Part 13 (1/2)

At length, after a sleepless night of intense anxiety on the part of the prisoners, and, as has been said, more than one unavailing effort to elude the vigilance of their guards, the morning dawned of the day which was to see those prisoners begin to die; and with the rising of the sun the excitement and hilarity of the village became still more p.r.o.nounced.

The crowds grew more dense, the laughter and conversation louder; the people had donned their holiday attire--such as it was--and the children chased each other with joyous shouts in and out of the throng. Then a meal was brought to the prisoners; and while they were partaking of it a sudden clamour of drums and horns arose, and the laughing, chattering crowd seemed to dissolve as suddenly from the vicinity of the prison hut, leaving it plunged in an atmosphere of silence, save for the monotonous banging of the drums, the blare of the horns, and a low, humming murmur which might be that of a mult.i.tude of people conversing in low, hushed voices.

”That means that our time has come, I suppose,” remarked Stukely, as he set down the food of which he had been partaking. ”Well, keep up your courage, lad; and remember that if we are to die we will do so in a fas.h.i.+on which the Mayubuna will never forget, so long as they are a people. There are wives now who will be widows before the sun goes down; for they shall never torture me to death; nor you, either, lad, if I can help it. We have our hands free, and a Devon man can do much with his hands alone, when put to it; but my plan is to watch our chance, and s.n.a.t.c.h the first weapon that comes to hand, and make play with it. They will no doubt shoot us down with their arrows, rather than let us escape; but that kind of death will be infinitely preferable to one of lingering torture--if die we must.”

”Yes,” agreed d.i.c.k; ”and you may depend upon me to--”

He was interrupted by the arrival of a messenger who summoned them and their guards to follow him; whereupon they rose to their feet and, completely hedged in by sixteen fully armed men, were marched toward the centre of the village, ultimately arriving in the square where they had previously been interviewed by the cacique. And a curious sight the square presented on this occasion, for it and the long street which ran through it from end to end of the village were packed with people who had come, in response to an invitation, from all the villages within a radius of twenty miles, to see the two white men die. They were ranged right along what may be called the main street, in a dense crowd some eight or ten deep, for a distance of a quarter of a mile, and were arranged in two compact lines, with a clear lane of about six feet wide between the two lines of people. Through a gap which had evidently been left open in one of these lines for that especial purpose, the two prisoners were conducted into this lane and led to one extremity of it, where upon a raised platform sat the cacique, with five men, presumably the caciques of neighbouring villages, on either side of him. The Englishmen were marched up to this platform and there left face to face with the cacique and his friends, the guards retiring through the gap by which they had entered, which thereupon was immediately closed.

For the s.p.a.ce of a full five minutes or more Phil and d.i.c.k stood facing the cacique, while a profound and impressive silence fell upon that vast crowd of Indians, broken only by the rustle of the wind in the tree-tops, and a faint rumble caused by the movement of the naked feet of the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude, who were in the grip of an excitement so intense that they apparently found it impossible to stand quite still, but must needs continually s.h.i.+ft the weight of their bodies from one foot to the other.

At length, when the pause had become almost unbearably impressive, the cacique rose to his feet and, lifting his hand to command attention, spoke.

”White men,” he said, ”ye have told me a story which may or may not be true. Ye have declared yourselves to be the enemy of the Spaniards and the friend of the Indian; but how have ye shown your friends.h.i.+p for us?

By causing the death of seventeen men of the Mayubuna, by creating seventeen widows and forty-six fatherless children, for whom the rest of the villagers must now provide food. For this great wrong ye are doomed to die; and it rests with yourselves whether your death shall be quick, or whether it shall be one of long-drawn-out torment.

”Ye see this great lane of people stretching right through the village, and ye will note that each man of the front rank is armed with a club.

Now, your doom is this. Ye shall start from where ye now stand, and shall run to the farther end of the lane of people; and as ye run each man on either hand shall smite ye as often as he may with his club. If ye can hold out against the blows which ye will receive, and retain strength enough to reach the other end of the lane without falling by the way, then your death shall be quick; but if ye fall, then he who falls will be tied to a stake and slowly done to death for the pleasure of the spectators. You understand? Then--go!”

During this brief address the two Englishmen had been thinking hard and rapidly. Phil's first thought had been to force his way up on to the platform, seize the cacique, and threaten him with instant death unless the man would consent to give them both immediate liberty; but he instantly discarded the idea, for as the thought flashed through his mind he noticed that the Indians in front of the platform were all fully armed; and for an unarmed man to force a pa.s.sage through that hedge of deadly spears, ten deep, was a simple impossibility. Then he threw a glance along the lane which he and d.i.c.k were to traverse, and which was hedged in on either side by serried ranks of Indians, each armed with a heavy club about three feet long. The Indians were by no means powerfully built, and, individually, looked by no means formidable; and the thought came to him that if he and d.i.c.k, instead of starting to race at top speed from end to end of the lane, were each to s.n.a.t.c.h a club from the nearest man, and then, back to back, fight their way slowly along the lane, they might possibly contrive to reach the end of it without being beaten to the earth, after which who knew what unforeseen possibilities might arise? It was not a particularly hopeful plan, but it was the best that suggested itself on the spur of the moment; moreover, both he and d.i.c.k were experts at quarter-staff play, and they would at least be able to make a fight for it, so he hastily communicated his plan to d.i.c.k while the cacique was speaking, and received d.i.c.k's murmured acceptance of it at the precise moment when the cacique uttered the word ”Go!”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

HOW PHIL AND d.i.c.k WERE MADE TO RUN THE GAUNTLET.

”Go!”

As the word left the cacique's lips the two Englishmen faced round, back to back, and each sprang straight at the Indian who happened to be nearest him. A perfect forest of bludgeons whirled in the air on both sides of the human lane, and from one end of it to the other, in savage antic.i.p.ation of the moment when the two victims should dash past; but the length of the weapons was such that not more than three could reach each victim at any given moment; and of this the two friends had already taken note, deciding with the rapidity of thought that if by skill and quickness of action they could evade those three simultaneous blows, they need not trouble about anything more for the moment; for their progress down the lane would simply be a continuous succession of evasions of three blows aimed at them at the same moment. Their object, therefore, was each to secure a bludgeon before receiving a disabling blow; and this they contrived to do, their sudden spring taking the Indians so completely by surprise that the weapons were wrenched out of their hands without the slightest difficulty. Then, instead of sprinting for their lives down the lane, by which course of action they must have inevitably exposed themselves to the certainty of receiving a sufficient number of violent blows to disable them, and in all probability prevent them from reaching their goal, they placed themselves back to back and, each facing his own particular line of a.s.sailants, moved sideways along the length of the lane at ordinary walking pace, contenting themselves with parrying with their bludgeons the blows aimed at them, and not attempting to return those blows excepting when some particular Indian happened to exhibit especial vindictiveness, when, if opportunity offered, they retaliated with such effect that before fifty yards of their course had been traversed at least half a dozen Indians were down with cracked skulls. Now, it would naturally be imagined that a mult.i.tude of savages, finding themselves thus baulked of the vengeance to which they had been so eagerly looking forward, would have with one accord broken their ranks and, rus.h.i.+ng in upon the two white men in overwhelming numbers, have slain them out of hand. But they did nothing of the sort. On the contrary, the cool, calm courage of the prisoners, their audacity in daring to face such enormously overwhelming odds, the gallant fight that they were putting up, and the extraordinary skill with which they handled their bludgeons, all seemed to appeal to some elementary sporting instinct that must have been lurking dormant and unsuspected in the Mayubuna nature, exciting their admiration to such an extent that several of the Indians who might have struck an unfair blow actually forbore to do so, and presently they even began to utter shouts of admiration when either of the white men achieved a particularly brilliant pa.s.sage of defence. In short, it seemed gradually to dawn upon them that they were playing a game, and that since the balance of advantage was enormously on their own side they were morally bound to play it fairly. And within certain limits they did, although there were not wanting those whose ferocious pa.s.sions were so deeply stirred that all they seemed to crave was the life of the white men, and they were willing to go to all lengths to get it. Thus one man aimed so savage a blow at d.i.c.k that he smashed his bludgeon to splinters upon that of Chichester as the latter guarded the blow. Then, doubtless enraged at his failure, he sprang out of his place in the ranks and, catching d.i.c.k unawares, stabbed at him with the splintered fragment of the weapon that remained in his hand, inflicting quite a painful jagged wound on the young Englishman's shoulder. But it was his last act, for, stung into sudden fury by the smart of the wound, d.i.c.k turned upon him and, throwing all his strength and weight into the blow, struck out with his clenched left fist, catching the unfortunate Indian square on the point of the chin. So terrific was the blow that it actually lifted the man clean off his feet and sent him whirling back through the air for a distance of nearly four yards before he fell to the earth dead with a broken neck. A great shout of mingled amazement, admiration, and terror arose at this wonderful exhibition of strength; and thenceforward, influenced either by fear or the spirit of fair play, or, it may be, a combination of both, there were no further attempts made to take an unfair advantage of those two who were making so gallant a fight to save themselves from a fate too hideous to be put into words.

At length the gauntlet was run, the far end of the lane was reached, and the two young Englishmen still stood upon their feet. But not unscathed; very far from it. They had made a gallant fight, and had afforded their savage captors a far more exhilarating spectacle than they had ever before witnessed, although it had been of a very different character from what had been antic.i.p.ated; and now the two prisoners stood, trembling with exhaustion from their superhuman efforts, cruelly bruised, bleeding, and altogether too dazed and helpless to make that sudden, wild dash for freedom which each had planned in his heart when entering upon the terrible ordeal through which they had just pa.s.sed.

What was to be the next move in this grim game of life or death?

They were not long left in doubt, for the party of armed men who had conducted them on to the ground now forced their way into the lane and, arranging themselves in a circle round the two white men, led them back to where the cacique of the village sat enthroned. And as they pa.s.sed back along the lane of humanity which they had fought their way through a few minutes previously, many of those whose arms still tingled with the jar of the parried blows which they had aimed at them, now greeted their return with murmurs of commiseration or admiration. Then, almost before they realised where they were, they found themselves, still hemmed in by their armed guards, facing the cacique, who sat for some moments silent, regarding them with an inscrutable countenance. Then, raising his hand for silence, he spoke.

”White men,” he said, ”ye have not fulfilled the terms of the agreement which I made with you. Ye were to run from this end of the lane to the other, and ye walked. And instead of accepting unresistingly--as was intended--the blows which were aimed at ye, you took by force and superior strength two clubs from my people, wherewith to defend yourselves; and, worst of all, ye have killed outright no less than four, more men of the Mayubuna and maimed five others so that it will be many days before they will again be able to provide food for their wives and children. Therefore, because of all this, and what has gone before, your doom is--”

”Nay, nay; be merciful, O my father!” cried a number of women's voices, ”be merciful!” And, forcing their way through the throng, a party of some twenty women of varying ages--from girls of seventeen or eighteen to one withered hag who, from her appearance, might have been a hundred years old--flung themselves upon their knees before the cacique.

”Mercy!” reiterated the cacique, in astonishment. ”Who pleads for mercy on behalf of these white men? Surely not you, Insipa, whose only son they have done to death, leaving you desolate in your old age?”

”Yea; I, even I, Insipa,” answered the hag above mentioned. ”Hearken now, O my father,” she continued. ”It is a custom among us that if a man be killed, and his slayer be taken alive, if the mother or widow of the slain man claim the slayer as her slave, to provide food for her in the place of the slain man, her demand shall be granted, and the slayer shall be given to her for the rest of her life. Now, behold these two white men and see what mighty men they are. Between them they have slain no less than twenty-one men of the Mayubuna, leaving twenty-one women and many children with none to protect or find food for them. Let them be given as slaves to us, then, that we whom they have thus cruelly bereaved may not suffer from the loss of father, husband, or son. It is our right, and we demand it.”

The cacique considered this extraordinary request for several minutes; then he turned to d.i.c.k and Phil.

”White men,” he said, ”ye have heard what this woman asks. Now behold, I give you your choice: will ye become the slaves of these bereaved women, to till their fields, tend their cattle, hunt and fish for them, and generally watch over and protect them and their children in the place of those whom ye have slain? Or will ye go straightway to the stake and pay the penalty of your misdeeds by dying a slow and miserable death?”

”Since we must needs do the one or the other,” answered Phil--who alone fully understood the purport of the cacique's speech, and therefore took it upon himself to reply--”we choose to become the slaves of these women who have intervened to save us from death. And we will do our best to fill the places of those whom we have unfortunately slain, tilling their fields, tending their cattle, hunting and fis.h.i.+ng for their wives and children, and protecting them from all evil.”

”It is well,” answered the cacique. Then, turning to the group of women, he said: ”Take them; they are yours; I have granted your request.