The Admirable Lady Biddy Fane Part 32

"We two?" says I; "nay, we shall be three."

"As how?" says he.

"Why," says I, "are we not on our road to rescue my cousin from the hands of Lewis de Pino?"

"No," says he, stopping again; "that are we not. For we're giving De Pino as wide a berth as I can contrive. Our factor will set out on that path as soon as he finds you flown."

"Friend," says I, "'tis for you to choose betwixt going on with me to the rescue of my cousin or taking me back to the station."

He tilted his hat forwards, and, scratching his head, was silent a minute; then, in a grumbling kind of voice, he says:

"What a plague do we want with a female?"

"Would you suffer her to go into slavery?" says I.

"They like it," says he sullenly. "Not at first, but after a bit. She'll be treated well, and I count she won't thank you from taking her away from a fine house and rich gowns to wander about in the woods without a roof to her head or a whole rag to her back."

"Nor matter for that," says I; "she shall be taken out of the Portugal's hands if I live."

"Well," says he, a little more cheerfully, "if it is to rob the Portugal, I shall be less loth; and to oblige you, more willing. We must turn back, howsomever, to those horrid rocks again."

We turned about, and retraced our steps in silence for a while.

"Don't take it amiss, master," says he presently, "if I'm a little bit downhearted at the prospect of having a lady's society; but I've had so much of that sort of thing these last ten years that I shouldn't be sorry if I never saw another female."

"How's that?" says I.

"Why, master," says he, "I'm married."

"And you can quit your wife without regret?" says I.

"It ain't a wife I'm quitting without regret," says he; "it's twenty or thirty."

I asked him to explain this matter; which he did forthwith, telling me that all the slaves in those mines were women, and that when one wounded herself, or fell sick by overwork, so that to save her life it was necessary she should lay up for a time, she was forthwith married to him. This strange custom perplexed me until I came to perceive the motive.

"Have you any children?" says I.

"Children!" says he; "Lord love you, I've got sixty if I've got one. But you can't expect a father to be very partial to his children when there so many of 'em. I give you my word, I don't know Jack from Jill; and they're all orange-tawney."

CHAPTER XLII.

WE ARE PURSUED BY DOGS AND PORTUGALS.

In this discourse we retraced our steps, and crossing the valley (yet wide of the station) we ascended again that chain of hills crossed the day before; for Lewis de Pino, as I was now informed by Matthew, had turned out of his road to sell me and traffic for gold; and after a long and painful march we came about daylight to the woods.

Here we rested, though against my inclination, being tormented with apprehensions concerning my dear Lady Biddy; but Matthew was pretty nigh spent with fatigue, having less strength than I, and none of that terrible anxiety which p.r.i.c.ked me onward. Thus, in one way and another, was a good deal of precious time lost.

When Matthew perceived that my impatience was becoming intolerable to me, he rose, and we once more pushed on. Yet he had a difficulty to keep pace with me, and from time to time he would remonstrate at my pace, saying, "Not so fast, master--not so fast; you forget that your legs are a quarter of a yard longer than mine," and the like.

The road still skirted the mountains pretty high up, yet still amidst the woods, whence now and then we caught a glimpse of the river shining below, very sweet and peaceful in the gray light of the morning.

"Now, master," says Matthew, when we had gone about a couple of leagues along this road--"now we shall do well to quit this road, and make our way as best we may through the woods; for I reckon we are getting nigh a station, and at any turn are likely to be spied."

Accordingly we struck into the wood, and none too soon, for ere we had made a hundred yards we were brought to a stand by the furious barking of a dog.

"If we can't silence that brute we are undone," whispered Matthew, "for they are trained to hunt down runaways, and will not quit their quarry till the huntsmen are come up with it."

Presently the barking ceased for a minute, and we heard the voices of men egging the dog on; yet could we see neither one nor the other for the thick growth, though their cries sounded no further off than a couple of hundred yards or so.

"Master," says Matthew, very much crestfallen, "promise me one thing."

"Ay," says I, "and you may depend on it I will keep my word."

He pressed my hand and nodded; then says he:

"Promise me that if I am taken, and you see a chance to pa.s.s your sword through me, you will put an end to my life."

"Nay," says I, shrinking before such a cruel possibility, "things will not come to that pa.s.s."

"Promise me, all the same," says he, very earnestly.

"You have my promise, friend," says I, though I would not have given it had I foreseen what he was about to ask.

"Good," says he. "I could lose another ell of my skin without much more than a day's howling; and I believe I could stand having my feet roasted, after the first scorching had taken my senses away; but I couldn't endure to be taken back a slave and lose my freedom."

I felt for the poor fellow with all my heart, sympathizing with his love of liberty, till he added, in a still more melancholy tone:

"I am not a family man."

Then I felt as if I must laugh, despite our peril, for it appeared that he dreaded being restored to his wives and children more than all the tortures the Portugals could inflict, and preferred death. Yet I am now inclined to think this reason was but an afterthought of his, and that he merely put it forward to hide his grave dread by way of pleasantry; for I have remarked that men of humor will in their most painful moments put forward a jest, when at another time they would be silent. So I have seen some jest over their disease when they know it to be mortal, and others even who have died with a pleasantry at their own expense on their lips.

All this time we stood in the midst of great feather-plants[2] as high as my shoulder, hoping the dog would come nigh enough for us to cut him down ere we were spied by the men, who, we doubted not, had muskets to defend them; also we dared not move, lest we should be heard by the dog or be seen by the men. Presently the barking and the sound of voices went further away, as if the dogs had got on our track and were hunting it back the way we had come; then the barking ceased altogether, to our great content, for we made sure thereby the scent was lost, and the chase given up.

[Footnote 2: Ferns.--F. B.]

"Now," says Matthew, "let us put our right leg foremost and get down to the river as best we may, for if we get t'other side of that unseen we may laugh at dogs and Portugals."

"Nay," says I, "go if you will, but I can not get away from this station until I know whether my dear cousin be there or not. You live for freedom," adds I, "but I live for something more than that."

"No need to tell me that," says he. "Lord love you, master, do you think I don't know what's the matter with you? Trust me, I'll play you no scurvy trick, though I don't relish the society of females. Do as I wish you, and believe me I am thinking as much of your welfare and happiness as my own. But, for Heaven's sake, do not let us waste time a-talking here like so many attorneys. You shall have all the explanation you need when we get t'other side of the water."

I felt sure of this good fellow's honesty, and believing his judgment better than mine, knowing more of these parts and the ways of Portugals than ever I did, I yielded to his persuasions, and we scuttled down the hillside as quickly as we might for the obstructions that pestered us more and more as we advanced. For in the lower sides of these hills, towards the bottom, where the sun burns fiercer, the soil is moister, and a greater depth of earth lies over the rock, the growth is prodigiously thick; and besides the ma.s.s of shrubs upon the ground that one must pick one's way through not to be torn in pieces, the trees are all netted together with lianas as stout as a ship's tackle; brambles, briars, and hanging vines of a hundred sorts; so there is no way betwixt them but what a man may cut for himself with his sword.

"Give me a valley like that we have left behind, where there is naught but stones and rocks," says Matthew; "for though you may break your shins one moment and your nose the next, yet can you make some headway.