“Want me?” said a deep low voice; and the buccaneer started as if from a dream, with his face hardening, and the wrinkles which had been smoothed reappearing deeply in the broad forehead.
“You here, Bart?”
“Ay, I’m here.”
“Watching me?”
“Ay, watching of you.”
The buccaneer rose and gave the interloper an angry look.
“Well, why not!” said Bart. “How did I know what he’d do?”
“And you’ve seen and heard all?”
“Everything,” said Bart, coolly.
“When I told you to be within hearing only if I whistled or called.”
“What’s the use of that when a blow or a stab would stop them both?”
“Bart, I – ”
“Go on, I don’t mind,” said Bart, quietly, “I want to live, and if you was to come to harm that would be the end of me.”
The buccaneer gave an impatient stamp, but Bart paid no heed.
“Give me a lift up and I’ll carry him back,” he said quietly.
All this was done, and Dinny summoned, so that when, an hour later, Humphrey unclosed his eyes, it was with his head throbbing with fever, a wild half-delirious dreaminess troubling his brain, and the great stone image glaring down at him through the dim green twilight of the prison room.
It was a bitter experience for the prisoner to find that he had overrated his powers. The effort, the excitement, and the malaria of the forest prostrated him for a fortnight, and at the end of that time he found that he was in no condition to make a further attempt at securing the means of escape.
He lay in his gloomy chamber thinking over the buccaneer’s insolent proposal, and fully expected that he would resent the way in which it had been received; but to his surprise he received the greatest of attention, and wine, fruit, and various delicacies that had evidently come from the stores of some well-found ship were placed before him to tempt his appetite.
Dinny was his regular attendant, and always cheery and ready to help him in every way; but no more was said for a time respecting an evasion, though Humphrey was waiting his time; for after lying for hours, day after day, debating his position, he came to the conclusion that if he did escape it must be through this light-spirited Irishman.
His captor did not come to him as far as he knew; but he had a suspicion that more than once the buccaneer had been watching from some point or another unknown to him. But one day a message was brought by Bart, who entered the gloomy chamber and in his short, half-surly way thus delivered himself —
“Orders from the skipper, sir.”
“Orders from your captain!” said Humphrey, flushing.
“To say that he is waiting for your answer, sir.”
“My answer, man? I gave him my answer.”
“And that he can wait any time; but a message from you that you want to see him will bring him here.”
“There is no other answer,” said Humphrey, coldly.
“Better not say that,” said Bart, after standing gazing at the prisoner for some time.
“What do you mean?” cried Humphrey, haughtily.
“Don’t know. What am I to say to the captain?”
“I have told you. There is no answer,” said Humphrey, coldly, and he turned away, but lay listening intently, for it struck him that he had heard a rustle in the great stone corridor without, as if someone had been listening; but the thick carpet-like curtain fell, and he heard no more, only lay watching the faint rays of light which descended through the dense foliage of the trees, as some breeze waved them softly, far on high, and slightly relieved the prevailing gloom.
Bart’s visit had started a current of thought which was once more running strongly when Dinny entered with a basket of the delicious little grapes which grew wild in the sunny open parts of the mountain slopes.
“There, sor,” he said, “and all me own picking, except about half of them which Misthress Greenheys sint for ye. Will ye take a few bunches now?”
“Dinny,” said Humphrey in a low earnest voice, “have you thought of what I said to you?”
“Faix, and which? what is it ye mane, sor?”
“You know what I mean, man: about helping me to escape from here?”
“About helping ye to eshcape, sor? Oh, it’s that ye mane!”
“Yes, man; will you help me?”
“Will I help ye, sor? D’ye see these threes outside the windy yonder, which isn’t a windy bekase it has no glass in it?”
“Yes, yes, I see,” cried Humphrey with all a sick man’s petulance.
“Well, they’ve got no fruit upon ’em, sor.”
“No, of course not. They are not of a fruit-bearing kind. What of that!”
“Faix, an’ if I helped ye to eshcape, captain, darlin’, sure and one of ’em would be having fruit hanging to it before the day was out, and a moighty foine kind of pear it would be.”
Chapter Twenty Six
Under Another Rule
“You’re to keep to your prison till further orders,” said Bart one day as he entered the place.
“Who says so!” cried Humphrey, angrily.
“Lufftenant.”
“What! Mazzard?”
“Yes, sir. His orders.”
“Curse Lieutenant Mazzard!” cried Humphrey. “Where is the captain!”
No answer.
“Is this so-called lieutenant master here!”
“Tries to be,” grumbled Bart.
“The captain is away, then?”
“Orders are, not to answer questions,” said Bart, abruptly; and he left the chamber.
Humphrey was better. The whims and caprices of a sick man were giving way to the return of health, and with this he began to chafe angrily.
He laughed bitterly and seated himself by the window to gaze out at the dim arcade of forest, and wait till such time as he felt disposed to go out, and then have a good wander about the ruins, and perhaps go down that path where he had been arrested by the appearance of the captain.
He had no hope of encountering any of his crew, for, from what he could gather, fully half the survivors, sick of the prisoner’s life, had joined the buccaneer crew, while the rest had been taken to some place farther along the coast – where, he could not gather from Dinny, who had been letting his tongue run and then suddenly stopped short. But all the same he clung to the hope that in the captain’s absence he might discover something which would help him in his efforts to escape and come back, if not as commander, at all events as guide to an expedition that should root out this hornets’-nest.
Mid-day arrived, and he was looking forward to the coming of Dinny with his meal, an important matter to a man with nothing to do, and only his bitter thoughts for companions. The Irishman lightened his weary hours too, and every time he came the captive felt some little hope of winning him over to help him to escape.
“Ah, Dinny, my lad!” he said as he heard a step, and the hanging curtain was drawn aside, “what is it to-day?”
“Fish, eggs, and fruit,” said Bart, gruffly.
“Oh! it’s you!” said Humphrey, bitterly. “Dinny away with that cursed schooner!”
“Schooner’s as fine a craft as ever sailed,” growled Bart. “Orders to answer no questions.”
“You need not answer, my good fellow,” said the prisoner, haughtily. “That scoundrel of a buccaneer is away – I know that, and Dinny is with him, or you would not be doing this.”
Bart’s heavy face lightened as he saw the bitterness of the prisoner’s manner when he spoke of the captain; but it grew sombre directly after, as if he resented it; and spreading the meal upon a broad stone, covered with a white cloth – a stone in front of the great idol, and probably once used for human sacrifice – he sullenly left the place.
The prisoner sat for a few minutes by the window wondering whether Lady Jenny was thinking about him, and sighed as he told himself that she was pining for him as he pined for her. Then turning to the mid-day meal he began with capital appetite, and not at all after the fashion of a man in love, to discuss some very excellent fish, which was made more enjoyable by a flask of fine wine.
“Yes,” he said, half aloud, “I shall go just where I please.”
He stopped and listened, for a voice certainly whispered from somewhere close at hand the word “Kelly!”
“Yes! what is it? Who called?” said the prisoner, aloud.
There was a momentary silence, and then a peculiar whispering voice said —
“Don’t be frightened.”
“I’m not,” said Humphrey, trying to make out whence the voice came, and only able to surmise that it was from somewhere over the dark corner where he slept.
“I want Dennis Kelly,” said the voice.
“He’s not here. Away with the schooner,” continued Humphrey.
“Oh!”
The ejaculation came like a moan of disappointment.
“Here, who are you?” cried Humphrey.
“No; he cannot be away, sir. But hist! hush, for heaven’s sake! You will be heard,” said the voice. “Speak low.”
“Well, I’ll speak in a whisper if you like,” said Humphrey. “But where are you?”
“Up above your chamber,” was the reply. “There is a place where the stones are broken away.”
“Then I am watched,” thought Humphrey, as the announcement recalled the captain.
“Can you see me?” he asked.
“I cannot see you where you are now, but I could if you went and lay down upon your couch.”
“Then I’ll go there,” said Humphrey, crossing the great chamber to throw himself on the blankets and skins. “Now, then, what do you want with Dinny?”
“I knew the captain had gone to sea,” said the voice, evasively; “but I did not know Kelly had been taken too. He cannot be, without letting me know.”
“Can you come down and talk to me!”
“No; you are too well watched.”
“Then how did you get here?”
“I crept through the forest and climbed up,” was the reply. “I can see you now.”
“But how did you know you could see me there?”
“I thought I could. I was watching for someone a little while ago, and saw the captain looking down through here.”
“I thought as much,” said Humphrey, half aloud; and he was about to speak again when Bart entered suddenly, looked sharply round, and showed the wisdom of his new visitor by going straight to the window and looking out.
“Who were you talking to?” he said, gruffly, as he came back, still looking suspiciously round.
“To myself,” said Humphrey, quite truthfully, for his last remark had been so addressed.
Bart uttered a grunt, and glanced at the dinner.
“Done?” he said.
“No. Surely I may spend as long as I like over my meals here.”
Bart nodded and went out, the heavy curtain falling behind him; while Humphrey slowly rose and went back to the stone altar, where he filled a silver cup from the flask and drank, and then began humming an air. After this he walked to the curtain and peered cautiously through into the dark corridor, to see the heavy figure of the buccaneer’s henchman go slowly along past the patches of dull green light streaming through the openings which occurred some thirty feet apart.
“Gone!” said Humphrey, returning quickly. “Are you there?”
“Yes. I could hear everything.”
“Listen!” said Humphrey, quickly. “You are Mistress Greenheys?”
“Yes.”
“And you love Dennis Kelly?”
There was silence.
“You need not fear me. I know your history,” continued Humphrey. “You are, like myself, a prisoner and in the power of that black-looking lieutenant.”
There was a piteous sigh here, and then came with a sob —
“I am a miserable slave, sir.”
“Yes, yes, I know. Then look here, can we not all escape together?”
“Escape, sir! How?”
“Through Dinny’s help.”
“He would not give it, sir. It would be impossible. I – I – there! I will speak out, sir – I can bear this horrible life no longer! I have asked him to take me away.”
“Well, will he not?”
“He is afraid, sir.”
“And yet he loves you?”
“He says so.”
“And you believe it, or you would not run risks by coming here?”
“Risks!” said the woman, with a sigh. “If Mazzard knew I came here he would kill me!”
“The wretch!” muttered Humphrey. Then aloud, “Dinny must help us. Woman, surely you can win him to our side! You will try!”
“Try, sir! I will do anything!”
“Work upon his feelings, and I will try and do the same.”
“He fears the risk of the escape, and also what may happen to him when he gets back to England. He has been a buccaneer, and, he tells me, a soldier. He will be charged with desertion.”
“I will answer for his safety,” said Humphrey, hastily. And then running to the curtain he made sure that Bart was not listening.
“Be cautious,” he said, as he went back and began to pace up and down, with his eyes fixed upon the ground. “Tell me, could we get a boat?”
“I don’t know, sir; I think so. Would it not be better to take to the forest?”
“That we must consider. First of all, Dinny must be won over.”
“I will try.”
“How could I communicate with you?”
“You could not, sir. I came to-day to warn Dinny to be cautious, for Mazzard suspects something. He has gone to the men’s place, or I could not be here.”
“But you can come sometimes and speak to me. You will be able to know whether anyone is here.”
“If I can come, sir,” said the woman; “but it is very difficult. The Commodore is always about; nothing escapes him.”
“A scoundrel!”
“I don’t think he is such a very bad man,” said the woman.
“Indeed! Ah, women always find an excuse for a good-looking scoundrel!”
“I don’t think a man who is faithful to the woman he loved can be very bad,” said the voice, softly.
“Faithful! why, I suppose he has a dozen wives here?”
“He! Oh, no! I don’t know, sir, exactly, but I have seen him go to the old chamber in one of these ruinous places, and he goes there to pray by the side of a coffin.”
“What!” cried Humphrey.
“Yes, a coffin; and it contains the body of the woman he loved, or else of his sister. No one here knows but Dinny and Bart, and – ”
“Hist!” whispered Humphrey, catching up a bunch of grapes and beginning to eat them.
He had heard the distant step of his guardian, and then there was silence, for Bart seemed to creep up and listen before entering, which he did at last, to find the prisoner muttering to himself and eating the grapes.
“Done?”
“Yes. You can clear away.”
Bart obeyed and turned to go, but as he reached the curtain —
“You have plenty of cigars?” he said.
“I?”
“Ah, well, I’ve got some there,” growled Bart, and he handed the prisoner half a dozen roughly-made rolls of the tobacco-leaf. “Now, you understand,” he continued, as he made to go once more, “you’re to keep here till the skipper comes back.”
“Are you afraid I shall escape?” said Humphrey, contemptuously.
“Not a bit, captain; but when one man’s life depends on another’s, it makes him careful.”
The curtain dropped behind him, and Humphrey stood listening and thinking.
Bart’s step could be faintly heard now, and, feeling safe, the prisoner went back to his couch, and gazed up in the direction from whence the voice had come.
“Are you still there?” he said, softly.
There was no reply; and a repetition of the question was followed by the same silence.
“It’s strange,” he said, gazing up in the gloom overhead to where, in the midst of a good deal of rough carving, there seemed to be a small opening, though he could not be sure. “Why should he come and watch me, and take this interest in my well-being? I am not like an ordinary prisoner, and his friendly way, his submission to the rough contempt with which I treated him – it’s strange, very strange! What can it mean?”
He threw himself upon the couch, to lie for some time thinking and trying to interpret the meaning; but all was black and confused as the dark mass of carving from which the woman’s voice had seemed to come; and, giving it up at last, he rose, and without any hesitation walked straight out through the opening, and made his way along the corridor to where the sun blazed forth and made him stand and shade his eyes, as he remained considering which way he should go.
The prisoner made a bold dash in a fresh direction, going straight toward where he believed the men’s quarters to be; and, as before, the moment he had passed behind the ruins he found himself face to face with a dense wall of verdure, so matted together that, save to a bird or a small animal, farther progress was impossible.
Defeated here, he tried another and another place, till his perseverance was rewarded by the finding of one of the dark, maze-like paths formed by cutting away the smaller growth and zig-zagging through the trees.
Into this dark pathway he plunged, to find that at the end of five minutes he had lost all idea, through its abrupt turns, of the direction in which he was going; while before he had penetrated much farther the pathway forked, and, unable to decide which would lead him in the required direction, he took the path to the right.
It was plain enough that these green tunnels through the forest had been cut by the buccaneers for purposes of defence in case of an enemy carrying their outer works, so that he was in no way surprised to find the path he had taken led right to a huge crumbling stone building, whose mossy walls rose up among the trees sombre and forbidding, and completely barring his way.
It was a spot where a few resolute men might keep quite an army at bay, for the walls were of enormous extent, the windows mere stone lattices, and the doorway in front so low that a stooping attitude was necessary for him who would enter. This was consequent upon the falling of stones from above, and the blocking partially of the way.
There was a strange, mysterious aspect in the place, overgrown as it was with the redundant growth, which fascinated the explorer, and feeling impelled to go on he gave one glance sound, and was about to enter, when out of the utter stillness he heard a low sound as if someone had been watching him and given vent to a low exhalation of the breath.
Humphrey started and looked sharply round, unable to restrain a shudder: but no one was visible, and he was about to go on, feeling ashamed of his nervousness, when the sound was repeated, this time from above his head; and glancing up, he leaped back, for twenty feet above his head in the green gloom there was a curious, impish face gazing down at him; and as he made out more and more of the object, it seemed as if some strange goblin were suspended in mid-air and about to drop down upon his head.
“It’s the darkness, I suppose,” exclaimed Humphrey, angrily, as he uttered a loud hiss, whose effect was to make the strange object give itself a swing and reveal the fact that it was hanging by its tail alone from the end of a rope-like vine which depended from the vast ceiling of interlacing leaves.
With apparently not the slightest effort the goblin-like creature caught a loop of the same vine, clung there for a moment to gaze back at the intruder into this weird domain, displaying its curiously human countenance, and then sped upwards, when there was a rush as of a wave high above the visible portion of the interlacing boughs, and Humphrey knew that he had startled quite a flock of the little forest imps, who sped rapidly away.
“I must be very weak still,” he muttered as he went now right up to the entrance, and after peering cautiously in for a moment or two he entered.
It was dim outside in the forest; here, after picking his way cautiously for a stop or two, it was nearly black. The place had probably been fairly lit when it was first constructed, far back in the dim past before the forest invaded the district and hid away these works of man; but now the greatest caution was needed to avoid the fallen blocks of masonry, and the explorer took step after step with the care of one who dreaded some chasm in his way.
He stopped and listened, for suddenly from his left there was a faint echoing splash so small and fine that it must have been caused by the drip of a bead of water from the roof, but it had fallen deep down into some dark hollow half filled with water, and a shiver ran through Humphrey’s frame as he thought of the consequences of a slip into such a place, far from help, and doomed to struggle for a few minutes grasping at the dripping stony walls, seeking a means of climbing out, and then falling back into the darkness of the great unknown.
He felt as if he must turn back, but his eyes were now growing accustomed to the obscurity, and he made out that just in front there was, faintly marked out, the opening of a doorway leading into a chamber into which some faint light penetrated.
Going cautiously forward, he entered, to find to his astonishment that he was in a fair sized room whose stone walls were elaborately carved, as were the dark recesses or niches all around, before each of which sat, cross-legged, a well-carved image which seemed to be richly ornamented in imitation of its old highly-decorated dress. For a moment in the obscurity it seemed as if he had penetrated into the abode of the ancient people who had built the ruined city, and that here they were seated around in solemn conclave to discuss some matter connected with the long low form lying upon the skin spread floor, while to make the scene the more incongruous, these strangely-carved figures were looking down upon the object, which was carefully draped with a large Union Jack.
Humphrey paused just inside the threshold and removed his cap, for Sarah Greenheys’ words recurred to him, and it seemed that he must have strayed into one of the many old temples of the place which had been turned by Commodore Junk into a mausoleum for the remains of the woman he was said to have loved, the draped object being without doubt the coffin which held her remains.
He stood gazing down at the coloured flag for a time; then with a glance round at the olden idols or effigies of the departed great of the place, and the dark niches at the mouths of which they sat, he went softly out, glanced to his right, and saw an opening which evidently gave, upon the chasm where he had heard the water drip, and stepped out once more into the comparative daylight of the forest.
The place might be used as a retreat, he thought, but its present use was plain enough, and he walked quickly back to where the path had branched, and took the other fork.
This narrow tunnel through the forest suddenly debouched upon another going across it at right, angles, and after a moment’s hesitation the prisoner turned to the left, and to his great delight found that he had solved one of the topographical problems of the place, for this led towards what was evidently the outer part of the buccaneers’ settlement, and of this he had proof by hearing the smothered sound of voices, which became clear as he proceeded, and at last were plainly to be made out as coming from a ruined building standing upon a terrace whose stones were lifted in all directions by the growth around.
This place had been made open by the liberal use of the axe and fire, half-burned trunks and charred roots of trees lying in all directions, the consequence being that Humphrey had to stop short at the mouth of the forest path unless he wanted to be seen. For, to judge from the eager talking, it was evident that a number of men were gathered in the great building at whose doorless opening the back of one of the buccaneers could be seen as he leaned against the stone, listening to someone who, in a hoarse voice which the listener seemed to recognise, was haranguing the rest.
Humphrey could not hear all that was said, but a word fell upon his ear from time to time, and as he pieced these words together it seemed as if the speaker were declaiming against tyranny and oppression, and calling upon his hearers to help him to put an end to the state of affairs existing.
Then came an excited outburst, as the speaker must have turned his face toward the door, for these words came plainly:
“The end of it will be that they’ll escape, and bring a man-of-war down upon us, and all through his fooling.” A murmur arose.
“He’s gone mad, I tell you all; and if you like to choose a captain for yourselves, choose one, and I’ll follow him like a man; but it’s time something was done if we want to live.” Another burst of murmurs rose here.
“He’s mad, I tell you, or he wouldn’t keep him like that. So what’s it to be, my lads, a new captain or the yard-arm?”