CHAPTER XLIX.

In this terrible spot the negroes came to a halt, and I knew that my hour had come.

It was in this abyss, then, that was to be sunk all my hopes in this world. The image of the happiness which but a few hours before I had voluntarily renounced, brought to my heart a feeling of regret, almost one of remorse.

To pray for mercy was unworthy of me, but I could not refrain from giving utterance to my regrets.

“Friends,” said I to the negroes who surrounded me, “it is a sad thing to die at twenty years of age, full of life and strength, when one is loved by one whom in your turn you adore, and you leave behind you eyes that will even weep for your untimely end.”

A mocking burst of laughter hailed my expression of regret. It came from the little Obi. This species of evil spirit, this living mystery, approaches me roughly.

“Ha, ha, ha! you regret life then, Labadosca Dios. My only fear was that death would have no terrors for you.”

It was the same voice, the same laugh that had so often before baffled my conjectures.

“Wretch!” exclaimed I, “who are you?”

“You are going to learn,” replied he, in a voice of concentrated passion; and thrusting aside the silver sun that half concealed his brown chest, he exclaimed, “Look!” I bent forward.

Two names were written in white letters on the hairy chest of the Obi, showing but too clearly the hideous and ineffaceable brand of the heated iron. One of these names was Effingham, the other was that of my uncle and myself, D’Auverney!

I was struck dumb with surprise.

“Well, Leopold d’Auverney,” asked the Obi, “does not your name tell you mine?”

“No,” answered I, astonished to hear the man name me, and seeking to recall to my mind my thoughts. “These two names were only to be found thus united upon the chest of my uncle’s fool. But the poor dwarf is dead, and besides that, he was devotedly attached to us. You cannot be Habibrah.”

“No other,” shrieked he, and casting aside the blood-stained cap, he raised his veil and showed me the hideous features of the household fool; but a threatening and sinister expression had usurped the half-imbecile smile which was formerly eternally imprinted on his features.

“Great God!” exclaimed I, overwhelmed with surprise, “do all the dead, then, come back to life! It is Habibrah, my uncle’s fool.”

“His fool—and also his murderer.”

I recoiled from him in horror.

“His murderer, wretch—was it thus that you repaid his kindness?”

He interrupted me.

“His kindness! rather say his insults.”

“What!” I again cried, “was it you, villain, who struck the fatal blow?”

“It was,” he replied, with a terrible expression upon his face. “I plunged my knife so deeply into his heart that he had hardly time to cast aside sleep before death claimed him. He cried out feebly, ‘Habibrah, come to me,’ but I was with him already.”

The cold-blooded manner in which he narrated the murder disgusted me.

“Wretch! cowardly assassin! You forgot, then, all his kindness, that you ate at his table, and slept at the foot of his bed——”

“Like a dog,” interrupted Habibrah, roughly, “como un perro. I thought too much of what you call his kindness, but which I looked upon as insults. I took vengeance upon him, and I will do the same to you. Listen: do you think that because I am a mulatto and a deformed dwarf that I am not a man? Ah, I have a soul stronger, deeper, and bolder than the one that I am about to set free from your girlish frame. I was given to your uncle as if I had been a pet monkey. I was his butt, I amused him, whilst he despised me. He loved me, do you say—yes, forsooth, I had a place in his heart between his dog and his parrot, but I found a better place there with my dagger.” I shuddered.

“Yes,” continued the dwarf, “it was I, I that did it all. Look me well in the face, Leopold d’Auverney; you have often laughed at me, now you shall tremble before me. And you dare to speak of your uncle’s liking for me, a liking that carried degradation with it. If I entered the room a shout of contemptuous laughter was my greeting; my appearance, my deformities, my features, my costume—all furnished food for laughter to your accursed uncle and his accursed friends, whilst I was not allowed to remain silent, it was necessary for me to join in the laughter that was levelled at me; I foam with rage whilst I think of it.

“Answer me: do you think that after such humiliations I could feel anything but the deadliest hatred for the creature that inflicted them upon me? Do you not think that they were a thousand times harder to endure than the toil in the burning sun, the fetters, and the whip of the driver, which were the lot of the other slaves? Do you not think that they would cause ardent, implacable, and eternal hatred to spring up in the heart of man as lasting as the accursed brand which degrades my chest? Has not the vengeance that I have taken for my sufferings been short and insufficient. Why could I not make my tyrant suffer but a small portion of what I endured for so many years? Why could he not before his death know the bitterness of wounded pride, and feel what burning traces tears of shame leave upon a face condemned to wear a perpetual smile? Alas! it is too hard to have waited so long for the hour of vengeance, and then only to find it in a dagger thrust! Had he but only known the hand that struck him it would have been something; but I was too eager to hear his dying groan, and I drove the knife too quickly home; he died without having recognized me, and my eagerness baulked my vengeance. This time at least, however, it shall be more complete. You see me, do you not? though in point of fact you may be unable to recognize me in my new character. You have always been in the habit of seeing me laughing and joyous, but now nothing prevents me from letting my true nature appear on my face, and I do not greatly resemble my former self. You only knew my mask; look upon my real face!”

At that moment his appearance was truly terrible.

“Monster,” exclaimed I, “you deceive yourself; there is more of buffoonery than heroism in your face even now, and nothing in your heart but cruelty.”

“Do not speak of cruelty,” retorted he, “think of your uncle——”

“Wretch,” returned I, “if he were cruel it was at your instigation. You, to pretend to pity the position of the poor slaves—why, then, did you exert all your influence to make their master treat them less harshly? Why did you never intercede in their favour?”

“I would not have done so for the world. Would I ever attempt to hinder a white man from blackening his soul by an act of cruelty? No, no, I urged him to inflict more and more punishment upon them, so as to hurry on the revolt, and so draw down a surer vengeance upon the heads of our oppressors. In seeming to injure my brethren I was serving them.”

I was thunderstruck at such a cunning act of diplomacy carried out by such a man.

“Well,” continued the dwarf, “do you believe now that I had the brain to conceive and the hand to execute? What do you think of Habibrah the buffoon? what do you think of your uncle’s fool?”

“Finish what you have begun so well,” replied I. “Let me die, but let there be no more delay.”

“And suppose I wish for delay? Suppose that it does my heart good to watch you in the agonies of suspense? You see Biassou owed me my share in the last plunder. When I saw you in our camp I asked for your life as my share, and he granted it willingly, and now you are mine; I am amusing myself with you. Soon you will follow the stream of the cataract into the abyss beneath; but before doing so let me tell you that I have discovered the spot where your wife is concealed, and it was I that advised Biassou to set the forest on fire; and the work, I imagine, is already begun. Thus your family will be swept from the face of the earth. Your uncle fell by steel, you will perish by water, and your Marie by fire!”

“Villain! villain!” I exclaimed, and I made an effort to seize him by the throat, but a wave of his hand summoned my guards.

“Bind him!” cried he; “he precipitates his hour of doom!” In dead silence the negroes commenced to bind me with the cords that they had carried with them. Suddenly I fancied that I heard the distant barking of a dog, but this sound might be only an illusion caused by the noise of the cascade.

The negroes had finished binding me, and placed me on the brink of the abyss into which I was so soon to be hurled.

The dwarf with folded arms gazed upon the scene with a sinister expression of joy.

I lifted my eyes to the opening in the roof so as to avoid the triumphant expression of malice painted on his countenance, and to take one last look at the blue sky. At that instant the barking was more distinctly heard, and the enormous head of Rask appeared at the opening.

I trembled; the dwarf exclaimed, “Finish with him!” and the negroes, who had not noticed the dog, raised me in their arms to hurl me into the hell of waters which roared and foamed beneath me.