"Well, you see, master, we"d been journeying, as I"ve said already, to Savanna. We saw the horse tied outside this little rancho, and thought we would go in and see who was inside. _Carrambo_! what should we see but the body of a dead man lying stretched out on the bamboos!
_Santissima! Senores_, we were as much startled as you!"
"Terribly surprised, I suppose?" sarcastically spoke Cubina.
"Nearly out of our senses, I a.s.sure you, senor."
"Go on, you wretch!" commanded Herbert. "Let us hear what tale you have to tell."
"Well!" said the _cacadore_, resuming his narration, "after a while we got a little over our fright--as one naturally does, you know--and then Manuel says to me, "Andres!" "What is it, Manuel?" said I. "Do you think," said he, "that blood would run out of a dead body?" "Certainly not," said I; "not a drop." "I"ll bet you five pesos it will,"
challenged my _camarado_. "Done!" said I; and then, to settle the thing, we--I acknowledge it--did run our _machetes_ through the body of the Custos--of course, we could do him no harm then."
"Monsters!" exclaimed Herbert; "it was almost as bad as killing him!
What a horrid tale! Ha! you wretches, notwithstanding its ingenuity, it"ll not save your necks from a halter!"
"Oh, senorito," said Andres, appealingly, "we"ve done nothing to deserve that. I can a.s.sure you we are both right sorry for what we"ve done.
Ain"t you sorry, Manuel?"
"_Carrai_! that I am," earnestly answered Manuel.
"We both regretted it afterwards," continued Andres, "and to make up for what we had done, we took the cloak and spread it decently over the body--in order that the poor alcalde should rest in peace."
"Liar!" cried Quaco, throwing the light of his _cocuyo_ on the corpse.
"You did no such thing; you stabbed him _through_ the cloak. Look there!"
And as Quaco gave this indignant denial, he pointed to the cuts in the cloth to prove the falsehood of the Spaniard"s statement.
"_Carrai-ai-i_!" stammered out the confounded Andres. "Sure enough there"s a cut or two. Oh, now I recollect: we first covered him up. It was after we did that, we then made the bet--didn"t we, Manuel?"
Manuel"s reply was not heard: for at that instant the hoof-strokes of horses were heard in front of the hut; and the shadowy forms of two hors.e.m.e.n could be distinguished just outside the doorway.
It was the black groom, who had returned from Content, accompanied by the overseer of the estate.
Shortly after a number of negroes appeared on foot, carrying a stretcher.
Their purpose was to convey the sick man to Content.
Circ.u.mstances had occurred to make a change in the character of their duty.
Volume Three, Chapter XXIII.
CHAKRA ON THE BACK TRACK.
Of the three magistrates who condemned the Coromantee, one had been slumbering in his grave for six months; the second, about that number of days; and the third--the great Custos himself--was now a corpse!
Of all three had the myal-man been the murderer; though in the case of the first two there had been no suspicion of foul play, or, at least, not enough to challenge inquest or investigation. Both had died of lingering diseases, bearing a certain resemblance to each other; and though partaking very much of the nature of a wasting, intermittent fever, yet exhibiting symptoms that were new and strange--so strange as to baffle the skill of the Jamaican disciples of Aesculapius.
About the death of either one Chakra had not felt the slightest apprehension--nor would he even had an investigation arisen. In neither murder had his hand appeared. Both had been accomplished by the invisible agency of Obi, that at this period held mysterious existence on every plantation in the Island.
With the a.s.sa.s.sination of the Custos, however, it was different.
Circ.u.mstances had caused that event to be hurried, and there was danger--as Chakra himself had admitted--that the spell of Obi might be mistaken for a spell of poison. A death so sudden, and by natural causes inexplicable, would, undoubtedly, provoke speculation, and lead to the opening and examining of the body.
Chakra knew that inside would be found something stronger than even the sap of the Savanna flower or the branched _calalue_; and that in all probability the malady to which the Custos had succ.u.mbed would be p.r.o.nounced _murder_.
With this upon his mind, he was not without apprehension--his fears pointing to Cynthia.
Not that he suspected the _honesty_ of his confederate; but only that her _consistency_ might be too weak to withstand the cross-questioning of a coroner.
Fearing this, he had scarce got out of sight of the Custos"s corpse before he commenced contriving how Cynthia"s tongue could be tied--in other words, how the mulatta was to be made away with.
Upon this design his thoughts were for the moment bent.
He had less, if any, apprehension about his other accomplice in the crime. He fancied that Jessuron was himself too deeply dyed to point out the spots upon his fellow-conspirator; and this rendered him confident of secrecy on the part of the Jew.
Neither did he dwell long upon the danger to be apprehended from Cynthia, and so trivial a matter as the silencing of her tongue soon became obliterated or blended with another and far more important project, to the execution of which he was now hastening.
On leaving the hut where lay the dead body of his victim, he had taken to by-paths and bushes. Only for a short time did he keep to these.
The twilight rapidly darkening into night left the highway free to him; and, availing himself of this privilege, he returned to it--showing by his hurried steps, as he regained the road, that he was glad to escape from a circuitous path.
His face once more set towards the Trelawney hills, he walked in silence, and with a rapidity scarce credible--his long, ape-like legs, split trestle fashion to the centre of his body, enabling him to glide over the ground almost as fast as a mule could mince.
Whenever anyone appeared upon the road before him, he adopted his customary plan of betaking himself to the bushes until they had pa.s.sed; but when travellers chanced to be going the same way--which more than once did happen--he avoided an encounter by making a circuit through the woods, and coming out far ahead of them.
The trouble thus taken to gain time, as well as the earnest manner with which the myal-man was hastening forward, proved that the crime just committed was not the crisis of Chakra"s villainies; but that some other evil purpose--to him of equal or greater import--was yet before him; and soon to be achieved, or, at least, attempted.
Following back the main route between Savanna-la-Mer and the Bay, he at length arrived at the Carrion Crow Road, and, after traversing this for some distance, came within view of the Jumbe Rock, now glancing with vitreous sheen in the clear moonlight.
Almost as soon as he had caught sight of the well-known land-mark, he forsook the road; and struck off into a by-path that led through the woods.
This path, trending diagonally up the side of the Jumbe mountain, and pa.s.sing near the base of the rock, was the same which Herbert Vaughan and the two Maroons had traversed on their way from the Happy Valley on that same morning.
Chakra, however, knew nothing of this; nor aught either of the design or expedition of Cubina and his comrades. Equally ignorant was he of the errand on which Jessuron had dispatched his Cuban emissaries--by way of having his bow twice stringed.
The Coromantee, fancying himself the only player in that game of murder, had no idea that there were others interested in it as much as he; and although once or twice during the day he had seen men moving suspiciously behind him along the road, it had never occurred to him who they were--much less that they had been deputed to complete his own job, should the "spell" fail to prove sufficiently potent.
A somewhat long _detour_--which he had taken after leaving the hut--had brought him out on the main road behind both parties; and thus had he remained ignorant of their proximity, at the same time that he had himself escaped the observation both of the villains who intended to a.s.sa.s.sinate the Custos, and of the men who were pressing forward to save him.
Still continuing his rapid stride, Chakra climbed the mountain slope, with the agility of one accustomed to the most difficult paths.
On arriving under the Jumbe Rock, he halted--not with any intention of remaining there, but only to consider.
He looked up towards the summit of the cliff, in whose dark shadow he was standing; and then, raising his eyes still higher, he gazed for a short while upon the sky. His glance betrayed that interrogative scrutiny characteristic of one who, not being furnished with a watch, endeavours to ascertain the time. Chakra needed no watch. By day, the sun was sufficient to inform him of the hour; by night the stars, which were old and familiar acquaintances.
The sinking of Orion towards the silvered surface of the sea told him that in two hours, or thereabout, no stars would be seen.
"Kupple ob hour!" muttered he, after making the observation; "woan do-- woan do. By de time I get to de Duppy Hole fo" de lamp, an" den back to de rock fo" fix um--It woan do! Adam an" his men de better part ob an hour "fore dey ked climb up hya; an" den it be daylight. _Daat_ woan do nohow. Muss be done in de night, else we git follered, an" de Duppy Hole no longer safe "treat fo" Chakra. Mussent risk dat, whasomebber a do.
"Whugh!" he continued, after reflecting a moment, and with a look of villainous chagrin overspreading his countenance; ""tam a piece of cuss crooked luck fo" me no" be hya "bout two hour soona. Dat "ud "a been s"fishint to got "em all up in time; an" dar wud den a been gobs o" time to "complish de whole bizness.