CHAPTER XVIII. THE TATTOOING
The heavens, which had been till now of transparent blue, becamegradually of a greenish tint, and the sun was veiled in red, luridvapor. This strange light gave to every object a weird appearance, ofwhich one might form an idea, by looking at a landscape through a pieceof copper colored glass. In those climates, this phenomenon, when unitedwith an increase of burning heat, always announces the approach of astorm.
From time to time there was a passing odor of sulphur; then the leaves,slightly shaken by electric currents, would tremble upon their stalks;till again all would return to the former motionless silence. The weightof the burning atmosphere, saturated with sharp perfumes, became almostintolerable. Large drops of sweat stood in pearls on the forehead ofDjalma, still plunged in enervating sleep--for it no longer resembledrest, but a painful stupor.
The Strangler glided like a reptile along the sides of the ajoupa, and,crawling on his belly, arrived at the sleeping-mat of Djalma, besidewhich he squatted himself, so as to occupy as little space as possible.Then began a fearful scene, by reason of the mystery and silence whichsurrounded it.
Djalma's life was at the mercy of the Strangler. The latter, restingupon his hands and knees, with his neck stretched forward, his eye fixedand dilated, continued motionless as a wild beast about to spring. Onlya slight nervous trembling of the jaws agitated that mask of bronze.
But soon his hideous features revealed a violent struggle that waspassing within him--a struggle between the thirst, the craving for theenjoyment of murder, which the recent assassination of the slave hadmade still more active, and the orders he had received not to attemptthe life of Djalma, though the design, which brought him to the ajoupa,might perhaps be as fatal to the young Indian as death itself. Twice didthe Strangler, with look of flame, resting only on his left hand, seizewith his right the rope's end; and twice his hand fell--the instinct ofmurder yielding to a powerful will, of which the Malay acknowledged theirresistible empire.
In him, the homicidal craving must have amounted to madness, for, inthese hesitations, he lost much precious time: at any moment, Djalma,whose vigor, skill, and courage were known and feared, might awake fromhis sleep, and, though unarmed, he would prove a terrible adversary. Atlength the Thug made up his mind; with a suppressed sigh of regret, heset about accomplishing his task.
This task would have appeared impossible to any one else. The reader mayjudge.
Djalma, with his face turned towards the left, leaned his head upon hiscurved arm. It was first necessary, without waking him, to oblige him toturn his face towards the right (that is, towards the door), so that, incase of his being half-roused, his first glance might not fall upon theStrangler. The latter, to accomplish his projects, would have to remainmany minutes in the cabin.
The heavens became darker; the heat arrived at its last degree ofintensity; everything combined to increase the torpor of the sleeper,and so favor the Strangler's designs. Kneeling down close to Djalma, hebegan, with the tips of his supple, well-oiled fingers, to stroke thebrow, temples, and eyelids of the young Indian, but with such extremelightness, that the contact of the two skins was hardly sensible. Whenthis kind of magnetic incantation had lasted for some seconds, thesweat, which bathed the forehead of Djalma, became more abundant:he heaved a smothered sigh, and the muscles of his face gave severaltwitches, for the strokings, although too light to rouse him, yet causedin him a feeling of indefinable uneasiness.
Watching him with his restless and burning eye, the Strangler continuedhis maneuvers with so much patience, that Djalma, still sleeping, butno longer able to bear this vague, annoying sensation, raised his righthand mechanically to his face, as if he would have brushed away animportunate insect. But he had not strength to do it; almost immediatelyafter, his hand, inert and heavy, fell back upon his chest. TheStrangler saw, by this symptom, that he was attaining his object, andcontinued to stroke, with the same address, the eyelids, brow, andtemples.
Whereupon Djalma, more and more oppressed by heavy sleep, and havingneither strength nor will to raise his hand to his face, mechanicallyturned round his head, which fell languidly upon his right shoulder,seeking by this change of attitude, to escape from the disagreeablesensation which pursued him. The first point gained, the Strangler couldact more freely.
To render as profound as possible the sleep he had half interrupted, henow strove to imitate the vampire, and, feigning the action of a fan,he rapidly moved his extended hands about the burning face of the youngIndian. Alive to a feeling of such sudden and delicious coolness, in theheight of suffocating heat, the countenance of Djalma brightened, hisbosom heaved, his half-opened lips drank in the grateful air, and hefell into a sleep only the more invincible, because it had been at firstdisturbed, and was now yielded to under the influence of a pleasingsensation.
A sudden flash of lightning illumined the shady dome that sheltered theajoupa: fearing that the first clap of thunder might rouse the youngIndian, the Strangler hastened to complete his Task. Djalma lay on hisback, with his head resting on his right shoulder, and his left armextended; the Thug, crouching at his left side, ceased by degrees theprocess of fanning; then, with incredible dexterity, he succeeded inrolling up, above the elbow, the long wide sleeve of white muslin thatcovered the left arm of the sleeper.
He next drew from the pocket of his drawers a copper box, from which hetook a very fine, sharp-pointed needle, and a piece of a black-lookingroot. He pricked this root several times with the needle, and on eachoccasion there issued from it a white, glutinous liquid.
When the Strangler thought the needle sufficiently impregnated with thisjuice, he bent down, and began to blow gently over the inner surface ofDjalma's arm, so as to cause a fresh sensation of coolness; then, withthe point of his needle, he traced almost imperceptibly on the skin ofthe sleeping youth some mysterious and symbolical signs. All this wasperformed so cleverly and the point of the needle was so fine and keen,that Djalma did not feel the action of the acid upon the skin.
The signs, which the Strangler had traced, soon appeared on the surface,at first in characters of a pale rose-color, as fine as a hair; butsuch was the slowly corrosive power of the juice, that, as it worked andspread beneath the skin, they would become in a few hours of a violetred, and as apparent as they were now almost invisible.
The Strangler, having so perfectly succeeded in his project, threw alast look of ferocious longing on the slumbering Indian, and creepingaway from the mat, regained the opening by which he had entered thecabin; next, closely uniting the edges of the incision, so as to obviateall suspicion, he disappeared just as the thunder began to rumblehoarsely in the distance.(4)
(4) We read in the letters of the late Victor Jacquemont upon India,with regard to the incredible dexterity of these men: "They crawl on theground, ditches, in the furrows of fields, imitate a hundred differentvoices, and dissipate the effect of any accidental noise by raising theyelp of the jackal or note of some bird--then are silent, and anotherimitates the call of the same animal in the distance. They can molest asleeper by all sorts of noises and slight touches, and make his bodyand limbs take any position which suits their purpose." Count Edwardde Warren, in his excellent work on English India, which we shall haveagain occasion to quote, expresses himself in the same manner as to theinconceivable address of the Indians: "They have the art," says he, "torob you, without interrupting your sleep, of the very sheet in whichyou are enveloped. This is not 'a traveller's tale.' but a fact. Themovements of the bheel are those of the serpent. If you sleep in yourtent, with a servant lying across each entrance, the bheel will comeand crouch on the outside, in some shady corner, where he can hear thebreathing of those within. As soon as the European sleeps, he feelssure of success, for the Asiatic will not long resist the attraction ofrepose. At the proper moment, he makes a vertical incision in the clothof the tent, on the spot where he happens to be, and just large enoughto admit him. He glides through like a phantom, without making the leastgrain of sand c
reak beneath his tread. He is perfectly naked, and allhis body is rubbed over with oil; a two-edged knife is suspended fromhis neck. He will squat down close to your couch, and, with incrediblecoolness and dexterity, will gather up the sheet in very little folds,so as to occupy the least surface possible; then, passing to the otherside, he will lightly tickle the sleeper, whom he seems to magnetize,till the latter shrinks back involuntarily, and ends by turning round,and leaving the sheet folded behind him. Should he awake, and strive toseize the robber, he catches at a slippery form, which slides throughhis hands like an eel; should he even succeed in seizing him, it wouldbe fatal--the dagger strikes him to the heart, he falls bathed in hisblood, and the assassin disappears."--E. S.