Н. Самуэльян - Лучшие романы Томаса Майна Рида / The Best of Thomas Mayne Reid

Saying this, the Maroon bent downward; and extending his arm through the fronds beneath him, detached one of the gigantic nuts from the tree.

Poising it for a moment to secure the proper direction, he flung the ponderous fruit upon the breast of Herbert. Fortunately the sides of the hammock hindered it from falling upon the floor, else the concussion might also have awakened the sleeper in the chair.

With a start, the young Englishman awoke, at the same time raising himself upon his elbow. Herbert Vaughan was not one of the exclamatory kind, or he might have cried out. He did not, however; though the sight of the huge brown pericarp, lying between his legs, caused him considerable surprise.

“Where, in the name of Ceres and Pomona, did you rain down from?” muttered he, at the same time turning his eyes up for an answer to his classical interrogatory.

In the grey light he perceived the palm, its tall column rising majestically above him. He knew the tree well, every inch of its outlines; but the dark silhouette on its top – the form of a human being couchant [561] , and crouching – that was strange to him.

The light, however, was now sufficiently strong to enable him to distinguish, not only the form, but the face and features of his ci-devant entertainer under the greenwood tree – the Maroon captain, Cubina!

Before he could say a word to express his astonishment, a gesture, followed by a muttered speech from the Maroon, enjoined him to silence.

“Hush! not a word, Master Vaughan!” spoke the latter, in a half whisper, at the same time that he glanced significantly along the corridor. “Slip out of your hammock, get your hat, and follow me into the forest. I have news for you – important! Life and death! Steal out; and, for your life, don’t let him see you!”

“Who?” inquired Herbert, also speaking in a whisper.

“Look yonder!” said the Maroon, pointing to the sleeper in the chair.

“All right! Well?”

“Meet me in the glade. Come at once – not a minute to be lost! Those who should be dear to you are in danger !”

“I shall come,” said Herbert, making a motion to extricate himself from the hammock.

“Enough! I must be gone. You will find me under the cotton-tree.”

As he said this, the Maroon forsook his seat, so long and irksomely preserved – and, sliding down the slender trunk of the palm, like a sailor descending the mainstay of his ship, he struck off at a trot, and soon disappeared amid the second growth of the old sugar plantation.

Herbert Vaughan was not slow to follow upon his track. Some disclosures of recent occurrence – so recent as the day preceding – had prepared him for a somewhat bizarre finale to the fine life he had of late been leading; and he looked to the Maroon for enlightenment. But that strange speech of Cubina stimulated him more than all. “ Those who should be dear to you are in danger !”

There was but one being in the world entitled to this description. Kate Vaughan! Could it be she?

Herbert stayed not to reflect. His hat and cloak hung in the chamber close by; and in two seconds of time both were upon him. Another second sufficed to give him possession of his gun.

He was too active, too reckless, to care for a stairway at that moment, or at that height from the ground – too prudent to descend by that which there was in front, though guarded only by a sleeper!

Laying his leg over the balustrade, he leaped to the earth below; and, following the path taken by the Maroon, like him was soon lost among the second growth of the ruinate garden.

Chapter 2

Blue Dick

In making his hurried departure from the Happy Valley, Herbert Vaughan narrowly escaped observation. A delay of ten minutes longer would have led to his design being interrupted; or, at all events, to his being questioned as to the object of his early excursion; and, in all probability, followed and watched.

He had scarce passed out of sight of the penn, when he heard the jangling tones of a swing bell – harshly reverberating upon the still air of the morning.

The sounds did not startle him. He knew it was not an alarm; only the plantation bell, summoning the slaves to enter upon their daily toil.

Knowing that it must have awakened the sleeper in the chair, he congratulated himself on his good luck at getting away, before the signal had been sounded – at the same time that it caused him to quicken his steps towards the rendezvous given by the Maroon.

Cubina, though from a greater distance, had also heard the bell, and had in a similar manner interpreted the signal, though with a greater degree of uneasiness as to the effect it might have produced. He, too, had conjectured that the sounds must have awakened the sleeper in the chair.

Both had reasoned correctly. At the first “ding-dong” of the bell, the Jew had been startled from his cat-like slumber, and, rising erect in his seat, he glanced uneasily around him.

“Blesh my soul!” he exclaimed, spitting out the bit of burnt cigar that clung adheringly to his lips. “It ish broad daylight. I musht have been ashleep more ash two hours. Ach! theesh are times for a man to keep awake. The Cushtos should be on his road by thish; and if theesh Spanish hunters do their bishness as clefferly as they hash promise, he’ll shleep sounder thish night ash effer he hash done before. Blesh my soul!” he again exclaimed, with an accent that betokened a change in the tenor of his thoughts. “Supposhe they make bungle of the bishness? Supposhe they should get caught in the act? Ha! what would be the reshult of that? There ish danger – shtrike me dead if there ishn’t! Blesh me! I neffer thought of it,” continued he, after some moments spent in reflection of an apparently anxious kind. “They might turn King’sh evidence, and implicate me – me, a shustice! To save themselves, they’d be likely to do ash much ash that. Yesh; and eefen if they didn’t get taken in the act, still there ish danger. That Manuel hash a tongue ash long ash his macheté . He’sh a prattling fool. I musht take care to get him out of the Island – both of them – ash soon ash I can.”

In his apprehensions the Jew no longer included Chakra: for he was now under the belief that the dark deed would be accomplished by the Spanish assassins; and that to steel , not poison , would the Custos yield up his life.

Even should Cynthia have succeeded in administering the deadly dose – a probability on which he no longer needed to rely – even should the Custos succumb to poison, the myal-man was not to be feared. There was no danger of such a confederate declaring himself. As for Cynthia, the Jew had never dealt directly with her; and therefore she was without power to implicate him in the hellish contract.

“I musht take some shteps,” said he, rising from his chair, and making a feint towards retiring to his chamber, as if to adjust his dress. “What ish besht to be done? Let me think,” he added, pausing near the door, and standing in an attitude of reflection; “yesh! yesh! that’s it! I musht send a messensher to Mount Welcome. Some one can go on an excushe of bishness. It will look strange, since we’re such bad neighboursh of late? No matter for that. The Cushtos is gone, I hope; and Rafener can send the message to Mishter Trusty. That will bring ush newsh. Here, Rafener!” continued he, calling to his overseer, who, cart-whip in hand, was moving through the court below, “I wan’t ye, Mishter Rafener!”

Ravener, uttering a grunt to signify that he had heard the summons, stepped up to the stairway of the verandah; and stood silently waiting to know for what he was wanted.

“Hash you any bishness about which you could send a messenger to Mishter Trusty – to Mount Welcome, I mean?”