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J >> Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer >> Romance




Sometimes Manuel would begin again, "Castro! Castro! Castro!" till he
seemed to stagger the rocks and disturb the placid sunshine with an
immense wave of sound. He called upon his victim to drink once more
before he died. Long shrieks of derision rent the air, as if torn out
of his breast by far greater torments than any his fancy delighted to
invent. There was something terrible and weird in the abundance of words
screeched continuously, without end, as if in desperation. No wonder
Castro fled from the passage. And Seraphina and I, within, would be
startled out of our half-delirious state by the sudden appearance of
that old man, disordered, sordid, with a white beard sprouting, who
wandered, weeping aloud in the twilight.

More than once I would stagger off far away into the depths of the
cavern in an access of rage, fling myself on the floor, bite my arms,
beat my head on the rock. I would give myself up. She must be saved from
this tortured death. She had said she would throw herself over if I left
her. But would she have the strength? It was impossible to know. For
days it seemed she had been lying perfectly still, on her side, one hand
under her wan cheek, and only answering "Juan" when I pronounced her
name. There was something awful in our dry whispers. They were lifeless,
like the tones of the dead, if the dead ever speak to each other across
the earth separating the graves. The moral suffering, joined to the
physical torture of hunger and thirst, annihilated my will in a measure,
but also kindled a vague, gnawing feeling of hostility against her. She
asked too much of me. It was too much. And I would drag myself back to
sit for hours, and with an aching heart look towards her couch from a
distance.

My eyes, accustomed to obscurity, traced an indistinct and recumbent
form. Her forehead was white; her hair merged into the darkness which
was gathering slowly upon her eyes, her cheeks, her throat. She was
perfectly still. It was cruel, it was odious, it was intolerable to be
so still. This must end. I would carry her out by main force. She said
no word, but there was in the embrace of those arms instantly thrown
around my neck, in the feel of those dry lips pressed upon mine, in
the emaciated face, in the big shining eyes of that being as light as a
feather, a passionate mournfulness of seduction, a tenacious clinging to
the appointed fate, that suddenly overawed my movement of rage. I laid
her down again, and covered my face with my hands. She called out to
Castro. He reeled, as if drunk, and waited at the head of her couch,
with his chin dropped on his breast. "_Vuestra, Senoria_," he muttered.

"Listen well, Castro." Her voice was very faint, and each word came
alone, as if shrunk and parched. "Can my gold--the promise of much
gold--you know these men--save the lives...?"

He uttered a choked cry, and began to tremble, groping for her hand.

"_Si, Senorita_. Excellency, _si_. It would. Mercy. Save me. I am too
old to bear this. Gold, yes; much gold. Manuel...."

"Listen, Castro.... And Don Juan?" His head fell again. "Speak the
truth, Castro."

He struggled with himself; then, rattling in his throat, shrieked "No!"
with a terrible effort. "No. Nothing can save thy English lover." "Why?"
she breathed feebly. He raged at her in his weakness. Why? Because the
order had gone forth; because they dared not disobey. Because she had
only gold in the palm of her hand, while Senor O'Brien held all their
lives in his. The accursed _Juez_ was for them like death itself that
walks amongst men, taking this one, leaving another.

He was their life, and their law, and their safety, and their death--and
the _caballero_ had not killed him....

His voice seemed to wither and dry up gradually in his throat. He
crawled away, and we heard him chuckling horribly somewhere, like a
madman. Seraphina stretched out her hand.

"Then, Juan--why not together--like this?"

If she had the courage of this death, I must have even more. It was a
point of honour. I had no wish, and no right, to seek for some easier
way out of life. But she had a woman's capacity for passive endurance,
a serenity of mind in this martyrdom confessing to something sinister in
the power of love that, like faith, can move mountains and order cruel
sacrifices. She could have walked out in perfect safety--and it was
that thought that maddened me. And there was no sleep; there were only
intervals in which I could fall into a delirious reverie of still lakes,
of vast sheets of water. I waded into them up to my lips. Never
further. They were smooth and cold as ice; I stood in them shivering and
straining for a draught, burning within with the fire of thirst, while
a phantom all pale, and with its hair streaming, called to me "Courage!"
from the brink in Seraphina's voice. As to Castro, he was going mad. He
was simply going mad, as people go mad for want of food and drink.
And yet he seemed to keep his strength. He was never still. It was a
factitious strength, the restlessness of incipient insanity. Once, while
I was trying to talk with him about our only hope--the peons--he gave
me a look of such sombre distraction that I left off, intimidated,
to wonder vaguely at this glimpse of something hidden and excessive
springing from torments which surely could be no greater than mine.

He had the strength, and sometimes he could find the voice, to hurl
abuse, curses, and imprecations from the mouth of the cave. Great shouts
of laughter exploded above, and they seemed to hold their breath to
hear more; or Manuel, hanging over, would praise in mocking, mellifluous
accents the energy of his denunciations. I tried to pull him away from
there, but he turned upon me fiercely; and from prudence--for all hope
was not dead in me yet--I left him alone.

That night I heard him make an extraordinary sound chewing; at the same
time he was sobbing and cursing stealthily. He had found something to
eat, then! I could not believe my ears, but I began to creep towards
the sound, and suddenly there was a short, mad scuffle in the darkness,
during which I nearly spitted myself on his blade. At last, trembling in
every limb, with my blood beating furiously in my ears, I scrambled to
my feet, holding a small piece of meat in my hands. Instantly, without
hesitating, without thinking, I plunged my teeth into it only to fling
it far away from me with a frantic execration. This was the first sound
uttered since we had grappled. Lying prone near me, Castro, with a
rattle in his throat, tried to laugh.

This was a supreme touch of Manuel's art; they were pressed for time,
and he had hit upon that deep and politic invention to hasten the
surrender of his beloved victim. I nearly cried with the fiery pain
on my cracked lips. That piece of half-putrid flesh was salt--horribly
salt--salt like salt itself. Whenever they heard him rave and mutter at
the mouth of the cave, they would throw down these prepared scraps. It
was as if I had put a live coal into my mouth.

"Ha!" he croaked feebly. "Have you thrown it away? I, too; the first
piece. No matter. I can no more swallow anything, now."

His voice was like the rustling of parchment at my feet.

"Do not look for it, Don Juan. The sinners in hell.... Ha! Fiend. I
could not resist."

I sank down by his side. He seemed to be writhing on the floor
muttering, "Thirst--thirst--thirst." His blade clicked on the rock; then
all was still. Was he dead? Suddenly he began with an amazingly animated
utterance.

"Senor! For this they had to kill cattle."

This thought had kept him up. Probably, they had been firing shots. But
there was a way of hamstringing a stalked cow silently; and the plains
were vast, the grass on them was long; the carcasses would lie hidden
out of sight; the herds were rounded up only twice every year. His
despairing voice died out in a mournful fall, and again he was as still
as death.

"No! I can bear this no longer," he uttered with force. He refused to
bear it. He suffered too much. There was no hope. He would overwhelm
them with maledictions, and then leap down from the ledge. "_Adios,
Senor_."

I stretched out my arm and caught him by the leg. It seemed to me I
could not part with him. It would have been disloyal, an admission that
all was over, the beginning of the end. We were exhausting ourselves by
this sort of imbecile wrestling. Meantime, I kept on entreating him to
be a man; and at last I managed to clamber upon his chest. "A man!" he
sighed. I released him. For a space, unheard in the darkness, he seemed
to be collecting all his remaining strength.

"Oh, those strange _Inglez!_ Why should I not leap? and whom do you love
best or hate more, me or the senorita? Be thou a man, also, and pray
God to give thee reason to understand men for once in thy life. Ha!
Enamoured woman--he is a fool! But I, Castro...."

His whispering became appallingly unintelligible, then ceased, passing
into a moan. My will to restrain him abandoned me. He had brought this
on us. And if he really wished to give up the struggle....

"Senor," he mumbled brokenly, "a thousand thanks. Br-r-r! Oh, the ugly
water--water--water--water--salt water--salt! You saved me. Why? Let God
be the Judge. I would have preferred a malignant demon for a friend. I
forgive you. _Adios!_ And---Her Excellency--poor Castro.... Ha! Thou old
scorpion, encircled by fire--by fire and thirst. No. No scorpion, alas!
Only a man--not like you--therefore--a Mass--or two--perhaps...."

The freshness of the night penetrated through the arch, as far as the
faint twilight of the day. I heard his tearful muttering creep away from
my side. "Thirst--thirst--thirst." I did not stir; and an incredulity,
a weariness, the sense of our common fate, mingled with an unconfessed
desire--the desire of seeing what would come of it--a desire that
stirred my blood like a glimmer of hope, and prevented me from making a
movement or uttering a whisper. If his sufferings were so great, who was
I to... Mine, too. I almost envied him. He was free.

As if an inward obscurity had parted in two I looked to the very bottom
of my thoughts. And his action appeared like a sacrifice. It could
liberate us two from this cave before it was too late. He, he alone, was
the prey they had trapped. They would be satisfied, probably. Nay! There
could be no doubt. Directly he was dead they would depart. Ah! he wanted
to leap. He must not be allowed. Now that I understood perfectly what
this meant, I had to prevent him. There was no choice. I must stop him
at any cost.

The awakening of my conscience sent me to my feet; but before I had
stumbled halfway through the passage I heard his shout in the open air,
"Behold me!"

A man outside cried excitedly, "He is out!"

An exulting tumult fell into the arch, the clash of twenty voices
yelling in different keys, "He is out--the traitor! He is out!" I was
too late, but I made three more hesitating steps and stood blinded.
The flaming branches they were holding over the precipice showered a
multitude of sparks, that fell disappearing continuously in the lurid
light, shutting out the night from the mouth of the cave. And in this
light Castro could be seen kneeling on the other side of the sill.

With his fingers clutching the edge of the slab, he hung outwards, his
head falling back, his spine arched tensely, like a bow; and the red
sparks coming from above with the dancing whirl of snowflakes, vanished
in the air before they could settle on his face.

"Manuel! Manuel!"

They answered with a deep, confused growl, jostling and crowding on the
edge to look down into his eyes. Meantime I stared at the convulsive
heaving of his breast, at his upturned chin, his swelling throat. He
defied Manuel. He would leap. Behold! he was going to leap--to his own
death--in his own time. He challenged them to come down on the ledge;
and the blade of the maimed arm waved to and fro stiffly, point up, like
a red-hot weapon in the light. He devoted them to pestilence, to English
gallows, to the infernal powers: while all the time commenting
murmurs passed over his head, as though he had extorted their sinister
appreciation.

"_Canalla!_ dogs, thieves, prey of death, vermin of hell--I spit on
you--like this!"

He had not the force, nor the saliva, and remained straining mutely
upwards while they laughed at him all together, with something sombre,
and as if doomed in their derision.... "He will jump! No, he will not!"
"Yes! Leap, Castro! Spit, Castro!" "He will run back into the cave!
_Maladetta!_"... Manuel's voiced cooed lovingly on the brink:

"Come to us and drink, Castro."

I waited for his leap with doubt, with disbelief, in the helpless
agitation of the weak. Gradually he seemed to relax all over.

"Drink deep; drink, and drink, and drink, Castro. Water. Clear water,
cool water. Taste, Castro!"

He called on him in tones that were almost tender in their urgency, to
come and drink before he died. His voice seemed to cast a spell, like
an incantation, upon the tubby little figure, with something yearning in
the upward turn of the listening face.

"Drink!" Manuel repeated the word several times; then, suddenly he
called, "Taste, Castro, taste," and a descending brightness, as of a
crystal rod hurled from above, shivered to nothing on the upturned face.
The light disappearing from before the cave seemed scared away by the
inhuman discord of his shriek; and I flung myself forward to lick
the splash of moisture on the sill. I did not think of Castro, I had
forgotten him. I raged at the deception of my thirst, exploring with my
tongue the rough surface of the stone till I tasted my own blood. Only
then, raising my head to gasp, and clench my fists with a baffled and
exasperated desire, I noticed how profound was the silence, in which the
words, "Take away his sting," seemed to pronounce themselves over the
ravine in the impersonal austerity of the rock, and with the tone of a
tremendous decree.




CHAPTER TEN

He had surrendered to his thirst. What weakness! He had not thrown
himself over, then. What folly! One splash of water on his face had been
enough. He was contemptible; and lying collapsed, in a sort of tormented
apathy, at the mouth of the cave, I despised and envied his good
fortune. It could not save him from death, but at least he drank. I
understood this when I heard his voice, a voice altogether altered--a
firm, greedy voice saying, "More," breathlessly. And then he drank
again. He was drinking. He was drinking up there in the light of the
fire, in a circle of mortal enemies, under Manuel's gloating eyes.
Drinking! O happiness! O delight! What a miserable wretch! I clawed the
stone convulsively; I think I would have rushed out for my share if I
had not heard Manuel's cruel and caressing voice:

"How now? You do not want to throw yourself over, my Castro?"

"I have drunk," he said gloomily.

I think they must have given him something to eat then. In my mind there
are many blanks in the vision of that scene, a vision built upon a few
words reaching me, suddenly, with great intervals of silence between, as
though I had been coming to myself out of a dead faint now and then.
A ferocious hum of many voices would rise sometimes impatiently, the
scrambling of feet near the edge; or, in a sinister and expectant
stillness, Manuel the artist would be speaking to his "beloved victim
Castro" in a gentle and insinuating voice that seemed to tremble
slightly with eagerness. Had he eaten and drunk enough? They had kept
their promises, he said. They would keep them all. The water had been
cool--and presently he, Manuel-del-Popolo, would accompany with his
guitar and his voice the last moments of his victim. Bursts of laughter
punctuated his banter. Ah! that Manuel, that Manuel! Some actually swore
in admiration. But was Castro really at his ease? Was it not good to eat
and drink? Had he quite returned to life? But, _Caramba, amigos_, what
neglect! The _caballero_ who has honoured us must smoke. They shouted
in high glee: "Yes. Smoke, Castro. Let him smoke." I suppose he did; and
Manuel expounded to him how pleasant life was in which one could eat,
and drink, and smoke. His words tortured me. Castro remained mute--from
disdain, from despair, perhaps. Afterwards they carried him along clear
of the cornice, and I understood they formed a half-circle round him,
drawing their knives. Manuel, screeching in a high falsetto, ordered the
bonds of his feet to be cut. I advanced my head out as far as I dared;
their voices reached me deadened; I could only see the profound shadow
of the ravine, a patch of dark clear sky opulent with stars, and the
play of the firelight on the opposite side. The shadow of a pair of
monumental feet, and the lower edge of a cloak, spread amply like a
skirt, stood out in it, intensely black and motionless, right in front
of the cave. Now and then, elbowed in the surge round Castro, the guitar
emitted a deep and hollow resonance. He was tumultuously ordered to
stand up and, I imagine, he was being pricked with the points of
their knives till he did get on his feet. "Jump!" they roared all
together--and Manuel began to finger the strings, lifting up his voice
between the gusts of savage hilarity, mingled with cries of death. He
exhorted his followers to close on the traitor inch by inch, presenting
their knives.

"He runs here and there, the blood trickling from his limbs--but in
vain, this is the appointed time for the leap...."

It was an improvisation; they stamped their feet to the slow measure;
they shouted in chorus the one word "Leap!" raising a ferocious roar;
and between whiles the song of voice and strings came to me from a
distance, softened and lingering in a voluptuous and pitiless cadence
that wrung my heart, and seemed to eat up the remnants of my strength.
But what could I have done, even if I had had the strength of a giant,
and a most fearless resolution? I should have been shot dead before I
had crawled halfway up the ledge. A piercing shriek covered the guitar,
the song, and the wild merriment.

Then everything seemed to stop--even my own painful breathing. Again
Castro shrieked like a madman:

"Senorita--your gold. Senorita! Hear me! Help!"

Then all was still.

"Hear the dead calling to the dead," sneered Manuel.

An awestruck sort of hum proceeded from the Spaniards. Was the senorita
alive? In the cave? Or where?

"Her nod would have saved thee, Castro," said Manuel slowly. I got up. I
heard Castro stammer wildly:

"She shall fill both your hands with gold. Do you hear, hombres? I,
Castro, tell you--each man--both hands------"

He had done it. The last hope was gone now. And all that there remained
for me to do was to leap over or give myself up, and end this horrible
business.

"She was a creature born to command the moon and the stars," Manuel
mused aloud in a vibrating tone, and suddenly smote the strings with
emphatic violence. She could even stay his vengeance. But was it
possible! No, no. It could not be--and yet....

"Thou art alive yet, Castro," he cried. "Thou hast eaten and drunk; life
is good--is it not, old man?--and the leap is high."

He thundered "Silence!" to still the excited murmurs of his band. If she
lived Castro should live, too--he, Manuel, said so; but he threatened
him with horrible tortures, with two days of slow dying, if he dared to
deceive. Let him, then, speak the truth quickly.

"Speak, 'viejo'. Where is she?"

And at the opening, fifty yards away, I was tempted to call out, as
though I had loved Castro well enough to save him from the shame and
remorse of a plain betrayal. That the moment of it had come I could have
no doubt. And it was I myself, perhaps, who could not face the certitude
of his downfall. If my throat had not been so compressed, so dry with
thirst and choked with emotion, I believe I should have cried out and
brought them away from that miserable man with a rush. Since we were
lost, he at least should be saved from this. I suffered from his
spasmodic, agonized laugh away there, with twenty knives aimed at his
breast and the eighty-foot drop of the precipice at his back. Why did he
hesitate?

I was to learn, then, that the ultimate value of life to all of us is
based on the means of self-deception. Morally he had his back against
the wall, he could not hope to deceive himself; and after Manuel had
cried again at him, "Where are they?" in a really terrible tone, I heard
his answer:

"At the bottom of the sea."

He had his own courage after all--if only the courage not to believe in
Manuel's promises. And he must have been weary of his life--weary enough
not to pay that price. And yet he had gone to the very verge,
calling upon Seraphina as if she could hear him. Madness of fear, no
doubt--succeeded by an awakening, a heroic reaction. And yet sometimes
it seems to me as if the whole scene, with his wild cries for help, had
been the outcome of a supreme exercise of cunning. For, indeed, he could
not have invented anything better to bring the conviction of our death
to the most sceptical of those ruffians. All I heard after his words had
been a great shout, followed by a sudden and unbroken silence. It seemed
to last a very long time. He had thrown himself over! It is like the
blank space of a swoon to me, and yet it must have been real enough,
because, huddled up just inside the sill, with my head reposing wearily
on the stone, I watched three moving flames of lighted branches carried
by men follow each other closely in a swaying descent along the path on
the other side of the ravine. They passed on downwards, flickering out
of view. Then, after a time, a voice below, to the left of the cave,
ascended with a hooting and mournful effect from the depths.

"Manuel! Manuel! We have found him!... _Es muerte!_"

And from above Manuel's shout rolled, augmented, between the rocks.

"_Bueno!_ Turn his face up--for the birds!"

They continued calling to each other for a good while. The men below
declared their intention of going on to the sea shore; and Manuel
shouted to them not to forget to send him up a good rope early in the
morning. Apparently, the schooner had been refloated some time before;
many of the _Lugarenos_ were to sleep on board. They purposed to set
sail early next day.

This revived me, and I spent the night between Seraphina's couch and the
mouth of the cave, keeping tight hold of my reason that seemed to lose
itself in this hope, in this darkness, in this torment. I touched her
cheek, it was hot--while her forehead felt to my fingers as cold as
ice. I had no more voice, but I tried to force out some harsh whispers
through my throat. They sounded horrible to my own ears, and she
endeavoured to soothe me by murmuring my name feebly. I believe she
thought me delirious. I tried to pray for my strength to last till I
could carry her out of that cave to the side of the brook--then let
death come. "Live, live," I whispered into her ear, and would hear a
sigh so faint, so feeble, that it swayed all my soul with pity and fear,
"Yes, Juan."... And I would go away to watch for the dawn from the mouth
of the cave, and curse the stars that would not fade.

Manuel's voice always steadied me. A languor had come over them above,
as if their passion had been exhausted; as if their hearts had been
saddened by an unbridled debauch. There was, however, their everlasting
quarrelling. Several of them, I understood, left the camp for the
schooner, but avoiding the road by the ravine as if Castro's dead body
down there had made it impassable. And the talk went on late into the
night. There was some superstitious fear attached to the cave--a legend
of men who had gone in and had never come back any more. All they knew
of it was the region of twilight; formerly, when they used the shelter
of the cavern, no one, it seems, ever ventured outside the circle of
the fire. Manuel disdained their fears. Had he not been such a profound
politico, a man of stratagems, there would have been a necessity to go
down and see.... They all protested.

Who was going down? Not they.... Their craven cowardice was amazing.

He begged them to keep themselves quiet. They had him for _Capataz_
now. A man of intelligence. Had he not enticed Castro out? He had never
believed there was any one else in there. He sighed. Otherwise Castro
would have tried to save his life by confessing. There had been nothing
to confess. But he had the means of making sure. A voice suggested that
the _Inglez_ might have withdrawn himself into the depths. These English
were not afraid of demons, being devils themselves; and this one was
fiendishly reckless. But Manuel observed, contemptuously, that a man
trapped like this would remain near the opening. Hope would keep him
there till he died--unless he rushed out like Castro-Manuel laughed,
but in a mournful tone: and, listening to the craven talk of their
doubts and fears, it seemed to me that if I could appear at one bound
amongst them, they would scatter like chaff before my glance It seemed
intolerable to wait; more than human strength could bear. Would the day
never come? A drowsiness stole upon their voices.

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