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

Terror could go no further. It had already produced its ultimate effect. Under such circumstances reproach would have been idle; indignation would only have been answered by brutal scorn.

Though she might not clearly comprehend her situation, the young Creole did not think she was dreaming. No dream could be so horrid as that! And yet it was difficult to believe that such a fearful scene could be real!

O God! it was real. Chakra stood before her – his harsh voice was ringing in her ears. Its tone was mocking and exultant.

She was upon the bamboo bedstead, where the myal-man had placed her. She had lain there till, on her senses returning, she discovered who was her companion. Then had she started up – not to her feet, for the interposition of the Coromantee had hindered her from assuming an erect position, but to an attitude half reclining, half threatening escape. In this attitude was she held – partly through fear, partly by the hopelessness of any attempt to change it.

The Coromantee stood in front of her. His attitude? Was it one of menace? No! Not a threat threw out he – neither by word nor gesture. On the contrary, he was all softness, all suppliance – a wooer!

He was bending before her, repeating vows of love! Oh, heavens! more fearful than threats of vengeance!

It was a terrible tableau – this paraphrase of the Beast on his knees before Beauty.

The young girl was too terrified to make reply. She did not even listen to the disgusting speeches addressed to her. She was scarce more conscious than during the period of her syncope.

After a time, the Coromantee appeared to lose patience. His unnatural passion chafed against restraint. He began to perceive the hopelessness of his horrid suit. It was in vain to indulge in that delirious dream of love – in the hope of its being reciprocated – a hope with which even satyrs are said to have been inspired. The repellent attitude of her, the object of his demoniac adoration – the evident degoût too plainly expressed in her frightened features – showed Chakra how vain was his wooing.

With a sudden gesture he desisted, raising himself into an attitude of determination that bespoke some dreadful design – who knows what?

A shrill whistle pealing from without prevented its accomplishment, or, at all events, stayed it for the time.

“’Tam de signal ob dat ole Jew!” muttered he, evidently annoyed by the interruption. “Wha he want dis time ob de night? ’Pose it somethin’ ’bout dat ere loss book-keeper? Wa! a know nuffin ’bout him. Dere ’tam ’gain, and fo’ de tree time. Dat signify he am in a hurry. Wha’s dat? Foth time! Den da be some trouble, sa’tin. Muss go to him – muss go . He nebba sound de signal fo’ time ’less da be some desp’rate ’casion fo’ do so. Wonder what he want!”

“Nebba mind, Lilly Quasheba!” added he, once more addressing his speech to his mute companion. “Doan bex yaseff ’bout dis interupshun. De bisness ’tween you ’n me ’ll keep till a gets back, an’ den, p’raps, a no find you so ob’tinate. You come – you ’tay out hya – you muss no be seen in dis part ob de world.”

As he said this, he seized the unresisting girl by the wrist, and was about leading her out of the hut.

“Ha!” he exclaimed, suddenly stopping to reflect; “dat woan do, neider. De ole Jew mussn’t know she hya – no account. She mout run back in de shanty, darfur she muss be tied. An’ den she mout ’cream so he hear her, darfur she muss be gagged.”

Still holding her wrist in his grasp, he looked around the hut as if in search of the means to put this design into execution.

“Ha!” he ejaculated, as if inspired by some new thought, “what hab a been bodderin’ ma brains ’bout? Dar’s a better plan dan eider tyin’ or gaggin’ – better dan boaf put togedder! De sleepin’ draff. Da’s de berry ting keep her quiet. Wha’s de bottle, a wonder? Dar um be.”

With this, he stretched forth his disengaged hand, and drew something out of a sort of pocket cut in the palm-leaf thatch. It appeared to be a long narrow phial, filled with a dark-coloured fluid, and tightly corked.

“Now, young missa!” said he, drawing out the cork with his teeth, and placing himself as if intending to administer a draught to his terrified patient; “you take a suck out ob dis hya bottle. Doan be ’feerd. He do no harm – he do you good – make you feel berry comf’able, I’se be boun’. Drink!”

The poor girl instinctively drew back; but the monster, letting go her wrist, caught hold of her by the hair, and, twisting her luxuriant tresses around his bony fingers, held her head as firmly as if in a vice. Then, with the other hand, he inserted the neck of the phial between her lips, and, forcing it through her teeth, poured a portion of the liquid down her throat.

There was no attempt to scream – scarce any at resistance – on the part of the young creole. Almost freely did she swallow the draught. So prostrate was her spirit at that moment, that she would scarce have cared to refuse it, even had she known it to be poison!

And not unlike to poison was the effect it produced – equally quick in subduing the senses – for what Chakra had thus administered was the juice of the calalue , the most powerful of narcotics.

In a few seconds after the fluid had passed her lips, the face of the young girl became overspread with a death-like pallor – all through her frame ran a gentle, tremulous quivering, that bespoke the sudden relaxation of the muscles. Her lithe limbs gave way beneath her; and she would have sunk down upon the floor, but for the supporting arm of the weird conjuror who had caused this singular collapse.

Into his arms she sank – evidently insensible – with the semblance rather of death than of sleep!

“Now, den!” muttered the myal-man, with no sign of astonishment at a phenomenon far from being strange to him – since it was to that same sleeping-spell he was indebted for his professional reputation – “now, den, ma sweet Lilly, you sleep quiet ’nuff ’till I want wake you ’gain. Not hya, howsomedever. You muss take you nap in de open air. A muss put you wha de ole Jew no see you, or maybe he want you fo’ himself. Come ’long, disaway!”

And thus idly apostrophising his unconscious victim, he lifted her in both arms, and carried her out of the hut.

Outside he paused, looking around, as if searching for some place in which to deposit his burden.

The moon was now above the horizon, and her beams were beginning to be reflected feebly, even through the sombre solitude of the Duppy’s Hole. A clump of low bushes, growing just outside the canopy of the cotton-tree, appeared to offer a place of concealment; and Chakra was proceeding towards them, when his eye fell upon the cascade; and, as if suddenly changing his design, he turned out of his former direction, and proceeded towards the waterfall.

On getting close up to the cliff over which the stream was precipitated, he paused for an instant on the edge of the seething cauldron; then, taking a fresh hold of the white, wan form that lay helpless over his arm, he glided behind the sheet of foaming water, and suddenly disappeared from the sight – like a river-demon of Eld, bearing off to his subaqueous cavern some beautiful victim, whom he had succeeded in enticing to his haunt, and entrancing into a slumber more fatal than death.

In a few seconds the hideous hunchback reappeared upon the bank, no longer embarrassed by his burden; and hearing the whistle once more skirling along the cliffs, he faced down stream, and walked rapidly in the direction of his canoe.

Chakra, on reaching the crest of the cliff, found Jacob Jessuron in a state of impatience bordering upon torment. The Jew was striding back and forth among the trees, at intervals striking the ground with his umbrella, and giving utterance to his favourite exclamatory phrases – “Blesh my soul!” and “Blesh me!” – with unusual volubility.