Volume Three—Chapter Nineteen.
Two Speculative Travellers.
The sun was sinking out of sight into the bosom of the blue Caribbean, and the twilight, long since extended over the valley below, was now spreading its purple robe around the summit of the hill, on which stood the hut. The shadows cast by the huge forest trees were being exchanged for the more sombre shadows of the coming night; and the outlines of the hovel—now a house of death—were gradually becoming obliterated in the crepusculous obscurity.
Inside that deserted dwelling, tenanted only by the dead, reigned stillness, solemn and profound—the silence of death itself.
Outside, were sounds such as suited the solemnity of the scene: the mournful loo-who-ah of the eared owl, who had already commenced quartering the aisles of the forest; while from the heaven above came the wild wail of the potoo, as the bird went across the fast-darkening sky, in search of its insect prey.
To these lugubrious utterances there was one solitary exception. More cheerful was the champing of the steel bit—proceeding from the horse that had been left tied to the tree—and the quick, impatient stroke of his hoof, as the animal fretted under the stings of the musquitoes, becoming more bitter as the darkness descended.
The body of Loftus Vaughan lay upon the bamboo bedstead, just as Chakra had left it. No hand had been there to smooth that rude pillow—no friendly finger to close those eyes that were open, and saw not—those orbs glassed and coldly glaring from their sunken sockets!
As yet the attendant had not returned with that succour which would come too late.
Nor was it possible for him to get back in much less than an hour. Content, though in actual distance scarcely a mile from the hut, was full five in point of time. The slope of the mountain road was at an angle with the horizon of at least fifty degrees. There could be no rapid riding on that road—neither up nor down, upon the most urgent errand; and the black groom was not going to risk life by a broken neck, even to save the life of a Custos.
It would be a full hour, then, before the man would return. As yet only twenty minutes had passed, and forty more were to come.