The Admirable Lady Biddy Fane Part 7

To me this seemed an overstraining of sentiment; for I would have been content to take that dear girl for my wife, rich or poor; nay, I could not believe that any sense of dependence or bounty could exist in the union of two who love entirely. But I would not contrary him by speaking of this, which he would but have set down to want of decent pride and self-respect on my side.

"There is no hope--no hope!" he continues, bitterly. "I am undone by my enemies, and you are one of them--a man I have sought only to help--a base wretch who would not speak a word to save me from my undoing."

I held my peace, as I had before, when he spoke after this sort. For partly I felt that I deserved reproach, and partly I saw that he was beside himself with despair. So I let him be that he might vent freely all his pa.s.sion. But he said no more; and for some while he lay there like one who cared not to move again. Then getting upon his feet savagely, as though ashamed of his weakness, he says:

"Let us go from this cursed spot." Then, looking about him in bewilderment, "Where shall we go?"

Be a man never so wretched he must eat and drink; so I told him we must first of all seek a stream to quench our thirst; and the land to the west looking most promising, I settled to explore in that direction; Sir Harry being indifferent so that we got away from this unlucky place where we had been set ash.o.r.e. We took up our axes and muskets--which the thieving Cazique had left to us because they lay under our hands, as I may say, and he feared to awake us--and marched onwards, keeping to the sand, which was very level and firm, the tide being at low ebb. We kept on this way for best part of a league, and then the sh.o.r.e becoming soft with a kind of black mud, we were forced to seek higher ground; and here our progress was made very painful and slow by reason of the scrubby growth, which was mighty thick and p.r.i.c.kly, so that we were torn at every step. To add to our discomfort, the sun, being now high, shone with prodigious heat upon us, and parched us with thirst. There were woods at hand, but here the th.o.r.n.y bush was so high and closely interwoven that we had to use our hatchets to make any way at all, and then were we no better off, but worse; wherefore we were obliged to return to that part where the earth was less enc.u.mbered. Some of these brambles had thorns two inches long, and curved like great claws; and one of these tearing my leg gave me much torment. As the sun rose higher, so our suffering increased, until, after marching best part of two hours, we were ready to drop with fatigue. Fruit there was in abundance, spread out temptingly under our feet; for nearly every bush bore some sort of apples or grapes; yet dared we not eat any for fear of its being venomous. Of this venomous fruit I had heard the seamen who had traveled in these parts tell, and how a man eating of it will presently go raving mad; and I pointed out to Sir Harry, who would fain have slaked his thirst with this growth, that we had as yet seen neither bird nor beast, which argued that this food was not wholesome.

However, about midday, when we were as near spent as any living man could be, we came to a turn in the coast where the character of the growth changed; and here we found a great herb with leaves spreading out on all sides; but every leaf was a good twenty feet long and half a fathom across, so that it gave us ample shade to lie in; and never was man more content than I to get out of the sunshine. To our still greater comfort, Sir Harry presently spied at no great distance a low-growing thicket, in the midst of which grew a fruit that he knew for a pine-nut, which is a fruit bigger than any that grows in England, of a yellow complexion, and scaly without, but of excellent condition within.

Cutting it in half with his knife, he gave me one part, and bade me eat it without fear; and this I did, though not without compunction, but I found it truly as he said, both meat and drink, and the most delicious ever man did eat, with no ill effects after.

We rested ourselves some while, and then being much refreshed continued our journey over very fair ground, but yet keeping very near the water; and so rounding a headland, and facing pretty nearly due west, we perceived another headland across the water, but at a great distance, which led us to conceive that we were upon one of the mouths of the Oronoque, which, as we know, disembogues itself by many issues into the sea over a length of a hundred leagues and more along the coast of Guiana. And that this was a river, and not an inlet of the sea, we proved by tasting of the water, which was still running out very troubled; it was not salt and bitter, and yet too thick and brackish to drink. And now the trees approached the water-side, some hanging over, with thick growth everywhere; and though I know English trees well, and the different sorts of herbs, yet all here were new to me, and I saw none that I could name. For prodigious height and girth I never saw the like of the trees, which were besides wondrous fair to the eye, but painful to get through by reason of their great abundance, and the maze of vines and bramble (as I must call them, knowing not their names) which netted them together. Surely to one come there for pleasure and to satisfy his curiosity, there was on all sides something to please and interest, there being no end to the variety of flowers and fruits, their colors and forms; but to us, who were mainly concerned to discover where we were situated, we did wish best part of these trees and shrubs further.

We made our way onward for two hours more, yet the land on the other side of the river appeared no nearer, for the rivers in these parts have no parallel for volume; and then we came (G.o.d be praised) to a small stream running from the interior, which we found at some little distance inward to be very sweet and good, so that we drank of it our fill. But what pleased me as much as the discovery of this water was the print of a cloven foot in a slough, hard by, which I judged, by the form and size, to be the foot of a swine; and so it proved, for going still further, but with caution, along the edge of this marshy land, we perceived a whole drove of this cattle stretched out in the warm mire, grunting from time to time as pleasantly as any English hogs. Seeing them thus within range, Sir Harry, ere I could check him, c.o.c.ked his piece and let fly; and though he killed one dead on the spot, yet was I sorry he had spent his fire on this quarry, for I believe I might have knocked one on the head and done for him with a blow of my hatchet; and now were we left with only one charge of powder and ball to meet any emergency.

We dragged this beast, which was a boar pig of some ten score, as I reckoned, away from the mora.s.s, which I dreaded to stay in for fear of serpents or other noxious beasts; and finding a place near the river high and dry, we resolved to stay there the night, for the day was nearly spent, as were we likewise. Here Sir Harry set about to get some dry fuel and make a fire, the while I skinned our pig, and a marvelous thick hide he had; and so much the better was I pleased, for I saw that with this hide cut in thongs I could make us a good gin to entrap other swine when we had occasion for them, also a sling for killing birds, and other things necessary to us in our forlorn, dest.i.tute condition. Sir Harry got some dry rotten wood, and grinding a little to powder he set it in the pan of his firelock, and snapping the c.o.c.k twice or thrice succeeded in setting it burning; then blowing the ember gently on other rotten wood, and that on dry leaves and such-like, he in the end got a flame to put to his bonfire, and over this on pointed sticks we held some slices cut from our swine's ham; enough not only for our supper, but to serve us cold on the morrow; and well it was we did so then, for the next morning the carcase I had hung on a tree overnight was all green and so foul we were fain to cast it in the river to be washed away with the current; but that which we had cooked was sweet and good, though mighty tough eating.

But I must tell of the strange way in which we were awakened that morning, which was by the crowing of a c.o.c.k, and surely nothing in this land so full of unlooked-for things could be more unexpected than this familiar, homely cry. We two started up together at the sound, rubbing our eyes to be sure we were in a strange country and not at home in England. But again this bird crowed, and casting our eyes about, there we spied a fine red c.o.c.k perched in the boughs of a tree with three pullets on one side of him and two on the other, all as comfortable as you please, and not yet astir, for the day was scarce broke. Upon this we concluded that there must be human habitation near, and overjoyed at the hope of seeing fellow-creatures in a land where we had thought to be all alone, we started to our feet and hallooed with all our might, not reckoning that the fellow-creatures might be cruel Indians who might murder us, and mayhap eat us afterwards for our pains.

However, though we hallooed till we were hoa.r.s.e and could halloa no longer, answer came there none, except a clucking of the fowls, who seemed to be at a loss what we were crowing so loud about. Yet from the presence of these fowls and the swine--which seemed to us not natural inhabitants of these parts, we clung to the idea that some sort of fellow-creatures were near, and so with a more cheerful heart than I, for one, had yet felt since we were put ash.o.r.e, we continued our march when we had eaten and drunk to our satisfaction. But first we took of the thongs I had cut from the swine's hide and stretched to dry between two stakes, one apiece to serve as belts in which to sling our hatchets, another which I had fashioned for a sling, and two or three besides to serve for what occasion might arise. The rest we left behind us, marking well the spot. Our ham steaks were covered up in cool leaves to keep them fresh, and hung them also to the thongs about our middle.

That night we came to a point projecting into the midst of a vast expanse of water, and seeming to cut the river into two, for we found that there were, as I may say, two currents--one running to the southeast, and the other northeast--so that we concluded we were not on the mainland at all, but upon an island in one of the great mouths of the Orinoco. This was made evident as we proceeded, for still marching with the water on our left hand, our faces were turned to the east, and not to the west as at first; and, in short, on the third day of our march we came again to the ocean, and about midday on the fourth to the very spot from which we had started.

In all this time we had seen no human creature, nor had we met--thank G.o.d!--with any serious accident, though inconveniences not a few; and not the least of these was a mult.i.tude of flies and stinging gnats, especially upwards away from the sea, which were a great plague to us, and especially to Sir Harry, who had the more tender skin, and was tormented to that degree that he could get no peace night or day for the intolerable itching and smarting of their punctures. Nor did we meet any great beast, save a huge water-lizard that is called a cocodrill, which lies in the waters of these rivers and looks like nothing on earth but a log of timber at a distance. Birds there were in plenty, and with my sling I brought down enough for use, and more; and to speak of all the fruits here were a waste of time. Suffice to say that we lacked nothing to satisfy our appet.i.te, and came to no harm by what we ate of strange things, for we were careful to eat of no fruit or herb but such as we found the swine and other animals feasted upon.

CHAPTER X.

I QUIT THE ISLAND AND MY FRIEND.

And now, being come back to our starting-place, we had to consider our position and what we were next to be at.

I say we, but in truth I might say I had to consider these things, for Sir Harry seemed to have neither care for the present nor hope for the future, and do what I might to bring him to a more cheerful complexion, it was all to no purpose.

"What is there to do in this cursed island," says he, "but to eat and drink and sleep till we die?"

"The more reason," says I, "for devising some means of getting away from this isle to where we may do better."

He stretched out his hands towards the sea that laid void before us, and laughed bitterly.

"Nay," says I, not to seem discouraged, though, indeed, my hopes were but slight; "it is not so impossible as you think. Take it that the day we left Trinidado the gale was in our favor, we could but have made twenty or thirty leagues at the utmost. Now say that the river to the north is three leagues broad, we may yet, by taking the current at our highest point, contrive to make our way across on some kind of raft, using a bough for paddle. There is nothing lacking to make us a raft."

"Well," says he, "say by good hap you cross the river and get on another isle--what then?"

"Then," says I, "will we make our way to the north of that island and cross to a third, or a fourth, after the same fashion, and so get on till we come to that part of Guiana due east of Trinidad, whence may we with no more difficulty cross the strait."

"Suppose, after all," says he, "that we get to Trinidado--what then?

Shall we be better off there than we are here? We run a fair chance of being captured for slaves by the Portugals, to be sure."

"Also," says I, "run a fair chance of escaping them and being picked up by some English ship putting in as ours did to revictual."

"Allowing that your fondest hopes be realized," says he, "is our case mended? Is it worse to sleep away our lives here than to be taken into England as a raree show for men to laugh at and women to pity? No," says he, with more pa.s.sion than he had yet shown; "no, I say! It is not better, but a hundred times worse, and I for one will never go back to be scorned for a silly fellow who could not hold his own."

It was not for me to reproach him, for had I not also abandoned myself under adversity? I was convinced, and so I am now, that a despair is a malady of mind as much as is ague a distemper of the body; and though men say one should not give way to despair, but should overcome it by an effort of will, yet, I say, that if the will be attacked by a great shock and enfeebled by misfortune, it is powerless to exercise its function. For such as suffer from this disease of the mind there is no help from within, but its only succor is from without. Wherefore, the kindly ministrations of a friend will do as much to restore health in this case as the help of a doctor in any other. For this reason I bore patiently with Sir Harry in his morose and sullen humors, and sought all I could to divert his spirit from brooding over misfortunes not to be undone. But I think all that I did in this way produced me more good than it did him; for whereas he continued despondent and dull, I grew more cheerful and humane. I waited upon him like a servant, and this service, with my pity to see a young, fine man so cast down, engendered a feeling of love in my breast such as I had never before felt for any man. Nay, I even looked to getting with him back to England, and seeing him married to Lady Biddy Fane, without any feeling of jealousy, being not only more gentle of heart, but more reasonable of mind.

At this time we stayed on high ground to the south of our territory, over against that part where we first found the pine-nut; not only because of the shade we got there from the sun, but by reason that it was adjacent to the stream of good water, and not far from the fen where the swine came to wallow, and where there was abundance of fowl and fruit good to eat.

While we were here, Sir Harry fell sick of a fever, bred partly, as I think, from his low, desponding spirit, and partly from the vapors that rose from the marshy valley below. When I found he could no longer sit upright and began to wander in his speech, I took him on my back, and, by stages of a dozen yards, carried him away from that unwholesome spot right down to the sea-sh.o.r.e, and there, finding an easy slope, I laid him down, and, as speedily as I could, set about making a kind of house to shield him from the sun. The night being fairly light, by dint of many journeys to and fro and much toil, I planted a dozen stakes in the sand, bending them down till they joined at the top, in the form of a great "A", and binding them to a cross tree, then I thatched this framework with those long and broad palmetto leaves of which I have spoken. Here he lay as comfortable as might be for one in his burning condition, the sea breeze pa.s.sing through the shelter and tempering the heat of the sun.

He could eat nothing; however I made shift to stew a fowl in the sh.e.l.l of a gourd, and when the broth was cold I got him to drink it, for he had a perpetual thirst; and that his drink might be cool and refreshing, I went a score of times during the day almost to the source of the stream, where the water was of the best. Of such fruits as were good also I gave him, particularly the apples from a low, square-boughed tree with egg-shaped leaves, which is called, I believe, guava.

And now I prayed to G.o.d that this man's life might be spared, and that I might not be left alone, which more than all proves the great and good change which had been wrought in my heart since the time when I sought but to escape from the society of mankind, and wished harm to all men, and this one above all.

At the end of seven days' very painful watching, Sir Harry's disorder took a turn, and soon after he began to mend (thanks be to G.o.d!) so that he could take meat instead of slops to his diet. Yet was he greatly changed, his skin having lost its freshness and healthful color, and his face much wasted. Also he was very weak, and for days lay exhausted and unable to move, yet with his eyes wide open and very bright. After a while I persuaded him to rise in the cool of the morning and evening, and then would he take a turn, leaning on my arm. And though he said nothing, I perceived he recognized the love I bore for him, and was grateful for my care. What pleased me vastly was to perceive that a change had been wrought in his spirit; it seemed as though his sluggish indifference had been purged away. When the fever had quite left him, his eyes continued bright and eager, and there was in his face an eager expression, telling of an anxiety which only exists where there is hope.

But what his hope was he told me not. This encouraged me to believe that he designed leaving the island (where there was, as I could see, naught to hope for), and not dying there, as he had at first resigned himself to. I again began to meditate on the means of reaching Trinidado, but I refrained from opening the subject yet awhile, because he was still too feeble to undertake the fatigue of it.

One day, when I had returned to the hut by the sh.o.r.e from the inner parts, where I had been planting a snare to catch a pig, I found Sir Harry absent; but soon after I heard him shouting, and, turning my eyes, I spied him running towards me along the sand with something in his hand, which, as he came nearer, I perceived was the stave of a barrel.

"Look at that," says he, with much emotion; "there have been men on this island before us. Up in the wood there is a broken barrel; this is a stave of it. Men brought it here."

"Why, for a certainty," says I, "this wood never sprang out of the earth fashioned thus?"

"No," says he, "nor did the pigs on this island spring out of the earth."

"What do you mean by that?" I asked, perplexed by this observation.

"I mean," says he, "that the men who came here to fetch water in that barrel left the swine and the fowls to multiply against the time they should come here to revictual. I thought as much as I lay there in my sickness hearing the c.o.c.k crow, and now I have the proof. Do you doubt it, man--do you doubt it?"

"Not a whit," says I; "and I wonder I have not drawn the conclusion before, for I remember now how Rodrigues told me it was the habit of pirates, who fight shy of towns, to provide for themselves in this wise."

"Then you think," says he eagerly, "that they are pirates who came hither?"

"Ay, and not honest men; that is my fear," says I.

"And I trust they be pirates, and not honest men, if they are to come here again," says he; "for then may I get back all I have lost, and more to boot."

"As how?" says I, not without trouble in my mind.

"By the same means my fortune was taken from me--by strategy and force."

"Surely you would not become a pirate--you, a gentleman of birth and breeding?"

"And what was Drake but a gentleman?" says he; "and Candish: what of him?"