Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader by R. M. Ballantyne

R >> R. M. Ballantyne >> Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24

But there was one of the pursuers who was far ahead of the others, and
who was urged to continue the chase by the strongest of all
motives,--love. Poor Kekupoopi had no sooner heard of the abduction of
her young mistress than she had set off at the top of her speed to a
well-known height in the mountains, whence, from a great distance, she
could observe all that went on below. On the wings of affection she had
flown, rather than walked, to this point of observation, and, to her
delight, saw not only the pursuers, but the fugitives in the valley
below. She kept her glowing eyes fixed on them, hastening from rock to
rock and ridge to ridge, as intervening obstacles hid them from view,
until she saw the stratagem, just referred to, practised by Keona. Then,
feeling that she had no power of voice to let the pursuers know what had
occurred, and seeing that they would certainly turn back on being
baffled, she resolved to keep up the chase herself--trusting to accident
to afford her an opportunity of rendering aid to Alice; or, rather,
trusting to God to help her in her great difficulty; for the poor child
had been well trained in the missionary's house, and love had been the
teacher.

Taking a short cut down into the valley,--for she was well acquainted
with all the wild and rugged paths of the mountains in the immediate
neighborhood of the settlement,--she was so fortunate as to reach a
narrow pass through which Keona and Alice must needs go. Arriving there
a short time before they did, she was able to take a few minutes' rest
before resuming the chase.

Little did the wily savage think that a pair of eyes as dark and bright,
though not so fierce, as his own, were gazing at him from behind the
bushes as he sped up that narrow gorge.

Poor Alice was running and stumbling by his side; for the monster held
her by the hand and dragged her along, although she was scarcely able to
stand. The heart of the black girl well-nigh burst with anger when she
observed that both her shoes and stockings had been torn off in the
hasty flight, and that her tender feet were cut and bleeding.

Just as they reached the spot near which Poopy was concealed, the child
sank with a low wail to the ground, unable to advance another step.
Keona seized her in his arms, and, uttering a growl of anger as he threw
her rudely over his shoulder, bore her swiftly away.

But, quick though his step was, it could not outrun that of the poor
little dark maiden who followed him like his shadow, carefully keeping
out of view, however, while her mind was busy with plans for the
deliverance of her young mistress. The more she thought, the more she
felt how utterly hopeless would be any attempt that she could make,
either by force or stratagem, to pluck her from the grasp of one so
strong and subtle as Keona. At length she resolved to give up thinking
of plans altogether, and take to prayer instead.

On reaching the highest ridge of the mountains, Keona suddenly stopped,
placed Alice on a flat rock, and went to the top of a peak not more than
fifty yards off. Here he lay down and gazed long and earnestly over the
country through which they had just passed, evidently for the purpose of
discovering, if possible, the position and motions of his enemies.

Poopy, whose wits were sharpened by love, at once took advantage of her
opportunity. She crept on all fours towards the rock on which Alice lay,
in such a manner that it came between her person and the savage.

"Missy Alice! O, Missy Alice! quick! look up! it's me--Poopy," said the
girl, raising her head cautiously above the edge of the rock.

Alice started up on one elbow, and was about to utter a scream of
delight and surprise, when her sable friend laid her black paw suddenly
on the child's pretty mouth, and effectually shut it up.

"Hush! Alice; no cry. Savage hear and come back--kill Poopy bery much
quick. Listen. Me all alone. You bery clibber. Dry up eyes, no cry any
more. Look happy. God will save you. Poopy nebber leave you as long as
got her body in her soul."

Just at this point, Keona rose from his recumbent position, and the
girl, who had not suffered her eyes to move from him for a single
instant, at once sunk behind the rock and crept so silently away that
Alice could scarcely persuade herself she had not been dreaming.

The savage returned, took the child's hand, led her over the brow of the
mountain, and began to descend, by a steep, rugged path, to the valleys
lying on the other side of the island. But before going a hundred yards
down the dark gorge--which was rendered all the darker by the approach
of night--he turned abruptly aside, entered the mouth of a cavern, and
disappeared.

Poopy was horrified at this unexpected and sudden change in the state of
things. For a long time she lay closely hid among the rocks, within
twenty yards of the cave's mouth, expecting every moment to see the
fugitives issue from its dark recesses. But they did not reappear. All
at once it occurred to the girl that there might possibly be an exit
from the cavern at the other end of it, and that, while she was idly
waiting there, her little mistress and her savage captor might be
hastening down the mountain far beyond her reach.

Rendered desperate by this idea, she quitted her place of concealment,
and ran recklessly into the cavern. But the place was dark as Erebus,
and the ground was so rugged that she tripped and fell before she had
advanced into it more than fifty yards.

Bruised by the fall, and overawed by the gloom of her situation, the
poor girl lay still for some time where she had fallen, with bated
breath, and listening intently; but no sound struck her ear save the
beating of her own heart, which appeared to her unnaturally loud. Under
an impulse of terror, she rose, and ran back into the open air.

Here it occurred to her that she might perhaps find the other outlet to
the cave,--supposing that one really existed,--by going round the hill
and carefully examining the ground on the other side. This, however, was
a matter requiring considerable time, and it was not until a full hour
had expired that she returned to the mouth of the cave, and sat down to
rest and consider what should be done next.

To enter the dark recesses of the place without a light she knew would
be impossible as well as useless, and she had no means of procuring a
light. Besides, even if she had, what good could come of her
exploration? The next impulse was to hasten back to the settlement at
full speed and guide a party to the place; but, was it likely that the
savage would remain long in the cave? This question suggested her former
idea of the possible existence of another outlet; and as she thought
upon Alice being now utterly beyond her reach, she covered her face with
her hands and burst into tears. After a short time she began to pray.
Then, as the minutes flew past, and her hopes sank lower and lower, she
commenced--like many a child of Adam who thinks himself considerably
wiser than a black girl--to murmur at her hard lot. This she did in an
audible voice, having become forgetful of, as well as indifferent to,
the chances of discovery.

"Oh! w'at for was me born?" she inquired, somewhat viciously; and not
being able, apparently, to answer this question, she proceeded to
comment in a wildly sarcastic tone on the impropriety of her having been
brought into existence at all.

"Me should be dead. Wat's de use o'life w'en ums nothin' to live for?
Alice gone! Darling Alice! Oh, dear! Me wish I wasn't never had been
born; yes, me do! Don't care for meself! Wouldn't give nuffin for
meself! Only fit to tend Missy Alice! Not fit for nuffin else. And now
Alice gone--whar' to' nobody nose an' nobody care, 'xcept Poopy, who's
not worth a brass button!"

Having given utterance to this last expression, which she had acquired
from her friend Corrie, the poor girl began to howl in order to relieve
her insupportable feelings.

It was at this point in our story that Master Corrie, and his companion
the Grampus, having traced the before-mentioned footprints for a
considerable distance, became cognizant of sundry unearthly sounds, on
hearing which, never having heard anything like them before, these
wanderers stood still in attitudes of breathless attention, and gazed at
each other with looks of indescribable amazement, not altogether unmixed
with a dash of consternation.

CHAPTER XI.

A GHOST--A TERRIBLE COMBAT ENDING IN A DREADFUL PLUNGE.

"Corrie," said Jo Bumpus, solemnly, with a troubled expression on his
grave face, "I've heer'd a many a cry in this life, both ashore and
afloat; but, since I was half as long as a marlinespike, I've never
heerd the likes o' that there screech nowhere."

At any other time the boy would have expressed a doubt as to the
possibility of the Grampus having, at any period of his existence, been
so short as "half the length of a marlinespike;" but, being very
imaginative by nature, and having been encouraged to believe in ghosts
by education, he was too frightened to be funny. With a face that might
very well have passed for that of a ghost, and a very pale ghost too, he
said, in a tremulous voice:

"Oh dear! Bumpus; what _shall_ we do?"

"Dun know," replied Jo, very sternly; for the stout mariner also
believed in ghosts, as a matter of course, although he would not admit
it; and, being a man of iron mold and powerful will, there was at that
moment going on within his capacious breast a terrific struggle between
natural courage and supernatural cowardice.

"Let's go back," whispered Corrie. "I know another pass over the hills.
It's a longer one, to be sure; but we can run, you know, to make for--"

He was struck dumb and motionless at this point by the recurrence of the
dreadful howling, louder than ever, as poor Poopy's despair deepened.

"Don't speak to me, boy," said Bumpus, still more sternly, while a cold
sweat stood in large beads on his pale forehead. "Here's wot I calls
somethin' new; an' it becomes a man, specially a British seaman, d'ye
see, to inquire into new things in a reasonable sort of way."

Jo caught his breath, and clutched the rock beside him powerfully, as he
continued:

"It ain't a ghost, in course; it _can't_ be that. Cause why? there's no
sich a thing as a ghost."

"Ain't there?" whispered Corrie, hopefully.

The hideous yell that Poopy here set up seemed to give the lie direct to
the skeptical seaman; but he went on deliberately, though with a glazed
eye and a deathlike pallor on his face--

"No; there ain't no ghosts,--never wos, an' never will be. All ghosts is
sciencrific dolusions, nothing more; and it's only the hignorant an'
supercilious as b'lieves in 'em. I don't; an', wots more," added Jo,
with tremendous decision, "I _won't_!"

At this point, the "sciencrific dolusion" recurred to her former idea of
alarming the settlement; and with this view began to retrace her steps,
howling as she went.

Of course, as Jo and his small companion had been guided by her
footsteps, it followed that Poopy, in retracing them, gradually drew
near to the terrified pair. The short twilight of those regions had
already deepened into the shades of night; so that the poor girl's form
was not at first visible, as she advanced from among the dark shadows of
the overhanging cliffs and the large masses of scattered rock that lay
strewn about that wild mountain pass.

Now, although John Bumpus succeeded, by an almost supernatural effort,
in calming the tumultuous agitation of his spirit, while the wild cries
of the girl were at some distance, he found himself utterly bereft of
speech when the dreadful sounds unmistakably approached him. Corrie,
too, became livid, and both were rooted to the spot in unutterable
horror; but when the ghost at length actually came into view, and (owing
to Poopy's body being dark, and her garments white) presented the
appearance of a dimly luminous creature, without head, arms, or legs,
the last spark of endurance in man and boy went out. The one gave a
roar, the other a shriek of terror, and both turned and fled like the
wind over a stretch of country, which, in happier circumstances, they
would have crossed with caution.

Poopy helped to accelerate their flight by giving vent to a cry of fear,
and thereafter to a yell of delight, as, from her point of view, she
recognized the well-known outline of Corrie's figure clearly defined
against the sky. She ran after them in frantic haste; but she might as
well have chased a couple of wildcats. Either terror is gifted with
better wings than hope, or males are better runners than females.
Perhaps both propositions are true; but certain it is that Poopy soon
began to perceive that the succor which had appeared so suddenly was
about to vanish almost as quickly.

In this new dilemma, the girl once more availed herself of her slight
knowledge of the place, and made a detour which enabled her to shoot
ahead of the fugitives and intercept them in one of the narrowest parts
of the mountain gorge. Here, instead of using her natural voice, she
conceived that the likeliest way of making her terrified friends
understand who she was, would be to shout with all the strength of her
lungs. Accordingly, she planted herself suddenly in the center of their
path, just as the two came tearing blindly round a corner of rock, and
set up a series of yells, the nature of which utterly beggars
description.

The result was, that, with one short wild cry of renewed horror, Bumpus
and Corrie turned sharp round and fled in the opposite direction.

There is no doubt whatever that they would have succeeded in ultimately
escaping from this pertinacious ghost, and poor Poopy would have had to
make the best of her way to Sandy Cove alone, but for the fortunate
circumstance that Corrie fell; and being only a couple of paces in
advance of his companion, Bumpus fell over him.

The ghost took advantage of this to run forward, crying out, "Corrie!
Corrie! Corrie!--it's me! _me_! ME!" with all her might.

"Eh! I do believe it knows my name!" cried the boy, scrambling to his
feet, and preparing to renew his flight; but Bumpus laid his heavy hand
on his collar, and held him fast.

"Wot! Did it speak?"

"Yes; listen! Oh dear! Come,--fly!"

Instead of flying, the seaman heaved a deep sigh; and, sitting down on a
rock, took out a reddish brown cotton handkerchief, wherewith he wiped
his forehead.

"My boy," said he, still panting; "it ain't a ghost. No ghost wos ever
known to _speak_. They looks, an' they runs, an' they yells, an' they
vanishes, but they never speaks; d'ye see? I told ye it was a
sciencrific dolusion; though, I'm bound for to confess, I never heerd
o' von o' them critters speakin', no more than the ghosts. Howsomedever,
that's wot it is."

Corrie, who still hesitated, and held himself in readiness to bolt at a
moment's notice, suddenly cried:

"Why! I _do_ believe it's--No; it can't be--yes--I say, it's _Poopy_."

"Wot's Poopy?" inquired the seaman, in some anxiety.

"What! don't you know Poopy, Alice's black maid, who keeps her company,
and looks after her; besides' doin' her and 'undoin' her (as she calls
it), night and morning, and putting her to bed? Hooray! Poopy, my lovely
black darling; where _have_ you come from? You've frightened Bumpus here
nearly out of his wits. I do believe he'd have bin dead by this time,
but for me!"

So saying, Corrie, in the revulsion of his suddenly relieved feelings,
actually threw his arms round Poopy, and hugged her.

"O Corrie!" exclaimed the girl, submitting to the embrace with as much
indifference as if she had been a lamp-post, "w'at troble you hab give
me! Why you run so? sure you know me voice."

"Know it, my sweet lump of charcoal; I'd know it among a thousand, if
ye'd only use it in its own pretty natural tones; but if you _will_ go
and screech like a bottle-imp, you know," said Corrie, remonstratively,
"how can you expect a stupid feller like me to recognize it?"

"There ain't no sich things as bottle-imps, no more nor ghosts,"
observed Bumpus; "but hold your noise, you chatterbox, and let's hear
wot the gal's got to say. Mayhap she knows summat about Alice?"

At this, Poopy manufactured an expression on her sable countenance which
was meant to be intensely knowing and suggestive.

"Don't I? Yes, me do," said she.

"Out with it, then, at once, you pot of shoe-blacking," cried the
impatient Corrie.

The girl immediately related all that she knew regarding the fugitives,
stammering very much from sheer anxiety to get it all out as fast as she
could, and delaying her communication very much in consequence, besides
rendering her meaning rather obscure--sometimes unintelligible. Indeed,
the worthy seaman could scarcely understand a word she said. He sat
staring at the whites of her eyes, which, with her teeth, were the only
visible parts of her countenance at that moment, and swayed his body to
and fro, as if endeavoring by a mechanical effort to arrive at a
philosophical conception of something exceedingly abstruse. But at the
end of each period he turned to Corrie for a translation.

At length both man and boy became aware of the state of things, and
Corrie started up crying:

"Let's go into the cave at once."

"Hold on, boy," cried Bumpus! "not quite so fast (as the monkey said to
the barrel-organ w'en it took to playin' Scotch reels). We must have a
council of war; d'ye see? The black monster Keona may have gone right
through the cave and comed out at t'other end of it, in w'ich case it's
all up with our chance o' finding 'em to-night. But if they've gone in
to spend the night there, why we've nothing to do but watch at the mouth
of it till mornin' an' nab 'em as they comes out."

"Yes; but how are we to know whether they're in the cave or not?" said
Corrie, impatiently.

"Ah! that's the puzzler," replied Bumpus, in a meditative way; "but of
course, we must look out for puzzlers ahead sometimes w'en we gets into
a land storm, d'ye see; just as we looks out ahead for breakers in a
storm at sea. Suppose now that I creeps into the cave and listens for
'em. They'd never hear me, 'cause I'd make no noise."

"You might as well try to sail into it in a big ship without making
noise, you Grampus."

To this the Grampus observed, that if the cave had only three fathoms of
water in the bottom of it he would have no objections whatever to try.

"But," added he, "suppose _you_ go in."

Corrie shook his head, and looked anxiously miserable.

"Well, then," said Bumpus, "suppose we light two torches. I'll take one
in one hand, and this here cutlash in the other; and you'll take t'other
torch in one hand and your pistol in the other, and clap that bit of a
broken sword 'tween yer teeth, and we'll give a 'orrid screech, and rush
in, pell-mell--all of a heap like. You could fire yer pistol straight
before you on chance (it's wonderful wot a chance shot will do
sometimes); an' if it don't do nothin', fling it right into the
blackguard's face: a brass-mounted tool like that ketchin' him right on
the end of his peak would lay him flat over, like a ship in a white
squall."

"And suppose," said Corrie, in a tone of withering sarcasm,--"suppose
all this happened to Alice, instead of the dirty nigger?"

"Ah! to be sure. That's a puzzler,--puzzler number two."

Here Poopy, who had listened with great impatience to the foregoing
conversation, broke in energetically.

"An' s'pose," said she, "dat Keona and Missy Alice come out ob cave w'en
you two be talkerin' sich a lot of stuff?"

It may as well be remarked, in passing, that Poopy had acquired a
considerable amount of her knowledge of English from Master Corrie. Her
remark, although not politely made, was sufficiently striking to cause
Bumpus to start up, and exclaim:

"That's true, gal. Come, show us the way to this here cave."

There was a fourth individual present at this council of war who
apparently felt a deep interest in its results, although he took no part
in its proceedings. This was no other than Keona himself, who lay
extended at full length among the rocks, not two yards from the spot
where Bumpus sat, listening intently, and grinning from ear to ear with
fiendish malice.

The series of shrieks, howls, and yells to which reference has been made
had naturally attracted the attention of that wily savage when he was in
the cave. Following the sounds with quick, noiseless step, he soon found
himself within a few paces of the deliberating trio. The savage did not
make much of the conversation, but he gathered sufficient to assure
himself that his hiding-place had been discovered, and that plans were
being laid for his capture.

It would have been an easy matter for him to have suddenly leaped on the
unsuspecting Bumpus and driven a knife to his heart, after which poor
Corrie and the girl could have been easily dealt with; but fortunately
(at least for his enemies, if not for himself) indecision in the moment
of action was one of Keona's besetting sins. He suspected that other
enemies might be near at hand, and that the noise of the scuffle might
draw them to the spot. He observed, moreover, that the boy had a pistol,
which, besides being a weapon that acts quickly and surely, even in weak
hands, would give a loud report and a bright flash that might be heard
and seen at a great distance. Taking these things into consideration, he
thrust back the knife which he had half unsheathed, and, retreating with
the slow, gliding motion of a serpent, got beyond the chance of being
detected, just as Bumpus rose to follow Poopy to the cave.

The savage entered its yawning mouth in a few seconds, and glided
noiselessly into its dark recesses like an evil spirit. Soon after, the
trio reached the same spot, and stood for some time silently gazing upon
the thick darkness within.

A feeling of awe crept over them as they stood thus, and a shudder
passed through Corrie's frame as he thought of the innumerable ghosts
that might--probably did--inhabit that dismal place. But the thought of
Alice served partly to drive away his fears and steel his heart. He felt
that the presence of such a sweet and innocent child _must_, somehow or
other, subdue and baffle the power of evil spirits, and it was with some
show of firmness that he said:

"Come, Bumpus, let's go in. We are better without a torch; it would only
show that we were coming; and as they don't expect us, the savage may
perhaps kindle a light which will guide us."

Bumpus, who was not restrained by any thoughts of the supposed power or
influence of the little girl, and whose superstitious fears were again
doing furious battle with his natural courage, heaved a deep sigh,
ground his teeth together, and clenched his fists.

Even in that dreadful hour the seaman's faith in his physical
invincibility, and in the terrible power of his fists, did not
altogether fail. Although he wore a cutlass, and had used it that day
with tremendous effect, he did not now draw it. He preferred to engage
supernatural enemies with the weapons that nature had given him, and
entered the cave on tiptoe with slow, cautious steps, his fists tightly
clenched and ready for instant action, yet thrust into the pockets of
his coatee in a deceptively peaceful way, as if he meant to take the
ghosts by surprise.

Corrie followed him, also on tiptoe, with the broken saber in his right
hand, and the cocked pistol in his left, his forefinger being on the
trigger, and the muzzle pointing straight at the small of the seaman's
back,--if one may be permitted to talk of such an enormous back having
any "small" about it!

Poopy entered last, also on tiptoe, trembling violently, holding on with
both hands to the waistband of Corrie's trousers, and only restrained
from instant flight by her anxieties and her strong love for little
Alice.

Thus, step by step, with bated breath and loudly beating hearts, pausing
often to listen, and gasping in a subdued way at times, the three
friends advanced from the gloom without into the thick darkness within,
until their gliding forms were swallowed up.

Now it so happened that the shouts and yells to which we have more than
once made reference in this chapter attracted a band of savages who had
been put to flight by Henry Stuart's party. These rascals, not knowing
what was the cause of so much noise up on the heights, and being much
too well acquainted with the human voice in all its modifications to
fancy that ghosts had anything to do with it, cautiously ascended
towards the cavern, just a few minutes after the disappearance of John
Bumpus and his companions.

Here they sat down to hold a palaver. While this was going on, Keona
carried Alice in his unwounded arm to the other end of the cave, and,
making his exit through a small opening at its inner extremity, bore his
trembling captive to a rocky eminence, shaped somewhat like a sugarloaf,
on the summit of which he placed her. So steep were the sides of this
cone of lava, that it seemed to Alice that she was surrounded by
precipices over which she must certainly tumble if she dared to move.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24