“No, I shan’t lose her, James, don’t worry. I’m surprised that you haven’t demanded to know everything. I applaud your restraint. As I said before, you think. You know what’s important at any given moment. Later, James, if all goes as I wish it to, you will know all you wish.”
The chest broke the surface. There was a huge sucking sound as James and Gypsom managed to drag it over to the edge of the marsh onto the ground. James just stared at it for a long moment. He supposed he really hadn’t believed it existed. “Thank God,” he said at last. “We’ve got it.”
“Excellent,” Fielding said, so excited he could scarcely breathe now. Like James, he just stared for a long moment at that old metal chest, sludge and filth coating it. The lock was still intact. “My treasure. At last, all I’ve worked for.”
“You didn’t work a minute for this,” Jessie said. “You don’t deserve this.” James wished he could stuff a sock in her mouth.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said quickly. “It’s yours, Compton. Nearly yours if we can get it open.”
James managed to grasp a filthy, rusted handle on the side of the chest and pull it along the slick, soggy grass. It was a good-sized chest.
“Oh no,” Compton yelled, waving his gun wildly. “Damnation, just look. There’re holes in it. It’s metal. How can there be bloody holes in its sides?”
He jerked Jessie to her knees beside him as he fumbled with the locked clasp on the front of the chest. He couldn’t manage it. He leaned back and fired into the lock, splintering it, sending its pieces flying into the marsh, making not a sound as they landed and sank.
He was chortling now, shoving back the metal lid. “My God, it’s filthy, but there are jewels and so many coins—thank God they didn’t fall out of those damned holes. Jewels don’t rust or rot. Yes, there are jewels.” He dropped his pistol and plunged his hands and arms into the chest.
And then he screamed.
He was on his knees in front of the chest, leaning over the opening. His arm was still thrust into the filthy pieces of jewelry and coin. Out of the depths of the chest rose a cottonmouth snake, surely the ugliest snake ever created, its body nearly as thick as a man’s neck, its mouth a dead, puffy white—a white that looked like rancid maggot-covered meat. The snake’s mouth gaped open. A rope of pearls hung out of its open mouth, falling on either side, like a bridle in a horse’s mouth, the reins trailing. The snake stared at Compton Fielding. Then it lunged up his arm in the flash of an instant, its fangs going deep into his shirt. Another cottonmouth emerged, this one opening its mouth to show a necklace of emeralds, the snake’s venom having cleaned off the gems enough to see the deep green of the stones. It wrapped itself around Compton’s arm, so gently and slowly it seemed to move, and very smoothly, it opened its mouth, spat out the emeralds, and sank its fangs deep in the back of his hand.
“Compton, get your arms out of that damned chest! Damn you, move!”
Compton Fielding shrieked and shrieked but he didn’t move. He seemed incapable of doing anything but scream. Another cottonmouth, this one slithering through one of the holes in the side of the chest, shimmied up Compton’s chest, gently easing beneath his arm and viciously biting his armpit once, twice, three times before it slithered off him and sank back down into the chest.
Compton Fielding shrieked again. Still he didn’t move. Couldn’t move? James didn’t know. He yelled at him, but it did no good. James jerked Jessie away when one of the cottonmouths turned in their direction, its open mouth yawning even wider. He pulled them both farther away from that cursed chest. James realized blankly that only seconds had passed, and yet it seemed like a bloody lifetime.
“Move, dammit, Compton! Get away from the chest!”
Compton Fielding turned his head very slightly so he could see James. He said in a soft tired voice, “I can’t. Just look at them, James. They ate through the chest because they wanted the treasure. Just look at the one with those pearls looped through his mouth. He didn’t even spit them out when he bit me. Oh God, just look at them, so many of them.” Two more cottonmouths came up from the depths of the treasure chest. They had no jewelry or coins in their mouths. They moved slowly, as if they weren’t really interested. They took their time, biting Compton Fielding’s arms, his neck, then slithered back down into the chest and out the holes in the side onto the slippery grass. They slid back into the marsh.
James had been frantically looking for Fielding’s pistol, then remembered he’d stuck his own into his boot. Cursing himself, he pulled the pistol from his boot and fired. One of the cottonmouths was still wrapped around Fielding’s arm. He flowed off, sinking back down into the chest. James fired again, using his second bullet, knowing it did no good, but feeling angry and helpless. Why the devil didn’t Fielding move?
The snakes were eating him alive. He hadn’t so much as whispered for several minutes now, not even shuddering when yet another cottonmouth bit him. Just there on his knees in front of that damned chest, his hands and arms still plunged into its depths, letting the snakes devour him.
“Gypsom, take Jessie away from here. There might be more snakes. Get her to safety.”
“I’ll take her,” Badger said, and he lifted Jessie into his arms.
“Yes, James, all of us are here,” Marcus said. “Surely you must have suspected when you saw no one when you and Gypsom left the house with those two poles. Now, this fellow here is nearly dead. Who the devil is he?”
“We haven’t seen a villain in many a year,” the Duchess said, but she didn’t step forward. “I hate snakes. God, these are hideous. Be careful, all of you.”
“What should we do with this man?” Spears said. “I hate snakes as well, Duchess.”
“I’m glad Maggie isn’t here,” Sampson said. “She wouldn’t be happy were she here seeing those hideous snakes.”
“Step back, James,” Marcus said. “Let me see if I can’t get rid of the rest of those snakes.” He fired both shots in his pistol, then nodded to Spears, who then fired his two shots.
James waited. He saw no more movement, no more undulating swells beneath that pile of jewels and coins. He managed to pull Compton Fielding free of the chest. His face was the color of those damned snakes’ mouths, a sickening, bloated white.
“Compton?”
“Yes, James,” he said, his voice a hoarse whisper. “I can’t see you, but I can hear you a bit. Where is Jessie?”
“I’m here.”
“Please tell me what happened to those Roanoke colonists.”