The Maroon Part 98

conceal yourself in these bushes, and wait for our coming. I shall call out for you. Behind the bushes you will be safe. Not a word, not a movement, till you hear me calling your name."

As he uttered these admonitions, the brave young man gently guided his cousin into the thicket. Causing her to kneel down in a shaded covert, he imprinted a hurried kiss upon her forehead, and then hastily leaving her, followed Cubina towards the fight.

In a few seconds they ran down to the garden wall, and pa.s.sed rapidly through the wicket-gate, which they found standing open; on through the garden, and straight towards the place from which they imagined the sounds had proceeded.

Strange enough, these had ceased as abruptly as they had risen--the cries of the men, the screaming of the women, the shots, and the loud shouting!

All, as if by a simultaneous signal, had become silent; as though the earth had opened and swallowed not only the noises, but those who had been causing them!

Unheeding the change, Herbert and Cubina kept on; nor came to a stop until they had pa.s.sed the smoking remains of the mansion, and stood upon the platform that fronted it.

There halted they.

There was still some fitful light from the burning beams; but the beams of the moon told a truer tale. They illumined a _tableau_ significant as terrible.

Near the spot was a stretcher, on which lay the corpse of a white man, half uncovered, ghastly as death could make it. Close to it were three others, corpses like itself, only that they were those of men with a black epidermis.

Herbert easily identified the first. It had been his companion on that day's journey. It was the corpse of his uncle.

As easily did Cubina recognise the others. They were, or had been, men of his own band--the Maroons--left by Quaco to guard the prisoners.

The prisoners! where were they? Escaped?

It took Cubina but little time to resolve the mystery. To the practised eye of one who had tied up many a black runaway, there was no difficulty in interpreting the sign there presented to his view.

A tangle of ropes and sticks brought to mind the contrivances of Quaco for securing his captives. They lay upon the trodden ground, cast away, and forsaken.

The _cacadores_ had escaped. The affair had been a rescue!

Rather relieved by this conjecture, which soon a.s.sumed the form of a conviction, Herbert and Cubina were about returning to the place where they had left the young Creole--whom they supposed to be still awaiting them.

But they had not calculated on the bravery of love--much less upon its recklessness.

As they faced towards the dark declivity of the mountain, a form like a white-robed sylph was seen flitting athwart the trunks of the trees, and descending towards the garden wall. On it glided--on, and downward--as the snow-plumed gull in its graceful parabola.

Neither was mystified by this apparition. At a glance both recognised the form, with its soft, white drapery floating around it.

Love could no longer endure that anxious suspense. The young Creole had forsaken her shelter, to share the danger of him she adored.

Before either could interfere to prevent the catastrophe, she had pa.s.sed through the wicket--a way better known to her than to them--and came gliding across the garden, up to the spot where they stood.

An exclamation of joy announced her perception that her lover was still unharmed.

Quick as an echo, a second exclamation escaped from her lips--but one of a far different intonation. It was a cry of wildest despair--the utterance of one who suddenly knew herself to be _an orphan_. Her eyes had fallen upon the corpse of her father!

Volume Three, Chapter XLV.

AN INVOLUNTARY SUICIDE.

On seeing the dead body of her father, Kate Vaughan sank to the earth beside it; not unconsciously, but on her knees, and in an agony of grief. Bending over it, she kissed the cold, speechless lips--her sobs and wilder e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns following each other in rapid succession.

Only the face of the corpse was uncovered. The camlet cloak still shrouded the body, and its gaping but bloodless wounds. She saw not these; and made no inquiry as to the cause of her father's death. The wasted features, now livid, recalled the disease under which he had been suffering previous to his departure. It was to that he had succ.u.mbed; so reasoned she.

Herbert made no attempt to undeceive her. It was not the time to enter into details of the sad incident that had transpired. The most mournful chapter of the story was now known--the rest need scarce be told: Kate Vaughan was fatherless.

Without uttering a word--not even those phrases of consolation so customary on such occasions, and withal so idle--the young man wound his arms round the waist of his cousin, gently raised her to an erect att.i.tude, and supported her away from the spot.

He pa.s.sed slowly towards the rear of the ruined dwelling.

There was still enough light emitted from the calcined embers to make plain the path--enough to show that the little summer-house in the garden still stood there in its shining entirety. Its distance from the dwelling-house had saved it from the conflagration.

Into this Herbert conducted his protegee, and, after placing her on a settee of bamboos, which the kiosk contained, seated himself in a chair beside her.

Yola, who had once more appeared upon the scene, followed them, and flinging herself on the floor, at her young mistress's feet, remained gazing upon her with sympathetic looks, that evinced the affectionate devotion of the Foolah maiden.

Cubina had gone in search of the overseer, and such of the domestics as might still have concealed themselves within a reasonable distance.

The Maroon might have acted with more caution, seeing that the second attack of the robbers had unexpectedly been made. But he had no fear of their coming again. The escape of the prisoners explained their second appearance--the sole object of which had been to rescue the _cacadores_.

For a while the three individuals in the kiosk appeared to be the only living forms that remained by the desolated mansion of Mount Welcome.

The return of the robbers had produced even a more vivid feeling of affright than their first appearance; and the people of the plantation-- white as well as black--had betaken themselves to places of concealment more permanent than before. The whites--overseer, book-keepers, and all--believing it to be an insurrection of the slaves, had forsaken the plantation altogether, and fled towards Montego Bay.

Among these panic-struck fugitives, or rather at the head of them, was the late distinguished guest of Mount Welcome--Mr Montagu Smythje.

On being left alone, after the departure of the pursuing party, he had made a rapid retreat towards the stables; and there, by the a.s.sistance of Quashie, had succeeded in providing himself with a saddled horse.

Not even staying to divest himself of his sacchariferous envelope, he had mounted and ridden at top speed for the port, announcing his fixed determination to take the first ship that should sail for his "deaw metwopolis."

Smythje had seen enough of Jamaica, and its "queeole queetyaws," and more than enough of "its howid n.i.g.g.aws."

Cubina, returning with Quashie--who again, imp-like, had started up in his path--the only living being the Maroon could discover, announced the fact that Mr Smythje was no longer on the ground.

From those who occupied the kiosk, the intelligence elicited no response. Notwithstanding the many jealous pangs he had cost Herbert Vaughan, and the important part he had played in the history of the young Creole's life, the great lord of Montagu Castle was no longer regarded even as a unit in the situation. Neither spoke of him--neither gave a thought to him. With perfect indifference, both Herbert and his cousin listened to the report that he was no longer on the ground.

But there was at that very moment one upon the ground who might have been better spared--one whose proximity was a thousand times more perilous than that of the harmless Smythje.

As we have said, Cubina had no apprehensions about the return of the robbers; but there was a danger near, and equally to be dreaded--a danger of which neither he nor any of the others could have had even the slightest suspicion.

The Maroon had delivered his report at the kiosk, and with Quashie attending on him, had gone back to the spot where the dead body still rested. He had gone thither to ascertain which of his own men had fallen in the late struggle, and also the better to acquaint himself with the direction which the robbers might have taken.

Just as he had turned his back upon the kiosk, a human figure--gliding so softly that it might have been mistaken for a shadow--pa.s.sed through the wicket-gate in the rear of the garden, and, with stealthy step, advanced in the direction of the summer-house.

Notwithstanding an ample cloak in which the figure was enveloped, its _contour_ could be distinguished as that of a woman--one of boldly-developed form.

The blaze of the still-burning timbers was no longer constant. At intervals some piece--losing its equilibrium under the effect of the consuming fire--would fall with a crushing sound; to be followed by a fresh glare of light, which would continue for a longer or shorter period of time, according to the circ.u.mstances that created it.

Just as the silent figure, approaching along the path, had arrived within a few paces of the summer-house, one of these sudden coruscations arose, lighting up not only the interior of the summer-house, but the whole enclosure to its furthest limits.

Under that light, had anyone been looking rearwards across the garden, they would have beheld a beautiful face--beautiful, yet disfigured by an expression of mingled rage and pain, that rendered it even hideous. It was the face of Judith Jessuron.