Gascoyne, The Sandal-Wood Trader: A Tale of the Pacific by R. M. Ballantyne (novels in english txt) 📕

was too frightened to be funny. With a face that might very well have passed for that of a ghost, and a very pale ghost too, he said, in a tremulous voice:

"Oh dear! Bumpus; what shall we do?"

"Dun know," replied Jo, very sternly; for the stout mariner also believed in ghosts, as a matter of course, although he would not admit it; and, being a man of iron mold and powerful will, there was at that moment going on within his capacious breast a terrific struggle between natural courage and supernatural cowardice.

"Let's go back," whispered Corrie. "I know another pass over the hills. It's a longer one, to be sure; but we can run, you know, to make for—"

He was struck dumb and motionless at this point by the recurrence of the dreadful howling, louder than ever, as poor Poopy's despair deepened.

"Don't speak to me, boy," said Bumpus, still more sternly, while a cold sweat stood in large beads on his pale forehead. "Here's wot I calls somethin' new; an' it becomes a man, specially a British seaman, d'ye see, to inquire into new things in a reasonable sort of way."

Jo caught his breath, and clutched the rock beside him powerfully, as he continued:

"It ain't a ghost, in course; it can't be that. Cause why? there's no sich a thing as a ghost."

"Ain't there?" whispered Corrie, hopefully.

The hideous yell that Poopy here set up seemed to give the lie direct to the skeptical seaman; but he went on deliberately, though with a glazed eye and a deathlike pallor on his face—

"No; there ain't no ghosts,—never wos, an' never will be. All ghosts is sciencrific dolusions, nothing more; and it's only the hignorant an' supercilious as b'lieves in 'em. I don't; an', wots more," added Jo, with tremendous decision, "I won't!"

At this point, the "sciencrific dolusion" recurred to her former idea of alarming the settlement; and with this view began to retrace her steps, howling as she went.

Of course, as Jo and his small companion had been guided by her footsteps, it followed that Poopy, in retracing them, gradually drew near to the terrified pair. The short twilight of those regions had already deepened into the shades of night; so that the poor girl's form was not at first visible, as she advanced from among the dark shadows of the overhanging cliffs and the large masses of scattered rock that lay strewn about that wild mountain pass.

Now, although John Bumpus succeeded, by an almost supernatural effort, in calming the tumultuous agitation of his spirit, while the wild cries of the girl were at some distance, he found himself utterly bereft of speech when the dreadful sounds unmistakably approached him. Corrie, too, became livid, and both were rooted to the spot in unutterable horror; but when the ghost at length actually came into view, and (owing to Poopy's body being dark, and her garments white) presented the appearance of a dimly luminous creature, without head, arms, or legs, the last spark of endurance in man and boy went out. The one gave a roar, the other a shriek of terror, and both turned and fled like the wind over a stretch of country, which, in happier circumstances, they would have crossed with caution.

Poopy helped to accelerate their flight by giving vent to a cry of fear, and thereafter to a yell of delight, as, from her point of view, she recognized the well-known outline of Corrie's figure clearly defined against the sky. She ran after them in frantic haste; but she might as well have chased a couple of wildcats. Either terror is gifted with better wings than hope, or males are better runners than females. Perhaps both propositions are true; but certain it is that Poopy soon began to perceive that the succor which had appeared so suddenly was about to vanish almost as quickly.

In this new dilemma, the girl once more availed herself of her slight knowledge of the place, and made a detour which enabled her to shoot ahead of the fugitives and intercept them in one of the narrowest parts of the mountain gorge. Here, instead of using her natural voice, she conceived that the likeliest way of making her terrified friends understand who she was, would be to shout with all the strength of her lungs. Accordingly, she planted herself suddenly in the center of their path, just as the two came tearing blindly round a corner of rock, and set up a series of yells, the nature of which utterly beggars description.

The result was, that, with one short wild cry of renewed horror, Bumpus and Corrie turned sharp round and fled in the opposite direction.

There is no doubt whatever that they would have succeeded in ultimately escaping from this pertinacious ghost, and poor Poopy would have had to make the best of her way to Sandy Cove alone, but for the fortunate circumstance that Corrie fell; and being only a couple of paces in advance of his companion, Bumpus fell over him.

The ghost took advantage of this to run forward, crying out, "Corrie! Corrie! Corrie!—it's me! me! ME!" with all her might.

"Eh! I do believe it knows my name!" cried the boy, scrambling to his feet, and preparing to renew his flight; but Bumpus laid his heavy hand on his collar, and held him fast.

"Wot! Did it speak?"

"Yes; listen! Oh dear! Come,—fly!"

Instead of flying, the seaman heaved a deep sigh; and, sitting down on a rock, took out a reddish brown cotton handkerchief, wherewith he wiped his forehead.

"My boy," said he, still panting; "it ain't a ghost. No ghost wos ever known to speak. They looks, an' they runs, an' they yells, an' they vanishes, but they never speaks; d'ye see? I told ye it was a sciencrific dolusion; though, I'm bound for to confess, I never heerd o' von o' them critters speakin', no more than the ghosts. Howsomedever, that's wot it is."

Corrie, who still hesitated, and held himself in readiness to bolt at a moment's notice, suddenly cried:

"Why! I do believe it's—No; it can't be—yes—I say, it's Poopy."

"Wot's Poopy?" inquired the seaman, in some anxiety.

"What! don't you know Poopy, Alice's black maid, who keeps her company, and looks after her; besides' doin' her and 'undoin' her (as she calls it), night and morning, and putting her to bed? Hooray! Poopy, my lovely black darling; where have you come from? You've frightened Bumpus here nearly out of his wits. I do believe he'd have bin dead by this time, but for me!"

So saying, Corrie, in the revulsion of his suddenly relieved feelings, actually threw his arms round Poopy, and hugged her.

"O Corrie!" exclaimed the girl, submitting to the embrace with as much indifference as if she had been a lamp-post, "w'at troble you hab give me! Why you run so? sure you know me voice."

"Know it, my sweet lump of charcoal; I'd know it among a thousand, if ye'd only use it in its own pretty natural tones; but if you will go and screech like a bottle-imp, you know," said Corrie, remonstratively, "how can you expect a stupid feller like me to recognize it?"

"There ain't no sich things as bottle-imps, no more nor ghosts," observed Bumpus; "but hold your noise, you chatterbox, and let's hear wot the gal's got to say. Mayhap she knows summat about Alice?"

At this, Poopy manufactured an expression on her sable countenance which was meant to be intensely knowing and suggestive.

"Don't I? Yes, me do," said she.

"Out with it, then, at once, you pot of shoe-blacking," cried the impatient Corrie.

The girl immediately related all that she knew regarding the fugitives, stammering very much from sheer anxiety to get it all out as fast as she could, and delaying her communication very much in consequence, besides rendering her meaning rather obscure—sometimes unintelligible. Indeed, the worthy seaman could scarcely understand a word she said. He sat staring at the whites of her eyes, which, with her teeth, were the only visible parts of her countenance at that moment, and swayed his body to and fro, as if endeavoring by a mechanical effort to arrive at a philosophical conception of something exceedingly abstruse. But at the end of each period he turned to Corrie for a translation.

At length both man and boy became aware of the state of things, and Corrie started up crying:

"Let's go into the cave at once."

"Hold on, boy," cried Bumpus! "not quite so fast (as the monkey said to the barrel-organ w'en it took to playin' Scotch reels). We must have a council of war; d'ye see? The black monster Keona may have gone right through the cave and comed out at t'other end of it, in w'ich case it's all up with our chance o' finding 'em to-night. But if they've gone in to spend the night there, why we've nothing to do but watch at the mouth of it till mornin' an' nab 'em as they comes out."

"Yes; but how are we to know whether they're in the cave or not?" said Corrie, impatiently.

"Ah! that's the puzzler," replied Bumpus, in a meditative way; "but of course, we must look out for puzzlers ahead sometimes w'en we gets into a land storm, d'ye see; just as we looks out ahead for breakers in a storm at sea. Suppose now that I creeps into the cave and listens for 'em. They'd never hear me, 'cause I'd make no noise."

"You might as well try to sail into it in a big ship without making noise, you Grampus."

To this the Grampus observed, that if the cave had only three fathoms of water in the bottom of it he would have no objections whatever to try.

"But," added he, "suppose you go in."

Corrie shook his head, and looked anxiously miserable.

"Well, then," said Bumpus, "suppose we light two torches. I'll take one in one hand, and this here cutlash in the other; and you'll take t'other torch in one hand and your pistol in the other, and clap that bit of a broken sword 'tween yer teeth, and we'll give a 'orrid screech, and rush in, pell-mell—all of a heap like. You could fire yer pistol straight before you on chance (it's wonderful wot a chance shot will do sometimes); an' if it don't do nothin', fling it right into the blackguard's face: a brass-mounted tool like that ketchin' him right on the end of his peak would lay him flat over, like a ship in a white squall."

"And suppose," said Corrie, in a tone of withering sarcasm,—"suppose all this happened to Alice, instead of the dirty nigger?"

"Ah! to be sure. That's a puzzler,—puzzler number two."

Here Poopy, who had listened with great impatience to the foregoing conversation, broke in energetically.

"An' s'pose," said she, "dat Keona and Missy Alice come out ob cave w'en you two be talkerin' sich a lot of stuff?"

It may as well be remarked, in passing, that Poopy had acquired a considerable amount of her knowledge of English from Master Corrie. Her remark, although not politely made, was sufficiently striking to cause Bumpus to start up, and exclaim:

"That's true, gal. Come, show us the way to this here cave."

There was a fourth individual present at this council of war who apparently felt a deep interest in its results, although he took no part in its proceedings. This was no other than Keona himself, who lay extended at full length among the rocks, not two yards from the spot where Bumpus sat, listening intently, and grinning from ear to ear with fiendish malice.

The series of shrieks, howls, and yells to which reference has been made had naturally attracted the attention of that wily savage when he was in the cave. Following the sounds with quick, noiseless step, he soon found himself within a few paces of the deliberating trio. The savage did not make much of the conversation, but he gathered sufficient to assure himself that his hiding-place had been discovered, and that plans were being laid for his capture.

It would have been an easy matter for him to have suddenly leaped on the unsuspecting Bumpus and driven a knife to his heart, after which poor Corrie and the girl could have been easily dealt with; but fortunately (at least for his enemies, if not for himself) indecision in the moment of action was one of Keona's besetting sins. He suspected that other enemies might be near at hand, and that the noise of the scuffle might draw them to the spot. He observed, moreover, that the boy had a pistol, which, besides being a weapon that acts quickly and surely, even in weak hands, would give a loud report and a bright flash that might be heard and seen at a great distance. Taking these things into consideration, he thrust back the knife which he had half unsheathed, and, retreating with the slow, gliding motion of