The man was scratched and bruised as if he had been racing through thick woods recklessly, and there were shallow gashes on his limbs and body that no thorn or bramble could have made. In his right hand he held a short curved sword, dyed a sinister red.
“Solomon Kane, by the howling hounds of Hell!” exclaimed this man, glaring in amazement, as he approached the staring Englishman. “Keelhaul me from Satan's craft, but you gave me a start! I thought to be the only white man for a thousand miles!”
“I had thought the same of myself,” answered Kane. “But I know you not.”
The other laughed harshly.
“I wonder not thereat,” quoth he. “Belike I'd scarce know myself should I meet myself suddenly. Well, Solomon, my sober cutthroat, it's been many a year since I gazed on that sombre face of yours, but I'd know it in Hades. Come – have you forgotten the brave old days when we harried the Dons from the Azores to Darien and back again? Cutlass and carronade! By the bones of the saints, ours was a red trade! You've not forgotten Jeremy Hawk!”
Recognition glimmered in Kane's cold eyes as a shadow passes across the surface of a frozen lake.
“I remember; we did not sail on the same ship, though. I was with Sir Richard Grenville. You sailed with John Bellefonte.”
“Aye!” cried Hawk with an oath. “I'd give the crown I've lost to live those days again! But Sir Richard's at the bottom of the sea, and Bellefonte's in Hell, and many of the bold brethren are swinging in chains or feeding the fishes with good English flesh. Tell me, my melancholy murderer, does good Queen Bess still rule old England?”
“It's been many moons since I left our native shores,” answered Kane. “She sat firmly on her throne when I sailed.”
He spoke shortly and Hawk stared at him curiously. “You never loved the Tudors, eh, Solomon?”
“Her sister harried my people like beasts of prey,” answered Kane harshly. “She herself has lied to and betrayed the folk of my faith – but that's neither here nor there. What do you here?”
Hawk, Kane noticed, from time to time turned his head and stared back in the direction from which he had come, in an attitude of close listening, as if he expected pursuit.
“It's a long story,” he answered. “I'll tell it briefly – you know there were high words between Bellefonte and others of the English captains –”
“I've heard he became no better than a common pirate,” Kane said bluntly.
Hawk grinned wickedly. “Why, so they said. At any rate, away to the Main we sailed, and by Satan's eyes, we lived like kings among the isles, preying on the plate ships and treasure galleons. Then came a Spanish war-ship and harried us sore. A bursting cannon shot sent Bellefonte to his master, the Devil, and I, as first mate, became captain. There was a French rogue named La Costa who opposed me – well, I hanged La Costa to the main-yards and squared sails for the south. We gave the war-ship the slip at last, and made for the Slave Coast for a cargo of black ivory. But our luck went with Bellefonte. We piled on a reef in a heavy fog and when the mist cleared a hundred war-canoes full of naked howling devils were swarming about us.
“We fought for half a day and when we had beaten them off, we found ourselves nearly out of powder, half our men dead and the ship ready to slip off the reef where she hung and sink under our feet. There were but two things to do – take to sea in open boats or come ashore. And there was but one boat the bombards of the war-ship had left unshattered. Some of the crew piled into it and the last we saw of them, they were rowing westward. The rest of us got ashore on rafts.
“By the black gods of Hades! It was madness – but what else was there for us to do? The jungles swarmed with blood-lusting blacks. We marched northward hoping to come upon a barracoon where slavers came, but they cut us off and we turned due eastward perforce. We fought every step of the way; our band melted like mist before the sun. Spears and savage beasts and venomous serpents took their fearful toll. At last I alone faced the jungle that had swallowed all my men. I eluded the blacks. For months I travelled alone and all but unarmed in this hostile land. At last I came out upon the shores of a great lake and saw the walls and towers of an island kingdom rising before me.”
Hawk laughed fiercely. “By the bones of the saints! It sounds like a tale of Sir John Mandeville! I found a strange people upon the islands – black folk and a curious and ungodly race who ruled over them. They had never seen a white man before. In my youth I wandered about with a band of thieves who masked their real characters by tumbling and juggling. By virtue of my skill at sleight o' hand, I impressed the people. They looked on me as a god – all except old Agara, their priest – and he could not explain away my white skin.
“They made a fetish of me and old Agara secretly offered to make me a high priest. I appeared to acquiesce and learned many of his secrets. I feared the old vulture at first for he could make magic that made my sleight o' hand seem childish – but the black people were strongly drawn to me.
“The lake is called Nyayna; the isles thereon are named the Isles of Ra and the main island is called Basti; the brown masters call themselves Khabasti and the black slaves are named Masutos.
“The life of these black people is wretched indeed. They have no will of their own save the desires of their cruel masters. They are more brutally treated than the Indians of Darien are treated by the Spanish. I have seen black women flogged to death and black men crucified for the slightest of faults. The cult of the Khabasti is a dark and bloody one, which they brought with them from whatever foul land they came from. On the black altar in the temple of the Moon, each week a howling victim dies beneath old Agara's dagger – always a black sacrifice, a strong young lad or a virgin. Nor is that the worst – before the dagger brings relief from suffering, the victim is mutilated in ways hideous to mention – the Holy Inquisition pales before the tortures inflicted by Basti's priests – yet so hellish is their art that the gibbering, mowing, blind and skinless creature lives until the final thrust of the dagger speeds him or her beyond the reach of the brown-skinned devils.”
Hawk's covert glance showed him that deep volcanic fires were beginning to smolder coldly in Kane's strange eyes. His expression became more darkly brooding than ever, as he motioned the buccaneer to continue.
“No Englishman could look on the daily agonies of the poor wretches without pity. I became their champion as soon as I learned the language and I took the part of the black people. Then old Agara would have slain me, but the black folk rose and slew the fiend who held the throne. Then they begged me to remain and rule them. I did so. Under my rule Basti prospered, both the brown folk and the black. But old Agara, who had slunk away to some secret hiding place, was working in the shadows. He plotted against me and finally even turned many of the black people against their deliverer. The poor fools! Yesterday he came out in the open and in a pitched battle, the streets of Basti ran red. But old Agara prevailed with his evil magic, and most of my adherents were cut down. We retreated in canoes to one of the lesser islands and there they came upon us, and again we lost the fight. All of my henchmen were slain or taken – and God help those taken alive! – only I escaped. They have hunted me like wolves since. Even now they are hard on my track. They will not rest until they slay me, if they have to first follow me across the continent.”