Book: The Ruby of Kishmoor
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Howard Pyle >> The Ruby of Kishmoor
"Indeed," said Jonathan, "thou art right, friend. That is my
occupation, and that is whence I came."
"To be sure!" said the little gentleman. "To be sure! To be sure!
The SUSANNA HAYES, with a cargo of Indian-corn meal, and from
dear good friend Jeremiah Doolittle, of Philadelphia. I know your
good master very well--very well indeed. And have you never heard
him speak of his friend Mr. Abner Greenway, of Kingston,
Jamaica?"
"Why, no," replied Jonathan, "I have no such recollection of the
name nor do I know that any such name hath ever appeared upon our
books."
"To be sure! To be sure!" repeated the little gentleman, briskly,
and with exceeding good-nature. "Indeed, my name is not likely to
have ever appeared upon his books, for I am not a business
correspondent, but one who, in times past, was his extremely
intimate friend. There is much I would like to ask about him,
and, indeed, I was in hopes that you would have been the bearer
of a letter from him. But I have lodgings at a little distance
from here, so that if it is not requesting too much of you maybe
you will accompany me thither, so that we may talk at our
leisure. I would gladly accompany you to your ship instead of
urging you to come to my apartments, but I must tell you I am
possessed of a devil of a fever, so that my physician hath
forbidden me to be out of nights."
"Indeed," said Jonathan, whom, you may have observed, was of a
very easy disposition--"indeed, I shall be very glad to accompany
thee to thy lodgings. There is nothing I would like better than
to serve any friend of good Jeremiah Doolittle's."
And thereupon, and with great amity, the two walked off together,
the little one-eyed gentleman in black linking his arm
confidingly into that of Jonathan's, and tapping the pavement
continually with his cane as he trotted on at a great pace. He
was very well acquainted with the town (of which he was a
citizen), and so interesting was his discourse that they had gone
a considerable distance before Jonathan observed they were
entering into a quarter darker and less frequented than that
which they had quitted. Tall brick houses stood upon either side,
between which stretched a narrow, crooked roadway, with a kennel
running down the centre.
In front of one of these houses--a tall and gloomy structure--our
hero's conductor stopped and, opening the door with a key,
beckoned for him to enter. Jonathan having complied, his
new-found friend led the way up a flight of steps, against which
Jonathan's feet beat noisily in the darkness, and at length,
having ascended two stairways and having reached a landing, he
opened a door at the end of the passage and ushered Jonathan into
an apartment, unlighted, except for the Moonshine, which, coming
in through a partly open shutter, lay in a brilliant patch of
light upon the floor.
His conductor having struck a light with a flint and steel, our
hero by the illumination of a single candle presently discovered
himself to be in a bedchamber furnished with no small degree of
comfort, and even elegance, and having every appearance of a
bachelor's chamber.
"You will pardon me," said his new acquaintance, "if I shut these
shutters and the window, for that devilish fever of which I spoke
is of such a sort that I must keep the night air even out from my
room, or else I shall be shaking the bones out of my joints and
chattering the teeth out of my head by to-morrow morning."
So saying he was as good as his word, and not only drew the
shutters to, but shot the heavy iron bolt into its place. Having
accomplished this he bade our hero to be seated, and placing
before him some exceedingly superior rum, together with some
equally excellent tobacco, they presently fell into the
friendliest discourse imaginable. In the course of their talk,
which after awhile became exceedingly confidential, Jonathan
confided to his new friend the circumstances of the adventure
into which he had been led by the beautiful stranger, and to all
that he said concerning his adventure his interlocutor listened
with the closest and most scrupulously riveted attention.
"Upon my word," said he, when Jonathan had concluded, "I hope
that you may not have been made the victim of some foolish hoax.
Let me see what it is she has confided to you."
"That I will," replied Jonathan. And thereupon he thrust his hand
into his breeches-pocket and brought forth the ivory ball.
No sooner did the one eye of the little gentleman in black light
upon the object than a most singular and extraordinary convulsion
appeared to seize upon him. Had a bullet penetrated his heart he
could not have started more violently, nor have sat more rigidly
and breathlessly staring.
Mastering his emotion with the utmost difficulty as Jonathan
replaced the ball in his pocket, he drew a deep and profound
breath and wiped the palm of his hand across his forehead as
though arousing himself from a dream.
"And you," he said, of a sudden, "are, I understand it, a Quaker.
Do you, then, never carry a weapon, even in such a place as this,
where at any moment in the dark a Spanish knife may be stuck
betwixt your ribs?"
"Why, no," said Jonathan, somewhat surprised that so foreign a
topic should have been so suddenly introduced into the discourse.
"I am a man of peace and not of blood. The people of the Society
of Friends never carry weapons, either of offence or defence."
As Jonathan concluded his reply the little gentleman suddenly
arose from his chair and moved briskly around to the other side
of the room. Our hero, watching him with some surprise, beheld
him clap to the door and with a single movement shoot the bolt
and turn the key therein. The next instant he turned to Jonathan
a visage transformed as suddenly as though he had dropped a mask
from his face. The gossiping and polite little old bachelor was
there no longer, but in his stead a man with a countenance
convulsed with some furious and nameless passion.
"That ball!" he cried, in a hoarse and raucous voice. "That ivory
ball! Give it to me upon the instant!"
As he spoke he whipped out from his bosom a long, keen Spanish
knife that in its every appearance spoke without equivocation of
the most murderous possibilities.
The malignant passions that distorted every lineament of the
countenance of the little old gentleman in black filled our hero
with such astonishment that he knew not whether he were asleep or
awake; but when he beheld the other advancing with the naked and
shining knife in his hand his reason returned to him like a
flash. Leaping to his feet, he lost no time in putting the table
between himself and his sudden enemy.
"Indeed, friend," he cried, in a voice penetrated with
terror--"indeed, friend, thou hadst best keep thy distance from
me, for though I am a man of peace and a shunner of bloodshed, I
promise thee that I will not stand still to be murdered without
outcry or without endeavoring to defend my life!"
"Cry as loud as you please!" exclaimed the other. "No one is near
this place to hear you! Cry until you are hoarse; no one in this
neighborhood will stop to ask what is the matter with you. I tell
you I am determined to possess myself of that ivory ball, and
have it I shall, even though I am obliged to cut out your heart
to get it!" As he spoke he grinned with so extraordinary and
devilish a distortion of his countenance, and with such an
appearance of every intention of carrying out his threat as to
send the goose-flesh creeping like icy fingers up and down our
hero's spine with the most incredible rapidity and acuteness.
Nevertheless, mastering his fears, Jonathan contrived to speak up
with a pretty good appearance of spirit. "Indeed, friend," he
said, "thou appearest to forget that I am a man of twice thy bulk
and half thy years, and that though thou hast a knife I am
determined to defend myself to the last extremity. I am not going
to give thee that which thou demandest of me, and for thy sake I
advise thee to open the door and let me go free as I entered, or
else harm may befall thee."
"Fool!" cried the other, hardly giving him time to end. "Do you,
then, think that I have time to chatter with you while two
villains are lying in wait for me, perhaps at the very door?
Blame your own self for your death!" And, gnashing his teeth with
an indescribable menace, and resting his hand upon the table, he
vaulted with incredible agility clean across it and upon our
hero, who, entirely unprepared for such an extraordinary attack,
was flung back against the wall, with an arm as strong as steel
clutching his throat and a knife flashing in his very eyes with
dreadful portent of instant death.
With an instinct to preserve his life, he caught his assailant by
the wrist, and, bending it away from himself, set every fibre of
his body in a superhuman effort to guard and protect himself. The
other, though so much older and smaller, seemed to be composed
entirely of fibres of steel, and, in his murderous endeavors, put
forth a strength so extraordinary that for a moment our hero felt
his heart melt within him with terror for his life. The spittal
appeared to dry up within his mouth, and his hair to creep and
rise upon his head. With a vehement cry of despair and anguish,
he put forth one stupendous effort for defence, and, clapping his
heel behind the other's leg, and throwing his whole weight
forward, he fairly tripped his antagonist backward as he stood.
Together they fell upon the floor, locked in the most desperate
embrace, and overturning a chair with a prodigious clatter in
their descent--our hero upon the top and the little gentleman in
black beneath him.
As they struck the floor the little man in black emitted a most
piercing and terrible scream, and instantly relaxing his efforts
of attack, fell to beating the floor with the back of his hands
and drubbing with his heels upon the rug in which he had become
entangled.
Our hero leaped to his feet, and with dilating eyes and expanding
brain and swimming sight stared down upon the other like one
turned to a stone.
He beheld instantly what had occurred, and that he had, without
so intending, killed a fellow-man. The knife, turned away from
his own person, had in their fall been plunged into the bosom of
the other, and he now lay quivering in the last throes of death.
As Jonathan gazed he beheld a thin red stream trickle out from
the parted and grinning lips; he beheld the eyes turn inward; he
beheld the eyelids contract; he beheld the figure stretch itself;
he beheld it become still in death.
IV. The Momentous Adventure with the Stranger with the Silver
Ear-rings
So our hero stood stunned and bedazed, gazing down upon his
victim, like a man turned into a stone. His brain appeared to him
to expand like a bubble, the blood surged and bummed in his ears
with every gigantic beat of his heart, his vision swam, and his
trembling hands were bedewed with a cold and repugnant sweat. The
dead figure upon the floor at his feet gazed at him with a wide,
glassy stare, and in the confusion of his mind it appeared to
Jonathan that he was, indeed, a murderer.
What monstrous thing was this that had befallen him who, but a
moment before, had been so entirely innocent of the guilt of
blood? What was he now to do in such an extremity as this, with
his victim lying dead at his feet, a poniard in his heart? Who
would believe him to be guiltless of crime with such a dreadful
evidence as this presented against him? How was he, a stranger in
a foreign land, to totally defend himself against an accusing of
mistaken justice? At these thoughts a developed terror gripped at
his vitals and a sweat as cold as ice bedewed his entire body.
No, he must tarry for no explanation or defense! He must
immediately fly from this terrible place, or else, should he be
discovered, his doom would certainly be sealed!
At that moment, and in the very extremity of his apprehensions,
there fell of a sudden a knock upon the door, sounding so loud
and so startling upon the silence of the room that every
shattered nerve in our hero's frame tingled and thrilled in
answer to it. He stood petrified, scarcely so much as daring to
breathe; and then, observing that his mouth was agape, he
moistened his dry and parching lips, and drew his jaws together
with a snap.
Again there fell the same loud, insistent knock upon the panel,
followed by the imperative words: "Open within!"
The wretched Jonathan flung about him a glance at once of terror
and of despair, but there was for him no possible escape. He was
shut tight in the room with his dead victim, like a rat in a
trap. Nothing remained for him but to obey the summons from
without. Indeed, in the very extremity of his distraction, he
possessed reason enough to perceive that the longer he delayed
opening the door the less innocent he might hope to appear in the
eyes of whoever stood without.
With the uncertain and spasmodic movements of an ill-constructed
automaton, he crossed the room, and stepping very carefully over
the prostrate body upon the floor, and with a hesitating
reluctance that he could in no degree master, he unlocked,
unbolted, and opened the door.
The figure that outlined itself in the light of the candle,
against the blackness of the passageway without was of such a
singular and foreign aspect as to fit extremely well into the
extraordinary tragedy of which Jonathan was at once the victim
and the cause.
It was that of a lean, tall man with a thin, yellow countenance,
embellished with a long, black mustache, and having a pair of
forbidding, deeply set, and extremely restless black eyes. A
crimson handkerchief beneath a lace cocked hat was tied tightly
around the head, and a pair of silver earrings, which caught the
light of the candle, gleamed and twinkled against the inky
darkness of the passageway beyond.
This extraordinary being, without favoring our hero with any word
of apology for his intrusion, immediately thrust himself forward
into the room, and stretching his long, lean, bird-like neck so
as to direct his gaze over the intervening table, fixed a gaping
and concentrated stare upon the figure lying still and motionless
in the centre of the room.
"Vat you do dare," said he, with a guttural and foreign accent,
and thereupon, without waiting for a reply, came forward and
knelt down beside the dead man. After thrusting his hand into the
silent and shrunken bosom, he presently looked up and fixed his
penetrating eyes upon our hero's countenance, who, benumbed and
bedazed with his despair, still stood like one enchained in the
bonds of a nightmare. "He vas dead!" said the stranger, and
Jonathan nodded his head in reply.
"Vy you keel ze man?" inquired his interlocutor.
"Indeed," cried Jonathan, finding a voice at last, but one so
hoarse that he could hardly recognize it for his own, "I know not
what to make of the affair! But, indeed, I do assure thee,
friend, that I am entirely innocent of what thou seest."
The stranger still kept his piercing gaze fixed upon our hero's
countenance, and Jonathan, feeling that something further was
demanded of him, continued: "I am, indeed, a victim of a most
extravagant and extraordinary adventure. This evening, coming an
entire stranger to this country, I was introduced into the house
of a beautiful female, who bestowed upon me a charge that
appeared to me to be at once insignificant and absurd. Behold
this little ivory ball," said he, drawing the globe from his
pocket, and displaying it between his thumb and finger. "It is
this that appears to have brought all this disaster upon me; for,
coming from the house of the young woman, the man whom thou now
beholdest lying dead upon the floor induced me to come to this
place. Having inveigled me hither, he demanded of me to give him
at once this insignificant trifle. Upon my refusing to do so, he
assaulted me with every appearance of a mad and furious
inclination to deprive me of my life!"
At the sight of the ivory ball the stranger quickly arose from
his kneeling posture and fixed upon our hero a gaze the most
extraordinary that he had ever encountered. His eyes dilated like
those of a cat, the breath expelled itself from his bosom in so
deep and profound an expiration that it appeared as though it
might never return again. Nor was it until Jonathan had replaced
the ball in his pocket that he appeared to awaken from the trance
that the sight of the object had sent him into. But no sooner had
the cause of this strange demeanor disappeared into our hero's
breeches-pocket than he arose as with an electric shock. In an
instant he became transformed as by the touch of magic. A sudden
and baleful light flamed into his eyes, his face grew as red as
blood, and he clapped his hand to his pocket with a sudden and
violent motion. "Ze ball!" he cried, in a hoarse and strident
voice. "Ze ball! Give me ze ball!" And upon the next instant our
hero beheld the round and shining nozzle of a pistol pointed
directly against his forehead.
For a moment he stood as though transfixed; then in the mortal
peril that faced him, he uttered a roar that sounded in his own
ears like the outcry of a wild beast, and thereupon flung himself
bodily upon the other with the violence and the fury of a madman.
The stranger drew the trigger, and the powder flashed in the pan.
He dropped the weapon, clattering, and in an instant tried to
draw another from his other pocket. Before he could direct his
aim, however, our hero had caught him by both wrists, and,
bending his hand backward, prevented the chance of any shot from
taking immediate effect upon his person. Then followed a struggle
of extraordinary ferocity and frenzy--the stranger endeavoring to
free his hand, and Jonathan striving with all the energy of
despair to prevent him from effecting his murderous purpose.
In the struggle our hero became thrust against the edge of the
table. He felt as though his back were breaking, and became
conscious that in such a situation he could hope to defend
himself only a few moments longer. The stranger's face was
pressed close to his own. His hot breath, strong with the odor of
garlic, fanned our hero's cheek, while his lips, distended into a
ferocious and ferine grin, displayed his sharp teeth shining in
the candlelight.
"Give me ze ball!" he said, in a harsh and furious whisper.
At the moment there rang in Jonathan's ears the sudden and
astounding detonation of a pistol-shot, and for a moment he
wondered whether he had received a mortal wound without being
aware of it. Then suddenly he beheld an extraordinary and
dreadful transformation take place in the countenance thrust so
close to his own; the eyes winked several times with incredible
rapidity, and then rolled upward and inward; the jaws gaped into
a dreadful and cavernous yawn; the pistol fell with a clatter to
the floor, and the next moment the muscles, so rigid but an
instant before, relaxed into a limp and listless flaccidity. The
joints collapsed, and the entire man fell into an
indistinguishable heap upon and across the dead figure stretched
out upon the floor, while at the same time a pungent and blinding
cloud of gunpowder smoke filled the apartment. For a few moments
the hands twitched convulsively; the neck stretched itself to an
abominable length; the long, lean legs slowly and gradually
relaxed, and every fibre of the body gradually collapsed into the
lassitude of death. A spot of blood appeared and grew upon the
collar at the throat, and in the same degree the color ebbed from
the face leaving it of a dull and leaden pallor.
All these terrible and formidable changes of aspect our hero
stood watching with a motionless and riveted attention, and as
though they were to him matters of the utmost consequence and
importance; and only when the last flicker of life had departed
from his second victim did he lift his gaze from this terrible
scene of dissolution to stare about him, this way and that, his
eyes blinded, and his breath stifled by the thick cloud of
sulphurous smoke that obscured the objects about him in a pungent
cloud.
V. The Unexpected Encounter with the Sea-captain with the Broken
Nose
If our hero had been distracted and bedazed by the first
catastrophe that had befallen, this second and even more dreadful
and violent occurrence appeared to take away from him, for the
moment, every power of thought and of sensation. All that
perturbation of emotion that had before convulsed him he
discovered to have disappeared, and in its stead a benumbed and
blinded intelligence alone remained to him. As he stood in the
presence of this second death, of which he had been as innocent
and as unwilling an instrument as he had of the first, he could
observe no signs either of remorse or of horror within him. He
picked up his hat, which had fallen upon the floor in the first
encounter, and, brushing away the dust with the cuff of his coat
sleeve with extraordinary care, adjusted the beaver upon his head
with the utmost nicety. Then turning, still stupefied as with the
fumes of some powerful drug, he prepared to quit the scene of
tragic terrors that had thus unexpectedly accumulated upon him.
But ere he could put his design into execution his ears were
startled by the sound of loud and hurried footsteps which, coming
from below, ascended the stairs with a prodigious clatter and
bustle of speed. At the landing these footsteps paused for a
while, and then approached, more cautious and deliberate, toward
the room where the double tragedy had been enacted, and where our
hero yet stood silent and inert.
All this while Jonathan made no endeavor to escape, but stood
passive and submissive to what might occur. He felt himself the
victim of circumstances over which he himself had no control.
Gazing at the partly opened door, he awaited for whatever
adventure might next befall him. Once again the footsteps paused,
this time at the very threshold, and then the door was slowly
pushed open from without.
As our hero gazed at the aperture there presently became
disclosed to his view the strong and robust figure of one who was
evidently of a seafaring habit. From the gold braid upon his hat,
the seals dangling from the ribbon at his fob, and a certain
particularity of custom, he was evidently one of no small
consideration in his profession. He was of a strong and powerful
build, with a head set close to his shoulders, and upon a round,
short bull neck. He wore a black cravat, loosely tied into a
knot, and a red waistcoat elaborately trimmed with gold braid; a
leather belt with a brass buckle and hanger, and huge sea-boots
completed a costume singularly suggestive of his occupation in
life. His face was round and broad, like that of a cat, and a
complexion stained, by constant exposure to the sun and wind, to
a color of newly polished mahogany. But a countenance which
otherwise might have been humorous, in this case was rendered
singularly repulsive by the fact that his nose had been broken so
flat to his face that all that remained to distinguish that
feature were two circular orifices where the nostrils should have
been. His eyes were by no means so sinister as the rest of his
visage, being of a light-gray color and exceedingly
vivacious--even good-natured in the merry restlessness of their
glance--albeit they were well-nigh hidden beneath a black bush of
overhanging eyebrows. When he spoke, his voice was so deep and
resonant that it was as though it issued from a barrel rather
than from the breast of a human being.
"How now, my hearty!" cried he, in stentorian tones, so loud that
they seemed to stun the tensely drawn drums of our hero's ears.
"How now, my hearty! What's to-do here? Who is shooting pistols
at this hour of the night?" Then, catching sight of the figures
lying in a huddle upon the floor, his great, thick lips parted
into a gape of wonder and his gray eyes rolled in his head like
two balls, so that what with his flat face and the round holes of
his nostrils he presented an appearance which, under other
circumstances, would have been at once ludicrous and grotesque.
"By the blood!" cried he, "to be sure it is murder that has
happened here."
"Not murder!" cried Jonathan, in a shrill and panting voice. "Not
murder! It was all an accident, and I am as innocent as a baby."
The new-comer looked at him and then at the two figures upon the
floor, and then back at him again with eyes at once quizzical and
cunning. Then his face broke into a grin that might hardly be
called of drollery. "Accident!" quoth he. "By the blood! d'ye see
'tis a strange accident, indeed, that lays two men by the heels
and lets the third go without a scratch!" Delivering himself
thus, he came forward into the room, and, taking the last victim
of Jonathan's adventure by the arm, with as little compunction as
he would have handled a sack of grain he dragged the limp and
helpless figure from where it lay to the floor beside the first
victim. Then, lifting the lighted candle, he bent over the two
prostrate bodies, holding the illumination close to the
lineaments first of one and then of the other. He looked at them
very carefully for a long while, with the closest and most intent
scrutiny, and in perfect silence. "They are both as dead," says
he, "as Davy Jones, and, whoever you be, I protest that you have
done your business the most completest that I ever saw in all of
my life."