Part 3 (1/2)
But when you are again at liberty it will be necessary for you to kill someone.” Very much amazed, I asked him why. ”You see,” he replied, ”your reputation as a fighter is now established in this department, and there is nothing men envy more. It is the same as in our old game of _pato,_ where the man that carries the duck away is pursued by all the others, and before they give up chasing him he must prove that he can keep what he has taken. There are several fighters you do not know, who have resolved to pick quarrels with you in order to try your strength.
In your next fight you must not wound, but kill, or you will have no peace.” I was greatly disturbed at this result of my accidental victory over Bias the Bearded, and did not at all appreciate the kind of greatness my officious friend Claro seemed so determined to thrust upon me. It was certainly flattering to hear that I had already established my reputation as a good fighter in so warlike a department as Paysandu, but then the consequences entailed were disagreeable, to say the least of it; and so, while thanking Eyebrows for his friendly hint, I resolved to quit the _estancia_ at once. I would not run away from the authorities, since I was not an evil-doer, but from the necessity of killing people for the sake of peace and quietness I certainly would depart. And early next morning, to my friend's intense disgust, and without telling my plans to anyone, I mounted my horse and quitted Vagabond's Rest to pursue my adventures elsewhere.
CHAPTER V
Faith in the _estancia_ as a field for my activities had been weak from the first; the Mayordomo's words on his return had extinguished it altogether; and after hearing that ostrich parable I had only remained from motives of pride. I now determined to go back towards Montevideo, not, however, over the route I had come by, but making a wide circuit into the interior of the country, where I would explore a new field, and perhaps meet with some occupation at one of the _estancias_ on the way. Riding in a south-westerly direction towards the Rio Marlo in the Tacuarembo department, I soon left the plains of Paysandu behind me, and, being anxious to get well away from a neighbourhood where I was expected to kill someone, I did not rest till I had ridden about twenty-five miles. At noon I stopped to get some refreshment at a little roadside _pulperia_. It was a wretched-looking place, and behind the iron bars protecting the interior, giving it the appearance of a wild beast's cage, lounged the storekeeper smoking a cigar. Outside the bar were two men with English-looking faces. One was a handsome young fellow with a somewhat worn and dissipated look on his bronzed face; he was leaning against the counter, cigar in mouth, looking slightly tipsy, I thought, and wore a large revolver slung ostentatiously at his waist.
His companion was a big, heavy man, with immense whiskers sprinkled with grey, who was evidently very drunk, for he was lying full-length on a bench, his face purple and swollen, snoring loudly. I asked for bread, sardines, and wine, and, careful to observe the custom of the country I was in, duly invited the tipsy young man to join in the repast. An omission of this courtesy might, amongst proud and sensitive Orientals, involve one in a sanguinary quarrel, and of quarrelling I had just then had enough.
He declined with thanks, and entered into conversation with me; then the discovery, quickly made, that we were compatriots gave us both great pleasure. He at once offered to take me to his house with him, and gave a glowing account of the free, jovial life he led in company with several other Englishmen--sons of gentlemen, every one of them, he a.s.sured me--who had bought a piece of land and settled down to sheep-farming in this lonely district. I gladly accepted the invitation, and when we had finished our gla.s.ses he proceeded to wake the sleeper.
”Hullo, I say, Cap, wake up, old boy,” shouted my new friend. ”Quite time to go home, don't you know. That's right--up you come. Now let me introduce you to Mr. Lamb. I'm sure he's an acquisition. What, off again! d.a.m.n it, old Cloud, that's unreasonable, to say the least of it.”
At length, after a great deal of shouting and shaking, he succeeded in rousing his drunken companion, who staggered up and stared at me in an imbecile manner.
”Now let me introduce you,” said the other. ”Mr. Lamb. My friend, Captain Cloudesley Wriothesley. Bravo! Steady, old c.o.c.k--now shake hands.”
The Captain said nothing, but took my hand, swaying forwards as if about to embrace me. We then with considerable difficulty got him on to his saddle and rode off together, keeping him between us to prevent him from falling off. Half an hour's ride brought us to my host Mr.
Vincent Winchcombe's house. I had pictured to myself a charming little homestead, buried in cool greenery and flowers, and filled with pleasant memories of dear old England; I was, therefore, grievously disappointed to find that his ”home” was only a mean-looking _rancho,_ with a ditch round it, protecting some ploughed or dug-up ground, on which not one green thing appeared. Mr. Winchcombe explained, however, that he had not yet had time to cultivate much. ”Only vegetables and such things, don't you know,” he said.
”I don't see them,” I returned.
”Well, no; we had a lot of caterpillars and blister beetles and things, and they ate everything up, don't you know,” said he.
The room into which he conducted me contained no furniture except a large deal table and some chairs; also a cupboard, a long mantelpiece, and some shelves against the walls. On every available place were pipes, pouches, revolvers, cartridge-boxes, and empty bottles. On the table were tumblers, cups, a sugar-basin, a monstrous tin teapot, and a demijohn, which I soon ascertained was half-full of Brazilian rum, or cana. Round the table five men were seated smoking, drinking tea and rum, and talking excitedly, all of them more or less intoxicated. They gave me a hearty welcome, making me join them at the table, pouring out tea and rum for me, and generously pus.h.i.+ng pipes and pouches towards me.
”You see,” said Mr. Winchcombe, in explanation of this convivial scene, ”there are, altogether, ten of us settlers here going in for sheep-farming and that sort of thing. Four of us have already built houses and bought sheep and horses. The other six fellows live with us from house to house, don't you know. Well, we've made a jolly arrangement--old Cloud--Captain Cloud, don't you know, first suggested it--and it is that every day one of the four--the Glorious Four we are called--keeps open house; and it's considered the right thing for the other nine fellows to drop in on him some time during the day, just to cheer him up a bit. Well, we soon made the discovery--old Cloud, I fancy, made it--that tea and rum were about the best things to have on these occasions. To-day it was my day, and to-morrow it will be some other fellow's, don't you know. And, by Jove, how lucky I was to meet you at the _pulperia!_ It will be ever so much jollier now.”
I had certainly not stumbled upon a charming little English paradise in this Oriental wilderness, and as it always makes me uncomfortable to see young men drifting into intemperate habits and making a.s.ses of themselves generally, I was not rapturously delighted with ”old Cloud's”
system. Still, I was glad to find myself with Englishmen in this distant country, and in the end I succeeded in making myself tolerably happy.
The discovery that I had a voice pleased them greatly, and when, somewhat excited from the effects of strong cavendish, rum, and black tea, I roared out:
And may his soul in heaven dwell Who first found out the leather botel,
they all got up and drank my health in big tumblers, and declared they would never let me leave the colony.
Before evening the guests departed, all except the Captain. He had sat with us at the table, but was too far gone in his cups to take part in the boisterous fun and conversation. Once in about every five minutes he had implored someone in a husky voice to give him a light for his pipe, then, after two or three ineffectual puffs, he would let it go out again. He had also attempted two or three times to join in the chorus of a song, but soon relapsed again into his imbecile condition.
Next day, however, when he sat down refreshed by a night's sleep to breakfast, I found him a very agreeable fellow. He had no house of his own yet, not having received his money from home, he confidentially informed me, but lived about, breakfasting in one house, dining in a second, and sleeping in a third. ”Never mind,” he would say, ”by and by it will be my turn; then I will receive you all every day for six weeks to make it all square.”
None of the colonists did any work, but all spent their time lounging about and visiting each other, trying to make their dull existence endurable by perpetual smoking and tea and rum drinking. They had tried, they told me, ostrich-hunting, visiting their native neighbours, partridge-shooting, horse-racing, etc.; but the partridges were too tame for them, they could never catch the ostriches, the natives didn't understand them, and they had finally given up all these so-called amus.e.m.e.nts. In each house a peon was kept to take care of the flock and to cook, and as the sheep appeared to take care of themselves, and the cooking merely meant roasting a piece of meat on a spit, there was very little for the hired men to do.
”Why don't you do these things for yourselves?” I innocently asked.
”I fancy it wouldn't quite be the right thing, don't you know,” said Mr.
Winchcombe.
”No,” said the Captain gravely, ”we haven't quite come down to that yet.”