CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR.
THE ALTERNATIVE.
"Well? And have you now come round to a sweet and reasonable frame ofmind?"
Wagram looked his persecutor steadily in the face. He was not secured,but two stalwart blacks stood on each side, ready to anticipate anyaggressive movement on his part.
"You've not, eh? That'll come; only the longer you hold out the morepersonal inconvenience you'll lay yourself open to. I give you fairwarning."
"You intend to murder me, I suppose," answered Wagram. "Why not do itat once? I won't agree to your perfectly outrageous proposal."
"Outrageous?" sneered the white fiend. "Let's go over the ground again.A month ago I invited you to make a protracted stay with me. I furtherasked you to send for your son, thinking that a little wild bush lifewould make a wholesome change for a schoolboy, and we would have been asjolly as sandboys together. You began to make excuses. Now, I don'tlike excuses. I'm not accustomed to them, as you must have learnt sinceyou've been here. Then you refused point-blank, saying this was noplace to bring a boy to. You yourself couldn't refuse my hospitality,which I'm afraid I shall have to extend to you for an indefinite time.But your son and heir--I'm dying to make his acquaintance. See?"
"Yes; I see. And I give you the answer straight: I have no intentionthat you should make his acquaintance or he yours. Now--is thatstraight enough?"
"Oh, quite. Only have you reflected that in that case you yourself willnever set eyes on him again? Hasn't that struck you?"
"As a possibility, not as a probability. Look here! you are a whiteman, not a savage. For some purpose you are trying to frighten me.What is it? Is it that you want a larger price? If so, name it."
"Trying to frighten you? Why, I haven't even begun to frighten you yet.You told me one day you thought I must be the devil. Well, I am--forall purposes as far as you are concerned. Make up your mind to that."
There was no great eagerness in Wagram's mind to dispute this statement.He had spent a month in the power of this fiend, and scarcely a day hadpassed without some proof that if he were not already within theinfernal regions he was at any rate well within the antechamber thereto.Apart from the fact that the conditions of his captivity had been moreand more those of every conceivable harshness, he had been compelled towitness the most ghastly and horrifying sights, of which the bloodtragedies of the cannibal slaughter-yard were not the worst. Otherfiendish rites, hideous and obscene--hardly imaginable, in fact--he hadbeen thrust into the very midst of; and now within that brief month itseemed that he must have lived for years in hell, and all at the biddingof this devil--his fellow-countryman. His health had suffered, his mindand spirit alike were becoming broken, and every moment he besieged highHeaven with supplications that deliverance--even through the gate ofdeath--might be granted him. So far his tormentor had confined hismalice to tortures that were mainly mental. He had been careful, too,to afford him no clue whatever as to the locality in which he was, oreven as to the very name of this savage race. His own identity, ofcourse, was undivulged.
"You have the whole situation in your own hands," went on the latter."You have only to place in mine the necessary letters that will bringyour son and heir here. I'll take care of the way of doing it, neverfear, once I have your indisputable authority. Now--are you going togive it me?"
Something of the martyr's resolution shone in Wagram's face. Even thebrutal savages who guarded him were struck by it, and uneasily stirred.They thought to descry some strange resemblance at that moment betweenthe faces of the two men, between their dreaded oppressor and his--andtheir--helpless captive.
"No; I am not--not now, nor ever," came the steadfast answer. "I willdie first."
Then that glaring paroxysm of rage swept over the other's features, andhis eyes seemed to start from his purpling face as he bent down andhissed rather than whispered:
"Then you shall. By God, you shall!" At a sign the two savages pouncedupon their prisoner, and flung him face downwards upon the ground. Theywere muscular ruffians, and he was weakened by ill-treatment andanxiety. Others flocked into the hut in obedience to a call, and in amoment he was pinioned with thongs, his feet being left free enough toenable him to walk with short steps. They dragged him forth into theopen, and he found himself staggering along in their midst. Then herealised what his doom was to be. He had travelled this way before, tohis horror and sorrow. They were taking him to the humanslaughter-yard.
There was the palisade, the stunted trees, and the horrible headsimpaled upon them. The effluvium was acrid, sickening. Many handsgripped him, and before he could offer the slightest resistance he wasbound down upon one of the blood-stained blocks, with throat upturned,distended, ready for the murderous knife.
In that terrible moment, expecting death amid every circumstance ofagony and ignominy, a vista of his past life opened to his brain--openedwith a quick flash. This, then, was what his quest had brought him to--his quest which, following the strong voice of conscience, he hadundertaken and had prosecuted to his own detriment. Well, what matteredit? His son--his only son--had been left in strong and careful hands.He would carry on his life duties as he himself would have had him do.Then more sacred thoughts succeeded. He trusted he was ready.
A black fiend stood over him, and had already raised the horriblecrooked knife; already he seemed to feel it shearing through nerve andartery. But it was stayed.
"One more chance," cried the voice of his arch-tormentor. "Will you dowhat you have no option but to do? Remember, this is no swift death--nobeheading at one blow--as you have seen. A nasty sort of butcheringdeath for a man of your birth and breeding to end up with, eh?"
"Do your butcher work; my mind is unchanged."
At a sign the demon with the knife lowered it. Wagram felt a slash uponhis throat, and the blood flowed. In reality it was but a skin cut.The black fiend, instructed by the white arch-fiend, was but playingwith him; yet the mind acting upon the strained nerves rendered thetorture actual, horrible. Except a quick gasp no sound escaped thesufferer. In the concentration of the suspense every detail was stampedupon the retina of his brain--the bestial, black faces, staring andbloodthirsty; the scarcely less repulsive countenance of his--fellow-countryman, and a strange, vivid scar round the outside of theright eye defacing this. Detail is curiously to the front in moments ofextreme tensity. The willing executioner looked again at his superiorfor the final signal. After a moment of deathly silence--to thesufferer a very lifetime of suspense--it came.
But, what was this? He had been quickly unbound, and rolled to theground, and as he lay there, dazed with the sudden revulsion, the voiceof his arch-tormentor fell once more upon his ears.
"That'll do for to-day, Wagram. You've gone through hell--yes, hell--inthe last few minutes, but it's nothing to what's sticking out for you.You thought you'd have been in heaven by now, but, no fear. Moreover,you'll never get there, for before I've done with you you're going toblaspheme Heaven in such a manner that even it'll have nothing to dowith you at the end, in spite of your life of piety andsanctimoniousness. Wait a bit. You haven't felt any real pain yet--don't know what it is. To-morrow you shall begin. A little roasting,you understand; not too much--enough to keep you wriggling for an houror so. You shall have the whole night to think of it."
"You are wrong, devil," was the answer. "Whatever might escape methrough weakness under your hellish treatment will not count, restassured. And the Heaven which you blaspheme has a longer arm than youthink."
"All right. It can't reach as far as this," returned the other, with ahideous laugh.
The sufferer was roughly seized, jerked to his feet, and dragged back tothe hut; but even this gloomy prison-house was no longer to be hisundisturbed, for now the two black horrors entered it with him, anddisposed themselves in such wise as to render it evident they meant tospend the night there. He himself was secured by thongs in such wise asto render any attempt at escape impossible.
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And there in the black darkness--with loathsome insects creeping overhim, the close, stuffy air rendered absolutely poisonous by the rancidstench exhaling from the musky bodies of his guards--Wagram underwent tothe full all the trials of the martyrs destined for the Coliseum of old.He had passed through, as it were, the very extremity of death thatday, and had been put back that he might die many deaths. He knew thatthe words of the white savage had been no empty threat, for among theawful sights he had been forced to witness in that hell-centre had beenthat of a human being done to death over a slow fire in exactly themanner that had been promised for himself. Well, if that were so, andhe were called upon to suffer the fiery ordeal, he trusted that strengthmight be given him as to the martyrs of old, the prayers of all of whomhe fervently invoked, including those of his martyred relative--therecollection of whom turned back his thoughts to Hilversea, and those hehad left there; and it was with deep thankfulness that he realised thatno flaw existed in the provisions he had made before leaving in theevent of accident to himself. These had been effected withbusiness-like foresight and accuracy. All who had claims upon him hadbeen remembered, and Gerard had been left under the joint guardianshipof Haldane and the family solicitor. Even Delia Calmour he had notomitted to provide for, by reason of the interest he and his father hadtaken in the girl, and the disadvantages under which she was placed.Perhaps she would bless his memory and pray for him, and therecollection of her bright young beauty was pleasant now in the gloomyhour of his bondage and the horrible fate which impended. Yvonne, too--she would not forget him, and the prayers of the young and the pureseemed as though they must be tenfold precious and efficacious.
Hour by hour his thoughts ran on, interluded by snatches of sleep,begotten of sheer mental exhaustion, haunted, however, by gusty,disturbing dreams, in which the horrors he had witnessed and gonethrough would rise up to mock and distress him, as though instigated bythe malice of the powers of hell. The same sun which would rise uponHilversea, and its joyous, peaceful English life, would rise upon himand the drear abode of blood-stained heathendom; would witness his deathamid horrible torment, and that not at the word of merciless, ruthlessbarbarians but at the bidding of a fellow-countryman--a white man. Thesituation seemed so impossible, so grotesque, as to wear the aspect of averitable nightmare. It was incredible.
With the thought came another. Why had this devil in human shape laidsuch stress on getting Gerard into his power, even to the length oftorturing him--Wagram--to induce him to send for the boy? Why had herepudiated his agreement to enlarge him for what was really a princelyransom, and that all in a moment? There was something behind it all--but what? And then upon the deepest darkness of his thoughts onethought flashed in. This man had known Everard--had possibly murderedhim. He designed to personate him and claim Hilversea, but in order todo this he must first cut off the present occupant and his heir. Thatwas why he had striven to get Gerard into his power. Yes; the wholething now stood explained: the _effect_ the name had had upon him--everything. He had got at Everard's history, and now rejoiced thatanother Wagram--the reigning one--had fallen into his hands. DevelinHunt, too, had come from somewhere about this part. What if theadventurer had lied to him, had sent him off to South Africa on a fool'serrand when it should have been West Africa? What if his threat toproduce Everard had referred to this spurious adventurer? And yet--andyet--how was Develin Hunt ever to guess that he himself should come tobe wrecked and cast away on that identical coast? The puzzle was atangled one, and at the moment beyond his unravelling. One thing,however, held his mind--a resolve that, come what might, he would defeatthis ferocious villain's schemes by the sacrifice of himself if need be.
Hour followed hour, and that dread, suffocating, tropical night seemedto embody a lifetime of haunting fear. Yes; fear, for all the human inthis man shrank from the fearful ordeal he would be called upon toundergo. There was no escape--no, none--for did he succeed even inbreaking away into the wilderness he had not the remotest notion whatdirection to take in his flight, or of any aim or objective on which todirect that flight. He recalled the rough, brutal treatment he hadalready undergone; and what made it worse was his absolute inability tooffer any resistance whatever to such indignity as his proud, sensitivenature could never have conceived it possible he should be called uponto undergo. Then, once more, that uneasy slumber came upon him--for howlong he knew not--until it was broken in upon by strange, muffled soundsand mysterious vibrations--together with something that sounded like asmothered groan. He started up, and instinctively put forth a hand. Itencountered something warm and wet and clammy--in the black darknesscausing him to shudder. The ground was soaked with it; and he detectedthat acrid odour he had learnt to know only too well of late.