10 Stars of the Night

The arrangements for preventing my escape in the night were simple, but I was bound to confess to myself that they appeared to be very effective. My wrists were already tied together behind me. Another thong was passed around them and then made fast to a sapling. I had a play of about three feet, but I was tethered as if I had been a horse, with far less than a horse’s power of action.

We had nothing but mother earth to sleep upon, but it was no hardship in that warm, dry and balmy climate. All the men, except the two on watch, stretched themselves on the ground around me, and the heavy breathing of some and the snoring of others soon told me that they were asleep.

My mind turned naturally to my situation and the probability or improbability of escape. The chances were too heavily in favor of the latter to afford me much cheer. But I still had hope and faith in Pike. That the big borderer would desert me was not to be imagined for a moment. I knew that the boys had begun long ago the search for me, and I was more than half convinced that Pike had divined already the whole story. But there seemed to be no chance for a rescue on that night. The little hill on which we lay was a natural fort, and Halftrigger’s desperate and determined band could easily defend it against the violent assaults of a force ten times as large as ours. And a secret rescue seemed out of the question, with the vigilant sentinels on guard.

I had resigned myself as best as I could to my situation and was wooing sleep, when again I saw the sinister face of the Moor close to me. He had crawled along the grass like a snake, and when he approached me he sat up.

“You cannot sleep?” he said.

“Perhaps I could if you would not plague me with your villainous presence,” I replied.

But the man still hovered about me like a hyena.

“You are fearful for your life,” he said, “and would ask mercy from the captain if you thought you could get it.”

“That’s a lie,” I replied, and I turned over my side, not wishing to see him or have further talk with him. But he came around and faced me again.

“You gave me a blow to-day,” he said, “and I belong to a race that never forgets that.”

“I would give you another—a half dozen more—if I were not tied,” I replied angrily.

“You are very brave,” he replied, “when you think the captain will protect your life for the present.”

The man’s taunts inspired no fear, but they wearied me excessively, and I refused to reply.

“You will be put to death in three days, two days—maybe less,” he said; “and I hope the hand of Hassan will be chosen to perform the deed.”

I closed my eyes, and this sign of inattention, together with my failure to reply seemed to anger the man, for he said in a slightly higher voice:

“Rather than miss the pleasure, Hassan would do the deed now. By the beard of Mahomet, he would!” .

There was a silence for a moment, and then I felt something chilly and keen against my neck. I opened my eyes and saw that the Moor had drawn his knife and had put the blade against my throat. He drew it along so lightly and delicately that the skin was not severed.

“Ah,” he said, purring like a cat, while his face showed the pleasure he felt, “how the blood of the Christian dog would spurt over my fingers were I to press upon the blade! Truly the most blessed gift of Allah to the Faithful is the right to take the lives of their enemies. The blood of the unbelievers is beautiful in the sight of the followers of the Prophet. It smooths the way to Paradise.”

I would have cried out, but there, was something snakelike in the eyes of the man that held me silent. He played lovingly with his weapon, now passing his finger over the keen edge, then drawing that edge along my neck until I was seized with a damp chill. But he never drew blood.

“If you cry out,” he said, “I will kill you. I will, by Allah! and take the chance.”

I believe that he meant it, and even when the power of my mind over myself returned I would not utter a word for fear he would plunge his weapon into my throat. I had read somewhere that the East Indians are often seized with a sudden madness and rush about killing any one who may come in their way. This man, too, seemed to have the blood-lust in his eyes, and as I knew that he also wished revenge for the blow I had given him I was resolved not to tempt him to a sudden stab.

My nerves were on the verge of collapse when there was a threshing in the grass, and Halftrigger, who was lying near, squirmed about, and at last began to drag his gigantic body up into a sitting posture.

When he heard the noise the Moor sank down and slid away from me like a serpent.

Halftrigger rose slowly to his feet and stepped over toward me. I was devoutly grateful for the interruption. Of the two villains, Halftrigger and Hassan, I greatly preferred Halftrigger just then.

“All safe thar, are you?” said he. “Haven’t desarted the ship yet?”

“How do you expect me to get away tied up like this?” I answered. “I would go quick enough if I could.”

“I’ve no doubt o’ it,” he said with a sardonic laugh, “an that’s jest what I’m guardin’ ag’inst.”

He looked at my thongs, and seeing that they were as hard and fast as ever, stretched himself on the ground, and his strident snore soon told that he was asleep again.

The Moor did not come back to torture me. He had propped himself in a semi-sitting posture against the trunk of a tree about fifteen feet away and had gone to sleep with his mouth open. His lower jaw had dropped down, and the man’s face as he slept was even more repellent than when he had leaned over me and tortured me with his knife.

Scattered about, in whatever attitude their search for ease had caused them to take, were the other men. The moonlight peeped through the trees and showed their faces, which were not pleasant to look upon. I caught occasional glimpses of the two sentinels further down the hillside, but the only noise I heard was the wind.

I shut my eyes again and tried to sleep. I had slept more than once before in the face of danger, but I could not do it now, and opened my eyes only to look upon the star-dotted heavens and the recumbent forms of the sleepers.

The night was bright. Some little white clouds now and then drifted across the face of the moon and hid a star or two for a moment, but they were mere flecks in the blue vault and failed to dim its clearness.

In an effort to induce sleep I fell to counting the stars, beginning with those that hung low down on the horizon.

Off to the west was another hill somewhat similar to that on which we lay. It seemed to be distant a half mile, more or less, and in my impossible task of counting the stars I had swung around the horizon until I reached this hill. Here my eyes lingered on a star of unusual radiancy and power which hung so low that it seemed to crown the crest of the hill instead of hovering above. It burned with such a steady flame that I took it to be one of the fixed stars.

Then I saw the star disappear as suddenly as if it had been extinguished by the hand of God. I shut and opened my eyes again to clear them of any film that might hang over them. But my sight did not deceive me. Where the star had burned against its background of sky only the cloudless blue was now seen.

I looked and looked again, and suddenly the star reappeared as brilliant and steady as before.

The phenomenon, stirred me strangely, and I raised myself as far as my rope would permit to look.

The star shone for half a minute, and then in a twinkle of light it vanished. But I still watched in the belief that it would come again. There was a longer interval, but suddenly it flashed upon the brow of the hill in precisely the same spot as before.

As I looked a second star appeared by the side of the first. At the distance at which I lay they seemed to me to be separated by not more than a hand’s breadth. Even had the heaviness of sleep been upon me the appearance of the second star would have driven away all such feelings. It could be no optical illusion, for the second, like the first, burned with a full and steady light.

I watched to see both disappear, as the first had twice done, but instead there was a flash of light and a third star had risen and swung beside the other two.

I am no astronomer, but I knew enough about the heavens to be amazed at what I saw. Like beacon lights the three stars burned on the hill, and presently a fourth came out and took its place in the row with the others. The distant hill lay so dark in the murk of the night that I could not tell where the earth and the fringe of trees began, but out of the dusk the stars shone like four gleaming spear-points.

As I was divided between wonder and admiration the meaning of it all burst upon me. It was a guess, but it was a guess that was forced upon my mind with the intensity of conviction. Four stars in the night! Four friends waiting to help me! The lights which I had taken for stars were four torches on the far summit of the hill, and Pike and Henry and Bonneau and Sam were there signalling to me and trusting to fortune that I would see and to instinct that I would know what they meant. I no longer doubted that my capture and every movement of my captors since then were known to rny companions, and the unerring eye of Pike had traced us and his fertile brain had devised the signals.

As I read the fiery signals my heart swelled with triumph and pride. I felt that my four companions, with the redoubtable Pike at their head, would be more than a match for Halftrigger and his numerous allies, desperate as their courage might prove and reckless as I knew them to be.

Not until you have passed through many dangers and trials with them and have found them always staunch and true can you ever know how men may be knit to you. Then their brave deeds are like your own, and you share in them with an equal pride. It was thus I felt as I lay in the night on that hilltop in the wilderness among the sleeping desperadoes and watched the distant lights swung aloft by the muscular arms of those who were waiting to shed their blood for me if need be.

I turned over on my sides and looked at the spot where I knew Halftrigger lay.

“Ah, you sea-villain and cutthroat!” were the words that rose to my lips though they were not uttered. “How many of this band would risk a hair of their heads to save you?”

Then, after this little burst of triumph, I looked anxiously down the hillside to see if the sentinels had noticed the signals. I knew that the men were provided, with whisky and that most of them had been drinking the strong stuff since we had stopped to camp. I hoped the senses of the sentinels were so steeped in it and their eyesight so blinded that they could not read the meaning of the lights as I had read them, perhaps that they would not be able to distinguish them from the stars, at all.

In the dun light I could see one of the sentinels standing beside a tree in a listless attitude. If he had seen the signals he gave no indication of it. But while I watched him Halftrigger roused himself again. After many yawnings he pulled himself to his feet, and then called to the nearest sentinel:

“Anything moving, Harkins?” he asked.

“Nothing, Cappen,” said the man, coming up, with his rifle in the hollow of his arm. “Everything is as still as a graveyard.”

It was time to change the watch, and Halftrigger called to the other man also. He made a similar report, and Halftrigger told them they could go to sleep, while he awakened two others to take their places on guard.

I feared that the new men, sobered and refreshed by sleep, would see the lights on the distant hill, but when I looked again my stars were gone, and the hill itself was almost invisible.

I pretended to be asleep then, but when I heard Halftrigger’s snore, I opened my eyes again and looked for the stars, but saw only the darkness. Then I knew they would not reappear. I alone of all who lay on the hill had seen them, and the luck which is hard luck sometimes was good luck this time.

By and by I, too, fell asleep, and slept without dreams.

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