SWALLOWED UP IN THE FOREST--BUENOS AYRES--AWAY TO THE WILDS--A COLONY OF
HIGHLANDERS--FRANK TO THE FORE.
There is no word in the world your true British sailor better knows the
meaning of than that little noun _duty_. Lyell's time was up; he must
hurry back to Sydney, and thence to England, by very quickest boat; and
so he did, and his last words to our heroes were these:--
"Don't think of returning without having a look at the Pampas; to be
sure you might go straight to San Francisco and away home by train and
steamer. That would be going round the world in one sense--a landsman's
not a sailor's sense. Whenever I meet a man who says he has been round
the world, I just pull him up sharp by asking him some such question as,
`Did you ever drink tea in Pay-San-Du?' That usually settles him.
By-bye. We'll meet again."
And away went merry-hearted Lyell, leaving sadder hearts behind him.
Yes, but sad only for a time. There was a deal to be seen in Australia
yet, and Chisholm was not sorry to spend a few months longer in this
queer country, where everything seems topsy-turvy. But their last day
in the kind and hospitable home of the Thompsons came round, and all too
soon to one at least; and so adieus were spoken and whispered, hands
were pressed, ay, and foolish tears were shed by pretty eyes, and
handkerchiefs waved; then the great forest seemed to swallow them up.
The great green and gloomy forest has swallowed our heroes up; but, hey
presto! what is this we see? A blue, blue sea in which a brave ship has
just dropped anchor--a bluer sky that makes the eyes ache to behold;
other ships at anchor and boats coming and going from a distant town,
only the spires and steeples of which can be seen with the naked eye.
On the deck of this ship stand Chisholm, Fred, and Frank, and beside
them a smart naval officer in blue and gold and white.
Yes, you have guessed right. Lyell was the first to greet them when the
anchor rattled down into the shallow waters off Buenos Ayres. He had
been appointed to a South American station, and here he was, looking as
happy and jolly and red as ever.
"And at present," said Lyell, "I am my own master; so for six weeks I'm
at your service."
There was little encouragement for stopping in this city of straight
streets and tame houses, and heat and dust, so they jumped at Lyell's
suggestion to get on land as soon as possible. Lyell knew some folks,
he said, that would "show them a thing or two."
A long journey first in a comfortless train, through a country as level
and lonesome as mid-ocean itself. Hot! it was indeed hot, and they were
glad when the sun went down; for the carriages in which they rode were
over-upholstered, and the paint stood up in soft boiling blisters on the
wood-work.
Now the journey is changed to one by river. Not much of a boat, to be
sure; but then it is comparatively cool, and the scenery is sylvan and
delightful. On once more next day, this time by diligence. This
conveyance had none of the comfort of the Hyde Park canoe-landau. It
was just what Lyell called it in pardonable slang, "a rubbly old
concern--a sort of breed betwixt an orange-box, a leathern portmanteau,
and a venerable clothes-basket. They paid a hawser out from its bows,
and bent the nags on to that." Frank thought of his elephant ride.
But the country grew more hilly and romantic as they proceeded, and the
inns, sad to say, worse and worse. Their beds were inhabited--strangely
so; our heroes did not turn in to study natural history, or they might
have done so. Indeed they had to rough it. The country grew wilder
still; they had left the diligence with nearly broken bones; bought
hones, hired guides, and now they found themselves on the very
boundaries of a savage land. Ha! the fort at last, where Lyell's
friends lived. Their welcome was a regal one. Half a dozen Scotchmen
lived here, four of them married and with grown-up families--quite a
little colony.
They shook hands with Lyell a dozen times. "Oh, man!" they cried, "but
you're welcome." Then they killed the fatted calf.
These good people were farmers; their houses all rough, but well
furnished; their flocks and herds numerous as the sands by the
sea-shore. A wild, lonely kind of a life they led with their wives and
their little ones, but they were content. There were fish in the
streams and deer in the forest. You had but to tickle the earth with a
toasting-fork, and it smilingly yielded up _pommes de terre_ which would
grace the table of a prince.
Every soul in the colony was a McSomebody or other; so no wonder
Chisholm was in his glory, no wonder--
"The nicht drive on wi' sangs and clatter."
When our heroes heard their principal host call out, "Send auld Lawrie
McMillan here [his real name was Lorenzo Maximilian] to give us a tune,"
they had expected to see some tall old Highlander stride in with the
bagpipes, not an ancient, wiry Spaniard, guitar-armed. Is it any wonder
Chisholm burst out laughing when this venerable ghost began to sing--
"Come under my plaidie, the night's gaun to fa'."
Well, getting such a welcome as this in the midst of a wilderness was
enough to make our heroes forget all former hardships. The dinner was a
banquet. There were many dishes that were new to them; but had Frank,
who was fastidious as regards eating, known that _lagarto soup_ was made
from the iguana lizard, a perfect dragon; that curried _potro_ was
horse, and that _peludo_-pie was made of armadillo, I don't think he
would have sent his plate twice for either.
Frank trod on the tail of an iguana next day. The dragon, seven feet
long, and fearful to behold, turned and snapped. Frank, armed with a
stick, would not fly, but fought. The Scotchmen were delighted. They
tossed their bonnets in the air, and shouted "Saint George for merrie
England!" Never mind, they might laugh as they pleased; but Frank
killed the dragon.
Saint George, as Chisholm now dubbed him, quite won the affection of the
llama hunters next day; he was the only one of our heroes who kept
alongside the Indians in their furious gallop at the heels of the fleet
pacos.
[The _lama pacos_, hunted for its wool, chiefly used in rope and
cloth-making.]
All day long Frank was well to the fore, and how he was wishing he could
throw the lassoo or bolas.
Sweet Lizzie McDonald was the prettiest girl in the fort; she was the
wildest huntress as well. She and her brothers "rigged out," as Lyell
called it, young Frank in native dress; and he rode by her side to the
hills next day, presumably in the capacity of cavalier, but really as
pupil. And Frank was an apt pupil; he didn't think the time long.
"Lucky dog you," said Lyell, "if I wasn't a sailor, I'd throw myself at
Lizzie's feet. I wouldn't mind being lassooed by a girl like her.
Heigho!"
CHAPTER NINETEEN.
CHASING WILD HORSES--OSTRICH-STALKING--A MOONLIGHT RIDE--A DEED OF
BLOOD--LOS INDIOS!--THE FIGHT--VICTORY AND PURSUIT.
Knowing, as we do, how good a horseman Frank was, it is almost needless
to say that before he was one month in this country he was as handy with
bolas or lassoo as one of the natives. The former he preferred: it
quitted his hands like stone from a sling, next moment the llama or
guanaco was down; there was no dragging, no cruelty.
The battue he did not like. But chasing wild horses was quite another
thing. This was a manly and a useful sport; the very hunted horses
themselves seemed to like it, and used to stand in herds on heights
sniffing the air, as much as to say, "catch me if you can, but I don't
mean to be caught napping." Nor were they; and a chase of this kind was
sometimes most exciting. The poor colts that were lassooed were broken
in speedily enough, it must be allowed, but in a manner that was cruel
in the extreme; but brutality to animals is the order of the day in the
Pampas. The bullocks are treated horribly; so, too, are their dogs, and
every animal that comes under the native's domination. The estancia,
where our heroes dwelt, was about two hundred yards square; there was a
fort at one end of it, surrounded by a strong wall covered with a ditch
filled with water--the whole of the little village being near the river.
In case of trouble with the Indians, all the colony could take refuge
here, and draw up the bridge. The servants were Gauchos. On the
arrival of Mr McDonald and his kinsmen, there had at first been many
broils with Los Indios. These treacherous Indians are a flat-faced
copper-hued race, with most forbidding countenances; and lying and
thieving seem really to be part and parcel of their education. At all
events, they are adepts at both.
Chisholm wanted one day to go ostrich-stalking, or rhea-hunting you
might better term it. These curious birds are as fleet as the wind, you
cannot ride them down in the open; but you can approach them near enough
with mules, to get a shot when fires are lit here and there on the
plain, and the creatures get confused. It had been a long day's sport;
and the moon had arisen, and was flooding all the beautiful country with
its soft and mellow light, ere the party had got within two leagues of
the estancia. But they knew the welcome that there awaited them, and so
on they rode, slowly but cheerfully, singing as they went. There would
have been less music at their hearts, had they seen the expression of
mingled hate and cunning on the faces of those fiends behind the cactus
bush. What were they lurking there for? Why did they not come boldly
forth?
Lizzie and her sister met them at the garden gate. They had been
watching for the cavalcade for fully an hour, and were rejoiced when
their song fell upon their listening ears. Everyone was extremely happy
and lively that evening; and it was quite ten o'clock before any one
thought of retiring. Silence at last fell on the estancia. Higher and
higher rose the moon, flooding the land with light; there isn't a sound
to be heard, save the buzz of insect, the call of wild drake, or the
mournful cry of the owl.
And the night wore on.
It must have been considerably past midnight when suddenly from down the
glade where the horses were grazing, there arose a shriek so piercing,
so full of wild imploring grief, that it found a response in every heart
in the estancia sleeping or awake. While they listened it was repeated
only once, but this time it died away in a moan, that told the terrible
tale that a deed of blood had been done.
"Los Indios? Los Indios?" That was the shout from the Gaucho camp.
"To arms, men, to arms!" roared patriarchal old McDonald, rushing sword
in hand into our heroes' bed-chamber.
There was bustle and hurry now, but no confusion. The women were got
into the fort first, the men covering their retreat, and hardly was this
effected ere there was a headlong rush of a dark cloud that swept
upwards from the river's brink.
"Fire, men!" cried McDonald. "Give it 'em."
There was a rattling volley, and the cloud fell back with shouts and
groans. In five minutes more every man was inside, and the drawbridge
was up.
Foiled in their attempt to seize and occupy the estancia by a surprise,
the Indians, who were over a hundred strong, would hardly dare to attack
the fort before morning. Nor did they seem to want to, but twice they
made attempts to creep towards the houses, intent on plunder, but such a
contingency as this had been well considered while building the fort,
and those who now made the attempt bitterly repented their rashness the
very next moment.
The men in the fort were thirty in all; their rifles were twenty.
Twenty rifles against a hundred spears, the odds were not so
overwhelming; but those Indians are terribly cunning in their mode of
warfare, as our heroes soon found out, for small balls of burning grass,
thrown sling-fashion, attached to a stone and rope of skin, soon began
to fall thick and fast into the garrison.
McDonald made up his mind he would wait no longer. The drawbridge was
suddenly lowered, and out rushed the defenders. The surprise was
sudden, the rout complete.
"To horse, to horse!" cried McDonald, who seemed to be everywhere in the
fight. Then followed a wild stampede of the Indians, numbers of them
bit the sod, and the rest scattered and disappeared. They seemed indeed
to melt away.
When the victors returned it was so nearly day that no one would think
of retiring, so breakfast was got ready.
This night's adventure did not interfere in the least with the sport our
heroes enjoyed, during the remainder of their stay. But the Indians
never showed face again.
CHAPTER TWENTY.