After ‘saving’ the girl, Emma, Ignatious travelled into Pangbourne and parked his motor home in a public car park, whilst he took a stroll around the town. He would kill some time here and then find a spot on the outskirts to stay for the night. Tomorrow would be soon enough to visit the Parish Church. Perhaps by then, the body would have been discovered and he would be able to offer his wisdom and comfort to the grieving parents.
He took evening meal at around six-thirty, in a pleasant cafe near to the car park. Once again, the weather had held and the premises had every available window open, which only slightly alleviated the heaviness of the interior. However, the service was friendly and the chicken salad fresh and quite excellent. Taking time to enjoy the meal and to rest his tiring feet following the lengthy stroll around the town, Ignatious munched his food slowly, studying the few other patrons who occupied the small dining room. He liked to study people, calculating what he thought their secrets and personal problems to be. He felt his assumptions would generally be correct.
At last, he rose from the table, paid his bill, with a decent tip for the bustling waitress and left. Back in the vehicle, he drove to the surrounding countryside and parked off the road, near to a range of hedgerows, that offered a fine view of the meadow as it meandered away from his position and down towards the inhabited parts.
For some time, he sat outside, soaking up the beauty of the area and the pleasure of God’s gifts; the fading Sun as it created new colours and aspects, the gentle, warm breeze, the grasses, flowers and beautifully blossomed trees.
Finally, Ignatious went back into the motor home where he read the bible until tired enough for sleep. Stripping his clothes, he lay naked under the single cotton sheet and drifted away.
The exhaustion, coupled with the heaviness of the warm night, lulled Ignatious into a fitful sleep, filled with troubled dreams.
He had become accustomed to his position, tied to the pole, uncomfortable that it was. Thankfully, due to lack of food and drink, his normal bodily functions had gone into neutral mode, so he did not have to suffer the indignity of performing them where he stood.
It was around two in the morning, the sounds of the jungle now muted, that he became aware of movement somewhere in the vicinity of his ankles. Something was sniffing around! He then felt a similar movement around his tied wrists. What kind of animal could this be? he wondered fearfully. Then, the binding ropes began to loosen and slide down his body. Keeping in the same position in which he had spent the last few days, he gingerly moved one of his feet forward. It moved! Trying the other foot, he was astonished to find that it, too, moved forward.
Cautiously, he brought his arms to the front, feeling the ropes sliding off him. He was being freed! But how? By whom? The ropes fell away to the ground as a figure appeared from behind in the darkness. Peering hard, Ignatious was just able to make out the face of the girl with whom he had spent that last night before being hauled to his imprisonment.
He looked at the girl in amazement. What she was now doing could be the cause of her suffering a violent death. Before he could speak and whisper his thanks, she pointed toward the jungle. “Go!” she whispered harshly. “Go!” She then left quickly and silently.
For some moments, Ignatious could not move; he was in a small state of shock. He had not expected to be freed and had made his peace with his Maker, fully prepared to meet Him.
His muscles stiff and tingling painfully with the blood filling again the restricted tubes of his veins, he bent and stretched his legs, flapping his arms in an attempt to assist the renewal of his circulation. He realised that, whilst he was here, he stood the risk of discovery but he would not be able to move quietly on numbed feet. After several minutes, he felt more back to normal and paused to decide what next to do.
The happenings of the past few days had both shocked and angered him. Since before his prison days, Ignatious had learned to curb his anger and channel it into something positive rather than give vent to it. However, now he was burning with an anger that threatened to wholly consume him. He wanted revenge!
Noticing the table laid with the intended instruments of his death, he quickly devised a plan that would satisfy his fury. Gathering up the flask with its deadly contents, he moved swiftly to the edge of the village and climbed the ladder leading to the water storage tank that, only a few days earlier, he had helped to design and construct for the benefit of the tribe.
Reaching the top, he laid the flask down and scooped a handful of the pure water into his dry mouth, swallowing gratefully after first swilling it around. He then retrieved the flask and removed the stopper. He knew the poison would be of the strongest kind, designed to kill quickly; something he would have appreciated later this morning.
Leaning over the edge of the tank, he poured a measure of the pink-tinted liquid into the water, calculating that even a small amount would be sufficient to permeate the system, with enough power to do its deadly work. However, he wanted to be absolutely certain.
When the villagers awoke, their first action would be to feed the water to their children and then take it themselves. Ignatious hoped that the children would survive until the seniors took their drinks so that there would be no pre-warning. He sat with his back to the tank and awaited the oncoming of dawn.
The light shaft of sunlight across Ignatious’s face woke him from his slumber. Having no watch, he had to calculate from the sun’s position, what time it was, estimating it to be around six. Looking out over the village, he watched the early mist rise from the dwellings, over the foliage to become temporarily lodged in the tall trees. The warmth was beginning to increase even then,at around 7am as Ignatious waited, indications that the day was to be hot again. Even during the frequent rains, the heat was never subdued.
The one thing that was immediately apparent to Ignatious was the unusual quietness, apart from the growing sounds of the jungle. There was no life to be observed in the village at a time when some signs would normally be evident. It seemed as though his plan had worked but there was only one way to be certain and that was to inspect the dwellings.
Picking up the flask, still quite full, he descended the ladder. Once on the ground, he went to the first of the dwellings. Going inside, he observed one of the tribesmen lying on the floor on top of a toddler, both with eyes and mouths open — clearly dead. Next to the sink lay a tribes-woman, also clearly lifeless and, in the far corner, a girl in her early teens. The next three homes proved to be the same: all occupants dead.
Feeling safe now, Ignatious went to his dwelling and dressed in his travelling clothes, gathering up what useful items he felt would be needed including, and for no good reason he could immediately think of, the deadly flask. He placed all into a light backpack and continued his inspection of the village.
Seeing in one, the body of his one-time friend, Karakta, he felt curiously emotionless, while, in another dwelling, he felt some remorse at the sight of the lovely girl who had provided him with sexual gratification and who had been courageous enough to free him. He consoled himself with the thought that, at least, she looked beautiful and at peace.
In his sleep, Ignatious smiled, the reason for retaining the flask now evident following the most recent killing.
It took more than an hour to complete the scrutiny, leaving only the place of the Elders. There were three places allocated to them, the Chief Elder occupying one a little larger than the other two. Nervously, not entirely expecting the poison to have affected these strange men, he went into the first of the smaller buildings.
To Ignatious’s amazement, all three were completely empty of beings! In the Chief Elder’s
