*CHAPTER XI*
_*How It Was Dark in the Sunlight*_
You will hear persons speak of one who has been in a trance or swoon as"returning to consciousness." I remember once of hearing someoneobjecting to the phrase, saying that a person was either conscious orunconscious, and to speak of one returning to consciousness as thoughthere was a middle state, he argued, was erroneous; but I discovered formyself, that day, the full meaning of the phrase; for first it was asound that I heard, a sound as of rustling wings, and this presentlychanged and became the sound of whispering as of a whole chamber full offurtive, stealthy persons talking under the breath. Then I was aware ofthe sunlight in my face and at the same moment the number of voicesdwindled and the power of them increased. I opened my eyes and foundmyself lying in a mighty uncomfortable and strained position upon a slabof rock, so hot with the sun that my hands, which were behind my backand under me as I lay, were absolutely scorched. I made to withdrawthem and then found they were fast tied together.
As for the voices I heard, they were only two in number, I think.
"He's all right; I see his eyes flickerin'," said one, and there,bending over me, was a face as full of evil as ever I desired to see.
I have seen a cast of an eye that almost seemed to give a certain quaintcharm to a face; but the cast in these eyes that scrutinised me now wasof the most diabolic.
My head was beating and thumping like a shipyard with all its riveters,and the pain between my eyes was well-nigh unbearable.
With puckering eyebrows I scrutinised my captor, and as I did so hecried out: "Here you are now, Farrell."
"Right!" came a voice from behind, and the man called Farrell shuffleddown on us, a big-boned, heavy-browed man with a three days' stubble onhis face which was of a blue colour around the upper lip and on thejaws--and over his right cheek-bone there was an ugly scar of a dirtywhite showing there amidst the sun-tan.
I thought at first it was a whip he carried in his hand, but suddenlywhat I took for the thong of the whip wriggled as of its own accord, andaddressing himself to it, he said: "None o' your wrigglin', Mr. Rattler,or I 'll give you one flick that 'll crack your backbone."
Then I saw that what he carried was a stick, with a short string at theend of it and in the end of that string was a noose, taut around arattlesnake's tail, just above the knob of the rattle.
"See what I've bin fishin' for you?" he said, and laughed in an uglyway.
He of the terrible eyes caught me roughly by the shoulders and drew meto a sitting posture, so that I saw where we were--on a rock-strewnledge of some cliffs, which I supposed to be those we had seen on ourleft from the valley. But owing to the rise of the ledge toward thefront I could not see the lower land, only the far, opposing cliffs,blue and white and yellow, with the fringe of trees a-top. And lying ontheir bellies at the verge of the shelf on which we were, I then saw twoother men, with their rifles beside them, lying like scouts, gazing downintently on the valley.
I had no thought then as to how we came there, where my friends were,nor for any other matter save my own present peril. For before I waswell aware, and while yet too feeble to offer any resistance, too dazedto make any protest, I was flung down upon my face in the sand, andthen, "Give me a hand here, you two," said Farrell, and the scoutsturned and rose, and, one of them clutching me by the back of the neckand thrusting my face down into the sand, I felt a weight graduallycrushing upon my back and legs.
"That's him!" said one, and then my neck was freed.
The weight upon my buttocks and legs was nothing else than a great, flatslab of rock. I thought, though it had been lowered gently enough onme, that the heaviness of it would alone be sufficient to crush mybones. Certainly to move below the waist was quite out of the question.
All this I suffered in a dumb, half-here, half-away fashion, my headhammering and my tongue parched in my mouth like a piece of dry wood.But when these four laughed brutally among themselves and began a seriesof remarks such as: "See and don't give it an inch too short," or, "Seethat the string's taut or we 'll not get what we want," I came more tomy senses and wondered what was to befall me. Then, for the first time,I was addressed directly by Farrell.
"Well, kid," he said, "you 're in a tight corner--you hear me?
"I hear you," said I, speaking with difficulty, so dry was my throat.
"Well," said he, "you can get out of this fix right off by telling uswhere the Lost Cabin Mine lies. And that's business right off, with nodelay."
"I can never do that," said I, "for I don't know myself."
There was a chorus of unbelieving grunts and then: "All right," snappedthe voice. "Fact is, we have n't much inclination to loiter here. You've taken a mighty while to come round, too, as it is--shove it in," hebroke off.
But the last words were not for me.
One of the others stepped before me, his foot grazing my head, and Iheard him say, "There?"
"No," said another. "That's over close--yes, there. That's the spot."
And then they all stepped back from me, and I, lying with my chin in thedust, saw what the man had been about; for directly before me was thepoint of the stick, thrust into the ground, with the snake noosed by thetail to it.
No sooner had the man who fixed it in leaped back (and he did so verysmartly, while the others laughed at him and caused him to rip out ahideous oath) than the reptile coiled fiercely up the stick; but thehand was gone from the end of it, and down it slithered again.
Then it saw me with its beady eyes, rattled fiercely, again coiled,and--I closed my eyes and drew in my head to the shoulders and wriggledas far to the side as I could.
But something smote me on the chin. I felt my heart in my throat, andthought I to myself, "I am a dead man now"; but before I opened my eyesagain I heard another rattle, opened my eyes in quick horror, saw thesecond leap of the snake toward me, and shrivelled backward again.
"Close shave!" cried one of my tormentors; but this time, after the tapon my chin I felt something moist trickle down upon the point of it, andI thought me that I was close enough to get the poison that it spat, butnot close enough to allow of its fangs reaching me.
"But if this stuff should reach my eye it might be fatal," thought I,heedless now of headache or weariness, or anything but the terriblepresent. My mouth, too, I kept tight closed, as you may guess.
"Will you tell us now, kid?" cried Farrell. "Will you spit it out now?"
Thought I to myself: "I must die now for certain. I trust that even if Iknew, I would not reveal this that they ask. But assuredly, to revealit or to keep it secret is not mine to choose. I must even die."
It came into my head that soon the thin string would, at one of theseleaps, cut clean through the snake's tail, and then-- Then it leaptagain.
"I do not know!" cried I. "I cannot tell you!"
"Then you can just lie there!" snapped one of the four, and went back tohis place of outlook on the ledge. And the other, who had been watchingthe valley, came and stood by my shoulder, irritating the snake, by hispresence, to fresh efforts.
"You 're a fool," he said. "Your partners have deserted you. They 'reoff. There ain't hide nor hair to be seen of them. If they 'd leaveyou in a lurch like this, you 're a fool not to let us know thelocation. We 'll follow 'em up again and take vengeance on 'em foryou--see?"
And just then, as though to refute his remarks as to the heedlessness ofmy partners, I heard a faint snap of a rifle, and the man with thesquint, who had taken his turn on guard at the place this fellow hadvacated, turned round and said he: "Boys, O boys, I 'm hit!"
Something in the tone of his voice made me glance at him sharply, butwith half an eye for the snake, as you may be sure, and my ears alertfor its warning rattle. I was never more alert in my life than then,and, strange though it may seem, the predominating thought in my mindwas, "How sad, how very sad to leave this world, never to see the rich,rich blue of that sky aga
in!"
But, as I say, the tone of the man's voice breaking in on my thoughtsand terrors was peculiar, and, with my head still as low in my shouldersas I could manage to hold it, I laid my cheek to the hot sand and lookedat him. He had turned to the man who had been standing by me, but atsound of the shot had dropped to his knees.
"Does it look bad?" said he, drawing his finger across his forehead,where was a tiny mark, and then holding out his hand and looking on itfor traces of blood, raising up his face for inspection by the manbeside me at the same time, and a question in his eyes, very much as youhave seen a child, "Is my face clean, mother?" Yes, and with a verychildish voice, too.
"It don't look bad," was the reply--and neither it did.
But when he turned away again to the other sentry who lay further off,repeating his question to him in that simple voice, I saw the back ofhis head. And his brains were dribbling out behind upon his neck. Aterrible weakness filled my heart. I heard him say, with no oath, as onemight have expected, but in a soft voice: "Dear me!" and again, "Dearme! How very dark it is getting!"
Which was an awful word to hear with the sun blazing right in his eyesout of the burnished, palpitating sky. And then he put it as a questionand still with the note of astonishment: "Dear me, isn't that strange?Is n't it getting very----" and he sank forward on his face; but whatfollowed I do not know. In the terror of my own position I kept all myfaculties alert; but at the sight of that man's back and the bloodywound, and at the childish voice of him, the world seemed to wheel. Asickness came on me and I fainted away.