Charley Laurel Part 14

She looked pleased, and replied that she could feel for me, away from my country and friends, and that she certainly would not betray me. She added that she had heard that there was an Englishman living in the next village, kept a prisoner by an old chief who ruled there, who was very stern and cruel, and made him work very hard, and that he had become very ill.

"The chief himself has gone away to fight, and you will have less difficulty in seeing your countryman than would have been the case had he been at home."

I thanked the young girl very much for her information, and she having pointed out the road I was to take, I proceeded on my journey. I went on till I came to the village. I could easily distinguish the chief's house, which was considerably larger than that of the other natives.

Some short distance from it was a small hut. It was built in a different fas.h.i.+on to that of the natives, and not so neatly put together. On one side was a garden, apparently lately formed, and carefully cultivated. It struck me at once that it must be the work of an Englishman. I concealed myself, as before, so that I could watch the proceedings of the inhabitants. After a time, I saw a woman, with a basket in her hand, approach the hut: she looked cautiously round, to ascertain, apparently, that no one was watching her, and then went in.

She was old, and far from comely, but, even at the distance she was from me, her countenance looked kind and gentle. She soon came out again, looking about as before, and hurrying away. I observed that her basket was empty. This convinced me that she had been to take provisions to the inmate of the hut, whoever he might be. I determined to ascertain this.

"May I come in," I asked, in the native language.

"Who's there?" was the reply, in English.

I knew the voice; it was d.i.c.k's.

He lay on a bed formed of dry gra.s.s and mats; I hurried up to him.

"I have found you at last, my dear, dear d.i.c.k!" I exclaimed.

"Charley, is it you, yourself? Then you are not dead," he cried out.

"I was told you were, and it well-nigh broke my heart. I shall get well now though. Where have you been? what have you been about?"

I soon told him, and how I had managed to elude my captors. He expressed his delight that I had not been ill-treated, as he had been.

"That old chief is a regular tyrant; he made me work for him till I could work no longer, and then would have let me die of starvation, if a good woman had not, at the risk of her life, brought me food. Bless them! they are all alike, black and white, when a fellow is in trouble, however bad they may be in other respects. Things were not so bad at first. Tui, who lives not far off, came over with Mat Davis, and helped me to put up this hut; or otherwise, as far as my old master was concerned, I should have had to sleep out of doors. He, however, would not let them come again, and I have had to look out for myself. The only pleasant thing that has happened to me was seeing Toobo Cava go off to the war, but he will be back again soon, I fear, and then the hard work will begin once more. But you must not stay here, Charley; I don't know what he would do if he caught you, though it will be a sore grief to me to have you separated from me."

I told d.i.c.k that I was determined at all hazards to stay with him.

"We will argue the point, Charley," said d.i.c.k.

He at last allowed me to remain till the following day. He had been so well supplied with food, that he was able to give me as much as I required. I spent half the night sitting up talking to him, and had the satisfaction of seeing that my visit was doing him good, his complaint being more the result of anxiety and ill-treatment than anything else.

"I scarcely know what to advise you to do, Charley," he said. "If you are caught here, you may be hardly dealt with, and yet I don't like to tell you to leave me; though, as you say the people you have been living with have treated you well, it will be best for you to make your way back to them."

"Come what will, I am not going to run away and leave you while you are sick and helpless," I answered. "G.o.d will take care of me if I ask Him; you have often told me that, and so I will say my prayers and go to sleep."

I did so, and coiled myself away on a heap of gra.s.s by d.i.c.k's side.

The next morning we were awoken by hearing a great noise in the village.

We found that we had both overslept ourselves. d.i.c.k went to the door of the hut, to ascertain the cause of the hubbub, telling me to keep concealed under the mats. After some time he came back.

"I guessed how it is," he said; "the fighting men have returned from the war, but, as far as I can discover, the old chief is not among them. He has, I suspect, been knocked on the head, and serve him right too. They are mourning for him, it seems, and it will be as well to keep out of their way, lest they take it into their heads to sacrifice us to his ghost, as I know is the fas.h.i.+on among these savages."

d.i.c.k spoke quite coolly, but our danger was great. He again told me to keep snug under the mats, and I saw him walking up and down the hut, evidently very unhappy. "I don't care for myself," I heard him say.

"Poor dear Charley, I wish that he was out of the sc.r.a.pe. Well, well; we have been saved before, and we may be saved again. It's a great thing to know that G.o.d looks after us poor fellows better than we can look after ourselves." While he was speaking, the noise increased.

Never did I hear such savage shrieks, cries, and howls.

"The people are cutting themselves with knives, and flints, and spear-heads, to show their grief for their dead chief," observed d.i.c.k, after he had taken another look outside the hut. He sat down, and seemed considering what he should do. After some time, I heard a footstep approaching the hut, and the old woman I had before seen entered.

She looked very anxious, and told d.i.c.k he must get out of the way, and hide himself for some days, when he would be safe. d.i.c.k thanked her warmly.

"You have been kind to me, and you will be kind, I know, to my son; and if you will hide us away together I shall be happy."

d.i.c.k then told me to come forward. The old woman looked very much surprised at seeing me, and on hearing that I had been taken care of by Motakee, advised me to go back at once to him, and to take d.i.c.k along with me. There was no time to be lost. Having ascertained that the coast was clear, she told us to hurry off into the wood, and to make our way as fast as we could to Motakee's village, promising, if she could, to put her people on a wrong scent, should they think of pursuing us.

We did as she had advised. We had not, however, got far into the wood, when, as we were making our way along the hillside, as I looked back through an opening in the trees, I saw a number of people advancing towards the hut, shrieking, and shouting, and flouris.h.i.+ng their weapons.

There could be little doubt that their intention was to get hold of d.i.c.k. We hurried on, and did not stop till we were far away beyond the sound of their voices.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

d.i.c.k AND CHARLEY REUNITED.

The natives in the villages were so busy celebrating their victory, or mourning for their slain warriors, that d.i.c.k and I escaped observation and reached the spot where I had left my stilts.

"Now, d.i.c.k," said I, mounting on them, "come along; you shall hide near the village, and I will go boldly into it, as if I had been taking only a longer walk than usual. Then, as Motakee will be glad to see me back, I will tell him that the other old chief, Toobo Cava, is dead, and you ought to be set at liberty, and ask him to protect you. If he says he cannot, you must make your escape, and I'll follow; but if he says yes, we will live together happily till we can get away from this savage country."

d.i.c.k agreed to my plan. As we got near the village, I left him, hid away in the wood, and stalked forward on my stilts.

I saw Motakee haranguing the people, and recounting his exploits, so I at once advanced and saluted him, as if I had no reason to be ashamed of anything I had done. He did not look angry, but told me he was happy to see me. The boys shouted, and asked where I had been.

"I told you I should beat you," I answered; "and I took a somewhat longer run than any of you, I've a notion. When shall you be ready for another race?"

"We will beat you next time, though," they cried out, not putting any further inconvenient questions to me.

My appearance had somewhat disturbed the usual formality of the meeting, and the chief, having commanded silence, went on with his speech.

As soon as it was over, I descended from my stilts, and begged him to grant the pet.i.tion I had to make. I praised d.i.c.k as he had deserved, and told the chief all he had done for me; and, to my great joy, he replied that he would protect him, as, his owner being dead, no one else could claim his services.

On this I hurried off and brought in d.i.c.k, who was well received by the people. I afterwards told the chief the trick I had played, at which he was very much amused.

d.i.c.k at once set to work to make himself useful, and soon gained Motakee's confidence, so that he allowed us both to roam about as we chose.

The victory gained by our friends over the Typees, the tribe they had attacked, had put them in excellent humour. They had burned down their villages, destroyed their fruit trees, and carried off their canoes.

The slaughter had been, we were sorry to hear, considerable on both sides; for the Typees possessed several strong forts, formed of large stones and huge pieces of timber. These had been taken by a.s.sault, when all within had been put to the sword. d.i.c.k said he was surprised that savages could construct such strong works, for it would have proved a tough job, even to English sailors, to take some of those he had seen.

Months and months pa.s.sed by, and yet no vessel had come near the island, in which we might make our escape. The people had got, we suspected, a bad name; for the _Dolphin_ was not the only vessel, we found, they had cut off, while they had attempted unsuccessfully to capture several others. Our only hope was that a man-of-war would come in, which might carry us off by force, should the natives refuse to give us up.

The chief, who had adopted me as his son, seemed determined not to let me go, and I found that I was narrowly watched wherever I wandered.

d.i.c.k managed, at length, to communicate with some of the other men; though one or two were content to remain among the natives, having married and adopted their customs: the rest expressed an earnest wish to escape.

A tremendous storm having occurred, when it seemed as if the whole island would be carried away by the fury of the waves, the wreck of the _Dolphin_ was cast up on the beach.

d.i.c.k told me that Mat Davis had long been thinking of building a vessel, and that the carpenter's tools having been among the first things landed, he hoped, if he could get hold of them, to be able to build a craft which would convey us to the coast of South America. He had persuaded the chiefs, that if they could have such a vessel as he described, they might not only overpower all the neighbouring tribes, but sail in quest of foreign lands, which they might conquer. The chiefs listened eagerly to this proposal, and promised to a.s.sist him in carrying out his undertaking.

Mat Davis, who was a clever fellow, was the chief architect. a.s.sisted by the armourer, a forge was put up for the ironwork, and he set the natives to cut down trees and hew out timbers and planks. Others were employed in rope-making and in manufacturing fine matting for the sails, as all the _Dolphin's_ canvas had been burnt. d.i.c.k and I were allowed to lend a hand, but as, with the exception of Davis and Clode, all were unskilled, the work proceeded but slowly. The hopes of escaping encouraged the Englishmen, and the thoughts of the victories they were to win induced the natives to labour on.

d.i.c.k had followed his own plan of notching the days on sticks, several of which he had tied up in a bundle. By his calculation we had been two years among the savages, and I could now speak their language perfectly well. Our clothes were worn out, and I had to dress like the natives.

The chief told me, when I grew older, that I must be tattooed, an operation for which I had no fancy, and I hoped to make my escape before he should insist on my undergoing it.