The Best Wadsworth Camp Mysteries. Charles Wadsworth Camp
mind was clearer now. He forced it to work logically. If he was not bound why was it impossible for him to move? He recalled the white light. An explanation of his helplessness ran hotly to his brain. Meantime the revolting prophecy of the rattling continued. While he fancied the deadly circle was closing, he set his will to work. He succeeded in twitching the fingers of one hand. Actually it was not much more than a minute after his return to consciousness when he drew his knees up and raised himself to a sitting posture.
He patted the ground at his side. It was hard like packed earth. Certainly he was not in the forest. Then—?”
Fighting the racking pains that ran through his head and body, he reached in his pocket for his revolver and his match box. The revolver was gone. He had been carrying it when the white light had flashed. Of course it had fallen from his hand. The match box, however, was there. He took out a match and scraped it. In answer to the slight noise the rattling rose excitedly.
The match blinded him at first, but before it was half burned out his eyes accustomed themselves to its light. He glanced quickly around. He saw no snakes.
He was in the centre of a small, bare room whose floor, as he had thought, was of packed earth. The flame played on rough grey walls. It failed to disclose the top of a peaked roof. He noticed a line of brushwood, perhaps two feet high, which ran around all four walls. Unquestionably the snakes lurked behind that screen. Why did they not come out to converge on him? When would they come out?
Just before the match expired he saw a closed oak door in the wall to his left.
He knew now that he was in one of the slave quarters which he had started to explore—probably in one of those which yesterday he had noticed had been repaired. But how had he come there? And why was he left surrounded by snakes which did not attack? Now that he felt himself placed at the heart of the mystery he could not stop to reason. His danger was too apparent. He must reach the oak door. He must escape from the circle.
With painful effort he raised himself to his knees. He was by no means sure he could stand upright, yet he must try. He must get to the door.
He paused on his knees. Something moved at the door. It must have been opened a little, for a streak of yellow light cut across the left hand wall. He waited, breathing heavily. It was as though his return to consciousness and his determination to escape had been known, and that this sickly light was a warning that the door was watched, that escape was impossible.
The streak grew. It reached the further wall. The door was thrown wide. Framed on the threshold; Miller saw the great figure of the fisherman.
For a moment he stood there, staring at Miller in the light of the lantern he held. His eyes had the same fixed look Miller had remarked before. His lips were pressed tightly together.
So Anderson’s instinct had been right! The fisherman was at the bottom of it. Probably he had done for Jake. But Tony! Tony had seen no one.
Miller was unwilling to believe. The absence of motive, the wanton cruelty, these elaborate preparations! A mad thought came to him. Could there be any connection between this figure and the giant slaver, long since dead? He spoke with difficulty.
“What—does all this mean? Will you help me out of here?”
The fisherman’s stare did not waver.
“These snakes!” Miller whispered.
The fisherman’s face showed no change. It was such a face as one might fancy beneath the mask of an executioner.
Miller struggled to his feet. He swayed. He attempted to step forward.
Now the fisherman moved. He whipped a cord from his pocket and threw his great bulk towards Miller.
Miller raised his fists. He tried to hold the figure off, but his strength was nothing against this giant. He went to the floor. A knee was on his chest. Like a child he was rolled from side to side while the cord was fastened around his arms and legs.
“What are you going to do?” Miller gasped.
The fisherman arose and walked to the wall. He kicked a portion of the brushwood away, disclosing a square pine box. He turned to the corner. He lifted a long, slender pole which stood there. Miller saw that a cord ran down the pole and made a loop at the lower end.
The fisherman returned to the box, and, using the end of the pole, raised the lid. An angry rattling came from the box. The fisherman thrust the pole inside.
“What are you going to do?” Miller repeated.
The fisherman did not turn. Carefully, systematically he moved the end of the pole with the loop backwards and forwards in the box. One hand clutched the cord near the top of the pole, after a moment drew it tight, then slowly raised the pole until the end with the loop was above the edge of the box.
The flat head of a snake was caught in the loop. Its bead-like eyes gleamed in the lantern light. They found Miller’s eyes and rested there. The forked tongue darted in and out of the revolting and venomous mouth.
Miller strained at his bonds. He could not move his hands or his feet the fraction of an inch.
“Let me up. What are you going to do?” he asked with dry lips.
The fisherman continued to raise the pole until the snake’s circular, shining body curled and flapped about his legs. Miller watched, fascinated. While the body thrashed, the head, caught in the loop, remained still. The evil eyes did not leave his.
The fisherman turned and stepped towards Miller. He lowered the pole until the snake’s body was beating the floor with soft, abhorrent strokes until the head almost rested on the packed earth.
With a deliberate slowness the fisherman brought the snake closer to Miller. It tried to get its head free to coil. When this sly, snail-like march was arrested close to Miller’s bound and helpless body the fisherman would slip the loop and spring back. Then the snake would coil. In its anger it would strike at what was nearest.
Inch by inch this slow death, whose every step he could foresee, approached. The tiny eyes held him. It seemed impossible that the reasonless fury behind them could project to him the supreme unconsciousness. He shuddered.
“Man! You can’t do this!”
He wet his lips.
“Or—then—Faster! Faster!”
For the first time the mask-like face of the fisherman altered. The tight lips parted. They stretched in a distorted smile. He took another step forward. The snake was very near.
The evil of the smile aroused Miller. He forced his eyes from the snake’s. The girl, whom he would never see again if this torturing execution was carried out, flashed through his mind. He saw her as she had been that first morning on the beach, in her white robe, bent to the wind, gazing out to sea. He remembered her just now in the coquina house, hiding her bleeding wrists, crying out that they must not let him go. She had known then that he would risk death. Did she know it would come to him here and in this fashion? Hope was born. He could not analyse her attitude, her refusal to tell what she knew of these horrors of the island, of her own connection with them; but she could not, after that warning, after that abandonment on the steps, let him end like this. She must have conquered whatever forces had held her from speaking. She must have indicated to Anderson, Tony, and Molly what he faced. If she had done that, those friends, he knew, would not take the road to the river and the boat And the fisherman probably did not guess that she had been to the coquina house. So he smiled back, and he cried out at the top of his lungs :
“Andy! Tony!”
If they came even after the snake had struck there might be time for a tourniquet, for some antidote. At least he would have a chance.
The travesty of a smile left the fisherman’s face. He paused. He glanced towards the half open door. Miller looked, too, expectantly, and he saw Morgan run in. There was no humour in the genial little man’s face now. He stopped dead, and drew back. His lips twitched nervously.
“Morgan!”