The Darrow Enigma by Melvin L. Severy (best fiction novels of all time TXT) 📖

and immense physical strength. His features were

heavy and forbidding. You are familiar with pictures of Nana Sahib.

If I had not known this fiend to have died while beset in a swamp,

I should have mistaken Ragobah for him. It was to such a being that

Lona was betrothed in spite of the loathing her parents knew she

felt for him. She told me all this one night at our accustomed

tryst on Malabar Hill. We had chosen to meet here on account of

the beauty of the place and the seclusion it offered. There, on

bright moonlit nights, with the sea and the city below me, the

“Tower of Silence” in the Parsees’ burial plot ablaze with reflected

glory, the majestic banyan over me rustling gently in the soft sea

breeze, while Lona nestled close beside me, - the exquisite perfume

of the luxuriant garden less welcome than the delicious fragrance

of her breath, - hours fraught with years of bliss would pass as if

but pulse-beats. In the world of love the heart is the only true

timepiece. On one or two occasions Lona had thought she had been

followed when coming to meet me, and she began to conceive a strange

dislike for a little cavelike recess in the rocks just back of the

tree by which we sat. I tried on one occasion to reassure her by

telling her it was so shallow that, with the moonlight streaming

into it, I could see clear to the back wall, and arose to enter it

to convince her there was no one there, but she clung to me in

terror, saying: “Don’t go! Don’t leave me! I was foolish to

mention it. I cannot account for my fear, - and yet, do you know,”

she continued in a low, frightened tone, “there is a shaft at the

back of the cave that has, they say, no bottom, but goes down,

- down, - down, - hundreds of feet to the sea?” It is useless,

as you know only too well, to strive to reason down a presentiment,

and so, instead, I sought to make use of her fear in the

accomplishment of my dearest wish. “Why need we,” I urged, “come

here; why longer continue these clandestine meetings? Let us be

brave, darling, in our loves. Your people have chosen another

husband for you, - my people another wife for me; but we are both

quite able to choose for ourselves. We have done so, and it is

our most sacred duty to adhere to and consummate that choice. Let

us, I beseech you, do so without further delay. Dearest, meet me

here to-morrow night prepared for a journey. We will take the

late train for Matheron Station, where I have friends who can be

trusted. We will be married immediately upon our arrival, and

can communicate by post with our respective families, remaining

away from them until they are glad to welcome us with open arms.”

 

She raised some few objections to my plan and expressed some

misgivings, but she loved me and I was able to reason away the

one and kiss away the other, and with our souls upon our lips we

parted for the night. The last thing I had said to her, - I

remember it as if it all happened yesterday, - was: “Think of

it, dear heart, there will be no more such partings between us

after tonight!” and she had replied by silently nestling closer

to me and twining her arms about my neck. And so we parted on

that never-to-be-forgotten night more than a score of years

ago.

 

The twenty-four hours intervening between this parting and our

next meeting may be passed over in silence, as nothing occurred

during that time at all essential to the purpose this narrative

subserves. The longed-for time came at last and, with a depth of

happiness I had never known before - a peace passing all

understanding - I set out for Malabar Hill. The night was perfect

and the moonlight so bright I could distinctly see the air-roots

of our trysting tree when more than a quarter of a mile away. I

thought at the time how this tree, with its crown of luxuriant

foliage and its writhing roots, might well pass for some gigantic

Medusa-head with its streaming serpent-hair. As I neared the tree

Lona stepped from behind it and awaited my approach. She was even

more impatient than I, I thought, and my heart beat more wildly

than ever. “Sweet saint, have I kept you waiting?” I asked, as

I came within speaking distance of her. She stood motionless

against the tree and apparently did not hear me. I waited till I

was within ten feet of her and repeated the question, but, although

she fixed her unfathomable eyes full upon mine, she made no reply,

and gave no evidence of having heard me. I stood as if petrified.

A nameless dread was settling upon me, paralysing my faculties.

She had always before sprung forward at sight of me and thrown

herself with a bewitching little pirouette into my arms, now she

stood coldly aloof, silent and motionless, on this, our wedding

night! I waited for some word of explanation, but none came. The

suspense became unbearable - I could endure it no longer!

 

“For God’s sake, what has happened? “I cried, rushing forward to

seize her in my arms. She raised her right hand above her head

and, as I had almost reached her, threw something full in my face!

Instinctively I struck at it with my walking-stick, and it fell

in the grass at my feet, - it was a young Indian cobra - Naja

tripudians - a serpent of the deadliest sort. I did not pause to

reason how this sweet angel had been so quickly changed into a

venomous fiend, although the thought that somehow she had been led

to think me false to her, and that this act was the swift vengeance

of her hot Eastern blood, flashed momentarily through my mind, - all

that could be explained as soon as I had her nestling in my arms.

I reached forward to embrace her, but she struck me in the face and

fled! For an instant my heart stood still. It seemed to me it

would never start, but it soon began to throb again like a thing

of lead, and the blood it pumped was cold, for the winter had

closed in upon it. The elasticity of my life, that ineffable

resiliency of the soul which makes us more than beasts of burden,

was gone forever. An automaton, informed only with the material

life, remained, - the spirit followed that fleeting figure down

the hill. More than twenty years have passed and still the

unrewarded chase continues!

 

But it is to facts I have to call your attention, rather than to

their effects. A flutter of white muslin in the moonlit distance

was all that was visible of the retreating girl when I started

mechanically, and without any particular purpose in view, in pursuit

of her. My path lay by the banyan tree under which we had so often

sat, but every air-root seemed changed to a writhing serpent. As I

threaded my way among them, a man stepped from behind the trunk

and disputed my passage. His gigantic form was silhouetted against

the mass of rock forming the entrance to the little cave. The bright

moonlight did what it could to illumine that sinister face. It was

Rama Ragobah! For fully a minute we stood silently face to face,

each expecting the assault of the other. It was Ragobah who spoke

first. “She is mine, body and soul; and the English cur may find

a mate in his own kennel!” He bent toward me and hissed these words

in my very face. His hot breath seemed to poison me. It made me

beside myself. I knew he meant to take advantage of his physical

superiority and attack me, by the narrow watch he kept upon the

heavy walking-stick I still carried in my right hand. He had

expected I would attempt to strike with this, but my constant

practice at boxing had made my fists the more natural weapon. I

was so enraged I did not notice he was too close to use my stick to

advantage. I simply acted without any thought whatever. His

attitude was such, as he hissed his venom into my face, as to enable

me to give him a powerful “upper cut” under the jaw. This, as I

was so much lighter than he, was the most effective blow I could

deliver; yet, although it took him off his feet, it did not disable

him. I had not succeeded in placing it as I had intended, and it

had only the effect of rendering him demoniacal. In an instant he

was again upon his feet, and unsheathing a long knife. I knew it

meant death for me if he were able to close with me. It was useless

for me to call for help, for in those days this part of Malabar Hill

was as deserted as a wilderness. Now, the very spot on which we

stood is highly cultivated, and forms a part of the garden of the

Blasehek villa. There, early in the eighties, as the guest of the

hospitable Herr Blasehek, Professor Ernst Haeckel botanised a week,

on his way to Ceylon. Now, in response to a cry from his intended

victim, an assassin might be frustrated by assistance from a dozen

bungalows, but at the time of which I write, the victim, if he were

wise, saved his breath for the struggle which he knew he must make

unaided.

 

Ragobah paused, and coolly bared his right arm to the elbow. There

was a studied deliberation in his movements, which said only too

plainly: “There is no hurry in killing you, for you cannot escape.”

I grasped my stick firmly as my only hope, and awaited his onslaught.

My early military drill now stood me in good stead, and to it I owe

my life. Without the knowledge which I had derived from the use of

the broadsword, I should have been all but certain to have attempted

to strike him a downward blow upon the head. This is just what he

was expecting, and it would have cost me my life. He would have had

only to throw up his left arm to catch the blow, while with his right

hand he plunged the knife into my heart. My experience had taught

me how much easier it is to protect one’s self from a cutting blow

than from a thrust, and I determined to adopt this latter means of

assault. Ragobah advanced upon me slowly, much as a cat steals upon

an unsuspecting bird. I raised my stick as if to strike him, and he

instinctively threw up his left arm, and advanced upon me. My

opportunity had come; I lowered the point of my cane to the level

of his face, and made a vigorous lunge forward, throwing my whole

weight upon the thrust. As nearly as I could tell, the point of my

stick caught him in the socket of the left eye, just as he sprang

forward, and hurled him backward, blinded and stupefied. Before

he had recovered sufficiently to protect himself, I dealt him a blow

upon the head that brought him quickly to the earth. Without

stopping to ascertain whether or not I had killed him, I fled

precipitately to my lodgings, hastily packed my belongings, and set

out for Matheron Station by the same train I had so fondly believed

would convey Lona and me to our nuptial altar. Words cannot describe

the suffering I endured upon that journey. For the first time since

my terrible desertion I had an opportunity to