Henty George Alfred
With Cochrane the Dauntless
“It is of no use my waiting here,” he said to himself, after some thought. “Pita has no shadow of a clue as to what has become of me, and as I may be thirty miles away from him it would take an army to find me. I had better try and push on until I get to dry land. I may then be able to work round the inundations until I reach the rocky ground and can make my way along it to the mission.” As soon as the sun rose he was able to determine the points of the compass, and paddled steadily on, his eyes fixed upon the trees above him. Other snakes might be lurking or wild beasts taking refuge in the branches. That there were many of these indeed he was sure, by the number of uneasy howls that he had heard before the sun rose. Several times as he rowed he caught sight of leopards and jaguars in the trees; one of the latter, unobserved until he had passed beyond the branches, sprang down from above, narrowly missing the stern of the canoe, and starting in pursuit as soon as it came to the surface again. Stephen, however, was able to drive the boat through the water at a much higher rate than the beast could swim, and it was not long before he had left it far behind him.
He continued to paddle all day, but felt that his nerves were beginning to fail him, and it was only by a great effort that he was able to keep a fixed direction by the aid of the sun through the leaves. He tied up again at night, and paddled all the next day, finding to his gratification in the afternoon that the water now did not average more than four feet deep. By noon the next day he saw a break in the line of water, and a few minutes later stood on dry ground. He did not attempt to go further, but throwing himself down fell at once into a deep sleep. It was evening when he awoke; the fire still burned on the hearth in the canoe; he had been careful to keep it alight by breaking off pieces of dead wood from the trees. He now collected a large store, built up a pile a few feet beyond the water-level, and bringing some brands from the fire set it alight. His scanty stock of provisions was now nearly exhausted; he ate half of what remained, and then lay down before the fire with his pistols ready at hand in case any wild beasts should come near. The next morning he started in what he believed to be the right direction, keeping near the edge of the inundation. His memory of what happened afterwards was vague and indistinct. He remembered that for several days he kept on, sometimes plucking fruit as he went, and occasionally firing a gun three times. Rapidly his strength failed as he went on, he often stumbled and fell from exhaustion and hunger, and the power of thought altogether deserted him.
At times he fancied he saw men approaching, but only to find that his imagination had converted trees into moving objects. He had long since left the edge of the inundation. He was parched with thirst, his mind wandered, incoherent cries proceeded from his parched lips. At last he thought he saw a native village before him; as he drew towards it figures came out from the huts and gazed at him. A moment later he fell headlong to the ground, and lay there insensible.
When he came to himself he felt so weak that he could neither turn nor raise his head, but lay wondering vaguely where he was. As he looked upwards he thought he was still dreaming, for the well-known face of Pita was looking down upon him.
“Do you know me?” It was certainly Pita’s voice, and being unable to move, Stephen closed his eyelids quickly in reply to the question.
“The saints be praised!” the Indian exclaimed, using the ejaculation common among the Peruvians. “He knows me, Hurka—he is sensible again, after all this time.”
Hurka hurried up on the other side of Stephen. “It is true!” he exclaimed; “he knows me also.”
The Indian brought a gourd, and poured some liquor into Stephen’s mouth. “Do not talk,” he said; “we shall have plenty of time for that later on.”
Stephen closed his eyes obediently. Even now he was not certain but that he was still in a dream. So many times of late he had had a vague fancy that his Indian guides were still with him that he doubted the evidence both of eye and ear. However, he soon went off to sleep again. When he awoke, Hurka was at hand, and ready to pour some hot broth down his throat. It was long before he was strong enough to ask questions, and the Indian positively refused to talk. At last the time came when he was able to be propped up into a sitting position on his bed, which was composed of leaves covered with blankets.
“I am strong enough to hear about it now, Pita. Tell me where I am and how you come to be here.”
“Hurka will tell,” the Indian replied; “it is a long talk.”
Stephen looked to Hurka, who at once began.
“When you did not return that evening, señor, Pita and I went out to search for you. We knew where you generally sat, but you were gone. We went to the mission, got some torches, and searching in the sand between the rocks we found traces of Indians’ feet, and were able to follow them up to a point nearly a mile below the falls. There they ceased, and we were sure that you had been carried off in a canoe. As we found no sign whatever of blood or marks of a struggle we felt sure that you had not been wounded, but concluded that you had been suddenly seized, bound, and carried off. We roused some of the mission Indians, and I with three of them took to our canoe and paddled down the river for twelve hours. As we had no weight to carry and had four paddles, we felt sure that by that time we should have overtaken you had they held on down the river, for we concluded by the footmarks that there were but three of them, and they had your weight in the boat.
“They could hardly have counted on being pursued so closely, and would not, therefore, have made any special effort. Then we turned and paddled back, keeping close to the trees in hopes of getting some sign of where the canoe had entered the forest. We found none, and as soon as we got to the mission, I set out to follow Pita, who had started inland. We thought it likely that the Indians had come across the inundations, and that he might obtain some news as to which tribe they belonged to. Of course he followed the high ground and passed through several Indian villages, but he was sure that they had not come from these, for in that case they would have gone on foot to the mission instead of taking the trouble to pass through the forest in a canoe. He walked sixty miles the next day and then reached the farthest edge of the inundation, and leaving the high ground followed it.
“He had taken with him a bag of flour from the mission, and kept on for a week; then he thought he must have gone beyond the spot where you had been landed. He had walked, he thought, fifty miles a day, and was more than three hundred from the high ground, and concluded that unless the canoe had come a long distance up the river they would never have made so long a passage through the forest. Then he went back again, keeping further away from the water. Four days later he came upon a group of Indian huts, and there heard that a strange white man had arrived at a village twenty miles distant, two days before. None knew from whence he came, for he had fallen down as soon as he arrived, and was lying ill. Pita could not understand how you could have arrived in such a state, unless indeed you had killed your captors after landing, and had then wandered in the forest until you chanced upon the village. He hastened there, greatly disturbed in his mind, in the first place, at the thought of your illness, and next because the tribe was a very savage one and ate human flesh.
“When he entered the village the natives crowded round him. He was an Indian like themselves, but his dress showed that he consorted with the hated white men. Pita, however, pushed them aside, and to their astonishment spoke to them in their own language. Pita’s mother, indeed, had been one of that very tribe, and her father a great chief among them, so that when he told them who he was, he was heartily welcomed and treated with great respect. It was lucky for me that he arrived, for only the day before I too, when I gained news of your whereabouts, had reached the village, and upon entering had at once been made prisoner. I gathered from what I could understand of their language that I was to be eaten. I think that the manner in which you entered their village, and the mystery as to how you could have come there, saved your life. It seemed to them as something supernatural, and they were attending you carefully in order that if you recovered they might learn from you how you had come there, after which they would no doubt have killed you. Pita had some difficulty in obtaining my release, but upon his saying that, although belonging to another tribe, I was a great friend of his, they handed me over to him. Since then we have been as natives of the village. We have taken it by turn to nurse you, and by turns have hunted with the men.”
“How long have I been here?”
“Nigh six months, señor.”
“Six months!” Stephen repeated; “surely not, Hurka. I never could have been ill all that time; I must have died long ago.”
“You were ill for six weeks, señor, with fever. When at last that passed away, your mind did not come back to you. Sometimes you raved about a great snake that was about to seize you; sometimes you thought that you were wandering in the forest; more often you lay quiet and without saying anything. We gave you plenty of food and you got stronger, but there was no change in your mind. A month before your mind came back the fever seized you again, and we had little hope that you would live; but we had got medicine from the mission, and just when it seemed to us that you were on the point of death, you fell into a deep sleep, and when, after lying for twenty hours so, you opened your eyes and knew Pita, we found that your mind had come back to you again. That is all.”
“And you and Pita have remained here for six months nursing me!” Stephen said, holding out his hand to the Indian; “you are indeed good comrades and faithful friends, and I owe my life to you.”
The exhaustion caused by listening to Hurka’s story prevented Stephen from saying more, and in two minutes he dropped off to sleep. The next day he related to the two Indians the story of his passage through the forest.
“It was wonderful indeed that you should have alighted upon my mother’s village,” Pita said. “It was not to this that the three Indians belonged, but to another thirty miles away. Their disappearance has been the subject of much talk. It was at first thought that they had lost their way in the inundation and so perished, but when their canoe was discovered at the edge of the water-mark, long after the inundation had ceased, no one could account for it. The village was but three or four miles from the spot where the canoe was found, and there was no possibility of their missing their way. They could hardly have been all three devoured by wild beasts, unless, indeed, they had fallen in with a herd of peccaries; and this, it is now thought, must have been their fate. Fortunately, no one associated your coming with the discovery of the canoe.”
Gradually Stephen regained strength, but it was some weeks before he was fit to travel again.
“I suppose,” he said one day to Hurka, “that you will follow the track straight through the forest to the mission, instead of going all the way round as you did.”
“I don’t know yet, señor. We shall have some difficulty in getting away. Our skill with the bow and gun have so impressed them that they want to make Pita their chief and keep him here, and they want to adopt me into the tribe for the same reason. Till you began to get stronger we could roam about as we liked alone, but of late we have noticed that we are always watched, and Pita has been told that unless he consents to remain, you and I will both be killed and eaten. Pita has put off giving them a decided answer, but he cannot do so much longer; and now that you are well enough to travel, we shall have to make off as soon as we can. He has been told that if he and I consent to remain with them, they will take you to a place among the hills, eight days away, where you can find much gold and return rich to your own country.”
“It is very awkward, Hurka, but I should think that you and Pita can contrive some plan for getting off.”
The little Indian nodded.
“We can manage that,” he said. “We have only been waiting until we were sure that you were strong enough to travel. I know that even now you could not go far, but once in the forest, we shall be able to outwit them and to travel slowly. Pita and I have been hiding up a store of food for the journey, and if you are willing we will try to make our escape to-night. There have, for the last fortnight, been men posted round us as soon as it became dark, but we shall be able either to crawl through them or to dispose of any who may bar our way.”
Pita presently returned from hunting. He carried a dozen large pigeons in his hand.
“We must go to-night,” he said briefly. “I have been told that I must give an answer to-morrow.”
“I have been telling the señor,” Hurka said, “and he is ready to make the attempt at once; but I wish that they had given you a day or two longer, for there will be extra vigilance to-night.”
Pita made a gesture of contempt.
“They will but throw away their lives,” he said. “Let us go out.”
As they walked along the village the women looked curiously at them, while men watched them closely with scowling looks.
“Do you see that large tree at the edge of the forest, señor?” Pita asked presently; “it has lost its bark, and the trunk is white.”
“I see it, Pita.”
“Well, señor, as soon as we start to-night do you make straight for that. We will join you there. Do not stop if there should be fighting, and have no fear for us. The great point is for you to get to the edge of the forest. You are not strong enough to run fast yet; but once in the forest we shall be all right. The night is dark, for the moon will not rise till some hours after sunset. Do you think that you will be able to find the tree?”
“I think so, Pita. I will fix its bearings in my mind, and notice the direction I have to take on leaving the hut. I wish I had my gun and pistols.”
“You can have my gun when we are once in the forest, señor; but we must fight at first with our bows. There are a hundred and fifty men here, and as we wish above all things to hide the way we have gone, a gun must not be fired unless we are so surrounded that escape is impossible.”
“How shall we leave the hut, Pita?”
“By the back. We will cut a hole through that mud wall as soon as it gets dark; but we must not leave until all save the watchers are asleep, or we should have them all down upon us instantly, on the alarm being raised. When we are through them, Hurka and I will run in another direction, and make a long round before we come back to the tree, so that they will not know in which direction to seek for us. They will be sure, indeed, that we shall take to the forest; but it would be useless for them to begin the search for us until the morning, and they will be in no great haste, for they will know that you are not strong enough to walk very far, and that when they once strike on our track they will have no difficulty in overtaking us.”
“I feel strong enough to walk a good distance,” Stephen said.
“You may feel so, señor; but you have not tried. For months your limbs have done no work, and they will soon feel it. Besides, even had you your full strength and vigour, the Indians could easily outwalk you, for they would run in four hours as much as you could do in eight. If we escape, it must be by craft, and not by speed.”
“I am quite sure that you will do all that you can, Pita, but remember that it is my express wish that you should not throw away your lives in a vain attempt to save mine. I will do all that I can; but if they come close to us, and I can go no further, I charge you to leave me, and to make your way to the river. You have already done too much for me, by throwing away eight months of your lives in this wretched place. Few indeed would have done so much, and it is my most earnest wish that you should not sacrifice your lives for my sake in a hopeless struggle against overpowering odds.”
Hurka laughed. “That is not our way, señor. We are comrades, and comrades stick to each other to the last. You are our employer, and we have undertaken to carry you through all dangers. You have been kind and good to us, and our lives are yours. We shall either all get together to the mission, or none of us will reach it. In all other matters we are ready to obey your orders, but our lives are our own to dispose of as we choose.”
They had by this time re-entered their hut, and Pita at once began to examine the wall, and to decide where it had best be cut through. After some conversation with Hurka they determined to make the hole in the side wall, near the rear corner of the hut.
“They are more likely to be watching at the back,” Hurka explained to Stephen, “as it is there they will consider it most likely we should make the attempt to escape. We can begin the hole as soon as night comes on, but we must not complete it until the village is quiet. The knives will make no noise in cutting through this soft stuff, and the moment the hole is large enough, and the part remaining is so thin that we can push it down, one of us will stand, bow in hand, ready to shoot any of the watchers who may stop before it. Once out, señor, do not make straight for the tree, or the men at the back of the house will attack you. Turn sharp off, and run along close to the backs of the next huts until you are fifty or sixty yards away, then strike out for the tree.”
Accordingly, as soon as it was dark the two Indians began to cut through the wall. When they considered that they were nearly through, they thrust the blades of the knives in. As long as they found the wall still firm they continued to remove further portions of the earth, until, on pushing the knife through, they found that it moved freely, and knew that they were within half an inch or so of the outside; then they continued their work until the hole was large enough for them to be able to issue out one at a time as soon as the thin skin remaining was cut away. This, as they told Stephen, would be but the work of a moment, for, starting at the top together, they should run their knives round the edge of the hole down to the ground, and let the whole of the wall so separated fall inside together, when they could ease it down noiselessly to the ground. The sounds in the village diminished, but they could, by listening attentively, hear an occasional footstep outside.
“Will each of them watch at a given spot?” Stephen asked.
“No, there is no chance of that; the five or six men on guard will wander round and round as they please, sometimes separately and sometimes together—more often together, for they have never got over the mystery of your arrival, and have, as I have noticed several times when I have returned late, an objection to coming near the hut. I have often seen them cross the road to the other side when they came along, in order to keep as far away from the hut as possible. Of course, we have never given them any explanation of your coming here, but have said that your memory is weak, and that all we know is that you were with us at the mission, and that we found you here.”
Presently Pita announced that the time had come. He handed his gun to Stephen, while Hurka swung his across his back. Each of them took up their bows, drew half a dozen arrows from the quivers, and held them in readiness for instant use. They then placed the bows against the wall, close to the hole, opened their long knives and thrust them through the thin wall together, then each swept his knife down until it reached the ground, and cut along it until the inclosed strip gave way and fell inwards. They caught it as it moved, lowered it gently down, and then Hurka crept through the hole into the open air.
