In Far Bolivia Part 23

He hurried on quickly enough now, and as he did so, a whole herd of huge monkeys, apparently scared out of their senses, rushed madly past him.

Close to the jungle he found one of his revolvers. One chamber had been emptied, and not far off lay a baboon in the agonies of death. Benee, who, savage though he was, evidently felt for the creature, mercifully expended another shot on it, and placed it beyond the reach of woe.

He was glad to find his rifle and other revolver intact, but the cartridges from his belt were scattered about in all directions, and strenuous efforts had evidently been made to tear open his leathern ammunition-box.

It took some time to make everything straight again.

Now down went the sun, and very soon, after a short twilight, out came the stars once more.

Benee now resumed his journey as straight as he could across the plateau.

He had not travelled many hours, however, before clouds began to bank up and obscure the sky, and it became very dark.

A storm was brewing, and, ushered in by low muttering thunder in the far distance, it soon came on in earnest.

As the big drops of rain began to fall, s.h.i.+ning in the flashes of the lightning like a shower of molten gold, Benee sought the shelter of a rocky cave which was near to him.

He laid him down on the rough dry gra.s.s to wait until the storm should clear away.

He felt drowsy, however. Perhaps the unusually good fare he had partaken of in the village had something to do with this; but of late his hards.h.i.+ps had been very great indeed, so it is no wonder that now exhausted Nature claimed repose.

The last thing he was conscious of was a long, low, mournful cry that seemed to come from the far interior of the cave.

It was broad daylight when he again awoke, and such an awakening!

Great snowy-breasted owls sat blinking at the light, but all the rocks around, or the shelves thereof, were alive with coiling, wriggling snakes of huge size.

One had twined round his leg, and he knew that if he but moved a muscle, it would send its terrible fangs deep into his flesh, and his journey would be at an end.

Gradually, however, the awful creature unwound itself and wriggled away.

The sight of this snake-haunted cave was too much for even Benee's nerves, and he sprang up and speedily dashed, all intact, into the open air.

Notwithstanding his extraordinary adventure in the cave of serpents, the wandering Indian felt in fine form that day.

The air was now much cooler after the storm, all the more so, no doubt, that Benee was now travelling on a high table-land which stretched southwards and west in one long, dreary expanse till bounded on the horizon by ridges of lofty serrated mountains, in the hollow of which, high in air, patches of snow rested, and probably had so rested for millions of years.

The sky was very bright. The trees at this elevation, as well as the fruit, the flowers, and stunted shrubs, were just such as one finds at the Cape of Good Hope and other semi-tropical regions. The ground on which he walked or trotted along was a ma.s.s of beauty and perfume, rich pink or crimson heaths, heather and geraniums everywhere, with patches of pine-wood having little or no undergrowth. Many rare and beautiful birds lilted and sang their songs of love on every side, strange larks were high in air, some lighting every now and then on the ground, the music of their voices drawn out as they glided downwards into one long and beautiful cadence.

There seemed to be a sadness in these last notes, as if the birds would fain have warbled for ever and for aye at heaven's high gate, though duty drew them back to this dull earth of ours.

But dangers to these feathered wildlings hovered even in the sunlit sky, and sometimes turned the songs of those speckled-breasted laverocks into wails of despair.

Behold yonder hawk silently darting from the pine-wood! High, high he darts into the air; he has positioned his quarry, and downwards now he swoops like Indian arrow from a bow, and the lark's bright and happy song is hushed for ever. His beautiful mate sitting on her cosy nest with its five brown eggs looks up astonished and frightened. Down fall a few drops of red blood, as if the sky had wept them. Down flutter a few feathers, and her dream of happiness is a thing of the past.

And that poor widowed lark will forsake her eggs now, and wander through the heath and the scrub till she dies.

Benee had no adventures to-day, but, seeing far off a band of travellers, he hid himself in the afternoon. For our Indian wanted no company.

He watched them as they came rapidly on towards his hiding-place, but they struck off to the east long before reaching it, and made for the plains and village far below.

Then Benee had his dinner and slept soundly enough till moonrise, for bracing and clear was heaven's ozonic breath in these almost Alpine regions.

Only a scimitar of a moon. Not more than three days old was it, yet somehow it gave hope and heart to the lonely traveller. He remembered when a boy he had been taught to look upon the moon as a good angel, but Christianity had banished superst.i.tion, and he was indeed a new man.

After once more refres.h.i.+ng himself, he started on his night march, hoping to put forty miles behind him ere the sun rose.

Low lay the white haze over the woods a sheer seven thousand feet beneath him.

It looked like snow-drifts on the darkling green.

Yet here and there, near to places where the river glistened in the young moon's rays were bunches of lights, and Benee knew he was not far from towns and civilization. Much too near to be agreeable.

He knew, however, that a few days more of his long weary march would bring him far away from these to regions unknown to the pale-face, to a land on which Christian feet had never trodden, a loveless land, a country that reeked with murder, a country that seemed unblessed by heaven, where all was moral darkness, as if indeed it were ruled by demons and fiends, who rejoiced only in the spilling of blood.

But, nevertheless, it was Benee's own land, and he could smile while he gazed upwards at the now descending moon.

Benee never felt stronger or happier than he did this evening, and he sang a strange wild song to himself, as he journeyed onwards, a kind of chant to which he kept step.

A huge snake, black as a winter's night, uncoiled itself, hissed, and darted into the heath to hide. Benee heeded it not. A wild beast of some sort sprang past him with furious growl. Benee never even raised his rifle. And when he came to the banks of a reed-girt lake, and saw his chance of shooting a huge cayman, he cared not to draw a bead thereon. He just went on with his chant and on with his walk. Benee was truly happy and hopeful for once in his life.

And amid such scenery, beneath such a galaxy of resplendent stars, who could have been aught else?

"How beautiful is night!

A dewy freshness fills the silent air; No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain, Breaks the serene of heaven.

In glory yonder moon divine Rolls through the dark-blue depths, Beneath her steely ray The desert circle spreads, Like the round ocean girdled with the sky.

How beautiful the night!"

But almost before he could have believed it possible, so quickly do health and happiness cause time to fly, a long line of crimson cloud, high in the east, betokened the return of another day.

The night-owls and the great flitting vampire bats saw it and retreated to darksome caves. There was heard no longer far over the plain the melancholy howl of the tiger-cat or snarl of puma or jaguar.

Day was coming!

Day was come!

CHAPTER XIV--THE HOME OF THE CANNIBAL--BENEE'S ROMANCE

Like the bats and the night-birds Benee now crept into concealment.