The Green Mummy
But he had reckoned without his host. While covering De Gayangos, he
overlooked the fact that Random and Hope were close at hand. The next
moment, and while Don Pedro flung up his hands, the ruffian was covered
by two revolvers in the hands of two very capable men.
“Great Scott!” cried Hervey, lowering his weapon. “Only my fun, gents.
Here, you get back!”
This was to Inspector Date, who had been keeping his ears and eyes
open, and who was now racing for the end of the jetty. Peering over, he
uttered a loud cry.
“I thought so--I thought so. Here's the nigger and the mummy!”
Hervey uttered a curse, and, plunging past the trio, careless of the
leveled weapons, ran down to the end of the jetty, and, throwing his
arms round Date, leaped with him into the sea. They fell just beside
the boat, as Random saw when he reached the spot. A confused volley of
curses arose, as the boat pushed out from the encrusted pile, the mate
thrusting with a boat-hook. Hervey and Date were in the water, but as
the boat shot into the moonlight, Random--and now Hope and De Gayangos,
who had come up--saw a long green form in amongst the sailors; also,
very plainly, Cockatoo with his great mop of yellow hair.
“Shoot! shoot!” yelled Date, who was struggling with the skipper in the
shallow water near shore. “Don't let them escape.”
Hope ran up the jetty and fired three shots in the air, certain that
the firing would attract the attention of the four or five constables on
guard at the cottage, which was no very great distance away. Random sent
a bullet into the midst of the boatload, and immediately the mate fired
also. The bullet whistled past his head, and, crazy with rage, he felt
inclined to jump in amongst the ruffians and have a hand-to-hand fight.
But De Gayangos stopped him in a voice shrill with anger. Already the
shouts and noise of the approaching policemen could be heard. Cockatoo
gripped the green mummy case desperately, while the sailors tried to row
towards the ship.
Then De Gayangos gave a shout, and leaped, as the boat swung past the
jetty. He landed right on Cockatoo, and although a cloud drifted across
the moon, Random heard the shots coming rapidly from his revolver.
Meanwhile Hervey got away from Date, as the constables came pounding
down the jetty and on to the beach.
“Chuck the mummy and nigger overboard and make for the ship,” he yelled,
swimming with long strokes towards the boat.
This order was quite to the sailors' minds, as they had not reckoned on
such a fight. Half a dozen willing hands clutched both Cockatoo and the
case, and, in spite of the Kanaka's cries, both were hurled overboard.
As the case swung overside, De Gayangos, balancing himself at the end of
the boat, fired at Cockatoo. The shot missed the Kanaka, and pierced the
mummy case. Then from it came a piercing yell of agony and rage.
“Great God!” shouted Hope, who was watching the battle, “I believe
Braddock is in that damned thing.”
The next moment De Gayangos was swung overboard also, and the sailors
were lifting Hervey into the boat. It nearly upset, but he managed to
get in, and the craft rowed for the vessel, which was again showing a
flaring blue light. Random sent a shot after the boat, and then with the
policemen ran down to help De Gayangos, who was struggling in the water.
He managed to pull him out, and when he had him safe and breathless on
shore, he saw that the boat was nearing the ship, and that Date, torn
and wet and disheveled, with three policemen, was up to his waist in
water, struggling to bring ashore Cockatoo and the mummy case, to which
he clung like a limpet. Hope ran down to give a hand, and in a few
minutes they had the Kanaka ashore, fighting like the demon he was.
Random and De Gayangos joined the breathless group, and Cockatoo was
held in the grasp of two strong men--who required all their strength to
hold him--while Date, warned by Hope's cry of what was in the case, tore
at the lid. It was but lightly fastened and soon came off. Then those
present saw in the moonlight the dead face of Professor Braddock, who
had been shot through the heart. As they looked at the sight, Cockatoo
broke from those who held him, and, throwing himself on his master,
howled and wept as though his heart would break. At the same moment
there came a derisive whistle from The Firefly, and they saw the great
tramp steamer slowly moving down stream, increasing her speed with
almost every revolution of the screw. Braddock had been captured, but
Hervey had escaped.
At the inquest on the Professor and on the body of Mrs. Jasher, it was
proved that Cockatoo had warned his master that the game was up, and had
suggested that Braddock should escape by hiding in the mummy case. The
corpse of Inca Caxas was placed in an empty Egyptian sarcophagus--in
which it was afterwards found--and Braddock, assisted by his faithful
Kanaka, wheeled the case down to the old jetty. Here, in a nook where
Cockatoo had formerly kept the boat, the Professor concealed himself all
that night and all next day. Cockatoo, having got rid of his boat long
since (lest it might be used in evidence against him and his master),
ran through the dense mist and the long night up to Pierside, where he
saw Captain Hervey and bribed him with a promise of one thousand pounds
to save his master. Hervey, having assured himself that the money was
safe, since it was banked in a feigned name in Amsterdam, agreed, and
arranged to ship the Professor in the mummy case.
Thus it was that Hervey kept the four men talking up the jetty, as he
knew that Cockatoo with his own sailors was shipping the Professor in
the mummy case underneath, and well out of sight. Cockatoo had come
down stream with The Firefly, and in this way had not been discovered.
Throughout that long day the miserable Braddock had crouched like a toad
in its hole, trembling at every sound of pursuit, as he knew that the
whole of the village was looking for him. But Cockatoo had hidden him
well in the case, in the lid of which holes had been bored. He had
brandy to drink and food to eat, and he knew that he could depend upon
the Kanaka. Had Date not been suspicious, the ruse might have been
successful, but to save himself Hervey had to sacrifice the wretched
Professor, which he did without the slightest hesitation. Then came
the unlucky shot from the revolver of De Gayangos, which had ended
Braddock's wicked life. It was Fate.
At the inquest a verdict of “wilful murder” was brought against the
Kanaka, but a verdict of “justifiable homicide” was given in favor of
the Peruvian. Thus Cockatoo was hanged for the double murder and Don
Pedro went free. He remained long enough in London to see his daughter
married to the man of her choice, and then returned to Lima.
Of course the affair caused more than a nine days' wonder, and the
newspapers were filled with accounts of the murder and the projected
escape. But Lucy was saved from all this publicity, as, in the first
place, her name was kept out of print as much as possible, and, in
the second, Archie promptly married her, and within a fortnight of her
step-father's death took her to the south of France, and afterwards
to Italy. What with his own money and the money she inherited from her
mother--in which Braddock had a life interest--the young couple had
nearly a thousand a year.
Six months later Sir Frank came into the small San Remo where Mr. and
Mrs. Hope lived, with his wife on his arm. Lady Random looked singularly
charming and was assuredly more conversational. This was the first time
the two sets of lovers had met since the tragedy, and now each girl had
married the man she loved. Therefore there was great joy.
“My yacht is over at Monte Carlo,” said Random, “and I am, going with
Inez to South America. She wants to see her father.”
“Yes, I do,” said Lady Random; “and we want you to come also, Lucy--you
and your dear husband.”
Archie and his wife looked at one another, but declined unanimously.
“We would rather stay here in San Remo,” said Mrs. Hope, becoming
slightly pale. “Don't think me unkind, Inez, but I could not bear to
go to Peru. It is associated too much in my own mind with that terrible
green mummy.”
“Oh, Don Pedro has taken that back to the Andes,” explained Sir Frank,
“and it is now reposing in the sepulchre in which it was placed,
hundreds of years ago, by the Indians, faithful to Inca Caxas. Inez and
I are going up to a kind of forbidden city, where Don Pedro reigns as
Inca, and I expect we shall have a jolly time. I hear there is some big
game shooting there.”
“What about your soldiering?” asked Hope, rather, surprised at this
extended tour being arranged.
“Oh, my husband has left the army,” pouted Inez. “His duties kept him
away from me nearly all the day, and I grew weary of being left alone.”
“So you see, Mrs. Hope,” laughed Random gayly, “that I have had to
succumb to my fireside tyrant. We shall go and see this fairy city and
then return to my home in Oxfordshire. There Inez will settle down as
a real English wife and I'll turn a country squire. So, after all our
troubles, peace will come.”
“And as you will not come to my country,” said Lady Random to her
hostess, “you cannot refuse to visit Frank and myself at the Grange.
We have had so much trouble together that we cannot lose sight of each
other.”
“No,” said Lucy, kissing her. “We will come to Oxfordshire.”
So it was arranged, and the next day Mr. and Mrs. Hope went over to
Monte Carlo to see the last of Sir Frank and his wife. They stood on
the heights watching the pretty little steamer making for South America.
Archie noticed that his wife's face was somewhat sad.
“Are you sorry we did not go, sweetheart?”
“No,” she replied, placing her arm within his own. “I only want to be
with you.”
“That is all right.” He patted her hand. “Now that we have sold all the
furniture in the Pyramids, and have got rid of the lease, there will be
nothing to remind you of the green mummy.”
“Yet I can't help thinking of my unfortunate step-father, and of poor
Mrs. Jasher, and of Sidney Bolton. Oh, Archie, little as we can afford
it, I am glad that we allow Mrs. Bolton a small sum a year. After all,
it was through my step-father that her son met with his death.”
“I don't quite agree with you, dear. Cockatoo's innate savagery was the
cause, as Professor Braddock did not intend or desire murder. But there,
dear, do not think any more about these dismal things. Dream of the time
when I shall be the president of the Royal Academy, and you my lady.”
“I am your lady now. But,” added Lucy, perhaps from an association of
ideas of color and the Academy, “I shall hate green for the rest of my
life.”
“That's unlucky, considering it is Nature's color. My dear, in a year or
two this tragedy, or rather the three tragedies, will seem like a dream.
I won't listen to another word now. The green mummy has passed out of
our lives and has taken its bad luck with it.”
“Amen, so be it,” said Lucy Hope, and the happy couple went home,
leaving all their sorrows behind them, while the smoke of the steamer
faded on the horizon.