Grey dawn was just beginning to shed its uncertain light over the long
chain of the white-robed Andes, when Harry, whose sleep had been nothing
but a disturbed and fitful doze, sprang up. He at once turned his
attention to lighting a fire and getting some water to boil for the
purpose of making maté, and then he looked to see if any of the others
were awake.
The Indians still slept with the exception of Aniwee, who rose up and
joined the lad, and then, one by one, Sir Francis, Lady Vane, and Freddy
came over to the fire.
While Aniwee made and mixed the maté, plans were laid for the guidance
of the relief party. The Queen was quite resolved on accompanying them,
in spite of her superstitions, which showed that the true spark of
courage, which had always been a characteristic of Aniwee, still gleamed
in her heart. It was decided that each person should carry his or her
cartridge belt, well stocked with ammunition, and a supply of maté,
matches, and meat were also to be taken. The latter consisted of long
hard strips, which had been dried in the sun, and which were therefore
not heavy to carry.
As a matter of duty, though no one was hungry, every one of the party
about to set forth made a hearty and full meal, and Shag’s comforts were
seen to and provided for. Poor Shag! His side was very stiff, and no
doubt as painful in proportion, but the honest fellow would give no
thought to his own sufferings, his thoughts being still with his
mistress. When, therefore, the time arrived for setting out he was all
there.
“Now, Shag, lead on; dear old Shag, find Topsie,” exclaimed Harry
eagerly; and the sagacious animal, with a hark of delight, sprung
forward nose to the ground.
Let any of my young readers who are inclined to bully a dog, or whose
hearts are not warm towards the noblest friend of man, recall Shag to
their minds when they feel thus. Let them imagine the position of utter
helplessness which Sir Francis and the rest of this little search party
would have been in, on the verge of a dense, unknown, untrodden forest,
if it had not been for the sagacious assistance and keen, unerring
knowledge of the Labrador. All depended on him. Topsie’s fate was
practically in his—I can’t say hands—paws. And thus it was that the
Indians, who by this time were up and stirring, beheld their beloved
young Queen enter the dreaded and Trauco-haunted forest, from which they
hardly dared to hope to see her return alive.
But Aniwee had no fear, and her heart was at rest in regard to her
child. Was not La Guardia Chica in the care of Graviel, and had not her
faithful Araucanians sworn to protect and guard the baby Queen in her
absence?
Without the slightest hesitation Shag piloted the party through a narrow
clearing in the forest, and then entered a wild horse path which led
through it, and which must have been often used, judging by the manner
in which the soil had been trampled into a hard, opaque cake. This made
travelling easy work at first, and our friends, proceeding in Indian
file, covered a good distance in the first hour of their march.
At starting, the forest had been on a level with the plain, but the
direction in which Shag led the party gradually bore away into hilly
slopes, still thickly covered in with trees. Natural clearings in the
forest would, however, from time to time, occur; and these clearings
were generally covered with a long, luxuriant grass and stumpy bushes,
and in nearly every case had a mountain torrent dashing down their
sides.
All of a sudden the Labrador came to a halt, and planting his forefeet
firmly on the ground, raised his head and sniffed the air. Then he
looked back at Harry, who was just behind him, and wagged his tail.
“Steady, Shag,” whispered the young midshipman, hastening forward, and
laying his hand on the noble dog’s massive head. “What is it, old boy?”
Again Shag wagged his tail and sniffed the air, but did not move.
Turning round to those behind, Harry laid his finger on his lips and
made a sign of caution, at the same time whispering to Shag to down
charge, which the dog at once obeyed. Then the lad stole forward
noiselessly and carefully, to see if he could make out anything ahead.
They were close to another of the natural clearings just described, and
it was towards this that Harry directed his footsteps. Keeping well out
of sight behind the trees, he gradually made his way to within sight of
the opening. Then he drew back and crouched down.
For there in the clearing grazed a large troop of horses, and in their
midst was not only the stallion which Topsie had striven to capture,
with the noose and snapped lasso still around its neck, but Topsie’s
horse itself, saddleless, yet still bridled!
But though he searched with his eyes in every direction, Harry could
make out no sign of his darling twin sister, and the feeling of hope
which had set his heart beating, quickly died, stifled in his breast.
He stole back noiselessly to the others and reported what he had seen,
when it was decided to proceed forward at once.
No sooner did the party emerge from the thick trees, than the stallion
sprang to attention. Then he wheeled round, got between the troop and
the new-comers, and with bent head and nose outstretched, and uttering
shrill screams, drove them in front of him pell-mell down the steep
slope; the thunder of their hoofs echoing far and wide as they fled from
the danger from which he had protected them.
And now for the first time Shag appeared at fault. He ran hither and
thither, sniffing the ground, and vainly endeavouring to pick up the
scent which he had apparently been following with such ease before.
Twenty times or more he returned to the wild horse track, took up the
scent right enough, and brought the trail to within thirty feet or so of
the clearing; but there he always stopped, completely at fault, and
unable to proceed further. At length, with a piteous expression in his
honest brown eyes, he raised his head and gave a long, melancholy howl.
“Harry, you know Shag better than any one else, except poor Topsie. Do
you think he has led us right so far?” inquired Lady Vane in an anxious
voice.
“Sure of it, Aunt Ruby; I would stake my life that the dear old fellow
is right so far,” answered the boy. “What do you think, uncle? Perhaps
the captors of our poor Topsie have followed this stream downwards,
purposely to throw any one following off the scent. I think I will just
give Shag a cast along its edges, and see if there is anything in my
idea.”
Suiting his action to his words, Harry made Shag follow the left bank of
the mountain torrent bed, which, coming from the forest, ran straight
down the clearing in the direction of the valley below. The sun had
already risen, but its rays had not yet penetrated the dew-besprinkled
ground, and scent was therefore necessarily hard to pick up. But Shag,
with almost human intelligence, worked carefully along, painstaking and
minute in his canine observations.
He was rewarded. Harry suddenly noticed that he pressed his nose tighter
against the ground, and began snorting and sniffing loudly; next the
dog’s tail moved gently, then fast, next faster. Finally he sprang
forward, giving tongue across the clearing, and into the forest on the
opposite side.
At once Harry turned and waved his cap. Thank God, the trail had been
hit once more! With a cheer Freddy came rushing down the slope to meet
him, followed more soberly by Sir Francis, Lady Vane, and Aniwee. But it
was no longer such plain sailing as it had been up till then. Shag was
making his way slowly along a rough and rocky line indeed. Every now and
then the undergrowth of the forest became almost impassable, and
recourse had to be had to the party’s short axes to clear a way. Yet
every now and then the trackers would notice that the brushwood was
beaten down and trampled upon, as though some one had already passed
that way.
As may be imagined, progress through such a line of march was but slow,
and rendered exceedingly wearisome and difficult, yet all plodded
bravely on, and worked their hardest to secure an appreciable advance.
They had certainly been four or more hours at their laborious work when
they came on a muddy and boggy patch of ground, where Sir Francis
decided to call a short halt, and spend half an hour in regaining breath
and snatching a brief repose. Shag was called in to heel and bidden to
down charge, an order which he obeyed with the greatest reluctance, and
indeed evinced a considerable amount of eagerness and impatience.
“What is this?” exclaimed Freddy excitedly. He had knelt down to drink
at a pool in the bog, when his eyes were attracted by the sight of a
number of human footprints all round the edge of the water, apparently
much of the same size.
In a moment every one was by his side, and on seeing the cause of his
exclamation, every eye was turned on Aniwee.
The young Queen examined the footprints for several minutes without
speaking. Then she looked up, and said gravely:
“Aniwee was right. The feet that made those marks are the feet of a
Trauco. The white Cacique has undoubtedly been carried off by one of
them.”
“By a baboon!” exclaimed Harry aghast. “Oh, Aniwee, what a terrible
idea! Uncle Francis, it must be one of those awful ‘demons of the
Andes,’ which I told you had slain Miriam Vane and James Outram long
ago, and which our old uncle told us about at the great gold mine of
Or.”
“The Traucos are not monkeys,” continued Aniwee in the same grave voice;
“they are real people covered all over with hair. They dwell in these
forests preying on the wild cattle, horses, and other animals, and have
even been known to steal the tame cattle of the Araucanians; but they
are not the people that dwell in the Ciudad Encantada. These last are
the Los Cesares, who are a white people; but whether they war with the
Traucos or are at peace with them Aniwee knows not. Aniwee has spoken.”
“Then you think this is the footstep of a Trauco, Aniwee? Are you sure
you are not mistaken?” inquired Sir Francis Vane anxiously. It was
terrible to think of Topsie in the power of these wild men of the woods,
which could only present themselves to his mind as apes of a large size,
possibly the terrible demons of which Harry spoke, and with which those
of my readers who have read “The Young Castaways” will be already
acquainted.
Before Aniwee could reply, a loud roar sounded across the valley.
Crashing rocks and the booming as of a hundred cannon filled the still
air with mysterious noises, and high above the turmoil rung out, as it
apparently seemed, the clear notes of a bell.
An expression of awe filled the dark eyes of the Warrior Queen, and she
averted them from the direction whence the sounds came. Even Sir
Francis, Lady Vane, Harry, and Freddy stood dumb and struck with wonder.
“What, in God’s name, is that?” exclaimed the baronet, as he passed his
hand across his forehead, upon which the sweat stood in large beads.
“Have I not told the Caciques?” answered Aniwee in a low voice. “The
Señors laugh; they call those sounds the thunder of falling snow. But if
they will know the truth, it is the Cesares people and their
enchantments.”
Our friends may be excused for feeling a little uncomfortable. These
strange sounds, and above all, the melancholy notes of the distant
bell,[2] had decidedly impressed them. Aniwee’s superstitious
explanations did not tend to make matters any better; and then the
vague, uncertain feeling pervading every one as to Topsie’s fate,
accentuated the uncomfortable experiences of this handful of white
beings, struggling through a densely wooded, unexplored region.
Footnote 2:
Bell-like chimes are often to be heard in the Cordilleras, and the
Indians attribute them to a white people, whom they call “Los
Cesares,” and who they believe dwell in La Ciudad Encantada, or
Enchanted City.
“Let us start on again,” exclaimed Sir Francis.
Judging rightly, that action was the best cure for the low spirits which
seemed to pervade every one; and in obedience to Harry’s order Shag
sprang forward once more.
Now he led them down the slope of the forest towards the valley beneath,
and kept straight on his way until he had reached it. Then he struck
across the valley, and crossed the shallow river which ran through it,
and began to breast the hillside opposite to the one he had just
descended. On this side the trees were wider apart, and there was little
undergrowth, while the grass was soft and mossy. High above them towered
the snowy Andes, piercing the skies with their glittering peaks.
It was hard going, and Shag moved too quickly, so much so that Harry was
forced to put a leash upon him. They had been toiling upwards for over
half an hour, when the dog halted as abruptly as before, sniffed the air
again, and then, with a low whine, endeavoured to spring forward.
Every one hurried on, but in another moment all halted, as though turned
to stone. In a large circular clearing stood three roughly built huts,
covered over with green boughs, and lying under one of these, apparently
asleep, was Topsie. She was not fifty yards away from where the relief
party stood. Her face was very pale, and her eyes looked red and
swollen, as though she had been weeping.
Harry was the first to recover from the surprise which the sudden
apparition of his sister had taken possession of all.
“Topsie, dear old Topsie!” he cried.
She could not have been asleep, for in a moment her eyes unclosed, and
she sprang to her feet. The next instant she was rushing to meet them.
As she did so, however, three or four tall, dark, hairy figures rushed
forth from the huts, and all made for the forest except one. This one,
bigger than the rest, strode after the running girl. In a moment he had
snatched her in his arms, and before any one could unsling their rifles
had dashed away into the forest, and as he disappeared a despairing
voice, the voice of Topsie, was heard piteously calling for help.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]