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Title: The hermit hunter of the wilds
Author: Gordon Stables
Release date: September 7, 2023 [eBook #71590]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Blackie and Son ltd, 1889
Credits: Chuck Greif, Al Haines and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HERMIT HUNTER OF THE WILDS ***
BY DR. GORDON STABLES, R.N.
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LONDON: BLACKIE & SON, LIMITED.
The Hermit Hunter
of the Wilds
BY
GORDON STABLES, C.M. M.D. R.N.
Author of “‘Twixt School and College” “To Greenland and the Pole”
“The Naval Cadet” “Westward with Columbus” &c.
_WITH FOUR PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS_
BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED
LONDON GLASGOW AND BOMBAY
CONTENTS.
CHAP. Page
I. By the Firelight, 9
II. “It was on just such a night as this, sister,” 17
III. “The fearfulness of our situation can hardly be
realized,” 28
IV. Among the Woods of Craigielea, 42
V. “The whole world is full of changes,” 53
VI. “Run, run!” cried Tom; “the man must not die
yet!” 65
VII. “Here hangs his brother’s scalp,” 78
VIII. “Never before had Tom experienced such a feeling
of awful danger,” 89
IX. “The whole sea of mist turned to clouds of
mingled gold and crimson,” 101
X. “In the forests strange shrieks and sounds were
heard,” 111
XI. “The trees went down before it like hay before
the mower’s scythe,” 121
XII. “A shower of poisoned darts fell pattering on
the stockade,” 132
XIII. The dying Ayah tells of Bernard, 142
XIV. “Filled with gold doubloons-- Sirr, are ye listening?” 153
XV. “Next instant the ship was struck and staved,” 163
XVI. “A vast green and flowery valley surrounded by
romantic hills,” 174
XVII. Strange Life on the beautiful Island, 185
XVIII. “He was convinced now he had seen a spectre
and nothing else,” 197
XIX. “Under the grave you dug are gold and precious
stones,” 205
XX. “O, Bernard, it is your father’s ship!” 214
ILLUSTRATIONS
“TOM CROUCHED LOWER AND LOWER” _Frontis._ 100
TOM INTRODUCES HIS CAT 84
“BEHOLD YOUR CHIEF!” SHE CRIED 145
GIANT TORTOISE RIDING 216
THE HERMIT HUNTER OF THE WILDS.
CHAPTER I.
BY THE FIRELIGHT.
Tommy Talisker was probably one of the most unassuming boys that ever
lived. At all events everybody said so. And this is equivalent to
stating that the boy’s general behaviour gave him a character for
modesty.
He was the youngest of a family of five; the eldest being his only
sister, and she, like her mother, made a good deal of Tommy, and thought
a good deal about him too in certain ways.
“I don’t think,” said Tommy’s father to Tommy’s mother one evening as
they all sat round the parlour hearth; “I don’t think we’ll ever be able
to make much of Tommy.”
Perhaps Tommy’s father was at present merely speaking for speaking’s
sake; for there had been general silence for a short time previously,
broken only by the sound of mother’s knitting-wires, the crackle of
uncle’s newspaper as he turned it, and the howthering of the wind round
the old farmhouse.
Tommy’s mother looked at Tommy, and heaved a little bit of a sigh, for
she was very much given to taking everything for granted that her
husband said.
But Tommy’s sister, who always sat in the left-hand corner of the
fireside, with Tommy squatting on a footstool right in front of her,
drew the lad’s head closer to her knee, and smoothed his white brow and
his yellow hair.
Tommy took no notice of anything or anybody, but continued to gaze into
the fire. That fire was well worth looking at, though I am not at all
sure that Tommy saw it. It was a fire that made one drowsily contented
and happy to sit by,--a comfort-giving, companionable sort of a fire.
Built on the low hearth, with huge logs of wood sawn from the trunk of a
poplar-tree that had succumbed to a summer squall, logs sawn from the
roots of a sturdy old pine-tree that had weathered many and many a gale,
and logs sawn from the withered limbs of a singularly gnarled and
ancient pippin-tree that had grown and flourished in the orchard ever
since this farmer’s father was a boy. There were huge lumps of coals
there also, and a wall round the whole of dark-brown peats, hard enough
to have cut and chiselled the hull of a toy yacht from.
It is not to be wondered at that Tommy took no notice of the somewhat
commonplace talk that went on around him; he was listening to a
conversation that was being carried on in the fire between the blazing
wood and the coals and the peat.
“You have no idea, my friends,” said the poplar log, after emitting a
hissing jet of steam by way of drawing attention and commanding
silence--“you have no idea what a stately and beautiful tree I was when
in my prime. I and my fellows, who were all alive and well when I heard
from them last, were the tallest and most gracefully-waving trees in the
country-side. Poets and artists, and clever people generally, used to
say we gave quite a character to the landscape. We knew we were very
beautiful, because the broad winding river went through the meadow where
we stood, and all day long we could see our faces therein. O, we were
very beautiful! I do assure you. The seasons thought so, and every one
of them did something for us. Spring came first, as soon as she had
fastened the downy buds on the waving willows; placed wee crimson-topped
anemones on the hazel boughs--five to each nodding catkin; scattered the
burgeons over the hawthorn hedges; tasselled the larches with vermilion
and green; adorned the rocks with lichen and moss; brought early daisies
to the meadow-lands, the gold of the celandine to the banks of the
streamlets, and the silver of a thousand white starry buttercups to
float on the ponds; breathed through the woods and awakened the birds to
light, love, and song; led the bee to the crocus, the butterfly to the
primrose; awakened even the drowsy dormouse and the shivering hedgehog
from their long winter’s slumber, to peep hungrily from their holes and
wearily wonder where food could be found. Then Spring came to us. Spring
came and kissed us, and we responded with green-yellow leaves to her
balmy caress. Ah, the sun’s rays looked not half so golden anywhere
else, as seen through our glancing quivering foliage. We raised our
heads so high in air, that the larks seemed to sing to us alone, and the
very clouds told us their secrets.
“But Summer came next and changed our leaves to a darker, sturdier
green. And she brought us birds. The rooks themselves used to rest and
sway on our topmost branches, lower down the black-bibbed sparrows
built; in our hollows the starlings laid their eggs of pearl, while even
the blackbird had her nest among the ivy that draped our shapely stems.
“We were things of beauty even when winds of Autumn blew; and Winter
himself must clothe our leafless limbs with its silvery hoar-frost, till
every branch and twiglet looked like radiant coral against the deep blue
of the cloudless sky.”
“Hush! hush!” cried the pine-tree root. “Dost thou well, O poplar-tree
log, to boast thus of thy beauty and stateliness? _I_ lived on the
mountain brow not far off. _I_ marked your rise and fall. Out upon your
beauty! Where was your strength? To me thou wert but as a sapling, or a
willow withe bending in the summer air. But my strength was as the
strength of nations. On the hill yonder I flourished for hundreds of
years; my foot was on the rocks, my dark head swept the clouds, my brown
stem was a landmark for sailors far at sea. In the plains below I saw
the seasons come and go. Houses were built, and in time became ruins;
children were born, grew up, grew old and died, but I changed not. The
wild birds of the air, of the rock, and the eyrie were my friends--the
eagle, the osprey, the hawk, and curlew. The deer and the roe bounded
swiftly past me, the timid coney and the hare found shelter near me. I
have battled with a thousand gales; thunders rolled and lightnings
flashed around me, and left me unscathed. I stood there as heroes stand
when the battle rages fiercest, and my weird black fingers seemed to
direct the hurricane wind. I was the spirit of the storm.
“And I too had beauty, an arboreal beauty that few trees can lay claim
to; whether in autumn with the crimson heather all around me, in summer
with the last red rays of sunset lingering in my foliage, or in winter
itself--my branches silhouetted against the green of a frosty sky. But
I fell at last. We all must fall, and age had weakened my roots. But I
fell as giants fall, amidst the roar of the elements and chaos of
strife. The skies wept over my bier, rain clouds were my pall, and the
wild winds shrieked my dirge.”
There was silence in the fire for some little time after the pine log
had finished speaking, and Tommy thought the conversation had ceased;
but presently a voice, soft and musical as summer winds in the
linden-tree, came from the gnarled pippin log:
“O men of pride and war!” said the voice, “I envy neither of you. Mine
was a life of peace and true beauty; and had I my days to live over
again, I would not have them otherwise. My home was in the orchard, and
the seasons were good to me too, and all things loved me. In spring-time
no bride was ever arrayed as I was; the very rustics that passed along
the roads used to stop their horses to gaze at me in open-mouthed
admiration. Then all the bees loved me, and all the birds sang to me,
and the westling winds made dreamy music in my foliage. Lovers sat on
the seat beneath my spreading branches, when the gloaming star was in
the east, and told their tales of love heedless that I heard them. In
summer merry children played near me and swung from my boughs, and in
autumn and even winter many a family showered blessings on the good old
pippin-tree. ‘Peace, my friends, hath its victories not less renowned
than war.’”
“O dear me!” sighed a smouldering peat, “how humble I should feel in
such company. I really have nothing to say and nothing to tell, for my
life, if life it could be called, was spent on a lonesome moor; true,
the heath bloomed beautiful there in autumn, but the wintry winds that
swept across the shelterless plain had a dreary song to sing. The will
o’ the wisp was a friend of mine, and an aged white-haired witch, that
at the dead hours of moonlight nights used to come groaning past me,
culling strange herbs, and using incantations that I shudder to hear.
There were many strange creatures besides the witch that came to the
moor where I dwelt; and even fairies danced there at times. But for the
most part the strange creatures I saw took the form of creeping or
flying things; fairies changed themselves into beautiful moths and wild
bees, but brownies and spunkies to crawling toads and tritons. But
heigho! I fear a poor peat has few opportunities of doing good in the
world.”
“Say not so!” exclaimed a blazing lump of coal; “even a humble peat is
not to be despised. How often have you not brought joy and gladness to
the poor man’s fireside, caused the porridge-pot to boil and the bairns
to laugh with glee, banished the cold of winter, and infused comfort
and warmth into the limbs of the aged. But you are modest, and modesty
is ever the companion of genuine merit.”
“And you, sir,” said the peat to the coal, “you are very, _very_ great
and very, _very_ old--are you not?”
“I am very, very old, and I am no doubt very, very powerful. Yet my
powers are gifts of the great Creator, and it is mine to distribute them
to toiling and deserving man. Ages and ages ago before this ancient pine
log was thought of or dreamt of, before mankind even dwelt on these
islands, when its woods were the home of the wildest of beasts, when
gigantic woolly elephants with curling tusks roamed free in its forests,
and its marshes and lakes swarmed with loathsome saurians, I dwelt on
earth’s surface. But changes came with time, and for thousands of years
I was dead and buried in the earth’s black depths. The ingenuity of man
has resuscitated me, and now I have gladly become his servant and slave.
I warm the castle, the palace, and the humble cot. I give light as well
as heat; I am swifter than the eagle in my flight. I am more powerful
than the wind; I drag man’s chariots across the land, I waft his ships
to every clime and every sea. I move the mightiest machinery; I am
gentle in peace and dreadful in war.
“Nay more, the great wizard Science has but to lift his wand, and lo! I
yield up products more wonderful than any yet on earth. Gorgeous were
the colours that adorned the flowers of the land in ages long gone by,
delicate and delightful were their perfumes; but these perfumes and
these colours I have carefully stored, and give them now to man.”
What more Tommy would have overheard, as he sat there at his sister’s
knee, it is impossible to say, for the boy had fallen asleep.
CHAPTER II.
“IT WAS ON JUST SUCH A NIGHT AS THIS, SISTER.”
“No,” repeated Tommy’s father as he proceeded to refill his pipe; “we
mustn’t expect to make much of Tommy.”
“Tommy may be president of America yet,” said Uncle Robert, looking
quietly up from his paper. “Stranger things have happened, brother; much
stranger.”
“Pigs might fly,” said Tommy’s father, somewhat unfeelingly. “Stranger
things have happened, brother; much stranger.”
Tommy’s brothers laughed aloud.
Tommy’s mother smiled faintly.
But the boy slept on, all unconscious that he was being made the butt of
a joke.
Tommy was not an over-strong lad to look at. About eleven or twelve
years old, perhaps. He had fair silky hair, regular features, and great
wondering blue eyes that appeared to look very far away sometimes. For
Tommy was a dreamy, thinking boy. To tell the truth, he lived as much in
a world of his own as if he were in the moon, and the man of the moon
away on a long holiday. He seemed to possess very little in common with
his brothers. Their tastes, at all events, were infinitely different
from his; in fact they were lads of the usual style or “run” which you
find reared on such farms as those of Laird Talisker’s--called laird
because he owned all the land he tilled. Dugald, Dick, and John were
quite _en rapport_ with all their surroundings. They loved horses and
dogs and riding and shooting, and they had to take to farming whether
they liked it or not. Dugald was the eldest; he was verging on
seventeen, and had long left school. Indeed he was his father’s right
hand, both in the office and in the fields. His father and he were
seldom seen apart, at church or market, mill or smithy; and as time
rolled on and age should compel Mr. Talisker to take things easy, Dugald
would naturally step into his father’s shoes.
Dick was sixteen, and Jack or John about fourteen; and neither had as
yet left the parish school, which was situated about a mile and a half
beyond the hill. All boys in Scotland receive tolerably advanced
education if their parents can possibly manage to keep them at their
studies, and these two lads were already deeply read in the classics and
higher branches of mathematics.
What were they going to be? Well, Dick said he should be a clergyman and
nothing else, and Jack had made up his mind to be a cow-boy. He had read
somewhere all about cow-boys in the south-western states of America, and
the life, he thought, would suit him entirely. How glorious it must feel
to go galloping over a ranche, armed with a powerful whip; to bestride a
noble horse, with a broad hat on one’s head and revolvers at one’s hip!
Then, of course, every other week, if not oftener, there would be wild
adventures with Comanche red-skins, or Indians of some other equally
warlike tribe; while now and then this jolly life would be enlivened by
hunting horse-stealers across the boundless prairie, and perhaps even
lynching them if they happened to catch the thieves, and there was a
tree handy.
Jack’s classical education might not be of much service to him in the
wild West, either in fighting bears or scalping Indians; though it would
be easily carried. He determined, however, not to neglect the practical
part of the business; and so whenever opportunity favoured him he used
to mount the biggest horse in the stable and go swinging across the
fields and the moors, leaping fences and ditches, and in every way
behaving precisely as he imagined a cow-boy would.
Several times Jack had narrowly escaped having his neck broken in
teaching Glancer--that was the big horse’s name--to buck-jump. Glancer
was by no means a bad-tempered beast; but when it came to slipping a
rough pebble under the saddle, then he buck-jumped to some purpose, and
Jack had the worst of it.
Mrs. Talisker herself was a somewhat delicate, gentle English lady, whom
the laird had wooed and won among the woodlands of “bonnie Berkshire.”
Her daughter Alicia, who was but a year older than Dugald, took very
much after the mother, and was in consequence, perhaps, the worthy
laird’s darling and favourite.
One thing must be said in favour of this honest farmer-laird: his whole
life and soul were bound up in his family, and his constant care was to
do well by them and bring them up to the best advantage. But he did not
think it right to thwart his boys’ intentions with regard to the choice
of a profession. There was admittedly a deal of difference between a
clergyman of the good old Scottish Church and a cow-boy. However, as
Jack had elected to be a cow-boy, a cow-boy he should be--if he did not
break his neck before his father managed to ship him off to the wild
West.
But as to Tommy, why the laird hardly cared to trouble. Tommy was Uncle
Robert’s boy. Uncle Robert, an old bachelor, who had spent his younger
days at sea, had constituted himself Tommy’s tutor, and had taught the
boy all he knew as yet. Uncle Robert ruled the lad by love alone, or
love and common sense combined. He did not attempt to put a new
disposition into him, but he did try to make the very best of that which
he possessed. In this he showed his great wisdom. In fact, in training
Tommy he followed the same tactics precisely as those that successful
bird and beast-trainers make such good use of. And what I am going to
say is well worth remembering by all boys who wish to teach tricks to
pets, and make them appear to be supernaturally wise. Do not try to
inculcate anything, in the shape of either motion or sound, which the
creature does not evince an inclination or aptitude to learn. Take a
white rat for example, and after it is thoroughly tame and used to
running about anywhere, loving you, and having therefore no fear, begin
your lessons by placing the cage on the table with the door open. It
will run out and presently show its one wondrous peculiarity of
appropriation. In very wantonness it will pick up article after article
and run into its house with it--coins, thimbles, apples, cards, &c. Now,
I hinge its education in a great measure on this, and in a few months I
can teach it to tell fortunes with cards, and spell words even. A rat
has two other strange motions; one is standing like a bear, another is
climbing poles. By educating it from each of these stand-points you can
make the creature either a soldier or a sailor, or even both, and teach
it tricks and actions the glory of which will be reflected on you, the
teacher.
Tommy was exceedingly fond of Uncle Robert, to begin with, and never
tired listening of an evening to his wonderful stories of travel and
adventure.
Uncle lived in a little cottage not very far from the farm; and if he
was not at the laird’s fireside of a winter evening he would generally
be found at his own, and Tommy would not be far away. They used to sit
without any light except that reflected from the fire. Stories told
thus, Tommy thought, were ever so much nicer, especially if they were
tales of mystery and adventure. For there were the long shadows
flickering and dancing on the wall, the darkness of the room behind
them, and the fitful gleams in the fire itself, in which the lad
sometimes thought he could actually see the scenery and figures his
uncle was describing; and all combined to produce effects that were
really and truly dramatic.
Well, if by day Dugald was his father’s constant companion, Tommy was
his uncle’s; and the one hardly ever went anywhere without the other.
School hours were from nine till one o’clock; and uncle was a strict
teacher, though by no means a hard task-master. Then the two of them had
all the rest of the long day to read books, to wander about and study
the great book of nature itself, to fish, or do whatsoever they pleased.
It must be said here that Uncle Robert was almost quite as much a boy at
heart as his little nephew. He was a good old-fashioned sailor, this
uncle of Tommy, and a man who never could grow old; because he loved
nature so, and nature never grows old: it is the same yesterday, to-day,
and for ever.
Uncle Robert was quite as good-natured as the big horse Glancer. But
Glancer drew the line at pebbles under his saddle. The best-tempered
horse in the world will draw the line at something or other. And uncle
was the same. If anyone wanted to annoy him they had only to mention
Tommy in a disparaging sort of way; then, like Glancer, Uncle Robert
buck-jumped at once.
So, on that particular evening--a wild and stormy one it was in the
latter end of April--when Tommy’s father talked about the improbability
of pigs flying, and Tommy’s brothers had all laughed, Uncle Robert had
felt a little nettled.
“Ah, you may laugh, lads,” he said, putting his paper down on his knee
and thrusting his spectacles up over his bald brow--“you may laugh,
lads, and you may talk, brother, but I tell you that there is more in
that boy than any of you are aware of; and mark my words, he is not
going to remain a child all his life. Boys will be men, and Tommy will
be Tom some day.”
Mrs. Talisker looked fondly over at her brother, and she really felt
grateful to him for taking her boy’s part.
Whoo--oo--oo! howled the wind round the chimney, and doors and windows
rattled as if rough hands were trying their fastenings. Every now and
then the snow and the fine hail were driven against the panes, with a
sound like that produced by the spray of an angry sea against frozen
canvas.
At this very time, away down in the midlands of England, spring winds
were softly blowing and the buds appearing on the trees; but on the west
coast of Scotland, where the farm of Craigielea was situated, winter
still held all the land, the moors, the lakes, and woods, firm in his
icy grasp.
To-night the moon had sunk early in a purple-blue haze--a new moon it
was, and looked through the mist like a Turkish scimitar wet with blood.
The stars had been bright for a short time afterwards. But the wind rose
roaring from the east, driving great dark clouds before it, that soon
swallowed everything else up. Then it was night in earnest.
Whoo--oo--oo! What a mournful sound it was, to be sure! You might have
imagined that wild wolves were howling round the house, and stranger
voices still rising high over the din of the raging storm.
Whoo--oo--oo!
“What a fearful night!” said Mrs. Talisker.
“Ay, sister,” said Uncle Robert; “it is blowing half a gale outside
to-night, I’ll warrant, and may be more.”
By “outside” he did not mean out of doors simply. It is a sailor’s
expression, and refers to the sea away beyond the harbour-mouth.
“It was on just such a night as this, sister, though not on such a cold
sea as that which is sweeping over our beach to-night, that the
_Southern Hope_ was lost on the shores of Ecuador. Heigho-ho! My dear
friend Captain Herbert has never been the same man since.
“And do you know, my dear, it happened exactly six years ago this very
night.”
“How very strange!” said Tommy’s mother.
“Strange, my dear? Not a bit of it. What is strange, and how should it
be strange--eh?”
“Oh, I meant, brother, that you should think of it. I believe that was
what I meant.”
“You’re not very sure. But let me tell you this, that there never does
pass a single 25th of February that I do not think of that fearful
shipwreck. Ay, girl, and pray too. I’ve been praying as I sat
here--praying with my eyes on the newspaper, when you all thought I was
reading it. You look at me, sister; and Tommy has woke up, and he is
looking at me too. Well, you little know how often old sailors like me
pray, and what strange things we do pray for, and how our prayers are
often heard. You see, sister, those who go down to the sea in ships, and
see the wonders of the Lord in the mighty deep, get a kind of used to
thinking more than shore-folks do. In many a dark black middle watch, we
are alone with the ocean, one might say, and that is like being in the
presence of the great Maker of all. Verily, sister, I think the waves on
such nights seem to talk to us, and tell us things that the ear of
landsman never listened to. No one could long lead the life of a sailor
and not be a believer. Do you mind, sister, that New Testament story of
our Saviour being at sea one night with some of his disciples, when a
great storm arose, and the craft was about to founder? How he was asleep
in the stern-sheets, how in an agony of terror they awoke him, how his
words ‘Peace, be still’ fell like oil on the troubled waters, and how
they all marvelled, saying, ‘What manner of man is this, that even the
wind and sea obey him?’
“Well, sister, I never knew nor felt the full meaning of those words
until I became a sailor. But sometimes on dreamy midnights, when
darkness and danger were all around us, I have in my thoughts accused
the ocean of remorselessness, the winds of cruelty; and, as I did so,
seemed to hear that answer come to me up from the black vastness, ‘We
obey Him.’ The winds sang it as they went shrieking through the rigging,
the waves sang it as they went toiling past: ‘We obey Him,’ ‘We obey
Him.’ Then have I turned my thoughts heavenward and been comforted,
knowing in whose good hands we all were.
“A sailor’s prayer, sister, on a night like this, while he sits
comfortably by the fireside, is for those in danger far at sea or on
some surf-tormented lee shore. But on this particular evening, on this
25th of February, I always add a prayer for my good old shipmate,
Captain Herbert--and may heaven give him peace.”
“Captain Herbert is still at sea, brother?”
“Ay, sister, and will be, if spared, for many a year. He seems unable to
rest on shore, although he is rich enough to retire. You see, he never
had but the one boy, Bernard; and, foolish as it may appear, he
cherishes the notion that he still lives, and that some day he will meet
him again.
“And never a strange sailor does he meet in any part of the world, or
any port of the world, but he questions concerning all his life and
adventures. More than once has my friend been thus led astray, and has
sailed to distant shores where he had heard some English lad was held
prisoner by Indians or savages. But all in vain.
“It was a sad story, you say, sister? Indeed, lass, it was. Shall I
repeat it?
“Well, stir the fire, Tommy, and make it blaze and crackle. How the
storm roars, to be sure.”
Whoo--oo--oo! Whoo--oo--oo! howled the wind again; but the fire only
burned the brighter, and the fireside looked the cheerier for the sound.
CHAPTER III.
“THE FEARFULNESS OF OUR SITUATION CAN HARDLY BE REALIZED.”
Uncle Robert sat for some little time with his eyes fixed on those
burning logs before he commenced to speak, the firelight flickering on
his face. But bygone scenes were being recalled, and events long past
were being re-enacted in his memory as he sat thus.
He spoke at length; quietly at first, dreamily almost, as if unconscious
of the presence of anyone near him, apparently addressing himself to no
one, unless it were to the faces in the fire:--
* * * * *
Six years!--six years ago, and only six, and yet it seems like a
lifetime, because I, who have been a rover and a wanderer since my
boyhood, have come to settle down on this peaceful farm. Yet I have
been happy, quietly happy, in my sister’s family, and with the
companionship of her dear children; but the afternoon of a sailor’s
existence must ever be a somewhat restless one. Like the sea over which
he has sailed so long, it is seldom he can be perfectly still. In spite
of himself he feels a longing at times to revisit scenes of former days,
and the lovely lands and sunny climes that time has hallowed and
softened till they resemble more the phantasies of some beautiful dream
than anything real and earthly.
A vision like this rises up before me even now, as I sit here. The
wintry winds are howling round the house, but I hear them not, nor noise
of hail or softer snow driving against the window panes. I am far away
from Scotland, I am in a land whose rocky shores are laved by the blue
rolling waves of the Pacific, I am in Ecuador. Ecuador! land of the
equator; land of equal day and night; land that the swift-setting sun
leaves to be plunged into darkness Cimmerian, or bathed in moonlight
more tranquil and lovely than poets elsewhere can ever dream of; land of
mighty mountains, whose snow-capped summits are lost in the blue vault
of heaven or buried in clouds of rolling mist; land of ever-blazing
volcanic fires, wreathing smoke, and muttering thunders; land of vast
plains and prairies; land of swamps that seem boundless; land of forests
whose depths are dark by daylight--forests that bathe the valleys, the
cañons, the glens with a foliage that is green, violet, and purple by
turns, darkling as they climb the hills half-way to their rugged crests;
land of waterfalls and foaming torrents, over which in the sunlight
rainbows play against the moss-grown rocks or beetling cliffs beyond;
land of mighty rivers, now sweeping through dreamy woods, now roaring
green over the lava rocks, now broadening out into peaceful lakes or
inland seas, with shores of silvery sand; land of tribal savages, wild
and warlike or peaceful and uncouth; land of the Amazons; land of the
fern, the moss, and the wild-flower; land of giant butterflies, with
wings of bronzy silken velvet, or wings of colours more radiant than the
humming-bird itself, or wings of transparent gauze that quiver and
shimmer in the sunlight like plates of mica; land of strange birds; land
of the vampire or blood-sucking bat, the tarantula, the centiped, and
many a creeping horror besides; land, too, of the condor, the puma, the
jaguar, the peccary, the tapir, the sloth, and agouti; land of romance,
and a history going back, back, back into the remotest regions of the
past;--truly a strange and wondrous land! I seem to see it all,
everything, among those blazing logs to-night.
I lived in Ecuador for many, many months. I roughed it with the Indians,
the Zaparos, the Napos, and Jivaros; I wandered over forest-land and
plain and by the banks of the streams; I hunted in the jungle and on
the prairies, and after escaping many a danger I returned to the
sea-coast, laden with skins and curios and a wealth of specimens that
would have made the eyes of a naturalist sparkle with very joy.
During all my long wanderings my servants had been faithful; and
although our lives had oftentimes been in danger from wild beasts and
wilder men, here we were once more at Guayaquil safe and sound.
I was lucky enough to find a small Spanish vessel to take me and my
treasures to Callao; and here, at this somewhat loud-smelling seaport,
my good star was once more in the ascendant; and though I had arrived
three weeks before my promised time, the _Southern Hope_ was lying
waiting for me.
My welcome on board was a very joyful and gratifying one. Captain
Herbert himself met me in the gangway, and behind him was little
Bernard. The boy was not content with shaking hands. He must jump
joyfully into my arms and up and on to my shoulder; and thus he rode me
aft to where good little Mrs. Herbert sat in her deck-chair nursing
baby, with Lala, her sable ayah, standing near.
“Now, don’t rise,” I cried. “I won’t permit it. How well you look, Mrs.
Herbert! The roses have quite returned to your once wan cheeks.”
“A nice compliment, Mr. Robert Sinclair,” she replied, smiling. “And you
too are looking well.”
“Have I got roses on my cheeks?” I said.
“Yes,” she said; “peony roses.”
“And how is baby?”
“O, look at her; isn’t she charming?”
I gave baby a finger, which she at once proceeded to eat with as much
relish as if she had been a young cannibal. And so our reunion was
complete. At dinner that day we were all exceedingly happy and full of
mirth and fun. We had so much to tell each other, too; for during my
sojourn in Ecuador the _Southern Hope_ had been on a long cruise among
the Pacific islands, where everything had seemed so strange and
delightfully foreign to both Captain and Mrs. Herbert, that, they told
me, it was like being in another world.
The steward--I have good reason for mentioning this--was most assiduous
in his attentions at table that day. He was a short, broad-shouldered,
strong-jawed, half-caste Spaniard, exceedingly clever, as Mrs. Herbert
assured me, but possessed of those dark shifty eyes that seem unable to
trust anyone, or to inspire trust in others.
When dessert was put on the table--a dessert of such fruits as princes
in England could not procure--Mrs. Herbert motioned to him that he might
now retire. He only smiled and shrugged his shoulders in reply, and
presently he was entirely forgotten.
So our conversation rattled on. I told my adventures much to the delight
of every one, but especially to that of our young mate and little
Bernard, although the child was barely seven years of age.
“And those mysterious boxes, Mr. Sinclair,” said Mrs. Herbert, “when
will you open those?”
“O, not before we get to San Francisco; when, you know, I must leave you
all, and make my way home overland.”
From this reply, it will be understood that I was but a passenger on the
_Southern Hope_. I was travelling, indeed, for pleasure and health
combined, but had been altogether nearly a year and a half in this
hitherto happy ship; which had been baby’s birthplace, for little Oceana
was born on the ocean wave. Hence her name, which we always pronounced
’Theena.
“No, my dear Mrs. Herbert,” I continued, “those boxes contain greater
treasures than ever were brought from the diamond mines of Golconda;
treasures more beautiful, and rarer far than all the gold in rich Peru.”
“Well, Robert,” said the captain laughing heartily, “they are heavy
enough for anything; and by St. George and merry England, my friend, you
do well to keep such treasures in your own cabin.”
I was at that moment engaged fashioning some marvellous toy for Bernard
from a piece of orange peel, but happening to look up I found the evil,
sinister eyes of Roderigo the steward fixed on me with a look I did not
half like.
I took occasion that same evening to ask Mrs. Herbert some particulars
of this man’s history; for he had not been in the ship when I left it.
She had little to tell me. James, the old steward, had run away or
mysteriously disappeared somehow or other at Callao, and the very next
day this Roderigo had applied for the situation. Captain Herbert had
waited for his steward for a whole week; but as there were no signs of
his coming, and no trace of him on shore, it was concluded he had gone
to Lima. So, as he seemed eminently fitted for the duties of the post,
the half-caste Spaniard was installed in his place. He proved to be all
they could desire, Mr. Herbert continued, although he certainly was not
handsome; but he was very fond of Bernard, and doated on baby ’Theena. I
asked no more, but I felt far from content or easy in my mind.
We left Callao at last, and proceeded on our voyage to San Francisco.
The _Southern Hope_ was a good sea vessel; so our voyage was favourable,
though the winds were light until we reached the equator, which we
crossed in baffling winds, about 85° west longitude. We soon got
enveloped in dense wet fogs, and for days it was all but a dead calm. A
breeze sprang up at last, however, and we kept on our course, and by and
by the sky cleared and we saw the sun.
None too soon; for not ten miles to the east of us loomed the rocky
cliffs of Northern Ecuador. They could be none other, yet why were we
here?
Captain Herbert could not understand it for a time. He was as good a
sailor as ever stood down the English Channel or crossed the far-famed
Bay of Biscay. He was not left long in doubt, however.
There was villainy on board. Treachery had been at work, and the compass
had been tampered with.
It was about two bells in the afternoon watch when he made the
discovery. I heard him walking rapidly up and down the deck first, as
some sailors do when deep in thought. Then he came below.
“Are your pistols all ready?” he said to me.
“Yes,” I answered; “but I sincerely hope there will be no need of them.”
Then he told me what he had discovered, and that he felt sure mutiny was
intended.
He broke the news as gently as possible to his wife, and gave orders
that she should keep to the cabin with the ayah and the children.
Then he and I went on deck together.
As I passed the steward’s pantry I tried the door. It was locked, and I
could see through the jalousies that no one was inside.
My doubts of the half-caste had become certainties.
“Call all hands, and let the men lay aft, mate!”
This was Herbert’s stern command.
“Ay, ay, sir,” came the cheerful reply.
The _Southern Hope_ was but a moderate-sized ship, and our men, all
told, were but nineteen hands.
The mate’s sonorous voice and the sound of his signalling boot on the
deck could easily be heard all over the ship.
Captain Herbert and I waited uneasily and impatiently by the binnacle.
His face was very pale, but firm and set, and I knew he would fight to
the death, if fighting there was going to be.
Alas! we were not left long in doubt as to the exact position of
affairs. Out of all the crew--which were mostly a mixed class of
foreigners--only five lay aft.
“Where are the others?” shouted the captain.
Groaning and yelling came from below forward as a reply.
“The men have mutinied,” said the mate.
The words had scarcely left his lips ere, headed by Roderigo himself,
the mutineers rushed on deck.
“You wanted us to lay aft,” cried Roderigo. “Here we are. What do you
want, Mr. Herbert, for I am captain now?”
Before the captain could reply, either by word of mouth or ring of
pistol-shot, the mate had felled the steward with a capstan-bar. It was
a blow that might have killed a puma; but, though bleeding like an ox,
the half-caste drew his knife as he lay on deck, and next moment had
sprung on the first officer as a jaguar springs on a deer.
The fight now became general; but in a very few minutes the mutineers
were triumphant. Our mate was slain; while, whether dead or alive, the
other poor fellows who had so nobly stuck by us were heaved into the
sea.
A worse fate was probably intended for Captain Herbert and myself; but
meanwhile, our hands were tied, and we were led to the after-cabin and
there locked up. No one came near us all that afternoon, nor was there
any sound that could give us even an inkling as to the fate of poor Mrs.
Herbert, the children, and the ayah. Had they been murdered or even
molested, we surely should have heard shrieks or appeals for mercy.
I did my best to keep up my companion’s heart, but there were moments
when I thought he would lose his very reason in the depth of his
despair.
About an hour afterwards it was quite dark, and we could tell from the
singing and roystering forward that the mutineers had broken into the
spirit-room and were having a debauch. It had come on to blow too, and
the motion of the vessel was uneasy and jerking. Evidently she was being
badly steered, and an effort was also being made to shorten sail.
The storm increased till it blew all but a gale. Some sails had been
rent in ribbons, and the noise of the flapping was like that of rifle
platoon firing.
I was standing close by the cabin door, my ear anxiously drinking in
every sound, when suddenly I was thrown violently on the deck, and by
the dreadful grating and bumping noises under us we could tell that the
vessel had struck heavily on a rock. Almost at the same moment there was
the noise of falling spars and crashing wreck. Then a lull, succeeded by
the sound of rushing footsteps overhead and cries of “Lower away the
boats!”
The fearfulness of our situation after this can hardly be realized.
Nothing was now to be heard except the roar of the winds and the
thumping of the great seas against the vessel’s sides. Hopeless as we
were, we longed for her to break up. Had she parted in two we felt that
we could have rejoiced. Death by drowning would not seem so terrible, I
thought, could we but see the stars above us or even feel the wind in
our faces; but to die shut up thus in the darkness like rats in a hole
was too dreadful to think of--it was maddening!
In the midst of our despair, and just as we were beginning to think the
end could not be far off, we heard a voice outside in the fore-cabin.
“Husband! husband!” it cried in pitiful tones; “where are you?”
“Here! here!” we both shouted in a breath.
Next minute a light shone glimmering through the keyhole, and we knew
Mrs. Herbert had lit the lamp.
Then an axe was vigorously applied to our prison door, and in a short
time we were free.
Mrs. Herbert had fainted in her husband’s arms.
She slowly recovered consciousness, and then could tell us all she knew.
The mutineers had rifled the ship; they had broken open my cabin and
boxes, expecting to find treasure, and as soon as the vessel struck had
lowered the boats and left the ship.
But where was Bernard?
And where was the ayah?
Alas! neither could be found. And from that day to this their fate is a
mystery.
The storm was little more, after all, than a series of tropical squalls.
The vessel did not break up just then, and when daylight broke the sea
all around us was as calm and blue as baby ’Theena’s eyes.
In the course of the day we managed to rig a raft and thereby reach the
shore.
It was a wild and desolate beach on which we landed, and glad we were to
find even the huts of Indians in which to shelter.
There we lived for three long weeks, making many trips in the canoes of
the Indians to the ship, and bringing on shore as many of the
necessaries of life as we could find.
But alas! the loss of Bernard and the terror of that terrible night had
done their work on poor Mrs. Herbert. She gradually sunk and died.
We buried her near the beach on that strange wild shore, and raised a
monument over the grave, roughly built in the form of a cross, from
green lava rocks.
Our adventures after that may be briefly told.
The ship did not break up for many weeks, and where the carrion is there
cometh the “hoody crow.” The first coasting vessel that found out the
wreck plundered it, and sailed away leaving us to perish for aught they
cared. But with the captain of the next we managed to come to terms, and
the promise of a handsome reward secured us a passage to Callao, and
there we found a Christian ship and in due time arrived in England.
* * * * *
“And what about Bernard?” said Tommy with eager eyes.
“The mystery about Bernard still remains, dear boy. He may be living
somewhere yet in the interior of Ecuador, or he may have been taken away
by some passing ship, or--and this is my own opinion--he is dead.”
“And the baby ’Theena is living, isn’t she?” said Alicia.
“She was, dear, when last I heard of her, and the father too is well.
Heigh-ho! I wonder if he knows I am thinking about him to-night, and
telling his strange story and my own?”
Whoo--oo--oo! roared the storm. The wind-wolves still shrieked around
the house. But suddenly Laird Talisker lifts a finger as if to command
silence.
All listen intensely.
“That is something over and above the ‘howthering’ of the gale,” he
says. “Hark!”
Rising unmistakably above the din of the storm-wind could now be heard
the barking of dogs, as if in anger.
“Someone is coming undoubtedly,” says Uncle Robert.
Then the door opens and old Mawsie the housekeeper enters, looking so
scared that the borders of the very cap or white linen mutch she wore
seem to stand straight out as if starched.
“What _can_ be the matter, Mawsie?” asks the laird.
“O, sir!” gasps old Mawsie, “on this awfu’ nicht--through the snaw and
the howtherin’ wind-storm--a carriage and pair drives up to the door,
and a gentleman wi’ a bonnie wee lady alichts--”
What more Mawsie would have said may never be known, for at that moment
straight into the room walk the arrivals themselves, and in his
eagerness to get towards them Uncle Robert knocks over his chair, and
the long stool on which the boys are sitting goes down with it, boys and
all.
“By all that is curious!” cries Uncle Robert, giving a hand to each.
“However did you come here? Talk of angels and lo! they appear.”
He shakes Captain Herbert by the hand as if he had determined to
dislocate his elbow, and he fairly hugs little ’Theena in his arms.
“And this is baby,” he cries to Tommy’s mother, “and here is good old
Captain Herbert himself. Why, this is the most joyful 25th of February I
ever do remember.”
CHAPTER IV.
AMONG THE WOODS OF CRAIGIELEA.
With the arrival of Captain Herbert and little ’Theena a fresh gleam of
sunshine appeared to have fallen athwart our young hero’s pathway in
life.
As he sat in his corner that evening thoughtfully gazing on her sweet
face, while her father and his uncle kept talking together as old
friends and old sailors will, Tommy thought he had never seen anything
on earth so lovely before, and albeit he was about half afraid of her he
made up his mind to fall in love with her as early as possible. He
really was not quite certain yet, however, that he might not be
dreaming. Had he fallen asleep again, he wondered, after Uncle Robert
had finished his story? and was ’Theena but a vision? She looked so
ethereal and so like a fairy child that he could not help giving his own
arm a sly pinch to find out whether he really was awake or not. He did
feel that pinch, so it must be all right.
Next he wondered if his two big brothers would appropriate ’Theena
almost exclusively to themselves while she stayed here. He determined to
circumvent them, however. He had a hut and a home in the wild woods not
far from the romantic ruin of Craigie Castle, and he felt sure that
’Theena would be delighted with this hermitage of his. She did not look
very strong, but she would soon be rosier. He would wander through the
woods and wilds and cull posies of wild-flowers, and by the sea-shore
and gather shells for her--shells as prettily pink as those delicate
ears of hers. What a pity, he thought, that it was still winter! But
never mind, spring would come, and he knew where nearly all the
song-birds dwelt and built. And O! by the way, ’Theena’s eyes were as
blue as the eggs of the accentor or hedge-sparrow. Even deeper, they
were more like the blue of the pretty wee germander speedwell that
before two months were past would be peeping up through the grass by the
hedge-foot. Then further on there would be the wild blue hyacinth and
the blue-bells of Scotlands (the hare-bell of English waysides), and the
bugloss and milk-wort and succory--all of them more or less like
’Theena’s eyes--and a score of others besides, he could find and fashion
into garlands.
’Theena smiled so sweetly when she bade him good-night, and was upon the
whole so self-possessed and lady-like, that the boy felt infinitely
beneath her in every way. But that did not matter; he would improve day
by day, he felt certain enough on this point. So he went off to bed, and
dreamed that he and ’Theena were up in a balloon together, sailing
through the blue sky, and that down beneath them was spread out just
such a romantic land as that of Ecuador, which his uncle had described.
It was more like a scene of enchantment than anything else. But lo! even
as he gazed in rapture from the car of the balloon, it entered a region
of rolling clouds and snow mists; it became darker and darker, the gloom
was only lit up by the hurtling fires of terrible volcanoes, while all
around the thunders pealed and lightnings flashed. Then the balloon
seemed to collapse, and after a period of falling, falling, falling that
felt interminable, suddenly the sun shone once more around them--’Theena
was still by his side--and they found themselves in a kind of earthly
arboreal and floral paradise. Near them stood a tall and handsome young
man, dressed, however, like a savage, and armed with bow and arrow.
He advanced, smiling, to the spot where they stood, and extending a hand
to each:
“Dear sister and brother,” he said, “do you not know me? Behold I am the
long-lost Bernard!”
Then Tommy awoke and found it was daylight, and that the robin was
singing on his windowsill expectant of crumbs.
* * * * *
Spring came all at one glad bound to the fields and woods of Craigielea
this year.
Three weeks had passed away since the night Tommy had dreamt that
strange dream. Captain Herbert had gone south. He would sail round the
world before he returned to Craigielea to take his “little lass,” as he
called ’Theena, away with him again. Meanwhile he knew she would be well
cared for, and grow bigger and stronger.
Tommy’s brothers had made no attempt, or very little of an attempt, to
win ’Theena over. True, Jack had mounted her once or twice on Glancer;
but Glancer, knowing the responsibility of such a charge, could not be
induced to break even into a decent trot. So Jack got tired of ’Theena,
and told her she might never expect to make a cow-boy.
And Dick could not get the girl to race, or play cricket or hockey,
though he tried hard; and she was not even good at climbing trees nor
riding on fences, and was positively afraid of Towsie, the white,
shorthorn bull, because he had red eyes and tore up the ground with a
fore-foot, while he bellowed like distant thunder.
“It’s no good, Jack,” said Dick; “we couldn’t make anything of ’Theena
if we tried ever so long.”
“I don’t think so, Dick,” was Jack’s reply. “Besides, what is the use of
girls anyhow?”
“Not much. I really want to know what they are put into the world for at
all.”
“Well,” said Jack, “we’ll give her up, won’t we? Little Cinderella can
have her for a plaything, can’t he?”
“Yes, Jack, she’ll just suit little Cinderella.” This was the name his
brothers always called Tommy by, because he always sat by his sister’s
knee close to the fire, and looked at it for hours.
“Dick,” said Jack, “there’s nothing like boys, is there?”
“Nothing much.”
“And there’s nobody like you and me. Hurrah! come and give me a leg up
to mount Glancer, and just see me clear that farther fence. Besides,
I’ve got a new way of making Glancer buck-jump. Hurrah, Dick! Cow-boys
for ever!”
As the two went tearing along towards the paddock where Glancer was
browsing, they met Tommy and ’Theena on their way to the woods. Tommy
had a fishing-basket on his back, ’Theena carried the rod. Tommy had a
bow and arrows besides, and ’Theena carried a real Arab spear.
“Hullo, Cinderella!” shouted Dick.
“Hurrah, Cinder!” cried Jack. “Why, where ever are you off to with all
that gear?”
“We’re going to the hermitage,” said Tommy proudly. “I’m the Hermit
Hunter of the Wilds.”
“Ha, ha, ha!” from both the bigger boys.
“And,” continued Tommy, “we’re going to play at wild man in the woods;
and we’re going to gather flowers, and find birds’-nests, and fish in
the Craigieburn, and perhaps go for a sail on the sea.”
“Ha, ha, ha! Well, don’t you dare to fall in anywhere and drown your
little self,” said Jack; “else you will catch it. Good-bye, Cinder. Take
care of baby. Good-bye, Eenie-’Theenie.”
And away went Dick and Jack whooping.
“I don’t love your brothers much,” said ’Theena, almost crying. “What
makes them call you Cinder?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure, ’Theena; but I don’t mind it if you don’t.”
“I shall call you Tom.”
“Thank you; but really I don’t mind, you know, and if you would
prefer--”
“No, no, no. I don’t like Cinderella. You’re not a girl.”
“O, no. I’m a boy, and Uncle Robert says I shall soon be a man. Wouldn’t
you like to be a boy, ’Theena?”
“Yes, dearly.”
“It would be so nice if you were. We could have even better fun than we
have now, and you would be able to get up trees, and shoot, and do
everything I do.”
Talking thus they reached the great pine-wood, and entered among the
trees. In this silent forest-land there was not a morsel of undergrowth,
only the withered needles that had fallen from the pines and larches and
formed a thick soft carpet. And the great tree-stems went towering
skywards, brown for the pines, gray for the larches, till they ended far
above in a canopy of darkest green that would hardly admit a ray of
sunshine without breaking it all up into little patches of gold and
silver.
’Theena felt somewhat afraid now, and crept closer to Tom, who took her
hand, and thus they wandered on and on. And very small the two of them
looked among those giant timber trees.
“You’re not _very_ much afraid, are you?” said Tom. “You needn’t be, you
know, for I’m the Hermit Hunter of the Wilds, and could protect you
against anything; and Connie here would protect us both.”
Connie was the long-haired collie dog, who followed his master
everywhere like his shadow.
“You could shoot straight with your bow and arrow, couldn’t you, Tom, if
any wild beast came upon us?”
“O, very straight.”
They were following a tiny beaten path that led them through the
pine-wood. But it also led them up and up, and sometimes it was so steep
that they had to scramble on their hands and knees.
By and by the pines gave place to silver-stemmed birch-trees, with
shimmering, shivering leaves that reflected the sunshine in all
directions. The perfume from these trees was delightful in the extreme.
They reached a clearing at last, where the heather grew green all round,
and where there were lichen-clad stones to sit upon. Here one or two
large and lovely lizards were basking, and a splendid green speckled
snake went gliding away at their approach. Tom, being a Highland lad,
was not afraid of either snakes or lizards. Neither was ’Theena; for
though she was only seven years old she had been in strange countries
with her papa, and had seen far bigger snakes and lizards too than any
we have in Scotland.
Having rested for a short time, they resumed their upward journey, and
soon came to a little table-land about an acre in extent, and near it,
in the shelter of a tall gray rock, with drooping birch-trees, and
broom, and whins, lo! the hermitage and woodland home of the Hermit
Hunter.
What a business the making of this hut had been, nobody ever knew except
Tommy himself, Uncle Robert, and the collie dog Connie.
But now that it was made, it looked a very complete dwelling indeed,
just such as a Crusoe would have delighted to live in.
’Theena was overjoyed.
“O!” she cried, “I would love to stay here always; a table and cupboard,
and real seats, and real plates and things, and a window, and books and
all! I can’t read much, can you?”
“Yes,” said Tom. “Uncle taught me. He teaches me always up here in
summer, and he shall teach you too.”
After ’Theena had admired everything sufficiently long, they commenced
to climb again, and soon rose out of the greenery of the woods entirely,
high up the hill into the very sky itself; and, wonderful to say, here
was a noble castle, though now but little more than a ruin.
“My ancestors,” said Tommy proudly, “once dwelt here, and they were
great soldiers and warriors. Dick and Jack don’t care anything about
ancestors; but I do, Theena. And do you know what I am going to do?”
“No,” said ’Theena.
“After I grow a big man, I mean.”
“Yes, after you grow a big man.”
“Well, I’m going to make lots of money first, you know. For I shall be a
sailor, and sail away to strange countries where the gold lies in heaps
in the woods and wilds, watched over by terrible dragons.”
“Yes, Tom, I suppose there would be dragons.”
“Well, I shall kill the dragons, and bring away, O, ever so much gold!
Then I will sail home in my ship, and I shall furnish this castle all
splendid and new again, with beautiful furniture and pictures, and all
sorts of nice things. O, but stop, there is something I am going to do
before then.”
“Yes, Tom, something to do before then.”
“I’m going to find your brother Bernard.”
“O, that would be nice!”
“Yes, very. And I’ll bring him home, and we’ll all live happy here in
this splendid castle; your father and my father, and mother, and uncle,
and Bernard, and Alicia, and Connie and all.”
“Will your brothers be here too?”
“N--no, I think it better not, perhaps. Of course Dugald would be at the
farm, and we could see him sometimes, but Dick and Jack better go away
and preach and be a cow-boy.”
“And then,” said ’Theena, “they would never call you Cinder any more.
But how very nice it will all be. And O, Tom, look at the waves!”
From the window of the room in which they stood the view was grand and
imposing. Hills and rocks and woods on one side, the lovely glen on the
other, and down yonder, stretching away and away to the illimitable
horizon, the blue Atlantic dotted here and there with white sails, with
one or two steamers in the far offing, ploughing their way northwards,
and leaving their trailing wreaths of smoke and long white wakes.
And up from the woods beneath them came a chorus of bird songs. The
mellow fluting of the blackbird, the sweat clear notes of the mavis, and
bold bright lilt of chaffinch. Nearer still the linnet perched on the
whin-bush, and high, high in air, dimly seen against a white fleecy
cloud, but easily heard, was the laverock itself.
And the bright pure sunshine was over everything; glittering on the
rippling sea, sparkling on the mountain-tops where the snow still lay,
patching the woods with light and shadow, heightening the green of moss
and heather, changing the streams into threadlets of silver, spreading
out the petals of half-open flowers, the gowans on the lea, goldilocks
by the meadow’s brink, awakening the bees, and causing ten thousand,
thousand rainbow-coloured insects to join in the song of gladness that
rose everywhere on this lovely spring morning, from nature to nature’s
God.
Tom and his companion stood long enough at the window to drink in the
essence of the glorious scene, but no longer. The day was young, and
they were young. There was a moping owl up in the ivy yonder; they would
leave the ruined castle to him, while they should go forth and mingle
with, and become part and parcel of, all the light and loveliness that
made up the day.
“Come, ’Theena, we mustn’t keep the fish waiting. Come, Connie; and you
must not go and bathe and splash to-day in the stream where we are
fishing. ’Theena, I want to get a basket full to the top with such trout
that will make Dick and Jack want to kick themselves with jealousy.”
And off they went, and no one saw either of them again till the sun was
going down behind the sea, and changing the waves into billows of blood.
CHAPTER V.
“THE WHOLE WORLD IS FULL OF CHANGES.”
“Well,” said Uncle Robert one morning some time after this, “if anybody
twenty years ago had prophesied that I should become a schoolmaster in
my declining years, I should have laughed at him. But come, there is no
help for it, and by good luck I’ve got two of the dearest and best
little pupils that ever any teacher could desire.”
Perhaps, though, no boy or girl either was ever taught on so delightful
a system before. For, every morning after breakfast--well rolled in
fear-nothing plaids if it happened to be raining--Uncle Robert, with Tom
and ’Theena, took their way towards the pine-wood and the hermitage. If
Dick and Jack happened to be about when they started, they were sure to
give them a hail.
“Good-bye, Eenie-’Theenie,” Dick would cry.
“Fare thee well, Old Cinder,” Jack would shout.
And Uncle Robert would pretend to growl like an old sea-lion, and shake
his stick at the pair of them as they scampered off, looking nearly all
legs, like the figures on the old Manx pennies.
Young as Tommy was, he had a very complete knowledge of geography, and
even a smattering of navigation; for he had declared his intention of
becoming a sailor, and nothing else. But this knowledge of his was not
such as you learn in books alone; but from books, and maps, and charts,
and the big globe itself. Tommy actually knew and felt he was _in_ the
world, and not inside the cover of a book. And if you asked him where
any country was he pointed in the direction of it at once, taking his
bearings as it were by the sun or stars, and the time of day or night
it happened to be at the time the question was put.
Their school was the hermitage in the woods, and here they laboured away
most earnestly all the forenoon. Then they laid aside their books, and
while uncle and ’Theena went outside to squat on the green-sward,
Tom--we shall not call him Tommy any more--got ready the luncheon. A
very simple repast it was--cheese and cake, and creamy milk.
Then uncle would light his pipe and perhaps tell a story, and after this
they started off in pursuit of pleasure.
Were there not fish in the rivers, and shells by the sea-shore, and
wondrous creatures of fur and feather in the woods and on the hills,
beautiful insects everywhere, and wild-flowers everywhere?
So passed one summer quickly away; and another summer and another winter
after that, and now Tom was thirteen and ’Theena was nine and over. Tom
was a man, at least he thought he was; and now, dearly though he loved
his old home, an almost irresistible longing took possession of him to
go to sea--to sail away and see the world and all that is in it.
For Tom was already a sailor. One might hardly think this possible,
until told that for a year and more hardly a fine day dawned that did
not see Uncle Robert and him, and as often as not little ’Theena also,
afloat in uncle’s little yacht-boat. This saucy wee craft had been a
man-o’-war’s cutter, sold as unfit for further service. But Uncle Robert
had bought her, and had her brought round to the bay of Craigie, and
there turned bottom upwards in old Dem Harrison’s boat-shed. And between
the pair of them, aided by Tom and ’Theena, who did the looking-on, they
soon made the hull seaworthy.
No flimsy work either. Wherever a plank was in the slightest degree
decayed, it was taken out and a light, hard new one put in; the very
best of copper nails being used, and nothing else. Then she was painted
inside and out. This done, she was “whomeld,” as old Dem called it--that
is, turned right side up; and so they proceeded to put a raised deck
upon her, and step a nice raking mast with fore-and-aft mainsail and
topsail and jibs to match. Fine big jibs they were too; honest spreads
of canvas, having no resemblance to either a baby’s blanket or a biscuit
sack. The wee yacht had an excellent rudder also, and a false keel that
could be raised or lowered at pleasure, or to suit circumstances.
You must understand that the _Oceana_, as she was called, after ’Theena,
had the most darling little saloon it is possible to imagine. To be
sure, Uncle Robert looked a bit crowded in it; but when Tom and ’Theena
were there by themselves, with only uncle’s legs dangling down the
companion as he sat steering, the place seemed just made for them. There
was a couch at each side, supported by lockers, and prettily upholstered
in crimson. There was a lamp in gimbals to burn at night, a natty little
locker containing all sorts of dishes and all kinds of dainties, and
brackets in the corners with pockets for flowers, and sconces for
coloured candles; besides a rack for arms and fishing-gear; while the
white paint, the gilding, and the mirrors completed the picture and made
the place double the size it really was.
Just imagine if you can how delicious it was to go sailing away over the
summer seas in a fairy-like yacht such as the _Oceana_--the blue above
and the blue below, white-winged gulls tacking and half-tacking in the
air around. Perhaps a shoal of porpoises in the offing, and great
jelly-fishes floating everywhere in the water like animated parasols.
They were entirely independent of the land when once fairly afloat; for
the _Oceana_ was well provisioned, and had over and above all her other
stores a tiny library of the most readable books of adventure and
poetry.
No, it was little wonder that Tom became a sailor under so pleasant a
captain as Uncle Robert, and on board so fairy-like a yacht.
But neither on shore was Tom’s nautical studies neglected; for in a room
of uncle’s cottage was situated a huge toy ship, which he had built and
rigged himself, and which he and his pupils often dismantled and rigged
up again. Full rigged she was, with every spar, bolt, and stay in its
proper place--a very model of perfection.
But the most curious thing I have to relate is that ’Theena learned
every branch of the seafarer’s craft quite as readily as, and even more
quickly than, Tom himself. Born and brought up at sea, she appeared to
take to everything intuitively.
Taking it all in all, both Uncle Robert and his pupils enjoyed
themselves very much, indeed, both on shore and afloat; but whether most
on shore or most afloat, it would have been difficult to say.
“My dear children,” said uncle one day at the hermitage, just as they
had finished luncheon and were preparing for a long ramble--“my dear
children, I shall miss you very much when you go away. I expect I’ll
begin to get old very quickly after that.”
“Dear unky,” said Tom, “you are never going to grow old. Don’t you
believe it.”
“And we are never going to grow any older either, unky,” said ’Theena.
Uncle Robert laughed.
“Well,” he said, “I should have no objections to make a bargain of that
sort with old Father Time if we could fall in with him. But, my dears,
changes will come, you know. The whole world is full of changes, and
the whole universe too for that matter. And you, Tom, will be going away
to sea, and ’Theena will have to go to school. I might make a sailor of
her, but, bother me if I could teach her the piano and dancing and the
like of that, unless it were a hornpipe such as the sailors dance on a
Saturday night. Yes, my dears, changes must and will come.”
Black Tom came up at this moment and began rubbing his great head
against the boy’s arm as he lay on the grass. Black Tom was a cat, and a
very wonderful specimen he was; elephantic in size as far as the term
could be applied to any grimalkin, with an enormous broad and
honest-looking face of his own. He was probably not more than two years
of age at this time; but Tom--the boy Tom--had saved his life when he
was little more than full-grown. It was quite a little adventure for the
young Hermit Hunter of the Wilds. As far as could be known, the cat had
attempted the abduction of a young or puppy-fox, but the mother coming
home in time a furious battle had ensued. The hermit came up at the very
moment the fox had scored victory, and was proceeding to break the cat
up, as some day the dogs might break her up. But a well-directed arrow
from Tom’s cross-bow sent her yelping to her den, and then the boy
picked up the half-dead cat and carried him to the hermitage. He
recovered after a few weeks of careful nursing; and since then, wherever
the boy went the cat followed, all through the woods and over the hills,
and even out to sea in the _Oceana_ yacht. Boy and cat were inseparable,
and throughout the length and breadth of the parish they were known to
everybody as “the two Toms.” When at peace, Tom the cat was very
contented-looking, though no great beauty, his shoulder and head having
been terribly scarred in that encounter with the fox; but he could be
very fierce when he pleased. He tolerated Connie the collie dog, and
even slept in his arms; but if any strange dog came into the hut Tom
mounted his back and rode him out, whacking him all the way.
* * * * *
Changes must and will come. Yes, and changes came to all about
Craigielea before very long. First and foremost Dick went away to
Oxford. He had a cousin there who would look after him while at college,
and, as Uncle Robert phrased it, put him up to the ropes.
Then an American farmer called at Craigielea and stayed for a week,
telling very wonderful stories indeed about life and adventures in the
sunny south of the United States, to all of which Jack listened with
open-mouthed earnestness. And when this farmer went away he left poor
Mrs. Talisker in tears, for her dear boy Jack went away with him.
Dear boy Jack did not himself take on much about the matter, however.
Indeed, though he did manage to screw a tear or two out when saying
good-bye to his mother and Alicia, there certainly were no tears in his
eyes as he parted with Tom.
“Ta, ta, Old Cinder!” he said, shaking his brother’s hand. “Take care of
yourself, my Cinder; and if ever you are out our way drop round and see
us, and I’ll let you ride a buck-jumper that will toss you half-way to
the moon. Ta, ta! Be good.”
The old farm was a deal quieter after Dick and Jack had gone. There was
far less whooping, or barking of dogs, or cracking of whips. Uncle
Robert said the place was not the same at all.
Then came another change. For Captain Herbert walked into the house one
forenoon as quietly and coolly as if he had not been from home for over
a week. This caused the greatest change of all, for Tom had to get ready
for sea at once. His uncle took him straight away to Glasgow to get his
outfit; and when the boy was rigged out in his pilot suit, with gilt
buttons and cap with badge and band, very natty and neat he looked.
’Theena was very proud of him now; but at the same time she was very
sad, for those brass buttons and that blue pilot-jacket meant separation
for many and many a long day.
When Tom awoke one morning and looked out of his window he could see a
beautiful black painted barque lying at anchor in the bay, with tall
tapering spars shining white in the sunlight, as if they had been formed
of satin-wood. Then Tom knew that his time had come.
He was not very elated about it at first. It was so sudden; and I do
trust the reader will not think him any the less brave when I confess
that he sat down beside the window and indulged in the luxury of a good
cry. For remember that the boy was not very old yet. No; and I have
known many much older boys than he shed tears at the prospect of leaving
home.
He was to sail on the very next morning; and that day he and ’Theena
went to take one last look at the hermitage and the old castle, and the
woods and wilds generally. And Tom the cat followed them and kept close
by his master all the way.
“Poor fellow!” said the boy, stooping down to caress his favourite; “he
seems to know we are to be parted.”
“Purr-rrn!” said Tom the cat. That was all he could say, but there was
more in it than either the boy or ’Theena understood just then.
“Mind,” said Tom to ’Theena, as they stood together at the window of the
old castle overlooking the woods and the sea, “I am going to come back
rich and bring your brother with me.”
“I don’t care so much for my brother as for you,” said ’Theena candidly.
“You know you are my brother now.”
“Yes,” answered Tom abstractedly.
Then hand in hand they went down the hill and through the woods and
forest, and so back home again.
Tom’s mother came to see him to bed this last sad night, and sat long
with him in the moonlight giving him good advice--the best of which was
that he was to read the little Bible she gave him every night, and never
to forget to pray.
The bustle of starting saved everybody next day from making much display
of grief, and everybody was thankful accordingly. Only poor little
’Theena was half frantic, and could hardly tear herself away from the
only brother she had ever known or loved--that is, as far as she could
remember.
But the parting was all over at last; and when the sun sank slowly
behind the waves that night the _Caledonia_ was far away on the western
waters, ploughing her way southward, with the coast of Ireland a long
distance on the weather-bow.
Tom was to be apprentice, and, as he was the only one on board, he
messed in the saloon along with Captain Herbert and the first and second
mate.
The boy had knocked about too long in his uncle’s little yacht to feel
the effects of the ship’s motion in the shape of sea-sickness, so he sat
down to supper that evening in very good spirits and with a healthy
appetite.
They were just about to commence that meal, when in at the saloon door,
with tail erect and something like a smile on his broad face, walked Tom
the black cat.
“Purr-rrn!” he said well-pleasedly as he jumped on his master’s knee and
rubbed his head against the boy’s chest.
Tom was too much surprised to speak, but the captain and mates laughed
heartily.
“A stowaway!” said the former.
“Yes,” said Tom. “I have no idea how he got on board.”
“Well, never mind. I’ll wager a shilling he will bring us good luck.”
Black Tom was henceforth installed as ship’s cat; and the men were all
most kind to him, for every sailor of them knew that though black cats
will bring good luck to a ship, nevertheless if ill treated or lost
overboard, the luck is sure to turn.
CHAPTER VI.
“RUN, RUN!” CRIED TOM; “THE MAN MUST NOT DIE YET!”
It is not often that the lines of young sailor-lads fall in such
pleasant places as did those of Tom Talisker on first going to sea. To
begin with, he had no extra rough work to do, as is too often the case
with apprentices, and even midshipmen, on first going afloat--scrubbing
and scraping all day long, their hands in a bucket of tar one minute,
and in a bucket of “slush” the next.
“Make a man of my lad,” had been about the last words of Uncle Robert to
his friend Captain Herbert; and that honest old tar had proceeded to do
so forthwith, not on the old plan of first breaking a boy’s heart, and
then making a bully of him if he survived it. No, the captain put Tom
into the second mate’s watch, with a request that he should do the best
he could for the lad; and as Holborn himself, as this officer was
called, was an excellent sailor, and a kindly-hearted though somewhat
rough and uncouth individual, he set about putting Tom up to the ropes
without loss of time.
Captain Herbert himself superintended the lad’s book-studies, so on the
whole he was well off; and it is no wonder, therefore, that before he
had been to sea for three years he was able to reef, steer, and do his
duty both on deck and below almost as well as Holborn could.
But all this time the _Caledonia_ had never once been back to England.
For Captain Herbert was quite a wandering Jew of a sailor, and the
reasons for this are not far to seek. First and foremost, he had never
yet given up hopes that he would one day find his lost son, and he
certainly left no stone unturned to bring about so wished-for an event.
Secondly, he was his own master, the barque he sailed being his own
property. And thirdly, it paid him to keep going from country to
country, as long as there was no real necessity for docking the ship.
Not that he valued riches for his own sake, but for the sake of ’Theena
and the son he ne’er again might look upon.
If Tom had felt a man before leaving England, he now almost looked one.
Indeed, in size and strength he was a man quite; for whatever some may
say, the ocean certainly never stunts a youth’s growth.
He was a good sailor, too, taking the adjective “good” in every sense of
the word. Neither his mother’s advice, the second mate’s care, nor
Captain Herbert’s kindness had been thrown away on the boy; and on many
a dark and stormy night he proved that he was just as good as brave.
Another year of voyaging here and there across the face of the great
waters passed away. The _Caledonia_ was lying at San Francisco, and the
captain intimated to the officers his intention of bearing up for home.
They would double the Horn for the last time; then hurrah for merry
England!
There was rejoicing fore and aft at the glad news; for if there is one
word in our language that can convey a thrill of happiness to a sailor’s
heart, that word is “home.” And every seaman on board a ship carries
about with him all over the world affections and ties with the dear ones
he has left behind that nothing but death itself can sever.
“In nine months’ time, my lad,” said Captain Herbert cheerily to Tom,
who was walking the deck with his constant companion the cat at his
heels. “In nine months’ time I hope we’ll be sailing up the Clyde. We
shall touch at Ecuador and at Callao, then steer away south.”
It was not the first time since they had sailed from England that the
_Caledonia_ had touched at Ecuador, so Tom was not surprised at what the
captain now told him; for the grave of his wife was there on that rugged
shore, and it was there, too, he had lost his boy.
“I’m getting old, Tom,” he added. “I cannot do now what I could have
done ten years ago, and I fear I may never be on this coast again.”
Tom could hardly repress a sigh as he looked at him. He certainly was
getting old, and very white in hair and beard; but probably it was his
never-ending sorrow that had aged him quite as much as his years.
The _Caledonia_ lay for many days near the spot where the _Southern
Hope_ was lost. Captain Herbert seemed to find a difficulty in tearing
himself away this time. But when at last the wind began to blow high off
the land, sail was set and away southwards once more went the good ship.
The captain was inexpressibly sorrowful as the vessel left the land, and
Tom felt he could have given all he possessed in the world to dispel the
clouds that hung so heavily over his dear old friend’s heart.
But Tom was too young to let sorrow depress him long, and that night
after he had retired--for it would not be his watch on deck till the
morning--he lay awake for hours thinking of home. How would every one be
on his return, and how would they look?--his dear mother and quiet
kindly father, his sister, his brother, and little ’Theena? But she
would not be so very little now; and he supposed she would have
forgotten him to a great extent, albeit she had written many a dear
affectionate child-letter, every one of which Tom had kept under lock
and key in his ditty-box. His mother’s letters were there also, and a
score of other odds and ends that no one knows the real value of except
a sailor. He did not fall asleep until he heard the middle watch called,
and Holborn came down below, and with him Tom the cat; for this strange
animal evinced quite an affection for the second mate, and frequently
kept watch with him even on stormy nights.
But he jumped now into Tom’s bunk with a little fond cry, nestled down
in his arms, and the two Toms were soon fast asleep.
The _Caledonia_ had cargo to leave at Callao and some to take on board;
so the seamen and officers were busy for a time, almost night and day,
as the captain was anxious now that no time should be lost.
At last, however, the vessel was loaded up, and nothing remained to be
done except to bid some friends good-bye, and make purchase of a few
curios to take to the old folks at home.
Tom and Captain Herbert were on shore, and had dined at one of the best
hotels. Leaving his friend for a time Tom went out for a stroll and to
enjoy the evening breeze, for the day had been very hot and sultry.
He stayed out longer than he had intended, and was making the best of
his way back, when, in a side street through which he was passing by
way of taking a short cut, he came suddenly upon a wildly-excited group
of men and women, who had rushed pell-mell and fighting from the door of
an inn.
Suddenly there was the short, sharp ring of a revolver, then a shrill
scream, and next moment the crowd dispersed, running in all directions.
Tom hastened up to where by the dim light of a hanging lamp he could see
a man supporting himself on his elbow, groaning and in agony.
“Are you much hurt?” asked Tom, bending over him.
“I’m--dying--O! I’m dying,” was the man’s reply.
In the arms of the landlord of the inn and a single watchman he was
borne inside and laid on the floor of a badly-lighted room, and soon a
medical man entered. The wounded man, a dark evil-countenanced
foreigner, lay so still and white one might have taken him for dead.
“His hours are numbered,” said the surgeon at last. “Send for a priest.”
The doomed wretch opened his eyes now.
“Yes, yes,” he gasped, “a priest. I have that on my mind I dare not die
with. Boy,” he continued, looking bewilderingly at Tom, “did I see you
with Herbert?”
“Captain Herbert,” replied Tom, “commands my ship.”
“Kneel down beside me then,” continued the man. “Heaven sent you. I may
yet be forgiven. Boy, have you heard him speak of the _Southern Hope_
and of his steward Roderigo?”
“Yes, yes, a thousand times. Are you that villain?”
“I am that villain.”
The man had fainted again.
“Quick, quick,” cried Tom, addressing the landlord. “Bring brandy. Run,
run. He must not die yet.”
“Who is to pay me for it?” answered the surly fellow. “I’ve had enough
trouble for one night.”
Tom thrust money into his hand, and some poisonously-smelling spirit was
soon produced.
After a little had trickled over the throat of the dying man he once
more looked up.
“Speak slowly now,” said Tom, quietly supporting Roderigo with one arm.
“Tell me more about the _Southern Hope_ and the boy Bernard. O, tell me
about him, and Captain Herbert will forgive you for anything,
everything.”
“Yes, yes. The _Southern Hope_. We mutinied--we expected treasure--gold
and precious stones--we found but insects, beetles, and stuffed birds.
We were wild and wanted revenge. I would have fired the ship--but my
comrades would not hear of it. The best revenge, they said, would
be--was to--but where am I? Who are you?”
“Here, drink a little more. Now, tell me of the boy Bernard. You
remember. Yes, you do, I see it in your eye. Speak, if you hope for
forgiveness.”
“Yes, I will confess all. But why comes not the priest? The boy Bernard
we took away--”
“Does he live, tell me that?”
“He lives.”
“Heaven be praised!” exclaimed Tom. “O that Captain Herbert were but
here himself! Tell me now, Roderigo, as you hope to be forgiven, where
is the son of Captain Herbert? Where did you take him?”
“I--I know not--where he was taken--far into the interior.” The dying
man was sinking fast. “I saw a trader lately--Bernard was with the
Jivaros” (pronounced Heevaros). “He was well. Pray for me--I am dying.”
What could Tom do but kneel down there beside the poor wretch and pray
for his forgiveness through the merits of our Saviour. It was the first
prayer he had ever presented before the throne of grace otherwise than
in the privacy of his own cabin or in his own thoughts, and he was
surprised at his own earnestness.
“I am forgiven--I feel I am.”
These were the last words of the dying Roderigo. Just one last low
sobbing sigh and all was over. Tom wept a little now as he stretched the
unhappy man’s arms by his side, and closed his eyelids. Then he quietly
took his leave.
Captain Herbert’s joy at the news Tom brought him hardly knew any
bounds. There was no going on board for either of them that night; and
they sat till far into the small hours of the morning, talking of the
past and laying schemes for the future. Or rather considering one
particular scheme, which was of Tom’s proposing, and ultimately acceded
to by Captain Herbert.
It was, in short, a plan of rescuing the boy, or rather young man,
Bernard, from the tribe of warlike Indians in which he was a prisoner.
“Fain would I go with you,” said the captain, “for I fear the danger
will be great; but I am feeble and far from well. I should but hinder
you and clog your every movement.”
“Captain Herbert,” said Tom, “I am young if you are getting old. I am
healthy and strong and I am not afraid of anything. I shall go as a
hunter--go as my dear uncle went, see all he saw, do all and perhaps
more than he did, and return, I doubt not, in company with your son
Bernard.”
“May Heaven be with you then,” said the captain.
“I am not superstitious, dear sir,” continued Tom; “but the strange
dream I had has never ceased to haunt me, and if I am instrumental in
bringing back poor Bernard to his father and sister I shall be happy as
long as I live.”
So it was agreed between them that all preparations should be at once
made for Tom’s expedition into the wilds of the strange land where
Bernard was supposed to live, and in a few days after the burial of
Roderigo, whom the captain had easily identified as his old steward, the
_Caledonia’s_ head was once more turned back towards the shores of
Ecuador.
* * * * *
What a sad and eventful history is that of this lovely land of Ecuador!
There is romance, too, in every page of it; but a romance, alas! that is
all throughout stained with blood. Not the blood spilled in battle and
with honour, not the blood of patriots and heroes, but blood spilled in
civil wars, in petty strife, and the blood of murder and massacre.
If the purple mists of oblivion could be dispelled and we had a peep of
the far bygone past, we should first find this country peopled by a race
called Quitus; subjects of a king, but altogether lawless and
independent, for the simple reason that communications betwixt tribe and
tribe were few and far between, as in many cases were the tribes
themselves. If they kept touch with each other it was through
traditions, or through the more tangible instrumentality of knife or
spear or poisoned dart.
Thus they may have lived and died for thousands of years, then we read
of the first invasion. For some peoples dwelling far to the south had
advanced further in civilization than the poor Quitus, with the
inevitable result--a desire for conquest, bloodshed, and rapine.
They were called Karans, and made their warlike descent upon the coast
in armed boats or rafts. These Karans went to work in the usual way with
invaders of the past--they slew the men and old of both sexes, enslaving
the women and the girls and boys. Having once conquered the country they
kept it, just as we Britons would have done, only we use the more
refined expression “annexation.”
These Karans had a fine time of it after this. The country was such a
wild and glorious one; no need to work or do anything, except hunt and
fish and enjoy life. They called their kings “Shyris,” though there
certainly was very little shyness about any of them. As these kings
waxed richer and richer they grew more and more independent, not to say
insolent, till their fame attracted the attention and inflamed the
ambition of a great Inca called Tupac Yupanqui. Then war began in
earnest, and lasted till the death of this King Tupac. There was a short
lull after that; but, the days of his mourning being over, the dead
monarch’s son Huayna-Kapak, a still more daring warrior than his father,
continued the terrible warfare, and at length in a great battle
conquered the Karans and slew their last Shyri. Well, the Karans were
conquered; but they did not know it, for they simply made the dear
king’s daughter their queen and continued to fight under her.
Huayna-Kapak found he had all his work cut out, and that it would take
him an age to kill all these warlike Karans, who were here, there, and
everywhere at the same time. So for a time he was nonplussed. But lo! to
his tent one day came an emissary from the enemy. He had not come to sue
for peace; very far from it--only for a truce during the flood season,
and that the dead might be properly interred on both sides.
Perhaps Kapak was a Scotchman, anyhow he was very canny. It would have
been easy enough for him to have deprived this emissary of his head, but
it would not have been diplomacy. Instead of taking his head or even his
scalp he treated him very kindly and asked him as many questions as
possible, the emissary in return telling him as many lies as he could
think of. But there was one thing on which this Karan was extremely
enthusiastic, namely, the beauty and accomplishments of the young queen.
She was more lovely and radiant than the most beautiful bird in the
forest, and she was as brave as a jaguar. Well, the canny Inca went to
bed and dreamt about all the Karan had told him, and he was not any
better when he came to breakfast next morning--he was in love. Why
should we fight against so charming a queen? It would be easier to
conquer the Karans by marrying her. So an interview was arranged and a
marriage next, and this bold but love-smitten Inca never went
back--another proof, I think, that he must have been of Scotch
descent--but dwelt in Quitu or Ecuador and ruled over his people for
forty years.
After his death the kingdom became divided into two, for the king left
one part of it, namely Cusco, to Huascar, half-brother to Atchualpa, the
king’s son by his Shyri queen, the latter falling heir to Quitu proper.
Huascar was a quarrelsome fellow, and finally he declared war on his
half-brother, but was defeated and thrown into prison. Poor Atchualpa
some time after this fell a victim to treachery, his retainers were
brutally massacred and he himself strangled.
After this the government of Ecuador became pretty much of a muddle. A
chief called Rumiñagui made himself King of Quitu first, but the
Spaniards determined to put him down. He was beaten in battle after
battle, and on getting nearer to the capital this reckless and cruel
chief massacred the “virgins of the sun” and burned the city. He found
time to remove even all his gold and treasure, which he took with him to
the wilds, burying them in a mountain, which still bears his own name.
Some day a portion of this treasure, which I am told is still concealed
at the base of this mighty hill, may be discovered by some adventurous
boy who leaves this country with twopence-halfpenny in his pocket, and
who will, after killing wild beasts innumerable, return to England and
live happy ever after.
The Spaniards now came into possession of the country, and after a deal
of additional wars and a great deal of massacre and bloodshed, Ecuador
became a republic. This happened about sixty years ago, and ever since
it has been as much a prey to rebellions and revolutions as to
earthquakes, being probably less happy and contented even now than when
it was governed by the easy going kings of the Shyri dynasty. The
greater portion of the country east of the Andes is clad in dense
forests, and inhabited by wild beasts and still wilder men. And it was
into this wilderness our hero Tom was now about to penetrate.
CHAPTER VII.
“HERE HANGS HIS BROTHER’S SCALP.”
The scene is changed.
And such a change!
It is but little more than a fortnight since Tom was busily engaged
getting cargo on board the _Caledonia_ at the noisy and far from
romantic seaport of Callao. It is little over a week since he bade adieu
to Captain Herbert and his friends in the ship, and started from
Guayaquil on his daring journey into the wilds of this veritable land of
mountain and flood. It is little over a week, and yet it seems an age,
and here he is at Riobamba; a town of strange low houses, few of which
can boast more than a single apartment, but standing in their own
grounds nevertheless. A town which does not look very imposing from a
distance, and certainly does not improve on closer acquaintance; built
on a sandy plain, in sight of and surrounded by the highest giants of
the Andes.
It is night, and Tom, tired of wandering through the streets, is
returning to the outskirts, where his little encampment is stationed. He
prefers the company of Indians even, to a sojourn for even a single
night in the inexpressibly filthy rooms of the city.
It is quieter, too, here; the silence only broken occasionally by the
yelping of half-wild curs quarrelling over their carrion, or the cries
of the night-birds. The moon is shining very clearly, and the stars look
so near that the snow-capped mountains seem far above them. Yonder is
the far-famed Chimborazo; Altur is also in sight, with its precipitous
and rugged sides, and Carhuairazo, and mighty Tinguragua.
It is seldom indeed that they can be seen so distinctly as they are
to-night; but when the moon rises slowly up into the deep-blue sky,
flooding all the scene with its dreamy light, the view on every side is
grand in the extreme.
And those everlasting hills, the brilliant moon, and the silvery stars,
are to Tom’s mind but steps in a ladder that leads his thoughts to
heaven itself. He is so impressed with the solemnity of the whole scene,
that before he retires to his tent he must needs kneel down and pray. He
has much to pray for; he has not thoughtlessly entered upon the
undertaking which has hardly yet commenced. He knew all the dangers to
which he would be exposed; and although the very idea of being a lonely
wanderer through Ecuador wilds appealed to the romance of his character,
he would not willingly have risked his young life had not a greater
reward than pleasure only seemed to depend upon the success of his
expedition, namely, the realization of his dream, and the finding of
lost Bernard Herbert. So he prayed now for a blessing on his endeavours;
and for an unseen hand to support him in his journeyings, and to shield
him from the dangers in forest, in jungle, and plain.
He rose refreshed in spirit, and soon reached his little toldo. His
people had built themselves a hut of branches and grass, to shield them
from the sun and rain by day and the dews at night. But three of them
were waiting to receive him at his toldo door. This toldo, I may here
mention, was a kind of gypsy tent of canvas. It had been Captain
Herbert’s last gift to him before they parted, and was made by the
sailors on board the _Caledonia_.
It had not been difficult for Tom to secure servants for his expedition
into the interior. He had fifty volunteers at least, and from these he
chose five. Most of whom were real Indians, with a little Spanish blood
in them. Active, young, and strong fellows every one of them, though
certainly far from good-looking. Neither were they tall. Tom towered
above them like a giant, or as the great volcanic crater of Cotapaxi
towers above the neighbouring mountains. I believe each and all of his
servants were just a little proud of their young white master, and just
a little afraid as well. Tom, during the long years he had spent at sea,
had not only developed immense strength, but something of a quick and
imperious temper as well. Not that he was a bad-natured fellow by any
means, only he would have things done his own way; he would be obeyed,
and he had a pair of eyes that looked a man through and through while he
issued an order or asked a question. In brief, Tom was not to be trifled
with.
As he now approached his toldo, three Indians who had been squatting in
the shade walked forth a few paces to meet him, bowed, and stood
silently leaning on their tall spears, waiting for their white chief to
speak. In their dark cotton ponchos and trowserets, if I may coin a
word, their heads dressed in tall feathers, and a bold, half-defiant
look on the face of each, they certainly looked picturesque enough.
They were Indians of different tribes--a Canelo, a Napo, and a Thaparo;
but as Tom had them armed and dressed precisely alike, it would have
been difficult for a stranger to have seen much difference in them, by
moonlight at all events.
“Well, men,” said Tom, stopping in front of them, “what is the news?”
“De news is,” said Tootu, the Canelo, for he was usually spokesman, his
English being the best. “De news is dat de Tapir and de Wild Turkey hab
eet plenty and go to sleep like pigs, and dat de Debil hab come, señor.”
Oko and Taoh both bowed, as if to confirm the information, startling
though it sounded.
Tootu, Taoh, and Oko, signifying wind, fire, and water, were Tom’s
principal men at present. The Tapir and the Wild Turkey were savages of
a lower cast, and fit only to look after the horses and dogs, of which
there were five of the former and three of the latter. “De Debil”
himself was the guide _par excellence_, and for him they had been
waiting for two or three days. His name in Indian language was Samaro,
and Samaro we must call him in future, though it means much the same.
“Light the lamp in my toldo, Tootu, and we will receive Samaro.”
The lamp was lit, and Tom, somewhat tired of his rambling walk, threw
himself on a mat on the ground. On this mat was curled no less a
personage than Black Tom, the cat, who responded to Tom’s caress with
his usual fond purr--rrn.
An attempt had been made to keep this strange puss on board, but all in
vain. He had watched his master’s every movement, and when one of the
sailors had attempted to catch him, with the intention of shutting him
up, Black Tom had made it very hot indeed for that particular sailor. He
had been glad enough to let him go.
And now Samaro entered.
Samaro was a very clever and very remarkable-looking Indian. Almost as
tall as Tom himself, though probably double his age, with straight dark
hair, and eyes of a piercing black, his face almost white, and
singularly handsome. His poncho was of some light-coloured fur, and
rather voluminous; while, as he stood with it thrown back over the arm
which held his high feather-adorned spear and shield as well, in his
girdle could be seen an ugly and business-like knife, and also a huge
revolver. On his head was a cap of feathers, and there were toucan’s
tails dangling to his girdle at one side, and something very dreadful to
behold at the other. This was nothing more nor less than the complete
skin of the head and face of an enemy killed in battle, filled out with
moss, but shrivelled to the size of a cocoa-nut, the features awfully
pinched and contorted, and the whole appearance of the horrible ornament
ugly enough to give one the nightmare.
“Señor Samaro?” said Tom.
“De Debil, señor, at your service.”
“We will call you Samaro.”
“Si, señor. Samaro will do.”
“Well, Samaro, I like the looks of you; though I don’t admire that
ornament at your belt.”
“I do not admire that ornament at _your_ side, señor.”
“That,” said Tom laughing. “O, that is my pet cat; and he must be your
friend as well as mine.”
“That is well. I will love him.”
“Then we won’t quarrel.”
“No, we cannot. I have a reason to respect you. I was guide to a good
white man before. It is many, many years ago. Ten years and ten moons,
señor.”
“He was kind to you?”
“Ah, yes, he was kind to me. I shall never forget him.”
“His name?”
“Robert--Señor Robert. I think his other name was Sinclair.”
“Samaro!” cried Tom, springing up and clasping
[Illustration: TOM INTRODUCES HIS CAT]
the astonished Indian by the hand. “That was my Uncle Robert. How
pleased I am. Sit down. Here Tootu, Taoh, Oko--wind, fire, and
water,--where are you? Sit down on my mat, Samaro.”
So loudly had Tom shouted, that Wind, Fire, and Water rushed into the
toldo like a first-class hurricane, almost upsetting each other in their
eagerness.
“Bring coffee and food, and be smart about it.”
“Samaro,” he continued, “this is delightful! How glad I am to have met
you. There, look, even my friend, the cat, is getting fond of you.”
Samaro stroked Black Tom somewhat dubiously. Then he looked up.
“Señor,” he said.
“Yes, Samaro.”
“This is not your private debil, is it?”
“No, no. I assure you it is not. I do not keep a private debil. I
shouldn’t know what to do with one.”
“Then, señor,” said Samaro in a low voice, and with one rapid glance
towards the toldo entrance, “we will _say_ so. We will tell the boys it
is your evil spirit.”
“But why, Samaro?”
“Why, señor, it may save your life many times during your stay in the
wilds.”
Black Tom was meanwhile walking back and fore betwixt his master and
Samaro, with his tail very erect indeed, singing loudly, and evidently
doing his best to cement a friendship thus strangely begun.
“Samaro, do you remember all my dear uncle’s adventures?”
“Yes, and all he said. Is the dear señor alive?”
“I trust so. Well, we will oftentimes talk of him. I think, Samaro, you
are a good man.”
Samaro laughed aloud, but not disrespectfully.
“I am clever,” he said; “but not good. He! he! O, no; goodness does not
pay. I am a thorough blackguard.”
“Samaro, you astonish me! And I don’t believe you.”
“But I have been told so. I have fought plenty, I have scalped my
enemies, I have revelled in bloodshed.”
“But you never have betrayed a friend?”
“No, no, no; sooner would Samaro die.”
“And you speak the truth, do you not?”
“Yes. Because one lie told requires five more to shore it up.”
“Shore it up?” said Tom. “That is a sailor’s expression. Where did you
acquire it?”
“From your good uncle. But I have much been to sea.”
“You have been to Callao?”
“I know every one there. I have been all over the world too.”
“Do you know that my uncle’s ship was seized by mutineers, with one
Roderigo at their head?”
“I know all the story.”
“Samaro, do you know the reason why I am going all alone to the wilds--I
mean without a white companion?”
“Like your uncle, you go to hunt.”
“No, that is not my chief reason. Samaro, listen. The captain of that
unhappy ship had a son--a boy--who was stolen from his parents, and
carried into the interior--”
“No, no,” interrupted Samaro. “He was carried no farther than here at
first. He was sold here at Riobamba as a slave, and by Indians taken
away across the terrible mountains. Roderigo is a foul fiend! See here,”
he continued, his dark eyes blazing with excitement. “Roderigo had a
brother, a fierce Spaniard, likewise a fiend; I killed him. Here hangs
his brother’s scalp, and I have sworn that Roderigo’s shall hang beside
it.”
“Samaro, Roderigo is dead.”
Samaro laughed, a grim and ghastly laugh.
“I know the story. I too have a brother. It was my brother who slew
Roderigo. He has his scalp by this time. The grave could not hide his
foe long from my brother’s gaze.”
“Samaro,” said Tom, “you almost make me shudder. Surely this villain
Roderigo has done you and your brother some irreparable injury?”
Samaro’s face grew dark as night.
“Had Roderigo a thousand lives,” he said, “he should yield them slowly
up one by one before he could atone for the injury he did to me and
mine. We will say no more now. Believe only this, he--this fiend
Roderigo--slew my mother, burned our huts, and stole my brother’s wife
and child.”
“So terrible a subject,” said Tom, “is best allowed to rest. But richly
indeed did the wretch deserve his fate.”
Samaro sat in silence sipping his coffee for some time after this. But
gradually the troubled look that had crept over his face left it, and
soon he was talking again cheerfully enough.
“And so,” said Samaro, “I am henceforth to be your guide.”
“You are to be my chief guide, my steward, my counsellor, and my head
man in every way.”
Samaro smiled in a pleased way.
“We will begin to get ready at once--to-morrow morning at sunrise,” he
said, “if it so please you, señor.”
“That will do, Samaro. I long to be on the road. But one other question
I wish to ask you before you retire. Have you any guess as to where
Bernard Herbert is or what is his condition?”
“Absolutely none as to his condition, but he was taken away by the
Jivaros.”
“Just what the dying Roderigo told me.”
“There was a lady, too,” continued Samaro, “a delicate young girl, sold
at the same time. She came from the far east in your uncle’s ship, and
had been nurse to Mr. Herbert’s child.”
“Yes, yes; that was the ayah. Did they ill-treat her?”
“No; they were afraid of her. They looked upon her as a being from
another world.”
“Did she go with the boy?”
“She did.”
“Then we may find _both_?”
“I fear neither.”
“What?”
“I give you no hope of finding either. But we _may_.”
“Ah! yes, Samaro, we may. Good-night. I’ll sleep and dream on that
hope.”
“Good-night.”
CHAPTER VIII.
“NEVER BEFORE HAD TOM EXPERIENCED SUCH A FEELING OF AWFUL DANGER.”
Samaro had been exceedingly well recommended to Tom as a perfect guide
for the wilds, but the very fact that he had been with his uncle would
in itself have been the best of testimony in the man’s favour.
He proved himself most active and energetic from the first.
And there was quite a deal to be seen to. All stores of every kind had
been brought from the ship and from Guayaquil, and shortly after sunrise
Samaro proceeded to muster his forces and take stock of everything.
The stores were a medley; but the heaviest packages were those that
contained articles for barter with the Indians of the interior, and
these consisted chiefly of light cloth, thread, needles, pins, beads,
axes, knives, spear-heads, looking-glasses, an African tom-tom, and a
couple of German concertinas. Many of these things would be given away
as presents, and there was even a gun or two that might also change
hands.
The stores for the use of Tom himself and his Indian followers consisted
for the most part of the tent, a grass hammock, a few blankets, with
plenty of rifles, revolvers, and ammunition. Fishing gear had not been
forgotten, nor useful tools of various sorts, to say nothing of
preserved meats and a few simple medicines.
Such was the outfit of the Hermit Hunter of the Wilds. A hermit of the
old school might have been content with far less, but your modern
wanderers do not despise anything which science may suggest as likely to
add to their comfort. The horses were wiry, useful, willing beasts;
strong too, and as sure-footed as mules even. The dogs were probably
better than they looked. Mongrel greyhounds they were--not unlike a
breed we find in Australia under the name of kangaroo-hounds.
The packages were carried by the horses in light, wicker baskets saddle
fashion, and all were covered with waterproof canvas.
Tom had already enjoyed some of the delights of Ecuador travelling--if,
indeed, there was very much delight in it--and his adventures as far as
Riobamba would be worth relating were it not that those which followed
were far more thrilling. But there had been rivers to cross, over
tumble-down bridges, mountains to climb along tracks called roads which
sheep in England would disdain, deep forests to force through, and long
stretches of sandy plains to struggle over by paths that seemed
interminable.
But although the rainy season was scarcely past the weather had been
comparatively fine; and the scenery, ever varying, according to the
altitude above the sea-level, was at times beautiful in the extreme, or
grand even to awesome sublimity.
Tom was fond of nature in all her varied aspects, and all through his
journeyings he had the pleasant companionship of birds and flowers and
ferns, to say nothing of many a little forest friend in fur, that
hardly thought of running away, so unused were the creatures of the
wilds to the presence of man.
The greater part of the population of Riobamba turned out to see Tom
start.
In addition to the pack-horses he had brought two others to ride--one
for himself and the other for Samaro. This guide went on first, then Tom
and the others followed in Indian file.
It was a delightful morning, with a breeze blowing from the distant
mountain slopes of Chimborazo; and the throng of Indians spear-armed and
clad in their gay-coloured ponchos, the huts and houses, the cattle,
horses, and strange-looking llamas, the greenery of the shrubs and
bushes, the jagged hills and blue sky above, flecked with many a fleecy
cloud, made up a scene that was both beautiful and picturesque.
But all was soon left behind, and solitude reigned supreme.
The pack-horses and men were lagging behind. Samaro was a long way
ahead, and when Tom pulled rein and looked about him, hearing nothing
but the rustling of the wind through the wild corn and dark-leaved aloe
bushes, he realized for the first time that he was really on his way to
the wilderness.
All the year round the sun sets about six o’clock in the land of
Ecuador, and a full hour before that time Tom gave orders for the halt;
and not far from the banks of a river the tent or toldo was erected, and
supper prepared. It would have been easy to have pushed on a few miles
farther to the village of Penipe, but for the time-being at all events
Tom was independent of villages of any kind. Nor did he have a very high
opinion of the cooking and accommodation to be obtained therein.
Certainly in a town a greater amount of so-called civilization was to be
met with; but there the insects were more civilized too. That is how Tom
Talisker argued. Out in the open country, even in the bush, although
these plagues were to be met with in every shape and form--flying
beetles, gigantic mosquitoes, cockroaches, earwigs, scorpions,
centipeds, and winged bugs, to say nothing of a host of other
creepie-creepies,--they were wild; while, on the other hand, those that
dwelt in houses were tame, disgustingly so, and _au fait_ in all the
ways of the world. Besides, there was in the open the blessings
obtainable from fresh air.
I have already said that hermit hunter though he was Tom did not despise
his comforts. On my honour now, I think he would have been a fool if he
had. What good would it have done himself or anybody else had he dressed
in sackcloth and ashes? He could have gotten plenty of both in Ecuador
had his fancy led him to adopt so sad a costume. But it did not. He
preferred alpaca and fine linen, and he actually carried an excellent
hunting watch. Every night, too, while in the wilderness he had his tent
erected, his hammock slung, and the whole of the latter neatly
surrounded by a mosquito curtain. If ever, dear reader, you go to the
wilds, I advise you to adopt the same plan.
Well then, after Samaro had tucked his master in, as you might say, he
threw up one side of the tent, and lo! the sweet pure air of heaven
swept in. The creepies came too--some of them at all events. The
scorpions and centipeds had not a chance, and the flying “ferlies” could
only grind their mandibles outside the curtain. Mosquitoes are very
insinuating though, and if there had been a hole in the curtain big
enough to admit the end of a pencil some enterprising mosquito would
have found it out and forthwith started a limited liability company,
thousands would have joined, and before morning Tom’s face would have
been a sight to see in the looking-glass--that is, if seeing was any
longer a possibility.
“Stay and talk with me to-night,” said Tom, after Samaro had tucked him
in. “Throw up the tent that I may see the stars. That’s right. Now
smoke.”
“Is this going to be the order of our evenings?” said Samaro.
It will be observed that this man talked excellent English, and well he
might: he had lived in every country under the sun.
“Yes,” replied Tom, “if you don’t mind. You see, it is too soon to go to
sleep, and if I have the lamp lit we will have more flying things about
us than I care for.”
To keep stray pumas, or a wandering and inquisitive jaguar--the American
tiger, at a respectable distance, a fire of wood was lit every evening,
and near this lay talking low, and sometimes singing strange uncouth
lilts of love and war, Tom’s five men. There was one drawback to their
pleasure--the snakes. But it was a very slight one; for as a rule snakes
do not bite unless you tread on their tails. They take good care you
never tread on their heads; they glide away quickly enough to save the
front portions of their anatomy. It is the after-part of the procession
that cannot be got away in time to save itself, and when the unhappy
man’s foot comes down the snake strikes at once, and there is but little
chance of life after that.
Well, when one goes first to the wilderness, if he be a green hand, or
tender-foot as the Yankees call a novice, he keeps thinking about snakes
all day long, and they even follow him into his dreams, fevering body as
well as mind, and destroying all chance of perfect happiness. But a few
weeks in the wilds harden even a tender-foot, and he finds out as his
face gets browner that even snakes never bite except in self-defence,
and that if he observes ordinary caution he is as safe on the plains as
he would be in Hyde Park.
“O,” said Samaro, “I shall be very much pleased.”
“Well then, tell me a story, and sing me a song if you can. I want to
feel perfectly at home.”
And Samaro not only this night but every night almost told Tom stories
of his wild life and adventures, and sang him songs, just as if he had
been a little boy at home in his own bed-room. And to tell the truth Tom
used very often to go to sleep before Samaro had done singing.
Tom, the black cat, invariably retired to the hammock with his master.
By day he rode on the saddle sometimes, or he might disappear altogether
for half a day at a time. Black Tom was permitted to do precisely as he
pleased, and that is the secret of his affection for White Tom.
Tom was never tired hearing Samaro tell all about Uncle Robert’s
adventures, and, to a great extent, he determined to do very much as his
uncle had done.
“It will be such a surprise, you know,” he told Samaro, “to collect
precisely the same kind of curios, and skins of birds and beasts, and
butterflies, and beetles as Uncle Robert did. Why, when I go home and
show him all these, he will be as happy as the good little boys in the
fairy-books.”
This was a happy thought, and Samaro entered into the scheme with great
spirit and joy.
Between Riobamba, therefore, and Banyos they spent three whole weeks.
But bird skins and butterflies were almost the sole objects that Tom
collected in these regions. They had hardly yet come to lions and
tigers. He gathered, however, specimens of ore, which Samaro assured him
contained gold as well as other precious metals.
Sometimes they met wandering bands of Indians. They were quiet and civil
as yet, but they were extremely curious to know what brought the white
hunter to these regions. They were satisfied each and all of them with
Samaro’s explanations. All Englishmen were mad, the guide told them,
except a very few, and these were fools.
Seeing Tom pursuing bright-winged butterflies they naturally concluded
he belonged to the latter section.
“It is well it should be thought so,” said Samaro. “Your fame and
reputation will go before you into the wilds.”
“My reputation as a fool--eh?” said Tom laughing.
“Yes, as a fool. Then if your friend Bernard does indeed live among the
Jivaros, you will be more likely to find and free him. They will not
suspect a fool.”
They found the horses very handy at present; but by and by the country
would be far too wild to make any use of them.
The dogs, however, were as yet of little service. However they
occasionally caught a cavy or agouti, and these, roasted whole in gypsy
fashion, formed occasionally a very appetizing supper.
Fruit was everywhere abundant here, and eggs of various kinds of birds
added considerably to the contents of the larder.
The rain, however, spoiled many a good day’s sport, and always after a
“spate” or downfall the streams became swollen.
They would have to ford these at times with considerable risk; while at
other times they found bridges. But terrible bridges they were. It
really makes me shudder a little to think of them, although I am not
much given to shuddering as a general rule. The best of them were
suspension bridges, and the method adopted in their construction was
simplicity itself. Three or four chains were swung across the stream and
tied to the tree trunks, and on these pieces of wood were fastened with
withes, and lo! the bridge was complete, but fearfully unsafe. They were
very high above the water to prevent their being washed away during
floods, and as they were stretched over the narrowest gulleys, the water
beneath rushed onward with such rapidity, that the strongest swimmer
that ever lived would not have had the ghost of a chance for his life
had he fallen off the bridge.
Imagine if you can horses having to cross such a bridge. But they often
had to.
Tom had one adventure on a bridge that he is never likely to forget. He
was all alone too; that is, no human being was within reach. About four
miles down a stream he had found a ford in the morning, but on returning
about an hour before sunset he came to this fearful bridge and
determined to cross over. He tied his horse up first, then ventured on
himself, and went backwards and forwards several times to test its
strength. The bridge was not more than four feet wide, but felt firm
enough, and it was all right with Tom so long as he did not let his eyes
fall in the direction of the roaring, tumbling torrent far down beneath.
If he did so for a moment he felt as if the whole structure were gliding
from under him.
But now for the horse. It was not difficult to get the wise creature on,
though he walked with excessive care and caution, feeling his way as it
were step by step, with his eyes fixed steadfastly on the bank beyond.
Tom walked on before holding the bridle. The bridge bent as they neared
the centre till it assumed almost the shape of a hammock, and Tom began
to think it must break. He kept up his heart, however, and with gentle,
encouraging words urged his beast to follow.
They had reached the middle when, without the slightest warning, a
squall came suddenly roaring down the gulley, and the bridge began to
sway and swing and creak and crack. Never in his lifetime before had Tom
experienced such a feeling of awful danger. The horse stood still now,
shaking with dread, and emitting a low, frightened kind of a whinny,
while the sweat poured over his hoofs.
Tom crouched lower and lower to save himself from falling, but he still
kept hold of the bridle; for even in the extremity of his own danger, he
did not forget that the touch from man’s hand gives confidence to the
brute, even when seemingly paralysed with terror.
The squall luckily did not last many minutes. Then it fell calm again,
and in a very short time he and his faithful horse were safely across.
But even then he dared scarcely look back and down into that frightful
chasm that seemed to have been yawning hungrily for his life.
CHAPTER IX.
“THE WHOLE SEA OF MIST TURNED TO CLOUDS OF MINGLED GOLD AND CRIMSON.”
The crossing of streams, either by swinging bridges or through fords in
which the water roared and rushed with the rapidity of a mill-stream,
constituted a source of ever-recurring danger. The bridges at times were
of even simpler construction than that already described, especially if
the stream or chasm were narrow, for then two trees, or perhaps but one,
would have to do duty as a support for the cross-pieces of wood; and as
these latter were often so rotten that they snapped in two with the
weight of a man, it may easily be perceived that the comfort and feeling
of security while on them were but slight.
As a rule the natives have but little faith in these frail and fearful
structures, and will go a long distance round to find a ford; unless
indeed they are intoxicated, which they too often are when a chance
occurs. But the bridges as a rule are left standing until they fall with
the weight of some unlucky wight.
I have said that the horses were exceedingly sure-footed. So they needed
to be; for the tracks in this mountain-land sometimes went winding
alongside of frightful precipices, and the danger was quite as great in
coming down as in going up.
But a horse occasionally got frightened, and lost for a time all his
presence of mind.
One day Tom was riding on in front on just such a pathway as that I have
mentioned. It was nowhere more than five feet wide; the mountain rising
steep close on one side, the yawning gulf at the other, with bushes
clinging to its edges. Stones occasionally came tumbling down from above
with a hurtling noise; but when they rolled over the precipice they were
heard no more, for they had fallen into space, and the sudden silence
was awfully suggestive. Now and then came a sharp angle or curve in the
pathway; and here the danger was at its height, for you could no longer
see where the road led. You were riding right on to the cliff; and it
was impossible to divest the mind of the idea that next moment the horse
you bestrode would be pawing the air, as he and you were being hurled to
destruction.
It was close to such an eeriesome and uncanny corner as this, and
immediately after he had passed it, that Tom found himself face to face
with a puma, coming along the narrow pathway with long, stealthy,
lynx-like steps. The beast was as much startled as anyone. He emitted
one low growl, then immediately turned to fly.
Nothing but instant action could have saved Tom’s life now, for the
horse reared and swerved half over the cliff, as his rider threw himself
off against the hill and clung to some rhododendron bushes. He had not
quitted hold of the bridle, and slight though this support was it
probably saved his horse. The beast’s hind-legs and thighs had almost
disappeared. His nostrils were distended, and his eyes seemed to flash
dark fire, as for a moment he hung ’twixt life and death. The
shuddering, quivering groan the poor brute gave when he once more stood
safe on the path was evidence of his appreciation of the terrible danger
he had just escaped.
It will be easily seen, therefore, that travelling in Ecuador is fraught
with many perils, and one may truly be said to take the road with his
life in his hand. As far as our hero was concerned, however, this spice
of danger certainly did not detract from the pleasures of the journey.
He was nevertheless most careful before setting out of a morning to see
that his horse and all the horses had been well fed and harnessed; for
this concerned the safety of the poor brutes as well as his own. So
simple an accident as the loosening of a belly-band has ere now in this
wild land resulted in horse and rider being precipitated over a
mountain-side, or swept from a ford into the rapids of some swollen
river.
Dangers come when least looked for; nothing is certain when travelling
except the unexpected, and it is always prudent to be prepared.
But I do not mean to hold my hero up as a paragon of prudence, or any
other virtue for that matter; and I have to confess that his love of
nature, and his search for the beautiful and the picturesque, often led
him into difficulties he might otherwise have steered clear of.
“I say, Samaro,” he said one night to his major-domo, “I have a notion
to climb one of these lofty mountains. Up into the region of perpetual
snow. Do you understand?”
“I understand, señor; but--”
“Well, what?”
“Your uncle would not have dared to do so.”
“O, I shall dare more than my uncle ever dared. And whatever a man dares
he can do.”
“Well, señor, I am ready. Will you start to-morrow?”
“Yes. The hill is at hand, or mountain rather; and it does not seem
difficult to ascend. Looks quite near, indeed.”
“Excuse me, señor,” said Samaro, “if I take the liberty of laughing. The
mountain certainly seems near, but so does the moon. The air is very
clear, señor.”
“Well, all the better for us.”
Tom was early astir next morning; but early though it was he found
Samaro busy enough. He was squatting under a bush, making for himself
what looked to Tom something like a pair of leather breeches with feet
attached.
“Ah! I see,” said Tom. “You expect it will be cold up yonder, so you are
utilizing a puma’s skin.”
“I have been there before,” said Samaro, “with--”
“With whom?”
“A mad Englishman.”
“O! and now you will have to pilot a fool?”
“Si, señor.”
“Well, are you nearly ready, Mr. Guide?”
“I am ready,” replied Samaro; “and,” he added, pointing upward at the
mighty Tinguragua, “the mountain is ready and waiting also.”
The journey and ascent, for it was both combined, were now commenced.
“There is no occasion to hurry,” said Tom; “we will take it easy.”
Well, mountain climbing does always seem easy at first; but, anyhow, Tom
was now in grand form: his limbs were as hard and tough as hawsers, and
it would have taken a good deal to make his heart palpitate. On they
went, and soon leaving the river’s bank they penetrated into the depths
of the primeval forest, and following a little track made by some wild
animals in their nightly visits to the river, began to ascend.
The company consisted of Tom and his guide, with Tootu, Taoh, and Oko
carrying ropes, axes, arms, provisions, and blankets. It was wonderful
how well these three honest fellows agreed. As a rule wind, fire, and
water do not pull well together when they meet, but in this case they
did. Tootu was usually spokesman; but whatever he said, the other two,
fire and water, were ready to chime in with, and swear to if need be.
Onwards and upwards they journeyed now for hours, the pathway sometimes
so steep that they had to clamber on their hands and knees.
Onwards and upwards, then onwards and _downwards_. This was the worst of
it. It was as trying to the nerves as the temper. It did seem a pity
that, after they had reached a certain elevation, they should be
confronted with a ravine into the very bottom of which the pathway led
them before taking them onwards and upwards again. It was like having to
do the ascent twice over. But there was no help for it.
Tom was amply rewarded, however, by the beauty of the tropical forest. I
should search in vain through the tablets of my memory for words in
which to express the charm and singularity of those woodlands. On the
lower grounds, indeed, the vegetation was all a wild and lovely tangle,
representing on an enormous scale the struggle for existence that has
been going on here for ages. It was one great and continued fight for
the sunlight, in which to some extent and for a time the largest and
strongest trees gained the victory. But the smaller and weaker plants,
the splendidly-flowered creepers, the mosses, the orchids, and lesser
ferns were not to be denied. There was nowhere they would not go, no
height to which they would not aspire and climb. They draped the
tree-stems and branches with blossoms, it is true; but by and by that
very wealth of trailing, hanging, waving beauty proved the downfall of
the most lordly giants of the forest; and when winds swept through the
woods they came down with a crash, and in a few weeks had disappeared
off the face of the earth. For here a fallen trunk is seldom seen, in
such teeming myriads do busy-footed insects work on the ground and
beneath it.
Out at last came the wanderers upon a higher region still, and now they
had to traverse for miles a kind of hilly plateau that looked altogether
like the work of some wonderful landscape gardener. It was a plateau
covered with innumerable little tree-clad, fern-clad, moss-clad,
flower-covered hills, with rocks in the shape of gray needles, silvery
boulders, square towers, domes, and minarets, peeping up through the
foliage everywhere. Round and among these wound many a little
footpath--the footpaths of wild beasts--but none, probably, more
dangerous than the timid agouti, the cavy, or peccary. Occasionally they
crossed small meandering streams that appeared here and there, popping
out from banks of foliage or gushing and trickling from the hill-sides,
and disappearing again soon in the same mysterious manner.
Add to this “garden wide and wild” birds that flutter from bough to
bough, many silent but of rainbow radiance, others gray and brown and
hardly seen, but trilling forth such melody as can be heard from no
other feathered songsters on earth; add to it radiant butterflies and
moths in clouds; bees also, some of enormous size and dangerous wrathful
appearance; and snakes basking on the moss of rocks, gliding swiftly
through the little glades, or hanging asleep on the bushes.
Close to a tiny stream of clear water Tom sat down; the weary carriers
threw down their burdens, and a welcome meal was made of biscuits and
fruit, and a long rest taken before resuming the ascent.
The great mountain was there before them still, looking as big and far
steeper than when they started.
The foliage changed now, and some parts of the mountain over which they
climbed were all ablaze with tree-rhododendrons, while the perfume of
wild heliotrope filled the air. Heaths, too, were abundant, many of
which put Tom in mind of those he had wandered among on the mountains of
the Cape of Good Hope.
Climbing began in earnest soon after this; and no one spoke, but
clambered on and up in silent earnestness. Just about sunset they found
themselves once more on a vast plateau, on which grew only the scantiest
herbage. After crossing this they found a small cave in the
mountain-side, and here for the night the bivouac was made.
While dinner was being prepared Tom climbed higher up still and sat
himself down on a rock; but the vastness and grandeur of the scene, and
its indescribable silence and solemnity, must be left to the reader’s
imagination.
He must have been fully ten thousand feet above the sea-level; and yet
the snowy craters of Carhuairazo, just visible over the bluff bare brow
of the mountain, still towered high above him.
Far below was an ocean of lesser hills, of woods and plains and smiling
valleys, with streams that looked like trickling rills or silver threads
among the green, and here and there a glassy lake.
The sun went down in a blaze of glory, and he now hastened below to
enjoy repose and a well-earned dinner.
About nine o’clock, though the stars had been very bright before this, a
storm-cloud passed over the mountain-side, with a roaring wind, heavy
rain, and thunder and lightning. After this Tom went out to have one
more look at the scene before turning in. Nothing was now visible
beneath but a dim chaos of clouds, nothing on the horizon either,
except, far away to the north, the giant cone of Cotopaxi. Its
snow-girt crater was lit up every now and then by the gleams of the
great fires within--gleams that darted in straight lines up through the
rolling clouds of smoke that hung pall-like over it.
This is the loftiest and mightiest volcano in the world. Talk not of its
height in feet or yards--speak of it in miles; and fancy, if you can, a
burning mountain nearly five miles in height, the thunders of whose
workings can be heard, and have been heard, six hundred miles away! It
made Tom shiver to think of it. But O, the illimitable distance of the
stars that shone above, and to think of God who made them all! What a
mystery of mysteries! And the stars are voice-less, and these dread
volcanoes speak only to us in thunders that we cannot understand, till
we are fain to seek for refuge in the only refuge we have: our belief in
the goodness of the Father, and the religion revealed to us in the Book
of Books.
Tom sighed, he knew not why, and crept inside to the shelter of the
cave, and wrapping himself in his blanket soon sank to sleep. But many
times ere morning he was startled by the roar of falling debris of
earth, rocks, and stone, loosened by the recent rain storm.
Samaro roused his young master early to see the sunrise. But when he
went outside he stood for a few moments in silent wonder. Where had the
world all gone to? It had disappeared, most assuredly--most of it at all
events. Here was the mountain above and round him, but all the gorgeous
scenery he had gazed on last night was swallowed up in an ocean of white
mist or clouds. The word “ocean” is precisely the one to use. Beneath
and as far as the eye could gaze all was a vast white sea, only it was
bounded on the horizon by the jagged ridges and crater-cones of the
mountains, and these looked like rocks and cliffs overhanging this
ocean.
It was a marvellous sight; but when presently the red sun showed over
the edge the scene was changed, and the whole sea of mist turned to
clouds of mingled gold and crimson.
CHAPTER X.
“IN THE FORESTS STRANGE SHRIEKS AND SOUNDS WERE HEARD.”
It was only that daring and indomitable spirit of adventure which every
true-born healthy Briton possesses that compelled Tom to climb any
further into cloud-land to-day.
Tootu and his companions were left behind at the cave, our hero going up
alone with Samaro. He meant to reach the snow-line, and he did; and had
the satisfaction of walking a mile or two over a region of glaciers
unsurpassed anywhere else in the world.
Apart from the pleasure he felt in having gained his desires, and
standing where no human foot had probably ever trodden before, there was
little comfort at this sublime altitude. A high cutting wind was
blowing, and the cold was intense and piercing. Poor Samaro looked blue
and benumbed; and albeit he had donned those wonderful nether garments
of his, he was a very pitiable spectacle indeed.
At last he stopped, and pointing to a cloud that seemed fast
approaching--
“Has my young chief,” he said, “made his will? If we have to die, Samaro
would prefer to be where the birds sing.”
So enchanted had Tom been with the desolalation and sublimity of the
scene everywhere beneath, above, and around him, that he took no heed of
anything else, and had hardly felt the cold.
But his eyes now followed the direction of Samaro’s finger, and to his
surprise and alarm he noticed that the last shoulder of the mighty
mountain was already hidden with a darkling cloud. It was as if this
monarch of the Andes were himself feeling the effects of the bitter wind
and drawing his mantle close around him.
“Come, sir, come; there is not a moment to lose.”
Tom looked now towards the point from which they had entered the
plateau; it appeared very far away indeed.
“We can run,” he said.
“Nay, nay,” was the reply. “We will be exhausted soon enough. As well
lie down and die as run.”
The guide going on in front at a moderately quick pace, with Tom in the
rear, they now began to retrace their steps.
But soon the snow began to drive athwart the track in a blinding shower,
the wind and cold also increased till the former gained all the awful
strength of a blizzard. In less than five minutes their footprints in
the soft snow were entirely obliterated. But Samaro held on unheeding,
and now and then some hummock of ice dimly seen through the snow-cloud
proved to Tom that they were still in the right track.
There was no talking now. Indeed had they shrieked even, their voices
would hardly have been heard in the howling of that awful storm.
How long they had walked Tom never knew: it seemed hours and hours; but
he was drowsy, stupid, and all but benumbed. He was aroused at length
from his lethargy by the Indian violently shaking him, for he had almost
sunk down with the terrible fatigue. Samaro, standing there by his side
all clad in ice and snow, looked like the very spirit of the storm.
Tom pulled himself together once more and followed his guide.
At last, at long, long last they were descending.
Tom could breathe more freely now at every step. The terrible tightness
across his chest had gone, and the fearful feeling of suffocation that
had half-garrotted him.
Then the snow changed gradually to sleet, the sleet to rain, and the
rain to mountain-mist. In half an hour the sun was shining brightly,
though all around the terrible mountain-top the clouds still curled and
mixed.
They were saved! Saved but by the merest chance; for Samaro now told Tom
that had the wind changed by so much as two points of the compass, as it
often does during these blizzards, they must both have sunk and
perished.
“You were steering by the wind, then?” said Tom.
“Entirely by the wind, señor.”
* * * * *
In another week’s time a change was made in the method of travelling,
for the party were now entering a region so terribly wild and trackless
that horses would no longer be of any service to them. So well and
faithfully, however, had these honest nags served them, that Tom
determined not to part entirely with them; and as Samaro thought it
would be possible to trust to the honesty of some of the people of the
last village through which they passed before entering the wilderness
proper, they were left there, and might or might not be awaiting them on
the return journey, if ever such a journey should be permitted them.
Ten additional carriers had now to be hired, and, to his credit be it
said, Samaro made the very best bargains possible for his young master.
Altogether, the crew all told, as we say at sea, of the little
expedition now consisted of seventeen souls, not including the three
dogs and Black Tom himself, who possibly had souls as well as the rest.
Here what the poet Tupper says on this subject:--
“It is not unwisdom to hold with the savage
That brutes (as we name them for dumbness) have souls,
For though, as with us, death’s fury may ravage
Their bodies--their spirits it never controls.
Dumb innocents, often too cruelly treated,
May well for their patience find future reward,
And the Great Judge in mercy and majesty seated
Claims _all_ His creation as bought by its Lord.”
Black Tom and the dogs, it may be added, were very friendly; though at
the same time puss gave the dogs to understand that he was king of the
castle, being his master’s chief pet and favourite, and sleeping in his
arms every night.
One evening puss brought home a fine specimen of cavy which he had
caught in the forest. He laid it dead at his master’s feet; and
receiving the praise that was his due, went immediately forth and
brought in another. His master offered those to Tootu; but Tootu said,
“No sah, I not eat de food wot de debil catch.”
So the cavies were cooked for Tom himself, and his guide shared them,
washing the excellent food down with a cup of _yerba-maté_, which Samaro
assured his white chief came all the way from Patagonia. A most
delightful beverage it made; and it turned out that the guide had quite
a store of it. After drinking it a gentle feeling of comfort seems
instilled through every vein and nerve in the body, far more pleasant
than that produced by tea, but by no means approaching the stimulating
effects of wine or beer.
Still acting on the advice of his clever guide and companion, Tom
continued to figure as an eccentric Englishman, and made no hurry across
country into the land of the Indians proper. They had seen but few of
these even yet, so the packages of gifts had not been broached.
The life now led was quite of a gypsy character. Whenever Tom found a
more comfortable bivouac than usual, “Here shall we stay for a day or
two, Samaro,” he would say, and probably this day would be extended to a
week or even more.
Tom fished as well as hunted.
In many of the lesser streams the fish were truly marvellously tame.
Here hardly any science at all was required to catch them. A hook
“busked” with a little white hair or cotton at the end of a strong
line, and a short stout rod, was all that was required. Patience is one
of the angler’s virtues in this country, but in the wilds out there it
was not needed; for at times one might work two rods, leaving one line
in the water while taking the fish from the other, and even thus he
would have plenty of work to do.
Strange to say the cat always accompanied his master on a fishing
expedition; but very seldom, indeed, when he went shooting. Cats, we all
know, are fond of fish; but there are exceptions, and this particular
puss could never be prevailed upon to eat fish raw or cooked.
Nevertheless he would play with those his master threw out on the bank,
and thus had no end of fun.
Black Tom came to the tent one evening with a huge snake in his mouth.
He no doubt expected praise for this exploit also; but on being
admonished about the matter he evidently made a resolve not to repeat
the offence, at all events he never did.
One evening, on returning after dark, Tom found Samaro with the cat on
his knee, and nearly all the men standing silently round him. He jumped
up laughing as his master approached, and puss sprang on Tom’s shoulder
with his usual fond cry of welcome.
“What were you doing with pussy?” asked Tom that same night.
“Hush, chief!” said Samaro. “I was keeping up their creed--the servants’
creed.”
“And that is--”
“That the cat is a debil. I was stroking his back, and the ’lectricity
was crackling, and the sparks flying plentifully when you, señor, came
up. They think the chief is a great man to have a private debil.”
Tom laughed, and the subject dropped.
In the forests of Ecuador, by day as well as by night, there are all
kinds of strange shrieks and sounds to be heard; but returning about
sunset one evening towards his little camp, and just before leaving the
woods, Tom heard a plaintive scream that caused him at once to pause and
listen. Again and again it was repeated, and he hastened in the
direction from which it came.
None too soon, for there on the top of a large spreading tree was his
favourite and pet, and not five yards away a gigantic puma preparing to
spring.
Up came the rifle. He hardly took aim, but nevertheless one minute
afterwards the puma was stretched lifeless on the ground, and the cat
was singing a song of victory on his master’s shoulder.
About a week after this, our hero had a very narrow escape from death by
drowning. His company were on the march, when they came to an extremely
rapid river that had to be crossed acrobatically. It was well for Tom
that he was a sailor, for the rope bridge is very common in these wilds.
This one looked rather insecure, for it stretched with each man till his
feet were almost touching the torrent beneath. Package after package had
been swung over in the loop attached to the rope, and man after man, in
somewhat the same way adopted in saving life by a line from a wrecked
ship to the shore. The dogs had been taken over, and then it came to
Tom’s own turn--the cat, as usual on such occasions, clinging to his
shoulder. When about half-way across there was an ominous crack; but
still the rope held, and it was not until he was nearly at bank that it
gave way suddenly and entirely, and the white chief was plunged into the
boiling whirling rapids.
He struck out bravely though blindly. He could see nothing and hear
nothing save the roaring of the water in his ears. How long he struggled
he could not have told. It seemed like an age. He was giving up at last,
when all at once the surging sound of the rapids ceased, and he found
himself near the bank and in calm water. He caught at a tree-trunk that
was floating slowly down stream, and held on till rescued by the
Indians.
But where was Black Tom? Gone undoubtedly.
They did not travel much farther that day before the white chief called
a halt, although it still wanted three hours to sunset.
The tent was erected, and the men soon built themselves shelters of palm
and plantain leaves. The camp fires were lit, and dinner cooked and
eaten. Then the men settled down for their long forenight’s chat and
smoke, and as usual Samaro threw himself down beside his chief.
But his chief was very sad to-night.
He cared not for the guide’s stories or conversation, nor would he
partake of the fragrant _yerba-maté_.
All was silence and gloom for a time, but as it grew darker the forest
seemed to suddenly awake to life--though a weird wild life it was. The
low grumbling growl of the prowling jaguar, the strange medley of notes
produced by flying or crawling insects, the plaintive wailings of the
night-birds, and now and then these howlings and shriekings from the
darkest depths of the woods that make one’s spine feel like ice to
listen to, and cause the superstitious Indians themselves to place their
fingers in their ears and cease for a time to talk.
“The señor is very sad to-night,” said Samaro.
“Very sad, my friend. Very sad.”
“And I too mourn the loss of your poor dark friend.”
“He has been with me so long, Samaro.”
“And he has come through so much, señor.”
“And was always so loving and faithful, Samaro.”
What Samaro was going to reply will never be known, for at that moment a
wild and frightened yell burst from the lungs of the Indian servants.
Something black had leapt over their heads.
Tom made a spring for his rifle, which lay loaded near him, thinking a
jaguar had attacked the camp. But the mystery was speedily solved; for
here was Black Tom himself, none the worse for his adventure, as dry as
if he had never been half drowned, and in his mouth a plump little cavy.
Tom could talk after that.
Samaro brewed an additional bowl of maté, and it was quite late that
night before either thought of retiring.
CHAPTER XI.
“THE TREES WENT DOWN BEFORE IT LIKE HAY BEFORE THE MOWER’S SCYTHE.”
The road next day led over a very lofty range of mountains. I say “road”
for want of a better word; for, in the direction they took at the advice
of Samaro, there was not even a path. The forest that they had to
penetrate, half the distance towards the nearest ridge, was an almost
impassible jungle. They had to fight almost every yard of the way
against trees and creepers and rocks. There were pumas in this forest;
they sighted and startled jaguars even, and snakes seemed to be
everywhere, but they thought of nothing but how best to get onwards.
When they reached the mountain top at last, and lay down to rest--fully
five thousand feet above the sea-level--every man in the company felt as
tired as if a long day’s work had been done.
A cool breeze was blowing at this great altitude however, and having
partaken of a moderate luncheon, everybody felt once more as active as
Black Tom himself.
The view spread out before them here was wide, wonderful, and
magnificent in the extreme. Probably in no country in the world is the
scenery more grand and thrilling than in this land of Ecuador. Tom felt
the influence of the situation in all its force, as he reclined on a
moss-covered bank and gazed enraptured on the panorama that was spread
out far below him--the wide and beautiful valley, the winding silvery
river with its whirling rapids and waterfalls that sparkled in the sun,
hills wooded to the top and forests everywhere, the distant sierras on
the horizon, and the sky itself bluer in its rifts to-day than ever he
had seen it, because there were ominous-looking rain clouds about.
“I think,” he said to himself, “I could be perfectly happy here if I had
anyone to share my pleasure with me. Heigho!” he sighed. “Even the life
of a hermit hunter has its drawbacks.”
Then his heart gave a big throb of joy-expectant, as he thought of the
probability of soon having as a companion poor lost Bernard, ’Theena’s
brother. ’Theena! Yes, dear little ’Theena. He wondered what she was
doing just then. But she would not be so little now. ’Theena at thirteen
would look and act differently from the ’Theena of nine years old, that
had to be forced weeping from his arms when he left his native shore,
long, long ago. Ay, indeed it seemed very long ago; for his young life
had been so crowded with strange incidents and events, that the past
appeared like an age.
And his uncle and dear mother, what would they be doing just then?
Sitting by the fire perhaps, and talking of him; for though it was early
forenoon here, it would be evening in Scotland. He began to reckon the
time in his own mind. He was right, it would be about nine o’clock. His
father would be in the corner with that studious face, and that
everlasting long pipe of his; his mother and Alicia would be quietly
knitting; uncle would be reading his paper with ’Theena by his side; and
the great logs and the coal and peats would be merrily blazing on the
hearth as they used to be in the dear old days when Jack and Dick used
to tease and chaff him, and call him Cinderella. Then he remembered his
dream.
“O,” he said, half aloud, “that dream will assuredly come true. I shall
find and free poor Bernard if he be in the land of Ecuador.”
The very words suggested action, and he sprang to his feet. In five
minutes more the expedition was once again on the move.
Were I to relate all Tom’s adventures during his memorable march into
the land of the Ecuador Indians, what a very large book I could make!
And what a very large price my readers would have to pay for it! It may
not be; I must hurry on with my narrative, my main object being to give
but the principle lines in the picture of the life a wanderer must lead
in this wild country. One way or another Tom and his party spent nearly
five months on the journey. It was a long time, but it passed away most
pleasantly and quickly; and Tom could say what few travellers in Ecuador
ever could--that he had the utmost faith in his servants, from Samaro,
his major-domo, down to Rooph, the Indian boy, who did little else
except shoot strange birds with his blow-gun, and whom no threats or
punishment either could induce to carry a package of any sort. Tom’s
servants all liked him too, and he felt confident they would fight for
him if ever there should be any necessity. Well, the life these Indians
now led under their white chief was a very enjoyable one, and as they
were engaged to bring Tom back to Riobamba, they would each have a
modest sum at their banker’s when they got there--if ever they did.
There were times when it really did not seem at all likely any one of
the party should ever come up out of the wilderness again.
Once, for example, they were encamped by the banks of a beautiful river
and close to the edge of the forest. It was a charming situation, and
they had lain here for over a week. On this particular night Tom thought
as he took his last look at the sky he had never noticed the stars
shining more brightly nor looking more near. There were the usual sounds
in the forest and all about, but otherwise the deep solitude was
unbroken; for not a breath of wind was there to move the long grass that
grew near the tent. It was unusually sultry and hot too. But for the
creepies Tom would have laid himself down as the men were lying, on a
bed of palm leaves, and slept sound till morning. He envied the poor
fellows their sweet repose. The creepies did not appear to trouble them.
Musquitoes might sing and buzz about their heads, drink their blood and
go, but the men slept on. Centipeds--and in the forest the green-backed
ones are quite as dangerous as snakes--might crawl over their hands,
and cockroaches in scores pass over their faces, but they would not heed
even if they felt them. Serpents even might take a short cut over their
bodies without awaking them, while the mournful cries of the night-birds
in the adjoining forest but lulled them to dreamless slumber. It was
very different with Tom though; he dared no more sleep in the open than
in a tiger’s den.
“Señor, señor, awake!” It was Samaro’s voice, and he was swinging Tom’s
hammock to arouse him.
“What is it, Samaro?” cried Tom, raising himself on his elbow.
“We must strike camp at once, señor, or we will be swept away by the
flood. Listen!”
There was little need to listen. That peal of thunder would have
awakened Rip Van Winkle himself.
“Are the men astir?”
“Si, señor. Hurry, señor. Hurry, there is not a moment to lose!”
Tom was on his feet in an instant, and the men were soon busily engaged
making up the tent. He was a good general, and never during all his long
sojourn in the wilds did he retire for the night until he had seen
everything ready for a start. There was never any telling what might
occur. A sudden attack by hostile Indians, a flood, or a fire in the
forest might necessitate instant movement, and if they were not ready
for such a contingency, all would be loss and confusion.
“Now, Samaro, whither away? Shall we cross back into the plains, for we
cannot get over the river?”
“We must get to yonder hill,” was the reply. “Come.”
The sky was black during the brief intervals in which the lightning did
not play. But this was incessant, so that everything around was almost
as bright as day, though the light was strangely confusing.
They had to go through the forest. This was the most dangerous part of
the journey; for here the flashes played around every tree, while every
now and then some branch or even tree-trunk would fall crashing across
the track.
Luckily for our adventurers, it was along a path made by tapirs that the
route lay, so it was broad and well beaten. These strange animals are
about four feet high and fully six feet long, and are exceedingly
numerous in the wilderness of the Andes, especially in the vicinity of a
not too rapid river.
The rain now began to patter around them, the lightning became even more
vivid, and the terrible thunder-cannonade was increased tenfold. The
wind also began to rise; it came down with the storm from the north and
west. It was this direction of the clouds that had caused the
ever-watchful Samaro to expect a flood. Had the depression come up
stream the danger would not have been so urgent.
They had still half a mile to go, as the crow flies; and as the pathway,
like that of all wild beasts, was very winding, it would be at least
half an hour before they could hope to reach a position of safety.
Samaro was here, there, and everywhere, hurrying and encouraging all
hands, using a bamboo cane even to stimulate the flagging calves of a
few of the men. Suddenly there was a wild and frightened yell from
someone in front, a yell that was heard high over the hurtling of the
thunder.
“Eemateena! Eemateena!” was the shout from the others. “The jaguar! the
jaguar!” and for a few moments every man seemed panic-stricken. They
even dropped their burdens, and hardly knowing what they were about
would have hurried wildly back towards the river, had not Samaro and
Tom, revolvers in hand, barred their progress. The terrible confusion
that had ensued was fatal to the poor fellow, who had been attacked by
the dreaded king of the wilderness. He might have been saved had Tom got
to the front in time.
As it was, the beast dragged him at once into the depths of the forest.
A few more piercing shrieks were heard, then it was evident that all
was over. The jaguar, or tiger as he is generally called, must have been
coming towards the river, and thus met the unhappy man in his path; for
during a storm these animals will hardly ever go out of their way to
attack either man or beast.
The storm ceased almost as suddenly as it had commenced, though the rain
now came down in rushing torrents, and just an occasional flash of
lightning shot athwart the inky gloom and served to reveal the pathway.
As soon as they reached the high ground or knoll they were safe. Here
were a hundred pathways instead of one, and all led upwards. The top of
the little hill was beaten hard with the feet of the tapirs, and
probably peccaries, who for reasons best known to themselves must have
assembled here at times. It was only a wonder none of these creatures
were found here now; but their strange instincts had doubtless warned
them to seek for higher grounds before the floods came down. It rained
heavily for hours, then morning broke gray and uncertain over the hills,
and about the same time down came the river “bore.”
Tom had never witnessed anything in life so appalling, and even Samaro
himself confessed that such a quick and rapid “spate” was unusual. The
roar of this immense wall of water could be heard for long minutes
before it dashed round the bend of the stream, and came tumbling onwards
carrying with it huge masses of rock and even soil that looked like
islands in the midst of the murky flood. The bore must have been fully
twenty feet in height, and the forest trees went down before it like hay
before the mower’s scythe. The noise at first was deafening; but it
gradually subsided, and before ten o’clock had entirely ceased. But at
this time the whole valley looked like an immense inland sea or lake
studded with little islands. One of these islands was the hill on which
Tom and his men stood, and on which they were for a time as completely
imprisoned and isolated as if the ground had been a rock in mid-ocean.
There were three days rain, and all this time the river, instead of
going down, seemed gradually rising.
It rose, and rose, and rose, as slowly but as surely as fate itself,
till the island was limited to little over the site of the tent.
Then the rain ceased for a time. But the clouds were very dark away
towards the north, from which direction low muttering thunder was
occasionally heard.
Was another storm brewing? If another bore came down the stream, though
not even half as big as the last, the fate of the little expedition
would be sealed, and its doom be swift indeed. All day long they watched
the rising clouds. When the sun set at last, forked lightning darted
here and there across the dark sky, with now and then streams of fire
rushing downwards from zenith to nadir. These last were followed by
tremendous peals of thunder, but still the rain kept off. No one thought
of lying down to rest, and for hours and hours no one spoke.
All eyes were turned towards the north. They were like men waiting for
death.
The clouds mounted higher and higher; they saw star after star and
constellation after constellation blotted out, or swallowed up as it
were in the gloom. Still they sat and silently watched.
The suspense was terrible; every flash was now like a message from an
unseen world, every peal sounded like a knell of doom.
Tom was praying. He was trying hard, too, to yield himself to the will
of heaven; but it seemed sad to die so young.
Probably he had fallen into a kind of uneasy doze at last, for suddenly
he felt Samaro clutch at his arm.
“It is coming! It is coming!” he cried.
“The flood, Samaro? Is it coming at last?”
“No, no, señor. I would not wake you for that. Better you should die
asleep. But look yonder! Look eastwards!”
Tom did as he was told, and saw in the sky a long line of glittering
silver.
The moon was rising!
Up, up, up she sailed, the clouds changing from black to gauze and gold
before her, and by and by she found a little rift of blue to shine in,
and her radiance was reflected from the river beneath as if showers of
diamonds were falling on it from the sky.
By next morning the flood had gone down considerably, but days must
elapse before they could once more resume their journey.
What struck Tom now as remarkable was the deep impressive silence by
night. Except in the river there was no life about--no beasts or birds
of the forest, not even insect life itself. Never a whisper, never a
hum, except the little sad lilt the river sang as it went rippling past
the island shore.
CHAPTER XII.
“A SHOWER OF POISONED DARTS FELL PATTERING ON THE STOCKADE.”
One day about three weeks after the adventure in the floods, as the
party were filing over the ridge of a hill, Samaro pointed away towards
the horizon with his outstretched arm.
There was a joyful smile on his face.
“At last, señor,” he said, “we come to human beings.”
True; there was a village down there, for blue smoke was curling up over
the green of the palm-trees.
Tom was rejoiced. What if Bernard himself were in that village! Perhaps
he would be one of the first to come to meet them. And what a strange
story it would be his to tell!
Tom could not think of his captain’s son as a slave. No white man ever
remained long in a position of actual slavery among Indians; and
Bernard, if indeed he were alive, would doubtless be some great chief or
warrior.
They were nearing the land of the Jivaro Indians.
Two hours more of a toilsome march across ground which was partly marsh
and partly fallen forest brought them to hard open ground. They could
hear the beating of drums and shouting of the natives, and presently a
dusky crowd swarmed out to meet them.
A halt was immediately ordered, for even among Indians etiquette must be
obeyed.
Samaro advanced alone with Tom; who, by the way, much to the terror of
some of the juvenile portion of this wild community, had his feline pet
perched upon his shoulder.
But their reception on the whole was a hearty one. The general notion
that appeared to prevail among these Indian villagers was that Tom and
all his party were starving, for they brought them food of all kinds;
and to refuse to taste at least would have been a grave offence.
That evening a grand festival was held at one of the chiefs’ houses.
Tom was not quite sure, indeed, if the man was a chief, or held some
office akin to that of our mayors in this country.
Every one in the village or town was armed in some form or another. Even
the boys moved about with their blow-guns; while spears and shields
formed the defensive weapons of their elders. Many of the latter had the
awful-looking scalp hanging at their waists, just as Samaro wore his.
This evidently entitled them to be looked upon as braves; for these
scalps had all been taken in battle.
Tom spent a few days in this village, distributed a few presents, and
went on again, having left nothing but good-will behind him, and being
therefore assured of a welcome if ever he returned this way.
On the evening of the day of their departure from this village of
Jivaros, and while resting by the camp fire in the solitude of the
forest, Tom questioned Samaro about the probability of their finding
Bernard among these tribes.
Samaro’s first reply was a negative and solemn shake of the head.
Then he became a little more explicit. He had feared he said to put
questions too directly, but at a feast one evening he had led round
deftly to the subject by asking an old warrior whether Tom was not the
second Englishman ever he had seen; Tom’s Uncle Robert, who had been
here, being reckoned the first. “Yes,” the brave had replied, “with the
exception of a child.”
This child, he had told Samaro later on, had been the cause of a great
quarrel; for the Jivaros on the other bank of the river had borne him
off. The Canelo Indians had joined against these. But, meanwhile, the
boy had been sold to a tribe who had taken him northward and east,
perhaps to Napo or Zaparo-land, and he might be killed. The old warrior
knew no more, or would tell no more.
This was far from encouraging intelligence to Tom, but he determined at
all hazards to pursue his wanderings and his investigations until at all
events he should discover the fate of Bernard Herbert.
They visited many more villages and scattered hamlets of the Jivaros.
Each of these possess what is called a war-drum, which if beaten at one
village is heard at another, and soon echoes throughout the length and
breadth of the tribal land. This is a method of calling the warriors
together, and is as much resorted to as was the fiery cross in the brave
days of old in the Scottish Highlands.
* * * * *
About a month after his visit to the Jivaro Indians Tom found himself
with his men descending a ridge of hills towards a river, where Samaro
expected to find a village. He had been here before, and was somewhat
surprised now to find as they drew near no appearance of smoke, nor any
sound of life among the trees. True, many if not most of the tribes in
these regions are nomads; but so well situated was this town, on the
banks of the Aguarico, not far from its conjunction with the Napo, that
something very remarkable must have occurred to account for its apparent
desolation.
They were not left long in doubt; for Samaro, who had entered the town
some distance in front of Tom, stopped short, then turning round
beckoned to his master to hurry.
Here on its back lay a corpse. The neck had been fearfully gashed with a
spear, and one hand was almost severed through. The unfortunate man must
have been alive but a short time before, for decomposition, so rapid in
these hot regions, had not yet set in.
They found the bodies of many more murdered Indians; indeed, almost
every house told its sad story of massacre, not even the children nor
old women having been spared. The huts had been all plundered, but
otherwise left intact.
“Who has done these fearful deeds?” said Tom, addressing Samaro.
“The Awheeshiries, without doubt,” was the reply.
Some broken blow-guns and spears lay about, but otherwise there was
scarcely any evidence of a struggle. The attack must have been made at
the dead of night; and from the dreadful way the victims had been cut
and hacked about, the probability is that revenge had instigated the
attack quite as much as the hopes of plunder.
Close to the village, at a bend of the river, they came upon several
boats drawn up on the beach. They had evidently been used very shortly
before this, as evidenced by the number of fresh banana skins lying here
and there. The hostile Indians must have come in these war-canoes
therefore; and it was certain they had not gone. Indeed, from the care
with which the paddles were secured, and the boats themselves shaded by
bushes from the sun, it appeared certain they meant to return. Where
were they now? In all probability they had gone farther inland, bent on
plundering other peaceful villages; and Tom shuddered as he thought of
the awful deeds that might be enacted in that lovely, still, forest land
before the sun now declining towards the west should again rise and
shine over the greenery of the woods.
What must now be done? was the next question to be considered. Savages
on the war-path, their knives and hands still red with the fresh-drawn
blood of fellow-savages, are but little likely to brook the presence of
strangers in their midst. Tom knew he could not expect to gain anything
by fair means. He must be on the defensive; and there was no time to
lose.
So he held a council of war.
Tom proposed instant embarkation in the canoes, and a passage down the
river. But wiser and more wary Samaro vetoed such a plan. They knew the
dangers around them now, but to drop down an unknown river at night
would almost certainly expose them to worse, not the least of which
might be perils from rapids and cataracts.
But a sand bank or spit ran out into the river some distance down, and
this could easily be fortified, and held against a whole cloud of
hostile Indians. To decide was to act with Tom. The packages and stores
were therefore immediately transferred to the boats, and landed on the
spit; and at the land-side thereof a long trench was dug, where a kind
of fort, formed of the bamboo fences dragged from the village, had been
formed. Behind this they would be safe against even poisoned darts, for
luckily there was no cover for the enemy anywhere very close at hand.
The sun was almost set, and Tom was having one final run round the
village, to find out if there were not some poor wretch still alive that
he might render assistance to. He came upon a footpath that led him for
some distance directly away from the river, through the bush, to the
very gates of an Indian compound of far greater pretensions than any he
had yet seen. It must be a kind of palace, Tom thought. As he listened
before pushing open the door of the hut, he heard the unmistakable
moaning of someone in pain. He hesitated no longer, and next moment
stood in the inner compartment. Here on a kind of raised wicker couch
lay the insensible form of a woman, who, a glance told him, was
certainly no Indian belonging to this land of Ecuador. Her face, though
sadly racked by anguish, was very fair and finely chiselled. Her
hair--long, dark, and straight, though now dishevelled--and her dress
betokened her a kind of princess of the tribe.
She raised herself on her elbow as Tom entered, and looked at him for a
moment wildly and wistfully.
“O,” she exclaimed, “an Englishman! You are not my boy, Bernard?”
“No, no,” cried Tom advancing excitedly. “I am not Bernard. I have come
to seek him. O, it is awful to find you thus! You were the ayah on board
the _Southern Hope_. Speak! tell me quickly where I can find Bernard.”
“Find? Find my boy? Yes, I will tell you.”
A spasm of pain passed over her pale face, and she fell back as if dead.
A calabash of water stood near, and Tom moistened her lips and brow, and
presently she revived.
“You are wounded,” Tom said. “I am selfish to ask you to talk now. I
will hurry away for help; but first let me bind your arm.”
It had been frightfully gashed with a knife while she was trying to ward
off a blow aimed at her heart.
Tom brought the edges together, and bound the arm up with leaves and
grass cloth. At that moment Samaro himself entered.
“Quick, señor,” he said, “the Awheeshiries are returning. If they find
us here we will have but small mercy.”
“Help me then to bear this lady to our camp, my good friend. Pray heaven
she may live, for she knows Bernard’s story.”
Between them they carried the ayah princess out and away to the
fortified sand-spit. And none too soon. Hardly had they entered when
savages appeared from the bush, and a shower of poison darts fell
pattering upon the stockade.
As there was no reply from the fort they came nearer and nearer,
brandishing spears and capering and howling like very demons. The reply
they sought came at length, however. Tom’s rifle rang out sharp and
clear in the evening air, and the foremost foeman fell never to rise
more. Consternation seized the Indians, and they fled indiscriminately
towards the bush; but before they could reach it Tom fired his revolver,
and some of them were wounded. It was from no spirit of cruelty he
opened fire on a retreating foe, but for the safety of his camp. He
wished to show these savages what kind of an enemy they had to deal
with, and the lesson was well merited.
It fell dark now; but presently the moon rose, silvering the beautiful
river and casting a glamour over the now silent woods.
Yes, the woods were silent; for the savages appeared to have fled. But
about midnight there were signs unmistakable that they were continuing
their unhallowed work in other places; for every now and then, borne
along on the light breeze, came sounds that made Tom’s heart thrill with
anger--the exultant shouts of victorious Indians mingling with mournful
cries of agony and fear.
Then a great red gleam appeared in the north, and dense white clouds of
smoke rolled skyward. The savages had fired the forest.
Nearer and nearer came that red glare as the night wore on, and soon
they could hear the crackling of the blazing wood; then the deserted
village took fire, and burned with terrible fierceness for a time.
Constantly all night long after this, in the fitful light of the
conflagration, creatures could be seen leaping madly into the river, and
swimming towards the other bank for safety. These were the denizens of
the woods and wilds; but many must have perished in the merciless
flames.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE DYING AYAH TELLS OF BERNARD.
Daylight dawned at last, and heavy rain began to fall, and soon even
smoke itself had ceased to rise from the blackened woods and ruins of
the village.
That the enemy still lay in ambush was evident, for now and then dusky
forms could be seen moving about among the dark tree-trunks. Towards
noon they came near enough to shoot darts at the fort from their
blow-guns, and Tom found it necessary to fire once more.
The wounded ayah had remained insensible all night long, but at daybreak
revived and beckoned Tom to her side.
“I am going,” she said. “I will be with my dear mistress soon, and if
Bernard is dead I will be with him. I am glad.”
“But you do not think Bernard is dead?”
“I fear--nay, I hope he is. He will be at peace.”
Tom spoke not. He feared to say anything to confuse the dying woman. He
tried even to control his feelings as he listened to the ayah’s terrible
story of her slavery, and that of the poor boy, among the Indians. She
spoke with difficulty, pausing often, sometimes even fainting away
entirely. But Tom’s patience was rewarded at last.
The mutineers of the good ship _Southern Hope_ had taken Bernard and the
ayah into the interior, as far as Riobamba, and there they were both
sold. The poor ayah would have been happy even then had they both been
bought by the same master, or even by the same tribe. But this was not
so; for, while Bernard was first taken to the Jivaro country, and sold
thence to one of the wildest tribes of the far interior, she had
remained all along with the Zaparo Indians. They had not been altogether
unkind to her, though the lord and master who had claimed her made her
drudge and toil at household duties, like the slaves that the wives of
the Indians there ever are. She had to prepare and cook his food with
her own hands, see to his arms and clothing, make and dye the very
material of which his garments were composed, and, while wandering from
place to place and sleeping in the woods, she had even at night to lie
down in the place most open to the attacks of the jaguar or puma, or
more likely to be traversed by some deadly snake. For all these toils
and acts of kindness her reward was nothing save the bite and the blow.
Finally she had fled, and after adventures innumerable she had found her
boy. Though it was many years since he had seen her, and he had grown up
into a tall skin-clad young savage, he knew his second mother, and
gladly ran away with her. Both had been captured by the Zaparos, and
brought to the very village from which the ayah had fled. Here she was
condemned to die, and her “injured” lord and master was to be the
executioner.
As she lay in her grass hut on the night before her intended execution
she heard some movement near her, and next minute a tiny dagger was put
into her hands. Then she knew that her would-be deliverer was Bernard.
She could have cut the cords that bound her now, and once more sought
safety in flight, but she would not leave her boy. Dead or alive she
would be with him.
The morning came, and she was led out to die. The Indians were there in
their thousands to see the grand spectacle of a foreign woman being
massacred by their chief. She was led to the stake; for death by torture
was her intended doom. Bernard was placed close to her that he might
witness her sufferings.
And now her master approached with stern, set brow to begin the torture.
Suddenly with her own hand her cords were severed, and with a yell like
that of a panther she sprang upon the chief, and cast him on the ground
stabbed to the heart.
For a moment the tribe was silent, paralysed as it were, and the ayah
herself broke the spell.
Advancing to where Bernard stood she cut the
[Illustration: “‘BEHOLD YOUR CHIEF!’ SHE CRIED.”]
thongs that bound his hands, placed the spear of the dead chief in his
hand, and waving her hands in the air above him:
“Behold your chief!” she cried. “The White Chief of the Zaparo Indians,
sent by the Great Spirit to rule over them--and I am his mother!”
Then wild exclamations rent the air, as the Indians crowded round their
new king and threw themselves on the ground before him.
All had been peace for years after this in the camping ground of the
Zaparos. They became less nomadic in their tendencies, and built
themselves better villages by the river. And whenever they were insulted
by other tribes Bernard led them on the war-path; and they never failed
to gain the victory, and to return home rejoicing, laden with spoil and
many scalps.
The Zaparos are very warlike when roused; but prefer hunting to fishing,
and are the most expert woodsmen probably in the world, and this is
saying a great deal. The spear and the blow-gun are their weapons _par
excellence_, and they are experts with either.
Bernard made a noble young chief. He had all the wisdom of the white
race, combined with the cunning and training of the savages he had dwelt
so long amongst. He had no fear, either when hunting or fighting. From
hunting his party would return laden with skins and meat. He tackled
single-handed either the jaguar or puma, and many a sturdy tapir fell
beneath his spear. From a raid on the foe Bernard’s warriors came back
with joy and song, and for weeks thereafter the sound of the war-drum
was heard in all the villages by the river’s bank.
But Bernard was not wholly a savage; and it had come to pass that he was
seized with an irresistible longing to see the ocean once more, and find
out if possible if his mother still lived. So he chose from among his
warriors fifty of the bravest and most trustworthy, and bidding the ayah
adieu, amidst the tears of his people he departed on his dangerous
journey.
Then fell the curtain over his life-drama. The dying ayah knew no more.
He had never returned; but rumours reached the tribe that their white
chief had been captured far beyond the rocky Andes, and that all his
followers were killed by the hands of hostile Spaniards.
The poor ayah! She held Tom’s hand as her life was ebbing away. But she
evidently was not afraid to die. The religion that had been instilled
into her mind on board the _Southern Hope_ had been all through her
weary life a guiding star to her, and let us hope that when daylight
streamed through the fence, and fell on her pale dead face, the soul had
gone to a land where there is no more sorrow.
They buried her there deep down in the sand; and that same evening the
boats were loaded up, and in the hour of darkness, ’twixt sunset and
moonrise, they dropped silently down stream, and succeeded in eluding
their dangerous foes, who, no doubt, lay in wait near the sand-spit
ready to renew their attack whenever opportunity offered.
As soon as the moon began to glimmer over the distant mountains they
paddled towards the shore, and hid under the thick foliage till morning.
Then after a hurried breakfast, principally of fruit, they once more
embarked and went gliding down the river.
It was no part of Tom’s intention, however, to keep to the stream. It
would have led him on to the great Marañon, or even into the wilds of
Brazil. So the very next morning, being now safe from pursuit, they once
more took to the woods, and the long and toilsome march was commenced
towards the distant shores of the Pacific, and Guayaquil.
All speed, however, was made on the backward journey. There was no more
dallying to collect beautiful butterflies, or to seek for more skins of
bird or beast. If Tom could but succeed in saving the splendid
collection he had already made he felt he should be more than happy. The
party still depended on their guns for their living, however, and killed
each day just sufficient food to carry them on.
Their adventures were of the usual sort already described, and many a
hair-breadth escape both Tom and his companions had by flood and field.
While nearing Guayaquil, however, the fatigues on this terribly-forced
march began to tell on Tom’s excellent constitution, and he fell sick.
A few days’ rest became imperative now.
“Just a few days, Samaro,” Tom said, “and I shall be well, and able to
go on again.”
That night he was in a burning fever, and for three long weeks he
hovered betwixt life and death.
But his youth claimed victory at last; and Samaro had been a most
faithful nurse. It would have been difficult to say which of the
two--Samaro or Black Tom--showed the greatest exuberance of delight when
the master became quiet and sensible once more. About the first food
that Tom ate was a tenderly-cooked cavy that this strange puss had
caught and brought in. Indeed, Samaro said that all through Tom’s
terrible illness hardly a day passed that the cat did not bring either a
cavy or dead bird in, and he invariably jumped into his master’s hammock
with the offering, laid it by his cheek, and then sat down to watch his
face.
So now that Tom was apparently out of danger, both Samaro and the
faithful cat went about singing--each in his own way--from morning till
night.
One day as Tom lay in his hammock, with the end of the tent thrown up to
let him breathe the fresh, pure mountain air, and feast his eyes on the
wild and beautiful scenery all around the camp, he heard strange voices,
and in another minute, lo! there stood before him a tall and somewhat
ungainly Quaker-looking Yankee.
That he was a Yankee Tom could tell at a glance, and the first words he
spoke confirmed it.
“My name’s Barnaby Blunt,” he said, throwing his rifle on the grass;
“and I’m mighty sorry to see a young Britisher in such a plight as you
are, sirr. But precious glad I’ll be if I can do you a service.”
Tom smiled feebly, and thanked him; but he was far too languid to talk
much.
That did not matter much, for this Yankee could talk for two, or even
for half a dozen at a push. And he had not squatted beside Tom’s hammock
much over ten minutes before his listener had his whole history, and
that of his wife and wife’s family.
But Barnaby Blunt proved himself a true friend indeed, and to his
disinterested kindness Tom no doubt owed his life.
“I’m only hunting about here,” he told Tom, “and it ain’t a deal o’
matter where I goes; but out o’ this camp I don’t budge for a week, and
by that time I’ll have you taut and trim enough to come along. Trust
Barnaby Blunt to do the right thing for a stranger, and all the more if
that stranger be a Britisher.”
Tom smiled, and feebly thanked him.
“My wife’s a Britisher; but for all that ye won’t find a longer-headed
old gal about anywhere’s than ’Liza Ann. ’Liza Ann is my wife’s name,
and ’_Liza Ann_ is the name o’ my ship; and now you see what kind o’
water you’re in.” “But,” he added, after a brief pause, “I’m not going
to bother you now. I’ll come again. My camp’s only just over here.”
Barnaby did come again--that very evening, too. And he did not come
empty-handed either. Before he sat down on a package--which was the only
thing by way of a chair the tent contained--he began to empty his
pockets, and Tom could not help smiling at the magnitude and diversity
of their contents. Pots of jelly, parcels of Iceland moss, boxes of
marvellous tonic pills, bags of arrow-root, and bottles of wine. He
handed the things one by one to Samaro, and then he sat down.
“Now, young fellow,” he said, “you haven’t got anything else in this
world to do or to think about but getting well. And as to that, why,
your worthy servant and myself will shore you up in a brace of shakes.
No, you mustn’t talk. You must listen, and I guess I’ll amuse you. See
here, you’ve been in the wilds for about a year, haven’t you?”
Tom nodded.
“That’s right,” continued the Yankee. “Nod your head for ‘Yes;’ shut
your eyes for ‘No.’ Give yourself no earthly trouble about anything, and
we’ll get on like a boundless prairie on fire. You’ve been out o’ the
world, I’ve been in it, and every night I’ll tell you or read you some
news.”
Barnaby was as good as his word. He came regularly every forenoon and
every evening, and read or talked to Tom; and no woman could have been
more kind or more considerate. It is not wonderful then that, in less
than a fortnight, the patient was able to sit once more by the camp
fire, and could give information as well as receive it. He told Barnaby
all his adventures, and those of his uncle and Bernard as well. The
Yankee marvelled very much at all he heard.
“Of course you have a collection of curios, haven’t you?”
“Rather,” said Tom proudly.
“Then I guess we can deal.”
“I guess we can’t.” And Tom laughed.
“Will you sell the cat? Why, there’s a small fortune in that animile.”
But Tom refused to sell his favourite.
“And now,” said the Yankee one evening, “I’m going to sea for three
months, and as you’ve nothing particular to do, why, come along. It’ll
set you up for life. What say?”
“I accept your hospitality,” said Tom “and thank you very much.”
“Don’t you dare thank me. By thunder, sir, if you thank me I’ll throw
you overboard. Barnaby Blunt wants no reward, not even a wordy one. But
you’ll come?”
“Like a shot.”
“Spoken like a man and a Britisher. Tip us your flipper. Now,
good-night; I’ll go and get ready for the march.”
“Good-night, and may God himself reward you.”
“Amen,” said Barnaby, and next minute he was out of sight.
A week after this Tom was back in Guayaquil, and had bidden his faithful
servants a long farewell.
The boy Rooph was disconsolate in the extreme, and shed tears
abundantly.
To comfort him in some measure Tom gave him his photograph.
“Ah,” said the lad, “you leave wid me, then, your soul! O, I shall ever
love it, and I shall weep when I look at it when you are far from poor
Rooph!”
Samaro was affected also, though he shed no tears.
“Perhaps,” he said somewhat sadly, “we shall meet again. I will live in
hope, señor.”
CHAPTER XIV.
“FILLED WITH GOLD DOUBLOONS--SIRR, ARE YE LISTENING?”
The _’Liza Ann_ was about as strange-looking a craft as ever Tom had
clapped eyes upon. He was not well enough yet to be hypercritical; but
for all that he could not resist the temptation of making his boatman
pull right round and round her at some distance away, so that he might
see her from every point of the compass.
She lay like a duck on the water, there was no doubts about that; in
fact she had about the same comparative breadth of beam that a duck
possesses, the same lowness of free-board, and the same depth or rather
absence of depth of hull. Her masts, two in all, were set in with a
pretty, though rather old-fashioned rake. She was brig-rigged, though,
considering her length, she might easily have been a barque. Her spars
were not of great height, and her yards were very long. There was no
mistake about it, she could take a good spread of canvas. Well, she was
painted dark green all over; picked out as to ports with a lighter
green, and her bulwarks inside were also light green.
Tom smiled to himself as he sized her up. Barnaby Blunt saw that smile.
He was probably six hundred yards away at the time, and standing on the
quarter-deck of his own ship; but he had eyes like a hawk, and
“barnacles,” as he called the lorgnettes that hung in a patent leather
case by his side, to aid those eyes.
“That Britisher is a-sizing of my ship up,” he said to Pebbles his mate.
“Britishers don’t know everything. I’ll talk to him.”
The Yankee was politeness itself to his passenger. He had a seat all
ready for him on deck under a snow-white awning, a delightfully easy
deck chair, in which one might sleep as comfortably as in a hammock, or
dream without sleeping.
The mate hastened to assist Tom on board, but the captain was before
him.
“With all due deference to you, Mr. Pebbles,” he said, “I’m going to do
everything for our guest with my own hands. If my wife was on board I’d
turn him over to her. As she ain’t, I does the honours. Take my arm,
young man. You ain’t so strong as you think. You’re as shaky as an old
chimney-pot.”
“Thank you,” said Tom; “you really are good.”
“I’d do the same for a nigger, sirr, if he were as shaky as you; and if
my wife were on board, she’d do more. Now, sit down there; I’m not going
to pester you with any extra attentions. Whatever you needs you hollers
for.”
“I don’t think,” said Tom, “I’ll have to holler for anything. This chair
is delightful, and the awning is a happy thought.”
“We don’t sail before to-morrow morning, cause I’ve more stores to get
off. And now, as we don’t dine for an hour yet, suppose we have a drink.
What shall it be--wine, old rye, a cup o’ coffee, or a cock-tail?”
“I’d prefer coffee, I think; but isn’t it rather hot?”
“O, bless your innocence, we’ll have it iced! Ginger Brandy, where are
you?”
A bullet-headed nigger boy, dressed in white calico, with face and
calves as black as pitch, rushed up.
“Heeh I is, sah,” he said.
“Mr. Talisker, here’s your slave. His name is Ginger Brandy. If he
irritates you, don’t hit him over the back with a capstan-bar, ’cause
you’ll break the bar. Don’t heave a cocoa-nut at his head, ’cause you’ll
damage the cocoa-nut. Just get up and toe his shins. Now, Ginger Brandy,
bring the ice, and the coffee, and the lemons, and my pipe, and a bundle
of smokes. Skedaddle!”
Ginger skedaddled quickly, brought out a little table from the raised
poop, spread a white cloth, and in two minutes more had placed thereon
two cups of fragrant coffee, with lumps of clear ice floating in each.
And when Tom lit his cigar after drinking half of the coffee, Ginger
Brandy took his stand beside his chair with a huge fan, and our hero
felt as happy and comfortable as ever he had done in his life.
The Yankee’s pipe stood on deck, an immense hubble-bubble; the smoke,
which passed through iced-water, being conducted to his lips by means of
a tube that seemed yards in length. Sitting there in his rocker, with
his long legs dangling over the bulwarks and his eyes half closed,
Barnaby Blunt looked the quintessence of enjoyment.
“And what d’ye think o’ my little yacht, sirr,” he drawled at last.
“Mind ye, I twigged you sizing her up. I see’d your smile; yes, sirr, I
think I heard it.”
“Well,” said Tom, “to tell you the truth, I never saw so strange a craft
before; and had I met her at sea, I shouldn’t have been able to say what
was her nationality.”
“You do me honour. She’s my own idee. I’ve sailed in all kinds o’ craft,
and saved a little pile. ‘Barn,’ says my wife to me onct, ‘why don’t ye
build a boat o’ your own, and deal in notions?’ Well, sirr, the same
thing had been runnin’ thro’ my head for months, and I set to work and
planned out the _’Liza Ann_. She is the safest brig that sails. She’s
maybe not the fastest. Safety before speed, sirr. ‘I don’t mind waitin’
a month or six weeks,’ says my wife to me; ‘I don’t mind that, Barn,’
says she, ‘but always come home in your own ship, and not atop o’ the
hencoop.’
“Yes, sirr, and the _’Liza Ann_ won’t broach to either, and she can’t
be taken aback, and the sticks won’t blow out o’ her, and she’ll float
in shoal water if a punt can, and if she does ship green seas, sirr, why
they slide off again like rain off a garden roller. That’s what my
_’Liza Ann_ is, sirr.”
Tom laughed at the Yankee’s enthusiasm.
“All my own idee--all my own and ’Liza’s remember.”
“Well, it must be a pleasant life--going anywhere and seeing anything.”
“You bet it is; making a few dollars too. There is nothing I won’t trade
in. Now, those curios o’ yours--they did tempt me. I guess you’d better
sell. The white ants may eat them all if they lie long at Guayaquil.”
“I’ve provided against that. They’re all preserved in tin cases; but as
they are for my uncle, I wouldn’t sell them for the world.”
“What! you’re goin’ to pawn them then?”
“No, no, no; I don’t mean _that_ uncle. I mean my uncle Robert; who,
like yourself, is a splendid fellow and a thorough sailor. And I’m sure
he’ll be delighted to make your acquaintance if ever he has the good
luck to meet you.”
“Give us your hand, young man. That little speech is good enough for the
senate. I say, what a pity you ain’t a true-born American. I guess
you’re a sailor yourself out and out.”
Tom was indeed a sailor out and out. When he went on deck next day he
found that the _’Liza Ann_, with all sail set and almost dead before the
wind, was ploughing and plunging southwards through the Gulf of
Guayaquil. The anchor had been weighed, and a start made in the
moonlight long before the sun or Tom either had dreamt of rising.
“Young man, come in to breakfast,” said a voice behind him. “Ye can’t
live without eating, you know. Good-morning. I hope you slept--and your
cat? Droll idee a cat. Ha, ha! Well, come and tuck in a bit. Why, you’re
looking better already.”
Talking thus, Captain Barnaby Blunt led the way into the poop, which was
flush with the upper deck in the grand old fashion. He pointed to two
chairs.
“There’s a seat for you, sirr, and one for your friend. Droll idee,
truly. Ha, ha, ha! Looks as wise as a Christian, and I daresay is better
than many. Now, sirr, you see what’s on the table. Eat, drink, and be
merry; and during all this voyage I’m your servant, Brandy’s your slave,
and you’ve nothing to do but get well.”
Before touching a knife or fork, however, this strange Yankee lifted his
right hand piously to his ear to ask a blessing. It was quite the length
of a short prayer, but evidently came right away from the speaker’s
heart.
Tom liked him better after this.
“Now fall to, sir. Ginger Brandy, keep that fan moving.”
It was pretty evident that during this voyage Barnaby Blunt was going to
do most of the talking. Tom was rather pleased than otherwise that it
should be so. He was now in that delightful, half-dreamy stage of
convalescence that all must have experienced who have ever been
downright ill, and in which existence itself seems a pleasure, and
everything one looks at is seen through rose-coloured glasses.
But had Tom been even in robust health, a voyage like that he was now
embarked in would have been pleasant in the extreme.
The ship was everything that could be desired from bowsprit to binnacle.
She had every good quality except speed. But who could wish to speed
over an ocean like that which sparkled all around them in the sun’s
rays; a sun, mind, that did not feel a single degree too hot, albeit
they were almost on the equator. The wind too was favourable, and kept
so for over a week, and when it did at last die almost down, no one on
board appeared to regret it; even the ship herself seemed to think it
was the most natural thing in the world she should take it easy a bit.
There were plenty of books on board, plenty of ice, Ginger Brandy with
his fan, and Barnaby Blunt with his ever cheery smile and his wealth of
droll conversation.
“Say, young man,” said Barnaby to Tom one day as both reclined in their
chairs on deck, “don’t you wonder where you’re goin’ to?”
“No,” said Tom with half-shut eyes. “It never occurred to me to ask. You
said I was to come with you, and I’ve come. By the way, where are we
going? To Tahiti, to Fife, New Zealand, or where?”
“Ha, ha, ha! Well, that cat and you are a pair, I guess. Ha, ha, ha! How
’Liza, my wife, would enjoy you. But now, look here. I’m going to tell
you a story.”
“I’m all attention.”
“Well, don’t go to sleep. Once upon a time--”
“That’s a nice beginning,” said Tom.
“Once upon a time a ship filled with gold doubloons--Sirr, are you
listening?”
“Yes, gold doubloons--”
“Seems to me you nodded. But never mind. She sailed away from Calla--O.
It was all specie and nothing else she had on board. There must have
been pretty near five million dollars. Are you awake?”
“I’m listening. I like to keep my eyes shut when anyone else is telling
a good story. Go on.”
“Well, sirr, a certain bad lot who lived at Lima got wind of it, and
pursued this craft in a hired cruiser, with a hired
crew--assassins--overtook--ugly affair--spared
none--plank--sharks--Australia--back--island--mutiny--gold
hidden--terrible sufferings--death--nobody found--Galapagos Islands--”
The above disjointed sentences are the skipper’s strange story as Tom
heard it--not as the Yankee told it; and at the word “islands” Tom
dropped to sleep altogether, and did not awake until Barnaby had
finished.
“Very remarkable story indeed!” said Tom; “very remarkable! And of
course they hanged him?”
“Hanged whom--eh?”
“Why, didn’t you say that somebody--Why, I do believe I _was_ half
asleep.”
“I guess you were, and so was the cat. But there, it don’t matter. I
mean to find that pile. If I don’t somebody else will, and then Barnaby
Blunt won’t have it--eh?”
“Certainly not.”
“And when Barnaby Blunt does find it and does get it on board, then
hurrah! for ’Frisco and my old woman ’Liza, and no more going to sea for
me on this side the grave. Only, altho’ I must confess you ain’t the
most inquisitive coon ever I came across, still I thought I’d tell you
the strange story, and let you know where I was bearing up for, and the
kind o’ notion Barnaby Blunt had in his long head.”
“Well, I’m much obliged, Captain Blunt, for your confidence in me; and
all will, I hope, turn out well and for the best.”
It may as well be confessed here at once that Tom’s notions even now as
to where the ship was going to were the most hazy imaginable.
All went well in the _’Liza Ann_ for two more weeks.
The men called her the lazy _’Liza_; but certainly they appeared to
enjoy the ship’s laziness very much. They were only ten all told,
including Ginger Brandy; but _dolce far niente_ was their motto, from
Pebbles the mate all the way down.
The masts, as I have said, were not tall, and as there was patent
reefing tackle they never had far aloft to go; so their work was very
easy. But they kept the ship as clean as a new sovereign. They sang all
day long, and danced in the evening--verily a happy-go-lucky crew.
Tom the cat was a favourite forward; indeed, this strange puss, being
thoroughly up to the ways of ships and sailors, seemed happier now than
ever he had been in his life.
He used to sit in the weather-bow of a night till a flying-fish came on
board, then catch it and come aft with it to his master, and go back and
wait for another. The men averred that these fish flew at Tom’s eyes,
because they looked like a couple of ship’s lanterns in the dark.
Perhaps this was the true explanation. At all events, the fish did fly
on board, and were duly cooked for breakfast every morning; and if there
be anything nicer for breakfast than a broiled flying-fish, I have yet
to learn something new about the sea, and things in general.
Years and years after this, Tom--our hero, not the cat--used to look
back to the days he spent on board of the lazy _’Liza_ as among the most
delightful--dreamily delightful--in all his experience of a seafarer’s
life.
Ah! but they came to an end in a sadly unexpected way.
CHAPTER XV.
“NEXT INSTANT THE SHIP WAS STRUCK AND STAVED.”
“If this breeze keeps,” said Captain Barnaby Blunt--“if this breeze
keeps up, we should sight Chatham to-morrow.”
“Oh, indeed!” said Tom.
“Yes. We are here now, I reckon,” continued Blunt, sticking a pin in the
chart that was spread out on the cabin table.
Something called the worthy Yank on deck just then, and Tom closed his
book.
“I say, Brandy, little boy.”
“I’se a-listenin’, sah, propah.”
“Do you know where the ship is going to, and what she is going to do?
Funny now, but I’ve never looked at the chart yet. I think I’ve eaten
the lotus leaf.”
“‘Spects you has, sah. I don’t know nuffin neider, sah. I’m jes’ like
yourse’f, sah.”
“Well, I’ve been so happy and so--so--half asleep all the time; but now
I’ll have a peep at the chart. Here we are--Guayaquil Gulf. Why, what a
zig-zag course the tub has taken. Oh! here we are--Galapagos! Whatever
are we going to do here? Ah! well, time will tell, and it’s nothing to
me much.”
The day passed dreamily away, like all the other days; and night fell,
and with it the wind. Before turning in Tom went on deck. Such a night
of inky darkness and mysterious silence he could not remember ever
experiencing. The blackness brooded over the sea--it was almost
palpable, and the silence seemed to enter one’s very soul. Hardly a
sound in board, no sound at all out yonder in the beyond. The men’s
voices forward round the bow when they did speak sounded loud and
strange. Tom even felt relieved when a sail flapped or a bolt creaked to
some almost imperceptible roll of the ship. There was never a star in
the sky to-night, and a mist that was not a mist appeared to completely
envelop the ship.
Pebbles came aft quietly to where he could dimly see Tom’s figure in a
ray of light streaming from the poop cabin.
He took Tom’s hand.
“Come with me,” he said, “and listen.”
He led Tom forward through the darkness to the bows.
“We’ve heard it again,” said one of the men in a half-suppressed
whisper. “Listen! Away out yonder. It is coming this way; but what is
it?”
They leant over the bows, “peering,” “keening” into the mysterious
darkness.
The sound was like some great living monster steering through the water,
breathing heavily with every stroke--sighing I had almost said--ceasing
sometimes, to be heard closer to the ship the next minute.
Pebbles still held Tom’s hand, as if in his anxiety he had forgotten to
let it go; and Tom could feel that hand tremble.
“Look! look! Oh--h!”
The “Oh--h!” was a simultaneous cry of fear from the men. Tom felt like
one in a dream. For there in the sea, higher far than the bulwarks,
blacker even than the blackness of night, was a shape!
Next instant the ship was struck and staved. Every timber of her shook
and shivered from stem to stern, and some loose belaying-pins leapt
clear of their holes and fell rattling on deck.
All was shouting and confusion on board now. The captain rushed out of
his cabin, the mate ran aft; but no one could tell what had happened.
“She has run on a snag rock?” cried the captain.
“We cannot say, sir; but we saw--”
The carpenter, lantern in hand, appeared from below.
“She is making water at a tremendous rate, sir. Shouldn’t think she’d
float an hour.”
Blunt went away with him to see for himself. When he came up again he
entered the cabin, where Tom was standing by the table looking white and
scared; for he was yet little more than an invalid.
“Well,” said the captain, “this is about the suddentest thing, I guess,
I ever came across. It’s a sudden thing, sirr, and it’s a very solemn
thing too. Mister Talisker, it’s a good thing your clothes is on.”
“Has it come to that?” said Tom.
“Well, sirr, it hasn’t come to the hen-coop quite; but it’s come to
boats. Now, I always said the _’Liza Ann_ was the safest ship out; but I
didn’t reckon on snags in deep water. Pebbles!”
“I’m here, sir.”
“Well, tell the hands to lay aft here. I guess we’ll have time for
prayers.”
“She’s going fast, sir.”
“We’ll have time for prayers, I tell you.”
“Very good, sir.”
Tom had never known so cool a sailor as this. With the sound of the
water rushing into the sinking, reeling ship, he nevertheless found
time--nay, but made time, to kneel there and pray long and fervently for
protection to Him who rules on sea as well as on earth, and whose hand
and eye are everywhere, in the blackness of night as well as in the
sunshine.
The men’s response of “Amen” was deep and solemn. Half a minute of dead
silence, then all rose from their knees.
“Now, Pebbles!” roared Captain Blunt, “bustle about. Load up the dinghy
and the jolly-boat. Put in everything we’re likely to want--arms,
ammunition, water, food. Mr. Talisker, you’ll go in the dinghy with
Ginger Brandy and Smith.”
“Ay, ay, sir.”
“Well, see after your own affairs. Don’t forget lights, for keep
together we must.”
There were no signs of weakness about Tom now. He appeared to have grown
suddenly strong and well.
Smith was a sort of hobble-de-hoy sailor--a lad of seventeen, with
plenty of strength, but not much brains to command action. Ginger
Brandy, the other half of Tom’s crew, was far more useful; so he gave
the nigger charge of the white man. This was reversing the order of
nature some might think, but it worked very well indeed on the present
occasion.
Tom showed good generalship. He first had a run below to see how fast
the water was gaining. It certainly was coming in at a very rapid rate.
But she would last an hour, Tom thought; so he at once set to work to
provision his boat.
The dinghy was not over twelve feet long, but she was broad in beam and
with a good free-board. So Tom had her lowered, and swung a lantern over
the side where she was that its light might shine right into her. Then
under his directions the lads began to load up.
“You’ll have her too deep, I reckon,” said Captain Blunt as he passed.
“Thank you,” replied Tom, “but I do not think so; for you see if it
comes on to blow we can lighten her by pitching the least necessary
things overboard.”
The jolly-boat was ready first, and lay waiting till Tom and his crew
embarked. Both boats had stepped their masts, ready for the least puff
of wind; and both had compasses and a ready-made chart each.
“Good-bye!” cried pious Blunt. “Keep our light in sight; keep yours
hanging on your mast as we have ours. Fire a rifle if ye want
assistance. May the Lord be with you! Now, men, three farewell cheers
for the dear old _’Liza Ann_.”
What sorrowful cheers they were, and how strangely they sounded in the
pitchy darkness!
“Pull round the bows, lads, in close. I just want to put my hand on her
once more. Now give way.”
These are the last words Tom heard the Yankee skipper speak, and
presently the jolly-boat was swallowed up in the blackness. All except
her twinkling light--and by this the dinghy was steered.
Everything went well till morning. Then with the sun, that leapt up like
a ball of fire and changed the waters to a pool of crimson, came a
breeze of wind. Oars were taken in and a little sail set. Tom hoped it
would not increase, for he desired to save all her stores if possible.
About noon that day the jolly-boat was distant nearly a league, about
two points on the weather-bow. She was signalling to the dinghy, and
presently she took in sail. Tom increased his, rightly judging that
Captain Blunt wished him to come closer.
The dinghy leaned over now in a most uncomfortable way. Tom, still
determined if possible to save his precious cargo, made his men sit well
to the weather-side, and thus they managed to keep her lee-gunwale out
of the water as they tried to get closer to the jolly-boat. The latter
was seen to lower sail altogether, and Tom could not make out what the
matter was. He understood soon, however; for down the wind at that
moment he descried rolling along a dark wall of fog. In a few minutes
the jolly-boat was engulphed, and soon after the dinghy.
All that day the fog lasted; but now and then Tom could hear the ring
of a rifle, and steered by that. Towards evening the wind had increased
in force, and he heard no more firing. The jolly-boat would doubtless
lie to, however,--so Tom thought; and by next day, when the fog cleared,
he should see the boat again. The fog did not clear next day, however,
nor for many days; and when the sun shone at last there was no sail in
sight!
There was no help for it; they must make the nearest land, and doubtless
the other boat would do the same.
And now ensued a painful and weary time.
The wind had died down entirely. It seemed as though it would never blow
again. The sea all round was like molten glass, a long rolling swell
coming in from the north-west--a swell that was delusive in the extreme,
causing them to believe they were making progress to the south, although
the current was dead against them. The sun’s rays, beating straight down
from the heavens and reflected from the waters, were doubly fierce, and
there was no awning for protection.
Two days passed like this; then poor Smith sickened and died. Tom had
given him the last drop of water that remained in the boat. So between
them Ginger Brandy and he gently lifted the body up and dropped it
astern, and the scene that followed was horrible to witness. Before
their eyes the corpse was torn in pieces by those tigers of the sea--the
hammer-headed sharks. There must have been at least a dozen at that
dreadful feast, yet next minute several were floating alongside, and
casting sidelong glances up at the rowers with their hungry, eager, and
awful eyes.
On and on and on they rowed, resting often on their oars and gazing
round them in the vain hope of descrying a sail.
A bird alighted in the water on the forenoon of next day. A strange
weird-looking gull, the like of which Tom had never seen before. It was
so tame that Brandy easily knocked it dead with his oar, and they sucked
its blood and devoured the flesh raw and warm. Horrid meal though this
appears to have been, it revived them better than anything else save
water could have done. Of food there was abundance in the boat; it was
water alone they craved for. That same evening it rained a little. They
caught the water in their jackets and eagerly drank it.
Another long dark black starless night; but in the morning the clouds
were dissolved, and the sun shone more fiercely than ever.
No rain, no mist even.
They dipped biscuits in the sea and sucked them, but the thirst grew
more intense.
Tom suffered worst; his agony was fearful. With eyes and brow that felt
bursting with pain, and swollen and parched tongue, he sat at the oar
and rowed feebly and mechanically.
Birds came now in larger numbers, but none came near enough to be
caught.
Surely they were nearing land! But nothing was in sight from where they
sat. Only the burning sky, only the heaving sea!
A bright-eyed butterfly flew on board one day, and the negro boy shouted
for joy. But Tom heeded it not; he was past heeding anything. Pain was
gone though. He felt nothing. His very mind seemed to have fled. He
remembered looking down at his own hands holding the oars, and wondering
to whom they belonged. The birds screaming around the boat became
spirits with human voices and kept saying things to him, and
awful-looking black lizards swam in the water near.
Then through the mist and haze that had gathered before his eyes he
could dimly see the negro lad approach nearer. The boy took someone’s
oars gently out of his hand, and laid someone down in the bottom of the
boat. But who was the someone, Tom wondered. It could not be himself,
for he felt nothing.
Then all was a blank.
When he opened his eyes again he was no longer in the boat. The boy was
pouring something down his throat. It revived him, and he sat up.
He pointed to some immense lizards--the same he had seen in the sea.
They were lying together on some igneous rocks in the sunlight, as large
as young alligators but ten times more ugly--broad in head with
spreading legs, squalid, hideous, fearsome.
Tom tried to speak as he pointed to them, but could only utter a series
of unintelligible vowel-sounds with the back of his throat.
But poor little Brandy understood him.
“Yes, sah, dey are dere all right. You not dream at all, sah. I see
dem.”
Then the boy took a stick and forced them off the rock; though some of
them turned round as if to bite, and others caught the stick in their
hands in a way that curdles one’s blood to think of.
Tom lay back now and slept again.
It must have been near morning when he awoke, feeling almost well.
He was quite covered with a piece of sail, and lay on a bed of soft dry
sea-weed.
For a few moments he could remember nothing, and sadly wondered where he
was. But memory soon returned. The stars were shining brightly above. By
its light he could see the foam of the wavelets that sang dolefully on
the beach. He could see, too, the rocks and boulders near the water. As
he gazed on these, to his horror and surprise some of them moved away
inland slowly with a harsh and rattling noise.
“Surely I am on an island of enchantment,” thought poor Tom, “or I
cannot be awake!”
“Ginger Brandy!” he cried as well as he could.
“I’se heah, sah. Tank de Lawd, marster, you hab got your voice once mo’,
sah!”
“Brandy, I saw the rocks move slowly away. Was I dreaming?”
“No, sah. Nevah feah, sah. Dem not rocks; dey are to’toises, as big as
elerphants. I ride on one to-day all ’long de beach. Dey are puffikly
ha’mless, sah. Don’t you be ’larmed. I’se fit ’nuff to look arter you.
Sleep, sah, sleep; de sun rise soon.”
As the boy spoke a gush of bird-melody came from a neighbouring bush, so
entrancingly sweet but so wondrously strange, that Tom at once placed
his head again on his pillow of sea-weed to listen.
Sleep the most refreshing ever he had enjoyed in his life succeeded; but
all through his slumbers rang the bird-song, mingling with his dreams
like chimes from elfin-land.
CHAPTER XVI.
“A VAST GREEN AND FLOWERY VALLEY SURROUNDED BY ROMANTIC HILLS.”
“You bettah now, sah?”
“O yes, Brandy; I’ll soon be all right. But where are we?”
“I don’t know nuffin’ ’t all. On’y dis is an island--I make shuah ob
dat.”
“How long have I slept?”
“Two day, sah. I gib you plenty watah all de time; and you suckee he
down all same’s modder’s milk, sah. You will lib now.”
“And thanks to you. But who helped you up with the boat?”
“He, he, he! You not believe, plaps. But Brandy neveh tell lie. I hab de
paintah ob de boat all ready, and presently one big elerphant-to’toise
come down. Plenty quick I hitch de bight ober dat varmint’s neck. Den I
cried ‘shoo!’ Den he pull and I push, and ’way we go cheerily. But la!
de elerphant-to’toise, he had strangle his little self. And I make soup
of some of him, fo’ true!”
Hardly believing what Brandy said Tom got slowly up, and lo! there was
the dead tortoise right enough; and Tom had never seen such a monster[1]
before. Nor could he have seen one, for the creature belongs only to the
Galapagos Islands.
“Why, Brandy,” he said, “it is bigger than a feather bed. I begin to
believe, my boy, we have landed on one of the enchanted islands I used
to read of long ago; and I can easily fancy a ship-wrecked mariner
making a boat of the shell of one of these beasts, and with a bamboo
for a mast and his jacket for a sail, crossing the ocean to the
mainland. And you strangled him?”
“No, he strangle his little self, sah. I help jes’ a leetle wid de axe.
Den he bleed--O, he bleed mo’ dan one big bull, sah.”
“And where is the blood, Brandy?”
“De fly eatee he all up plenty quick, and de ants eatee all de fly
leave. Den I dink all de rest myself. But come, sah; de soup is all
ready.”
On board the _’Liza Ann_ Ginger Brandy had gone about his duties in a
very quiet way, indeed. He had shown himself smart enough, but had
exhibited no extra talent of any kind. Now, lo and behold! all his
nature was changed. He was in the wilds; he was part and parcel of the
wilds, and his capabilities of making the best of everything appeared to
know neither bounds nor limits. During the time Tom had been lying
insensible, he had not only got the boat drawn up, but had built a hut
inside a broken-down rocky cone, which looked like a small volcanic
crater. It was cool and clean. The roof was formed of the sail, and
inside was a soft bed of sea-weed. The provisions and ammunition were
also carefully stored here; and as there appeared to be no destroying
angels in the shape of ants about, everything was safe enough.
The soup was splendid. Tom felt a new man as soon as he had eaten a
shellful. They had no basins, only shells. But several pannikins or
billies were among the precious stores; so there seemed but little
likelihood that they would have to live on raw meat for many a day.
After dinner Tom noticed that Ginger Brandy was carefully banking the
fire with turf and ashes.
“Why not let it out, Brandy? You can light it again.”
“No, sah; nebber no mo’.”
“Why?”
“‘Cause, sah, I let fall de packet of lucifire match. One box catchee
fi’. Den I jump on de packet to stamp he out, and all de rest go puff.
You bery angry, sah?”
“No, my friend; it can’t be helped. Cheer up. I say, Brandy?”
“Yes, sah.”
“Isn’t it fun being a Crusoe? I used to be the Hermit Hunter of the
Wilds; now I’ve turned a Crusoe, and you’re my man Friday.”
“Befo’ de Lawd, sah,” said Ginger Brandy looking tremendously serious
all at once, “I tink de sun or de soup hab affect you’ head!”
Tom laughed.
“Don’t you know what a Crusoe is?”
“Sumfin’ to eat, plaps?”
“No, Brandy; it’s nothing to eat or drink either. Come, I’ll tell you
the story.”
And as far as he could remember it, Tom told Ginger Brandy all the
romance of Juan Fernandez, much to his delight.
“Dat is fus’rate, sah. Aha! you and I play at Crusoes. Aha! dere is
nuffin’ like fun. Is dere, sah? But now look, marster. De sun go down,
all red like one big slice ob pomola. You not well yet, sah. S’pose you
go to bed?”
And Tom did, and found himself so strong next morning that he was able
for a good long stroll.
Ginger Brandy came with him and helped to carry his gun.
What a mysterious looking place it was, and how black and dreary
everything a little way inland looked! Those fearsome lizards basking on
the dark burned rocks near the sea seemed the evil genii of the place.
Tom could not look at them without shuddering.
But bigger and more powerful genii than they have been at work here and
all about in ages long since passed away. The genii of volcanic fire and
water. The soil was everywhere brown and scorched looking, extinct
craters like shafts of founderies stood here and there, and ugly dark
boulders lay scattered in the open as if they had been rained from
heaven. Among these, snakes of many kinds wriggled hither and thither,
or lay coiled up in huge old half-broken shells. The very bushes
appeared black and blighted, and at a little distance seemed to have no
leaves; while the birds that flew from bough to bough were dusky, and
even the moths and beetles were sad in colour. And yet high above, the
sky was blue, and the billows out yonder sparkled in his rays as if
diamonds were being scattered on them by angels’ hands.
The shrubs and cacti that grew further from the sea had branches so
wildly erratic, and shapes so weird, that do what he would Tom could not
disabuse his mind of the notion that either he was really on an island
of enchantment, or that he was dreaming, and might awake at any moment
on board the _’Liza Ann_.
The gun so far was useless; there was nothing to shoot except those huge
elephantic tortoises, and that would have been cruel. They were as deaf
as posts, but wondrous quick in seeing. At a little distance many of
them looked like flat or rounded rocks; and it was therefore rather
startling to one’s nerves on getting alongside an immense slab of
supposed rock to find it had a long neck and awful head, and that it
hissed louder than a python, and began to move away.
Tom was not sorry when the walk was over, and he found himself once more
reclining on his sea-weed couch reading Shakespeare, while Ginger Brandy
busied himself not far off making tortoise stew, with a bit of bacon in
it to give it a flavour. The delicious steam went all round Tom’s heart
each time Brandy lifted the lid to peep inside.
Tom and Ginger Brandy spent many days at the seaside, dragging the boat
down sometimes and going for a sail. In this way they cruised round a
considerable portion of the coast. They found no signs of life anywhere,
however, and though they landed at several places they found no
tortoises.[2]
Inland they could see high hills, but all the coast-line was bordered
with black rocks, boulders, and scoriæ. The ugly lizards were
everywhere, and swam in the water as well as crawled on the beach.
As regards fish, Tom found the island coast a mine of luxury. Wherever
the water was fairly shallow they found them in shoals, and could
capture them with their hands--at least Ginger Brandy could; and his
method of fishing was peculiar, to say the least of it. First he
divested himself of his clothes, then overboard he sprang like a frog.
Holding one hand under the water, he dropped a few crumbs of biscuit
from the other. The fish, by no means shy, sailed up at once, and Brandy
seized them one by one slowly but surely, and threw them into the boat.
Tom was a fairly clever naturalist, but he could not name a tenth of the
many strange varieties of fish caught, nor even guess the natural
orders to which they belonged. Most were edible.
Some were too gaudily coloured to be otherwise than suspicious. These
Brandy discarded. Others were horribly grotesque, with immense heads,
diabolical faces and horns. Brandy would have nothing to say to these
either.
He held a frightfully ugly specimen up one day for Tom’s inspection.
“Is he for dinner, Ginger Brandy?”
“Gully, massy; no, sah. Plaps, sah, he one debil. He no aflaid ob de
fire nor de f’ying pan. Suppose I put he ober de fire, sah, his ugly
mouf grow bigger, his horns grow longer, his eyes grow fierce, den he
switch his tail, jump out ob de fire and gobble up bof you and me, and
fly away in de smoke.”
“Brandy,” said Tom one morning after breakfast, “I’m strong enough now
to explore.”
“To ’splore, sah?”
“Yes, Brandy. To explore the island.”
“Well I’se strong ’nuff to ’splore mos’ anyting, sah.”
“All right, we’ll start. There is no fear of anyone breaking into the
house while we’re away, so you needn’t lock the door, Brandy.”
It was a delightful day, with a strong breeze chafing the sea and
roaring through the stunted shrubs and thorny cacti. The sky too was
overcast with clouds; and it being the end of October some showers had
fallen, so that the air was wondrously cool considering that they were
right under the equator.
Tom felt as easy-minded and happy to-day as ever he did in his life.
There was something in the very air of this semi-enchanted isle of the
ocean, that seemed to engender happiness, and hope as well. Tom had not
begun to think yet if there was any chance of his ever getting away from
the island.
“One of these days,” he said to Brandy, “you and I will sit down and do
a jolly big think. But there is no occasion to hurry. Is there, Brandy?”
“O, I’se in no ’ticular hurry, sah! Not in de slightest. I lub dis
little island. ’Spose we lib heah always, I not care.”
For miles and miles they scrambled onwards and upwards, wondering, like
the little girl in the fairy tale, where they would come to at last.
They took a straight course through the thorny jungle; but afterwards
found that though this was the nearest route, it certainly was not the
quickest. Poor Brandy’s feet were cut with cinders and rocks, and both
had their faces and clothes torn with the cruel briers, that were as
sharp and long as penknives.
They found themselves on a hilltop at last, and looking down, to their
great astonishment, into a perfect paradise.
What was it like? It is not easy to describe. Imagine if you can a vast
green and flowery valley, surrounded on all sides by romantic hills
covered half-way to the top with waving woods, their summits round,
fantastic, coned, or serrated; the valley itself containing every
description of beautiful scenery that can be conceived. Yonder are green
parks or fields, with cattle and donkeys quietly browsing in them, and
shrubby knolls and patches of trees in their midst; yonder a beautiful
lake or pond, with cattle wading therein or standing drowsily in its
shallows; yonder a racing streamlet, like a thread of silver, winding
through the plain till lost among the woods.
Down towards this paradise the Crusoes now hurry, new wonders greeting
their sight at every turn. The forest itself is garlanded and festooned
with flowers, trailing, climbing, and hanging, and shedding beauty
everywhere. And when they leave the woods at last and come into the
open, there are more marvels yet in store for them. A herd of wild pigs
start squeaking and grunting away from a thicket of bananas, where they
have been feeding on the fruit. There are groves of oranges, of citrons,
and limes, and further on patches of wild potatoes, yams, and vegetables
innumerable.
And to crown all the other wonders, lo! they come to a house or rather a
hut, and at a little distance off there are others. But no smoke is now
curling up from the compounds around. The fences are decayed and overrun
with creepers; snakes glide here and there through what had once been a
pretty garden, and the door of the principal hut has fallen from its
hinges.
Nay, not fallen; it has been smashed in, and the two skeletons that lie
bleaching not far off--one that of a child--tell the tale of a tragedy
that was enacted in these wilds many years ago far more graphically than
any words could have done.
“I not like de look ob tings at p’esent, sah,” said Brandy.
“Nor I either, my friend. But it is pretty evident that this island has
at one time been a settlement, that there has been a foul deed done, and
that the murderers have fled. Never mind, Brandy, we shall remove from
the desolate triton-haunted sea-shore to this lovely valley, and build
ourselves a hut. As for these poor remains we will bury them. The
wretches who committed the crime doubtless landed from a ship, and the
story of their terrible iniquity may never, never be known.”
The Crusoes returned to the hut by the sea that same evening, Brandy
carrying on his shoulder a tiny young pig, part of which he meant to
cook for supper.
They got up shortly after sunrise next day, and were off to the wild
interior again as soon as breakfast had been discussed. Tom carried his
rifle, Brandy carried a spade.
In a little orange grove they dug a shallow grave, and there laid the
skeletons side by side and covered them up.
“We’ll come some other day, Brandy, and erect a cross here,” said Tom as
they walked away.
He paused several times to look back at the spot he had chosen for a
last resting-place for the remains. It was peculiar, and the more he
thought of it the stranger it appeared. Three trees had been planted at
right angles to the wood that rose over a hill on the east side of the
valley. They were equidistant, and close to the centre one, almost
overshadowed by it indeed, was the grove of orange-trees and bananas in
which they had made the grave. No other trees were anywhere nearer than
the wood itself.
They must have been planted there as a mark to something. But to what?
CHAPTER XVII.
STRANGE LIFE ON THE BEAUTIFUL ISLAND.
Tom Talisker knew nothing for some time after this of the terrible
tragedy that had taken place on the island. The place had once been a
small penal settlement for political prisoners from Ecuador, the
governor himself a suspect; but the men had revolted and slain both him
and his family, and escaping on a raft or boat had gone no one knew
whither, though in all probability to the bottom of the sea.
Such things as men landing from a passing ship, to rob and mayhap murder
a few inhabitants of a lonely island, have happened many times and oft,
and might happen again, Tom thought. He was determined, therefore, to be
prepared. So he built a little outlook, well screened with trees, on the
top of one of the highest hills, and here he or Brandy could go every
morning to reconnoitre, with the aid of the telescope they had brought
with them. They could from this vantage ground see passing ships, and if
possible signal to them by smoke or otherwise; but if men came on shore
who looked like cut-throats, it would be easy for them to hide in the
forest.
The finding of the skeletons and their burial in the orange grove did
not tend to raise the spirits of our hero; but as to Ginger Brandy,
nothing on earth was calculated to depress that boy long. More than once
next day, while they were busily engaged building their new hut not far
from the ruins of the old settlement, though nearer to the orange grove,
Brandy told Tom he was glad they had been cast away here, and that for
his part he would be sorry if any ship found them and brought them away.
The building of the new villa, as they called it, was a work of time as
well as art. First and foremost they had to transport all their stores
to a tent of bamboo and plaintain leaves which they erected near the old
settlement. This necessitated a great many journeys back and fore to the
coast; and when night came at last, and they could no longer work, both
were so tired that they fell sound asleep after supper, and did not
awake until well into the morning.
Some cattle were browsing near, but they fled in wild alarm as soon as
they saw human beings. One immense red-eyed fierce-looking bull at first
showed fight, but finally retreated slowly towards the other end of the
plain, growling ominously as he did so, and giving Tom clearly to
understand that his presence here was an intrusion that he should one
day resent. This bull had evidently been monarch of all he surveyed
before Tom’s arrival, and now to be deposed was hard indeed to bear.
But how labour lightens the mind. Both Tom and his dusky companion were
singing and laughing all day long as they worked away at the building of
the villa.
It really was no child’s play, however, which they had taken in hand.
All the uprights and transverse beams, the couples, &c., had to be made
of trees cut down in the woods, and borne on the shoulders to the site
they had chosen. Here they had to be deprived of their bark, for Tom
knew better than leave any shelter in his house for venomous
creepie-creepies. While he would be engaged at this bark-stripping
Brandy would be busy cooking the one great meal of the day, namely,
supper, which they discussed together by the camp fire and under the
stars.
It took them three whole weeks to complete the building of the house,
but when it was at last finished they had good cause indeed to be proud
of their handiwork. It was certainly of no great size, nor was it of
very showy pretentions. The couples that supported the grass roof came
right down to the ground, as they had no iron nails big enough to affix
it to the top of the plank walls. A couple of axes, a good saw, some
hammers and chisels, were all the tools they possessed, and the nails
had to be made of hard wood, the holes to receive them being bored by
means of a piece of red-hot iron.
All their energies and all their ingenuity too was therefore taxed to
make a complete job of this rustic dwelling.
“I tell you what it is, Brandy,” Tom said one day, “I thank my stars I
had such a clever uncle when a boy. Our hermitage in the woods was built
something in this fashion, and Uncle Robert taught me how to use not
only the woodman’s axe and the carpenter’s saw, but the plasterer’s
trowel as well.”
“Yes, sah,” replied Brandy; “and you mus’ tellee me mo’ ’bout dat same
uncle after dinner, sah.”
That after-dinner hour or two by the camp fire was the most delightful
of the whole twenty-four. Tom was the story-teller, and his powers of
invention were so great that he never once found himself short of
material for a good spicy tale of sea and land. All his adventures here
and there, in many lands and round the world, were related to his
companion with a hundred different verbal embellishments; and Brandy
made a most excellent listener.
But Brandy himself had an accomplishment: he could sing. His voice was a
sweet contralto; and, strange as it may seem, he always sung in good
English, though we know he could not talk the language well. Tom taught
him a great many songs he had never known before. So, what with
story-telling and singing, the long dark evenings passed quickly enough
away, and once they laid their heads down on their grass pillows they
knew no more about the world until the sun rose once again.
Brandy was always first up, and Tom’s breakfast was waiting for him by
the time he had come back from the lake, where he used to have his
morning swim, much to the consternation of the half-wild ducks that
floated there, and built their nests among the sedges.
When the hut was built it was plastered inside and out with a blackish
clay, which finally grew as hard as cement. Then some rude seats were
made, and a rough table, while all around the house a garden was
trenched and inclosed with a plantation fence. All kinds of vegetables
were planted or sown in this garden, and flowers from the woods and the
valley planted in beds and borders, with climbing ones along the fence;
but not along the walls. Tom knew better than that, for during their
work in the woods he had come across some very awful-looking spiders,
and other ugly crawling things that he wished to keep at as safe a
distance as possible.
If Brandy was enamoured of his wild and lonely life, so was Black Tom,
the cat. He was seldom at home from sunrise till sunset; but invariably
put in an appearance at dinner-time, and kept up the old sea custom of
sleeping in his master’s arms every night. Tom had come to love this
honest cat so much, that he even doubted whether he would not as soon
have lost Brandy himself as puss. If he happened to be half an hour late
of an evening his master would even put dinner back till he came.
Black Tom one day proved himself a friend in need in a very remarkable
manner.
All unconscious of danger Tom Talisker was coming singing to himself,
gun on shoulder, across the plain, when out from the woods rushed that
fiery-eyed bull. He was close on Tom before he knew what was about to
happen. His rifle was unloaded. Instinct caused him to run, and he did
his best while doing so to get a cartridge in.
On rushes the maddened brute, with tail erect and awful horned head at
the charge. It seems as if nothing can save Tom. The cartridge will
neither go in nor come out from where it has stuck. But at that moment
something rushes past Tom which at first he can hardly see. It is his
feline friend, and he springs at once on the bull’s head with a yell of
anger and claws at his eyes. This is more than the bull has bargained
for. He pauses and tosses his head wildly in the air, but the cat keeps
firm hold.
At last the cartridge goes home, and Tom advances now. But where to fire
is the difficulty. His aim must be a steady one, else he may kill his
little protector.
Bang! at last, and the bull drops. Dead? Yes, dead; for the bullet has
entered behind and below the ear, torn through the carotid artery, and
lodged in the brain itself.
The cat comes singing up now and rubs himself against his master’s knee,
and the two walk home together.
The very next day another huge black bull was seen to quietly possess
himself of the dead monarch’s flock. Where he had come from Tom could
not even guess, but the probability is he had been condemned to a life
in the woods during his predecessor’s reign.
“Do cats go to heaben w’en dey dies, sah?” asked Brandy one evening as
the three friends lounged near the camp fire.
“What makes you speak so, Brandy?”
“‘Cause, sah, I ’spects dat cat is one angel, sah. I ’spects some day he
talk.”
“Well, I shouldn’t wonder a great deal. Indeed, I would not wonder at
anything that happened in this strange island.”
It may be as well mentioned that never an evening did Tom lie down
without reading a portion of the Bible that his mother had given him,
and praying a simple but earnest little prayer for their own safety
during the silent watches of the night, and for those who were far, far
away in their homes beyond the sea.
No work was ever done on Sunday, and no stories told except those of
Bible lands or the sweet old story of our salvation, which the negro boy
was never tired listening to.
One evening, about three months after they had landed on the island, a
terrible storm swept over it. The lightning seemed to set the very woods
on fire, and to run along the ground in the awful rain. Next day the
inland lake was a little sea, and acres of the forest had been levelled
to the ground by the force of the gale.
When Brandy went out in the morning to prepare breakfast, a sorrowful
lad was he; for the rain had completely drowned out the fire, and there
were no matches.
He was not to be beaten, however; and so set to work to make fire in the
usual way adopted by savages--piercing a hole in a piece of soft plank
and twirling a pointed piece of very hard dry wood. It took him nearly
an hour, however, to accomplish the feat.
Two months passed away, making five months in all since the foundering
of the _’Liza Ann_, but all that time they had never seen a passing
ship. True, they spent only a part of the day at the outlook; but the
view was so extensive that had a vessel been anywhere within a radius of
twenty miles or more they would have discried it.
All the food, consisting chiefly of biscuits and tinned meats which they
had taken from the ship, had long since been finished; but this was a
small matter so long as their ammunition held out. Of this, however, Tom
was now unusually careful; and for ordinary purposes of hunting they
used bows and arrows, and soon became very accomplished marksmen indeed.
They also paid frequent visits to the sea-shore, and, embarking in their
dinghy, caught fish. As to fruit and vegetables, these were abundant;
so that on the whole they wanted for nothing.
Salt, by the way, was at first wanting, till Tom thought of the
old-fashioned plan of placing seawater in shallows or rocks. When it
evaporated it left a crust of saline matter, and this had to do duty as
a relish.
And now with constant hard work in the forest their clothes began to get
somewhat ragged, and also their shoes; so Tom had to learn two new
trades, those of shoemaker--or rather cobbler--and tailor. As for Ginger
Brandy, he dispensed entirely with the use of shoes, and almost entirely
with clothes even. He told Tom that he was not afraid of the sun
spoiling _his_ complexion.
“But, O marster,” he added, “_you_ is getting redder ebery day. Bymeby
you turn brown, den black, and den dere will be two niggah boys. Aha!
Your ole moder won’t know you, sah, when you goes home.”
“Home, Brandy!” said Tom with a sigh. “Heigh-ho! I begin to think we
will never, never see home any more.”
Yes, Tom had sighed. It was the first sigh for liberty; for albeit the
wild free life the two Crusoes led now was very enjoyable, there were
times when, do as he might, he could not prevent thoughts of home from
crowding into his mind.
But he could not help thinking also how happy he was to have such a
faithful companion as Ginger Brandy. To be quite alone on such an island
as this at night and all the livelong day would, he thought, have driven
him out of his mind.
The silence was irksome by day, although then there were the songs of
birds and the loud hum of insect life; but at night hardly a hush was to
be heard, except now and then a strange eerie cry in the forest that
only served to make the solitude feel more deep and awful.
They were several miles inland, and yet every night the sound of the
waves breaking on the rocks fell distinctly on their ears, and all night
long till sunrise awakened once more the voices of the woods and glens.
There grew a tree with a tall, slim, even stem not far from the hut, and
every Saturday afternoon Tom cut a notch thereon, and thus kept count of
time. One day he reckoned these up. There were thirty-eight in all! He
started. He could hardly believe it. But it was true nevertheless. They
had been over eight long months on the island!
And the time had gone quickly enough by. Tom could not say he was
unhappy. There was something in the very air they breathed which had
seemed to brew contentment, and make the days fly quickly past.
Birds and beasts too became very tame. Wild ducks even came in flocks to
the water’s edge to be fed, and the new bull was such a gentlemanly
fellow that he used to lead his cows towards the hut to be milked. The
mocking-birds would sit on the fence at sundown and sing low and sweetly
till darkness fell, and moon or stars shone out.
But I have something still more wonderful to relate. Those elephantic
tortoises that came almost every day to look for their favourite food in
the valley--a species of sweet and esculent cactus--grew so tame at last
that they no longer drew in their necks or even hissed when Tom or
Brandy approached, which they never did without an armful of something
for them to eat.
They had their regular beaten tracks to or from the high plateau where
the Crusoes lived. When upon these they turned neither to the right hand
nor to the left, but went steadily though slowly on to their journey’s
end.
Well, Brandy and Tom soon fell upon a plan to take advantage of this. If
they wanted to go towards the beach they would turn a monster in that
direction on his beaten pathway, then mount his back and be hauled away.
If the monsters they squatted on felt disinclined to move, they had only
to strike two on the shell and off they waddled.
This was glorious fun, and only had one drawback--the tortoises seldom
moved at a quicker pace than two miles an hour; but as time was no
object to either Tom or Brandy, it did not make much difference in the
long run. They were always good to their strange steeds and never
attempted to ride back to the valley, and it is to be hoped the
tortoises appreciated their goodness.
CHAPTER XVIII.
“HE WAS CONVINCED NOW HE HAD SEEN A SPECTRE AND NOTHING ELSE.”
When a few months more had gone over their heads it is no wonder that
the time began to seem a little longer.
Tom spent more time now alone by himself at the outlook station on the
hilltop. I really ought not to say “alone,” however, when so faithful a
companion as puss was with him.
Brandy and he had built a sun shelter here, and as there was always a
little breeze blowing it was delightful enough to sit under cover and
read or write. He read his Shakespeare till he had it well nigh by
heart, and used to spend hours in reciting. Often of an evening too he
used to delight his dusky companion by reading nearly a whole play. This
was a pleasant way of spending the time. But he thought of another, and
one which Ginger Brandy became quite enamoured of. This was simply the
good old-fashioned game of draughts; and over this they spent many a
quiet and pleasant evening. It was very easy to make a board, and
anything did duty as men--slices of vegetables, for instance.
Although it fell dark shortly after sunset in this island, it must not
be supposed they wanted light. No; for from the fat of the animals
killed for food they made excellent candles, the wicks being composed of
a kind of pith from rushes that grew plentifully near the water’s edge.
In the mornings Brandy went hunting in the woods or over the hills with
his master, then he would go by himself to the hut to get dinner ready,
and prepare to have a delightful hour or two before retiring. But it
soon grew a habit with Tom to spend the afternoon with pussy at the
outlook.
But, alas! he swept the horizon in vain for any signs of the coming
ship.
One afternoon a sharp thunder-storm kept him longer at his station than
usual. But the sun went down, and darkness came on apace, before he had
recognized that it was so late. It would be impossible now to find his
way down through the woods until the moon should rise. Brandy would
certainly be anxious about him; but there was no help for it, wait he
must.
Happily the moon was nearly a full one, when it did rise he would have
plenty of light.
But waiting here was certainly lonesome.
He began to think of home, and before many minutes he was in dreamland.
And the spirit of his dreams flew away with him far over the sea, far
over the wild mountain lands of Ecuador, across Colombia, and across the
wide Atlantic to the dear old farm of Craigielea; and he found himself,
as he thought, walking towards the house from the pine-wood, with little
laughing ’Theena by his side. ’Theena was not a whit bigger, nor did she
seem a day older, than when he had left her. Nor was his mother, father,
and uncle at all astonished to see him, but simply made room for him at
the fireside, as in the days of yore; and he sat as of old at his
sister’s feet, with her loving fingers entwined in his hair.
How long he had slept he could not tell. He awoke with a start at last;
for the cat had sprung on his shoulder, and was growling low and
ominously. The moon was very high now, and suddenly escaping from a
cloud shone full on the figure of a man, or--was it a spectre?
An unaccountable feeling of superstitious dread seized him, and he
trembled in every limb. The figure was tall, and as well as could be
made out dressed in skins, but with naked brown arms and feet. The face
was almost black, and a short dark beard curled round cheeks and chin.
Next instant he or _it_ had glided silently behind a tree.
Tom forced a laugh to relieve his mind.
“I have been dreaming,” he said aloud.
But surely there must have been something there, else why had the cat
growled?
For the first time in his life, as far as he could remember, he
experienced something akin to genuine fear as he set out to walk
homewards through the woods.
The clouds were very high to-night, which gave the moon the appearance
of being exceedingly far away. The whole sky, partially overcast with
these soft-looking feathery clouds, had little rifts of deep dark blue
between, and it was only when the moon escaped into one of these that
everything could be seen distinctly.
But a hundred times at least during his journey through that wild forest
Tom started, as he thought he saw that strange skin-clad man lurking
among the bushes.
What a relief it was to his feelings when he got clear at last of the
weird-looking trees, whose very shadows to-night seemed to enter his
soul! And, look, yonder was Brandy bounding joyfully to meet him.
“O, sah, sah, I’se so glad you come. I tink you lost. I tink I nebber,
nebber see you no more. And de drefful man, sah! O, he scare poor Brandy
a’most to def, sah.”
“The man, Brandy! What, you have seen him too? Then it was no
apparition.”
“I dun know nuffin’, sah. I was bend down near de fire to makee he burn
up more bright, den I hear a footstep. I look up plenty quick, and
dere--O, it was drefful, sah, dat hairy man, all same’s one big baboon!”
“Which way did he go?”
“Round by de ruins, sah. Den I see him run to de forest, O, ebber so
fast! I tink he one ghost, sah. Den I tink plaps he hab murder you, and
I turn pale wid fear.”
“Come along anyhow,” said Tom, “and give me some dinner. I am famishing,
and food will banish fear; though, Brandy, I think it would take a good
deal to make you turn pale.”
Hardly anything else was thought about that night except the apparition;
and lest he should come again at midnight, Tom loaded his rifle and kept
it handy by his couch.
Days wore by, and nothing more was seen of the hairy man, and Tom began
to think it must after all have been a baboon. Brandy and he went to the
woods together as usual; but after this somehow neither cared to stay
alone at the outlook station, and they were always at home by nightfall.
One evening, however,--a clear and starlit one it was, with everything
easily seen at a considerable distance--Tom was taking a last look
round before turning in, when he saw that figure again crossing the
plain not a hundred yards away.
He followed slowly. He seemed impelled to follow. The figure glided on
silently far in front, and finally disappeared in the orange grove where
the graves were.
While following the strange figure Tom had experienced no fear; but
immediately it disappeared the same unaccountable feeling of
apprehension stole over him, and he retraced his steps to the hut, nor
would he have gazed behind him for all the world.
He was convinced now in his own mind that he had seen a spectre and
nothing else.
Curiosity led Brandy and him to visit the orange grove next day,
nevertheless.
What they saw almost took their breath away for a moment.
The grave had been opened, the skeletons taken up and thrown on one
side, and quite a quantity of earth excavated from the bed in which they
had lain.
“No spectre has done this,” said Tom as soon as he had recovered the
power of speech.
“Look, marster,” said Brandy; “it is de ebil man. He hab drefful claws.”
The sides of the grave really did appear to have been clawed at, and
this only deepened the mystery.
Tom touched nothing; he even obliterated the marks of their footsteps,
and left the skeletons as they were.
“Was the creature who had done this deed a ghoul?” he could not help
thinking as he walked silently back to the hut with Ginger Brandy.
“Brandy,” he said that afternoon, “let us have an early dinner
to-night.”
“Sartinly, sah. But--”
“But what, my friend?”
“Dere am sumfing strange in your eye, sah. You is goin’ to de grabe
after dinner to watch?”
“You have guessed aright, Brandy. I am going to the grave to watch. Be
this creature man or beast, fiend or ghoul, I shall get to the bottom of
the mystery to-night.”
“Brandy go too?”
“No, you must stop in the hut; and you must keep Black Tom in too. The
cat might spoil all.”
“I stay at home den, marster. But I dreffully frightened.”
“There is no occasion to be frightened, Brandy. Say your prayers, and
nothing will happen to you or to me.”
“O, I pray, sah, fo’ true. I pray all de time you away; but I dreffully
aflaid all de same.”
The moon would not rise to-night till past twelve, and there was little
likelihood of the creature visiting the orange grove before then.
But soon after ten o’clock Tom, with revolver in belt, left the hut, and
betook himself across the plain to the little grove of trees where the
now unburied skeletons lay.
The tree that overshadowed the place afforded ample room for
concealment, so he climbed well up and sat down to watch.
Would the ghoul appear?
How very long the time seemed!
The silence was intense to-night, for not a breath of air was stirring
among the leaves. The moan of the restless sea was distinctly audible.
And at intervals strange voice-sounds came from the woods, and from the
lonesome far-off hills; sounds that perhaps birds or beasts emitted, and
which it was difficult to locate exactly, for at times they appeared to
come from the very sky itself. But they made Tom feel very eerie, and
more than once he repented of his rashness, and wished he had not
undertaken so lonely a vigil.
At long last the moon rose red and rosy over the mountains, and soon its
light glimmered through the orange trees and fell in patches on and
around the grave.
Tom placed his hand on his revolver, and sat on his perch as silent as
the leaves themselves.
CHAPTER XIX.
“UNDER THE GRAVE YOU DUG ARE GOLD AND PRECIOUS STONES.”
The creature, whatever it was, came at last, and so silently, too, that
Tom was startled. How his heart did beat! It was audible to himself, it
caused him even to shake, and he fancied he could even feel the branch
of the tree tremble under him.
The figure stood for fully a minute gazing down into the grave; then a
sigh escaped it, and descending into the hollow the operation of digging
was commenced with vigour. Not with the hands or claws, however, but
with a huge white shell; and it was the marks of this on the sides of
the excavation that had so alarmed poor Brandy.
The strength of the creature seemed enormous, and the grave got deeper
and deeper every minute. But in a short time the figure desisted, and
standing up wiped the perspiration from its brow. This was a very human
act, and went far to banish fear from Tom’s heart. Almost at the same
moment the creature turned its face up towards the moonlight, and Tom
was able to satisfy himself it was a man and nothing else.
He made up his mind for instant action now, and just as this skin-clad
savage had commenced to dig again he sprang lightly from the tree and
stood before him, revolver in hand.
An eldritch scream was the first result of this manœuvre of Tom’s, and
the wild man attempted to scramble from the grave.
“Hold, my friend!--hold!” cried Tom. “I am armed. You see my pistol. Do
not force me to fire.”
“Fire!--no, no, no!” was the reply in strangely broken and semi-guttural
English. “Fire me!--no, no! I surrend--I surrend--I prison--I prison--”
“Yes, you are my prisoner. But you have nothing to fear; only come along
with me to my hut. Promise me you will not run away, and I and my black
servant will do everything we can for your comfort.”
“You English? No, I fly not from Englishmen. I took
you--Spanish--Ecuador.”
The strange being was smiling now.
“O!” he continued, “I--happy.”
It was soon evident to Tom that this wild man was, like himself, a
Briton, but must have been so long a recluse that he had forgotten his
own language. This became more apparent every minute. Tom’s voice and
talking seemed to recall words and phrases to him, though for weeks
after their meeting the man could not finish any long word.
Great indeed was Brandy’s surprise and terror when Tom walked into the
hut in company with the very apparition they had both seen, and who had
clawed up the grave.
“Come, Brandy, boy, don’t stand and stare. This is an Englishman. He was
only afraid of us because he thought we were Spanish. Get us supper
quick, and get something nice while you are about it.”
Brandy took one more look at the wild man, then laughing heartily held
out his hand. This was cordially shaken, and thus friendly relations
between all three were speedily established. Nay, but between all four,
I should say; for Black Tom soon jumped on the stranger’s knee and gave
vent to his pleasure in a song.
“But,” said Brandy, “I take you for de debil at fust, sah. But now I’se
mistaken. Aha! O, golly! dere is one big load tumble off dis chile’s
liber. Aha! I not turn pale wid fear no more.”
And away bustled Brandy to get the supper ready.
The wild man ate what was placed before him almost ravenously, though
with little regard to table etiquette. Indeed, Tom half thought at one
time he wanted to take the food into a corner quietly and devour it as a
tiger does his prey.
He spoke scarcely a word all the time supper was being partaken of, but
he was evidently far from at ease. The wind had risen now and was
moaning drearily round the hut, and he started often and listened as if
he heard voices in it. When Brandy had cleared away he spoke at last.
“I--go--now,” he said with some hesitation, “to the woods.”
“No, no, no!” cried Tom. “My dear friend, you are safe here. Yonder on a
bed of grass you shall sleep. Nothing shall hurt you. To-morrow, or
rather to-day--for it is late--we will talk.”
And the strange wild man extended a sleepy hand to Tom, smoothed the
cat--a touch of nature not lost on Tom--and went and threw himself on
his bed, and almost immediately went sound asleep.
Before Brandy retired he advanced furtively and half fearfully to his
master, and pointing to the recumbent figure, “Marster,” he said, “he
safe--puffikly safe? And he not de debil--you is sure? Den I sleep. All
same, I pray some mo’.”
Both Brandy and Tom slept late. When they awoke they found the wild
man’s couch deserted. But he had not fled; he was outside lying under a
bush playing with the cat; and when Tom proposed an adjournment to the
lake for the purpose of ablution and a swim, he joyfully assented.
Tom was perfectly astonished at the wild man’s prowess in the water. He
had all the strength and agility of a seal.
After breakfast Tom and he went off for a walk in the woods. They went
not anywhere near the orange grove to-day. They passed over the hill
where the outlook station was.
“I see you often here,” said Tom’s companion.
“I wish you had revealed yourself sooner.”
“I was afraid. Say, will you come to my house?”
Tom looked at him just once. Yes, he could trust him. There was
something almost benevolent in the man’s face, wild though he was and
had been. His eye was a dark and kindly one, and strangely enough Tom
thought that he had seen someone like him somewhere. He was not old,
this wild man--probably but little older than Tom; and he was remarkably
handsome--every movement of his lithe body was as graceful and easy as
those of the jaguar.
“What shall I call you?” said Tom.
“My name is Yanakova.”
He led Tom through the woods and wilds for many miles, then into a close
dark bit of jungle near the top of a high hill. Here was a cave. It was
lined with skins and carpeted with skins--skins everywhere, indeed.
From the doorway of this strange dwelling, where the bushes were tied
back with a piece of thong, they could see the ocean spread blue and
beautiful far beneath them, the sea-beach with the white line of
breaking waters, and all the greenery of hills and dells, ending in the
dark and burned border around the sea.
Here the two new-made friends rested for nearly an hour, hardly
speaking, for the day was a drowsy one.
“My good Yanakova,” said Tom at last, “will you tell me your story? It
must be a strange one.”
“I’ll tell you my story,” said Yanakova with all the simplicity of a
little child. And he spoke as follows, though it would be impossible to
give the exact words, or even to describe the wild man’s method of
talking:--
“My story is a sad one. I will begin not at the beginning but the end of
it, when I met you. I took you for Spanish. Most of the Spanish I hate.
But I had one friend among them. He was governor of this island long,
long ago. We were convicts all, in number ten. The others had died or
been taken away. Then the government of Ecuador forgot us. Sometimes in
long intervals a ship would come, but not often. So the governor told
me. They came for tortoises, but the tortoises were nearly all killed;
then they came no more. But the convicts were bad; they rose one day and
killed my friend the governor and his children, I fought like a madman.
I loved the governor. But they left me for dead, and went away in a raft
from the island. I could not look at the settlement after that. I fled
to the woods, and lived as best I could.”
“Had you been long on the island?”
“If I can judge of time, only a year or two. But it seemed an age. O, I
feel very old!”
“But, Yanakova, what had you done to deserve banishment here?”
“I was an Indian chief. I came from the eastern wilds of Ecuador with
fifty warriors. They said I conspired against the government; and so
they sent me here. I do not now repent it. I have met you.”
“But stay, Yanakova, this is not all your terribly eventful history. Go
farther back into the past--tell me of your childhood, your earlier
days, your parents.”
“No, no, no!” cried Yanakova; “that is all a dream, and some part of it
is a fearful dream. I do not wish to dream that dream again.”
“Then listen, Yanakova, and I will tell you a story--a brief one.”
As Tom spoke he was sitting on a fallen tree at the entrance to the
cave, his wild companion lying at full length at his feet, leaning on
his elbows and gazing intently and intensely at Tom’s face as he
proceeded with his story.
“There was a ship many years ago” he said, “that sailed away from
England to visit strange islands and countries on the Pacific shore; for
the captain was rich, owned his ship, and dearly loved a life on the
ocean wave. He had a wife and a little boy, and both went with him. Nay
more, on the sea a baby was born; and no one was happier than the kindly
captain then.”
Tom paused.
“Go on. Speak quick,” cried Yanakova.
“It came to pass soon after, that thinking to make themselves rich, the
crew, under the command of an evil-minded half-caste, mutinied. They
killed the mate, and those of the men that had taken the captain’s part.
Then they ran the ship on the rocks and left the rest to perish.”
“_All_ the rest?”
“No, not all the rest. They took away the boy, and the boy’s nurse, and
sold them both for slaves--”
Yanakova’s excitement was almost fearful to witness. He had raised
himself to his knees, and thus remained clutching Tom’s hands.
“The boy’s name?” he gasped.
“Bernard Herbert, and you are he!”
“Then the Great Spirit has heard my prayer. I have found one who can
tell me of my parents. Does mother live?”
“Alas, no. But your sister and father lives, I hope.”
“My sister?”
“Yes, the child ’Theena.”
“Then tell me more, tell me all, and tell who you are.”
So Tom had to repeat the story of his own life and adventures from the
very beginning, Bernard never once taking his eyes off his face while
he spoke.
When he had finished, Tom took from a little pocket-book a bunch of
portraits, and handed them to his companion. He looked half afraid of
them at first.
“O,” he cried, “is this right? I have seen such things at Quito. Are
these the souls of these peoples stolen away?”[3]
“No, no,” replied Tom laughing. “Only sun pictures--only shadow
likenesses.”
He handled them rapidly now; but put them all aside except one--his
mother’s.
On this he gazed long and fondly, the tears meanwhile chasing each other
adown his sun-browned face.
Tom was glad to see him weep. It was so human. He was no longer the
savage, no longer the wild man. He was Bernard Herbert, ’Theena’s
brother.
Then Tom told him more about ’Theena, and about the dream he had in his
boyhood.
“Part of this dream has come true,” said Tom; “and you see the Great
Spirit has also heard my prayer. The other part about going back to my
own country wealthy and restoring the old castle was but a child’s idle
folly. O, Bernard, if ever we can leave this island, and return to dear
old Craigielea and my parents, I shall be happy even if in rags.”
“O, but stay, brother, stay. You shall be wealthy. In the orange grove
down yonder, under the grave you dug, are more gold and precious stones
than we could carry or even lift. I found the treasure; but I touch it
not unless you consent to share it.”
“This, then,” said Tom laughing now, “is the secret of the grave we had
thought desecrated. Come, then, we shall bury the skeletons elsewhere;
and, if we are fortunate ever to get away from this lonely island, I
will share your treasure.”
“Thank you, brother, thank you. How good the Great Spirit is to us at
last!”
CHAPTER XX.
“O, BERNARD, IT IS YOUR FATHER’S SHIP!.”
After the strange meeting with Bernard Herbert, his imprisonment on the
lonely island no longer felt irksome to Tom Talisker.
Indeed, for a time at all events, he was in no hurry for “the ship” to
come. Had it arrived the first week even, I daresay Tom would have been
a little disappointed. O, it was bound to appear some day or other; all
three prisoners felt sure of that. For they were young and healthy, and
therefore they were happy and hopeful. Why should they not enjoy life as
thoroughly as possible, therefore? They did so anyhow.
They hunted, they fished, they roamed through the woods and wild glens,
and studied nature in its every phase and form, and in fact really felt
part and parcel of the living joys and wonders all around them.
“It is very well being a Crusoe, for a short time all by yourself,” Tom
said one day to Bernard; “but it is doubly delightful to have a
companion.”
The very flowers seemed more beautiful now, the trees looked greener,
and the sky and sea a deeper blue.
Strange to say, neither Tom nor Bernard thought twice of the buried
treasure. It was there waiting them when they wanted it. Far more in
gold alone than would purchase all the lands of Craigielea, and half the
parish besides. They did not even trouble themselves to wonder how it
had come there. A dying convict had told Bernard its whereabouts--a
convict that he had befriended--and doubtless it had been concealed long
years ago by the buccaneers who infested these seas in the good old
times.
The huge tame tortoises were a source of endless amusement to the
Crusoes. They even managed to domesticate them. Two of these especially
were great pets and favourites. Both were old males--bulls Bernard
called them; and there is really no saying how long they might not have
crawled about the island--probably a hundred years if not two. Tortoises
are animals that take life wondrously easy. They never hurry, and most
assuredly never worry; and thus they manage to exist for a whole
century, and live happy ever afterwards.
One would think that during such a long innings the Galapagos tortoise
would amass a vast deal of wisdom. Perhaps they do; but, if so, they
keep it to themselves. They seem to know that silence is golden, and
consequently stick to it. These two giants, Peter and John the Crusoes
called them, knew well enough what was good for them; and that is more
than some boys do. Their food was collected for them, and they stopped
eating at once when nature was satisfied; and they never touched
anything that was left, a second time. If stale food were offered to
them, they snorted and drew in their heads at once; but as soon as the
half-dry stuff was taken away, and some nice juicy morsels of cacti
placed about a yard off, out came the heads again. Not quickly; O, no,
they did not even hurry themselves in putting their heads out; though
they always managed to draw them in with a jerk
[Illustration: GIANT TORTOISE RIDING]
when offended. Black Tom was their particular aversion. I cannot
understand why, but as soon as he appeared, “Pshaw!” they would shout,
and in went their heads in a moment; and away Black Tom would fly, with
his tail on end and like a bottle brush. The cat could growl and hiss
pretty well himself; but not in the terribly startling way the tortoises
did. John was the better-natured of these two race-horses. That is the
reason they call him John. The other was a little crotchety so they
called him Peter. Peter did not like anyone to point a stick or even a
finger at him. If you did so, you offended him at once. “Pshaw!” he
would cry, and draw in his head, and one could not help feeling mean.
But you might have pointed a finger all day long at John, and he would
not have troubled himself.
Is it possible, I wonder, for huge ungainly monsters like these to
possess affection? I myself believe it is; and that John grew really
fond of Tom. For sometimes after eating his dinner, instead of drawing
in his neck and going quickly to sleep as his brother Peter did, John
started looking or staring at Tom, if he happened to be lying reading
out of doors. It was a long, steady, stony stare, that lasted for
perhaps half an hour at a time. Bernard used to say that he saw a smile
on John’s face; but Tom would not admit that. However, there was no
mistake about the staring; for Tom used to shift his position, and the
head and neck followed him slowly round. But John never turned his body
round. That would have been far too much trouble. When Tom got tired of
being stared at like this he used to call for pussy. That was enough for
John. “Pshaw!” he would cry, and in would go the neck.
* * * * *
In about a month’s time Bernard Herbert, though still dressed in
garments made of skin, was as thoroughly civilized as could be wished,
and his English was now unexceptionably good. But though a handsome man,
he was a terribly red-brown one. The tanning his skin had received in
the wilds of the eastern lands of Ecuador would probably never leave it;
only there was surely nothing to be sorry for on this account.
Tom had commenced to teach Bernard to read, and, partly because his
heart was in it, and partly because he really was very clever, he soon
made excellent progress.
One forenoon when Brandy was away in the woods Tom had just sat down to
give Brother Bernard, as he called him, a lesson, when they heard a
distant shout, and looking up beheld the negro boy coming rushing wildly
over the plain.
Tom ran for his rifle, then hastened to meet him, not knowing what might
be the matter. He hailed the lad when near enough; but Brandy had no
voice now, he could only point away seawards and make faces.
“Is it a ship?” cried Tom.
Brandy signalled assent, and back ran Tom, shouting wildly, madly,
exultantly--
“A ship! A ship!”
And Bernard threw his goat-skin cap in the air and joined the chorus,
for Brandy had recovered his breath, and the very woods and welkin rang
with--
“A ship! A ship!”
Then away they all hurried together to the look-out station.
The vessel was standing steadily in towards the land, with all sail set.
But Tom had only to look at her once before he exclaimed:
“O, Bernard, it is the _Caledonia_! It is your father’s ship!”
Bernard smiled faintly, then pressed both hands to his heart, as if in
sudden pain. Strong man though he was, the joyful and sudden news was
almost too much for him.
He recovered in a moment though; then, as if by some sudden impulse, the
three joined hands and danced and capered there until they were fain to
desist from sheer exhaustion. They quieted down after this. They had
allayed their excitement, blown off their steam. But for the time being
surely no madder, dafter dance had ever been danced on a hilltop.
Brandy, with his black face and white rolling eyes, the wild red man in
his skins, and honest Tom Talisker in his rags-a comical trio!
I think when the dance was over they were all a little ashamed of it;
but after all what else could they have done under the circumstances?
“Well, sah,” said Ginger Brandy, “I’se ’llayed my feelings plenty
proper.”
“And I’ve allayed mine,” said Tom.
“I think,” said Bernard, “that dance has saved my reason.”
“And now,” cried Tom, “look, yonder goes the anchor down. Let us run and
meet them.”
Well, surely there is truth in the old saying that wonders will never
cease, for who should Tom meet near the shore coming panting up the
tortoise-path but Uncle Robert himself.
“O, may the Lord be praised, my boy, we have found you.”
And for one moment Tom in his rags was pressed to the old man’s heart,
and, will it be believed, he was sobbing like a child.
Uncle Robert saw he could not speak, though he was trying hard to, so he
wisely forestalled his questions.
“Your mother and father, sister and brothers are all well, and ’Theena
is here on board the _Caledonia_.”
About the same time an earnest-eyed red man in goat skins had rushed up
to Captain Herbert on the beach.
“Father,” he said. “Do not start, I am your boy, Bernard!”
But wonders had not ceased even yet. For coming along the path,
clambering over lumps of scoriæ and kicking away cinders, was Barnaby
Blunt himself.
“I tell you what it is, friends, this is about the prettiest bit of an
ending to a drama that ever I see’d in all my born days, and I reckon
nobody’ll care to contradict me. Here was Captain Barnaby Blunt
foundered at sea, and took to boats, separated from his dinghy and
finally picked up by a whaler, who landed him at Buenos Ayres. Here five
months afterwards was Captain Herbert, and my young friend’s Uncle
Robert, come out from England to look for their runaway boys, and here
we all meet again as unexpected as if we had dropped out of a balloon.
If it ain’t about the strangest and queerest thing that ever happened,
then may Barnaby Blunt never command a ship of his own again, nor meet
his dear old wife, ’Liza Ann. And here’s Brandy himself.”
Then this queer old Quaker Yankee got serious all at once.
“I say, men and boys,” he said, “don’t you think we’ve all got a deal to
be thankful for. Then let us just kneel down here among the cinders and
praise God’s holy name.”
They did kneel down--just there, where they had been standing, and if
Barnaby Blunt’s prayer was brief it was heartfelt.
* * * * *
Reader, my story is all but ended, and I am not the one to keep the
curtain up a single minute longer than is necessary.
Just as they were then, in their rags and skins, Captain Herbert
insisted on bundling them on board the _Caledonia_. “Bundling” is the
right word in the right place.
When Tom Talisker saw advancing to meet him on the quarter-deck a
beautiful girl of some seventeen summers--we should always call it
summers when talking of a lady’s age--he felt inclined to hang fire, and
Bernard was half afraid too.
But Tom soon screwed up his courage, took Brother Bernard by the hand,
and both advanced; and when she looked at them ’Theena first smiled and
then laughed right heartily, though the tears were rolling over her face
all the time. And everybody joined in the laugh, even the Crusoes
themselves.
* * * * *
The treasure was safely loaded and stowed, and let me say to his credit
that Barnaby Blunt was not a bit jealous of the young men’s luck.
“‘Liza Ann and me has eno’, praised be His name,” said Barnaby, “and I
wish you long life and luck to spend your fortune, boys.”
When boats at Guayaquil brought off Tom’s treasures of natural history,
and brought off at the same time his old friend Samaro to see Uncle
Robert, the latter was indeed a proud and happy man. And his parting
with his quondam guide was quite affecting.
“My boy Tom may see you again, Samaro,” he said, “he is a rover born;
but I never shall till we meet up bye. Farewell!”
“_A dios_, my good señor. _A dios._”
These were Samaro’s last words as he went slowly over the side.
* * * * *
It was many months after this ere the good ship _Caledonia_ was towed up
the Clyde; but the long voyage had been a very happy one, almost idyllic
indeed, and ere it was all ended ’Theena had one evening under the
silvery stars promised Tom Talisker that she would take a longer voyage
with him--the voyage through life.
They are living now at Craigielea; Tom’s parents still keep the fine old
farm, but Tom himself lives at Craigie Castle, and owns the shootings.
Black Tom, the cat, is also alive and very living like. Uncle Robert has
rooms at the castle too. The place would not be complete without Uncle
Robert.
Bernard is still a bachelor and likely to be, but he has bought a fine
estate not far from Tom’s place.
Between them they own a very beautiful yacht, with decks white as snow
and sails like sea-bird’s wings; but only their most intimate friends
know the reason why she is named the _Southern Hope_.
“English boys owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Henty.”--_Athenæum._
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SIR HARRY JOHNSTON, G.C.M.G., K.C.B.
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--=Overdue=: or, The Strange Story of a Missing Ship. 3_s._ 6_d._
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--=The Cruise of the Thetis=: A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection. 5_s._
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=On Foreign Service=: or, The Santa Cruz Revolution. Illustrated by W.
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Mr. Midshipman Glover, R.N.: A Tale of the Royal Navy of To-day. 5_s._
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DAVID KER
=Under the Flag of France=: A Tale of Bertrand du Guesclin. 5_s._
“Full of vigour and movement.”--_British Weekly._
--=Among the Dark Mountains=: or, Cast away in Sumatra. 3_s._ 6_d._
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ERNEST GLANVILLE
=The Diamond Seekers=: A Story of Adventure in South Africa. 6_s._
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=Every Inch a Briton=: A School Story. 3_s._ 6_d._
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=The Disputed V.C.= A Tale of the Indian Mutiny. 3_s._
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=The Boys at Menhardoc=: A Story of Cornish Nets and Mines. 3_s._
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Dr. GORDON STABLES, R.N.
The Naval Cadet: A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea. 3_s._ 6_d._
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Lords of the World: A Tale of the Fall of Carthage and Corinth. 3_s._
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=The Red Army Book.= With many Illustrations in colour and in
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=The Quest of the Golden Hope=: A Seventeenth century Story of Adventure.
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Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
for Samoro now told=> for Samaro now told {pg 114}
Barnably Blunt looked=> Barnaby Blunt looked {pg 156}
see the the negro=> see the negro {pg 172}
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Some of these wonderful tortoises are so large that half a dozen
men can hardly lift them from the ground.
[2] Owing to the raids made upon these strange animals by the American
whalers they had become very scarce, but this island not having been
visited for many years, they had recuperated their forces.--G. S.
[3] This is the idea Indians have of photographs.
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