secret shaft, and reasons to suspect that Chakra had shot it. What he had just heard confirmed his belief; and but that he saw the necessity of hastening to the rescue of the threatened Custos – and knew, moreover, that he could now find Chakra at any time – he would, in all probability, have avenged his father’s death before leaving the Duppy’s Hole.

The young Maroon, however, was a man of mild character – combining prudence with an extreme sang froid – that hindered him from bringing any event to a hasty or ambiguous ending. Though leaving Chakra for the time, he had determined soon to return to him.

The resurrection of the myal-man, though it at first very naturally astonished him, had soon ceased to be a mystery to the mind of the Maroon. In fact, the presence of the Jew had at once explained the whole thing. Cubina conjectured, and correctly, that Jessuron had released the condemned criminal from his chains, and substituted the body of some dead negro – afterwards to become the representative of Chakra’s skeleton.

For this the Jew, well-known for wickedness, might have many motives.

The Maroon did not stay to speculate upon them. His thoughts were directed to the present and future rather than the past – to the rescue of the Custos, over whom a fearful fate seemed to impend.

It need not be denied that Cubina felt a certain friendship for the planter of Mount Welcome. Heretofore it had not been of a very ardent character; but the relations lately established between him and the Custos – in prospect of the process to be taken against their common enemy, the penn-keeper – had, of course, occasioned a fellow-feeling between them. The revelations of that night had strengthened the interest which the Maroon had begun to feel for Mr Vaughan; and it is not to be wondered at that he now felt an honest desire to save the father of her, whom he was henceforth to regard as his own sister. To this end, then, were his thoughts directed.

He stayed not long to speculate upon the motives either of Chakra or Jessuron. Those of the myal-man he could guess to a certainty. Revenge for the sentence that exposed him to that fearful fate on the Jumbé Rock.

The motives of the Jew were less transparent. His deepest did not appear in the confabulation Cubina had overheard. Even Chakra did not know it. It might be fear of the approaching trial: which by some means the Jew had become apprised of.

But no. On reflection, Cubina saw it could not be that: for the conversation of the conspirators betrayed that their plot had been anterior to any information which the Jew could have had of the design of the Custos. It could not be that.

No matter what. Mr Vaughan, the father of the generous young lady – she who had promised to make him a present of his beloved bride, and who now proved to be his own stepsister – her father was in danger!

Not a moment was to be lost. Without regard to motives, measures must be taken to avert that danger, and punish the miscreants who designed it.

For some minutes Cubina remained on the spot, reflecting upon what step should be first taken.

Should he go direct to Mount Welcome and warn the Custos, by reporting to him what he had heard?

That was the first idea that presented itself to his mind; but at that hour Mr Vaughan would be abed, and he – a Maroon – might not be admitted, unless, indeed, he could show, by pleading the urgency of his errand, good cause for arousing the Custos from his slumber.

This, undoubtedly, would he have done, had he known that the scheme of the conspirators had been definitely arranged. But, as already stated, he had not heard Chakra’s concluding speech – referring to Cynthia and the bottle of strong medicine; and all the rest only pointed vaguely at some measures to be taken for frustrating the expedition to Spanish Town.

It would be time enough, thought he, to meet these measures by going to Mount Welcome in the morning. He could get there before Mr Vaughan should start upon his journey. He could go at an early hour, but one when his appearance would not give cause for any unnecessary remark.

It did not occur to him to reflect, that the time of the traveller’s departure from Mount Welcome – of which Cubina had not been apprised – might be anterior to that of his arrival there. The Maroon, thinking that the great Custos was not likely to inconvenience himself by early rising, had no apprehension of missing him by being himself too late.

With this confidence, then, he resolved to postpone his visit to Mount Welcome until some hour after daybreak; and, in the meantime, to carry out the preliminaries of a programme, referring to a very different affair, and which had been traced out the day before.

The first scene in this programme was to be a meeting with Herbert Vaughan. It had been appointed to take place between them on the following morning; and on the same spot where the two young men had first encountered one another – in the glade, under the great ceiba .