PEDRO BECOMES COMMUNICATIVE; MANUELA VOCAL; LAWRENCE PREPOSTEROUS;
QUASHY AND TIGER VIOLENT--THE WHOLE ENDING IN A GRAND CATASTROPHE.
"Senhor Armstrong," said Pedro, the evening after that on which the
capture of turtles took place, "I have received some bad news--at least
unsatisfactory news--which will necessitate a change in our style of
travelling, and a more rapid progress towards our journey's end."
"I'm sorry for that," Lawrence answered, "for, to my mind, our style of
travelling is very agreeable, and the rate quite fast enough, especially
for one who has no definite purpose in view."
"That may be so, senhor," returned Pedro, with a grim smile, "but as _I_
have something of a definite purpose in view, the case is different."
"True, Pedro,--true. I do not object to any change in your plans; I
merely comment on the very pleasant time we are having, and shall be
ready to act as you desire; so, you see, I am as I promised to be--an
obedient follower. But where got you this news from? I have seen no
one arrive in the camp since we came. What may the nature of the news
be, if I may venture to ask of one who is so--so very reticent?"
The guide pondered some time before replying to these questions. Then,
with the air of one who has made up his mind on an uncertain point,
said--
"I had no intention of rousing your curiosity by needless secrecy. I
have not very many or very profound secrets. Only, in a disturbed
country it behoves a man to hold his tongue in regard to his affairs.
But I feel that you are a friend, Senhor Armstrong, who may be trusted;
not that I have much to trust to you,--and yet, my doings are so mixed
up with the affairs of other people that to some extent I am
tongue-tied. I may tell you, however, that I am a secret agent of the
government, to which I have volunteered my services solely because I
love peace and hate war, and am desirous of doing all I can to promote
the first and abate the last. The idea may appear to you Quixotic,
but--"
"Pardon me, Senhor Pedro," interrupted Lawrence, promptly. "I think you
the reverse of Quixotic. I honour you for your sentiments, and
sympathise with you most heartily. Do I not remember that it is
written, `Blessed are the peacemakers,' and also, `Scatter thou the
people that delight in war?'"
"Yes, I have gathered from your conversation that such are your
sentiments, but do not misunderstand me. I am not of those who would
have peace at any price. I believe in the right of self-defence. I
recognise the right of oppressed nations to rise up and draw the sword
in order to free themselves from tyrants; in short, I believe that there
are some things that are worse even than war; but while I concede so
much, I hold that most of the wars recorded in history have been
undertaken without just cause, many of them without any real or obvious
cause at all, too many of them with a distinctly bad cause. Even in the
present day, and among Christian nations, there is far too little
tendency to appeal to arbitration, which is the only legitimate way for
_reasonable_ men to settle any dispute or quarrel. Does your sympathy
go with me thus far?"
Lawrence, with a glow of enthusiasm on his face, extended his hand, and,
grasping that of his companion, shook it warmly.
"I go with you in every word, Pedro. You are a man after my own heart;
and I say, God prosper you in your good work wherever you go!"
Manuela, who was standing near at the time, looked up at the
enthusiastic youth quickly. Her knowledge of English must have been
improving, despite the badness of her pronunciation, for she seemed to
understand the conversation, and to regard Lawrence with profound
interest.
The youth was so carried away with his feelings, however, that he did
not observe the girl's look or expression.
"That is well," Pedro said, with a pleased look, as he returned his
friend's grasp; "but I fear you won't find many of our way of thinking
in this unhappy country. You are aware, no doubt, that it is
frequently--I might almost say every three or four years--disturbed by
factious quarrels which too often end in riot and bloodshed, though
these are not often on so large a scale as to be styled civil war.
Well, there is a party of peace-lovers even here, who do their best to
bring about a better state of things, and a more settled and powerful
government. Some of the men of influence at Buenos Ayres, and some even
of the military men, are of this party. I am, as I have said, their
secret agent--secret, because if I were to attempt the thing openly, or
as a government agent, I should be treated with ridicule by some, or be
murdered perhaps by others, in either of which cases my influence would
be gone. Of course, as you have seen, I run considerable risk in
travelling through the land on my mission, for I have been several times
taken for a spy, but I don't object to run risk, the cause being a good
one.
"As to the news, which I have received by mere chance from a passing
Indian, it is another outbreak in the San Juan district which makes a
change in the disposition of troops necessary; and as I have particular
business with one of the officers, I must change my route and make for
Buenos Ayres as straight as possible. That is all the mystery about it;
so you see, as I said, it is not very profound."
"It is very interesting, however," returned Lawrence, "and you may
depend on my falling in with your plans, whatever they are."
"Well, then," returned the guide, "the first part of my plan is simple
enough--merely to start off to-morrow by the first peep of day. Will
you go, therefore, and tell Quashy to get ready, while I have a talk
with Manuela?"
We do not intend to inflict on the reader the whole of the conversation
that took place in the Indian tongue between the little brown maiden and
the guide. A small portion of it will suffice.
"I repeat, Manuela," said the latter, in a remonstrative tone, "that you
are not wise."
"My kind protector forgets," replied the girl, with a modest look, "that
I have never set up any claim to wisdom."
"But what will your father say?"
"I really cannot guess what he will say," she answered, with one of her
prettiest little smiles.
"But you may be quite sure that the thing is impossible. Consider the
immense difference between you, and, forgive me, Manuela, but I think it
is not fair."
"Now my protector forgets _himself_," returned the maiden, drawing
herself up and bestowing a look on the guide which was quite worthy of
an Inca princess--supposing Lawrence to have been right in his
conjecture on that point!
"Well, well, please yourself, Manuela," returned Pedro, with a laugh, in
which exasperation slightly mingled, "but do me the justice to tell your
father when you meet that I fairly remonstrated with and warned you.
After all, nothing would please me better,--if it should ever come
about."
He turned on his heel and went off, with a mingling of expressions on
his handsome face, to look after the canoe and make preparations for an
early start in the morning.
Canoe travelling appears to be rather slow work while it is going on,
even when descending the current of a river. Each point of land seems
to be reached and passed so gradually; every vista of the river seems so
extensive, and the trees on shore drop so leisurely astern, that when
you think of the hundreds of miles which lie in advance, you are apt to
feel as if the journey or voyage would never come to an end. But when
you forget the present and reflect on the past, when you think how many
hundreds of miles now lie behind, although it seems but yesterday that
you set out on the journey, then you realise the fact that the "power of
littles," of steady, daily unremitting perseverance, has had too little
weight with you in your estimates, and that, just as fast as your
starting-point recedes from you, exactly so fast does your goal
approach, although those misleading factors, your feelings, may have
induced you to think otherwise.
Five days after the occurrence of the events on what we may style
Turtle-beach, Lawrence found himself wondering at what appeared to be
the far-off-ness of the spot, considering the slowness of the hourly
progress, yet at the same time wondering if they should _ever_ traverse
the nine hundred or a thousand miles that yet intervened between him and
Buenos Ayres.
To do Lawrence Armstrong justice, however, he was by no means impatient.
He was quite satisfied that things should go as slowly as they pleased,
for was he not travelling through the most interesting of countries, in
which the flora and the fauna and the geological features furnished
abundant--ay, superabundant--food for the satisfaction of his scientific
appetite, while his companions were of the pleasantest character?
Pedro, since the opening up of his heart to him, had laid aside much--
though not all--of his reserve, and shown himself to be a man of
extensive information and profound thought.
Spotted Tiger was a splendid specimen, physically and mentally, of the
sons of the soil, in the contemplation of whom he could expend whatever
smattering he possessed of ethnological science. Then Quashy--was not
that negro the very soul and embodiment of courage, fidelity, and
good-humour, the changes of whose April face alone might have furnished
rich material for the study of a physiognomist or a Rembrandt.
And as for Manuela--we cannot analyse his thoughts about her. It is
probable that he could not have expounded them himself. Take the
following sample of them, as overheard by us one day when he had strayed
into the wild woods alone, and was seated on the roots of a mighty tree,
pencil in hand, attempting unsuccessfully to make a sketch.
"I do believe," he murmured, with a gesture of impatience--for he had
drawn a small convolvulus, hanging from a tree, with such disregard for
the rules of linear perspective that it was the proportionate size of an
omnibus--"I do believe that that girl has come between me and my wits.
Of course it is not love. That is quite out of the question. A white
man _could_ not fall in love with a black woman."
Yes, he did the poor girl the injustice, in his perplexed indignation
with himself, to call her black, although it must have been obvious to
the most careless observer that she was only reddish-brown, or, to speak
more correctly, brownish-red.
"I can't understand it," he continued to murmur in that low, slow,
absent far-away tone and manner characteristic of artists when at work.
"No doubt her nose is Grecian, and her mouth small, as well as
exquisitely formed, her chin full and rounded, her teeth faultless, her
eyes gorgeous, and her whole contour perfect, but--but--she's black--at
least," (correcting himself with a touch of compunction), "she's brown.
No; I see what it is--it's--(well that's more like a balloon than a
water-lily)--yes, it _must_ be that I am in love with her spirit.
That's it! I've said so before, and--and--I say it again."
He drew back his head at this point, and looked critically--even
sternly--at the sketch. There was room both for criticism and
indignation, for the display, in so small a compass, of bad drawing,
vile composition, ridiculous chiaro-oscuro, and impossible perspective,
could only have been justified by the supposition that his intellect had
been warped through the heart, in consequence of an unheard of
perplexity connected therewith.
"Yes," he continued, resuming his work with the air of an invincible
man, "there is something distinctly and exasperatingly wrong here. I am
in love with her spirit, and not with her person! Is it possible that
the human race, descending from Adam and Eve, should have reached the
nineteenth century without such a case ever having been heard of before,
and that I--I should be the first wretched example--or--or victim! It
is like loving the jewel without caring for the cas--no, that's a bad
simile, for one could throw away a casket and keep the jewel, which
could not conveniently be done in this case. I wonder what it is that
makes the rules of perspective so difficult, and the practice so im--"
His meditations were checked at this point by a sound so sweet that his
heart almost stood still, his pencil remained suspended over the sketch,
and the half-formed word remained in the half-opened mouth. It was as
if an angel had come to earth, and were warbling the airs of paradise.
Peeping through the bushes, Lawrence saw that it was Manuela! She was
sauntering along pensively, humming as she went. He sat still, amazed
and silent. From what cause we know not, but the Indian girl had not
until that day opened her mouth in song. The youth's surprise was
increased when she came near enough to let him hear that the words were
Spanish; but suddenly remembering that English girls sometimes learned
Italian songs by rote, like parrots, his surprise partly abated--why
should not an Indian girl learn Spanish songs by rote?
Manuela passed close to the tree behind which our hero sat. On
observing him she stopped, and blushed intensely red. Evidently she had
thought herself quite alone, and experienced the usual dislike of
humanity to being caught in the act of singing to itself!
In a burst of great enthusiasm Lawrence sprang up, overturned his
drawing materials, seized the girl's hand, and dropped it again as if it
had burnt him, as he exclaimed--
"I wish--oh! I _wish_, Manuela, that I were your _brother_!"
The lightning flash is said to be quick, and we suppose, relatively
speaking, it is so, but we are quite sure that lightning cannot hold a
candle to thought in this respect. Lawrence, as the reader has
doubtless observed, was not a man of much more than average
intelligence, or action of mind, yet between the first "wish" and the
word "brother," he had perceived and condemned the impropriety of
exhibiting strong feeling in thus grasping Manuela's hand; the
unmanliness of doing or saying anything to her that had the remotest
approach to love-making while in circumstances where the poor girl could
not get out of his way, however much she might wish to do so, and the
meanness, not to say absurdity, of showing anything like a lover's
affection for a spirit which could only make itself known through the
medium of a brown visage. Hence Lawrence, who was the soul of honour
and gallantry, got out of the dilemma by suddenly conceiving and
expressing the above intense wish to be Manuela's brother!
It did not occur to him that the gratification of his wish might have
involved war-paint and feathers, a semi-nude body, a wild unlettered
life, and a predilection for raw meat and murder. No, rapid though
thought is, it did not convey these ideas to his mind. His one desire--
after the first unguarded "exclamation" and impulsive grasp of the hand,
was to escape from his false position without committing himself, and
without giving pain or annoyance to the unprotected girl. And his
success was in proportion to his boldness, for Manuela burst into a
hearty laugh, and said--
"Why you wants be my brudder?"
"Brother, Manuela, not brudder," replied Lawrence, joining in the laugh,
and much relieved in mind. "The word is spelt with t-h, not with two
d's. The reason is that I should then have the right to order you to
sit at my feet and sing me these pretty songs whenever I liked. And I
fear I should be a very tyrannical brother to you, for I would make you
sing all day."
"What--is--t'rannical?" asked the girl, whose tendency to laugh was
evidently not yet quite subdued.
"Hallo! hi! Quashy!" came the guide's strong voice at that moment,
ringing through the arches of the forest, and preventing the
explanation, that might have been, of "t'rannical."
But Quashy replied not. It was the end of the noontide siesta. While
Lawrence, as we have seen, had taken to sketching and Manuela to
singing, the negro had gone off on his own account, and Pedro was now
anxious to have his assistance in getting ready to start.
As Lawrence hurriedly collected his pencils the Indian girl stood
admiring his work--poor ignorant thing! Just then there arose in the
forest a sound which filled them both with mingled surprise and alarm.
It was a peculiar, dull sound, almost indescribable, but something like
what one might expect to hear from a hundred spades or pickaxes working
together in the depths of the forest. After a minute or two it ceased,
and profound silence reigned. Dead silence in critical circumstances is
even more alarming than definite noise, for then the imagination is
allowed full play, and only those who have got the imagination
powerfully developed know of what wild and terrifying vagaries it is
capable!
Lawrence and Manuela looked at each other. The former had often before
admired the gorgeous black orbs of the latter, but he had not till then
thought them to be so very large.
Suddenly the earth trembled under their feet; it seemed as if a volcano
were heaving underground. The memory of San Ambrosio rushed upon them,
and they too trembled--at least the girl did. At the same time a shout
arose which seemed to them not unfamiliar. The noise increased to
something like the galloping of a distant squadron of cavalry.
"Let me lift you into this tree," said Lawrence, quickly.
Manuela did not object. He lifted her by the waist with his two large
hands as if she had been a little child, and placed her on a branch that
happened to be just within his reach. Scarcely had he done so when a
host, a very army, of American wild-hogs, or peccaries, burst from the
bushes like a tornado and bore down on them. They were so near that
there was no time for Lawrence to climb up beside Manuela. He could
only seize the branch with both hands and draw up his long legs. The
living torrent passed under him in a few seconds, and thus--thanks to
his gymnastic training at school--he escaped being ripped up in all
directions by the creatures' tusks.
It was these same tusks digging round trees for the purpose of grubbing
up roots that had produced the strange sounds, and it was the shouts of
Quashy and Tiger in pursuit that had awakened the echoes of the forest.
On the heels of the large animals came galloping and squealing a herd of
little ones, and close upon these followed the two hunters just named--
panting, war-whooping, and cheering. Several of the little pigs were
speared; some were even caught by the tail, and a goodly supply of meat
was obtained for at least that day and the next. But before noon of
that next day an event of a very different and much more serious nature
occurred.
It was early morning at the time. They were traversing a wide sheet of
water, both banks of which were high, richly-wooded, and all aglow with
convolvuli and other flowers, and innumerable rope-like creepers, the
graceful festoons and hanging tendrils of which gave inexpressible
softness to the scene. In the middle of the lake-like expanse were
numerous mud-flats, partly covered with tropical reeds and rushes of
gigantic size.
The course our voyagers had to pursue made it necessary to keep close
under the right bank, which was unusually steep and high. They were all
silent, for the hour and the slumbering elements induced quiescence. A
severe thunderstorm accompanied by heavy rains had broken over that
district two days before, and Lawrence observed that deep watercourses
had been ploughed among the trees and bushes in several places, but
every other trace of the elemental war had vanished, and the quiet of
early morning seemed to him sweet beyond expression, inducing his
earnest spirit to wish that the mystery of sin had never been permitted,
and that it were still possible for man to walk humbly with his God in a
world of peacefulness as real as that of inanimate nature around him.
When the sun arose, a legion of living creatures came out from wood and
swamp and reedy isle to welcome him. Flamingoes, otters, herons white
and grey, and even jaguars, then began to set about their daily work of
fishing for breakfast. Rugged alligators, like animated trunks of
fallen trees, crawled in slimy beds or ploughed up the sands of the
shore in deep furrows, while birds of gorgeous plumage and graceful--
sometimes clumsy--form audibly, if not always visibly, united to chant
their morning hymn.
Such were the sights on which our travellers' eyes rested, with a sort
of quiet delight, when Pedro broke the silence in a low voice.
"You'd better keep a little farther out into the stream," he said to
Tiger.
The Indian silently obeyed.
It was well that he did so promptly, for, in less than a minute, and
without the slightest premonition, the immense bank above them slid with
a terrific rumbling noise into the river. The enormous mass of sand and
vegetable detritus thus detached could not have been much, if at all,
less than half a mile in extent. It came surging and hurling down--
trees and roots and rocks and mud intermingling in a chaos of grand
confusion, the great cable-like creepers twining like snakes in agony,
and snapping as if they were mere strands of packthread; timber
crashing; rock grinding, sometimes bursting like cannon shots, and the
whole plunging into the water and raising a great wave that swept the
alligators from the mud-flats, and swallowed up the reeds and rushes,
sending herons, kingfishers, and flamingoes screaming into the air, and
dashing high into the jungle on the opposite shore.
As we have said, the canoe got out of reach of the terrible avalanche
just in time, but it could not escape the wave. The Indian, however,
was prepared for that. It was not the first time he had seen such a
catastrophe. Turning the bow of the canoe instantly towards the falling
bank, he thus met the wave, as it were, in the teeth, and rode safely
over it.
If he had been less alive to the danger, or less prompt to meet it, or
if he had under-estimated it, and allowed the wave to catch them on the
side of the canoe, the adventures of our five friends had that day come
to an abrupt close, and, what is probably of greater consequence to the
reader, this faithful record would never have been written!