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

All this was accomplished with as much celerity, and in as brief a space of time, as if he had simply taken the articles from an adjacent store-room.

Meanwhile, Cubina and Herbert had kept their guns still pointed upon the two caçadores : for it was evident that the villains were most eager to get off; and as it was now nearly night, had the least chance been allowed them, they might have succeeded in escaping through the darkness.

Their captors were determined they should have no chance: for although neither Herbert nor Cubina could see into the obscure interior of the cabin, and were as yet ignorant of the fearful spectacle that there awaited them, they had reason to suspect that the Spaniards had either intended some dark deed, or had already committed it. They had learnt something along the road of the progress of the caçadores , and their mode of journeying, which, to more than one whom they met, had appeared mysterious.

The horse standing tied to the tree – caparisoned as he was for travel – that was the most suspicious circumstance of all. Though none of the three pursuers recognised the animal as belonging to Custos Vaughan, as soon as they set eyes upon it they had felt a presentiment that they had arrived too late.

The wild haste with which the Spaniards were rushing from the cabin when intercepted at the door, almost confirmed their unpleasant foreboding; and before any of the three had entered the hut, they were half prepared to find that it contained a corpse – perhaps more than one, for the disappearance of Pluto was not yet explained.

Quaco, habile in handling cordage of all kinds, more especially the many sorts of supple withes with which the trees of a Jamaica forest are laced together, soon tied the two Spaniards wrist to wrist, and ankle to ankle, as tightly as could have been done by the most accomplished gaoler. A long practice in binding runaway blacks had made Quaco an expert in that department, which, indeed, constitutes part of the professional training of a Maroon.

The captors had already entered within the cabin, now dark as death itself. For some moments they stood upon the floor, their eyes endeavouring to read the gloom around them. Silent they stood – so still, that they could hear their own breathing, with that of the two prisoners upon the floor. At length, in the corner, they could dimly make out something like the form of a man lying stretched upon a low bedstead.

Quaco, though not without some trepidation, approached it. Stooping down, he applied his hand to it with cautious touch.

“A man!” muttered he: “eyther asleep or dead.

“Dead!” he ejaculated the instant after, as, in groping about, his fingers chanced to fall upon the chill forehead – “dead and cold!”

Cubina and Herbert stepping forward, and stooping over the corpse, verified the assertion of Quaco.

Whose body was it? It might not be that of Loftus Vaughan! It might be the black attendant, Pluto!

No! it was not a black man. It needed no light to show that. The touch of the hair was sufficient to tell that a white man lay dead upon the couch.

“Catch me one of those cocuyos !” said the Maroon captain, speaking to his lieutenant.

Quaco stepped outside the hut. Low down along the verge of the forest were flitting little sparks, that appeared to be a galaxy of stars in motion. These were the lampyridae , or small fire-flies. It was not with these Quaco had to do. Here and there, at longer intervals, could be seen much larger sparks, of a golden green colour. It was the great winged beetle – the cocuyo (Pyrophorus Nectilucus.) – that emitted this lovely light.

Doffing his old hat-crown, Quaco used it as an insect-net; and, after a few strokes, succeeded in capturing a cocuyo .

With this he returned into the hut, and, crossing over, held it near the head of the corpse.

He did not content himself with the gold green light which the insect emits from the two eyelike tubercles on its thorax. The forest-craft of Quaco enabled him to produce a brighter and better.

Holding open the elytra with his fingers, and bending back the abdomen with his thumb, he exposed that oval disc of orange light – only seen when the insect is on the wing.

A circle of a yard in diameter was illuminated by the phosphoric glow. In that circle was the face of a dead man; and sufficiently bright was the lamp of the cocuyo , to enable the spectators to identify the ghastly lineaments as those of the Custos Vaughan.

None of the three started or felt surprise. That had been gradually passing: for before this their presentiment had become almost a conviction.

Quaco simply uttered one of those exclamations that proclaim a climax; Cubina felt chagrined – disappointed in more ways than one; while Herbert gave way to grief – though less than he might have done, had his relative more deserved his sorrow.

It was natural they should inquire into the circumstances of the Custos’s death. Now, firmly believing he had been murdered, and by the caçadores , they proceeded to make an examination of the body.

Mystery of mysteries! a dozen stabs by some sharp instrument, and no blood! Wounds through the breast, the abdomen, the heart – all clean cut punctures, and yet no gore – no extravasation!

“Who gave the stabs? you did this, you wretches!” cried Herbert, turning fiercely upon the employés of Jessuron.

“ Carrambo ! why should we do such a thing, master?” innocently inquired Andres. “The alcalde was dead before we came up.”

“Spanish palaver!” cried Quaco. “Look at these blades!” he continued, taking up the two machetes , “they’re wet now! ’Ta’nt blood azzactly; but somethin’ – . See,” he exclaimed, holding his cocuyo over the wounds, and presenting one of the machetés to the light, “they fit to these holes like a cork to a bottle. ’Twere they that made em, nothin’ but they, an’ you did it, ye ugly skinks!”

“By the Virgin, Señor Quaco!” replied Andres, “you wrong us. I’ll swear on the holy evangelists, we didn’t kill the alcalde – Custos, I mean. Carrambo ! no. We were as much surprised as any of you, when we came in here and found him lying dead – just as he is now.”

There was an air of sincerity in the declaration of the wretch that rendered it difficult to believe in his guilt – that is, the guilt of him and his companion as the real murderers, though their intention to have been so was clear enough to Cubina.

“ Crambo ! why did you stab him?” said he to the two prisoners. “You need not deny that you did that.”

“Señor capitan,” answered the crafty Andres, who in all delicate questions appeared to be spokesman, “we won’t deny that. It is true – I confess it with shame – that we did run our blades once or twice through the body.”

“A dozen times, you John Crow!” corrected Quaco.

“Well, Señor Quaco,” continued the Spaniard, “I won’t be particular about the number. There may have been a thrust or two less, or more. It was all a whim of my comrade, Manuel, here – a little bit of a wager between us.”

“A wager for what?” asked Herbert.

“Well, you see, master, we’d been journeying, as I’ve said already, to Savanna. We saw the horse tied outside this little rancho, and thought we would go in and see who was inside. Carrambo ! what should we see but the body of a dead man lying stretched out on the bamboos! Santissima! Señores , we were as much startled as you!”

“Terribly surprised, I suppose?” sarcastically spoke Cubina.

“Nearly out of our senses, I assure you, señor.”