Treasure of Kings Part 9

For a little time I could scarce credit it that he had left me to my fate. But when a full hour had pa.s.sed, and I realised that it was possible that the wild man might not return, my sense of loneliness became even more oppressive than before, and to tell the truth I cried.

I am, in the evening of a long, adventurous life, at times of a reflective disposition, and I have considered often the strange complexities of human nature, for I have seen many men and places in my time. When I first beheld the savage, I was alarmed beyond measure that he would put the life out of me by means of his murderous-looking blow-pipe. I would, at that moment, gladly have had him on the other side of the world. And when he left me so suddenly, without sign or signal of either hostility or friends.h.i.+p, I felt no less dismayed.

I was so utterly alone in that great silence, in the shadow of those mute, majestic trees. Not even the wild inhabitants of that inhospitable region would come and have done with it and kill me.

And thus, indeed, I burst into tears, and cried as children cry. I think sheer weakness and the pain that I had suffered had much to do with it; and in any case it all seemed to me so pitiful and hopeless, for I was over-young to undergo such cruel privations.

I slept again until the evening, when I was awakened of a sudden by a strange noise like the chuckling of a hen.

I opened my eyes and looked upon the same wild man who had regarded me before. But this time he had brought three others with him--all four as like to one another as so many beans. And there they stood, in a row, immediately before me, one of them--as I have just expressed it--chuckling like a hen.

I could not for the life of me make out whether or not he was laughing.

He might have been amused, amazed, or angered. There was no expression upon his face. The noise seemed to come from somewhere out of his throat. When I opened my eyes and looked at him, he ceased at once; so I am inclined to think he had behaved thus in order to awaken me.

I judged that the man I had seen earlier in the day had stood at a distance of about twenty paces from me; but now, made bolder by companions.h.i.+p, he had approached to within about twelve yards from the palm-tree to which I was bound. They were all armed with blowpipes, but they made no hostile movement; they just stood staring at me with their mad eyes, speechless and looking more afraid than I was.

All on a sudden, I was impelled to cry out. I shouted as a dog yelps when trodden on, asleep upon a mat.

"Give me food!" I cried. "Have pity on me! I am starving!"

And at that they vanished, all the four of them. They scattered like birds, swiftly and in silence. At one moment, I beheld them; at the next, they were nowhere: they might have been spirited away.

They did not return that night, which was the most miserable of all.

Hunger was now gnawing at my vitals. There was a foul taste in my mouth, and I felt so weak and lifeless that it was as if the slow beating of my heart shook my whole frame, making it hard for me to breathe. Also, I was again consumed by a raging thirst; but the worst of the whole matter was the seeming hopelessness of my situation; for now I verity believed that my end was drawing near.

Though often our endurance is strained to the utmost, and there are times when we are weighed down by grief and trouble, I know that the good G.o.d is merciful, that it is well to bear the ills we have so bravely as we may, in the firm conviction that faith and a stout heart to hope will conquer in the end.

The sun rose in that lone place upon my misery; and a little after, came the wild men again; and this time they were nine in number, for I counted them as they stepped in single file forth from the darkness of the woods.

They stood gazing at me as before; and now I was wise enough to hold my peace, though by then--if the truth be told--there was little strength within me; for, even as I looked at them, my eyelids dropped and my head nodded on my shoulders like that of a drunken man.

They came closer than ever, to within an arm's length of me, and one timidly extended an arm and touched me, and then drew back quickly as if he had burned his fingers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THEY CAME CLOSER THAN EVER, TO WITHIN AN ARM'S LENGTH OF ME."]

I saw now that I had nothing to fear from them, that it was a keen struggle in their untutored minds as to whether fear or curiosity should win. I did my best to smile.

It was a senseless, mirthless smile, forced upon lips that were dry and burning and eyes grown dim throughout long hours of watching and despair; and yet--by the grace of Providence--it achieved its simple purpose.

For, forthwith, like a tribe of monkeys, they set to talking among themselves; and never had I heard such gibberish. They waved their hands, and made mouths and faces at one another that were astonis.h.i.+ng to behold. They touched me repeatedly, fingering my tattered clothes; and one tugged so violently at the sleeve of my s.h.i.+rt, which had been torn to ribbons upon the thorn trees in the forest, that he pulled it off almost from the shoulder--and then began the monkey-house again.

The very sight of my white skin, where it had not been tanned by the sun, set them jabbering for the s.p.a.ce of half-an-hour; and all that time I kept my silence, fearing that, if I should speak, they would disperse like Suss.e.x rooks at the sound of a farmer's gun.

I had read and heard of fierce savage black men, cannibals and the like, who regarded as their natural foes all of alien race, whom they put horribly to death. But these wild people were shy as antelopes; and though they might have been dangerous if handled wrongly, there was nothing to fear from them in the case of one placed at so great a disadvantage as myself.

I did nothing, then, but let them talk it out; and in the end, one of them took a bone knife with an edge like a saw, and cut through the fibre that bound me to the tree.

The others stood a little apart with their long blow-pipes, ready to riddle me with darts that I learned afterwards were poisoned. But no sooner were my hands freed than I pointed a finger straight down my opened mouth--a gesture which no one could mistake.

That set them talking once again; and when they were through with it, they took me with them back into the woods. In single file we wormed our way through the thick undergrowth of the forest, until at length we hit upon a footpath where they travelled fast and silently, these strange men of the woods. By then my strength was well-nigh exhausted.

Both in mind and in body I was come to the end of my powers of endurance; and I could go no farther.

And so, thereupon, they carried me, taking it in turns among themselves to bear my weight, for they were not strong men, but thin of limb and short in stature.

We journeyed until nightfall, and then camped in the forest. They gave me food--roasted manioc and crushed bananas; and then I fell asleep.

At daybreak--though in those dark places we saw little of the sun, and there was small difference betwixt night and morning--we were on the march again, and about midday struck the course of a considerable river which we followed up-stream for a distance of many miles. From this valley we turned into that of a tributary, and reached our destination in the evening.

This was a small village of rude huts, inhabited--as I afterwards discovered--by the various members of a single family. I had walked many miles upon the second day, and found myself on arrival at the village as greatly fatigued as ever, suffering also from a stiffness in the joints, due to the cramped position I had been forced to a.s.sume when bound by the liana to the tree. So that after my simple meal that night, I again fell asleep, and slept, I verily believe, as I never did before or since. For not only was I spent and weary, but I had now the comfortable a.s.surance that these wild people would do me no bodily harm.

For the time being, at least, I was safe.

CHAPTER XI--I BURN MY BOATS

You may scarce credit it when I say that I sojourned for many months with these savage, yet simple, people, and whilst with them received neither hurt nor insult, but pa.s.sed my days in pleasant idleness in the heart of those awe-inspiring woods.

I have since described their ways and mode of living to a famous ethnologist, one whose business it was to study the sundry races of mankind; and he believed that I fell into the hands of a tribe of Caishana aborigines, one of the most primitive races in the world.

Of this, however, no one can be sure; for I learned little of their language, and of that remembered nothing. Besides, there are so many hordes of Indians and tribes in the valleys of the Upper Amazon, and of so few of these is anything definite known, even at the present day, that a question of such slight importance, for the time being, may remain unanswered.

It makes, in any case, no difference to my story. I do but state mere facts, leaving footnotes, queries and the like to scientists and students. For five months--as I can guess--I lived with this woodland people; and it pleases me to remember that, in return for their hospitality and kindness, I was able to render them some service. I taught them novel methods of catching the fish that abounded in the rivers, creeks and pools; and I gave them gladly the few belongings that I had upon me, even a large jack-knife, which the chief of the village received with unfeigned delight--for they were so uncivilised as to be altogether unacquainted with the use of iron.

On my side, I learned many things from them, becoming, for instance, skilled in the use of the blow-pipe--a very deadly weapon, since it made no more noise than a pop-gun, and the arrows were invariably dipped in the juice of a poisonous herb that grew plentifully in the forest.

I was much interested in the manufacture of these instruments. Many were of bamboo, but those of the better quality of a hard wood, from which the inside had been patiently sc.r.a.ped by means of a bone knife, until the surface was smooth as gla.s.s. Needless to say, to accomplish this, the shaft had to be split into two pieces, which were afterwards joined together. It took a skilled worker weeks to make a blow-pipe. A good specimen was always coveted, and he who possessed one was regarded as a person of importance. I was instructed also in the craft of making the darts or arrows; and this was an accomplishment that, more than once in the course of the next few months, stood me in good stead.

Of the people themselves, of their strange ways and customs, I might write a full chapter, were I so disposed. I have no reason to think that they varied greatly from the majority of the wilder tribes in the great forests of the Amazon. They were small in stature, short-lived, and very dirty. They went well-nigh naked, and many suffered from a particularly loathsome disease, the character of which I know not, save that it left their skin marked black in patches. I feared, at first, that this would prove contagious; but, either my nationality or else my cleanly habits--for I bathed daily in the river--preserved my health and personal appearance.

In regard to my bathing, I can relate a strange thing. It being the rainy season, the river was alive with alligators. I was at first considerably frightened of these horrid reptiles; but I soon discovered that all that was necessary was to beat the surface of the water violently with a stick in order to scare them away. Of course, it was needful to exercise a certain amount of discretion, to keep one's eyes open whilst in the water; and I do not say that there was no danger present. But the fact remains that the South American cayman, one of the most formidable-looking brutes in all the world, is a cowardly beast and by no means greatly to be feared.

If that be so, I have another story to tell concerning the snakes of that dark region; for these I never ceased to fear, and not without good cause. My boots had long since ceased to be of the least practical use, and I had presented them, not without ceremony, to the head man of the village where I stayed. I was obliged therefore to go bare of foot in the forest, like the natives themselves, and day and night I walked in constant peril of my life.

For the underwoods were populous with serpents of all kinds, many of which were venomous. They were usually to be found in the vicinity of water, and amongst them I cannot fail to mention the gigantic tree and water snakes, in whose deadly coils a full-grown man might well be crushed to death. More than once I set eyes upon these great, evil, stealthy monsters; and on each occasion my very blood ran cold. But I have yet to write of what I have called--for no better reason than that there is melodrama in the name--the Glade of Silent Death, where in part the tragedy of all my narrative attains some sort of a crisis--a crisis, at least, for one of whom I dare say more than I would of any other: that he well deserved his fate.

Now, had I been content to eke out the remainder of my years with these untutored people, I should never have beheld the wonders of which I have to tell. I think I realised that if I continued to live as a savage, I must eventually myself become a savage, forgetting all I had ever learned of Christian civilisation. So I made up my mind to take my life into my hands, and set forth alone into the Wild.

Beyond doubt, my ulterior motive was to regain the confines of the civilised world, to hear again the voices of men speaking my own language--even the lazy Suss.e.x tw.a.n.g. But I was moved firstly not so much by a desire for liberty, as by the spirit of adventure. For I had caught something of the rover from John Bannister, as I sat listening to his stories to the soft accompaniment of the wash of the English sea; and I would find out all I could concerning the quest of Amos Baverstock and the secret of the Greater Treasure of the Incas, which the more civilised of the Indians called the "Big Fish."

And so I asked the savages to guide me back to the place where they had found me, within sight of Cahazaxa's ruined temple. Though I never knew but a score of words of their language, I was now proficient in the art of conversing by signs and the drawing of pictures in the mud, as I was also something of a woodsman and--though but a few months older than when I had been kidnapped--no longer a boy, but the beginnings of a man, who was like to have a hard part to play. Life in the wilderness had made me self-reliant. To the wanderer in savage places peril comes naturally enough, and death itself is all in the work of the day.

But it was one thing to ask, and another to receive. The chief man of the community--for it was hardly a village--was all against the project.

In the first place, he and the rest of them had grown to be fond of me--I was regarded as both a curiosity and something of an acquisition.

Secondly, I soon discovered that they stood in fear and trembling of the ruins, which they firmly believed to be haunted.

Though they might have restrained me by force, we argued the matter out, and it came to a question of will-power--or obstinacy, if the word suit you better--and I had my way.