HOW (AMONG OTHER MATTERS), IN SEEKING TO KILL A SNAPPING BOAR, WE FALL
UPON AN OLD FRIEND.
No hearts were more joyful than ours at this escape from that cave of
eternal night (as my lady called it). To us the little stars were as
full of radiance and comfort as the sun of midday, so that we could do
naught but feast our eyes for a long while. But we were not unmindful of
our debt to Providence for this deliverance, taking it as a special
mercy that we had been brought out in the night; for the light of day
would have blinded us to a certainty after being plunged so long in
impenetrable darkness, as men eating after starvation do drop dead of
surfeit.
Being no more inclined to sleep than a throstle in the morn (for this
was to us, indeed, rather the break of day than the fall of night), we
went gently down with the stream, which was of a reasonable body,
winding awhile amongst rocks, but coming at length to an open country,
whence we caught sight of the moon resting on the tops of those
mountains we had passed under, and more fair than ever we had counted it
before.
For many days our minds were haunted (as of a dream) with the
recollection of those fearful hours under the mountains, and meeting
some friendly Ingas we questioned them about it; but as well as we could
make out, they knew it only for a mighty den, whence they supposed the
river sprang; but they knew nothing of the issue on the other side, none
ever having dared to go beyond a few fathoms of its entrance, because of
the prodigious darkness and obscurity therein, etc.
I could write several books of our adventures in descending that river
into the Baraquan, and so down the Oronoque, if I had the patience; but
I have not. For a man can not be forever a-counting of mile-stones, but
must needs (seeing himself near his journey's end) run on amain, taking
little heed of things of the wayside. And, in truth, having got again on
the broad river, with an easy, free current to bear us onward, and
Nature above and around smiling upon us encouragement, we openly deemed
that the worst of our troubles were over.
I say we openly deemed this, but secretly I judged that the worst of my
troubles was to come. For I could no longer blind myself, as I had in
the beginning of our journey, to the fact that in the end we must part.
Nay, remembering the terrible shock I had sustained that day in our
cavern, when I thought it possible my dear lady might die of fever, I
now felt it my duty to contemplate our inevitable separation, in order
that when the time came for our farewell I might bear myself with
becoming fortitude. So every night, when I lay down, I repeated to
myself that awful question, "What should I do without her?" setting
myself to devise some manner of life by which I might reconcile myself
to the will of Providence. In this way I strove to armor myself against
the sure arrow of adversity.
Whether Smidmore were alive or dead, as I sometimes guessed he might be,
the result must be the same when my lady came again amongst her friends
in England; for there must she resume her condition, and be honored as a
lady of position, whilst I must ever be plain Benet Pengilly, and a man
of the woods. Thus, knowing I must lose her, I begrudged the movement of
the sun, and saw him set each evening with a profound melancholy,
knowing another day was past from the few that were to give me
happiness.
How I clung to those days, how I strained my senses to catch every word
and gesture of my dear lady's, only they can imagine who have been
warned by physicians that their dearest friend must surely die ere long.
'Twas, indeed, the feeling that had choked me when I believed my dear
lady to be dying, only lessened by the hope that after my last hour of
joy was come, long years of happiness might be her portion.
We were many weeks--nay, months--on the river, and, as I say, we had
adventures of divers kinds without number: some pleasant, and some
distressful; but, on the whole, my dear lady's health and spirits being
of the best, our journey was prosperous. But as weeks and weeks passed
on, it did seem we should never come to the end of this great river and
now we began to grow mighty anxious lest the rains should set in again
ere we reached the coast of Guiana, which would enforce us to take
refuge from the floods till the season was past. One day we set
ourselves to calculate how long we had been a-coming from the cave, and
what time we might yet have for our going; and as near as we could
reckon, rain might be expected in three weeks. But as to our distance
from the coast, we were without means of calculation, the Ingas on this
part of the river whom we encountered understanding nothing of what we
said, and showing such hostile spirit as made us chary in seeking them
for information.
It was our practice of a morning to leave our canoe in the mooring we
had found for it the night before, and go a-hunting in the woods for
such fruit and game as we required for the day. From one of these
expeditions we were making our way back to the canoe with nothing but
some fruit, and that none of the best, for we were in an unfavored part,
and our eyes on the lookout for any kind of game that might serve our
turn, when my lady, being in advance of me, suddenly came to a stand.
"I am convinced," says she in a whisper, as I came quickly to her side,
"that I saw something leap behind yonder thicket," pointing to a clump
of shrubs about a furlong distant. "Do you go, Benet, to the right,
while I make my way to the left, that between us we do not miss our
game, for I am greatly mistaken if it be not a tayacutirica."[7]
[Footnote 7: These tayacutiricas are a kind of large snapping boars,
very fierce.--B. P.]
To this I agreed, begging my lady to have a care for her safety, for
these creatures have tusks like any jack-knife; and so we separated,
going about to get a fair shot with our arrows at the beast. Now, to get
to the further side of the thicket, I must either cross an open space,
or round a growth of high shrubs; and as, for lack of provisions, I
feared greatly to startle our quarry before getting aim, I chose the
latter. Scarce had I got beyond the thicket when I heard a scream that I
knew at once no boar could make, and, fearing my lady had startled some
savage Inga or jagoarete and stood in peril, I drew the sword from my
belt in a twinkling, and leaping out of the scrub into the open rushed
towards the thicket, shouting lustily. But ere I was half across the
open I heard a voice cry out therefrom:
"Lord love you, master, do me no mischief. 'Tis but your humble servant,
Matthew Pennyfarden." And with this, out from the thicket leaps my
faithful friend; but a sight to see, for the rags of clothes that
covered his nakedness all fastened together with strings of grass in
lack of buttons, and a great bush of hair about his head, so that but
for his voice I might not have known him.
Before I could recover of my astonishment he seizes my hand, and cries
he: "Quick, master, behind these brambles for a refuge, though I fear
never a Portugal in the world now I have you at hand."
"There be no Portugals here, friend Matthew," says I.
"There you are wrong," says he; "for I do assure you I spied one of 'em
creeping upon me with a bow, when I sang out in the hope of alarming my
mates, and had the good chance to bring you forth. Nay, look you,
master; there is the young villain!"
Then I burst into a good, hearty laugh, for the "young villain" to whom
he pointed was none but my dear lady, who was now running towards us.
Then discerning who it was, on spying more closely, my friend Matthew
slaps his leg, and cries he:
"Zookers! 'tis her ladyship, as I might have seen if my eyes had not
been dimmed with a fever. I beg your pardon a thousand times, madam, in
having mistaken you for a Portugal. 'Tis not the first time I have fled
from a female, but 'twould be the last if every one wore the
breeches--saving your presence--to such advantage."
"Tell me, good friend," says she, cutting short this pleasantry on her
costume, "have you happily found my uncle?"
"Ay, madam," he replies. "That I did by such good fortune as I shall
relate to you at our leisure; and, sure, I was no happier to find him
than he to be found. I left him hale and hearty at the mouth of the
Oronoque, where he guards his two ships against the accursed pirates
that practice their villainous calling in those latitudes. His loving
messages to your ladyship and to your master I can but ill express at
this moment for my own delight in seeing you once more."
And therewith, as if unable to restrain his affection any longer, he
threw himself upon my neck, declaring this was the happiest day of his
life. "For Lord love you, master," says he, "I thought never to have
seen you again; and but for the strategy I have learned of the
Portugals, I could not have persuaded my company to persevere in this
search for you."
"Where is your company, friend Matthew?" says I.
"Best part of 'em, master, are dead of disease, or eaten up by wild
beasts," says he with a rueful shake of his head. "Only eleven of us are
left out of twenty-five stout and lusty fellows who left the ships in
the beginning of the summer, and they lie about a mile down the river.
'Twas as much as three boats could hold us with our stores and
provisions, when we started; but now a single boat would carry us, for
our stores are long since gone, and we are all more or less wasted with
privations and sickness. Only I have contrived to keep a little flesh on
my bones, and that was due to a hope which the rest have long since
abandoned."
"Are we still so far from the mouth of this long river?" asks my lady.
"Nay, madam; not so long but we may hope to get down to it in a few
weeks," says he. "Though I have kept this from my company, lest they
should insist on returning. We began our journey when the river was
still swollen with the rains, and we have been for ever a-going up those
rivers that discharge themselves into this, whereof there are scores,
and all so alike that no man can tell which is the right but at a guess.
Hows'mever, no such trouble shall we have now, for the current must bear
us to the sea, and I have taken good note of the way."
In this, discourse, and much other for which I have no space, we made
our way to the river, and in our canoe speedily dropped down to that
part where lay the poor remnant of that good company who had braved so
much to find us.