Volume 2 Chapter 23 - The Maroon by Mayne Reid
Chakra Redivivus
The scene that had thus transpired in the depths of the Duppy’s Hole requires some explanation. The dialogue which Cynthia had held with the hideous Coromantee, though couched in ambiguous phrase, clearly indicated an intention to assassinate the Custos Vaughan; and by a mode which these arch-conspirators figuratively—almost facetiously—termed the obeah-spell!
In the diabolical design, the woman appeared to be acting rather as coadjutor than conspirator; and her motive for taking part in the plot, though wicked enough, presents, in the language of French law, one or two “extenuating circumstances.”
A word or two of the mulatta’s history will make her motive understood, though her conversation may have already declared it with sufficient distinctness.
Cynthia was a slave on the plantation of Mount Welcome—one of the house-wenches, or domestics belonging to the mansion; and of which, in a large establishment like that of Custos Vaughan, there is usually a numerous troop.
The girl, in earlier life, had been gifted with good looks. Nor could it be said that they were yet gone; though hers was a beauty that no longer presented the charm of innocent girlhood, but rather the sensualistic attractions of a bold and abandoned woman.
Had Cynthia been other than a slave—that is, had she lived in other lands—her story might have been different. But in that, her native country—and under conditions of bondage that extended alike to body and soul—her fair looks had proved only a fatal gift.
With no motive to tread the paths of virtue—with a thousand temptations to stray from it—Cynthia, like, it is sad to think, too many of her race, had wandered into ways of wantonness. It might be, as Chakra had obscurely hinted, that the slave had been abused. Wherever lay the blame, she had, at all events, become abandoned.
Whether loving them or not, Cynthia had, in her time, been honoured with more than one admirer. But there was one on whom she had at length fixed her affections—or, more properly, her passions—to a degree of permanence that promised to end only with her life. This one was the young Maroon captain, Cubina; and although it was a love of comparatively recent origin, it had already reached the extreme of passion. So fierce and reckless had it grown, on the part of the wretched woman, that she was ready for anything that promised to procure her its requital—ready even for the nefarious purpose of Chakra.
To do Cubina justice, this love of the slave Cynthia was not reciprocated. To the levities and light speeches habitually indulged in by the Maroons, in their intercourse with the plantation people, Cubina was a singular exception; and Cynthia’s statement that he had once returned her love—somewhat doubtingly delivered—had no other foundation than her own groundless conjectures, in which the wish was father to the thought.
Some friendly words may have passed between the Maroon and mulatta—for they had often met upon their mutual wanderings; but the latter, in mistaking them for words of love, had, sadly for herself, misconceived their meaning.
Of late her passion had become fiercer than ever—since jealousy had arisen to stimulate it—jealousy of Cubina with Yola. The meeting and subsequent correspondence of the Maroon with the Foolah maiden were events of still more recent date; but already had Cynthia seen or heard enough to produce the conviction that in Yola she had found a rival. With the passionate sang-mêlé, jealousy pointed to revenge; and she had begun to indulge in dark projects of this nature just at that time when Chakra chanced to throw his shadow across her path.
Cynthia was one of those slaves known as night-rangers. She was in the habit of making occasional and nocturnal excursions through the woods for many purposes; but of late, principally in the hope of meeting Cubina, and satisfying herself in regard to a suspicion she had conceived of meetings occurring between him and Yola.
In one of these expeditions she had encountered a man whose appearance filled her with terror; and very naturally: since, as she at first supposed, it was not a man, but a ghost that she saw—the ghost of Chakra, the myal-man!
That it was the “duppy” of old Chakra, Cynthia on sight firmly believed; and might have continued longer in that belief, had she been permitted to make her escape from the spot—as she was fast hastening to do. But the long, ape-like arms of the myal-man, flung around her on the instant, restrained her flight until she became convinced that it was not Chakra’s ghost, but Chakra himself, who had so rudely embraced her!
It was not altogether by chance this encounter had occurred—at least, on the part of Chakra. He had been looking out for Cynthia for some time before. He wanted her for a purpose.
The mulatta made no revelation of what she had seen. With all his ugliness, the myal-man had been the friend of her mother—had often dandled her, Cynthia, upon his knees. But the tongue of Juno’s daughter was held silent by stronger ties than those of affection. Fear was one; but there was also another. If Chakra wanted Cynthia for a purpose, a quick instinct told her she might stand in need of him. He was just the instrument by which to accomplish that revenge of which she was already dreaming.
On the instant, mulatta and myal-man became allies.
This mutual confidence had been but very recently established—only a few days, or rather nights, before that on which Cynthia had given Chakra this, her first seance in the temple of Obi.
The purpose for which the myal-man wanted the mulatta—or one purpose, at least—has been sufficiently set forth in the dialogues occurring between them. He required her assistance to put the obeah-spell upon the planter, Loftus Vaughan. The character of Cynthia, which Chakra well understood—with the opportunities she had, in her capacity of housemaid—promised to provide the assassin with an agency of the most effective kind; and the pretended love-spell he was to work upon Cubina had given him a talisman, by which his agent was but too easily induced to undertake the execution of his diabolical design.
Among many other performances of a like kind, it was part of Chakra’s programme, some day or other, to put the death-spell upon the Maroon himself; to “obeah” young Cubina—as it was suspected he had the old Cubina, the father—after twenty years of temptation. It was but the want of opportunity that had hindered him from having long before accomplished his nefarious project upon the son, as upon the father—in satisfaction of a revenue so old as to be anterior to the birth of Cubina himself, though associated with that event.
Of course, this design was not revealed to Cynthia.
His motive for conspiring the death of Loftus Vaughan was without any mystery whatever; and this—perhaps more than any other of his crimes, either purposed or committed—might plead “extenuating circumstances.” His cruel condemnation, and subsequent exposure upon the Jumbé Rock, was a stimulus sufficient to have excited to revenge a gentler nature than that of Chakra, the Coromantee. It need scarce be said that it had stimulated his to the deadliest degree.
The resurrection of the myal-man may appear a mystery—as it did to the slave, Cynthia. There was one individual, however, who understood its character. Not to an African god was the priest of Obi indebted for his resuscitation, but to an Israelitish man—to Jacob Jessuron.
It was but a simple trick—that of substituting a carcase—afterwards to become a skeleton—for the presumed dead body of the myal-man. The baracoon of the slave-merchant generally had such a commodity in stock. If not, Jessuron would not have scrupled to manufacture one for the occasion.
Humanity had nothing to do in the supplying of this proxy. Had there been no other motive than that to actuate the Jew, Chakra might have rotted under the shadow of the cabbage-palm.
But Jessuron had his purpose for saving the life of the condemned criminal—more than one, perhaps—and he had saved it.
Since his resurrection, Chakra had pursued his iniquitous calling with even more energy than of old; but now in the most secret and surreptitious manner.
He had not been long in re-establishing a system of confederates—under the auspices of a new name—but only at night, and with disguised form and masked face, did he give his clients rendezvous. Never in the Duppy’s Hole; for few were sufficiently initiated into the mysteries of myalism to be introduced to its temple in that secure retreat.
Although the confederates of the obeah-man rarely reveal the secret of his whereabouts—even his victims dreading to divulge it—Chakra knew the necessity of keeping as much as possible en perdu; and no outlaw, with halter around his neck, could have been more cautious in his outgoings and incomings.
He knew that his life was forfeit on the old judgment; and, though he had once escaped execution, he might not be so fortunate upon a second occasion. If recaptured, some surer mode of death would be provided—a rope, instead of a chain; and in place of being fastened to the trunk of a tree, he would be pretty certain of being suspended by the neck to the branch of one.
Knowing all this, Chakra redivivus trod the forest paths with caution, and was especially shy of the plantation of Mount Welcome. Around the sides of the mountain he had little to fear. The reputation of the Jumbé Rock, as well as that of the Duppy’s Hole, kept the proximity of these noted places clear of all dark-skinned stragglers; and there Chakra had the heat to himself.
Upon dark nights, however, like the wolf, he could prowl at pleasure and with comparative safety—especially upon the outskirts of the more remote plantations: the little intercourse allowed between the slaves of distant estates making acquaintanceship among them a rare exception. It was chiefly upon these distant estates that Chakra held communication with his confederates and clients.
It was now more than a year since he had made his pretended resurrection; and yet so cautiously had he crawled about, that only a few individuals were aware of the fact of his being still alive. Others had seen his ghost! Several negroes of Mount Welcome plantation would have sworn to having met the “duppy” of old Chakra, while travelling through the woods at night, and the sight had cured these witnesses of their propensity for midnight wandering.