The People of the Mist Part 44

"We have heard your words and we will withdraw to consider them, and by dawn ye shall see us seated on the Black One yonder. But whether we will cause the sun to s.h.i.+ne or choose to pa.s.s to our own place by the path of boiling waters, we do not know, though it seems to me that the last thing is better than the first, for we weary of your company, People of the Mist, and it is not fitting that we should bless you longer with our presence. Nevertheless, should we choose that path, those evils which I have foretold shall fall upon you. Olfan, lead us hence."

The king stepped forward with his guards and the procession pa.s.sed back towards the palace solemnly and in silence, for none attempted to bar their way. They reached it safely at exactly ten o'clock by Leonard's watch.

"Now let us eat and drink," said Leonard when they stood alone in the throne-room, "for we shall need all our strength to-night."

"Yes," answered Juanna with a sad smile, "let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die."

CHAPTER x.x.x

FRANCISCO'S EXPIATION

When they had finished their meal, which was about as sad an entertainment as can well be conceived, they began to talk.

"Do you see any hope?" asked Juanna of the other three.

Leonard shook his head and answered:

"Unless the sun s.h.i.+nes at dawn to-morrow, we are dead men."

"Then there is little chance of that, Baas," groaned Otter, "for the night is as the nights have been for these five weeks. No wonder that this people are fierce and wicked who live in such a climate."

Juanna hid her face in her hands for a while, then spoke:

"They did not say that any harm was to come to you, Leonard, or to Francisco, so perhaps you will escape."

"I doubt it," he answered; "besides, to be perfectly frank, if you are going to die, I would rather die with you."

"Thank you, Leonard," she said gently, "but that will not help either of us much, will it? What will they do with us? Throw us from the head of the statue?" and she shuddered.

"That seems to be their amiable intention, but at any rate we need none of us go through with it alive. How long does your medicine take to work, Juanna?"

"Half a minute at the outside, I fancy, and sometimes less. Are you sure that you will take none, Otter? Think; the other end is dreadful."

"No, Shepherdess," said the dwarf, who now in the presence of imminent danger was as he had been before he sought comfort in the beer-pot, brave, ready, and collected, "it is not my plan to suffer myself to be hurled into the pit. Nay, when the time comes I shall spring there of my own free will, and if I am not killed--and an otter knows how to leap into a pool--then if I cannot avoid him I will make a fight for it with that great dweller in the water. Yes, and I go to make ready that with which I will fight," and he rose and departed to his sleeping-place.

Just then Francisco followed his example, seeking a quiet place in which to pursue his devotions, and thus Leonard and Juanna were left alone.

For some minutes he watched her as she sat beside him in her white temple dress, her beautiful face looking stern and sad against the dusky background of the torchlight, and a great shame and pity filled his heart. The blood of this girl was on his hands, and he could do nothing to help her. His selfishness had dragged her into this miserable enterprise, and now its inevitable end was at hand and he was her murderer, the murderer of the woman who was all the world to him, and who had been entrusted to his care with her father's dying breath.

"Forgive me," he said at length with something like a sob, and laying his hand upon hers.

"What have I to forgive, Leonard?" she replied gently. "Now that it is all finished and I look back upon the past few months, it seems to me that it is you who should forgive, for I have often behaved badly to you."

"Nonsense, Juanna, it was my wicked folly that led you into this, and now you are about to be cut off in the beginning of your youth and in the flower of your beauty. I am your murderer, Juanna," and dropping his voice he hesitated, then added: "It may as well out now, for time is short, though I have often sworn that nothing should make me say it: I love you."

She did not start or even stir at his words, but sat staring as before into the darkness: only a pink flush grew upon the pallor of her neck and cheek as she answered:

"You love me, Leonard? You forget--Jane Beach!"

"It is perfectly true, Juanna, that I was once attached to Jane Beach, and it is true that I still think of her with affection, but I have not seen her for many years, and I am certain that she has thrown me over and married another man. Most man pa.s.s through several affairs of the heart in their early days; I have had but one, and it is done with.

"When first I saw you in the slave camp I loved you, Juanna, and I have gone on loving you ever since, even after I became aware from your words and conduct that you did not entertain any such affection for myself. I know that your mind has not changed upon the matter, for had it done so, you would scarcely have spoken to me as you did to-day after Olfan left us. Indeed, I do not altogether understand why I have told you this, since it will not interest you very much and may possibly annoy you in your last hours. I suppose it was because I wished to make a clean breast of it before I pa.s.s to where we lose all our loves and hopes."

"Or find them," said Juanna, still looking before her.

Then there was silence for a minute or more, till Leonard, believing that he had got his answer, began to think that he would do well to leave her for a while. Just as he was about to rise Juanna made a gentle movement; slowly, very slowly, she turned herself, slowly she stretched out her arms towards him, and laid her head upon his breast.

For a moment Leonard was astounded; he could scarcely believe the evidence of his senses. Then recovering himself, he kissed her tenderly.

Presently Juanna slipped from his embrace and said, "Listen to me, Leonard: are men all blind, I wonder, or are you an exception? I don't know and don't want to know, but certainly it does seem strange that what has been so painfully patent to myself for the last five or six months, should have been invisible to you. Leonard, you were not the only one who fell in love yonder in the slave camp. But you quickly checked my folly by telling me the story of Jane Beach, and of course after that, whatever my thoughts may have been, I did my utmost to hide them from you, with more success, it seems, than I expected. Indeed I am not sure that I am wise to let you see them now, for though you declare that Jane is dead and buried, she might re-arise at any moment. I do not believe that men forget their first loves, Leonard, though they may persuade themselves to the contrary--when they are a long way from them."

"Don't you think that we might drop Jane, dear?" he answered with some impatience, for Juanna's words brought back to his mind visions of another love-scene that had taken place amid the English snows more than seven years before.

"I am sure that I am quite ready to drop her now and for ever. But do not let us begin to spar when so little time is left to us. Let us talk of other things. Tell me that you love me, love me, love me, for those are the words that I would hear ringing in my years before they become deaf to this world and its echoes, and those are the words with which I hope that you will greet me some few hours hence and in a happier land.

Leonard, tell me that you love me for to-day and for to-morrow, now and for ever."

So he told her that and much more, speaking to her earnestly, hopefully, and most tenderly, as a man might speak to the woman whom he wors.h.i.+pped and with whom is about to travel to that sh.o.r.e of which we know nothing, though day and night we hear the waves that bear us forward break yonder on its beach. They talked for long, and ever while they talked Juanna grew gentler and more human, as the barriers of pride melted in the fire of her pa.s.sion and the shadow of death gathered thicker upon her and the man she loved. At length her strength gave way utterly and she wept upon Leonard's breast like some frightened child, and from weeping sank into deep slumber or swoon, he knew not which. Then he kissed her upon the forehead, and, carrying her to her bed, laid her down to rest awhile before she died, returning himself to the throne-room.

Here he found Francisco and Otter.

"Look, Baas," said the dwarf, producing from beneath his goat-skin cloak an article which he had employed the last hour in constructing. It was a fearful and a wonderful instrument, made out of the two sacrificial knives that had been left by the priests on the occasion of the kidnapping of the last of the Settlement men. The handles of these knives Otter had lashed together immovably with strips of hide, forming from them a weapon two feet or more in length, of which the curved points projected in opposite directions.

"What is that for, Otter?" said Leonard carelessly, for he was thinking of other things.

"This is for the Crocodile to eat, Baas; I have seen his brothers caught like that before in the marshes of the Zambesi," replied the dwarf with a grin. "Doubtless he thinks to eat me, but I have made another food ready for him. Ah! of one thing I am sure, that if he comes out there will be a good fight, whoever conquers in the end."

Then he proceeded to fix a hide rope to the handles of the knives, and having made it fast about his body with a running noose, he coiled its length, which may have measured some thirty feet, round and round his middle, artfully concealing its bulk together with the knives beneath his cloak and _moocha_.

"Now I am a man again, Baas," the dwarf said grimly. "I have done with drink and such follies to which I took in my hours of idleness, for the time has come to fight. Ay, and I shall win, Baas; the waters are my home, and I do not fear crocodiles however big--no, not one bit; for, as I told you, I have killed them before. You will see, you will see."

"I am afraid that I shall do nothing of the sort, Otter," answered Leonard sadly, "but I wish you luck, my friend. If you get out of this mess, they will think you a G.o.d indeed, and should you only find the sense to avoid drink, you may rule here till you die of old age."

"There would be no pleasure in that, Baas, if you were dead," answered the dwarf with a heavy sigh. "Alas! my folly has helped to bring you into this trouble, but this I swear, that if I live--and my spirit tells me that I shall not die to-night--it will be to avenge you. Fear not, Baas; when I am a G.o.d again, one by one I will kill them all, and when they are dead, then I will kill myself and come to look for you."

"It is very kind of you, Otter, I am sure," said Leonard with something like a laugh, and at that moment the curtains swung aside and Soa stood before them accompanied by four armed priests.

"What do you want, woman?" exclaimed Leonard, springing towards her as though by instinct.

"Go back, Deliverer!" she said, holding up her hand and addressing him in the Sisutu tongue, which of course those with her did not understand.

"I am guarded, and my death would be quickly followed by your own.

Moreover, it would avail you little to kill me, since I come to bring you hope for the life of her you love and for your own. Listen: the sun will not s.h.i.+ne to-morrow at the dawn; already the mist gathers thick and it will hold, therefore the Shepherdess and the Dwarf will be hurled from the head of the statue, while you and the Bald-pate, having witnessed their end, will be kept alive till the autumn sacrifice, then to be offered up with the other victims."

"Why do you come to tell us all this, woman?" said Leonard, "seeing that we knew it already--that is, except the news of the postponement of our own fate, which I for one do not desire. What hope is there in this story? If you have nothing better to say, get you gone, traitress, and let us see your hateful face no more."

"I have something more to say, Deliverer. I still love the Shepherdess as you love her, and," she added with emphasis, "as Bald-pate yonder also loves her. Now this is my plan: two must die at dawn, but of those two the Shepherdess need not be one. The morning will be misty, the statue of the G.o.d is high, and but few of the priests will see the victim shrouded in her black robe. What if a subst.i.tute can be found so like to her in shape and height and feature that, in the twilight and beneath the shadow of the hood, none shall know them apart?"