Chapter Nine. The Bath
“Yellow Jake! the alligator!”
They were all the words I could utter. My mother entreated an explanation; I could not stay to give it. Frantic with apprehension, I tore myself away, leaving her in a state of terror that rivalled my own.
I ran towards the hommock – the bath. I wait not to follow the devious route of the walk, but keep straight on, leaping over such obstacles as present themselves. I spring across the paling, and rush through the orangery, causing the branches to crackle and the fruit to fall. My ears are keenly bent to catch every sound.
Behind are sounds enough: I hear my mother’s voice uttered in accents of terror. Already have her cries alarmed the house, and are echoed and answered by the domestics, both females and men. Dogs, startled by the sudden excitement, are baying within the enclosure, and fowls and caged birds screech in concert.
From behind come all these noises. It is not for them my ears are bent; I am listening before me.
In this direction I now hear sounds. The plashing of water is in my ears, and mingling with the tones of a clear silvery voice – it is the voice of my sister! “Ha, ha, ha!” The ring of laughter! Thank Heaven, she is safe!
I stay my step under the influence of a delicate thought; I call aloud:
“Virgine! Virgine!”
Impatiently I wait the reply. None reaches me; the noise of the water has drowned my voice!
I call again, and louder: “Virgine! sister! Virgine!”
I am heard, and hear:
“Who calls? You, Georgy?”
“Yes; it is I, Virgine.”
“And pray, what want you, brother?”
“O sister! come out of the bath.”
“For what reason should I? Our friends come? They are early: let them wait, my Georgy. Go you and entertain them. I mean to enjoy myself this most beautiful of mornings; the water’s just right – delightful! Isn’t it, Viola? Ho! I shall have a swim round the pond: here goes?”
And then there was a fresh plashing in the water, mingled with a cheerful abandon of laughter in the voices of my sister and her maid.
I shouted at the top of my voice:
“Hear me, Virgine, dear sister! For Heaven’s sake, come out! come – ”
There was a sudden cessation of the merry tones; then came a short sharp ejaculation, followed almost instantaneously by a wild scream. I perceived that neither was a reply to my appeal. I had called out in a tone of entreaty sufficient to have raised apprehension; but the voices that now reached me were uttered in accents of terror. In my sister’s voice I heard the words:
“See, Viola! O mercy – the monster! Ha! he is coming this way! O mercy! Help, George, help! Save – save me!”
Well knew I the meaning of the summons; too well could I comprehend the half-coherent words, and the continued screaming that succeeded them.
“Sister, I come, I come!”
Quick as thought, I dashed forward, breaking through the boughs that still intercepted my view.
“Oh, perhaps I shall be too late! She screams in agony; she is already in the grasp of the alligator?”
A dozen bounds carried me clear of the grove; and, gliding along the embankment of the turtle-crawl, I stood by the edge of the tank. A fearful tableau was before me.
My sister was near the centre of the basin, swimming towards the edge. There stood the quadroon – knee deep – screeching and flinging her arms frantically in the air. Beyond, appeared the gigantic lizard; his whole body, arms, hands, and claws clearly traceable in the pellucid water, above the surface of which rose the scaly serrature of his back and shoulders. His snout and tail projected still higher; and with the latter he was lashing the water into white froth, that already mottled the surface of the pond. He was not ten feet from his intended victim. His gaunt jaws almost touched the green baize skirt that floated train-like behind her. At any moment, he might have darted forward and seized her.
My sister was swimming with all her might. She was a capital swimmer; but what could it avail? Her bathing-dress was impeding her; but what mattered that? The alligator might have seized her at any moment; with a single effort, could have caught her, and yet he had not made it.
I wondered why he had not; I wondered that he still held back. I wonder to this hour, for it is not yet explained. I can account for it only on one supposition: that he felt that his victim was perfectly within his power; and as the cat cajoles with the mouse, so was he indulging in the plenitude of his tyrant strength.
These observations were made in a single second of time – while I was cocking my rifle.
I aimed, and fired. There were but two places where the shot could have proved fatal – the eye or behind the forearm. I aimed for the eye. I hit the shoulder; but from that hard corrugated skin, my bullet glinted as from a granite rock. Among the rhomboid protuberances it made a whitish score, and that was all.
The play of the monster was brought to a termination. The shot appeared to have given him pain. At all events, it roused him to more earnest action, and perhaps impelled him to the final spring. He made it the instant after.
Lashing the water with his broad tail – as if to gain impetus – he darted forward; his huge jaw hinged vertically upward, till the red throat showed wide agape; and the next moment the floating skirt – and oh! the limbs of my sister, were in his horrid gripe!
I plunged in, and swam towards them. The gun I still carried in my grasp. It hindered me. I dropped it to the bottom, and swam on.
I caught Virgine in my arms. I was just in time, for the alligator was dragging her below.
With all my strength, I held her up. It needed all to keep us above the surface. I had no weapon; and if I had been armed, I could not have spared a hand to strike.
I shouted with all my voice, in the hope of intimidating the assailant, and causing him to let go his hold. It was to no purpose: he still held on.
O Heavens! we shall both be dragged under – drowned – devoured —
A plunge, as of one leaping from a high elevation into the pond – a quick, bold swimmer from the shore – a dark-skinned face, with long black hair that floats behind it on the water – a breast gleaming with bright spangles – a body clad in bead-embroidered garments – a man? a boy!
Who is this strange youth that rushes to our rescue?
He is already by our side – by the side of our terrible antagonist. With all the earnest energy of his look, he utters not a word. He rests one hand upon the shoulder of the huge lizard, and with a sudden spring places himself upon its back. A rider could not have leaped more adroitly to the saddle.
A knife gleams in his uplifted hand. It descends – its blade is buried in the eye of the alligator!
The roar of the saurian betokens its pain. The earth vibrates with the sound; the froth flies up under the lashings of its tail, and a cloud of spray is flung over us. But the monster has now relaxed its gripe, and I am swimming with my sister to the shore.
A glance backward reveals to me a strange sight – I see the alligator diving to the bottom with the bold rider upon its back! He is lost – he is lost!
With painful thoughts, I swim on. I climb out, and place my fainting sister upon the bank. I again look back.
Joy, joy! the strange youth is once more above the surface, and swimming freely to the shore. Upon the further side of the pond, the hideous form is also above water, struggling by the edge – frantic and furious with the agony of its wounds.
Joy, joy! my sister is unharmed. The floating skirt has saved her; scarcely a scratch shows upon her delicate limbs; and now in tender arms, amidst sweet words and looks of kind sympathy, she is borne away from the scene of her peril.