Whenever anyone appeared upon the road before him, he adopted his customary plan of betaking himself to the bushes until they had passed; but when travellers chanced to be going the same way—which more than once did happen—he avoided an encounter by making a circuit through the woods, and coming out far ahead of them.
The trouble thus taken to gain time, as well as the earnest manner with which the myal-man was hastening forward, proved that the crime just committed was not the crisis of Chakra’s villainies; but that some other evil purpose—to him of equal or greater import—was yet before him; and soon to be achieved, or, at least, attempted.
Following back the main route between Savanna-la-Mer and the Bay, he at length arrived at the Carrion Crow Road, and, after traversing this for some distance, came within view of the Jumbé Rock, now glancing with vitreous sheen in the clear moonlight.
Almost as soon as he had caught sight of the well-known land-mark, he forsook the road; and struck off into a by-path that led through the woods.
This path, trending diagonally up the side of the Jumbé mountain, and passing near the base of the rock, was the same which Herbert Vaughan and the two Maroons had traversed on their way from the Happy Valley on that same morning.
Chakra, however, knew nothing of this; nor aught either of the design or expedition of Cubina and his comrades. Equally ignorant was he of the errand on which Jessuron had dispatched his Cuban emissaries—by way of having his bow twice stringed.
The Coromantee, fancying himself the only player in that game of murder, had no idea that there were others interested in it as much as he; and although once or twice during the day he had seen men moving suspiciously behind him along the road, it had never occurred to him who they were—much less that they had been deputed to complete his own job, should the “spell” fail to prove sufficiently potent.
A somewhat long détour—which he had taken after leaving the hut—had brought him out on the main road behind both parties; and thus had he remained ignorant of their proximity, at the same time that he had himself escaped the observation both of the villains who intended to assassinate the Custos, and of the men who were pressing forward to save him.
Still continuing his rapid stride, Chakra climbed the mountain slope, with the agility of one accustomed to the most difficult paths.
On arriving under the Jumbé Rock, he halted—not with any intention of remaining there, but only to consider.