The habit of obeying him was strong. He was seized and raised on the shoulders of two of the strongest of the band.
A messenger burst into the hall. He was breathless.
"The ship is attacked!" he shouted. "We must run for it!"
Now all was confusion, all was excitement. It was the devil take the hindmost. The pirates tumbled over each other in their haste to be gone. I could not but think how anxious they were to save their own worthless lives, while not giving a thought to our terrible fate. I heard constant sounds of firing and the noisy shouts of the buccaneers as they trooped out of the cavern and down the hill. The Admiral saw them all leave, and was the last to go. As he reached the door, he turned and threw me some words over his shoulder.
"Don't tell Christophe of us, dear Mr. Jones, and I shall ever be your friend. Are we leaving you pretty comfortable? I am so glad. We'll take you down when we return next year. Meanwhile, good night, and God bless you!" The bearers vanished through the archway, and I was left alone with those dread travesties on Nature, and a young lad who perhaps had already joined the great majority. I cast a despairing glance at the shaded gallery. I called, I screamed in my agony; but I might have saved my strength, for the noise made by the pirates drowned my words. I seemed to be slipping, slipping, away out of life. I suddenly lost all hope. I began to fear a thousand things. I felt sure that the Bo's'n and the Minion would never dream of my being left in the great hall. If I were left behind, they would argue, why not come to them. They would see and hear the embarkation of the pirates, and would imagine that I had been taken with them or else killed and left on shore. The horror of that awful cave would be too much for a man of the Bo's'n's nervous and exalted temperament. As he had flown from the mysterious ring, so had he also rushed from the cave. Perhaps he would never even come and search for me. As to the Minion, no trust could be placed in him.
I wondered how long I could live, half standing, half hanging there. My feet were not resting upon the ground. The ball of my foot touched the stone beneath, and I found myself making constant and ineffectual efforts to get my entire foot into a position of rest. My weight was almost entirely on the cage. And now I felt that my throat was pressed by the band about it, and I feared that unless I kept myself constantly pushing upward with my toes that I was in danger of choking. I prayed for death. I wished to die then and there, and not hang until I should go stark mad from the horror of it all.
Suddenly I heard a slight movement, a rustling such as one might make in turning a dried leaf with the foot in the forest. My eyes were drawn slowly round to the place of sound. Good God! had my terrors only just begun? Was there more in life to drive one mad? Upon the floor of the cave, at about ten yards distant, I saw what turned me to stone, what fascinated me, what held me to life, what made me pray God that if he had any pity he would strike quickly. The terror of the Haïtien woods, the scourge of the Haïtien caves, was upon me. Slowly and surely it was making its way toward the place where I hung helpless. The great, black, hairy, terrible thing was shaping its course as directly for me as if I had it hooked to a string and was drawing it to my feet. I started, I jumped so that my cage quivered in every joint, and the rusty clasps squeaked and rattled. I shouted, but the words, a roar as they left my throat, dropped from my lips in a whisper. "Help!" I cried, "help!" But I was like one in a nightmare, my tongue clave to the roof of my mouth, and there was no answering sound. Nothing but the slow, measured crawl of the tarantula, as with calculating crablike motion it came slowly on and on. The lamp was burning low, the cave was getting almost dark, a fitting light for the ghastly and the terrible. It brought to my vision another dread form. Beyond the black spider, from beneath the central bowl issued, with many a hiss and undulating movement, a long green serpent. I saw this only when the hairy beast turned as if to protest at the interruption. The snake coiled itself and raised its head. Its tongue played in rapid darts from open fangs. There was a moment of rest for the tarantula, and then again it resumed its measured walk toward me. I hoped that the serpent would give the creature battle, and thus draw its attention from me; but as I gazed with eyes starting from their sockets, I saw that it uncoiled and took up its line of march also toward the wall of the dead, but parallel with the path of the tarantula. I tried to reason with myself as to which attack would be the least horrible to me. I found that my lips were moving, that I was uttering incoherent sentences! I wondered what I could be saying. The dread creatures were approaching nearer and nearer. I watched them while I could. I tried to shout again, hoping that the sound might frighten them if but for a moment, but my tongue refused to move. My mouth was dry as a plaster wall, all the blood in my body seemed surging to my head. They were coming, coming, slowly, slowly, but surely also, near and nearer! Then I fell down, down, down into space, and, God be thanked! was no more.