The air was bright, the wind blew fresh. He drank in great draughts of that delicious breeze, and the salt sea seemed to be inhaled at each breath.
The sun shone brilliantly. The sea rolled afar and all around, and sparkled before him under the sun"s rays with that infinite laughter, that [Greek: anaerithmon gelasma] of which Aeschylus spoke in his deep love of the salt sea. Speaking parenthetically, it may be said that the only ones from among articulate speaking men who have found fitting epithets for the sea are the old Greek, the Scandinavian, and the Englishman.
Brandon drew in new strength and life with every breath, till at last he began to think once more of returning.
But even yet he feared that when he entered that cabin the spell would be on him. The thought of attempting it was intolerable. Yet what was to be done? To remain unsatisfied was equally intolerable. To go back to his rock was not to be thought of.
But an effort must be made to get rid of this womanly fear; why should he yield to this? Surely there were other thoughts which he might call to his mind. There came over him the memory of that villain who had cast him here, who now was exulting in his fancied success and bearing back to his master the news. There came to him the thought of his father, and his wrongs, and his woe. There came to his memory his father"s dying words summoning him to vengeance. There came to him the thought of those who yet lived and suffered in England, at the mercy of a pitiless enemy.
Should he falter at a superst.i.tious fancy, he--who, if he lived, had so great a purpose?
All superst.i.tious fancy faded away. The thirst for revenge, the sense of intolerable wrong arose. Fear and horror died out utterly, destroyed by Vengeance.
"The Presence, then, is my ally," he murmured. "I will go and face It."
And he walked resolutely, with a firm step, back into the cabin.
Yet even then it needed all the new-born resolution which he had summoned up, and all the thought of his wrong, to sustain him as he entered that inner room. Even then a sharp thrill pa.s.sed through him, and bodily weakness could only be sustained by the strong, resolute, stubborn soul.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "THERE SEEMED A GHASTLY COMICALITY IN SUCH A THING AS THIS," ETC.]
The room was about the size of the captain"s. There was a table against the side, which looked like a leaf which could hang down in case of necessity. A trunk stood opposite the door, with the open lid projecting upward out of a ma.s.s of sand. Upon the wall there hung the collar of a coat and part of the shoulders, the rest having apparently fallen away from decay. The color of the coat could still be distinguished; it was red, and the epaulets showed that it had belonged to a British officer.
Brandon on entering took in all these details at a glance, and then his eyes were drawn to the berth at the end of the room, where that Thing lay whose presence he had felt and feared, and which he knew by an internal conviction must be here.
There It awaited him, on the berth. Sand had covered it, like a coverlet, up to the neck, while beyond that protruded the head. It was turned toward him: a bony, skeleton head, whose hollow cavities seemed not altogether vacancy but rather dark eyes which looked gloomily at him--dark eyes fixed, motionless; which had been thus fixed through the long years, watching wistfully for him, expecting his entrance through that doorway. And this was the Being who had a.s.sisted him to the sh.o.r.e, and who had thrown off the covering of sand with which he had concealed himself, so as to bring him here before him. Brandon stood motionless, mute. The face was turned toward him--that face which is at once human and yet most frightful since it is the face of Death--the face of a skeleton. The jaws had fallen apart, and that fearful grin which is fixed on the fleshless face here seemed like an effort at a smile of welcome.
The hair still clung to that head, and hung down over the fleshless forehead, giving it more the appearance of Death in life, and lending a new horror to that which already pervaded this Dweller in the Ship.
"The nightmare Life-in-Death was he, That thicks men"s blood with cold."
Brandon stood while his blood ran chill, and his breath came fast.
If that Form had suddenly thrown off its sandy coverlet and risen to his feet, and advanced with extended hand to meet him, he would not have been surprised, nor would he have been one whit more horror-stricken.
Brandon stood fixed. He could not move. He was like one in a nightmare.
His limbs seemed rigid. A spell was upon him. His eyes seemed to fasten themselves on the hollow cavities of the Form before him. But under that tremendous pressure he did not altogether sink. Slowly his spirit rose; a thought of flight came, but it was instantly rejected. The next moment he drew a long breath. "I"m an infernal fool and coward," he muttered.
He took three steps forward, and stood beside the Figure. He laid his hand firmly upon the head; the hair fell off at his touch. "Poor devil,"
said he, "I"ll bury your bones at any rate." The spell was broken, and Brandon was himself again.
Once more Brandon walked out into the open air, but this time there was not a vestige of horror left. He had encountered what he dreaded, and it was now in his eyes only a ma.s.s of bones. Yet there was much to think of, and the struggle which had raged within him had exhausted him.
The sea-breeze played about him and soon restored his strength. What next to do was the question, and after some deliberation he decided at once to remove the skeleton and bury it.
A flat board which had served as a shelf supplied him with an easy way of turning up the sand. Occupation was pleasant, and in an hour or two he had scooped out a place large enough for the purpose which he had in view. He then went back into the inner cabin.
Taking his board he removed carefully the sand which had covered the skeleton. The clothes came away with it. As he moved his board along it struck something hard. He could not see in that dim light what it was, so he reached down his hand and grasped it.
It was something which the fingers of the skeleton also encircled, for his own hand as he grasped it touched those fingers. Drawing it forth he perceived that it was a common junk bottle tightly corked.
There seemed a ghastly comicality in such a thing as this, that this lately dreaded Being should be nothing more than a common skeleton, and that he should be discovered in this bed of horror doing nothing more dignified than clutching a junk bottle like a sleeping drunkard. Brandon smiled faintly at the idea; and then thinking that, if the liquor were good, it at least would be welcome to him in his present situation. He walked out upon the deck, intending to open it and test its contents.
So he sat down, and, taking his knife, he pushed the cork in. Then he smelled the supposed liquor to see what it might be. There was only a musty odor. He looked in. The bottle appeared to be filled with paper.
Then the whole truth flashed upon his mind. He struck the bottle upon the deck. It broke to atoms, and there lay a scroll of paper covered with writing.
He seized it eagerly, and was about opening it to read what was written when he noticed something else that also had fallen from the bottle.
It was a cord about two yards in length, made of the entrail of some animal, and still as strong and as flexible as when it was first made.
He took it up carefully, wondering why such a thing as this should have been so carefully sealed up and preserved when so many other things had been neglected.
The cord, on a close examination, presented nothing very remarkable except the fact that, though very thin, it appeared to have been not twisted but plaited in a very peculiar manner out of many fine strands.
The intention had evidently been to give to it the utmost possible strength together with the smallest size. Brandon had heard of cords used by Malays and Hindus for a.s.sa.s.sination, and this seemed like the description which he had read of them.
At one end of the cord was a piece of bronze about the size of a common marble, to which the cord was attached by a most peculiar knot. The bronze itself was intended to represent the head of some Hindu idol, the grotesque ferocity of its features, and the hideous grimace of the mouth being exactly like what one may see in the images of Mother Kali or Bowhani.
At once the cord a.s.sociated itself in his mind with the horrors which he had heard of as having been perpetrated in the names of these frightful deities, and it seemed now to be more than a common one. He carefully wound it up, placed it in his pocket, and prepared to examine the ma.n.u.script.
The sun was high in the heavens, the sea-breeze still blew freshly, while Brandon, opening the ma.n.u.script, began to read.
CHAPTER VII.
Ma.n.u.sCRIPT FOUND IN A BOTTLE.
"BRIG "VISHNU," ADRIFT IN THE CHINESE SEA.
"July 10, 1828.
"Whoever finds this let him know that I, Lionel Despard, Colonel of H.
M. 37th Regiment, have been the victim of a foul conspiracy performed against me by the captain and crew of the brig _Vishnu_, and especially by my servant, John Potts.
"Expecting at any time to perish, adrift helplessly, at the mercy of winds and waves, I sit down now before I die, to write all the circ.u.mstances of this affair. I will inclose the ma.n.u.script in a bottle and fling it into the sea, trusting in G.o.d that he may cause it to be borne to those who may be enabled to read my words, so that they may know my fate and bring the guilty to justice. Whoever finds this let him, if possible, have it sent to my friend, Ralph Brandon, of Brandon Hall, Devonshire, England, who will do more than any other man to cause justice to have its due.
"To further the ends of justice and to satisfy the desires of my friends, I will write an account of the whole case.
"In the name of G.o.d, I declare that John Potts is guilty of my death.
He was my servant. I first found him in India under very remarkable circ.u.mstances.
"It was in the year 1826. The Government was engaged in an effort to put down bands of a.s.sa.s.sins by whom the most terrific atrocities had been committed, and I was appointed to conduct the work in the district of Agra.
"The Thuggee society is still a mystery, though its nature may yet be revealed if they can only capture the chief [Footnote: The chief was captured in 1830, and by his confession all the atrocious system of Thuggee was revealed.] and make him confess. As yet it is not fully known, and though I have heard much which I have reported to the Government, yet I am slow to believe that any human beings can actually practice what I have heard.
"The a.s.sa.s.sins whom I was pursuing eluded our pursuit with marvelous agility and cunning, but one by one we captured them, and punished them summarily. At last we surrounded a band of Thugs, and to our amazement found among them a European and a small boy. At our attack the Hindus made a desperate resistance, and killed themselves rather than fall into our hands; but the European, leading forward the little boy, fell on his knees and implored us to save him.
"I had heard that an Englishman had joined these wretches, and at first thought that this was the man; so, desirous of capturing him, I ordered my men whenever they found him to spare his life if possible. This man was at once seized and brought before me.
"He had a piteous story to tell. He said that his name was John Potts, that he belonged to Southampton, and had been in India a year. He had come to Agra to look out for employ as a servant, and had been caught by the Thugs. They offered to spare his life if he would join them.