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Utu: A Story of Love, Hate and Revenge

Chapter XXX. A Disappointed Plotter—A Ray of Hope—The Bone Cave

Chapter XXX. A Disappointed Plotter—A Ray of Hope—The Bone Cave.

When Arnaud withdrew himself from the assistance of his huge confederate he did not proceed far. At the foot of the precipice, not a dozen yards away, was a sea-worn cavity of no great depth, and which appeared to lead nowhere. Inside this opening, which in reality was but the vestibule to a cave of far different dimensions, the valet glided, and in its deepest shadow awaited the completion of the dreadful deed which he had instigated. What his immediate intentions were, had things eventuated as arranged, matters little. Enough that the unforeseen catastrophe which culminated the vengeful proceedings frustrated them, and rendered necessary a totally different course of action. The fiendish laughter which broke from Jacques le Blanc as he entrapped his would-be destroyer reached his valet, where in brooding silence he page 145 crouched awaiting events, and brought him to the entrance from whence, looking upwards, he beheld in helpless inaction the terrible struggle and awful denouement. His existence had been totally forgotten by Pierre in the frantic excitement of the deadly duel, and both combatants were too high up to see him. And so with clenched teeth and knitted brows he had looked on until the final scene, which completely upset all his calculations and disarranged his carefully laid plans. His device to satisfy the big Pierre's impatient lust to destroy had been the result of much deliberation, but he had never intended it to be carried to completion, for he had no desire to see his employer die—that is, not yet—and for the furtherance of his own scheme of more refined vengeance he had meant to play the part of rescuer, when, Monsieur having suffered the bitterness of death, he should himself accidentally discover his woful plight. All this was now at an end, and his purpose rendered futile by what had just occurred, and as with rigid features and staring eyes, he gazed at the still quivering forms so horribly interlocked, he ground his teeth in impotent rage, his natural horror at the shocking event overcome by his bitter disappointment that the object of his own implacable hate had escaped the protracted tortures wherewith he had himself designed to render life accursed. His nature was essentially different from that of the red-haired giant, who had all his life settled his disputes by brute force. Slight of form, for a man, and thin to attenuation. Arnaud's purposes in life could never have been achieved by strength of muscle; therefore, being possessed of a wily nature and fertile brain, craft had stood him in its stead. Whatever the injury done him by the man he hated, its recollection never for a moment left him, and its complete and bitter revenge had become the sole though secret object of his existence. To blast the life of the man who had blasted his; to render day a weariness and night a horror; to shake his self-confidence, and break down his atheism, so that super natural terrors might take from him even the last refuge of the despairing, kindly death, this had been the valet's deliberate purpose, and having kept his secret well, he had so far succeeded. But now his enemy had escaped him, had gone into nothingness ere his punishment had well begun, and a bitter miserable feeling of failure and self-disgust took possession of the would-be avenger. No feeling of compunction stirred him, only poignant regret that his Utu had been so small. He might as well go hang himself at once, for his life's work was over, although life itself was scarce begun, for he was much younger than he-seemed. He had no motive now to live, no incentive to support life's burden. The thought of vengeance had been his food and drink, but now he had naught to sustain him; the pool was dry, and his burning thirst not half assuaged, and he panted, yes, absolutely panted, for one more opportunity to wring the soul of his enemy. Yet once this stony heart page 146 had throbbed with tender passion, and this nature so seared and distorted had appeared kindly and true. So great the changes which may be wrought in a human being by vengeful brooding over wrongs.

The valet did not hasten to where the bodies lay, for no doubt of the instant death of both entered his mind. That either could possibly survive did not even suggest itself, and the question of their ultimate disposal was a trifle. But after awhile he stepped to the spot, and bending over them found that the uppermost still breathed faintly. It was that of his master, and a ray of hope shot through the mind of the factotum as he made the discovery. As for Pierre, crushed by the weight above him, and falling, as he did, with his back on the rocks beneath, he was stone dead, and as he convinced himself of the fact, Arnaud experienced a sense of relief. His feelings for the huge sailor were of a purely negative kind, but he was at best an ill-tempered brute, and now there could be no further trouble with him.

But the first thing to be done was to separate the living from the dead, and this Arnaud accomplished without much difficulty. The heart's pulsations were very faint, but still the wretched man lived, though both forearms were broken near the wrists, and his hands were terribly damaged. But his nether limbs seemed all right, though, possibly he had received some internal injury, for though the pain of his broken arms—which Arnaud proceeded to set and bandage as well as his skill and appliances would allow—must have been excruciating, he continued unconscious, and but for one or two faint moans might have been thought as devoid of life as the mangled corpse which had borne the brunt of the fall.

By degrees Arnaud dragged him inside the cavity so lately occupied by himself, and here began a more difficult task, for its floor, moderately level for a distance of about four feet, shelved gradually upwards from thence almost to the roof, which just there sloped downwards, so that looking up at the latter in a casual way roof and floor seemed to meet, and no ordinary observer would have suspected that this shelving basement receded on the far side until it reached a much lower level than at the opening, or that the narrow space, which looked from below at most but a rift in the rock, was the entrance to a spacious and lofty cavern with deep recesses and far-extending galleries. To get the unconscious and perhaps fatally injured sufferer up the rocky slope and through the narrow aperture above it was no easy matter, but the valet was gifted with exceptional perseverance, and at length it was accomplished.

The cavern was, of course, shrouded in darkness, but Arnaud, who seemed familiar with its interior, produced from a recess some pieces of kauri gum134 , which, when ignited, burned brightly, emitting, however, a somewhat suffocating odour. But the cave being large, and the bits page 147 of gum small. the light was just about sufficient to make darkness visible; at any rate, it threw all the recesses into deep and awesome shadow. In truth, the place which Arnaud was about to turn into an invalid's chamber was just the last in the world that any sane patient would have chosen for himself. It was, in fact, nothing less than a charnel house135—an ancient depository of the bones of illustrious Maori dead.* Probably it had not been used for generations, and likely enough its very existence had passed out of memory, for there seemed no indication of even comparatively recent deposits. Could the place have been illuminated, on the floor, in the recesses, on the ledges, in every nook and cranny might have been seen mouldering remains of past ages, rotting fragments of old wood, shreds of textile fabrics, small mounds of human bones, brown with age and crumbling to powder; tufts of hair and moth-eaten feathers; deaths heads in every stage of decay, some yet firm enough, others wanting but a touch to resolve themselves into their original dust. But the feeble light afforded by the burning gum robbed the place of hall its gruesomeness, although the black and quivering shadows thus evolved were of themselves sufficiently awe-inspiring. Arnaud, however, did not seem in the least disturbed by his sepulchral surroundings, but placing his master in a side recess, squatted by him, occasionally feeling his pulse, and all the time watching intently his every symptom. He had already administered some drops, but whatever their purpose, they had not the effect of rousing him to consciousness, and an hour later his attitude had not altered, although the pulse was stronger. By that time the silent watcher was perhaps tired of waiting, for, giving another dose, he muttered:

‘I can do nothing more at present, and the title is rising. He can't get out of this, and there's little fear of anyone finding him. Our people would never dream of a cache136 here, and the natives would a soon enter inferno.’ Then looking down on the insensible form with an expression of deathless hate and utter loathing, which strangely altered his visually expressionless face:

‘Farewell for the present, tison d'enfer137!’ he said in hard grating accents. ‘We shall meet again.’

The tide was indeed rising fast, and the canoe drawn up in a tiny cove hard by, already afloat. Arnaud had thought of dragging out the body of Pierre to meet the incoming tide, but the rocks had become page 148 slippery, and on the whole he reckoned that the tide could do the business alone. So plying his paddles, he returned to the encampment at Wai-iti, and ensconced himself in his master's whare, Well assured that there he might make up for his loss of rest without fear of interruption.

134 Māori burnt the old gum and used it for tattooing, and used the fresh gum for chewing. Kauri gum became an important export for New Zealand in the late nineteenth century; it was used for making varnish and for manufacturing paint and linoleum (Crowe 54).

[Note added by Vicki Hughes as annotator]

135 A building or chamber in which dead bodies or bones are deposited.

[Note added by Vicki Hughes as annotator]

136 Hiding place.

[Note added by Vicki Hughes as annotator]

137 See note page 61

[Note added by Vicki Hughes as annotator]

* It should perhaps be explained for the benefit of those unacquainted with Maori customs, that, after remaining in the place of first deposit until decomposition was complete, the dead were exhumed, and the bones scraped clean, painted red, and carefully wrapped up in mats, or placed in boxes, before being consigned lo their final resting place. In the case of illustrious chiefs this process was repeated several time, and then they were secretly placed in their ancestral sepulchres, usually lone caves or unfathomable pits, known only to the priesthood.