Part 25 (2/2)

How he had managed to elude us for so long is little short of a miracle; for he was weighed down by the gold he carried on his back. There were times when he was quite near to us, when we could distinctly hear him breaking his way through the thickets, rus.h.i.+ng blindly onward. And at such times he was silent--ominously silent. But he would always, quite suddenly, shoot ahead again--how, we could not tell--and presently, we would hear his wild laughter as before, far away from us--laughter in which there was something of triumphant glee, as well as lunacy and senseless mirth, incomprehensible and terrible to hear.

All that night, during which we rested twice--on each occasion for an hour or more--we heard his laughter in the Wood, throughout the length and breadth of which it was as if fear of the man had spread. I verily believe the monkeys sat s.h.i.+vering above us in the tree-tops, and the great beasts of prey, who were wont to hunt by night, crouched with flattened ears like frightened cats in the dark places of the jungle.

Speaking for myself, I know that I experienced a most novel and insecure sensation. I felt that the constant sound of this demoniacal laughter would in the end drive me also mad; and Vasco, I am certain, felt the same, though I cannot speak for the others.

For all that, I had never seen an expression of such invincible determination as the daylight disclosed upon the face of Bannister. His jaw was set: his lips tight pressed, and there was a look in his eyes as hard as steel.

He said not a word to any one of us; and we had no thought of food, though we all four drank deeply of water at the first stream to which we came.

Then we went on, following the trail, with the sound of that maniac's laughter to guide us like the siren of a s.h.i.+p in a fog at sea.

Never was a journey more strange, more ghostly. We were haunted men, though we found upon the road evidence of the material. For, here and there, lay golden ingots that had fallen from his arms, and there was blood, too, upon the dead leaves upon the ground, where he had torn his flesh upon the thorns.

And then, at last, we sighted him, in a place where the undergrowth was spa.r.s.e and the trees a little way apart. For no longer than an instant did we see him, else John Bannister had shot him dead; for it was a mad dog we hunted, and it was not right that he should live. Strange as it may seem--since they had sojourned for so many months in one another's company--it was Mr. Gilbert Forsyth who was most keen upon the chase. He was like a bloodhound on the trail. It was as much as Bannister could do to keep him back.

”Have at him!” he cried. ”There he is! Shoot, man! Shoot him down!”

But--as I have said--we caught no more than a glimpse of him. That glimpse, however, was enough. If it had been terrible to hear his laughter, it was even more terrible to behold him with our eyes. Every shred of clothing had been torn from his back. He was plastered with black mud from the swamp in which he had waded; and this mud--though we could not see that--was still alive with little leeches that were draining the life's blood in his veins. His hair was all ragged and dirty; and without clothes he was more hideous than ever. We could see the ingots, tied in a great bundle upon his back; and we marvelled that any human being could carry so great a load. He shot a look at us before he dived again into the undergrowth; and in that look there was that for which we could not fail to pity him, vile and evil though the man had been all the days of his life.

His eyes were bright as ever, yet seemed to have grown larger, and, at the same time, to have sunk deep into his head. His mouth, which was never straight, was twisted to a degree that was alarming. He had always the thinnest of lips, which he kept as a rule pressed tight together; but now his mouth was opened wide, and he was s...o...b..ring. As for his eyebrows, they reminded me of Satan himself as I have seen him pictured, for they met upon the bridge of his nose, to slant upward, arrow-shaped.

John Bannister dashed forward. I saw that he meant to make a supreme effort to overtake the man. We all wanted it to end, for the whole affair was ghastly; and yet we dreaded the end, just as a hangman must have no liking for his duty. And ours--we thought--was the very hangman's work.

It so happened that in this place the Wood was dense. Amos did not laugh again, but we could hear him just in front of us; though, strive as we might, we could not overtake him, until the pursuit had lasted, perhaps, another twenty minutes--for, in such a case as this, it is impossible to keep account of time.

Bannister, who was still leading, of a sudden caught his foot in the root of a tree, and pitched forward on his face. Without pausing an instant, Forsyth rushed past him; and I, knowing that Forsyth was unarmed, and fearing that he might come to the same violent end as Joshua Trust, hastened after him, without looking to see if Bannister were hurt.

Almost at once I caught sight of Amos, but dared not fire at him, because Forsyth was in front of me. And then, suddenly and unaccountably, to my amazement Amos stopped, and looked back at us with a face hideously contorted.

I carried my rifle to my shoulder, and I believe I would have pressed the trigger, had I not then seen what it was that had brought the fugitive to a standstill. He had broken his way headlong through the thickets, and now found himself upon the bank of a wide, dark pool, and we were so close upon his heels that he had no time to turn either to the right or to the left.

It is my great regret that I did not fire; but I may be excused, inasmuch as I did not at once recognise the place, and had then not the least suspicion of what was about to happen. No sooner was my rifle to my shoulder than Amos turned away from me, and, without a sound, with his great load of gold upon his back, plunged straight into the pool.

He sank so low at first that we thought he must be well beyond his depth; but, almost at once, his feet found something firm--I think the fallen trunk of a tree buried beneath the water. He rose to his full height with the water no higher than his knees, and began to stumble onward, when the whole of this uncanny business reached its tragic and terrible conclusion.

I saw something move upon the surface of the water--something that shot across the pool in utter silence and with the rapidity of an arrow.

Right round Amos it swerved, and pa.s.sed so close to us--who stood gaping on the bank--that we could not fail to recognise what this horror was.

It was the flat and evil head of a gigantic, loathsome serpent.

Then the truth burst upon me like a sudden rush of ice, and I realised that Amos Baverstock was come to that place which I myself had named the Glade of Silent Death.

CHAPTER XXVII--HOW AMOS MET HIS END

We stood horror-stricken upon the bank of that dark pool--mute, impotent spectators of a tragedy we were powerless to prevent.

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