Part 13 (2/2)
Nevertheless, methinks you would find it easier to tame two full-grown jaguars, fresh from the forest, than to subdue these white men to your will. But that is your affair.” And with a wave of his hand he dismissed the party.
”'Subdue them', said he?” muttered the ancient Insipa. ”Ha, ha! we shall see; yes, we shall see! These men are truly young and strong and fierce, yea, stronger and fiercer than black jaguars, while Insipa is old and weak; nevertheless--here, take them and bind them for me.” She turned suddenly and held out two tough, raw-hide ropes to the armed guard who still surrounded the prisoners; and they, with a coa.r.s.e jest or two at the old woman's expense, at once proceeded to bind d.i.c.k's and Phil's hands behind them, after which they placed the two free ends of the ropes in the beldame's hands and left the way free for her to lead her prisoners away.
”Come, then,” cried the old woman, jerking the ropes roughly; ”come, sons of mine! Ha, ha! I have lost one son, who was lazy, who cared not for his poor old mother, and often left her for many days without so much as the smallest morsel of deer meat, and let her garden be overrun with weeds. And in his place I have gained two--two who are brave enough to protect me, and strong enough to till my garden and my fields, and to keep my hut well supplied with all that I need. Ha, ha! I have done well; I am a gainer! Come, white men, come, and make old Insipa's declining years pleasant and happy!” And she proceeded to drag her prisoners away, followed by the other women who were--or believed they were--part owners of the bodies of d.i.c.k and Phil.
”Now, what does all this mean? What is to be our fate; and what has that withered old mummy to do with us?” grumbled d.i.c.k, who had scarcely half-understood what had pa.s.sed since he and Phil had been led back to the cacique.
Phil explained, adding, ”It will probably be unpleasant enough for a time, but we must grin and bear it, lad; and at all events it will be less disagreeable than being lashed to a stake and slowly tortured to death. If we had accepted that fate everything would have been at an end for us within the next two or three days; whereas by choosing the alternative we at least save our lives; and that is the main thing with us at present. There would have been no comfort or satisfaction in being tortured to death by a parcel of savages, after having come so far and done so much. Besides, if we are to hunt and fish for these women we must be free to come and go pretty much as we please. And do you need me to tell you what we shall do as soon as we obtain our freedom?”
”Of course not,” answered d.i.c.k. ”We shall just watch our opportunity and continue our journey.”
”Precisely,” agreed Phil. ”And I must confess I am greatly surprised that our friend the cacique did not foresee such a possibility. Well, then, it seems to me that what we have to do is to be good boys for the present, do everything with a good grace that we have undertaken to do, and, generally, use our utmost endeavours to win the confidence of these people and disarm the suspicion with which they are certain to regard us at the outset, and then our way to escape will soon become clear.”
The hut of Insipa was a wretched, neglected hovel of a place, in the very last stages of dirt, neglect, and decay, situated on the outskirts of the village, and to this delectable abode the old crone conducted her two ”sons” and inducted them therein. But before she took them inside the hut she carefully examined their hurts; and when at length she had satisfied herself that although these were no doubt painful enough, and, for the moment, so severe as to incapacitate her prisoners for anything but the very lightest of work, there was no serious harm done, she dispatched one of the women who had followed her, and who considered herself as part owner of the prisoners, to the river for water, another for wood to make a fire, while a third was sent into the forest to hunt for certain herbs. Then she took the two men into the hut, released them from their bonds, and graciously gave them permission to lie down upon a heap of dried fern, which they were glad enough to do after the rough and trying experience through which they had so recently pa.s.sed, and in a few minutes both were fast asleep. They slept soundly for an hour or more; and when they awoke Insipa was ready with hot fomentations for their wounds and bruises, poultices of macerated leaves for application after the fomentations, and finally, food--a piece of roast goat's flesh, ca.s.sava bread, and a warm drink of somewhat peculiar but not unpleasant flavour, after partaking of which they both again fell into a profound sleep which lasted until the following morning; for the drink had been medicated. Insipa was anxious that her ”sons” should begin to work for her at once, and she knew that, after their hurts had been dressed, sleep was the very best restorative that she could possibly administer to them.
As a matter of fact, when Phil and d.i.c.k awoke from their long night's sleep they found, to their astonishment, that the ache and stiffness of their bruises were gone, and that for all practical purposes they were as well as ever, and quite fit to be up and about again. Insipa was delighted with the success which had attended her ministrations, so much so, indeed, that instead of ordering them out to find food for her at once, she went out and borrowed some from a neighbour, on the strength of her new acquisition, brought it home, cooked it, and laid it before them, with the information that it would be the last unearned meat they would get.
This hint, however, did not greatly interfere with the appet.i.te of our friends; for they had already agreed that they were quite well enough to resume their journey up the river, and had decided to do so at the first opportunity, whenever that might occur. And they believed that it might occur at any moment, that very day, perhaps, although they were quite prepared to find that precautions of some sort would be taken, for a little while at least, to see that they did not get away. In this they were not mistaken; for they had scarcely finished their meal when they were summoned to the presence of the cacique, who informed them that he had arranged that one of them should spend the day in hunting, while the other should remain in the village, and, under the direction and supervision of a member of the village council, till the gardens and attend to the cattle of the twenty-one widows whose property they were, and that they might settle between themselves which of the two should be the hunter. Now this at once put an effectual stop to any plans for immediate escape; for although not a word had pa.s.sed between the two friends on the subject, they were both of one mind that whenever they went it must be together; in fact neither would have dreamed of going off and leaving the other behind. Probably the shrewd old cacique had guessed as much when he arranged the apparently simple but really ingenious scheme whereby at least one of the two white men would always be in the village and under close observation. Of course d.i.c.k, being the younger, offered Phil the choice of the two occupations; and Stukely at once unhesitatingly decided that he would undertake the agricultural work, while d.i.c.k was to do the hunting; and this arrangement came into force forthwith, d.i.c.k's duty being to secure all the game and fish he possibly could, and take the products of his industry to the cacique, who would divide them out equally between the twenty-one widows according to the numbers of their families.
To provide flesh food enough to satisfy more than sixty healthy appet.i.tes was no mean task, particularly in the immediate vicinity of a village of five hundred inhabitants, where the whole of the neighbouring country was strenuously hunted day after day; but d.i.c.k happened to be a particularly keen and clever hunter; moreover his training during the journey had been of such a character as to develop his speed, strength, and endurance to such a degree that he was able to go farther afield than any of the Indians, and thus reach a district where the game was neither so scarce nor so wild as it was in the immediate neighbourhood of the village; also he soon got to know the spots where game was most likely to be found. Consequently after the first three or four days, during which he was learning the country, he did quite as well as could be reasonably expected, and frequently excited the cacique's admiration by the quant.i.ty of meat which he contrived to bring in.
As for Phil, he was a Devon man, and consequently had acquired, almost unconsciously, a considerable amount of knowledge regarding farming matters, so that he found himself more than on a par with the Indians, whose knowledge of agriculture was of the most elementary character; also he understood the full value of system in the arrangement of work, which the Indians did not. Consequently, by working systematically, and making the women do their fair share, he found that he could do the work which had been allotted to him, and still find time for his favourite hobby of research.
It is not necessary to give a detailed description of our friends'
doings, day after day, during their sojourn with the Mayubuna Indians; the above indication will enable the reader to picture the uneventful sort of existence which they led; and it is only needful to add that so well did the young Englishmen contrive matters that by the time that they had been three months in the village the suspicion and distrust with which they had at first been regarded had entirely disappeared, and the Indians seemed to have gathered the impression that their white prisoners had quite settled down and were content to spend the remainder of their lives with them.
But it took fully three months to establish matters on this satisfactory basis; and this brought the time on to what may be termed the winter season; that is to say, the period of the year when, after a long-continued spell of fine weather, during which the crops ripen and are gathered in, the season of rain, wind, and violent thunderstorms begins which is to soften, nourish, and invigorate the baked earth and prepare it to bring forth the luxuriant vegetation of another summer.
And it was one of those violent thunderstorms which provided our friends with the opportunity to escape for which they had been so long and so patiently waiting.
The day had been unusually hot, to start with; and about noon the sky, which had been clear during the earlier part of the day, had gradually become veiled by a thick haze through which the sun revealed himself with ever-increasing difficulty merely as a shapeless blotch of whiteness in the midst of the haze before vanis.h.i.+ng altogether. Then the wind fell, the atmosphere became so oppressively close that the mere act of breathing became difficult, and a great silence fell upon the scene, for the insects and birds, warned by instinct of what was impending, sought shelter in the deepest recesses of the forest, while the Indians, unable or unwilling to labour in the enervating heat, and also knowing from past experience what was coming, retired to their huts and resigned themselves to the overpowering languor which oppressed them. Of all the inhabitants of the village, d.i.c.k and Phil were the only two who resisted the enervating influence of the hour, for d.i.c.k was away hunting, as usual, while Phil, having set himself a certain task to perform, was not the sort of man who would allow himself to be deterred from its execution by such a trifle as mere oppressiveness of weather.
But as the day wore on and the sky grew ever more lowering and the heat and closeness more p.r.o.nounced, he found his work growing increasingly difficult and distasteful; and it was with a sigh of deep satisfaction that at last, having finished what he had set himself to do, he wended his way to the hut which he and d.i.c.k had been permitted to erect for themselves, and, having laid aside the primitive tools which he had been using, continued his way to the creek where, at the conclusion of each day's labour, he was wont to indulge in the refres.h.i.+ng luxury of a bathe. While he was still in the water he was joined by d.i.c.k, who had also done a good day's work, having brought in two deer, which he had duly delivered over to the cacique.
By the time that the pair had sufficiently refreshed themselves the gloom of the departing day was deepening into the darkness of a moonless, starless night; and as they entered their hut the first s.h.i.+mmer of sheet lightning which was the precursor of the coming storm flickered above the tree-tops of the contiguous forest.
”Phew!” exclaimed d.i.c.k, as he flung himself upon the heap of dried fern that served him as a bed, ”how unbearably hot and close it is, and how tired I am! I doubt if I could walk another mile, if my life depended upon it.”
”I am sorry to hear that,” gravely returned Phil; ”for, unless I am very greatly mistaken, I believe we shall have an opportunity to escape to-night.”
”To escape?” reiterated d.i.c.k. ”How do you mean, old man?”
”Do you know what is going to happen to-night?” demanded Phil.
”I know that we are going to have a pretty severe thunderstorm, if that is what you mean,” answered d.i.c.k; ”but what has that got to do with our escaping?”
”What has it to do?” repeated Phil. ”Why, everything, my gentle cuckoo.
Dost thou not yet know that Indians generally, and the Mayubuna in particular, have a very wholesome dread and horror of thunderstorms, believing, as they do, that the evil spirits come abroad and hold high revel upon such occasions? If an Indian happens to be struck by lightning, his fellow Indians are firmly convinced that he has been killed by an evil spirit; hence they are extremely reluctant to venture abroad during a thunderstorm. We have observed that reluctance even in the case of the comparatively few unimportant storms that have visited the village since we have been here; but hitherto the Mayubuna have been too suspicious and too watchful to afford us an opportunity to get clear away. Now, however, I think we have at last succeeded in completely lulling their suspicions; they have not been nearly so watchful of us of late; and I am very doubtful whether there is a single Indian in this village, from the cacique downward, including old Mammy Insipa herself, who will be willing to turn out in such a storm as is now brewing, merely for the purpose of watching that we two do not run away.”
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