Part 20 (2/2)
”My darling boy, I cannot help you,” groaned Gaunt. ”Would to G.o.d that I could! but you see they have bound me to this tree so that I cannot move. Listen, Percy dear; we can do nothing at present but submit to these men, who have us in their power, so you must just let them do what they will with you, my precious one; go with the man very quietly, and then perhaps he will not ill-treat you any more.”
”_Must_ I, father?” asked the little fellow tearfully, and looking at his father in vague surprise at so seemingly heartless a command.
”Yes, dear boy; yes. It is for your own good that I tell you to do this,” answered Gaunt brokenly, for he keenly felt the unspoken reproach which he saw in the child's eyes as the little fellow forlornly turned away and with a piteous sob quietly surrendered himself to the brute, who now again with ruffianly violence seized upon his helpless victim.
”Oh, don't! you hurt me so,” the poor little fellow suddenly screamed out; and the father's heart swelled almost to bursting with impotent fury as he saw the cruel clutch with which the wretch was digging his long thin sinewy fingers into the tender flesh of the boy's shoulder as he forced him toward an adjoining tree, to which he forthwith proceeded to lash him, drawing the cord so tightly round the slender wrists that the little fellow fairly screamed and writhed with the intolerable pain.
”Curse you!” yelled Gaunt, now fairly stung to madness and foaming at the mouth with fury; ”curse you, fiend that you are!” And as he hurled forth words of rage and defiance he tugged and strained with such superhuman strength upon his bonds that the stout rope fairly cracked whilst it cut into the flesh of his wrists down to the bone. But the las.h.i.+ng was too strong to yield to even his frenzied efforts, apart from the fact that, with his arms lashed behind him, he had no opportunity to exert his strength effectively, and at length, completely exhausted, he was fain to desist, to the undisguised delight of a little knot of the Malays who had gathered round and were keenly enjoying the scene. So much pleasure, indeed, did they derive from it that they said something to little Percy's tormentor which was evidently an incitement of him to continue his ill-treatment of the child, for the fellow, with an acquiescent grin, had no sooner finished his task of las.h.i.+ng the little fellow to the tree--a task which he performed with the utmost deliberation and gusto--than he retired a pace or two, contemplating the helplessness of his little victim with malignant satisfaction, and then, with a glance toward Gaunt and a few laughing words to his companions, he stepped forward and dealt the poor child a savage blow upon the mouth with his clenched fist--so cruel a blow that it extorted another piercing scream of pain and terror from the sufferer and caused his quivering lips to stream with blood. Gaunt said nothing this time, nor did he renew his worse than useless efforts to burst his bonds, but he directed toward the fellow a look of such deadly ferocity that the wretch actually quailed under it, and seemed glad enough to slink away into the background under cover of an order which another Malay, apparently one of the officers of the proa, now stepped forward and gave him. Possibly the order given may have been to desist from further ill- treatment of the child, for the new-comer next said something to the group of onlookers which caused them also to retire, with many a backward glance of animosity at Gaunt--which he returned with interest; and, these dismissed, the officer, if such he was, looked at the sobbing child's bonds and, with a muttered word or two, proceeded to loosen them sufficiently to relieve the little fellow from the cruel suffering they had caused him--a proceeding which won for him a look of unspeakable grat.i.tude from Gaunt which seemed to be not wholly unappreciated.
The loosening of his bonds afforded the poor child so much relief that he now felt almost comfortable, comparatively speaking; and, exhausted with the pain and terror he had already endured, he soon sank into a kind of stupor, which, if it did not amount to actual insensibility, approached it so nearly as to afford the poor little fellow at least a temporary forgetfulness of his situation and surroundings. Gaunt, speaking quietly once or twice to him without obtaining a reply, at once saw with intense satisfaction the state his child had fallen into; and to such a state of despair had he now been brought that he would have been positively happy could he have been a.s.sured that his darling boy was dead and beyond the reach of further suffering. For as he now had leisure to reflect, the future, so far as they two were concerned, was without a single ray of hope to brighten it. He knew, of course, that those staunch comrades of his at the fort would not abandon him and his child to the mercy of the Malays without making some attempt at a rescue; but there were only three of them, and what could three men, however brave, do against such overwhelming odds unless acting upon the defensive and behind stone walls? _There_, indeed, but not in the open field, he had some hopes for them, and there he fully expected they would all very shortly have their hands full, for he momentarily expected to see the whole body of the Malays--except, of course, a man or two to guard himself and his boy--move off to the attack of the fort.
And if the attack failed, as he hoped and believed it would, the Malay loss would doubtless be very heavy; and he had heard quite enough of their vindictive nature to feel a.s.sured they would take their revenge upon him and Percy. Yes, the more he thought about it the more convinced did he become that it was their doom to die. ”Well,” he murmured, ”G.o.d's will be done!” It was best, perhaps, that his child should die now, young and innocent as he was; and as for himself, if he could but be satisfied that the little fellow's death was quick and easy, he cared not how soon he followed him.
But if this was to be the end of the matter so far as they two were concerned, there was a task before him to which he must at once give his best attention--the task of preparing his little son for the awful ordeal before him. To paint Death in colours so attractive as that they should rob the grim king of his terrors and make him welcome, was, he felt, a task of no ordinary difficulty; and coupled with this was the fact that the poor child had been dreadfully terrified already. How was this task to be accomplished--how even begun?
As he cogitated painfully over this problem he saw a party of twelve Malays detach themselves from the rest and move off in the direction of the fort. Then after a considerable interval came the sounds of firing, followed some twenty minutes later by the return of four only out of the twelve. A sickening fear came over him at first that those in the fort had succ.u.mbed to the attack, and that the eight absentees were remaining behind in charge of the prisoners. But a little reflection led him to believe that, had such been the case, the prisoners would have been brought in triumph to the Malay camp. Could it be possible, then, he asked himself, that the missing eight had fallen in the attack? It might be so. The bearing of the four who had returned was anything but triumphant; and then there was a great deal of excited talk and gesticulation on their part, seemingly in the nature of an explanation, and more excited talk among the others, followed, after a long and stormy debate, by the preparation and despatch of the letter, the delivery of which we witnessed in the preceding chapter. This last act of the Malays completely rea.s.sured Gaunt as to the safety of the fort and its inmates, but it also confirmed him in his belief that his own fate and that of his child was sealed.
The messenger soon returned, a few questions were put to them and answered; a couple of sentries were posted with loaded muskets at the entrance to the bush-path leading to the fort; a man was detailed to keep watch upon the two prisoners; the watch-fire was bountifully replenished with brushwood; and then the camp sank gradually into a state of repose.
Then again the question arose in Gaunt's mind. In what manner could he best set about the task of preparing his child to meet death unflinchingly? Whilst he was painfully grappling with the problem Percy himself afforded his father an opening of which the latter at once gladly availed himself. Stirring uneasily, and with a sobbing sigh seeming to recover his recollection of where he was and what had happened to him, the little fellow looked up and asked shudderingly:
”What will the Malays do to us, father?--will they kill us?”
”That is as G.o.d wills, dear boy,” answered Gaunt with an affected cheerfulness which he was very far from feeling.
”They may or they may not, I cannot tell. But if they do you will not be sorry to die with father, will you?”
”I--I--don't know,” answered the little fellow, looking terrified.
”Will it hurt us?”
”Oh, no,” answered Gaunt, ”not at all--nothing, that is, worth thinking or troubling about. It will _very_ soon be over; and then--_then_, dear boy, when we come to ourselves again, we shall find that, hand in hand, you know, we are going up, and up, and up, higher and higher, toward heaven. And very soon we shall see the glorious light s.h.i.+ning upon the jewelled walls of the heavenly city, the New Jerusalem. And as we draw near we shall see the pearly gates unfold to admit us, and G.o.d's holy angels coming to meet us, clad in their white robes. And we shall hear the first sweet sounds of the celestial music. And as we enter in at the gates we shall meet all those dear ones who have gone before us.
Dear grandpa, whom you never saw, my precious one, but about whom, you know, I have told you so many pretty stories--he will be there to welcome us; and--”
”Oh, that _will_ be nice!” exclaimed the child with kindling eyes. He meditated for a moment, and then, looking up, he asked eagerly: ”When are we going, father?”
”Oh, very soon now, dear,” answered Gaunt, ”_very_ soon--perhaps in two or three hours' time. We can wait patiently until then, can we not?”
”Yes,” answered Percy in a perfectly contented tone of voice. And the father was inwardly congratulating himself upon the ease with which his difficult task had been accomplished--though he of course felt that it would be absolutely necessary to keep the child in that frame of mind by constant conversation until the arrival of the supreme moment--when the little fellow looked up and with sudden anxiety asked:
”And will mother be there too?”
How little the poor child knew what poignant anguish he inflicted upon his father by asking this innocent and perfectly natural question!
Gaunt would have given worlds, had he possessed them, for the priceless privilege of saying farewell to his idolised wife; but he knew it could not be--it was impossible. And the child had still to be thought of, still to be cheered and encouraged and strengthened to meet death with a smiling face--_nothing_ must be allowed to interfere with that; so, choking back his anguish as best he could, the father answered:
”Well--no, dear boy; I scarcely think she will be there quite so early as ourselves. But she will not be long in following us. When she finds that we are gone she will be anxious to come, too; and she will not delay for one unnecessary moment, you may depend upon it.”
”Oh, father!” exclaimed the poor little fellow in sudden distress, ”let us not go without mother; it will be so lonely for her to be down here all by herself. Let us wait for her and all go together; it will be ever so much nicer. I don't want to go without her, father. I would rather not go without mother, if you please.” And the poor little fellow began to cry piteously.
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