myself it was my pity that had fallen.
On the farther side, to which we now hastily scrambled, the wood was not so dense, the web of creepers not so solidly convolved. It was possible, here and there, to mark a patch of somewhat brighter daylight, or to distinguish, through the lighter web of parasites, the proportions of some soaring tree. The cypress on the left stood very visibly forth, upon the edge of such a clearing; the path in that place widened broadly; and there was a patch of open ground, beset with horrible ant-heaps, thick with their artificers. I laid down the tools and basket by the cypress root, where they were instantly blackened over with the crawling ants; and looked once more in the face of my unconscious victim. Mosquitoes and foul flies wove so close a veil between us that his features were obscured; and the sound of their flight was like the turning of a mighty wheel.
‘Here,’ I said, ‘is the spot. I cannot dig, for I have not learned to use such instruments; but, for your own sake, I beseech you to be swift in what you do.’
He had sunk once more upon the ground, panting like a fish; and I saw rising in his face the same dusky flush that had mantled on my father’s. ‘I feel ill,’ he gasped, ‘horribly ill; the swamp turns around me; the drone of these carrion flies confounds me. Have you not wine?’
I gave him a glass, and he drank greedily. ‘It is for you to think,’ said I, ‘if you should further persevere. The swamp has an ill name.’ And at the word I ominously nodded.
‘Give me the pick,’ said he. ‘Where are the jewels buried?’
I told him vaguely; and in the sweltering heat and closeness, and dim twilight of the jungle, he began to wield the pickaxe, swinging it overhead with the vigour of a healthy man. At first, there broke forth upon him a strong sweat, that made his face to shine, and in which the greedy insects settled thickly.
‘To sweat in such a place,’ said I. ‘O master, is this wise? Fever is drunk in through open pores.’
‘What do you mean?’ he screamed, pausing with the pick buried in the soil. ‘Do you seek to drive me mad? Do you think I do not understand the danger that I run?’
‘That is all I want,’ said I: ‘I only wish you to be swift.’ And then, my mind flitting to my father’s deathbed, I began to murmur, scarce above my breath, the same vain repetition of words, ‘Hurry, hurry, hurry.’
Presently, to my surprise, the treasure-seeker took them up; and while he still wielded the pick, but now with staggering and uncertain blows, repeated to himself, as it were the burthen of a song, ‘Hurry, hurry, hurry;’ and then again, ‘There is no time to lose; the marsh has an ill name, ill name;’ and then back to ‘Hurry, hurry, hurry,’ with a dreadful, mechanical, hurried, and yet wearied utterance, as a sick man rolls upon his pillow. The sweat had disappeared; he was now dry, but all that I could see of him, of the same dull brick red. Presently his pick unearthed the bag of jewels; but he did not observe it, and continued hewing at the soil.
‘Master,’ said I, ‘there is the treasure.’ He seemed to waken from a dream. ‘Where?’ he cried; and then, seeing it before his eyes, ‘Can this be possible?’ he added. ‘I must be light-headed. Girl,’ he cried suddenly, with the same screaming tone of voice that I had once before observed, ‘what is wrong? is this swamp accursed?’
‘It is a grave,’ I answered. ‘You will not go out alive; and as for me, my life is in God’s hands.’
He fell upon the ground like a man struck by a blow, but whether from the effect of my words, or from sudden seizure of the malady, I cannot tell. Pretty soon, he raised his head. ‘You have brought me here to die,’ he said; ‘at the risk of your own days, you have condemned me. Why?’
‘To save my honour,’ I replied. ‘Bear me out that I have warned you. Greed of these pebbles, and not I, has been your undoer.’
He took out his revolver and handed it to me. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘I could have killed you even yet. But I am dying, as you say; nothing could save me; and my bill is long enough already. Dear me, dear me,’ he said, looking in my face with a curious, puzzled, and pathetic look, like a dull child at school, ‘if there be a judgment afterwards, my bill is long enough.’
At that, I broke into a passion of weeping, crawled at his feet, kissed his hands, begged his forgiveness, put the pistol back into his grasp and besought him to avenge his death; for indeed, if with my life I could have bought back his, I had not balanced at the cost. But he was determined, the poor soul, that I should yet more bitterly regret my act.
‘I have nothing to forgive,’ said he. ‘Dear heaven, what a thing is an old fool! I thought, upon my word, you had taken quite a fancy to me.’
He was seized, at the same time, with a dreadful, swimming dizziness, clung to me like a child, and called upon the name of some woman. Presently this spasm, which I watched with choking tears, lessened and died away; and he came again to the full possession of his mind. ‘I must write my will,’ he said. ‘Get out my pocket-book.’ I did so, and he wrote hurriedly on one page with a pencil. ‘Do not let my son know,’ he said; ‘he is a cruel dog, is my son Philip; do not let him know how you have paid me out;’ and then all of a sudden, ‘God,’ he cried, ‘I am blind,’ and clapped both hands before his eyes; and then again, and in a groaning whisper, ‘Don’t leave me to the crabs!’ I swore I would be true to him so long as a pulse stirred; and I redeemed my promise. I sat there and watched him, as I had watched my father, but with what different, with what appalling thoughts! Through the long afternoon, he gradually sank. All that while, I fought an uphill battle to shield him from the swarms of ants and the clouds of mosquitoes: the prisoner of my crime. The night fell, the roar of insects instantly redoubled in the dark arcades of the swamp; and still I was not sure that he had breathed his last. At length, the flesh of his hand, which I yet held in mine, grew chill between my fingers, and I knew that I was free.
I took his pocket-book and the revolver, being resolved rather to die than to be captured, and laden besides with the basket and the bag of gems, set forward towards the north. The swamp, at that hour of the night, was filled with a continuous din: animals and insects of all kinds, and all inimical to life, contributing their parts. Yet in the midst of this turmoil of sound, I walked as though my eyes were bandaged, beholding nothing. The soil sank under my foot, with a horrid, slippery consistence, as though I were walking among toads; the touch of the thick wall of foliage, by which alone I guided myself, affrighted me like the touch of serpents; the darkness checked my breathing like a gag; indeed, I have never suffered such extremes of fear as during that nocturnal walk, nor have I ever known a more sensible relief than when I found the path beginning to mount and to grow firmer under foot, and saw, although still some way in front of me, the silver brightness of the moon.
Presently, I had crossed the last of the jungle, and come forth amongst noble and lofty woods, clean rock, the clean, dry dust, the aromatic smell of mountain plants that had been baked all day in sunlight, and the expressive silence of the night. My negro blood had carried me unhurt across that reeking and pestiferous morass; by mere good fortune, I had escaped the crawling and stinging vermin with which it was alive; and I had now before me the easier portion of my enterprise, to cross the isle and to make good my arrival at the haven and my acceptance on the English yacht. It was impossible by night to follow such a track as my father had described; and I was casting about for any landmark, and, in my ignorance, vainly consulting the disposition of the stars, when there fell upon my ear, from somewhere far in front, the sound of many voices hurriedly singing.
I scarce knew upon what grounds I acted; but I shaped my steps in the direction of that sound; and in a quarter of an hour’s walking, came unperceived to the margin of an open glade. It was
