CHAPTER XXV
IT did not lighten. Escobedo waited two days, then in the dark night,corrupting the watch, broke gaol for Pedro Gutierrez and with him andnine men quitted La Navidad. Beltran the cook it was who heard andprocured a great smoking torch, and sent out against them a voice likea bull of Bashan's. Arana sprang up, and the rest of us who slept. Theywere eleven men, armed and alert. There were shouts, blows, a clutchingand a throwing off, a detaining and repelling. In the east showed longghost fingers, the rain held away. They were at the gate when we ranupon them; they burst it open and went forth, leaving one of their ownnumber dead, and two of them who stayed with Arana desperately hurt. Wefollowed them down the path, through the wood, but they had the start.They did not go to Guarico, but they seized the boat of the _SantaMaria_ which the Admiral had left with us and went up the river. Weheard the dash of their oars, then the rain came down, with a weeping ofevery cloud.
The dead man they left behind was Fernando. I had seen Pedro in thegate, going forth.
Fourteen men, two of whom were ill and two wounded, stayed at LaNavidad. Arana said with passion, "Honest men and a garrison at one!There is some gain!"
That could not be denied. Gain here, but how about it yonder?
It was May. And now the rain fell in a great copious flood, huge-droppedand warm, and now it was restrained for a little, and there shone a sunconfused and fierce. Earth and forest dripped and streamed and smoked.We were Andalusians, but the heat drained us. But we held, we fourteenmen. Arana did well at La Navidad. We all did what we could to live liketrue not false Castilians, true not false Christians. And I name Beltranthe cook as hero and mighty encourager of hearts.
We went back and forth between La Navidad and Guarico, for though theAdmiral had left us a store of food we got from them fruit and maizeand cassava. They were all friendly again, for the fourteen withheldthemselves from excess. Nor did we quarrel among ourselves and show themEuropean weakness.
Guacanagari remained a big, easy, somewhat slothful, friendly barbarian,a child in much, but brave enough when roused and not without commonsense. He had an itch for marvels, loved to hear tales of our world thatfor all one could say remained to them witchcraft and cloudland, worldabove their world! What could they, who had no great beasts, make oftales of horsemen? What could their huts know of palace and tower andcathedral, their swimmers of stone bridges, their canoes of a thousandships greater far than the_ Santa Maria_ and the _Nina_? What couldGuarico know of Seville? In some slight wise they practiced barter,but huge markets and fairs to which traveled from all quarters and afarmerchants and buyers went with the tales of horsemen. And so with athousand things! We were the waving oak talking to the acorn.
But there were among this folk two or three ready for knowledge. Guarinwas a learning soul. He foregathered with the physician Juan Lepe, andmany a talk they had, like a master and pupil, in some corner of LaNavidad, or under a palm-thatched roof, or, when the rain held, by riveror sounding sea. He had mind and moral sense, though not the Europeanmind at best, nor the European moral sense at highest. But he was wellbegun. And he had beauty of form and countenance and an eager, deep eye.Juan Lepe loved him.
It was June. Guacanagari came to La Navidad, and his brown face was asserious as a tragedy. "Caonabo?" asked Diego de Arana.
A fortnight before this the cacique, at Arana's desire, had sent threeIndians in a canoe up the river, the object news if possible of that tenwho had departed in that direction. Now the Indians were back. Theyhad gone a long way until the high mountains were just before them, andthere they heard news from the last folk who might be called Guaricoand the first folk who might be called Maguana. The mighty strangers hadgone on up into the mountains and Caonabo had put them to death.
"To death!"
It appeared that they had seized women and had beaten men whom theythought had gold which they would not give. They were madmen, Escobedoand Gutierrez and all with them!
Guacanagari said that Caonabo had invited them to a feast. It was spreadin three houses, and they were divided so, and around each Spaniard wasput a ring of Indians. They were eating and drinking. Caonabo enteredthe first house, and his coming made the signal. Escobedo and PedroGutierrez were in this house. They raised a shout, "Undone, Spaniards!"But though they were heard in the other houses--these houses beingnothing more than booths--it was to no use. There followed struggle andmassacre; finally Gutierrez and Escobedo and eight men lay dead. Butcertain Indians were also killed and among them a son of Caonabo.
It was July. We began to long toward the Admiral's return. A man amongus went melancholy mad, watching the sea, threatening the rain when itcame down and hid the sea, and the Admiral might go by! At last he threwhimself into ocean and was drowned. Another man was bitten by a serpent,and we could not save him. We were twelve Spaniards in La Navidad. Werested friends with Guarico, though now they held us to be nothing morethan demigods. And indeed by now we were ragged!
Then, in a night, it came.
Guacanagari again appeared. It had reached him from up the river thatCaonabo was making pact with the cacique of Marien and that thetwo meant to proceed against us. Standing, he spoke at length andeloquently. If he rested our friend, it might end in his having forfoes Maguana and Marien. There had been long peace, and Guarico did notdesire war. Moreover, Caonabo said that it was idle to dread Caribsand let in the mighty strangers! He said that all pale men, afraid ofthemselves so that they covered themselves up, were filled with evil_zemes_ and were worse than a thousand Caribs! But Caonabo was amocker and a hard-of-heart! Different was Guacanagari. He told us howdifferent. It all ended in great hope that Caonabo would think better ofit.
We kept watch and ward. Yet we could not be utterly cooped within LaNavidad. Errands must be done, food be gathered. More than that, to seemto Guarico frightened, to cry that we must keep day and night behindwall with cannon trained, notwithstanding that Caonabo might be asleepin the mountains of Cibao, would be but to mine our own fame, we who,for all that had passed, still seemed to this folk mighty, each of usa host in himself! And as nothing came out of the forest, and no moremessengers of danger, they themselves had ceased to fear, being likechildren in this wise. And we, too, at last; for now it was late August,and the weather was better, and surely, surely, any day we might seea white point rise from blue ocean,--a white point and another andanother, like stars after long clouded night skies!
So we watched the sea. And also there was a man to watch the forest. Butwe did not conceive that the dragon would come forth in the daytime, northat he could come at any time without our hearing afar the dragging ofhis body and the whistling of his breath.
It was halfway between sunrise and noon. Five of us were in the village,seven at La Navidad. The five were there for melons and fruit andcassava and tobacco which we bought with beads and fishhooks and bits ofbright cloth. Three of the seven at La Navidad were out of gate, downat the river, washing their clothes. Diego Minas, the archer, on top ofwall, watched the forest. Walking below, Beltran the cook was singing inhis big voice a Moorish song that they made much of year before lastin Seville. I had a book of Messer Petrarca's poems. It had beenGutierrez's, who left it behind when he broke forth to the mountains.
Beltran's voice suddenly ceased. Diego the archer above him on wall hadcried down, "Hush, will you, a moment!" Diego de Arana came up. "What isit?"
"I thought," said the archer, "that I heard a strange shouting fromtoward village. Hark ye! There!"
We heard it, a confused sound. "Call in the men from the river!" Aranaordered.
Diego Minas sent his voice down the slope. The three below by the riveralso heard the commotion, distant as Guarico. They were standing up,their eyes turned that way. Just behind them hung the forest out ofwhich slid, dark and smooth, the narrow river.
Out of the forest came an arrow and struck to the heart Gabriel Baraona.Followed it a wild prolonged cry of many voices, peculiar and curdlingto the blood, and fifty--a hundred--a host of
naked men painted blackwith white and red and yellow markings. Guarico did not use bow andarrow, but a Carib cacique knew them, and had so many, and also lancesflint or bone-headed, and clubs with stones wedged in them and stoneknives. Gabriel Baraona fell, whether dead or not we could not tell.Juan Morcillo and Gonzalo Fernandez sent a scream for aid up to LaNavidad. Now they were hidden as some small thing by furious bees. Diegode Arana rushed for his sword. "Down and cut them out!"
Diego Minas fired the big lombard, but for fear of hurting our threemen sent wide the ball. We looked for terror always from the flame, thesmoke and great noise, and so there was terror here for a moment and abearing back in which Juan and Gonzalo got loose and made a littleway up path. But a barbarian was here who could not long be terrified.Caonabo sent half his horde against Guarico, but himself had come to LaNavidad. That painted army rallied and overtook the fleeing men.
Shouting, making his swung sword dazzle in light, Diego de Arana raceddown path, and Diego Minas and Beltran the cook and Juan Lepe withhim. Many a time since then, in this island, have I seen half a dozenChristians with their arms and the superstitious terror that surroundedthem put to flight twenty times their number. But this was early, andthe spirit of these naked men not broken, and Caonabo faced us. It washe himself who, when three or four had been wounded by Arana, suddenlyrushed upon the commandant. With his stone-headed club he struck thesword away, and he plunged his knife into Arana's breast. He died, abrave man who had done his best at La Navidad.
Juan Morcillo and Gonzalo Fernandez and Diego Minas were slain. I saw alifted club and swerved, but too late.
Blackness and neither care nor delight. Then, far off, a little beatingof surf on shore, very far and nothing to do with anything. Then a clueof pain that it seemed I must follow or that must follow me, and atfirst it was a little thin thread, but then a cable and all my care wasto thin it again. It passed into an ache and throb that filled my beinglike the rain clouds the sky. Then suddenly there were yet heavy cloudsbut the sky around and behind. I opened my eyes and sat up, but foundthat my arms were bound to my sides.
"We aren't dead, and that's some comfort, Doctor, as the cock said tothe other cock in the market pannier!" It was Beltran the cook whospoke and he was bound like me. Around us lay the five dead. A score ofIndians warded us, mighty strangers in bonds, and we heard the rest upat the fort where they were searching and pillaging.
Guarico, and the men there?
We found that out when at last they were done with La Navidad and theyand we were put on the march. We came to where had been Guarico, andtruly for long we had smelled the burning of it, as we had heard thecrying and shouting. It was all down, the frail houses. I made out inthe loud talking that followed the blending of Caonabo's bands what hadbeen done and not done. Guacanagari, wounded, was fled after fightinga while, he and his brother and the butio and all the people. But themighty strangers found in the village, were dead. They had run down tothe sea, but Caonabo's men had caught them, and after hard work killedthem. Juan Lepe and Beltran, passing, saw the five bodies.
I do not think that Caonabo had less than a thousand with him. He hadcome in force, and the whole as silent as a bat or moth. We were tolearn over and over again that "Indians" could do that, travel verysilently, creatures of the forest who took by surprise. Well, Guaricowas destroyed, and Guacanagari and Guarin fled, and in all Hispaniolawere only two Spaniards, and we saw no sail upon the sea, no sail atall!