Part 33 (2/2)
Amyas, however, had settled in his mind that she was one of the lost Inca race; perhaps a descendant of that very fair girl, wife of the Inca Manco, whoitive king's heart, as his body was safe froed, and shot to death with arrows, unco to the last
They all asse service (hardly a day had passed since they left England on which they had not done the sa a Psalm, and then a catch or two, ere they went to sleep; and till theout above the roar of the cataract, in ht they heard an echo to their song: but they took no note of it, till Cary, who had gone apart for a few minutes, returned, and whispered A us, lad”
They went to the brink of the river; and there (for their ears were by this time dead to the noise of the torrent) they could hear plainly the sa, clear and true, snatches of the airs which they had sung Strange and soleh was the effect of the men's deep voices on the island, answered out of the dark forest by those sweet treble notes; and the two youngout across the eddies, which swirled down golden in thebeyond save the black wall of trees After a while the voice ceased, and the two returned to dreaain next day; and every day for a week or more: but the maiden appeared but rarely, and when she did, kept her distance as haughtily as a queen
Amyas, of course, as soon as he could converse so before he questioned the cacique about her But the old man made an owl's face at her name, and intimated by e personage, and the less said about her the better She was ”a child of the Sun,” and that was enough
”Tell him, boy,” quoth Cary, ”that we are the children of the Sun by his first wife; and have orders from him to inquire how the Indians have behaved to our step-sister, for he cannot see all their tricks down here, the trees are so thick So let hihted”
”Will, Will, don't play with lying!” said A them in his canoe a full mile down the stream, as if in fear that the wonderful maiden should overhear him, he told theo (he could not tell how hty nation, and dwelt in Papamene, till the Spaniards drove them forth And how, as they wandered northward, far away upon thecone of Cotopaxi, they had found this fair creature wandering in the forest, about the bigness of a seven years' child Wondering at her white skin and her delicate beauty, the simple Indians worshi+pped her as a God, and led her home with them And when they found that she was human like themselves, their wonder scarcely lessened How could so tender a being have sustained life in those forests, and escaped the jaguar and the snake? She hter of the Sun, one of that hty Inca race, the news of whose fearful fall had reached even those lonely wildernesses; who had, many of them, haunted for years as exiles the eastern slopes of the Andes, about the Ucalayi and the Maranon; ould, as all Indians knew, rise again some day to pohen bearded white men should come across the seas to restore the them, she was tended with royal honors, by command of the conjuror of the tribe, that so her forefather the Sun ht show favor to the poor ruined Orew, she had beco them, as well as an object of fetish-worshi+p; for she wasin the chase, than all the elders of the tribe; and those strange and sweet songs of hers, which had so surprised the white men, were full of mysterious wisdom about the birds, and the animals, and the flowers, and the rivers, which the Sun and the Good Spirit taught her fro them, unmarried still, not only because she despised the addresses of all Indian youths, but because the conjuror had declared it to be profane in thened her a cabin near his ohere she was served in state, and gave some sort of oracular responses, as they had seen, to the questions which be put to her
Such was the cacique's tale; on which Cary remarked, probably not unjustly, that he ”dared to say the conjurorof it:” but Amyas was silent, full of dreams, if not about Manoa, still about the remnant of the Inca race What if they were still to be found about the southern sources of the Amazon? He must have been very near theht be sure that they had fordoo Perhaps they had moved lately from thence eastward, to escape soirl had been left behind in their flight And then he recollected, with a sigh, how hopeless was any further search with his di of the truth froht be useful to hiiven up Manoa If he but got safe hoh came at once into his mind) ould join him in a fresh search for the Golden City of Guiana; not by the upper waters, but by the mouth of the Orinoco
So they paddled back, while the simple cacique entreated them to tell the Sun, in their daily prayers, hoell the wild people had treated his descendant; and besought theet the poor Ouas, and ripen their manioc and their fruit no er than was absolutely necessary to bring up the sick men from the Orinoco; but this, he well kneould be a journey probably of soer
Cary volunteered at once, however, to undertake the adventure, if half-a-dozenthe canoe: but this latter item was not an easy one to obtain; for the tribe hom they noere, stood in soh whose country they h, looks on each tribe of different language to itself as natural enemies, hateful, and e fact, too, Amyas and his party attributed to delusion of the devil, the divider and accuser; and I aht: only let A the devil in the Indians, he does not give place to him in himself, and that in more ways than one But of that more hereafter
Whether, however, it was pride or shyness which kept the hfor amuseave the English to understand, however, that though they all es, none of them was to be her companion but A with hi forest, with a train of chosen nymphs, whom she had persuaded to follow her example and spurn the dusky suitors around This fashi+on, not unco the Indian tribes, where wo to the forest fro telish a plain proof that they were near the land of the famous Amazons, of whom they had heard so often from the Indians; while Amyas had no doubt that, as a descendant of the Incas, the ins of the Sun, and of the austere monastic rule of the Peruvian superstition Had not that valiant Gere of Spires, and Jeronimo Ortal too, fifty years before, found convents of the Sun upon these very upper waters?
So a harirl, which soon turned to good account For she no sooner heard that he needed a crew of Indians, than she consulted the Piache, asse retired to her hut, co, which (unless the Piache lied) was a co n displeasure of an evil spirit with an unpronounceable naument which succeeded on the spot, and the canoe departed on its perilous errand
John Brireat doubts whether a venture thus started by direct help and patronage of the fiend would succeed; and A, told Ayacanora that it would be better to have told the tribe that it was a good deed, and pleasing to the Good Spirit
”Ah!” said she, naively enough, ”they know better than that The Good Spirit is big and lazy; and he smiles, and takes no trouble: but the little bad spirit, he is so busy--here, and there, and everywhere,” and she waved her pretty hands up and down; ”he is the useful one to have for a friend!” Which sentiment the Piache much approved, as became his occupation; and once told Brimblecombe pretty sharply, that he was athe Indians that the Good Spirit cared for thein to ask the Good Spirit for what they want, ill bringthe bad spirit quiet?” This argues have felt it to be, did not stop Jack's preaching (and very good and righteous preaching it was,service in the island ca, attended in such nuone, and vowed to put an end to Jack's Gospel with a poisoned arrow
Which plan he (blinded by his master, Satan, so Jack phrased it) took into his head to impart to Ayacanora, as the partner of his tithes and offerings; and was exceedingly astonished to receive in answer a box on the ear, and a stor hiators, and Jack installed in his place; declaring that whatsoever the bearded ainst thenaniave his foe, and preached on, of course with fresh zeal; but not, alas! with one over to the camp of the enemy, had a reserve in a certain holy truhboring hills, not to be looked on by woman under pain of death; and it ell known, and had been known for generations, that unless that truellations, and other solehout the woods, the palreat was the fa tribes sent at the proper season to hire it and the blower thereof, by payht be sharers in its fertilizing powers
So the Piache announced one day in public, that in consequence of the i tribe, ofwith hiht, and the, and dire the wrath throughout the village Jack's words were allowed to be good words; but as the Gospel in coan a fierce harangue against the heretic strangers As he e nature, capricious as a child's, flashed out in wild suspicion Women yelled, uns The case was grown critical There were not more than a dozen men with Amyas at the tiht muster nearly a hundred Amyas forbade his men either to draw or to retreat; but poisoned arroeapons before which the boldest rew pale, which had seldom been pale before
”It is God's quarrel, sirs all,” said Jack Briht”
As he spoke, fro, and quivered aloft ahts of the forest
Theto move Another moment, and she had rushed out, like a very Diana, into the centre of the ring, bow in hand, and arrow on the string
The fallen ”children of wrath” had found their match in her; for her beautiful face was convulsed with fury Al in her passion, she burst forth with bitter revilings; she pointed with adlish, and then with fiercest conteestures, seeainst the to Alish battle
The whole scene was so sudden, that Amyas had hardly discovered whether she came as friend or foe, before her boas raised He had just time to strike up her hand, when the arro past the ear of the offending Piache, and stuck quivering in a tree
”Let e; but Amyas held her arm firer rolled down her cheeks ”Choose between hter of the Sun; I alishmen! But you! your mothers were Guahibas, and ateto you! I shall go to the whiteyou to sleep any more; and when the little evil spirit misses my voice, he will come and tuhosts every night, till you grow as thin as blow-guns, and as stupid as aye-ayes!”
Two-toed sloths
This terrible counter-threat, in spite of the slight bathos involved, had its effect; for it appealed to that dread of the sleep world which is coes: but the conjuror was ready to outbid the prophetess, and had begun a fresh oration, when Ah at the whole matter, he took the conjuror by his shoulders, sent him with one crafty kick half-a-dozen yards off upon his nose; and then, walking out of the ranks, shook hands round with all his Indian acquaintances
Whereon, like grown-up babies, they all burst out laughing too, shook hands with all the English, and then with each other; being, after all, as glad as any bishops to prorogue the convocation, and let unpleasant questions stand over till the next session The Piache relented, like a prudent man; Ayacanora returned to her hut to sulk; and A for Cary's return, for he felt hiround
At last Will returned, safe and sound, and as h he had had a sht back three of the woundedapiece, had refused to come They had Indian wives; more than they could eat; and tobacco without end: and if it were not for the gnats (of which Cary said that there were more mosquitoes than there was air), they should be the happiest men alive Amyas could hardly bla ho each was very s the best of a bad matter And a very bad matter it seemed to him, to be left in a heathen land; and a still worseabout their comrades' lonely fate, as if, after all, they were not soabout it then, for he ot at by eavesdropping, however unintentional; but he longed that one of theive theive within the week; for while he was on a hunting party, two of his , and were not heard of for some days; at the end of which time the old cacique come to tell him that he believed they had taken to the forest, each with an Indian girl
Amyas was very wroth at the news First, because it had never happened before: he could say with honest pride, as Raleigh did afterwards when he returned froe, that no Indian woman had ever been the worse for any man of his He had preached on this point month after month, and practised what he preached; and now his pride was sorely hurt
Moreover, he dreaded offence to the Indians themselves: but on this score the cacique soon coirls, as far as he could find, had gone off of their own free will; intiht it somewhat an honor to the tribe that they had found favor in the eyes of the bearded men; and moreover, that late wars had so thinned the ranks of their h to find husbands for their maidens, and had been driven of late years to kill many of their female infants This sad story, common perhaps to every American tribe, and one of the chief causes of their extermination, reassured Amyas somewhat: but he could not stomach either the loss of his men, or their breach of discipline; and look for them he would Did any one knohere they were? If the tribe knew, they did not care to tell: but Ayacanora, the moment she found out his wishes, vanished into the forest, and returned in two days, saying that she had found the fugitives; but she would not show him where they were, unless he proorous a ainst theo-lucky sailor, and as good a hand as there was in the crew; and the other was that same ne'er-do-weel Will Parracoipsy-Jesuit at Appledore, and resisting that bait, had made a very fair seauide, soirl whispered, ”There they are;” and Ah a thicket of bamboo, beheld a scene which, in spite of his wrath, kept him silent, and perhaps softened, for a minute
On the farther side of a little lawn, the strea eternal freshness upon all around, and then sank foa into a clear rock-basin, a bath for Dian's self On its farther side, the crag rose soht, bank upon bank of feathered ferns and cushi+oned reen beds of which drooped a thousand orchids, scarlet, white, and orange, and eousness At its e fantastic leaves and tall flowering sterassy bank sloped doard the stream, and there, on pals, lay the two ht, and whom, now he had found them, he had hardly heart to wake from their delicious dream
For what a nest it hich they had found! the air was heavy with the scent of flowers, and quivering with theof the colibris and insects, the cheerful song of birds, the gentle cooing of a hundred doves; while now and then, from far away, the musical wail of the sloth, or the deep toll of the bell-bird, came softly to the ear What was not there which eye or ear could need? And hich palate could need either? For on the rock above, so forward, dropped every now and then a luscious apple upon the grass below, and huge wild plantains bent beneath their load of fruit
There, on the streaades from civilized life They had cast away their clothes, and painted theo One lay lazily picking up the fruit which fell close to his side; the other sat, his back against a cushi+on of softhimself up to the soft influence of the narcotic coca- juice, with half-shut drea sparkle of the waterfall-- ”While beauty, born ofsound, Did pass into his face”
Somewhat apart crouched their two dusky brides, croith fragrant flowers, but working busily, like true wohted to honor One sat plaiting pale ht hand of the lawn, its broad canopy of leaves unseen through the dense underwood of laurel and bamboo, and betokened only by the rustle far aloft, and by the mellow shade in which it bathed the whole delicious scene
Amyas stood silent for awhile, partly fro two Christian men thus fallen of their own self-will; partly because--and he could not but confess that--a soleh which seeht, was Paradise of old; such our first parents' bridal bower! Ah! if ht have dwelt forever in such a ho off the spell, advanced sword in hand
The wo pocunas, and leapt like deer each in front of her beloved There they stood, the deadly tubes pressed to their lips, eyeing hi, while every slender lie
Amyas paused, half in admiration, half in prudence; for one rash step was death But rushi+ng through the canes, Ayacanora sprang to the front, and shrieked to theht of the prophetess the woentle a face as he could, stepped forward, assuring them in his best Indian that he would harrown such savages already, that you have forgotten your captain? Stand up,to his feet, obeyed ain, as if in shauidly, raised his hand to his forehead, and then returned to his conteround, and his hands upon the hilt, and looked sadly and solemnly upon the pair Ebsworthy broke the silence, half reproachfully, half trying to bluster away the co storm
”Well, noble captain, so you've hunted out us poor fellows; and want to drag us back again in a halter, I suppose?”
”I came to look for Christians, and I find heathens; for men, and I find swine I shall leave the heathens to their wilderness, and the swine to their trough Parracombe!”
”He's too happy to answer you, sir And why not? What do you want of us? Our two years vow is out, and we are free men now”
”Free to become like the beasts that perish? You are the queen's servants still, and in her nae you-- ”Free to be happy,” interrupted the man ”With the best of wives, the best of food, a wararden than an eue should a old, what's the use of it where Heaven sends everything ready-ood captain to me, and I'll repay you with a bit of sound advice Give up your gold-hunting, and toiling and lory, and copy us Take that fair maid behind you there to wife; pitch here with us; and see if you are not happier in one day than ever you were in all your life before”
”You are drunk, sirrah! William Parracombe! Will you speak to me, or shall I heave you into the stream to sober you?”