Men and women were still crowding into the clearing and jostling one another for the best places to sit up on the boulders, where they could get a good view of the proceedings. Some of the slaves had already secured good positions there, but were being roughly dispossessed by the pirates and their molls and herded with their fellow slaves on the opposite side of the clearing. It was to that side, too, that the prisoners had been brought; and, with the exception of Roger, they were all thrust back by their escorts towards the gap in the rim of the pool where its water poured off down the deep gully. Hoping for a word with Amanda, Roger tried to follow them, but, on a harsh order from Cyrano, he was pulled up short by the man who held the cord tying his wrists. In the wide circle that had now been cleared about the gibbet, he stood between them with every eye in the eager, murmuring throng upon him.
Staring back, he searched the great ring of cruel or indifferent faces for Dan's, still hoping against all reason that his old friend might yet make a last minute attempt at rescue, but he could not see him. That was hardly surprising as in some places the crowd was four deep. Neither could he see Tom, but he caught sight of Monsieur Pirouet. The plump Frenchman was standing a few feet behind Dr. Fergusson, but on meeting Roger's desperate glance, he looked quickly away.
Roger was already suffering a minor torment from the bites mosquitoes had inflicted on him during his many hours in the dungeon, and never in his life had he cut so poor a figure. Gone was all semblance to the debonair Mr. Brook of White's Club or the elegant M. Le Chevalier de Breuc who in other days had supped and danced at the courts of half a dozen continental monarchs. His clothes were torn and stained, his stockings laddered; his hair was matted under a dirty bandage, his face mottled by stings and his eyes dull from sleeplessness. Even when he had played the part of a sans-culotte> for all the filth of his apparel, his bearing singled him out as a man of vigour and determination; whereas now he stood with slack limbs and hunched shoulders, so that the pirates, fearing he would show them only poor sport, began to jeer at him for cowardice.
Actually he was now endeavouring to close his mind against coherent thought, so that terror might not drive him to some desperate futile act which could only cause even greater distress to Amanda and the others than they were already suffering. For their sakes, too, he wanted to conserve every atom of mental resistance he could muster; so that when the ordeal came, even if he could not manage to remain silent, at least he would not wring their hearts by screaming.
A murmur of excitement and a few cheers heralded the approach of the Vicomte. The crowd parted, forming a ragged lane through which he advanced, a tall malacca cane in one hand, the other resting lightly on the arm of his blond mignon, who in the sunlight looked more than ever like a slightly negroid young Viking. As they came up beside Roger, de Senlac pointed at the long-armed gibbet and said:
"You need fear no mishap, Monsieur, for you are not the first to afford us this type of entertainment, and practice has enabled us to perfect our arrangements. The harness dangling from the arm of the gibbet will be,strapped about your shoulders, and the main post turns upon a pivot so that you may be swung out over the pool. Then we shall lower you by inches until your feet are near enough to the water for my pets to snap off your toes."
For the first time Roger forced himself to look at the water rippling eight feet below him. The sun had now gone down behind the hill and no reflected light flickered from it, but the splashing of the little waterfall kept it in perpetual motion so that he could not see beneath its surface. But on the far side of the pool a narrow sickle-shaped beach shelved up to the cliff-face and, half submerged in the water close in to it, there floated several long shapes whose rough texture gave them the appearance of rotting tree trunks.
De Senlac pomted with his cane. "There are a few of my beauties. Although we talk of them as crocodiles they are, more strictly speaking, a type of alligator and in these parts called cayman. Let us rouse them up for the treat they are about to be given."
Turning, he beckoned to the elder Herault, who was standing a few yards off with two negroes beside him, both of whom carried big wicker baskets on their heads. When the baskets were set down Roger saw that they contained pigs' trotters, cows' hocks and other offal. Selecting half a calf's head Herault pere threw it into the middle of the pool. It had scarcely touched the surface when the water was broken in a score of places. Snouts with knobbly ends were thrust up, long lean jaws gaped open showing rows of strong fang-like teeth, little eyes gleamed evilly, and scaly tails that could have knocked a man off his feet threshed the water into foam. In a moment the leaping and plunging of the ferocious creatures had churned the pool into a seething cauldron.
Herault continued to throw lumps of offal to them until he had half emptied one of the baskets, then the Vicomte checked him by crying: "Enough! We must not take the edge off their appetites. You can give them the rest of their meal afterwards."
But now they had been excited by the food the great reptiles did not settle down. Eager for more they splashed and wallowed, snapping their jaws, lashing their tails, and in this disappointment turning on one another. As Roger watched them with horrified fascination he wished for the twentieth time since the capture of the Circe that he had been caught six months earlier with Athenaxs, and suffered with her the clean swift death of the guillotine.
De Senlac gave Jean Herault's arm a gentle pat, nodded towards the gibbet and said with the smile of an elderly roue giving a present to a young woman he wishes to please: "For you, dear boy, I have reserved the pleasure of fastening the harness upon him. But take care that the straps beneath his arms are tight; otherwise he might slip out of it, and deprive me of my full revenge by making a quick end of himself."
As the tall youth walked past the Vicomte to the gibbet, the man behind Roger untied the cord that bound his wrists. It had been tied so tightly that for a moment his hands hung numb and useless. Flexing his fingers, he glanced wildly round. Amanda and Jenny were on their knees praying for him. Clarissa stood with bowed head and one arm thrown across her face. Georgina, white as a sheet under her tan, was staring at him, all the love that she had borne him through her life in her big eyes. Neither Tom nor Dan was anywhere to be seen.
Jean Herault turned the pivot of the gibbet so that its long arm swung towards the pool's edge. At Roger's side the Vicomte stood watching the graceful movements of the young sangmele with a doting leer. As he reached for the harness Roger acted.
Taking one pace back he brought his right knee up with all his force. It struck de Senlac a violent blow on the bottom. With eyes starting from their sockets and mouth agape he lurched forward. For a second he tottered, his arms flailing wildly, on the very edge of the pool. Then, unable to recover his balance, he pitched headforemost into it.
His terrified yell was cut short as he hit the water. With the speed and strength exceeding that of tigers the caymans leapt upon him, tearing him limb from limb, until his blood made a great red streak across the heaving surface of the pool.