Chapter 5: Treason

On their return to camp after her rescue Virginia talked a great deal to von Horn about the young giant who had rescued her, until the man feared that she was more interested in him than seemed good for his own plans.

He had now cast from him the last vestige of his loyalty for his employer, and thus freed had determined to use every means within his power to win Professor Maxon’s daughter, and with her the heritage of wealth which he knew would be hers should her father, through some unforeseen mishap, meet death before he could return to civilization and alter his will, a contingency which von Horn knew he might have to consider should he marry the girl against her father’s wishes, and thus thwart the crazed man’s mad, but no less dear project.

He realized that first he must let the girl fully understand the grave peril in which she stood, and turn her hope of protection from her father to himself. He imagined that the initial step in undermining Virginia’s confidence in her father would be to narrate every detail of the weird experiments which Professor Maxon had brought to such successful issues during their residence upon the island.

The girl’s own questioning gave him the lead he needed.

“Where could that horrid creature have come from that set upon me in the jungle and nearly killed poor Sing?” she asked.

For a moment von Horn was silent, in well simulated hesitancy to reply to her query.

“I cannot tell you, Miss Maxon,” he said sadly, “how much I should hate to be the one to ignore your father’s commands, and enlighten you upon this and other subjects which lie nearer to your personal welfare than you can possibly guess; but I feel that after the horrors of this day duty demands that I must lay all before you--you cannot again be exposed to the horrors from which you were rescued only by a miracle.”

“I cannot imagine what you hint at, Dr. von Horn,” said Virginia, “but if to explain to me will necessitate betraying my father’s confidence I prefer that you remain silent.”

“You do not understand,” broke in the man, “you cannot guess the horrors that I have seen upon this island, or the worse horrors that are to come. Could you dream of what lies in store for you, you would seek death rather than face the future. I have been loyal to your father, Virginia, but were you not blind, or indifferent, you would long since have seen that your welfare means more to me than my loyalty to him--more to me than my life or my honor.

“You asked where the creature came from that attacked you today. I shall tell you. It is one of a dozen similarly hideous things that your father has created in his mad desire to solve the problem of life. He has solved it; but, God, at what a price in misshapen, soulless, hideous monsters!”

The girl looked up at him, horror stricken.

“Do you mean to say that my father in a mad attempt to usurp the functions of God created that awful thing?” she asked in a low, faint voice, “and that there are others like it upon the island?”

“In the campong next to yours there are a dozen others,” replied von Horn, “nor would it be easy to say which is the most hideous and repulsive. They are grotesque caricatures of humanity--without soul and almost without brain.”

“God!” murmured the girl, burying her face in her hands, “he has gone mad; he has gone mad.”

“I truly believe that he is mad,” said von Horn, “nor could you doubt it for a moment were I to tell you the worst.”

“The worst!” exclaimed the girl. “What could be worse than that which you already have divulged? Oh, how could you have permitted it?”

“There is much worse than I have told you, Virginia. So much worse that I can scarce force my lips to frame the words, but you must be told. I would be more criminally liable than your father were I to keep it from you, for my brain, at least, is not crazed. Virginia, you have in your mind a picture of the hideous thing that carried you off into the jungle?”

“Yes,” and as the girl replied a convulsive shudder racked her frame.

Von Horn grasped her arm gently as he went on, as though to support and protect her during the shock that he was about to administer.

“Virginia,” he said in a very low voice, “it is your father’s intention to wed you to one of his creatures.”

The girl broke from him with an angry cry.

“It is not true!” she exclaimed. “It is not true. Oh, Dr. von Horn how could you tell me such a cruel and terrible untruth.”

“As God is my judge, Virginia,” and the man reverently uncovered as he spoke, “it is the truth. Your father told me it in so many words when I asked his permission to pay court to you myself--you are to marry Number Thirteen when his education is complete.”

“I shall die first!” she cried.

“Why not accept me instead?” suggested the man.

For a moment Virginia looked straight into his eyes as though to read his inmost soul.

“Let me have time to consider it, Doctor,” she replied. “I do not know that I care for you in that way at all.”

“Think of Number Thirteen,” he suggested. “It should not be difficult to decide.”

“I could not marry you simply to escape a worse fate,” replied the girl. “I am not that cowardly--but let me think it over. There can be no immediate danger, I am sure.”

“One can never tell,” replied von Horn, “what strange, new vagaries may enter a crazed mind to dictate this moment’s action or the next.”

“Where could we wed?” asked Virginia.

“The Ithaca would bear us to Singapore, and when we returned you would be under my legal protection and safe.”

“I shall think about it from every angle,” she answered sadly, “and now good night, my dear friend,” and with a wan smile she entered her quarters.

For the next month Professor Maxon was busy educating Number Thirteen. He found the young man intelligent far beyond his most sanguine hopes, so that the progress made was little short of uncanny.

Von Horn during this time continued to urge upon Virginia the necessity for a prompt and favorable decision in the matter of his proposal; but when it came time to face the issue squarely the girl found it impossible to accede to his request--she thought that she loved him, but somehow she dared not say the word that would make her his for life.

Bududreen, the Malay mate was equally harassed by conflicting desires, though of a different nature, for he had his eye upon the main chance that was represented to him by the great chest, and also upon the lesser reward which awaited him upon delivery of the girl to Rajah Muda Saffir. The fact that he could find no safe means for accomplishing both these ends simultaneously was all that had protected either from his machinations.

The presence of the uncanny creatures of the court of mystery had become known to the Malay and he used this knowledge as an argument to foment discord and mutiny in the ignorant and superstitious crew under his command. By boring a hole in the partition wall separating their campong from the inner one he had disclosed to the horrified view of his men the fearsome brutes harbored so close to them. The mate, of course, had no suspicion of the true origin of these monsters, but his knowledge of the fact that they had not been upon the island when the Ithaca arrived and that it would have been impossible for them to have landed and reached the camp without having been seen by himself or some member of his company, was sufficient evidence to warrant him in attributing their presence to some supernatural and malignant power.

This explanation the crew embraced willingly, and with it Bududreen’s suggestion that Professor Maxon had power to transform them all into similar atrocities. The ball once started gained size and momentum as it progressed. The professor’s ofttimes strange expression was attributed to an evil eye, and every ailment suffered by any member of the crew was blamed upon their employer’s Satanic influence. There was but one escape from the horrors of such a curse--the death of its author; and when Bududreen discovered that they had reached this point, and were even discussing the method of procedure, he added all that was needed to the dangerously smouldering embers of bloody mutiny by explaining that should anything happen to the white men he would become sole owner of their belongings, including the heavy chest, and that the reward of each member of the crew would be generous.

Von Horn was really the only stumbling block in Bududreen’s path. With the natural cowardice of the Malay he feared this masterful American who never moved without a brace of guns slung about his hips; and it was at just this psychological moment that the doctor played into the hands of his subordinate, much to the latter’s inward elation.

Von Horn had finally despaired of winning Virginia by peaceful court, and had about decided to resort to force when he was precipitately confirmed in his decision by a conversation with the girl’s father.

He and the professor were talking in the workshop of the remarkable progress of Number Thirteen toward a complete mastery of English and the ways and manners of society, in which von Horn had been assisting his employer to train the young giant. The breach between the latter and von Horn had been patched over by Professor Maxon’s explanations to Number Thirteen as soon as the young man was able to comprehend--in the meantime it had been necessary to keep von Horn out of the workshop except when the giant was confined in his own room off the larger one.

Von Horn had been particularly anxious, for the furtherance of certain plans he had in mind, to effect a reconciliation with Number Thirteen, to reach a basis of friendship with the young man, and had left no stone unturned to accomplish this result. To this end he had spent considerable time with Number Thirteen, coaching him in English and in the ethics of human association.