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

The Custos gazed upon the sight with dizzy glance. The sounds fell confusedly on his ear. As the shipwrecked sailor who sees land without the hope of ever reaching it, so looked Loftus Vaughan upon the valley of Content. For any chance of his reaching it that night, without being carried thither, there was none: no more than if it had been a hundred miles distant – at the extreme end of the Island. He could ride no further. He could no longer keep the saddle; and, slipping out of it, he tottered into the arms of his attendant!

Close by the road-side, and half hidden by the trees, appeared a hut – surrounded by a kind of rude inclosure, that had once been the garden or “provision ground” of a negro. Both hut and garden were ruinate – the former deserted, the latter overgrown with that luxuriant vegetation which, in tropic soil, a single season suffices to bring forth.

Into this hovel the Custos was conducted; or rather carried: for he was now unable even to walk.

A sort of platform, or banquette , of bamboos – the usual couch of the negro cabin – stood in one corner: a fixture seldom or never removed on the abandonment of such a dwelling. Upon this the Custos was laid, with a horse-blanket spread beneath, and his camlet cloak thrown over him.

More drink was administered; and then the attendant, by command of the invalid himself, mounted one of the horses, and galloped off to Content.

Loftus Vaughan was alone!

Chapter 18

A Hideous Intruder

Loftus Vaughan was not long alone, though the company that came first to intrude on the solitude that surrounded him was such as no man, either living or dying, would desire to see by his bedside.

The black groom had galloped off for help; and ere the sound of his horse’s hoofs had ceased to reverberate through the unclayed chinks of the cabin, the shadow of a human form, projected through the open doorway, was flung darkly upon the floor.

The sick man, stretched upon the cane couch, was suffering extreme pain, and giving way to it by incessant groaning. Nevertheless, he saw the shadow as it fell upon the floor; and this, with the sudden darkening of the door, admonished him that someone was outside, and about to enter.

It might be supposed that the presence of any living being would at that moment have pleased him – as a relief to that lugubrious loneliness that surrounded him; and perhaps the presence of a living being would have produced that effect. But in that shadow which had fallen across the floor, the sick man saw, or fancied he saw, the form of one who should have been long since dead – the form of Chakra the myal-man!

The shadow was defined and distinct. The hut faced westward. There were no trees before the door – nothing to intercept the rays of the now sinking sun, that covered the ground with a reddish glare – nothing save that sinister silhouette which certainly seemed to betray the presence of Chakra. Only the upper half of a body was seen – a head, shoulders, and arms. In the shadow, the head was of gigantic size – the mouth open, displaying a serrature of formidable teeth – the shoulders, surmounted by the hideous hump – the arms long and ape-like! Beyond doubt was it either the shadow of Chakra, or a duplication of his ghost – of late so often seen!

The sick man was too terrified to speak – too horrified to think. It scarce added to his agony when, instead of his shadow, the myal-man himself, in his own proper and hideous aspect, appeared within the doorway, and without pause stepped forward upon the floor!

Loftus Vaughan could no longer doubt the identity of the man who had made this ill-timed intrusion. Dizzy though his sight was, from a disordered brain, and dim as it had been rapidly becoming, it was yet clear enough to enable him to see that the form which stood before him was no phantasy – no spirit of the other world, but one of this – one as wicked as could well be found amid the phalanx of the fiends of darkness.

He had no longer either fancy or fear about Chakra’s ghost. It was Chakra’s self he saw – an apparition far more to be dreaded.

The scream that escaped from the lips of Loftus Vaughan announced the climax of his horror. On uttering it, he made an effort to rise to his feet, as if with the intention of escaping from the hut; but finally overpowered by his own feebleness, and partly yielding to a gesture of menace made by the myal-man – and which told him that his retreat was intercepted – he sank back upon the banquette [573] in a paralysis of despair.

“Ha!” shouted Chakra, as he placed himself between the dying man and the door. “No use fo’ try ’scape! no use wha’somdever! Ef ye wa able get ’way from hya, you no go fur. ’Fore you walk hunder yard you fall down, in you track, like new-drop calf. No use, you ole fool. Whugh!”

Another shriek was the only reply which the enfeebled man could make.

“Ha! ha! ha!” vociferated Chakra, showing his shark-like teeth in a fiendish laugh. “Ha! ha! ha! Skreek away, Cussus Va’ghan! Skreek till you bust you windpipe. Chakra tell you it no use. De death ’pell am ’pon you – it am in you – an’ jess when dat ar sun hab cease shine upon de floor, you go join you two brodder jussuses in de oder world, wha’ you no fine buckra no better dan brack man. Dey gone afore. Boaf go by de death ’pell. Chakra send you jess de same; only he you keep fo’ de lass, ’kase you de grann Cussus, an’ he keep him bess victim fo’ de lass. De Debbil him better like dat way.”

“Mercy, mercy!” shrieked the dying man. “Ha! ha! ha!” scornfully answered Chakra.

“Wha’ fo’ you cry ‘mercy?’ D’you gib mercy to de ole myal-man, when you ’im chain up dar to de cabbage-tree? You show no mercy den – Chakra show none now. You got die!”

“Oh! Chakra! good Chakra!” cried the Custos, raising himself upon the couch, and extending his arms in a passionate appeal. “Save me! save my life! and I will give you whatever you wish – your freedom – money – ”

“Ha!” interrupted Chakra, in a tone of triumphant exultation. “Gib me freedom, would you? You gib me dat arready. You money dis hya nigga doan’ care ’bout – not de shell ob a cocoa. He hab plenty money; he get wha’ he want fo’ de lub spell and de death ’pell. Whugh! De only ting you hab dat he care ’bout, you no can gib. Chakra take dat ’ithout you gibbin.”

“What?” mechanically asked the dying man, fixing his eyes upon the face of Chakra with a look of dread import.

“Lilly Quasheba!” cried the monster, in a loud voice, and leering horridly as he pronounced the name. “Lilly Quasheba!” he repeated, as if doubly to enjoy the fearful effect which his words were producing. “De dawter ob de quaderoom! Da’s only fair, Cussus,” continued he, in a mocking tone. “You had de modder yourseff – dat is, affer de Maroon! You know dat! It am only turn an’ turn ’bout. Now you go die, Chakra he come in fo’ de dawter. Ha! ha! ha!

“Whugh!” he exclaimed, suddenly changing his tone, and bending down over the form of the Custos, now prostrate upon the couch. “Whugh! I b’lieve de buckra gone dead!”

He was dead. On hearing the name “Lilly Quasheba,” accompanied by such a fearful threat, a wild cry had escaped from his lips. It was the last utterance of his life. On giving tongue to it, he had fallen back upon the bamboo bedstead, mechanically drawing the cloak over his face, as if to shut out some horrid sight; and while the myal-man, gloating over him, was endeavouring to procrastinate his pangs, the poison had completed its purpose.

Chakra, extending one of his long arms, raised the fold from off his face; and holding it up, gazed for a moment upon the features of his hated foe, now rigid, blanched, and bloodless.