The Admirable Lady Biddy Fane Part 50

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 pa.s.sed 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 fort.i.tude. 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 pa.s.sed 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 l.u.s.tily. 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 gra.s.s in lack of b.u.t.tons, 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 a.s.sure 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 ladys.h.i.+p, 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 s.h.i.+ps against the accursed pirates that practice their villainous calling in those lat.i.tudes. His loving messages to your ladys.h.i.+p 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 l.u.s.ty fellows who left the s.h.i.+ps 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 s.p.a.ce, 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.

CHAPTER LXV.

WE COME AT LENGTH TO THE MOUTH OF THE ORONOQUE, BUT WITH DISMAL FOREBODINGS.

It was piteous to see how these poor seamen, ragged as any bears, and thin as hurdles, were affected with joy when they learnt that their troubles were as good as ended--weeping and laughing by turns, like very fools. This extravagance of delight was, I say, sad to behold, for sure the sight of strong men who have lost the dignity and composure of manhood, and are brought to the weak condition of little children, is not less deplorable than the aspect of young faces overcast with the care and anxiety of age.

However, this was but the shock of suddenly returning hope, and when the transport was over they became reasonable, and mended apace. The ease of going down that river in comparison with ascending it is incredible, as may be gathered from the fact that in one day we pa.s.sed two marks set up by these poor fellows at intervals of eight and ten days. At each of such marks they would stop to give a great cheer of delight; then, filled with fresh vigor by these sure signs of rapid progress, they lay themselves with such might to their oars that 'twas as much as my friend Matthew and I in the canoe, with Lady Biddy at the helm, could do to keep up with them.

And here it may not be amiss to tell that my dear lady, before joining this company of men, had taken occasion to change her stripling's dress for the gown we had carried down with us, for now there was no longer necessity for her to penetrate the thick woods, exposing herself to brier and bramble, and she would no more appear in a dress unbecoming to her s.e.x.

We had been descending the river best part of three weeks, when Pennyfarden a.s.sured us we were nearing an island whereon, to lighten their boats (in order to make better head against the stream), they had left some of their stores under a tent made of a lug-sail; and soon after this, a joyful shout from the company in that boat that led the way signified that the island was in sight.

"Now," says friend Matthew--"now shall we be all able to dress ourselves decently, and return to Sir Bartlemy like Christians, for amongst the stores is a chest of excellent buff jerkins and sea-boots."

Presently, coming up to this island, where the seamen were already landed, we found them wandering about in great vexation and trouble, for the tent had been torn down, and they could find none of their stores, save an empty barrel and the charred end of their chest, which had been broken up for firewood.

At first we set it down that the Ingas had been there; but Pennyfarden, casting his eyes about that part where the empty barrel lay, shook his head ruefully, and declared that they had no hand in this business.

"Pray how can you tell that?" says I.

"Why, look you, master," says he, stooping down and picking up three or four long iron nails that lay scattered in the herb, "no Inga would have wantonly cast these away, for he prizes them more than all the gold and precious stones by which we set such store. And they have not been overlooked or dropped by accident, for they were bound up in paper, and lay at the bottom of the barrel; and, see, they are scattered broadcast around us--scattered by those who themselves had no need of such things, and were meanly minded that no one else should profit by them--wanton waste and devilry that the worst Inga would not be guilty of. I do sadly fear that this is the work of mad sailors; what say you, Master Palmer?"

adds he, addressing an old seaman who had joined us.

"Like enough--like enough," says Palmer dismally; "and if it be as you suppose, then Heaven help us all. For," adds he, after a long-drawn sigh, "none of our s.h.i.+p-mates would thus destroy and waste our stores unless he had mutinied against our captain, and sought to bring grief by our undoing."

The rest of our company, coming up, joined in this opinion, and one cried that there was no hope left us. But my lady, who was ever quick to spy a comforting gleam where none saw aught but dismal clouds, told them they did wrong to despond so readily, "for," says she, "if some of the men have rebelled, 'tis clear they have gained but little by it, or they would not have come hither."

"You are in the right of it, madam," says Palmer. "If they mutinied, 'twas because they would no longer lie at the mouth of the Oronoque, awaiting our return; and had they succeeded in overcoming our good captain, they would at once have set sail and gone hence."

The company, seeing the soundness of this argument, plucked up courage again; but we all agreed that, as the mutineers might be somewhere betwixt us and Sir Bartlemy, we must proceed with caution; and as the nights were fairly light (though no moon), and the river pretty well known to us, we resolved to journey only by night henceforth.

By the end of that week the rains began to fall. However, this gave us but little trouble, for not only did it increase the strength of the current that bore us onwards, but it lessened our danger of falling in with marauders, who would now be forced to seek shelter of some sort. My chief concern was for Lady Biddy; but I contrived to protect her from the pelting storm with a very fair kind of tent set up in the canoe.

We reached that mouth of the Oronoque where the s.h.i.+ps lay at nightfall on the third day of the rains, and without molestation; and here, though it was too dark to make out the vessels, we discerned a light about a mile out, as we judged. Thither we considered it advisable to proceed at once, for if we found that the mutineers had overcome my uncle and held the s.h.i.+ps, then might we with more likelihood return to land, and escape with our lives under cover of the night.

So now, with as little noise as possible, we drew out into the open, Thomas Palmer, who was an admirable good seaman, leading the way in the biggest of our boats.