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

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.

Chapter 39

A New Job for Chakra

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.

Now and then also could be heard the Teutonic ejaculation, “Ach!” proving that his soul was under the influence of some unpleasant passion, that was vexing him even to torture.

“Wha’s de trouble, Massr Jake?” inquired the myal-man, scrambling over the edge of the rock. “Dar’s something go wrong, a ’pose, from de way you hab soun’ de signal? A hear de whissel fo’ time.”

“There ish something wrong – a great deal ish wrong – s’help me, there ish! What hash kept you, Shakra?” he added, with a show of vexation.

“Golly, Massr Jake, a war asleep; da’s wha’ d’layed me.”

“How, then, hash you heard the signal four times?”

The query appeared slightly to puzzle Chakra.

“O – a – de signal fo’ time,” stammered he, after a pause of reflection. “Wa, ye see, a hear de fuss time in ma sleep – den de second time he wake me – de third a got to ma feet; and when de fo’th – ”

The Jew – either satisfied with the explanation, or too much hurried to hear the end of it – interrupted Chakra at “de fo’th.”

“It ish no time for talk when Mount Welcome ish in flames. You knowsh that, I supposhe?”

Chakra hesitated, as if considering whether to make a negative or affirmative reply.

“Of course you knowsh it. I needn’t haf ashked. Who wash it? Adam hash been there. Wash it him?”

“Ole Adam hab a hand in dat ere bizness, a b’lieve.”

“You knowsh it, Shakra; and I knowsh another that hash had a hand in it. That ish not my bishness, nor what I hash come here about. There ish worse than that.”

“Wuss, Massr Jake?” inquired the myal-man, with an air of feigned surprise. It might have been real. “Wuss dan dat? Hab de young man no come back?”

“Ach! that ish nothings. There ish far worse – there ish danger: s’help me, there ish!”

“Danger! Wha from, Massr Jake?”

“Firsh tell me where ish Adam now? I want him, and all his fellish.”

“He am gone back to de mountains.”

“Ach! Gone back, you shay? How long ish he gone? Can you overtake him, Shakra?”

“Possab’e a mout; dey won’t trabbel fass. Dey am too hebby load fo’ dat. But wha’ fo’ you want ole Adam, Massr Jake?”

“Bishness of the greatesht importance. It ish life and death. Blue Dick hash been over to Mount Welcome. He hash heerd shtrange news – ach! terrible news! A messhenger who came in from the Saffana road hash brought the newsh of many dishagreeable things – among the resht that my Shpaniards haf been made prisoners by Cubina and thish ungrateful villain of a Vochan. They are accushed of murdering the Cushtos. Blesh my soul!”

“What harm dat do you, Massr Jake? Wha’s de danger?”

“Danger! Dosh you not see it, Shakra? If theesh hunters ish brought to trial, do you supposhe they would hold their tongues? S’help me, no! They will turn Shtate’s efidence; and then I should be exshposed – arreshted – ruined! Oh! why hash I ever trushted theesh clumshy fellish with a bishness of such importance?”