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Holding the torch in advance of him, Cubina entered first, though Herbert, anxious and eager, was close upon his heels.

The glare of the torch was reflected back from a thousand sparkling stalactites, and for a while the sight of both was bewildered.

Soon, however, their eyes became accustomed to the dazzling coruscation; and then a white object, lying along the floor of the cave, seen by both at the same instant, caused them to utter a simultaneous cry – as they did so, turning to each other with looks of the most painful despair.

Between two large masses of stalagmite was the body of a woman, robed in white. It was lying upon its back, stretched out to its full length – motionless; apparently dead!

They needed not to pass the torch over that pale face to identify it. It was not necessary to scrutinise those wan, silent features. On first beholding the prostrate form, too easily had Herbert rushed to the sad conclusion – that it was the corpse of his cousin!

Chapter 38

The Sleep-Spell

During all this time where was Chakra?

As soon as he had seen the mansion of Mount Welcome fairly given to the flames, the Coromantee, bearing its young mistress in his arms, hurried away from the spot. Outside the garden wicket he made stop: only for a moment, which was spent in a hasty consultation with the chief of the black bandits.

In the brief dialogue which there took place between them, Adam was enjoined to carry the whole of the booty to his mountain home, where Chakra promised in due time to join him. The Coromantee had no intention to resign his share of the spoils; but just then he was in no mood for making the division. He was at that moment under the influence of a passion stronger than the love of plunder.

Adam was only too eager to accede to these terms; and the confederates parted company – the robber and his followers at once shouldering their booty, and setting out for their forest dwelling among the far mountains of Trelawney.

Like the tiger who has killed his prey – and, not daring to devour it on the spot, bears it to his jungle covert – so Chakra, half dragging, half carrying Kate Vaughan, proceeded up the mountain path in the direction of the Duppy’s Hole.

Lifeless as the victim of the ferocious beast appeared the form of Lilly Quasheba, hanging supple and unconscious over the arm of the human monster – equally ferocious.

Her screams no longer fell upon the ear. Her terror had exhausted her strength. Syncope [592] , resembling death, had succeeded.

It continued, happily for her, during the whole of the transit up the mountain. The wild forest path had no terrors for her: neither the descent into the dank solitudes of the Duppy’s Hole. In the traverse over that dark lagoon, she was not frightened by the scream of the startled night bird, nor the threatening roar of the close cataract. She knew no fear, from the moment she was earned away in the arms of a hideous monster, on a path lighted by the blaze of the roof under which she had been born and reared: she experienced no feeling of any kind, until she awoke to consciousness in a rude triangular hut, lit by a feeble lamp, whose glare fell upon a face hitherto well-known – the face of Chakra, the myal-man.