CHAPTER XI.
The caravan had halted for the night. Professor Stone, the leader of the expedition, sat in Reuel’s tent enjoying a pipe and a talk over the promising features of the enterprise. The nearer they approached the goal of their hopes—the ancient Ethiopian capital Meroe—the greater was the excitement among the leaders of the party. Charlie from his bed of rugs listened with ever-increasing curiosity to the conversation between the two men.
“It is undoubtedly true that from its position as the capital of Ethiopia and the entrepot of trade between the North and South, between the East and West, Meroe must have held vast treasures. African caravans poured ivory, frankincense and gold into the city. My theory is that somewhere under those pyramids we shall find invaluable records and immense treasure.”
“Your theories may be true, Professor, but if so, your discoveries will establish the primal existence of the Negro as the most ancient source of all that you value in modern life, even antedating Egypt. How can the Anglo-Saxon world bear the establishment of such a theory?” There was a hidden note of sarcasm in his voice which the others did not notice.
The learned savant settled his glasses and threw back his head.
“You and I, Briggs, know that the theories of prejudice are swept away by the great tide of facts. It is afactthat Egypt drew from Ethiopia all the arts, sciences and knowledge of which she was mistress. The very soil of Egypt was pilfered by the Nile from the foundations of Meroe. I have even thought,” he continued meditatively, “that black was the original color of man in prehistoric times. You remember that Adam was made from the earth; what more natural than that he should have retained the color of the earth? What puzzles me is not the origin of the Blacks, but of the Whites. Miriam was made a leper outside the tents for punishment; Naaman was a leper until cleansed. It is a question fraught with big possibilities which God alone can solve. But of this we are sure—all records of history, sacred and profane, unite in placing the Ethiopian as the primal race.”
“Gee whiz!” exclaimed Charlie from his bed on the floor. “Count me out!”
“Don’t touch upon the origin of the Negro; you will find yourself in a labyrinth, Professor. That question has provoked more discussion than any other concerning the different races of man on the globe. Speculation has exhausted itself, yet the mystery appears to remain unsolved.
“Nevertheless the Biblical facts are very explicit, and so simple as to force the very difficulties upon mankind that Divinity evidently designed to avoid.
“The relationship existing between the Negro and other people of the world is a question of absorbing interest. For my part, I shall be glad to add to my ethnological knowledge by anything we may learn at Meroe.” Thus speaking Reuel seemed desirous of dismissing the subject. More conversation followed on indifferent subjects, and presently the Professor bade them good night and retired to his own tent.
Reuel employed himself in making entries in his journal. Charlie continued to smoke, at times evincing by a musical snore that he was in the land of dreams. Jim sat at some distance reading a letter that he held in his hand.
The night was sultry, the curtains of the tent undrawn: from out the silent solitude came the booming call of a lion to his mate.
Suddenly a rush of balmy air seemed to pass over the brow of the scribe, and a dim shadow fell across the tent door. It was the form of the handsome Negress who had appeared to Dianthe, and signed herself “Mira.”
There was no fear in Reuel’s gaze, no surprise; it was as if a familiar and welcome visitor had called upon him. For a moment an impulse to spring away into the wide, wide realms of air, seemed to possess him; the next, the still, dreamy ecstasy of a past time; and then he saw Jim—who sat directly behind him—placed like a picture on his very table. He saw him knit his brow, contract his lip, and then, with a face all seamed with discontent, draw from his vest a letter, seemingly hidden in a private pocket, reading thus:—
“Use your discretion about the final act, but be sure the letters are destroyed. I have advised the letters sent in your care as you will probably be detailed for the mail. But to avoid mishap call for the mail for both parties. Address me at Laurel Hill—Thomas Johnson.”“A. L.”
“Use your discretion about the final act, but be sure the letters are destroyed. I have advised the letters sent in your care as you will probably be detailed for the mail. But to avoid mishap call for the mail for both parties. Address me at Laurel Hill—Thomas Johnson.”
“A. L.”
Twice did the visionary scene, passingbehindthe seer, recross his entranced eyes; and twice did the shadowy finger of the shining apparition in the tent door point, letter by letter, to the pictured page of the billet, which Jim was at that very moment perusing with his natural, and Reuel Briggs with his spiritual eyes. When both had concluded the reading, Jim put up his letter. The curtains of the tent slightly waved; a low, long sigh, like the night’s wind wail, passed over the cold, damp brow of the seer. A shudder, a blank. He looked out into the desert beyond. All was still. The stars were out for him, but the vision was gone.
Thus was explained to Reuel, by mesmeric forces, the fact that his letters had been withheld.
He had not once suspected Jim of perfidy. What did it mean? he asked himself. The letter was in Livingston’s handwriting! His head swam; he could not think. Over and over again he turned the problem and then, wishing that something more definite had been given him, retired, but not to sleep.
Try as he would to throw it off, the most minute act of Jim since entering his service persisted in coming before his inner vision. The night when he was attacked by the leopard and Jim’s tardiness in offering help, returned with great significance. What could he do but conclude that he was the victim of a conspiracy.
“There is no doubt about it,” was his last thought as he dropped into a light doze. How long he slept he could not tell, but he woke with a wild, shrill cry in his ears: “Reuel, Reuel, save me!”
Three times it was repeated, clear, distinct, and close beside his ear, a pause between the repetitions.
He roused his sleeping friend. “Charlie, Charlie! wake up and listen!”
Charlie, still half asleep, looked with blinking eyes at the candle with dazzled sight.
“Charlie, for the love of God wake up!”
At this, so full of mortal fear were his words, Adonis shook off his drowsiness and sat up in bed, wide awake and staring at him in wonder.
“What the deuce!” he began, and then stopped, gazing in surprise at the white face and trembling hands of his friend.
“Charlie,” he cried, “some terrible event has befallen Dianthe, or like a sword hangs over our heads. Listen, listen!”
Charlie did listen but heard nothing but the lion’s boom which now broke the stillness.
“I hear nothing, Reuel.”
“O Charlie, are you sure?”
“Nothing but the lion. But that’ll be enough if he should take it into his mind to come into camp for his supper.”
“I suppose you are right, for you can hear nothing, and I can hear nothing now. But, oh Charlie! it was so terrible, and I heard it so plainly; though I daresay it was only my—Oh God! there it is again! listen! listen!”
This time Charlie heard—heard clearly and unmistakably, and hearing, felt the blood in his veins turn to ice.
Shrill and clear above the lion’s call rose a prolonged wail, or rather shriek, as of a human voice rising to heaven in passionate appeal for mercy, and dying away in sobbing and shuddering despair. Then came the words:
“Charlie, brother, save me!”
Adonis sprang to his feet, threw back the curtain of the tent and looked out. All was calm and silent, not even a cloud flecked the sky where the moon’s light cast a steady radiance.
Long he looked and listened; but nothing could be seen or heard. But the cry still rang in his ears and clamored at his heart; while his mind said it was the effect of imagination.
Reuel’s agitation had swallowed up his usual foresight. He had forgotten his ability to resort to that far-seeing faculty which he had often employed for Charlie’s and Aubrey’s amusement when at home.
Charlie was very calm, however, and soothed his friend’s fears, and after several ineffectual attempts to concentrate his powers for the exercise of the clairvoyant sight of the hypnotic trance, was finally able to exercise the power.
In low, murmuring cadence, sitting statuesque and rigid beneath the magnetic spell, Reuel rehearsed the terrible scene which had taken place two months before in the United States in the ears of his deeply-moved friend.
“Ah, there is Molly, poor Molly; and see your father weeps, and the friends are there and they too weep, but where is my own sweet girl, Dianthe, love, wife! No, I cannot see her, I do not find the poor maimed body of my love. And Aubrey! What! Traitor, false friend! I shall return for vengeance.
“Wake me, Charlie,” was his concluding sentence.
A few upward passes of his friend’s hands, and the released spirit became lord of its casket once more. Consciousness returned, and with it memory. In short whispered sentences Reuel told Vance of his suspicions, of the letter he read while it lay in Jim’s hand, of his deliberate intention to leave him to his fate in the leopard’s claws.
The friends laid their plans,—they would go on to Meroe, and then return instantly to civilization as fast as steam could carry them, if satisfactory letters were not waiting them from America.