第 十八 章 · EXIT OOLANGA

. EXIT OOLANGA

The woman turned sharply as Adam touched her shoulder.

"One moment whilst we are alone. You had better not trust that nigger!"

he whispered.

Her answer was crisp and concise:

"I don't."

"Forewarned is forearmed. Tell me if you will--it is for your own

protection. Why do you mistrust him?"

"My friend, you have no idea of that man's impudence. Would you believe

that he wants me to marry him?"

"No!" said Adam incredulously, amused in spite of himself.

"Yes, and wanted to bribe me to do it by sharing a chest of treasure--at

least, he thought it was--stolen from Mr. Caswall. Why do you distrust

him, Mr. Salton?"

"Did you notice that box he had slung on his shoulder? That belongs to

me. I left it in the gun-room when I went to lunch. He must have crept

in and stolen it. Doubtless he thinks that it, too, is full of

treasure."

"He does!"

"How on earth do you know?" asked Adam.

"A little while ago he offered to give it to me--another bribe to accept

him. Faugh! I am ashamed to tell you such a thing. The beast!"

Whilst they had been speaking, she had opened the door, a narrow iron

one, well hung, for it opened easily and closed tightly without any

creaking or sound of any kind. Within all was dark; but she entered as

freely and with as little misgiving or restraint as if it had been broad

daylight. For Adam, there was just sufficient green light from somewhere

for him to see that there was a broad flight of heavy stone steps leading

upward; but Lady Arabella, after shutting the door behind her, when it

closed tightly without a clang, tripped up the steps lightly and swiftly.

For an instant all was dark, but there came again the faint green light

which enabled him to see the outlines of things. Another iron door,

narrow like the first and fairly high, led into another large room, the

walls of which were of massive stones, so closely joined together as to

exhibit only one smooth surface. This presented the appearance of having

at one time been polished. On the far side, also smooth like the walls,

was the reverse of a wide, but not high, iron door. Here there was a

little more light, for the high-up aperture over the door opened to the

air.

Lady Arabella took from her girdle another small key, which she inserted

in a keyhole in the centre of a massive lock. The great bolt seemed

wonderfully hung, for the moment the small key was turned, the bolts of

the great lock moved noiselessly and the iron doors swung open. On the

stone steps outside stood Oolanga, with the mongoose box slung over his

shoulder. Lady Arabella stood a little on one side, and the African,

accepting the movement as an invitation, entered in an obsequious way.

The moment, however, that he was inside, he gave a quick look around him.

"Much death here--big death. Many deaths. Good, good!"

He sniffed round as if he was enjoying the scent. The matter and manner

of his speech were so revolting that instinctively Adam's hand wandered

to his revolver, and, with his finger on the trigger, he rested satisfied

that he was ready for any emergency.

There was certainly opportunity for the nigger's enjoyment, for the open

well-hole was almost under his nose, sending up such a stench as almost

made Adam sick, though Lady Arabella seemed not to mind it at all. It

was like nothing that Adam had ever met with. He compared it with all

the noxious experiences he had ever had--the drainage of war hospitals,

of slaughter-houses, the refuse of dissecting rooms. None of these was

like it, though it had something of them all, with, added, the sourness

of chemical waste and the poisonous effluvium of the bilge of a water-

logged ship whereon a multitude of rats had been drowned.

Then, quite unexpectedly, the negro noticed the presence of a third

person--Adam Salton! He pulled out a pistol and shot at him, happily

missing. Adam was himself usually a quick shot, but this time his mind

had been on something else and he was not ready. However, he was quick

to carry out an intention, and he was not a coward. In another moment

both men were in grips. Beside them was the dark well-hole, with that

horrid effluvium stealing up from its mysterious depths.

Adam and Oolanga both had pistols; Lady Arabella, who had not one, was

probably the most ready of them all in the theory of shooting, but that

being impossible, she made her effort in another way. Gliding forward,

she tried to seize the African; but he eluded her grasp, just missing, in

doing so, falling into the mysterious hole. As he swayed back to firm

foothold, he turned his own gun on her and shot. Instinctively Adam

leaped at his assailant; clutching at each other, they tottered on the

very brink.

Lady Arabella's anger, now fully awake, was all for Oolanga. She moved

towards him with her hands extended, and had just seized him when the

catch of the locked box--due to some movement from within--flew open, and

the king-cobra-killer flew at her with a venomous fury impossible to

describe. As it seized her throat, she caught hold of it, and, with a

fury superior to its own, tore it in two just as if it had been a sheet

of paper. The strength used for such an act must have been terrific. In

an instant, it seemed to spout blood and entrails, and was hurled into

the well-hole. In another instant she had seized Oolanga, and with a

swift rush had drawn him, her white arms encircling him, down with her

into the gaping aperture.

Adam saw a medley of green and red lights blaze in a whirling circle, and

as it sank down into the well, a pair of blazing green eyes became fixed,

sank lower and lower with frightful rapidity, and disappeared, throwing

upward the green light which grew more and more vivid every moment. As

the light sank into the noisome depths, there came a shriek which chilled

Adam's blood--a prolonged agony of pain and terror which seemed to have

no end.

Adam Salton felt that he would never be able to free his mind from the

memory of those dreadful moments. The gloom which surrounded that

horrible charnel pit, which seemed to go down to the very bowels of the

earth, conveyed from far down the sights and sounds of the nethermost

hell. The ghastly fate of the African as he sank down to his terrible

doom, his black face growing grey with terror, his white eyeballs, now

like veined bloodstone, rolling in the helpless extremity of fear. The

mysterious green light was in itself a milieu of horror. And through it

all the awful cry came up from that fathomless pit, whose entrance was

flooded with spots of fresh blood. Even the death of the fearless little

snake-killer--so fierce, so frightful, as if stained with a ferocity

which told of no living force above earth, but only of the devils of the

pit--was only an incident. Adam was in a state of intellectual tumult,

which had no parallel in his experience. He tried to rush away from the

horrible place; even the baleful green light, thrown up through the

gloomy well-shaft, was dying away as its source sank deeper into the

primeval ooze. The darkness was closing in on him in overwhelming

density--darkness in such a place and with such a memory of it!

He made a wild rush forward--slipt on the steps in some sticky, acrid-

smelling mass that felt and smelt like blood, and, falling forward, felt

his way into the inner room, where the well-shaft was not.

Then he rubbed his eyes in sheer amazement. Up the stone steps from the

narrow door by which he had entered, glided the white-clad figure of Lady

Arabella, the only colour to be seen on her being blood-marks on her face

and hands and throat. Otherwise, she was calm and unruffled, as when

earlier she stood aside for him to pass in through the narrow iron door.