Part 34 (1/2)
”Who calls William Parracombe?” answered a sleepy voice
”I, fool!--your captain”
”I aer, and labor, and heavy sorrow, and will never see Bideford town any more He is turned into an Indian now; and he is to sleep, sleep, sleep for a hundred years, till he gets his strength again, poor fellow--”
”Awake, then, thou that sleepest, and arise frolish thus the life of a beast?”
”Christ shall give thee light?” answered the same unnatural abstracted voice ”Yes; so the parsons say And they say too, that He is Lord of heaven and earth I should have thought His light was as near us here as anywhere, and nearer too, by the look of the place Look round!” said he, waving a lazy hand, ”and see the works of God, and the place of Paradise, whither poor weary souls go home and rest, after their masters in the wicked world have used them up, with labor and sorrow, and made theold I'll er no et by it? Maybe I shall leave my bones in the wilderness I can but do that here Maybe I shall get ho hovel, that a o on; it'll pay you You ht, and live in a fine house, and drink good wine, and go to Court, and torot too hbor's shoulders, as they all did--Sir Richard, and Mr Raleigh, and Chichester, and poor dear old Sir Warham, and all of them that I used to watch when I lived before They were no happier than I was then; I'll warrant they are no happier now Go your ways, captain; clilory upon some other backs than ours, and leave us here in peace, alone with God and God's woods, and the good wives that God has given us, to play a little like school children It's long since I've had play-hours; and now I'll be a little child oncebirds, and the silver fishes in the stream, that are at peace, and think no harhthood, nor peerage, but just take what comes; and their heavenly Father feedeth thelory was not arrayed like one of these--and will He not much more feed us, that are of more value than many sparrows?”
”And will you live here, shut out from all Christian ordinances?”
”Christian ordinances? Adam and Eve had no parsons in Paradise The Lord was their priest, and the Lord was their shepherd, and He'll be ours too But go your ways, sir, and send up Sir John Brih we have sworn troth to each other before God already), and let hiive us the Holy Sacrament once and for all, and then read the funeral service over us, and go his ways, and count us for dead, sir--for dead we are to the wicked worthless world we cao And when the Lord chooses to call us, the little birds will cover us with leaves, as they did the babies in the wood, and fresher floill grow out of our graves, sir, than out of yours in that bare Northam churchyard there beyond the weary, weary, weary sea”
His voice died away to a murmur, and his head sank on his breast
Amyas stood spell-bound The effect of the narcotic was all but miraculous in his eyes The sustained eloquence, the novel richness of diction in one seely drowned in sensual sloth, were, in his eyes, the possession of some evil spirit And yet he could not answer the Evil One His English heart, full of the divine instinct of duty and public spirit, told him that it must be a lie: but how to prove it a lie? And he stood for full tenfor an anshich seeht for it
His eye glanced upon Ayacanora The two girls hispering to her slance a look toward hi, which raised a beautiful blush in the maiden's face With a playful blow at the speaker, she turned away A her the saiven to hiades have some reason on their side after all
He shuddered at the thought: but he could not shake it off It glided in like soaudy snake, and wreathed its coils round all his heart and brain He drew back to the other side of the lawn, and thought and thought-- Should he ever get hoar or rich, he would still have to face his , to tell that tale, perhaps, to hear those reproaches, the forecast of which had weighed on him like a dark thunder-cloud for teary years; to wipe out which by solory he had wandered the wilderness, and wandered in vain
Could he not settle here? He need not be a savage, he and his ht Christianize, civilize, teach equal law, ht be hereafter as strong a barrier against the encroachments of the Spaniard, as Manoa itself would have been Who knew the wealth of the surrounding forests? Even if there were no gold, there were boundless vegetable treasures What ht be the nucleus of a great commercial settlement-- And yet, was even that worth while? To settle here only to torment his soul with fresh schee one labor for another? Was not your dreaht? Did they not all need rest? What if they each sat down aht live like Christians, while they lived like the birds of heaven-- What a dead silence! He looked up and round; the birds had ceased to chirp; the parroquets were hiding behind the leaves; the s; only out of the far depths of the forest, the careat death-knell rolling down from far cathedral towers Was it an o hi for his decision? Both dropped their eyes The decision was not to come from them
A rustle! a roar! a shriek! and Ae dark bar shoot froirls
A dull crash, as the group flew asunder; and in thebeneath the fangs of a black jaguar, the rarest and s Of one? But of which? Was it Ayacanora? And sword in hand, Amyas rushed madly forward; before he reached the spot those tortured limbs were still
It was not Ayacanora, for with a shriek which rang through the woods, the wretched drea up and felt for his sword Fool! he had left it in his ha the nauar, as it crouched above its prey, and seizing its head with teeth and nails, worried it, in the ferocity of his
The brute wrenched its head frorasp, and raised its dreadful paw Another moment and the husband's corpse would have lain by the wife's
But high in air gleae body and strong aruar dropped grinning on its victim's corpse; ”And all stood still, who saw hiht count a score”
”O Lord Jesus,” said Amyas to himself, ”Thou hast answered the devil for me! And this is the selfish rest for which I would have bartered the rest which co where Thou hast put me!”
They bore away the lithe corpse into the forest, and buried it under soft ured into fairer flowers, and the poor, gentle, untaught spirit returned to God who gave it
And then Aain, and Parracombe walked after him, like one alks in sleep
Ebsworthy, sobered by the shock, entreated to coiven God forbid that I should judge you or any man! Sir John shall come up and marry you; and then, if it still be your will to stay, the Lord forgive you, if you be wrong; in the meanwhile, ill leave with you all that we can spare Stay here and pray to God to make you, and me too, wiser men”
And so Amyas departed He had coain like a little child
Three days after Parracombe was dead Once in ca received absolution and coood Sir John, faded aithout disease or pain, ”babbling of green fields,” andthe nahostly council of Sir John, and told hih his mind
”It was indeed a tee; ”for he is by his very naainst et kin and country, and duty and queen But you have resisted hilishman, as you always are, and he has fled from you But that is no reason e should not flee from him too; and so I think the sooner we are out of this place, and at work again, the better for all our souls”
To which Ahter of ten thousand Incas, he et out of her way as soon as possible
The next day he announced his intention to h to unpowder for their ; that is, if they could get the h to set the world on fire; but nitre they had not yet seen; perhaps they should find it aet that where there were volcanoes Who had not heard how one of Cortez' Spaniards, in like need, was lowered in a basket down the sathered sulphur enough to conquer an elishman could do, or they would know the reason why And if they found none--why clothyard arrows had done Englishain, not to uns and their arrows of curare poison, which, though they ainst Spaniards' ar food, fro remained; to invite their Indian friends to join them And that was done in due form the next day
Ayacanora was consulted, of course, and by the Piache, too, as glad enough to be rid of the rival preacher, and his unpleasantly good news that ood God above the most melodious assent; the whole tribe echoed it; and all went sh till the old cacique observed that before starting a compact should be made between the allies as to their share of the booty
Nothing could be more reasonable; and Aold, and ill take the prisoners”
”And ill you do with them?” asked Amyas, who recollected poor John Oxenham's hapless compact made in like case
”Eat theh
Amyas whistled
”Humph!” said Cary ”The old proverb comes true--'the more the merrier: but the fewer the better fare' I think ill do without our red friends for this ti war like a very Boadicea, was much vexed
”Do you too want to dine off roast Spaniards?” asked Amyas
She shook her head, and denied the iust
Aht of so fair a creature, however degraded, with the horrors of cannibalism
But the cacique was a man of business, and held out stanchly
”Is it fair?” he asked ”The white old to hi to eat, and heso far through the forests hungry and thirsty? You will get all, and the Oument was unanswerable; and the next day they started without the Indians, while John Bri them to darkness, the devil, and the holy trumpet
And Ayacanora?
When their departure was determined, she shut herself up in her hut, and appeared noon the part of the si thehter beyond the seas, and help them to recover their lost land of Papamene; but Ayacanora took no part in the at her absence, but joyful and light-hearted at having escaped the rocks of the Sirens, and being at work once more
CHAPTER XXV
HOW THEY TOOK THE GOLD-TRAIN
”God will relent, and quit thee all thy debt, Who everorous chooses death as due, Which argues over-just, and self-displeased For self-offence, onistes