Ah! Custos Vaughan! That stirrup-cup was the last you were ever destined to drink! In the sparkling “swizzle” was an infusion of the baneful Savannah flower. In that deep draught you had introduced into your veins one of the deadliest of vegetable poisons!
Chakra’s prophecy will soon be fulfilled. The death-spell will now quickly do its work. In twenty-four hours you will be a corpse!
Volume Three—Chapter Six.
The Horn Signal.
Cubina, on getting clear of the penn-keeper’s precincts, lost little time in returning to the glade; and, having once more reached the ceiba, seated himself on a log to await the arrival of the young Englishman.
For some minutes he remained in this attitude—though every moment becoming more fidgetty, as he perceived that time was passing, and no one came. He had not even a pipe to soothe his impatience: for it had been left in the hammock, into which he had cast it from the cocoa.
Before many minutes had passed, however, a pipe would have been to little purpose in restraining his nervous excitement; for the non-appearance of the young Englishman began to cause him serious uneasiness.
What could be detaining him? Had the Jew been awakened? and was he by some means or other, hindering Herbert from coming out? There was no reason, that Cubina could think of, why the young man should be ten minutes later than himself in reaching the ceiba. Five minutes—even the half of it—might have sufficed for him to robe himself in such garments as were needed; and then, what was to prevent him from following immediately? Surely, the appeal that had been made to him—the danger hinted at to those dear to him, the necessity for haste, spoken in unmistakable terms—surely, all this would be sufficient to attract him to the forest, without a moment’s hesitation!