WE turned from the sea. Thick forest came between us and it. We were
going with Caonabo to the mountains. Beltran and I thought that it had
been in question whether he should kill us at once, or hold us in life
until we had been shown as trophies in Maguana, and that the pride and
vanity of the latter course prevailed. After two days in this ruined
place, during which we saw no Guarico Indian, we departed. The raid was
over. All their war is by raid. They carried everything from the fort
save the fort itself and the two lombards. In the narrow paths that are
this world’s roads, one man must walk after another, and their column
seems endless where it winds and is lost and appears again. Beltran and
I were no longer bound. Nor were we treated unkindly, starved nor hurt
in any way. All that waited until we should reach Caonabo’s town.
Caonabo was a most handsome barbarian, strong and fierce and
intelligent, more fierce, more intelligent than Guacanagari. All had
been painted, but the heat of the lowland and their great exertion had
made the coloring run and mix most unseemly. When they left Guarico
they plunged into the river and washed the whole away, coming out clear
red-brown, shining and better to look upon. Caonabo washed, but then he
would renew his marking with the paint which he carried with him in a
little calabash.
A pool, still and reflecting as any polished shield, made his mirror.
He painted in a terrific pattern what seemed meant for lightning and
serpent. It was armor and plume and banner to him. I thought of our own
devices, comforting or discomforting kinships! He had black, lustrous
hair, no beard--they pluck out all body hair save the head thatch--high
features, a studied look of settled and cold fierceness. Such was this
Carib in Hispaniola.
Presently they put a watch and the rest all lay down and slept, Beltran
beside me. The day had been clear, and now a great moon made silver,
silver, the land around. It shone upon the Spanish sailor and upon the
Carib chief and all the naked Manguana men. I thought of Europe, and
of how all this or its like had been going on hundred years by hundred
years, while perished Rome and quickened our kingdoms, while Charlemagne
governed, while the Church rose until she towered and covered like the
sky, while we went crusades and pilgrimages, while Venice and Genoa
and Lisbon rose and flourished, while letters went on and we studied
Aristotle, while question arose, and wider knowledge. At last Juan Lepe,
too, went to sleep.
Next day we traveled among and over mountains. Our path, so narrow,
climbed by rock and tree. Now it overhung deep, tree-crammed vales, now
it bore through just-parted cliffs. Beltran and Juan Lepe had need for
all their strength of body.
The worst was that that old tremor and weakness of one leg and side,
left after some sea fight, which had made Beltran the cook from Beltran
the mariner, came back. I saw his step begin to halt and drag. This
increased. An hour later, the path going over tree roots knotted like
serpents, he stumbled and fell. He picked himself up. “Hard to keep deck
in this gale!”
When he went down there had been an exclamation from those Indians
nearest us. “Aiya!” It was their word for rotten, no good, spoiled,
disappointing, crippled or diseased, for a misformed child or an old man
or woman arrived at helplessness. Such, I had learned from Guarin, they
almost invariably killed. It was why, from the first, we hardly saw
dwarfed or humped or crippled among them.
We had to cross a torrent upon a tree that falling had made from side
to side a rounded bridge. Again that old hurt betrayed him. He slipped,
would have fallen into the torrent below, but that I, turning, caught
him and the Indian behind us helped. We managed across. “My ship,” said
Beltran, “is going to pieces on the rocks.”
The path became ladder steep. Now Beltran delayed all, for it was a lame
man climbing. I helped him all I could.
The sun was near its setting. We were aloft in these mountains. Green
heads still rose over us, but we were aloft, far above the sea. And now
we were going through a ravine or pass where the walking was better.
Here, too, a wind reached us and it was cooler. Cool eve of the heights
drew on. We came to a bubbling well of coldest water and drank to our
great refreshment. Veritable pine trees, which we never saw in the
lowlands, towered above and sang. The path was easier, but hardly,
hardly, could Beltran drag himself along it. His arm was over my
shoulder.
Out of the dark pass we came upon a table almost bare of trees
and covered with a fine soft grass. The mountains of Cibao, five
leagues--maybe more--away, hung in emerald purple and gold under the
sinking sun. The highest rocky peaks rose pale gold. Below us and
between those mountains on which we stood and the golden mountains of
Cibao, spread that plain, so beautiful, so wide and long, so fertile and
smiling and vast, that afterwards was called the Royal Plain! East and
west one might not see the end; south only the golden mountains stopped
it. And rivers shone, one great river and many lesser streams. And we
saw afar many plumes of smoke from many villages, and we made out maize
fields, for the plain was populous. _Vega Real_! So lovely was it in
that bright eve! The very pain of the day made it lovelier.
The high grassy space ran upon one side to sheer precipice, dropping
clear two hundred feet. But there was camping ground enough--and the sun
almost touched the far, violet earth.
The Indians threw themselves down. When they had supper they would eat
it, when they had it not they would wait for breakfast. But Caonabo with
twenty young men came to us. He said something, and my arms were caught
from behind and held. He faced Beltran seated against a pine. “Aiya!” he
said. His voice was deep and harsh, and he made a gesture of repugnance.
There was a powerfully made Indian beside him, and I saw the last
gleam of the sun strike the long, sharp, stone knife. “Kill!” said the
cacique.
A dozen flung themselves upon Beltran, but there was no need, for he
sat quite still with a steady face. He had time to cry to Juan Lepe,
who cried to him, “That’s what I say! Good cheer and courage and meet
again!”
He had no long suffering. The knife was driven quickly to his heart.
They drew the shell to the edge of the precipice and dropped it over.
It was early night, it was middle night, it was late night. They had set
no watch, for where and what was the danger here on this mountain top?
One side went down in a precipice, one sloping less steeply we had
climbed from the pine trees and the well, one of a like descent we
would take to-morrow down to the plain, but the fourth was mountain
head hanging above us and thick wood,--dark, entangled, pathless. And
it chanced or it was that Juan Lepe lay upon the side toward the peak,
close to forest. The Indians had no thought to guard me. We lay down
under the moon, and that bronze host slept, naked beautiful statues, in
every attitude of rest.
The moon shone until there was silver day. Juan Lepe was not sleeping.
There was no wind, but he watched a branch move. It looked like a man’s
arm, then it moved farther and was a full man,--an Indian, noiseless,
out clear in the moon, from the wood. I knew him. It was the priest
Guarin, priest and physician, for they are the same here. Palm against
earth, I half rose. He nodded, made a sign to rise wholly and come. I
did so. I stood and saw under the moon no waking face nor upspringing
form. I stepped across an Indian, another, a third. Then was clear
space, the wood, Guarin. There was no sound save only the constant sound
of this forest by night when a million million insects waken.
He took my hand and drew me into the brake and wilderness. There was
no path. I followed him over I know not what of twined root and thick
ancient soil, a powder and flake that gave under foot, to a hidden,
rocky shelf that broke and came again and broke and came again. Now we
were a hundred feet above that camp and going over mountain brow, going
to the north again. Gone were Caonabo and his Indians; gone the view of
the plain and the mountains of Cibao. Again we met low cliff, long stony
ledges sunk in the forest, invisible from below. I began to see that
they would not know how to follow. Caonabo might know well the mountains
of Cibao, but this sierra that was straight behind Guarico, Guarico
knew. It is a blessed habit of their priests to go wandering in the
forest, making their medicine, learning the country, discovering,
using certain haunts for meditation. Sometimes they are gone from their
villages for days and weeks. None indeed of these wild peoples fear
reasonable solitude. Out of all which comes the fact that Guarin knew
this mountain. We were not far, as flies the bird, from the burned town
of Guarico, from the sea without sail, from the ruined La Navidad. When
the dawn broke we saw ocean.
He took me straight to a cavern, such another as that in which Jerez
and Luis Torres and I had harbored in Cuba. But this had fine sand for
floor, and a row of calabashes, and wood laid for fire.
Here Juan Lepe dropped, for all his head was swimming with weariness.
The sun was up, the place glistered. Guarin showed how it was hidden. “I
found it when I was a boy, and none but Guarin hath ever come here
until you come, Juan Lepe!” He had no fear, it was evident, of Caonabo’s
coming. “They will think your idol helped you away. If they look for
you, it will be in the cloud. They will say, ‘See that dark mark moving
round edge of cloud mountain! That is he!’” I asked him, “Where are
Guacanagari and the rest?”
“Guacanagari had an arrow through his thigh and a deep cut upon the
head. He was bleeding and in a swoon. His brother and the Guarico men
and I with them took him, and the women took the children, and we went
away, save a few that were killed, upon the path that we used when in my
father’s time, the Caribs came in canoes. After a while we will go down
to Guacanagari. But now rest!”
He looked at me, and then from a little trickling spring he took water
in a calabash no larger than an orange and from another vessel a white
dust which he stirred into it, and made me drink. I did not know what it
was, but I went to sleep.
But that sleep did not refresh. It was filled with heavy and dreadful
dreams, and I woke with an aching head and a burning skin. Juan Lepe who
had nursed the sick down there in La Navidad knew feebly what it was. He
saw in a mist the naked priest, his friend and rescuer, seated upon the
sandy floor regarding him with a wrinkled brow and compressed lips, and
then he sank into fever visions uncouth and dreadful, or mirage-pleasing
with a mirage-ecstasy.
Juan Lepe did not die, but he lay ill and like to die for two months.
It was deep in October, that day at dawn when I came quietly, evenly,
to myself again, and lay most weak, but with seeing eyes. At first I
thought I was alone in the cavern, but then I saw Guarin where he lay
asleep.
That day I strengthened, and the next day and the next. But I had lain
long at the very feet of death, and full strength was a tortoise in
returning. So good to Juan Lepe was Guarin!
Now he was with me, and now he went away to that village where was
Guacanagari. He had done this from the first coming here, nursing me,
then going down through the forest to see that all was well with his
wounded cacique and the folk whose butio he was. They knew his ways and
did not try to keep him when he would return to the mountain, to “make
medicine.” So none knew of the cavern or that there was one Spaniard
left alive in all Hayti.
I strengthened. At last I could draw myself out of cave and lie, in the
now so pleasant weather, upon the ledge before it. All the vast heat and
moisture was gone by; now again was weather of last year when we found
San Salvador.
I could see ocean. No sail, and were he returning, surely it should have
been before this! He might never return.
When Guarin was away I sat or lay or moved about a small demesne and
still prospered. There were clean rock, the water, the marvelous forest.
He brought cassava cake, fruit, fish from the sea. He brought me for
entertainment a talking parrot, and there lived in a seam of the rock
a beautiful lizard with whom I made friends. The air was balm, balm!
A steady soft wind made cataract sound in the forest. Sunrise, noon,
sunset, midnight, were great glories.
It was November; it was mid-November and after.
Now I was strong and wandered in the forest, though never far from that
cliff and cavern. It was settled between us that in five days I should
go down with Guarin to Guacanagari. He proposed that I should be taken
formally into the tribe. They had a ceremony of adoption, and after that
Juan Lepe would be Guarico. He would live with and teach the Guaricos,
becoming butio--he and Guarin butios together. I pondered it. If the
Admiral came not again it was the one thing to do.
I remember the very odor and exquisite touch of the morning. Guarin
was away. I had to myself cave and ledge and little waterfall and great
trees that now I was telling one from another. I had parrot and
lizard and spoke now to the one and now to the other. I remember the
butterflies and the humming birds.
I looked out to sea and saw a sail!
It was afar, a white point. I leaned against the rock for I was suddenly
weak who the moment before had felt strong. The white point swelled.
It would be a goodly large ship. Over blue rim slipped another flake.
A little off I saw a third, then a fourth. Juan Lepe rubbed his eyes.
Before there came no more he had counted seventeen sail. They grew; they
were so beauteous. Toward the harbor sailed a fleet. Now I made out the
flagship.
O Life, thou wondrous goddess of happenings!
An hour I sat on cliff edge and watched. They were making in, the
lovely white swans. When they were fairly near, when in little time the
foremost would bring to, down sail and drop anchor, Juan Lepe, gathering
his belongings together, bidding the lizard farewell and taking the
parrot with him on shoulder, left cavern and cliff and took Guarin’s
path down through the forest.
Halfway to level land he met Guarin coming up; the two met beneath a
tree huge and spreading, curtained with a vine, starred with flowers.
“He has come!” cried the Indian. “They have come!” In his voice was
marveling, awe, perturbation.
The sun in the sky shone, and in the bay hung that wonder of return,
the many ships for the _Nina_. Juan Lepe and Guarin went on down through
wood to a narrow silver beach, out upon which had cast itself an Indian
village.
Guacanagari was not here. He waited within his house for the Admiral.
But his brother, and others of Guarico, saw me and there rose a clamor
and excitement that for the moment took them from the ships. Guarin
explained and Juan Lepe explained, but still this miraculous day dyed
also for them my presence here. I had been slain, and had come to life
to greet the Great Cacique! It grew to a legend. I met it so, long
afterwards in Hispaniola.