Part 31 (1/2)
”Let us go up those few hundred feet, then”
Every hbor
”Gentleht in the face, if you would hit hiet the shi+p to sea as she is; and if we could, we cannot go home empty-handed; and we surely cannot stay here to die of fever--We o inland”
”Inland?” answered every voice but Yeo's
”Up those hundred feet which Yeo talks of Up to the et our sick and provisions thither”
”And what next?”
”And e are recruited, o de Leon”
Cary swore a great oath ”A fellow!”
”Not a bit It's the plain path of prudence”
”So it is, sir,” said old Yeo, ”and I follow you in it”
”And so do I,” squeaked Jack Brimblecombe
”Nay, then, Jack, thou shalt not outrun me So I say yes too,” quoth Cary
”Mr Drew?”
”At your service, sir, to live or die I know naught about stockading; but Sir Francis would have given the same counsel, I verily believe, if he had been in your place”
”Then tell the men that we start in an hour's time Win over the Pelicans, Yeo and Drew; and the rest e”
The Pelicans, and the liberated galley-slaves, joined the project at once; but the rest gave Areat question here were the hills? In that dense rove thicket they could not see fifty yards before them
”The hills are not three miles to the south-west of you at this moment,” said Amyas ”I marked every shoulder of them as we ran in”
”I suppose you ht to a train--and angry suspicions were blazing up one after another, but Amyas silenced them with a countermine
”Fools! if I had not wit enow to look ahead a little farther than you do, where would you be? Are you ainst your own captain because he has two strings to his bow? Go my way, I say, or, as I live, I'll blow up the shi+p and every soul on board, and save you the pain of rotting here by inches”
The men knew that Amyas never said what he did not intend to do; not that Amyas intended to do this, because he knew that the threat would be enough So they, agreed to go; and were reassured by seeing that the old Pelican's men turned to the work heartily and cheerfully
There is no use keeping the reader for five or six weary hours, under a broiling (or rather stewing) sun, stuh thorny thickets, dragging sick men and provisions up ue, murmurs, curses, snakes, mosquitoes, false alarms of Spaniards, and every misery, save cold, which flesh is heir to Suffice it that by sunset that evening they had gained a level spot, a full thousand feet above the sea, backed by an inaccessible cliff which forhtybut the felling of a few trees to nable
Amyas settled the sick under the arched roots of an enormous cottonwood tree, andup hae were of inestimable value He, as pioneer, had found the little brook up which they forced their way; he had encouraged thehtly that on its course they were sure to find soround fit for encampment within the reach of water; he had supported Aged no farther, and had gone back again a dozen tiht up the rear, bullied and cheered on the stragglers who sat down and refused to move, drove back at the sword's pointa retreat, carried their burdens for the hiallant and hopeful soul which he had always been: till A that the two men on whom he had counted most were utterly worthy of his trust, went so far as to whisper to theht-- ”Cortez burnt his shi+ps when he landed Why should not we?”
Yeo leapt upright; and then sat down again, and whispered-- ”Do you say that, captain? 'Tis fro on my mind too all day”
”There's no hurry,” quoth Amyas; ”we must clear her out first, you knohile Cary sat silent andAmyas had evidently more schemes in his head than he chose to tell
Theto doA their position It was, as I said, strong enough by nature; for though it was coh cliffs on three sides, yet there was no chance of an enee behind them, and still less chance that, if he cah the dense mass of trees which crowned the cliff, and clothed the hills for a thousand feet above The attack, if it took place, would co the shs outward over the crest of the slope, thus for an abatis (as every one who has shot in thick cover knows to his cost) warranted to bring up in two steps, horse, dog, or thwise, and steadied by stakes and mould; and three or four hours' hard work finished a stockade which would defy anything but artillery The work done, Ahs of the enor his own handiwork, looking out far and wide over the forest-covered plains and the blue sea beyond, and thinking, in his sihtforay, of as to be done next
To stay there long was ie hio until he had found out whether Frank was alive or dead seemed at first equally ihty men to be sacrificed a second tie, and then wept again with earnest, honest prayer, before he could make up his mind But he made it up There were a hundred chances to one that Frank was dead; and if not, he was equally past their help; for he was--Amyas knew that too well--by this time in the hands of the Inquisition Who could lift hi aloud in his agony, ”God help him! for I cannot!” Amyas ht and thought alone, there in his airy nest; and at last he went down, calm and cheerful, and drew Cary and Yeo aside They could not, he said, refit the shi+p without dying of fever during the process; an assertion which neither of his hearers was bold enough to deny Even if they refitted her, they would be pretty certain to have to fight the Spaniards again; for it was impossible to doubt the Indian's story, that they had been forewarned of the Rose's co, or to doubt, either, that Eustace had been the traitor
”Let us try St Jago, then; sack it, come down on La Guayra in the rear, take a shi+p there, and so get hoainst us at La Guayra, where they had little to lose, surely they have done so at St Jago, where they have h new; and besides, how can we get over these uide?”
”Or with one?” said Cary, with a sigh, looking up at the vast walls of wood and rock which rose range on range forcold water on a daring plot”
”What if I had a still olden city of Manoa?”
Yeo laughed a grih ”I have, sir; and so have the old hands from the Pelican and the Jesus of Lubec, I doubt not”
”So an to tell Cary all which he had learned from the Spaniard, while Yeo capped every word thereof with ruhast as the huge phantasoria unfolded itself before his dazzled eyes; and at last-- ”So that hy you wanted to burn the shi+p! Well, after all, nobody needs me at home, and one less at table won't be missed So you want to play Cortez, eh?”
”We shall never need to play Cortez (as not such a bad fellow after all, Will), because we shall have no such cannibal fiends' tyranny to rid the earth of, as he had And I trust we shall fear God enough not to play Pizarro”
So the conversation dropped for the tiot it
In that mountain-nook the party spent some ten days and more Several of the sick men died, some from the fever superadded to their wounds; soeon; the others mended steadily, by the help of certain herbs which Yeo adust of the doctor, who, of course, wanted to bleed the poor fellows all round, and was all but mutinous when Amyas stayed his hand In the meanwhile, by dint of daily trips to the shi+p, provisions were plentiful enough,--beside the raccoons, monkeys, and other small animals, which Yeo and the veterans of Hawkins's cre to catch, and the fruit and vegetables; above all, the delicious e of the Areca palht in daily, paying well thereby for the hospitality they received
All day long a careful watch was kept ahty ceiba-tree And what a tree that was! The hugest English oak would have seemed a stunted bush beside it Borne up on roots, or rather walls, of twisted board, soh, bethich the whole crew, their ammunitions, and provisions, were housed rooirth, towering like sohthouse, shs, each of which was a stately tree, whose topround And yet it was easy for the sailors to ascend; so many natural ropes had kind Nature lowered for their use, in the s to the very earth, often without a knot or leaf Once in the tree, you ithin a neorld, suspended between heaven and earth, and as Cary said, no wonder if, like Jack when he cliiant, and a few acres of well-stocked park, packed away soardens at least were there in plenty; for every lieous orchises, and wild pines; and while one-half the tree was clothed in rich foliage, the other half, utterly leafless, bore on every twig brilliant yelloers, around which hu Parrots peeped in and out of every cranny, while, within the airy woodland, brilliant lizards basked like living geaudy finches flitted and chirruped, butterflies of every size and color hovered over the tops, innumerable insects hummed from morn till eve; and when the sun went down, tree-toads came out to snore and croak till dawn There was more life round that one tree than in a whole squarethe branches, felt at moments as if he would be content to stay there forever, and feed his eyes and ears with all its wonders--and then started sighing fro the foe upon them, and force hiht falter without shame So there he sat (for he often took the scout's place hi out over the fantastic tropic forest at his feet, and the flat rove-swamps below, and the white sheet of foam-flecked blue; and yet no sail appeared; and the an to ask when they would go down and refit the shi+p, and Amyas put the the shore fronized in her, or thought he did so, the shi+p which they had passed upon their way
If it was she, she ht, and have now returned, perhaps, to search for the slowly He was in hopes that she ht pass the river's mouth: but no She lay-to close to the shore; and, after a while, Amyas sao boats pull in fro down a liane, he told what he had seen The men, tired of inactivity, received the neith a shout of joy, and set to work to uests Four brass swivels, which they had brought up, were s, so as to command the path; the musketeers and archers clustered round theood marksmen volunteered into the cotton-tree with their arquebuses, as a post whence ”a ” Prayers followed as a matter of course, and dinner as a matter of course also; but teary hours passed before there was any sign of the Spaniards
Presently a wreath of white smoke curled up from the swarowls of the English, the Spanish flag ran up above the trees, and floated-- horrible to behold--at thethe shi+p for more hands; and, in effect, a third boat soon pushed off and vanished into the forest
Another hour, during which the hly lost their te; and talked so loud, and strode up and down so wildly, that Amyas had to warn them that there was no need to betray theht not find theht pass the stockade close without seeing it; that, unless they hit off the track at once, they would probably return to their shi+p for the present; and exacted a proave the word to fire
Which wise commands had scarcely passed his lips, when, in the path below, glanced the headpiece of a Spanish soldier, and then another and another
”Fools!” whispered A on their own death Lie close, men!”