Under Sentence of Death

CHAPTER L

“Comrades!” cried a voice of thunder.

All looked at the spot from whence the sound proceeded: Bug-Jargal was standing on the edge of the opening, a crimson plume floating on his head.

“Comrades,” repeated he, “stay your hands!”

The negroes prostrated themselves upon the earth in token of submission.

“I am Bug-Jargal,” continued he.

The negroes struck the earth with their heads, uttering cries the meaning of which I could not comprehend.

“Unbind the prisoner,” commanded the chief.

But now the dwarf appeared to recover from the stupor into which the sudden appearance of Bug-Jargal had thrown him, and seized by the arm the negro who was preparing to cut the cords that bound me.

“What is the meaning of this? What are you doing?” cried he.

Then, raising his voice, he addressed Bug-Jargal: “Chief of Morne-Rouge,” cried he, “what are you doing here?”

“I have come to command my own men,” was the reply.

“Yes,” answered the dwarf, in tones of concentrated passion, “these negroes do certainly belong to your band; but,” added he, raising his voice again, “by what right do you interfere with my prisoner?”

The chief answered, “I am Bug-Jargal;” and again the negroes struck the ground with their foreheads.

“Bug-Jargal,” continued Habibrah, “cannot contravene the orders of Biassou; this white man was given to me by Biassou; I desire his death, and die he shall. Obey me,” he added, turning to the negroes, “and hurl him into the abyss.”

At the well-known voice of the Obi the negroes rose to their feet and took a step towards me. I thought all was lost.

“Unbind the prisoner!” cried Bug-Jargal again.

In an instant I was free. My surprise was equalled by the fury of the Obi. He attempted to throw himself upon me. The negroes interfered; then he burst out into imprecations and threats.

“ ‘Demonios! rabia! inferno de mi alma!’ How, wretches, you refuse to obey me! Do you not recognize my voice! Why did I lose time in talking to this accursed one? I ought to have had him hurled without delay to the fishes of the gulf. By wishing to make my vengeance more complete I have lost it all together. Orabia de Satan. Listen to me: if you do not obey me, and hurl him into the abyss, I will curse you; your hair shall grow white, the mosquitoes and sandflies shall eat you up alive, your legs and your arms shall bend like reeds, your breath shall burn your throat like red hot-sand, you shall die young, and after your death your spirits shall be compelled to turn a millstone as big as a mountain, in the moon where it is always cold.”

The scene was a strange one. The only one of my colour, in a damp and gloomy cavern surrounded by negroes with the aspect of demons, balanced as it were upon the edge of a bottomless gulf, and every now and then threatened by a deformed dwarf, by a hideous sorcerer upon whose striped garments and pointed cap the fading light shone faintly, yet protected by a tall negro who was standing at the only point from which daylight could be seen, it appeared to me that I was at the gates of hell, awaiting the conflict between my good and evil angels, to result in the salvation or the destruction of my soul. The negroes appeared to be terrified at the threats of the Obi, and he endeavoured to profit by their indecision.

“I desire the death of the white man, and he shall die; obey me.”

Bug-Jargal replied solemnly, “He shall live; I am Bug-Jargal, my father was the King of Kakongo, who dispensed justice at the gate of his palace.”

Again the negroes cast themselves upon the ground.

The chief continued.

“Brethren, go and tell Biassou not to unfurl the black banner upon the mountain-top which should announce to the whites the signal of this man’s death, for he was the saviour of Bug-Jargal’s life, and Bug-Jargal wills that he should live.”

They rose up. Bug-Jargal threw his red plume on the ground before them. The chief of the guard picked it up with every show of respect, and they left the cavern without a word; whilst the Obi, with a glance of rage, followed them down the subterranean avenue.

I will not attempt to describe my feelings at that moment. I fixed my eyes, wet with tears, upon Pierrot, who gazed upon me with a singular expression of love and tenderness. “God be praised,” said he, “you are saved. Brother, go back by the road by which you entered, you will meet me again in the valley.”

He waved his hand to me and disappeared from my sight.

CHAPTER LI

Eager to arrive at the appointed meeting-place, and to learn by what fortunate means my saviour had been enabled to make his appearance at so opportune a moment, I prepared to leave the cavern in which my nerves had been so severely tried; but as I prepared to enter the subterranean passage an unexpected obstacle presented itself in my path.

It was Habibrah!

The revengeful Obi had not in reality followed the negroes as I had believed, but had concealed himself behind a rocky projection of the cave, waiting for a propitious moment for his vengeance; and this moment had come. He laughed bitterly as he showed himself. A dagger, the same that he was in the habit of using for a crucifix, shone in his right hand: at the sight of it I recoiled a step.

“Ha, accursed one, did you think to escape me? But the fool is not such a fool after all! I have you, and this time there shall be no delay. Your friend Bug-Jargal shall not wait for you long, you shall soon be at the meeting-place, but it will be the wave of the cataract that shall bear you there.”

As he spoke he dashed at me with uplifted weapon.

“Monster,” cried I, retreating to the platform, “just now you were only an executioner, now you are a murderer.”

“I am an avenger,” returned he, grinding his teeth.

I was on the edge of the precipice; he endeavoured to hurl me over with a blow of his dagger. I avoided it. His foot slipped on the treacherous moss which covered the rocks, he rolled into the slope polished and rounded by the constant flow of water.

“A thousand devils!” roared he.

He had fallen into the abyss.

I have already mentioned that the roots of the old tree projected through the crevices of the rocks, a little below the edge of the precipice. In his fall the dwarf struck against these, his striped petticoat caught in them, he grasped at them as a last hope of safety, and clung to them with all the energy of despair.

His pointed bonnet fell from his head; to maintain his position he had to let go his dagger, and the two together disappeared in the depths of the abyss.

Habibrah, suspended over the terrible gulf, strove vainly to regain the platform, but his short arms could not reach the rocky edge, and he broke his nails in useless efforts to obtain a hold on the muddy surface of the rocks which sloped down into the terrible abyss.

He howled with rage.

The slightest push on my part would have been sufficient to hurl him to destruction, but it would have been an act of cowardice, and I made no movement. This moderation on my part seemed to surprise him.

Thanking heaven for its mercies, I determined to abandon him to his fate, and was about to leave the cave when, in a voice broken with fear, and which appeared to come from the depths of the abyss, he addressed me.

“Master,” cried he, “master, do not go, for pity’s sake! do not, in the name of heaven, leave a guilty creature to perish, that it is in your power to save. Alas, my strength is failing me; the roots bend, and slip through my fingers, the weight of my body drags me down—I must let go, or my arms will break! Alas, master, the fearful gulfs boils and seethes beneath me! Nombre santo de Dios! Have you no pity for the poor fool? He has been very guilty, but prove that the white men are better than the mulattoes, the masters than the slaves, by saving him.”

I approached the brink of the precipice, and the feeble light that broke through the aperture in the roof showed me, on the repulsive features of the dwarf, an expression which I had never noticed before, that of prayer and supplication.

“Señor Leopold,” continued he, encouraged by the movement of pity that I showed, “can you see a fellow-creature in so terrible a position of peril, without stretching out a hand to save him? Give me your hand, master; with very slight assistance from you I can save myself—I only ask for a little help. Help me then, and my gratitude shall be as great as my crimes.”

I interrupted him.

“Unhappy wretch, do not recall them to my memory.”

“It is because I repent of them that I do so. Oh, be generous to me! O heavens, my hand relaxes its grasp, and I fall! Ay desdichado! The hand, your hand; in the name of the mother who bore you, give me your hand!”

I cannot describe the tone of agony in which he pleaded for help. In this moment of peril I forgot all; it was no longer an enemy, a traitor, and an assassin, but an unhappy fellow-creature, whom a slight exertion upon my part could rescue from a frightful death. He implored me in heart-rending accents. Reproaches would have been fruitless, and out of place. The necessity for help was urgent and immediate. I stooped, knelt down on the brink of the precipice, and grasping the trunk of the tree with one hand, I extended the other to Habibrah.

As soon as it was within his reach, he grasped it with both his hands, and hung on to it with all his strength. Far from attempting to aid me in my efforts to draw him up, I felt that he was exerting all his powers to draw me down with him into the abyss. If it had not been for the assistance afforded to me by the trunk of the tree, I must infallibly have been dragged over by the violent and unexpected jerk that the wretched man gave me.

“Villain!” cried I; “what are you doing?”

“Avenging myself,” answered he, with a peal of devilish laughter. “Aha! madman, have I got you in my clutches once more? You have of your own free-will placed yourself again in my power, and I hold you tight. You were saved and I was lost, and yet you of your own accord place your head between the jaws of the alligator, because it wept after having roared. I can bear death, since it will give me revenge. You are caught in the trap, amigo, and I shall take a companion with me to feed the fishes of the lake.”

“Ah, traitor!” cried I, struggling with all my strength. “Is it thus that you serve me when I was trying to save you?”

“Yes,” hissed he. “I know that we could have saved ourselves together, but I would rather that we should die at the same moment. I had rather compass your death, than save my life. Come down!”

As he spoke, his brown muscular hands grasped mine with unexpected strength, his eyes blazed, his mouth foamed; the strength, the departure of which he had before so piteously bewailed, had returned to him increased a thousandfold by the hope of revenge. His feet were planted like two perpendicular levers on a ledge of rock, and he struggled like a tiger against the root which, entangled in his clothes, supported him in spite of himself, for he was endeavouring with all his might to shake himself free, so as to bring all his weight to bear on me, and to drag me more quickly into the yawning gulf below.

In his rage he endeavoured to bite me, whilst his hideous features were rendered more terrible by their expression of satanic frenzy.

He looked like the demon of the cave seeking to drag down his victim to his abode of gloom and darkness.

One of my knees, by good fortune, was planted in a groove of the rock, and my arm was wrapped round the trunk of the tree, and I strove against the efforts of the dwarf with all the strength that the feeling of self-preservation could give me at such a moment.

Every now and then I drew a long breath, and shouted “Bug-Jargal” with all the force of my lungs. But the roar of the cascade, and the distance that he must be off, gave me but faint hopes of my voice reaching him.

But the dwarf, who had not anticipated so vigorous a resistance on my part, redoubled his efforts. I began to grow weak, though in reality the struggle had not taken so long as the narration of it. A violent pain paralyzed my arm, my sight grew dim, bright sparks flashed before my eyes, and a buzzing sound filled my ears. I heard the creaking of the root as it bent, mingled with the laugh of the monster, and the abyss seemed to rise up towards me as though eager to engulf its prey. But before I gave up all hope I made a last effort, and collecting together my exhausted forces, I once again shouted “Bug-Jargal.”

A loud bark replied to me; it was Rask who thus answered my appeal for help. I glanced upwards—Bug-Jargal and his dog were gazing at me from the orifice in the roof.

He saw my danger at once.

“Hold on!” cried he.

Habibrah, fearing that I might yet be saved, foamed with rage, and crying, “Come down there, come down!” renewed the attack with almost supernatural vigour.

At this moment, weakened by the long struggle, my arm lost its hold of the tree. All seemed over with me, when I felt myself seized from behind. It was Rask!

At a sign from his master he had leapt down on the platform, and seized me by the skirts of my uniform with his powerful teeth.

This unlooked-for aid saved me. Habibrah had exhausted all his strength in a last convulsive effort, whilst I put forth all mine and succeeded in withdrawing my hand from his cramped and swollen fingers. The root, which had been for some time yielding, now parted suddenly, Rask gave me a violent pull backwards, and the wretched dwarf disappeared in the foam of the cascade, hurling a curse at me which was swallowed up with him in the whirl of waters.

Such was the terrible end of my uncle’s fool.

CHAPTER LII

The excitement of the last few hours, the terrible struggle and its awful conclusion, had utterly exhausted me, and I lay where I had fallen, almost deprived of sense or power of motion. The voice of Bug-Jargal restored me to myself.

“Brother,” cried he, “hasten to leave this place. In half an hour the sun will have set; I will meet you in the valley. Follow Rask.”

The words of my friend restored hope, strength, and courage to me. I rose to my feet. The great dog ran rapidly down the subterranean passage; I followed him, his bark guiding me through the darkness. After a time I saw a streak of light, and in a few minutes I gained the entrance, and breathed more freely as I passed through the archway. As I left the damp and gloomy vault behind me, I recalled to my mind the prediction of the dwarf, and its fatal fulfilment, “One only of us shall return by this road.” His attempt had failed, but the prophecy had been carried out.

CHAPTER LIII

Bug-Jargal was waiting for me in the valley. I threw myself into his arms, but I had so many questions to put to him that I could not find words in which to express them.

“Listen to me,” said he. “Your wife, my sister, is in safety in the camp of the white men; I handed her over to a relation of yours who was in command of the outposts, and I wished to again constitute myself a prisoner, lest they should execute the ten prisoners whose lives were security for my reappearance. But your relative told me to return, and, if possible, to prevent your execution; and that the ten negroes should not be executed until Biassou should announce the fact by displaying a black flag on one of the highest peaks of the mountains. Then I returned to do my best. Rask led me to where you were—thanks be to heaven, I arrived in time. You will live, and so shall I.”

He extended his hand to me, adding—

“Brother, are you satisfied?”

I again clasped him to my breast; I entreated him not to leave me again, but to remain with the white troops, and I promised him to exert all my influence to procure him a commission in the colonial army. But he interrupted me with an angry air.

“Brother,” asked he, “do I propose to you to join my army?”

I kept silence, for I felt that I had been guilty of a folly; then he added in a tone of affected gaiety—

“Come, let us hurry to the camp to reassure your wife.”

This proposal was what I most ardently desired; we started at once. The negro knew the way, and took the lead; Rask followed us.

Here D’Auverney stopped suddenly, and cast a gloomy look around him; perspiration in large beads covered his forehead; he concealed his face with his hands. Rask looked at him with an air of uneasiness.

“Yes, you may well look at me like that,” murmured he.

An instant afterwards he rose from his seat in a state of violent agitation, and, followed by the sergeant and the dog, rushed hurriedly from the tent.

CHAPTER LIV

“I will lay a bet,” said Henri, “that we are nearing the end of the drama; and I should really feel sorry if anything happened to Bug-Jargal, for he was really a famous fellow.”

Paschal removed from his lips the mouth of his wicker-covered flask, and said—

“I would give twelve dozen of port to have seen the cocoa-nut cup that he emptied at a draught.”

Alfred, who was gently humming the air of a love-song, interrupted himself by asking Henri to tie his aguilettes; then he added—

“The negro interests me very much, but I have not dared to ask D’Auverney if he knew the air of ‘Beautiful Padilla.’ ”

“What a villain that Biassou was,” continued Paschal; “but for all that he knew the value of a Frenchman’s word; but there are people more pitiless than Biassou—my creditors, for instance.”

“But what do you think of D’Auverney’s story?” asked Henri.

“Ma foi,” answered Alfred, “I have not paid much attention to it; but I certainly had expected something more interesting from D’Auverney’s lips, and then I want to know the air to which Bug-Jargal sang his songs. In fact, I must admit that the story has bored me a little.”

“You are right,” returned Paschal, the aide-de-camp. “Had I not had my pipe and my bottle, I should have passed but a dreary evening. Besides, there were a lot of absurdities in it; how can we believe, for instance, that that little thief of a sorcerer—I forget his name—would have drowned himself for the sake of destroying his enemy?”

Henri interrupted him with a smile.

“You cannot understand any one taking to water, can you, Captain Paschal? But what struck me more than anything was, that every time D’Auverney mentioned the name of Bug-Jargal his lame dog lifted up his head.”

The sound of the sentry carrying arms warned them of D’Auverney’s return. All remained silent. He walked up and down the tent for a few moments with folded arms, without a word.

Old Sergeant Thaddeus, who had returned with him, bent over Rask, and furtively caressed him, hoping by that means to conceal his countenance, which was full of anxiety, from the eyes of his captain. At length, after making a strong effort, D’Auverney continued his narrative.

CHAPTER LV

Rask followed us. The highest rock in the valley was not yet lighted by the rays of the sun; a glimmer of light touched it for an instant, and then passed away.

The negro trembled, and grasped my hand firmly.

“Listen,” said he.

A dull sound like the discharge of a piece of artillery was heard, and was repeated by the echoes of the valleys.

“It is the signal,” said the negro in a gloomy voice. “It was a cannon shot, was it not?”

I nodded in sign of the affirmative.

In two bounds he sprang to the top of a lofty rock; I followed him. He crossed his arms and smiled sadly.

“Do you see that?” asked he.

I looked in the direction to which he pointed, and on the lofty peak to which he had drawn my attention during our last interview with Marie, and which was now glowing in the rays of the setting sun, I saw a huge black flag, its folds flapping idly in the breeze.

(At this point of his recital D’Auverney again paused.)

I learned afterwards that Biassou, in a hurry to leave his ground, had ordered the flag to be hoisted without waiting for the return of the negroes who had been despatched to assist at my execution. Bug-Jargal was still in the same position—his arms folded, and his eyes eagerly fixed upon the fatal signal.

Suddenly he started, and seemed about to descend from his post of observation.

“Great heavens! my unfortunate comrades!” cried he. “Did you hear the gun?”

I made no reply.

“It was the signal, my brother. They are leading them now to the place of execution.”

His head fell upon his breast; after a short pause, he said—

“Go, brother, and rejoice your wife; Rask will guide you to her;” and he whistled an African air, which Rask appeared to recognize, for he wagged his tail, and seemed ready to set out.

Bug-Jargal grasped my hand, and strove to smile, but his features were contracted, and his look was ghastly.

“Farewell for ever!” cried he, and dashed into the thicket by which we were surrounded.

I remained motionless; the little that I understood of the position made me fear the worst.

Rask, on seeing his master disappear, advanced to the edge of the rock, and, raising his head, uttered a plaintive howl. Then he turned to me, his tail was between his legs and his eyes were moist; he looked at me with an air of inquietude, and turned to the spot from which his master had disappeared, and barked several times. I understood him, and shared his fears. Suddenly he dashed off in pursuit of his master, and I should soon have lost sight of him, had he not every now and then halted to give me time to come up to him. In this manner we passed through many a valley and leafy glade; we climbed hills and crossed streams. At last–

D’Auverney’s voice failed him, an expression of despair covered his face, and he could not find words to continue his narrative.

“Continue it, Thaddeus,” said he, “for I can go on no further.”

The old sergeant was not less distressed than his captain, but he made an effort to obey him.

“With your permission, gentlemen,” said he, “and since it is your wish, captain, I must tell you, gentlemen, that Bug-Jargal—otherwise called Pierrot—was a tall negro, very strong, very gentle, and the bravest man in the world—except you, captain, if you please; but I was terribly prejudiced against him, for which I will never pardon myself, though you, captain, have forgiven me; so much so, that, when we heard that your execution had been fixed for the evening of the second day, I flew into a furious rage with the poor fellow, and I felt a fiendish pleasure in informing him that his death would pay for yours, or that, if he escaped, ten of his men would be shot by way of reprisal. He said nothing upon hearing this, but an hour afterwards he made his escape through a great hole which he pierced in the wall of his prison.”

D’Auverney made a movement of impatience, and Thaddeus continued:

“Well, when we saw the great black flag hoisted on the mountain—and as the negro had not returned, a fact which surprised none of us—our officers ordered the signal gun to be fired, and I was ordered to conduct the ten negroes to the place of execution, a spot we call the Devil’s Mouth, about—but it does not matter how far it was from the camp. Well, as you can imagine, we did not take them there to set them at liberty, but I had them bound, as is the custom, and paraded my firing party, when who should burst upon us but the tall negro. He was out of breath with the speed that he had made.

“Good evening, Thaddeus,’ said he. ‘I am in time.’

“No, gentlemen, he did not utter another word, but hastened to unbind his comrades. I stood there in stupefaction. Then—with your permission, captain—there was a good deal of generous argument between the other negroes and himself, which might have lasted longer but—well, it is no good hiding the fact, it was I that stopped it. At any rate, he took their place. Then the great dog came, poor Rask; he leapt at my throat: he ought to have held me longer, but Pierrot made a sign to him, and the poor brute released me, but his master could not prevent his taking his place at my feet. Then, believing that you were dead, captain—well, I was in a fine rage; I gave the word, Bug-Jargal fell, and a bullet broke the dog’s foot.

“Since that time, gentlemen,” continued the sergeant, sadly, “he has been lame. Then I heard groans in the adjacent wood; I reached it, and found you—a stray bullet had hit you as you were running forward to save the tall negro. Yes, captain, you were wounded, but Bug-Jargal was dead!

“We carried you back to the camp; you were not dangerously wounded, and the doctors soon cured you, but I believe Madame Marie’s nursing had a good deal to do with it.”

The sergeant stopped in his story, and D’Auverney, in a solemn voice, added—

“Bug-Jargal was dead!”

Thaddeus bowed his head.

“Yes,” said he, “he spared my life, and I—I killed him.”