IT would be hard by mere imagination to comprehend the terrors the
boys experienced as they crept stealthily along the foot of the cliff.
Before reaching the corner, around which they fancied they would come
upon another open beach, they stopped many times, listening tremblingly
for some sound to warn them of possible danger.
But when they finally reached the corner and had peered around it with
the greatest caution, they discovered that it broke into a forest,
the straggling trees of which came almost to the water’s edge. Upon
discovering that, they looked at each other for a moment, and then sat
down, pale and weary, to discuss their further movements.
“What shall we do now?” said Diego.
“I think,” said Juan, “that if I could get a few bananas to eat, and
then have a few hours of sleep, I should feel quite strong again, and
could go on. Night will be our best time for travelling.”
“Yes,” answered Diego, “and if we but dared to enter the wood yonder,
we could get all the bananas we could eat.”
“And hide in some thicket and sleep,” added Juan.
The need they both had for sleep and food decided them, and, after
weighing all the chances for and against their project, they fell
on their faces and crawled into the wood. Fortune favored them, and
enabled them to come upon a banana-tree loaded with the luscious fruit,
which they plucked and carried with them into a shaded natural bower.
After they had eaten all they desired, they laid themselves down and
fell into a refreshing sleep, which even their fear of cannibals could
not disturb. When they awoke, the stars were shining.
They first ate some of the bananas, and then discussed the route they
should take. It did not take them long to decide that the safest plan,
as well as the most direct road, would be to keep along the beach
as much as was possible, climbing or skirting any cliffs that might
interpose themselves.
With this plan in view, they made their way back around the cliff,
but reached the other side of it only to discover that it was as
crowded now as it had been deserted during the day, the natives being
scattered along it for a long distance--some of them gathered around
fires, at which something was evidently cooking, and which they at
once, with a horrible fear, fancied the worst of.
They hastened back as they had come, and decided without loss of time
to strike into the woods and go back a mile or more, and then take an
easterly course, which would bring them into a nearly parallel line
with the beach.
“I remember, now,” said Diego, “that the villages of these Indians are
always near enough to the beach to enable them to get to it.”
“Yes,” said Juan. “It is either so, or far back in the interior.”
But in this they were wrong, and, so far as it concerned the island of
Bohio, or Haiti, as it really was called, they discovered their mistake
ere very long. They retraced their steps in the wood until they came to
where they had slept, and made a fresh departure from there. They had
not gone two miles, however, before they almost stumbled into a small
village.
Greatly dismayed, they made a careful detour and passed the village;
but they were so fearful of coming upon other villages that they
proceeded now much more cautiously. Even that did not help them
greatly, however, for after another two miles, perhaps, they came upon
a very large village, and in endeavoring to go around this they became
hopelessly lost.
If they could have seen the heavens, they could have gained their
bearings by the stars; but the woods were too dense for that, and they
would have been obliged to stop and wait for daylight if Juan had
not pointed out that they were certainly going up hill, which would
indicate that they were going south, since the hills, as they had
noticed from the canoe, ran east and west.
“Then let us keep on going up,” said Diego, “and perhaps we can find
a lookout to-morrow on the top of the mountains, and select a safer
course.”
The advice was certainly good, and it was not difficult to follow,
particularly as they fell in with no more villages. So they kept on,
always climbing, and occasionally, now, gaining a sight of the stars;
though the forest remained dense as far as they went.
How far they went they had no means of knowing; for even the time spent
or the fatigue incurred was no criterion; for while they were quite
certain that they must have been six hours on foot, they had wandered
so much from a direct path that it was quite possible they might have
gone but a very short distance; and they had been tired from the start.
As well as they could in the darkness, they selected a sheltered spot
to sleep in, and laid themselves down to rest. They fortunately had no
need to think of snakes or of other dangerous reptiles or beasts; for
the only really unpleasant creatures on the islands were scorpions,
centipedes, and tarantulas, which were not feared by the natives, and
in consequence the voyagers also had learned to hold them in little
fear.
In the shaded woods the morning sun had no opportunity to awaken the
boys until they were ready to open their eyes, and so the day was well
advanced before they roused themselves.
“Ah-h-h!” yawned Diego, comfortably, “I am ready for breakfast, aren’t
you?”
“Sh-sh!” said Juan, and pointed through the trees.
Behind Diego, not more than a hundred yards distant, was an opening, a
sort of level plateau on the mountain-side, and straggling along the
side nearest the boys was a village of possibly two hundred huts. Under
the shade of the trees nearest the huts were hammocks, in which the men
lazily swung, while the women worked leisurely at their light tasks.
Children played about everywhere.
Nowhere had the boys seen comelier or pleasanter-looking women; but
nowhere had they seen more forbidding-looking men. Their foreheads
sloped back abruptly from their eyebrows, and their faces were
hideously streaked with paint. Moreover, they were taller and more
muscular in appearance than the other Indians they had seen. At least
the few men they saw moving about were; and altogether the boys were
satisfied that the men, at least, looked the cannibals they were
reputed to be.
They did not stop for any extended examination of the inhabitants; but
stole away from the village, going higher up the mountain, as taking
them in the direction they wished to go, and as promising to carry them
farthest away from the village.
When they had gone a sufficient distance for safety, they sought a
banana-tree and plucked a quantity of the fruit and ate it. It was not
what they would have eaten had they had the courage to make a fire to
cook by; for they could have had potatoes or yuca-root; but they did
not dare do that, and so they had to be content with bananas.
The mountain by this time had begun to run bare of forest trees, and
to become steeper, and it was not long after that the boys found
themselves free of the woods altogether, with a patch ahead of them of
bare rugged rocks. It seemed quite improbable that any village would be
in such a spot, and they felt safe to cross the open space and climb to
the highest of the rocks, in order to obtain a view of the ocean.
They had supposed, from the edge of the woods, that these rocks were on
the top of the mountain, but when they reached them, they discovered
that the mountain-top was many feet above them still, and separated
from them by a wooded valley. They obtained from the rocks the view
they desired, however, and almost due northeast from where they stood
they could see running to the water the mountains which they believed
were the ones they were seeking.
“I am sure of it,” said Juan, making a mental calculation of how far
they had drifted and in what direction.
“Look!” said Diego, in a choking voice.
Juan followed his finger and saw a sail--the _Pinta_ was returning to
find them.
“We must hurry,” said Diego.
“How far do you think it is?” asked Juan. “Six or seven leagues?”
“Seven, I should say,” answered Diego. “Everything looks nearer in this
country. Let us calculate. The _Pinta_ will reach there in, say, three
hours. She will surely remain as many more. Oh, yes, she will remain
several hours. Why not?”
He was thinking that even if they walked openly through the country,
and at their best speed, they could not hope to reach the place in less
than ten hours, allowing for losing their way. Juan understood him.
“Never mind,” he said. “Let us start, and we may be able to go a long
distance on the mountain-top without seeing a soul. Come! The sight of
the ship makes me stronger. How glad they will be to see us!”
“Will they not?”
“Tell me, Diego,” said Juan, “I have been wishing to ask you and did
not dare; did Miguel knock you off the yard?”
“No. Why do you ask?”
“Because when I saw you falling I saw him with his arm upraised, as if
he either had struck you or intended to.”
“I think he tried to help me,” said Diego; “but I don’t know.”
“If the men knew he was on the yard with you, and they will be certain
to, I am afraid it will fare ill with him. Come, let us hurry!”
[Illustration: “‘LOOK!’ SAID DIEGO.”]
So they hastened down from their height, and struck into what seemed
very much like a travelway, it was so easy to pass along. And yet it
had no appearance of being anything but natural, and so they had no
suspicion of it. At first the slope was slightly downward, but kept all
the time in the open, rocky space. Then it entered a wooded tract and
led them to a pretty mountain stream.
They were tired, bananas offered themselves, and the water sounded so
inviting either to drink or to bathe in that they could not resist.
“Let us bathe and eat before we go farther,” suggested Diego, and they
did so.
Diego, who was somewhat more particular in the matter of cleanliness
than the other sailors, always carried his comb in his pocket, and so
he and Juan made their toilet to the extent of smoothing their hair;
and then, very much refreshed, they got up and pushed on again.
The woods were evidently only the result of the brook bringing moisture
and soil to the rocky tract; for in a little while the depression
ceased, and they emerged once more into the same rocky belt.
“Hark!” said Diego of a sudden. “Do you hear any noise?”
“The sound of drums, or something of the sort? yes.”
They stopped and listened, and the noise grew distinctly in volume.
“It is coming nearer,” cried Diego in alarm. “And I hear voices
singing, or howling. It’s behind us. Juan! What shall we do? Hide! yes,
that is it; hide!”
They looked all about them for a proper place, and Diego noticed a
narrow cleft in the rocks higher up to his right.
“Up here!” he whispered, and ran with all his speed followed close by
Juan.
They were soon there, and the cleft proved to be a narrow, cave-like
opening the depth of which the boys could not determine, nor did they
try to discover; for all that interested them was the fact that it
offered a good place of concealment for them.
At the same time it afforded them a good view of the country they had
been traversing, and promised to enable them to see the new-comers
without difficulty. And it fulfilled its promise in a very few minutes,
giving the boys a sight of a most extraordinary and startling spectacle.
From out of the wood, not far from where they had just come, there
emerged a fantastic procession, which moved with a rapidity that was
really remarkable in view of the numbers of which it was composed.
[Illustration: “THE CLEFT PROVED TO BE A NARROW, CAVE-LIKE OPENING.”]
At the head of it came a man beating a sort of drum and moving at a
rapid pace. Behind him were perhaps twenty men, all beating drums and
chanting at the same time that they performed all sorts of singular
antics, though without interfering with the rapid advance of the
procession. Behind them again came hundreds of girls, dancing and
singing in time with each other; and behind them came hundreds more of
men and women, also singing and dancing with the greatest fervor.
It was some time before the boys could see all of this strange
procession--strange in itself and stranger still for the place it
was in. Their first thought, and the one they clung to, was that it
was some horrible festival which would end in a cannibal orgy in the
manner that had been described to Diego by the natives from whom he had
learned to speak the Indian tongue.
They watched it with a sort of fascinated abhorrence, and in their
thoughts were deciding how they would escape it by climbing higher up
the mountain. Nearer and nearer it came along the way they had come.
Nearer and nearer to where they had turned to seek their hiding-place.
It was there.
“Juan,” gasped Diego, “it is coming up the mountain!”
By it he meant the procession; and it certainly had turned up almost in
the very footsteps of the boys. They shrank back, but still watching
the coming crowds, which, now at the ascent, had ceased to dance,
though the singing and drum-beating continued.
And as they came nearer, the boys all the while wondering what their
errand could be, it was easy to see that the man who led was a
personage of importance; for he was covered with ornaments of gold, and
wore a coronet of the same metal, with a head-dress of feathers rising
above it. The men who followed him were ornamented in quite another
way, being tattooed all over the body with grotesque figures.
The girls, who came next, carried baskets of fruit and flowers, and
were decked out with gold and other ornaments. The men and women
farther down the line were loaded with as much as they could carry in
the way of finery, but carried neither fruit nor flowers.
All of this the boys could see because they did not dare to stir and
were protected from observation by the shrubs that grew about the
opening where they had taken shelter. Their hearts were in their mouths
for fear of discovery, and they crouched side by side, very unwilling
spectators of the scene that followed, and yet interested.
The leading person, whom the boys took to be either a high-priest or
a cacique, approached within twenty yards of the boys and stood there
until an attendant hurried up with a stool of a dark polished wood, and
placed it conveniently for him to sit, he meanwhile never ceasing to
beat his drum.
After he was seated, still beating his drum, the young girls with
their baskets gathered near, and the others drew up in a wider circle,
until all were up the mountain. Then the priests made obeisance to the
sitting man and delivered a sort of address, pointing so often directly
at the place where the boys were that Diego, who had strained his ears
to hear, caught Juan and dragged him back.
“Juan, Juan!” he whispered, convulsively, “they are coming in here. It
must be a sort of cave. Let us run back into it.”