Westward Ho! Part 35

"Let not one of them escape! Slay them as Israel slew Amalek!" cried Yeo, as he bent over; and ere the wretches could reach a place of shelter, an arrow was quivering in each body, as it rolled lifeless down the rocks.

"Now then! Loose the Indians!"

They found armorers tools on one of the dead bodies, and it was done.

"We are your friends," said Amyas. "All we ask is, that you shall help us to carry this gold down to the Magdalena, and then you are free."

Some few of the younger grovelled at his knees, and kissed his feet, hailing him as the child of the Sun: but the most part kept a stolid indifference, and when freed from their fetters, sat quietly down where they stood, staring into vacancy. The iron had entered too deeply into their soul. They seemed past hope, enjoyment, even understanding.

But the young girl, who was last of all in the line, as soon as she was loosed, sprang to her father's body, speaking no word, lifted it in her thin arms, laid it across her knees, kissed the fallen lips, stroked the furrowed cheeks, murmured inarticulate sounds like the cooing of a woodland dove, of which none knew the meaning but she, and he who heard not, for his soul had long since fled. Suddenly the truth flashed on her; silent as ever, she drew one long heaving breath, and rose erect, the body in her arms.

Another moment, and she had leaped into the abyss.

They watched her dark and slender limbs, twined closely round the old man's corpse, turn over, and over, and over, till a crash among the leaves, and a scream among the birds, told that she had reached the trees; and the green roof hid her from their view.

"Brave la.s.s!" shouted a sailor.

"The Lord forgive her!" said Yeo. "But, your wors.h.i.+p, we must have these rascals' ordnance."

"And their clothes too, Yeo, if we wish to get down the Magdalena unchallenged. Now listen, my masters all! We have won, by G.o.d's good grace, gold enough to serve us the rest of our lives, and that without losing a single man; and may yet win more, if we be wise, and He thinks good. But oh, my friends, remember Mr. Oxenham and his crew; and do not make G.o.d's gift our ruin, by faithlessness, or greediness, or any mutinous haste."

"You shall find none in us!" cried several men. "We know your wors.h.i.+p. We can trust our general."

"Thank G.o.d!" said Amyas. "Now then, it will be no shame or sin to make the Indians carry it, saving the women, whom G.o.d forbid we should burden. But we must pa.s.s through the very heart of the Spanish settlements, and by the town of Saint Martha itself. So the clothes and weapons of these Spaniards we must have, let it cost us what labor it may. How many lie in the road?"

"Thirteen here, and about ten up above," said Cary.

"Then there are near twenty missing. Who will volunteer to go down over cliff, and bring up the spoil of them?"

"I, and I, and I;" and a dozen stepped out, as they did always when Amyas wanted anything done; for the simple reason, that they knew that he meant to help at the doing of it himself.

"Very well, then, follow me. Sir John, take the Indian lad for your interpreter, and try and comfort the souls of these poor heathens. Tell them that they shall all be free."

"Why, who is that comes up the road?"

All eyes were turned in the direction of which he spoke. And, wonder of wonders! up came none other than Ayacanora herself, blow- gun in hand, bow on back, and bedecked in all her feather garments, which last were rather the worse for a fortnight's woodland travel.

All stood mute with astonishment, as, seeing Amyas, she uttered a cry of joy, quickened her pace into a run, and at last fell panting and exhausted at his feet.

"I have found you!" she said; "you ran away from me, but you could not escape me!" And she fawned round Amyas, like a dog who has found his master, and then sat down on the bank, and burst into wild sobs.

"G.o.d help us!" said Amyas, clutching his hair, as he looked down upon the beautiful weeper. "What am I to do with her, over and above all these poor heathens?"

But there was no time to be lost, and over the cliff he scrambled; while the girl, seeing that the main body of the English remained, sat down on a point of rock to watch him.

After half-an-hour's hard work, the weapons, clothes, and armor of the fallen Spaniards were hauled up the cliff, and distributed in bundles among the men; the rest of the corpses were thrown over the precipice, and they started again upon their road toward the Magdalena, while Yeo snorted like a war-horse who smells the battle, at the delight of once more handling powder and ball.

"We can face the world now, sir! Why not go back and try Santa Fe, after all?"

But Amyas thought that enough was as good as a feast, and they held on downwards, while the slaves followed, without a sign of grat.i.tude, but meekly obedient to their new masters, and testifying now and then by a sign or a grunt, their surprise at not being beaten, or made to carry their captors. Some, however, caught sight of the little calabashes of coca which the English carried. That woke them from their torpor, and they began coaxing abjectly (and not in vain) for a taste of that miraculous herb, which would not only make food unnecessary, and enable their panting lungs to endure that keen mountain air, but would rid them, for awhile at least, of the fallen Indian's most unpitying foe, the malady of thought.

As the cavalcade turned the corner of the mountain, they paused for one last look at the scene of that fearful triumph. Lines of vultures were already streaming out of infinite s.p.a.ce, as if created suddenly for the occasion. A few hours and there would be no trace of that fierce fray, but a few white bones amid untrodden beds of flowers.

And now Amyas had time to ask Ayacanora the meaning of this her strange appearance. He wished her anywhere but where she was: but now that she was here, what heart could be so hard as not to take pity on the poor wild thing? And Amyas as he spoke to her had, perhaps, a tenderness in his tone, from very fear of hurting her, which he had never used before. Pa.s.sionately she told him how she had followed on their track day and night, and had every evening made sounds, as loud as she dared, in hopes of their hearing her, and either waiting for her, or coming back to see what caused the noise.

Amyas now recollected the strange roaring which had followed them.

"Noises? What did you make them with?"

Ayacanora lifted her finger with an air of most self-satisfied mystery, and then drew cautiously from under her feather cloak an object at which Amyas had hard work to keep his countenance.

"Look!" whispered she, as if half afraid that the thing itself should hear her. "I have it--the holy trumpet!"

There it was verily, that mysterious bone of contention; a handsome earthen tube some two feet long, neatly glazed, and painted with quaint grecques and figures of animals; a relic evidently of some civilization now extinct.

Brimblecombe rubbed his little fat hands. "Brave maid! you have cheated Satan this time," quoth he; while Yeo advised that the "idolatrous relic" should be forthwith "hove over cliff."

"Let be," said Amyas. "What is the meaning of this, Ayacanora? And why have you followed us?"

She told a long story, from which Amyas picked up, as far as he could understand her, that that trumpet had been for years the torment of her life; the one thing in the tribe superior to her; the one thing which she was not allowed to see, because, forsooth, she was a woman. So she determined to show them that a woman was as good as a man; and hence her hatred of marriage, and her Amazonian exploits. But still the Piache would not show her that trumpet, or tell her where it was; and as for going to seek it, even she feared the superst.i.tious wrath of the tribe at such a profanation. But the day after the English went, the Piache chose to express his joy at their departure; whereon, as was to be expected, a fresh explosion between master and pupil, which ended, she confessed, in her burning the old rogue's hut over his head, from which he escaped with loss of all his conjuring-tackle, and fled raging into the woods, vowing that he would carry off the trumpet to the neighboring tribe. Whereon, by a sudden impulse, the young lady took plenty of coca, her weapons, and her feathers, started on his trail, and ran him to earth just as he was unveiling the precious mystery. At which sight (she confessed) she was horribly afraid, and half inclined to run; but, gathering courage from the thought that the white men used to laugh at the whole matter, she rushed upon the hapless conjuror, and bore off her prize in triumph; and there it was!

"I hope you have not killed him?" said Amyas.

"I did beat him a little; but I thought you would not let me kill him."

Amyas was half amused with her confession of his authority over her; but she went on-- "And then I dare not go back to the Indians; so I was forced to come after you."

"And is that, then, your only reason for coming after us?" asked stupid Amyas.

He had touched some secret chord--though what it was he was too busy to inquire. The girl drew herself up proudly, blus.h.i.+ng scarlet, and said: "You never tell lies. Do you think that I would tell lies?"

On which she fell to the rear, and followed them steadfastly, speaking to no one, but evidently determined to follow them to the world's end.

They soon left the highroad; and for several days held on downwards, hewing their path slowly and painfully through the thick underwood. On the evening of the fourth day, they had reached the margin of a river, at a point where it seemed broad and still enough for navigation. For those three days they had not seen a trace of human beings, and the spot seemed lonely enough for them to encamp without fear of discovery, and begin the making of their canoes. They began to spread themselves along the stream, in search of the soft-wooded trees proper for their purpose; but hardly had their search begun, when, in the midst of a dense thicket, they came upon a sight which filled them with astonishment. Beneath a honeycombed cliff, which supported one enormous cotton-tree, was a spot of some thirty yards square sloping down to the stream, planted in rows with magnificent banana-plants, full twelve feet high, and bearing among their huge waxy leaves cl.u.s.ters of ripening fruit; while, under their mellow shade, yams and ca.s.sava plants were flouris.h.i.+ng luxuriantly, the whole being surrounded by a hedge of orange and scarlet flowers. There it lay, streaked with long shadows from the setting sun, while a cool southern air rustled in the cotton-tree, and flapped to and fro the great banana-leaves; a tiny paradise of art and care. But where was its inhabitant?

Aroused by the noise of their approach, a figure issued from a cave in the rocks, and, after gazing at them for a moment, came down the garden towards them. He was a tall and stately old man, whose snow-white beard and hair covered his chest and shoulders, while his lower limbs were wrapt in Indian-web. Slowly and solemnly he approached, a staff in one hand, a string of beads in the other, the living likeness of some old Hebrew prophet, or anchorite of ancient legend. He bowed courteously to Amyas (who of course returned his salute), and was in act to speak, when his eye fell upon the Indians, who were laying down their burdens in a heap under the trees. His mild countenance a.s.sumed instantly an expression of the acutest sorrow and displeasure; and, striking his hands together, he spoke in Spanish: "Alas! miserable me! Alas! unhappy senors! Do my old eyes deceive me, and is it one of those evil visions of the past which haunt my dreams by night; or has the accursed thirst of gold, the ruin of my race, penetrated even into this my solitude? Oh, senors, senors, know you not that you bear with you your own poison, your own familiar fiend, the root of every evil? And is it not enough for you, senors, to load yourselves with the wedge of Achan, and partake his doom, but you must make these hapless heathens the victims of your greed and cruelty, and forestall for them on earth those torments which may await their unbaptized souls hereafter?"

"We have preserved, and not enslaved these Indians, ancient senor," said Amyas, proudly; "and to-morrow will see them as free as the birds over our heads."

"Free? Then you cannot be countrymen of mine! But pardon an old man, my son, if he has spoken too hastily in the bitterness of his own experience. But who and whence are you? And why are you bringing into this lonely wilderness that gold--for I know too well the shape of those accursed packets, which would G.o.d that I had never seen!"

"What we are, reverend sir, matters little, as long as we behave to you as the young should to the old. As for our gold, it will be a curse or a blessing to us, I conceive, just as we use it well or ill; and so is a man's head, or his hand, or any other thing; but that is no reason for cutting off his limbs for fear of doing harm with them; neither is it for throwing away those packages, which, by your leave, we shall deposit in one of these caves. We must be your neighbors, I fear, for a day or two; but I can promise you, that your garden shall be respected, on condition that you do not inform any human soul of our being here."

"G.o.d forbid, senor, that I should try to increase the number of my visitors, much less to bring hither strife and blood, of which I have seen too much already. As you have come in peace, in peace depart. Leave me alone with G.o.d and my penitence, and may the Lord have mercy on you!"

And he was about to withdraw, when, recollecting himself, he turned suddenly to Amyas again-- "Pardon me, senor, if, after forty years of utter solitude, I shrink at first from the conversation of human beings, and forget, in the habitual shyness of a recluse, the duties of a hospitable gentleman of Spain. My garden, and all which it produces, is at your service. Only let me entreat that these poor Indians shall have their share; for heathens though they be, Christ died for them; and I cannot but cherish in my soul some secret hope that He did not die in vain."

"G.o.d forbid!" said Brimblecombe. "They are no worse than we, for aught I see, whatsoever their fathers may have been; and they have fared no worse than we since they have been with us, nor will, I promise you."

The good fellow did not tell that he had been starving himself for the last three days to cram the children with his own rations; and that the sailors, and even Amyas, had been going out of their way every five minutes, to get fruit for their new pets.

A camp was soon formed; and that evening the old hermit asked Amyas, Cary, and Brimblecombe to come up into his cavern.

They went; and after the accustomed compliments had pa.s.sed, sat down on mats upon the ground, while the old man stood, leaning against a slab of stone surmounted by a rude wooden cross, which evidently served him as a place of prayer. He seemed restless and anxious, as if he waited for them to begin the conversation; while they, in their turn, waited for him. At last, when courtesy would not allow him to be silent any longer, he began with a faltering voice: "You may be equally surprised, senors, at my presence in such a spot, and at my asking you to become my guests even for one evening, while I have no better hospitality to offer you."

"It is superfluous, senor, to offer us food in your own habitation when you have already put all that you possess at our command."

"True, senors: and my motive for inviting you was, perhaps, somewhat of a selfish one. I am possessed by a longing to unburthen my heart of a tale which I never yet told to man, and which I fear can give to you nothing but pain; and yet I will entreat you, of your courtesy, to hear of that which you cannot amend, simply in mercy to a man who feels that he must confess to some one, or die as miserable as he has lived. And I believe my confidence will not be misplaced, when it is bestowed upon you. I have been a cavalier, even as you are; and, strange as it may seem, that which I have to tell I would sooner impart to the ears of a soldier than of a priest; because it will then sink into souls which can at least sympathize, though they cannot absolve. And you, cavaliers, I perceive to be n.o.ble, from your very looks; to be valiant, by your mere presence in this hostile land; and to be gentle, courteous, and prudent, by your conduct this day to me and to your captives. Will you, then, hear an old man's tale? I am, as you see, full of words; for speech, from long disuse, is difficult to me, and I fear at every sentence lest my stiffened tongue should play the traitor to my worn-out brain: but if my request seems impertinent, you have only to bid me talk as a host should, of matters which concern his guests, and not himself."

The three young men, equally surprised and interested by this exordium, could only entreat their host to "use their ears as those of his slaves," on which, after fresh apologies, he began: "Know, then, victorious cavaliers, that I, whom you now see here as a poor hermit, was formerly one of the foremost of that terrible band who went with Pizarro to the conquest of Peru. Eighty years old am I this day, unless the calendar which I have carved upon yonder tree deceives me; and twenty years old was I when I sailed with that fierce man from Panama, to do that deed with which all earth, and heaven, and h.e.l.l itself, I fear, has rung. How we endured, suffered, and triumphed; how, mad with success, and glutted with blood, we turned our swords against each other, I need not tell to you. For what gentleman of Europe knows not our glory and our shame?"

His hearers bowed a.s.sent.

"Yes; you have heard of our prowess: for glorious we were awhile, in the sight of G.o.d and man. But I will not speak of our glory, for it is tarnished; nor of our wealth, for it was our poison; nor of the sins of my comrades, for they have expiated them; but of my own sins, senors, which are more in number than the hairs of my head, and a burden too great to bear. Miserere Domine!"

And smiting on his breast, the old warrior went on: "As I said, we were mad with blood; and none more mad than I. Surely it is no fable that men are possessed, even in this latter age, by devils. Why else did I rejoice in slaying? Why else was I, the son of a n.o.ble and truthful cavalier of Castile, among the foremost to urge upon my general the murder of the Inca? Why did I rejoice over his dying agonies? Why, when Don Ferdinando de Soto returned, and upbraided us with our villainy, did I, instead of confessing the sin which that n.o.ble cavalier set before us, withstand him to his face, ay, and would have drawn the sword on him, but that he refused to fight a liar, as he said that I was?"

"Then Don de Soto was against the murder? So his own grandson told me. But I had heard of him only as a tyrant and a butcher."

"Senor, he was compact of good and evil, as are other men: he has paid dearly for his sin; let us hope that he has been paid in turn for his righteousness."

John Brimblecombe shook his head at this doctrine, but did not speak.

"So you know his grandson? I trust he is a n.o.ble cavalier?"

Amyas was silent; the old gentleman saw that he had touched some sore point, and continued: "And why, again, senors, did I after that day give myself up to cruelty as to a sport; yea, thought that I did G.o.d service by destroying the creatures whom He had made; I who now dare not destroy a gnat, lest I harm a being more righteous than myself? Was I mad? If I was, how then was I all that while as prudent as I am this day? But I am not here to argue, senors, but to confess. In a word, there was no deed of blood done for the next few years in which I had not my share, if it were but within my reach. When Challcuchima was burned, I was consenting; when that fair girl, the wife of Inca Manco, was tortured to death, I smiled at the agonies at which she too smiled, and taunted on the soldiers, to try if I could wring one groan from her before she died. You know what followed, the pillage, the violence, the indignities offered to the virgins of the Sun. Senors, I will not pollute your chaste ears with what was done. But, senors, I had a brother."

And the old man paused awhile.

"A brother--whether better or worse than me, G.o.d knows, before whom he has appeared ere now. At least he did not, as I did, end as a rebel to his king! There was a maiden in one of those convents, senors, more beautiful than day: and (I blush to tell it) the two brothers of whom I spoke quarrelled for the possession of her. They struck each other, senors! Who struck first I know not; but swords were drawn, and-- The cavaliers round parted them, crying shame. And one of those two brothers--the one who speaks to you now--crying, 'If I cannot have her, no man shall!' turned the sword which was aimed at his brother, against that hapless maiden--and-- hear me out, senors, before you flee from my presence as from that of a monster!--stabbed her to the heart. And as she died--one moment more, senors, that I may confess all!--she looked up in my face with a smile as of heaven, and thanked me for having rid her once and for all from Christians and their villainy."

The old man paused.

"G.o.d forgive you, senor!" said Jack Brimblecombe, softly.

"You do not, then, turn from me, do not curse me? Then I will try you farther still, senors. I will know from human lips, whether man can do such deeds as I have done, and yet be pitied by his kind; that so I may have some hope, that where man has mercy, G.o.d may have mercy also. Do you think that I repented at those awful words? Nothing less, senors all. No more than I did when De Soto (on whose soul G.o.d have mercy) called me--me, a liar! I knew myself a sinner; and for that very reason I was determined to sin. I would go on, that I might prove myself right to myself, by showing that I could go on, and not be struck dead from heaven. Out of mere pride, senors, and self-will, I would fill up the cup of my iniquity; and I filled it.

"You know, doubtless, senors, how, after the death of old Almagro, his son's party conspired against Pizarro. Now my brother remained faithful to his old commander; and for that very reason, if you will believe it, did I join the opposite party, and gave myself up, body and soul, to do Almagro's work. It was enough for me, that the brother who had struck me thought a man right, for me to think that man a devil. What Almagro's work was, you know. He slew Pizarro, murdered him, senors, like a dog, or rather, like an old lion."

"He deserved his doom," said Amyas.

"Let G.o.d judge him, senor, not we; and least of all of us I, who drew the first blood, and perhaps the last, that day. I, senors, it was who treacherously stabbed Francisco de Chanes on the staircase, and so opened the door which else had foiled us all; and I-- But I am speaking to men of honor, not to butchers. Suffice it that the old man died like a lion, and that we pulled him down, young as we were, like curs.

"Well, I followed Almagro's fortunes. I helped to slay Alvarado. Call that my third murder, if you will, for if he was traitor to a traitor, I was traitor to a true man. Then to the war; you know how Vaca de Castro was sent from Spain to bring order and justice where was naught but chaos, and the dance of all devils. We met him on the hills of Chupas. Peter of Candia, the Venetian villain, pointed our guns false, and Almagro stabbed him to the heart. We charged with our lances, man against man, horse against horse. All fights I ever fought" (and the old man's eyes flashed out the ancient fire) "were child's play to that day. Our lances s.h.i.+vered like reeds, and we fell on with battle-axe and mace. None asked for quarter, and none gave it; friend to friend, cousin to cousin-- no, nor brother, O G.o.d! to brother. We were the better armed: but numbers were on their side. Fat Carbajal charged our cannon like an elephant, and took them; but Holguin was shot down. I was with Almagro, and we swept all before us, inch by inch, but surely, till the night fell. Then Vaca de Castro, the licentiate, the clerk, the schoolman, the man of books, came down on us with his reserve like a whirlwind. Oh! cavaliers, did not G.o.d fight against us, when He let us, the men of iron, us, the heroes of Cuzco and Vilcaconga, be foiled by a scholar in a black gown, with a pen behind his ear? We were beaten. Some ran; some did not run, senors; and I did not. Geronimo de Alvarado shouted to me, 'We slew Pizarro! We killed the tyrant!' and we rushed upon the conqueror's lances, to die like cavaliers. There was a gallant gentleman in front of me. His lance struck me in the crest, and bore me over my horse's croup: but mine, senors, struck him full in the vizor. We both went to the ground together, and the battle galloped over us.

"I know not how long I lay, for I was stunned: but after awhile I lifted myself. My lance was still clenched in my hand, broken but not parted. The point of it was in my foeman's brain. I crawled to him, weary and wounded, and saw that he was a n.o.ble cavalier. He lay on his back, his arms spread wide. I knew that he was dead: but there came over me the strangest longing to see that dead man's face. Perhaps I knew him. At least I could set my foot upon it, and say, 'Vanquished as I am, there lies a foe!' I caught hold of the rivets, and tore his helmet off. The moon shone bright, senors, as bright as she s.h.i.+nes now--the glaring, ghastly, tell- tale moon, which shows man all the sins which he tries to hide; and by that moonlight, senors, I beheld the dead man's face. And it was the face of my brother!

"Did you ever guess, most n.o.ble cavaliers, what Cain's curse might be like? Look on me, and know!

"I tore off my armor and fled, as Cain fled--northward ever, till I should reach a land where the name of Spaniard, yea, and the name of Christian, which the Spaniard has caused to be blasphemed from east to west, should never come. I sank fainting, and waked beneath this rock, this tree, forty-four years ago, and I have never left them since, save once, to obtain seeds from Indians, who knew not that I was a Spanish Conquistador. And may G.o.d have mercy on my soul!"

The old man ceased; and his young hearers, deeply affected by his tale, sat silent for a few minutes. Then John Brimblecombe spoke: "You are old, sir, and I am young; and perhaps it is not my place to counsel you. Moreover, sir, in spite of this strange dress of mine, I am neither more nor less than an English priest; and I suppose you will not be willing to listen to a heretic."

"I have seen Catholics, senor, commit too many abominations even with the name of G.o.d upon their lips, to shrink from a heretic if he speak wisely and well. At least, you are a man; and after all, my heart yearns more and more, the longer I sit among you, for the speech of beings of my own race. Say what you will, in G.o.d's name!"

"I hold, sir," said Jack, modestly, "according to holy Scripture, that whosoever repents from his heart, as G.o.d knows you seem to have done, is forgiven there and then; and though his sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow, for the sake of Him who died for all."

"Amen! Amen!" said the old man, looking lovingly at his little crucifix. "I hope and pray--His name is Love. I know it now; who better? But, sir, even if He have forgiven me, how can I forgive myself? In honor, sir, I must be just, and sternly just, to myself, even if G.o.d be indulgent; as He has been to me, who has left me here in peace for forty years, instead of giving me a prey to the first puma or jaguar which howls round me every night. He has given me time to work out my own salvation; but have I done it? That doubt maddens me at whiles. When I look upon that crucifix, I float on boundless hope: but if I take my eyes from it for a moment, faith fails, and all is blank, and dark, and dreadful, till the devil whispers me to plunge into yon stream, and once and for ever wake to certainty, even though it be in h.e.l.l."

What was Jack to answer? He himself knew not at first. More was wanted than the mere repet.i.tion of free pardon.

"Heretic as I am, sir, you will not believe me when I tell you, as a priest, that G.o.d accepts your penitence."

"My heart tells me so already, at moments. But how know I that it does not lie?"

"Senor," said Jack, "the best way to punish oneself for doing ill, seems to me to go and do good; and the best way to find out whether G.o.d means you well, is to find out whether He will help you to do well. If you have wronged Indians in time past, see whether you cannot right them now. If you can, you are safe. For the Lord will not send the devil's servants to do His work."

The old man held down his head.

"Right the Indians? Alas! what is done, is done!"

"Not altogether, senor," said Amyas, "as long as an Indian remains alive in New Granada."

"Senor, shall I confess my weakness? A voice within me has bid me a hundred times go forth and labor, for those oppressed wretches, but I dare not obey. I dare not look them in the face. I should fancy that they knew my story; that the very birds upon the trees would reveal my crime, and bid them turn from me with horror."

"Senor," said Amyas, "these are but the sick fancies of a n.o.ble spirit, feeding on itself in solitude. You have but to try to conquer."

"And look now," said Jack, "if you dare not go forth to help the Indians, see now how G.o.d has brought the Indians to your own door. Oh, excellent sir--"

"Call me not excellent," said the old man, smiting his breast.

"I do, and shall, sir, while I see in you an excellent repentance, an excellent humility, and an excellent justice," said Jack. "But oh, sir, look upon these forty souls, whom we must leave behind, like sheep which have no shepherd. Could you not teach them to fear G.o.d and to love each other, to live like rational men, perhaps to die like Christians? They would obey you as a dog obeys his master. You might be their king, their father, yea, their pope, if you would."

"You do not speak like a Lutheran."

"I am not a Lutheran, but an Englishman: but, Protestant as I am, G.o.d knows, I had sooner see these poor souls of your creed, than of none."

"But I am no priest."

"When they are ready," said Jack, "the Lord will send a priest. If you begin the good work, you may trust to Him to finish it."

"G.o.d help me!" said the old warrior.

The talk lasted long into the night, but Amyas was up long before daybreak, felling the trees; and as he and Cary walked back to breakfast, the first thing which they saw was the old man in his garden with four or five Indian children round him, talking smilingly to them.

"The old man's heart is sound still," said Will. "No man is lost who still is fond of little children."