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

No, it was another thought that had caused that indecision; which was soon made manifest by his words.

“Master Herbert Vaughan!” he exclaimed, in a tone of appeal; “I have helped you to rescue your sweetheart. Mine is in danger!” The young Englishman stood in no need of this appeal. Already he had disengaged his arm from that of his cousin, and stood ready for action.

“Oh, Herbert!” cried the young girl, in wild accents of distress; “there is fearful danger! Oh, you must not go. Oh, do not leave me!”

Cubina looked as if regretting the challenge he had thrown out.

“Perhaps you had better not?” said he, with no sarcasm meant by the words. “There is danger, but you must not share it. Your life now belongs to another. I did not think of that, Master Vaughan.”

“In the eyes of that other,” replied Herbert, “my life would be worthless, as it would to myself, were I to play the poltroon. Brave Cubina! I cannot fail you now. Dear Kate! it is Yola who is in danger – Yola, to whom we are both indebted. But for her I should not have known that you loved me; and then we should both – ”

“Ah! Yola in danger!” interrupted the young Creole, her affection for her maid half stifling the fear for her beloved. “Oh, Herbert! go if you will, but let me go with you. I should die if you returned not. Yes, yes; if death comes to you, it shall be mine also. Herbert, do not leave me behind!”

“Only for a moment, Kate! I shall soon return. Fear not. With right on our side, the brave Cubina and I can conquer a score of these black robbers. We shall be back before you can count a hundred. There! conceal yourself in these bushes, and wait for our coming. I shall call out for you. Behind the bushes you will be safe. Not a word, not a movement, till you hear me calling your name.”

As he uttered these admonitions, the brave young man gently guided his cousin into the thicket. Causing her to kneel down in a shaded covert, he imprinted a hurried kiss upon her forehead, and then hastily leaving her, followed Cubina towards the fight.

In a few seconds they ran down to the garden wall, and passed rapidly through the wicket-gate, which they found standing open; on through the garden, and straight towards the place from which they imagined the sounds had proceeded.

Strange enough, these had ceased as abruptly as they had risen – the cries of the men, the screaming of the women, the shots, and the loud shouting!

All, as if by a simultaneous signal, had become silent; as though the earth had opened and swallowed not only the noises, but those who had been causing them!

Unheeding the change, Herbert and Cubina kept on; nor came to a stop until they had passed the smoking remains of the mansion, and stood upon the platform that fronted it.

There halted they.

There was still some fitful light from the burning beams; but the beams of the moon told a truer tale. They illumined a tableau significant as terrible.

Near the spot was a stretcher, on which lay the corpse of a white man, half uncovered, ghastly as death could make it. Close to it were three others, corpses like itself, only that they were those of men with a black epidermis.

Herbert easily identified the first. It had been his companion on that day’s journey. It was the corpse of his uncle.

As easily did Cubina recognise the others. They were, or had been, men of his own band – the Maroons – left by Quaco to guard the prisoners.

The prisoners! where were they? Escaped?

It took Cubina but little time to resolve the mystery. To the practised eye of one who had tied up many a black runaway, there was no difficulty in interpreting the sign there presented to his view.

A tangle of ropes and sticks brought to mind the contrivances of Quaco for securing his captives. They lay upon the trodden ground, cast away, and forsaken.

The caçadores had escaped. The affair had been a rescue!

Rather relieved by this conjecture, which soon assumed the form of a conviction, Herbert and Cubina were about returning to the place where they had left the young Creole – whom they supposed to be still awaiting them.

But they had not calculated on the bravery of love – much less upon its recklessness.

As they faced towards the dark declivity of the mountain, a form like a white-robed sylph was seen flitting athwart the trunks of the trees, and descending towards the garden wall. On it glided – on, and downward – as the snow-plumed gull in its graceful parabola.

Neither was mystified by this apparition. At a glance both recognised the form, with its soft, white drapery floating around it.

Love could no longer endure that anxious suspense. The young Creole had forsaken her shelter, to share the danger of him she adored.

Before either could interfere to prevent the catastrophe, she had passed through the wicket – a way better known to her than to them – and came gliding across the garden, up to the spot where they stood.

An exclamation of joy announced her perception that her lover was still unharmed.

Quick as an echo, a second exclamation escaped from her lips – but one of a far different intonation. It was a cry of wildest despair – the utterance of one who suddenly knew herself to be an orphan . Her eyes had fallen upon the corpse of her father!

On seeing the dead body of her father, Kate Vaughan sank to the earth beside it; not unconsciously, but on her knees, and in an agony of grief. Bending over it, she kissed the cold, speechless lips – her sobs and wilder ejaculations following each other in rapid succession.

Only the face of the corpse was uncovered. The camlet cloak still shrouded the body, and its gaping but bloodless wounds. She saw not these; and made no inquiry as to the cause of her father’s death. The wasted features, now livid, recalled the disease under which he had been suffering previous to his departure. It was to that he had succumbed; so reasoned she.

Herbert made no attempt to undeceive her. It was not the time to enter into details of the sad incident that had transpired. The most mournful chapter of the story was now known – the rest need scarce be told: Kate Vaughan was fatherless.

Without uttering a word – not even those phrases of consolation so customary on such occasions, and withal so idle – the young man wound his arms round the waist of his cousin, gently raised her to an erect attitude, and supported her away from the spot.

He passed slowly towards the rear of the ruined dwelling.

There was still enough light emitted from the calcined embers to make plain the path – enough to show that the little summer-house in the garden still stood there in its shining entirety. Its distance from the dwelling-house had saved it from the conflagration.

Into this Herbert conducted his protégée, and, after placing her on a settee of bamboos, which the kiosk contained, seated himself in a chair beside her.

Yola, who had once more appeared upon the scene, followed them, and flinging herself on the floor, at her young mistress’s feet, remained gazing upon her with sympathetic looks, that evinced the affectionate devotion of the Foolah maiden.

Cubina had gone in search of the overseer, and such of the domestics as might still have concealed themselves within a reasonable distance.

The Maroon might have acted with more caution, seeing that the second attack of the robbers had unexpectedly been made. But he had no fear of their coming again. The escape of the prisoners explained their second appearance – the sole object of which had been to rescue the caçadores .

For a while the three individuals in the kiosk appeared to be the only living forms that remained by the desolated mansion of Mount Welcome. The return of the robbers had produced even a more vivid feeling of affright than their first appearance; and the people of the plantation – white as well as black – had betaken themselves to places of concealment more permanent than before. The whites – overseer, book-keepers, and all – believing it to be an insurrection of the slaves, had forsaken the plantation altogether, and fled towards Montego Bay.