Chapter Eleven.
When Zeppa, as related in a previous chapter, staggered up the mountain side with Richard Rosco in his arms, his great strength was all but exhausted, and it was with the utmost difficulty that he succeeded at last, before night-fall, in laying his burden on the couch in his cave.
Then, for the first time, he seemed to have difficulty in deciding what to do. Now, at last, the pirate was in his power—he could do to him what he pleased! As he thought thus he turned a look of fierce indignation upon him. But, even as he gazed, the look faded, and was replaced by one of pity, for he could not help seeing that the wretched man was suffering intolerable anguish, though no murmur escaped from his tightly-compressed lips.
“Slay me, in God’s name, kill me at once, Zeppa,” he gasped, “and put me out of torment.”
“Poor man! poor Rosco!” returned the madman in a gentle voice, “I thought to have punished thee, but God wills it otherwise.”
He said no more, but rose hastily and went into the bush. Returning in a few moments with a bundle of herbs, he gathered some sticks and kindled a fire. A large earthenware pot stood close to the side of the cave’s entrance—a clumsy thing, made by himself of some sort of clay. This he filled with water, put the herbs in, and set it on the fire. Soon he had a poultice spread on a broad leaf which, when it was cold, he applied to one of the pirate’s dreadfully burnt feet. Then he spread another poultice, with which he treated the other foot.
What the remedy was that Zeppa made use of on this occasion is best known to himself; we can throw no light on the subject. Neither can we say whether the application was or was not in accordance with the practice of the faculty, but certain it is that Rosco’s sufferings were immediately assuaged, and he soon fell into a tranquil sleep.
Not so the madman, who sat watching by his couch. Poor Zeppa’s physical sufferings and exertion had proved too much for him; the strain on his shattered nerves had been too severe, and a burning fever was now raging within him, so that the delirium consequent on disease began to mingle, so to speak, with his insanity.
He felt that something unusual was going on within him. He tried to restrain himself, and chain down his wandering, surging thoughts, but the more he sought to hold himself down, the more did a demon—who seemed to have been especially appointed for the purpose—cast his mental fastenings adrift.
At last he took it into his head that the slumbering pirate had bewitched him. As this idea gained ground and the internal fires increased, the old ideas of revenge returned, and he drew the knife which hung at his belt, gazing furtively at the sleeper as he did so.