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

The exclamation escaped from his lips, as, on rounding the angle of the verandah, he came within sight of the hammock.

“’Tish empty, I declare! He’sh early astir! In hish room, I supposhe?”

Sans cérémonie [563], the Jew kept on along the gallery, until he had arrived in front of his book-keeper’s private apartment. There he stopped, looking inward.

The door was ajar – almost wide open. He could see the greater portion of the interior through the door; the rest of it through the jalousies. There was no one in the room – either sitting, standing, or moving about!

“Mashter Vochan! Are you there?”

The interrogatory was put rather by way of confirming his observation: for he saw there was no one inside.

“Where are you, Mashter Herbert?” continued he, repeating the interrogatory in an altered form – at the same time craning his neck into the apartment, and glancing all around it. “Ash I live, it’sh empty, like the hammock! He musht have gone out. Yesh. Hish hat’s not here – his cloak ish not here; and I see no gun. He alwaysh kept hish gun joosh there. How hash he passed me without my hearing his foot? I shleeps so ash I can hear a cat shtealin’ over the floor! Hash he gone by the shtairway at all? Ash I live, no! Blesh my soul! there is a track where somebody musht have shumped over the railing down into the garden! S’help me, it ish his track! There’sh no other but him to have made it. What the deffil ish the young fellow after this morning? I hope there ish nothing wrong in it.”

On missing the young Englishman out of his hammock and room, the penn-keeper felt at first no particular uneasiness. His protégé had, no doubt, gone out for a stroll in the woods. He had taken his gun along with him, to have a shot at some early bird looking for the early worm. He had done so many a time before – though never at so early an hour.

The hour, however, was not enough of itself to cause any surprise to his patron; nor even the fact of his having leaped over the verandah railing. He might have seen the owner of the house asleep in his chair near the head of the stairway; and, not wishing to disturb him, had chosen the other mode of exit. There was nothing in all this to cause uneasiness.

Nor would the Jew have thought anything of it had it not been for some other circumstances which quickly came under his notice – guiding him to the suspicion that something might be amiss .

The first of these circumstances was that Herbert, although having taken his gun along with him, had left behind his shot-belt and powder-flask! Both were there in his room, hanging upon their peg. They did not escape the sharp glance of the Jew, who at once began to draw conclusions from their presence.

If the young man had gone out on a shooting excursion, it was strange that he did not take his ammunition along with him!

Perhaps, however, he had seen some sort of game near the house, and, in his hurry to get a shot at it, had gone off hastily – trusting to the two charges which his gun contained. In that case he would not go far, and in a few minutes might be expected back.

A few minutes passed, and a great many minutes – until a full hour had transpired – and still nothing was heard or seen of the book-keeper, though messengers had been dispatched in search of him, and had quartered all the ground for half a mile around the precincts of the penn.

Jessuron – whose matutinal visit to the minister had been postponed by the occurrence – began to look grave.

“It ish shtrange,” said he, speaking to his daughter, who had now arisen, and was far from appearing cheerful; “shtrange he should go abroad in thish fashion, without shaying a word to either of ush!”

Judith made no reply: though her silence could not conceal a certain degree of chagrin, from which she was evidently suffering. Perhaps she had even more reason than the “rabbi” to suspect there was something amiss?

Certainly, something disagreeable – a misunderstanding at least, had arisen between her and Herbert on the preceding day. Her speech had already given some slight hint of it; but much more her manner, which, on the night before, and now unmistakably in the morning, betrayed a mixture of melancholy and suppressed indignation.

It did not add to the equanimity of her temper, when the house wench – who was unslinging the hammock in which Herbert had slept – announced it to contain two articles scarce to be expected in such a place – a cocoa-nut and a tobacco-pipe!

The pipe could not have belonged to Herbert Vaughan: he never smoked a pipe; and as for the cocoa-nut, it had evidently been plucked from the tree standing near. The trunk of the palm exhibited scratches as if some one had climbed up it, and above could be seen the freshly-torn peduncle, where the fruit had been wrenched from its stalk!

What should Herbert Vaughan have been doing up the palm-tree, flinging cocoa-nuts into his own couch?

His unaccountable absence was becoming surrounded by circumstances still more mysterious. One of the cattle-herds, who had been sent in search of him, now coming in, announced a new fact, of further significance. In the patch of muddy soil, outside the garden wall, the herd had discovered the book-keepers track, going up towards the hills; and near it, on the same path, the footprint of another man, who must have gone over the ground twice, returning as he had come!

This cattle-herd, though of sable skin, was a skilled tracker. His word might be trusted.

It was trusted, and produced an unpleasant impression both on Jessuron and Judith – an impression more unpleasant as time passed, and the book-keeper was still unreturned.

The father fumed and fretted; he did more – he threatened. The young Englishman was his debtor, not only for a profuse hospitality, but for money advanced . Was he going to prove ungrateful? A defaulter?

Ah! little had that pecuniary obligation to do with the chagrin that was vexing the Jew Jessuron – far less with those emotions, like the waves of a stormy sea, that had begun to agitate the breast of his daughter; and which every slight circumstance, like a strong wind, was lashing into fury and foam.

Blue Dick came back. He had executed his errand adroitly. The Custos was gone upon a journey; he had started exactly at the hour of daybreak.

“Goot!” said Jessuron; “but where is hish nephew?”

Blue Dick had seen Cynthia; and whispered a word in her ear, as the overseer had instructed him. She would come over to the penn, as soon as she could find an opportunity for absence from Mount Welcome.

“Goot!” answered the Jew. “But where is Mashter Vochan? where hash he betaken himshelf?”

“Where?” mentally interrogated Judith, as the noonday sun saw the black clouds coursing over her brow.

The sun was just beginning to re-gild the glittering flanks of the Jumbé Rock, his rays not yet having reached the valley below, when lights streaming through the jalousied windows of Mount Welcome proclaimed that the inmates of the mansion were already astir.

Lights shone through the lattices of several distinct windows – one from the Custos’ sleeping room, another from the apartment of Lilly Quasheba, while a brilliant stream, pouring through the jalousies in front, betokened that the chandelier was burning in the great hall.

From Smythje’s chamber alone came no sign either of light or life. The windows were dark, the curtains close drawn. Its occupant was asleep.

Yes, though others were stirring around him, the aristocratic Smythje was still sleeping as soundly and silently as if dead, perhaps dreaming of the fair “cweeole queetyaws,” and his twelve conquests now happily extended to the desired baker’s dozen, by the successful declaration of yesterday.