LAWRENCE AND QUASHY BECOME "FLOSUFFICAL," AND THEY CAMP OUT BESIDE THE
"GIANT'S CASTLE."
While the party were at supper the first gusts of a storm, which had for
some time been brewing, shook the little hut, and before they had all
fallen into the profound slumber which usually followed their day's
journey, a heavy gale was howling among the mountain gorges with a noise
like the roaring of a thousand lions. For two days the gale raged so
furiously that travelling--especially in the higher regions of the
Andes--became impossible. The Indian girl, Pedro, and the negro, bore
their detention with that stoicism which is not an infrequent
characteristic of mountaineers, guides, and savages. As for our hero,
he devoted himself and all his skill to his patient--to which duty he
was the more reconciled that it afforded him a good opportunity at once
for improving his Spanish and pointing out to the bandit the error of
his ways.
To do the man justice, he seemed to be fully sensible of the young
doctor's kindness, and thanked him, with tears in his eyes, not only for
his previous intention to save him from the tremendous fall over the
cliff, but for his subsequent efforts to alleviate the evil consequences
thereof.
It mattered nothing to the great warm-hearted, loose-jointed Englishman
that when he mentioned these hopeful signs in his patient to Pedro, that
worthy shook his head and smiled sarcastically, or that Quashy received
the same information with a closing of the eyes and an expansion of the
jaws which revealed the red recesses of his throat to their darkest
deeps! Lawrence, being a man of strong opinions, was not to be shaken
out of them either by sarcasm or good-humoured contempt.
Turning to the Indian girl for sympathy, he related the matter to her at
a time when the other inhabitants of the hut had gone out and left them
alone.
"You see,--Manuela," he said, with the frown of meditation on his brow,
and his eyes fixed on the ceiling, "I have no belief in the very common
idea that there is a soft spot in the heart of every man, however bad;
but I do believe that the heart of the very worst of men may be made
soft by the Spirit of God, and that He employs us, who call ourselves
Christians, as His agents in bringing about the result. It is quite
possible that I may have been thrown in the way of this robber for the
very purpose of touching his heart through kindness--God's own
motive-power--and that the Spirit will soften his heart to receive the
touch."
He paused, and, withdrawing his gaze from the ceiling, observed that the
girl's eyes were fixed on his face with an expression of perplexity and
earnestness.
It then suddenly occurred to him that, having spoken in English, she
could not have understood him.
"But you _do_ look as if you had some idea of what I have been saying,
Manuela. Have you?"
"Si, senhor, some," was the reply, as she dropped her eyes with an
embarrassed look and blushed so as to make her pretty brown face look
alarmingly red.
Endeavouring to convey the same ideas through the medium of Spanish,
Lawrence made such a bungle of it that Manuela, instead of expressing
sympathy, began to struggle so obviously with her feelings that the poor
Englishman gave up the attempt, and good-naturedly joined his companion
in a little burst of laughter. They were in the midst of this when the
door opened and Quashy entered.
"You 'pears to be jolly," observed the genial negro, with every wrinkle
of his black visage ready to join in sympathetically, "was de jok a
desprit good un?"
"Not very desperate, Quashy," said Lawrence, "it was only my bad Spanish
which made Manuela laugh. If you had been here to interpret we might
have got on better with our philosophical discourse."
"O massa!" returned the black--solemn remonstrance, both in manner and
tone, putting to sudden flight the beaming look of sympathy--"don't
speak of me 'terpretin' Spinich. Nebber could take kindly to dat stuff.
Ob course I kin talk wid de peons an' de gauchos, whose conv'sation am
mostly 'bout grub, an' hosses, an' cattle, an' dollars, an' murder, but
when I tries to go in for flosuffy, an' sitch like, I breaks down
altogidder."
At this point the Indian girl's tendency to laugh increased, but whether
because of fresh views of the absurdity of what had passed, or because
of some faint perception of the negro's meaning, Lawrence had no power
to decide.
"I should have thought, Quashy," he said, with a return of his wonted
gravity, "that a man of a thoughtful and contemplative turn of mind like
you would have acquired the power of expressing almost any idea in
Spanish by this time."
"T'ank you for de compl'ment, massa," replied Quashy, "but I not so
clebber as you t'ink. Der am some tings in flosuffy dat beats me. When
I tries to putt 'em afore oder peepil in Spinich, I somehow gits de
brain-pan into sitch a conglomeration ob fumbustication dat I not able
to see quite clar what I mean myself--dough, ob course, I knows dat I'm
right."
"Indeed!"
"Yis; but de great consolation I has is dat de peepil I'm talkin' to
don't onderstand me a mossel better nor myself; an', ob course, as
noting in de wurl could show dem dey was wrong, it don't much matter."
"That is good philosophy, at all events. Isn't it, Manuela?" asked
Lawrence in Spanish.
"Si, senhor," replied the girl, with sparkling eyes and a dazzling
display of little teeth which seemed to indicate that she fully
appreciated what was said.
"Strange," thought Lawrence--"so grave and pensive, yet at times so
sprightly; so intelligent, yet, of course, so ignorant; so very brown,
and yet so pretty. What a pity she is not white!"