Chapter XXX: Abu Explains

She lay there, on that rude native couch, delirious with fear, not daring to glance through her lashes at the man who now bent over her.

An icy chill ran down her spine as his fingers touched her wrist.

“Better,” she heard him murmur in English, “decidedly better. The pulse is still too rapid. To-morrow, perhaps.”

To-morrow! Grasping in her ocean of trouble at a floating spar, this word gave her immeasurable consolation. Michael, Jim, all of them perhaps would be searching for her, and this postponement of her fate gave them still a few more hours in which to accomplish her rescue.

He was moving about the room now, muttering to himself in a dialect that was new to her. Presently he dipped a bottle in the water-jar and she heard the bubbling as the fluid replaced the air.

She hazarded a glance.

He had drawn a gourd from under the sacking and was pouring water into it from the bottle. He rinsed it and threw the drops to the floor.

As he turned to approach her, she closed her eyes again.

He set both bottle and gourd at her side and retreated to the far end of the hut.

Presently he came back again, slipped an arm under her and, supporting her firmly in a sitting position, forced some liquid between her teeth. It was cold and bitter and she swallowed some of it knowing that it would not be poison.

He withdrew his arm and she fell back limply on to the bed. A new life seemed to be coming to her and she was aware of a sensation of comfort, of inward warmth.

She felt that his eyes were upon her.

“Sit up, Mrs. Battiscombe,” he commanded softly--and, in spite of herself, she obeyed.

“Open your eyes.”

She opened them wide.

Abu-Samar, cool and perfectly attired even to his soft collar and tie, was staring down at her.

He drew forward the stool and sat down on it.

“And so, Mrs. Battiscombe,” he purred, “you have come to me at last.”

She compressed her lips. She knew that she must humour this man, stifle her feelings, strain every nerve to avoid uttering some ill-considered retort that would be calculated to goad him into fury.

“Where am I?” she inquired weakly.

His features twisted into an expression that was at once scornful and mockingly apologetic.

“You have come to the humble quarters of Abu-Samar, the refuge in the wilderness to which your own people have driven me. Presently, when the hue and cry has died down, when they have given up all hope of tracing you, we will build ourselves a palace.” He indicated the jumbled heap along the far wall. “From the smoking ruins of my house at Bukit-Serang we succeeded in saving a few of my treasures. In a little while we shall have more. The native vessels will bring carpets and curtains and furniture from the coast and men will wait by the river to transport them here. We shall have comfort such as the white man does not understand, and the tribesmen, who are afraid of me, shall be our servants.”

He produced a cigarette and, lighting it, puffed thoughtfully. The blue smoke hung in the still air above him as he exhaled it through his nostrils. The fierce light had gone out of his eyes, his whole expression had softened, and he appeared to her at that moment, not as the fierce, vindictive Anglophobe she had always pictured him, but rather a languid, luxury-loving Oriental, basking like a lizard in the heat. Now that he had allowed himself to relax, she could better appreciate the fine outline of his dusky profile and the ease with which he managed to pose elegantly without apparent effort.

“I have sent that other girl away,” he continued presently.

She simulated interest.

“Oh? What other girl?”

“Dara--the brown woman you saw at my house when we first met. She grew jealous when she learnt that you were coming--and so I turned her out. She told me I was mad to bring you here, that the white men would come with their soldiers and guns and take you back; but we have waited five whole days--and still they are not here.”

He threw back his head and laughed.

“I am not afraid of your people; their guns are nothing to me. They have all tried to take me--the Frenchmen in Anam, the Dutch, the English in Sarawak--and now it is the English again. Every time I have beaten them. For I have harnessed forces they do not know, I can shoot out my tongue like a chameleon--and kill--and draw it back so that none know whence it came. I can whisper across a continent--and those to whom I wish to speak can hear me.”

He laughed again, and he reminded her strangely of a hawk.

“I frightened them with the Crimson Butterfly. That is the greatest of all my secrets, Vera. I discovered it not far from here, where there is a temple among the rocks and men worship these creatures. Dara was there then, guarding the shrine--and I saw that the butterflies did not harm her. There had always been a woman in the temple--and the insects had grown used to her; but they fell in swarms upon any man who sought to steal the emblem at her throat or spirit her away--and stung him to death. I found a man who had once worshipped the Crimson Butterfly--and he told me many things. It appeared that the priests destroyed the caterpillars when they came to life, only sparing so many, and that they smeared themselves in a preparation, so that they should not be stung. Sometimes, however, a priest was poisoned by a butterfly; the mark appeared on his skin, and was removed by a certain process in order that the worshippers should not know why he had died and still continue to believe in their immunity. I went away for a long while and thought. I wanted to discover how I could best make this secret of use to me. There was a legend that there had once been a white goddess at the shrine and that after a certain time had elapsed she would come there again. Presently a plan occurred to me. I wanted to exploit their secret and to induce the worshippers to help me in my campaign against the white man. I made them a promise. I told them that one day Dara would disappear and then the white goddess would return. I went to a place they did not know and made an enormous red butterfly and hung it in the trees. I found that the butterflies left the temple and came to it. I smeared myself in the preparation that I had managed to procure, and, after a few hours, I destroyed the thing I had made--and the insects left me and flew back. I made another and they returned, and I caught them as they hovered over it. Then I took Dara.”

The ash from his cigarette had fallen in a heap into a crease in his coat and he paused to brush it off.

Vera, her head supported on one arm, regarded him steadily.

“And after that----?” she asked.

“After that I saw you and realised that I had found my white goddess. I went to your husband. I wanted an excuse to see you again. He insulted me and I decided to destroy him. I decoyed you to my house and gave you the ornament. For some reason you sent it to Moberly--and he died instead. When you found him you fainted and they sent for me, believing me to be a doctor. The Butterfly pendant had vanished and I wanted to get it back. I believed the magistrate Armourer had it and sent out another butterfly to poison him. I was beginning to understand the power of my secret, you see. I have heard since that his servant found the ornament and perished. The priests of the temple came to see me, demanding that the white goddess should appear, and I knew it was time to compel you to come to me and bring the sacred emblem with you. Believing that you knew where it was hidden, I willed you to leave the house and find it, and sent out men to follow you and bring you here.”

He spread out his hands and dropped them, palm downwards, to his knees.

“You came, my white goddess, but the Butterfly is missing.”

“I remember now,” said the girl. “I looked for it everywhere but could not find it.”

His eyes sought hers and again she saw that queer light that frightened her.

“Where did you think it was?”

“In a hut in the trees. Mr. Armourer told me that Professor Standen had it there. Somehow I found my way to it through the forest. When I reached it the door was open and there was no Butterfly.”

The ease with which the words came to her lips astonished her.

He bit his lip.

“We shall find it again,” he declared confidently, “Until then you shall remain with me. When the ornament returns, I shall clasp it round your neck and take you to the temple. For a little while you will remain there, so that these people shall still have confidence in me and help me. As soon as I have accomplished my end, I shall take you away again and we will go to another part of the island, where I was born. There will be no white people here then. I shall have destroyed them all. I shall not use the ornament again. I have insects now that have never seen the charm. One day I shall open the doors of my breeding-house and they will fly everywhere.”

Vera shuddered.

“I talk to them,” pursued Samar dreamily, “and they fly on to my hand. I walk among them unharmed because they know me. To some extent even I can control their flight.”

The effects of the drug he had given her were wearing off and already she was feeling weaker.

“It’s horrible, horrible!” she cried, and Abu-Samar rose to his feet. Before she could draw it away, he had imprisoned one of her hands and touched it with his lips.

The next moment he was gone.

Presently she fell asleep and it was evening when she woke again. The atmosphere had grown appreciably cooler and gusts of wind lifted the thatch above her head.

Suddenly she heard a sound that sent her swaying across the floor to the covered doorway. She heard shouting and what she imagined to be distant rifle-fire. The noise was coming nearer and something passed the hut with a shrill whining sound.

She peered out.

Darkness had almost fallen and the wilderness was enveloped in a faint mist through which she saw bright tongues of flame and shadowy figures running.

She sank to her knees and clasped her hands.

They had come to find her! They were coming that way! Heavens! it was wonderful!

A dark form appeared suddenly on the ladder and a muscular arm swept her into space. She was flung like a sack over the native’s shoulder and borne, struggling, on the perilous descent to the ground.

She screamed aloud, hammering on the ebony back with her fists.

At the foot of the ladder, the man shifted her on to his other shoulder, skirted the trees and ran rapidly with her into the falling darkness.