Born to Wander Part 29

Another went out every night to watch the enemy. They had come nearer, and were now only three miles from the fort.

Now, there is nothing that Britons will not dare; and when one evening Leonard said,--

"I say, Douglas, some of those Indian horses would come in handy to a.s.sist in our journey homeward."

"That they would," replied Douglas. "I was thinking the same."

"Hurrah!" then said Leonard; "let us have them."

So it was agreed to make the attempt.

And this is how it was accomplished. Four of the friendly Indians made a _detour_, and attacked the camp of the foe in the rear. It was a lovely moonlight night, and this ruse was completely successful. The enemy sprang to their bows and arrows, and prepared to repel the attack.

A shot or two was fired, then the friendlies ran pursued by the foe.

The white men had it all their own way now; they speedily picked out eight of the best horses, and were soon galloping off camp-wards as quickly as the nature of the ground would permit.

In this case, at all events, fortune favoured the brave, and all got safe inside the fort, only one Indian being wounded slightly.

But the Ojibbeways determined on revenge, and the very next night quite a cloud of arrows was poured into the fort, and then an attempt made to scale the rampart, the savages making night hideous with their howlings and wild cries. They had to retire worsted, however, and it was nearly a week before they again made an attack. But meanwhile they had been greatly reinforced, and the fight was now a terrible one. It began while it still was dark, but soon the moon rose, then the Indians suffered severely for their rashness.

For many days, and night after night, these attacks were made. None of the white men were wounded, but one friendly was killed, and another put _hors de combat_. Things began to look very serious, and if a.s.sistance came not soon Captain Blunt feared the very worst.

"Surely," thought Leonard and Douglas, "the worst has come," when one night the poor trapper fell at their feet, pierced through the heart with an arrow. This night's attack was a fearful one. The savages, regardless of their lives, leapt on top of the rampart, though only to fall dead within the enclosure.

But more took their place, and the fighting went on with redoubled fury.

"I fear all is up," said Captain Blunt in a moment's lull; "let us sell our lives dearly."

But hark! what was that wild, unearthly yell in the rear of the foe?

All listened. The savages who had been coming on again towards the fort fell back. The cries and yells were redoubled, and the din was horrible, awful!

"Hurrah!" cried Blunt, "we are saved! The friendlies have come!"

And so it was. The battle in the bush raged for fully an hour, then up rushed the scout who had so bravely done his duty. The drawbridge was lowered, and in he dashed, and after him fully a hundred of his own tribe, all in their war-paint, all fully armed, and, ghastly sight!

nearly all had scalps hanging to their girdles.

The very next day the fort was deserted, and the march eastward was commenced. It was a very long and a very toilsome one. But they reached civilisation safely at last. The friendly Indians thought themselves well rewarded by being presented with the horses. And considering that Captain Blunt and party had obtained the animals cheaply enough, it was no wonder that satisfaction was expressed on both sides.

They found the _Gloaming Star_ ready for sea, and after selling their skins and curios they embarked, and made all sail for the sunny south.

All the winter and spring was spent in cruising around the West Indian Islands. They even stretched across to lonely Bermuda, encountering a hurricane on the pa.s.sage, which well-nigh dismantled the ship, and necessitated a longer stay at the islands than they desired. Then southwards and west, touching at Rio Janeiro, the most romantic and lovely harbour in the world.

Monte Video, however, which they reached at last, did not afterwards shine in their memories as Janeiro did. Its low flat lands, its shallow seas and fogs, were not impressive in a pleasant way. But they found the inhabitants--even then a strange mixture of nationalities--kind and hospitable, and Leonard, Douglas, and Captain Blunt accepted an invitation to go for sport into the interior.

The roads were terribly rough; there were no railways here in those days. The roads were rough and the roads were long, but they found themselves at last on the very confines of civilisation. And here they spent some months, most pleasantly, too, though their adventures were not without danger. They found the new settlers at war with the Indians, the latter being a most treacherous race, possessing all the cunning, though hardly so much of the extreme cruelty, which forms so marked a characteristic of the Red men of the American wilderness.

Both Douglas and Leonard soon became adepts in riding the half-wild horses over the plains, and in hunting the emu and llama, in throwing the la.s.so and the bolas.

"It seems to me," said Douglas, one day, "that I would like to live in this wild land for ever and a day."

"It seems to me," replied Leonard, "that I have been here all my life."

Everything was so new in this country, and as they happened to be favoured with fine weather, some brief but terrible storms excepted, everything was so lovely. They were the guests of a rich Spaniard, whose house was a kind of shooting-box in the midst of most charming and wild scenery. It was a house of logs, but most artistically designed and built, with terraces around it, and porticoes and verandahs, over which trailed flowers of most beautiful colour, shape, and perfume. It was well surrounded--as indeed it needed to be--by a rampart and a ditch, and more than once it had to stand a siege. Sometimes the Indians made a raid down that way and drove away the horses. But Senor Cabelas had many well-armed servants, and they took a delight in following up and fighting Los Indianos, and returning triumphantly, which they invariably did, with the re-captured animals, or most of them.

Our heroes were always on the hunting path very early in the morning.

They went prepared to shoot or fight anything. Wolves there were in plenty, but they gave the hors.e.m.e.n a wide berth, nor were they really worth powder and shot. But far away among the wild hills, those long-haired wolves are really a source of very great danger.

But there were panthers or pumas, and a few jaguars, and although none of these attacked, still once or twice, when at bay, they made a terrible resistance. In a case like this, if a man does not keep cool, or if he allows any nervousness to interfere with his aim, it is ten to one that the jaguar will have the best of the battle, and the huntsman be left dead or terribly wounded.

When the day's sport or hunting in the pampas was over and done, when the dinner in Senor Cabelas' tall-ceiled room had been discussed, how pleasant it was to get out and sit under the verandah in the cool of a summer's evening, and tell tales, and think and talk of home.

How pleasantly tired and drowsy Leonard and Douglas used to be by bedtime, and how soon they were wrapped in dreamless slumber when their limbs were stretched in bed, their heads upon the downy pillows!

How loud the great frogs croaked and snored around the lodge, ay, and even in it; but their croaking and snoring never once wakened our pampas sportsmen!

Book 3--CHAPTER THREE.

HERE AND THERE IN MANY CLIMES.

"Heaven speed the canvas gallantly unfurled, To furnish and accommodate a world, To give the pole the produce of the sun, And knit unsocial climates into one."

"The luxuries of seas and woods, The airy joys of social solitude, Famed each rude wanderer."

Scenes: The sh.o.r.es of South America. The lonely isles of the Pacific, Antarctic Ocean, and Antarctic ice.

If my young reader took an ordinary sized map or chart of the world he could follow with eye or finger the route, _en voyage_, taken by our wanderers for the next few months, till we find them amid the lovely scenery briefly depicted above. Southwards along the eastern sh.o.r.e of South America, but keeping well to sea, and only seeing the wild romantic coast, now and then lying like a blue-grey storm-cloud on the horizon, sailed the _Gloaming Star_. Leaving the Falkland Islands on the port beam, they pa.s.sed the Straits of Magellan, not venturing in them now; and reaching farther southward, after encountering a terrific gale of wind which tried the timbers of the bonny barque and the mettle of her gallant tars, after having narrowly escaped being crushed during a dismal fog by heavy ice, they succeeded in weathering the Cape, and stretched away north now, once more along a wild coast--its mountains towering to the moon--and after many, many dreary weeks at sea, they landed at the wonderful isle of Juan Fernandez, celebrated, as all know, for having been the prison isle of Alexander Selkirk, the hero of that best of boys' books--"Robinson Crusoe."

The hut was still there, and many another curious memento of the sailor hermit, and strange thoughts pa.s.sed through the wanderers' minds as they walked on the very beach where, according to Defoe, his hero had seen the footstep in the sands.

North and west they went now, and in a few weeks fell in with the trade-winds, although they were not of too great force to prevent stunsails being carried alow and aloft.

Bounding over that lovely sea, the _Gloaming Star_ looked like some beautiful sea-bird.

Whatever might come of it, our heroes were determined to see something of the Sandwich Islands. But there was danger in their doing so. For but few white men ever ventured there in those days.

ABOUT SAVAGES.

There are, according to my own experience, very great differences, not only in physique, but in mental qualities, betwixt the savages--as they are called--of different parts of the world, and even between different tribes who live in the same vicinity, or within a few hundred miles of each other. Look, for example, at the good-natured simplicity of the Eskimo Indians, and compare it with the wild, cruel nature of the Red men of the Rockies, or forest lands of the Far West. Or witness the innocent, harmless nature of the tribes who dwell south of the Equator on the eastern sh.o.r.es of Africa, as compared with the treacherous ferocity of the Somali Africans, who live but a little way north.

Yet there is a right way and a wrong way of dealing with even the wildest tribes of what I may call fighting savages. There are certain peculiarities of character which are common to all, and at which, seeing the manner of life they lead, we cannot wonder. They are all suspicious, especially as regards the intentions of white men--or "white demons" as we are sometimes called--landing on their coast. They are all greedy, all superst.i.tious in a high degree, and all lawless, and easily inclined to give vent to unbridled pa.s.sions of any kind. All these traits of character must be borne in mind by any one going amongst them. Nor must it be forgotten that they are most observant. They cannot perhaps speak or understand a word of your language, but they can read your face and eye, and almost know your thoughts therefrom. To show fear among them is fatal to all success of intercommunication; even to feel fear is bad enough, for you can hardly hide it from their scrutiny. You must be cool, determined, and kindly withal, but bear yourself as if it were a matter of the greatest indifference to you whether you have their friendship or not. You must not so much woo _them_ as conduct yourself in a manner that will cause them to woo _you_ and seek your good will. It is all, you see, a matter of fact. And I have landed among savages with my hands in my pockets, when, had I carried arms, even a stick, I should have been speared to death in a very short time.

Captain Blunt was wise as regards savages, and he imparted his wisdom to Our heroes, Douglas and Leonard, at dinner one beautiful evening--just the night before they reached the Sandwich Islands.

At New York they had bought large quant.i.ties of beads, also knives and hatchets, and these, or rather a portion of them, came in handy in their intercourse with the natives.

They had already pa.s.sed, on the wings of a favouring breeze, very many little islands, some mere coral reefs green-fringed with trees, looking as if they were afloat in the sea or in the sky's blue. But although they had seen natives both in canoes and on the beach they had made no attempt to communicate with the _Gloaming Star_.