CHAPTER XIV--THE HOME OF THE CANNIBAL--BENEE'S ROMANCE
Like the bats and the night-birds Benee now crept into concealment.
He sought once more the shelter of a tall pine-tree of the sprucespecies. Here he could be safe and here he could sleep.
But after a hearty meal he took the precaution to lash himself to thestem, high, high up.
His descent from the last tree had been accomplished with safetycertainly, but it was of rather a peculiar nature, and Benee had nodesire to risk his neck again.
The wind softly sighed in the branches.
A bird of the thrush species alighted about a yard above him, and burstinto shrill sweet melody to welcome the rising sun.
With half-closed eyes Benee could see from under the branches adeep-orange horizon, fading into pure sea-green zenithwards, then todeepest purple and blue where rested the crimson clouds.
And now there was a glare of brighter and more silvery light, and thered streaks were turned into wreaths of snow.
The sun was up, and Benee slept. But he carried that sweet bird's songinto dreamland.
----
About three days after this Benee was rejoiced to find himself in a newland, but it was a land he knew well--too well.
Though very high above the sea-level it was in reality a
"Land of the mountain and the flood".
Hills on hills rose on all sides of him. There were straths or valleysof such exceeding beauty that they gladdened the eye to behold. Thegrass grew green here by the banks of many a brown roaring stream, andhere, too, cattle roamed wild and free, knee-deep in flowery verdure,and many a beautiful guanaco and herds of llamas everywhere. Thestreams that meandered through these highland straths were sometimesvery tortuous, but perhaps a mile distant they would seem to lose allcontrol of themselves and go madly rushing over their pebbly beds, tillthey dashed over high cliffs at last, forming splendid cascades thatfell into deep, dark, agitated pools, the mist that rose above formingrainbows which were never absent when the sun shone.
And the hillsides that bounded these valleys were clad in Alpineverdure, with Alpine trees and flowers, strangely intermingled withbeautiful heaths, and in the open glades with gorgeous geraniums, andmany a lovely flower never seen even in greenhouses in our "tamedomestic England".
These were valleys, but there were glens and narrow gorges also, wheredark beetling rocks frowned over the brown waters of streams that rushedfiercely onwards round rocks and boulders, against which they lashedthemselves into foam.
On these rocks strange fantastic trees clung, sometimes attached but bythe rootlets, sometimes with their heads hanging almost sheer downwards;trees that the next storm of wind would hurl, with crash and roar, intothe water far beneath.
Yet such rivers or big burns were the home _par excellence_ of fish ofthe salmon tribe, and gazing below you might see here and there somehuge otter, warily watching to spring on his finny prey.
Nor were the otters alone on the _qui vive_, for, strange as it mayseem, even pumas and tiger-cats often made a sullen dive into dark-brownpools, and emerged bearing on high some lordly red-bellied fish. Withthis they would "speel" the flowery, ferny rocks, and dart silently awayinto the depths of the forest.
And this wild and beautiful country, at present inhabited by as wild arace of Indians as ever twanged the bow, but bound at no very distantdate to come under the influence of Christianity and civilization, wasBenee's real home. 'Twas here he roamed when a boy, for he had been awanderer all his life, a nomad, and an inhabitant of the woods andwilds.
Not a scene was unfamiliar to him. He could name every mountain andhill he gazed upon in his own strangely musical Indian tongue. Everybird, every creature that crept, or glided, or walked, all were his oldfriends; yes, and every tree and every flower, from the splendidparasitic plants that wound around the trees wherever the sun shone thebrightest, and draped them in such a wealth of beauty as would have madeall the richness and gaudiness of white kings and queens seem but acaricature.
There was something of romance even in Benee. As he stood with foldedarms on the brink of a cliff, and gazed downward into a charming glen,something very like tears stood in his eyes.
He loved his country. It was his own, his native land. But the savagestherein he had ceased to love. Because when but a boy--ah, how well heremembered that day,--he was sent one day by his father and mother togather the berries of a deadly kind of thorn-bush, with the juice ofwhich the flints in the points of the arrows were poisoned. Coming backto his parents' hut in the evening, as happy as boys only can be, hefound the place in flames, and saw his father, mother, and a sister whomhe loved, being hurried away by the savages, because the queen had needof them. The lot of death had fallen on them. Their flesh was wanted tomake part of a great feast her majesty was about to give to aneighbouring potentate. Benee, who had ever been used to hunt for hisfood as a boy, or fish in the lakes and the brown roaring streams, thathe and his parents might live, had always abhorred human sacrifice andhuman flesh. The latter he had seldom been prevailed upon even totaste.
So from that terrible day he resolved to be a wanderer, and heregistered a vow--if I may speak so concerning the thoughts of a poorboy-Indian--to take revenge when he became a man on this very tribe thathad brought such grief and woe on him and his.
Benee was still a young man, but little over two-and-twenty, and as hestood there thoughts came into his mind about a little sweetheart he hadwhen a boy.
Wee Weenah was she called; only a child of six when he was good sixteen.But in all his adventures, in forest or by the streams, Weenah used toaccompany him. They used to be away together all day long, and lived onthe nuts and the wild fruit that grew everywhere so plentifully aboutthem, on trees, on bushes, or on the flowery banks.
Where was Weenah now? Dead, perhaps, or taken away to the queen'sblood-stained court. As a child Weenah was very beautiful, for many ofthese Indians are very far indeed from being repulsive.
And Benee used to delight to dress his tiny lady-love in feathers of thewild birds, crimson and green and blue, and weave her rude garlands ofthe gaudiest flowers, to hang around her neck, or entwine in her longdark hair.
He had gone to see Weenah--though he was then in grief and tears--afterhe had left his father's burnt shealing. He had told her that he wasgoing away far to the north, that he was to become a hunter of thewilds, that he might even visit the homes of the white men, but thatsome day he would return and Weenah should be his wife.
So they had parted thus, in childish grief and tears, and he had neverseen her since.
He might see her nevermore.
While musing thus to himself, he stretched his weary limbs and body onthe sweet-scented mossy cliff-top.
It was day certainly, but was he not now at home, in his own, his nativeland?
He seemed to be afraid of nothing, therefore, and so--he fell asleep.
The bank on which he slept adjoined a darkling forest.
A forest of strange dark pines, with red-brown stems, which, owing tothe absence of all undergrowth save heather and moss and fern, lookedlike the pillars of some vast cavern.
But there was bird music in this forest, and Benee had gone to sleepwith the flute-like and mellow notes of the soo-soo falling on his ear.
The soo-soo's song had accompanied him to the land of forgetfulness, andwas mingling even now with his dreams--happy dreams of long ago.
But list! Was that really the song of the bronze-necked soo-soo?
He was half-awake now, but apparently dreaming still.
He thought he was dreaming at all events, and would not have opened hiseyes and so dispelled the dream for all the world.
It was a sweet girlish voice that seemed to be singing--singing abouthim, about Benee the wanderer in sylvan wilds; the man who for longyears had been alone because he loved being alone, whose hand--until hereached the white man's home--had been against everyone, a
nd againstevery beast as well.
And the song was a kind of sweet little ballad, which I should try invain to translate.
But Benee opened his eyes at last, and his astonishment knew no boundsas he saw, kneeling by his mossy couch, the self-same Weenah that he hadbeen thinking and dreaming about.
Though still a girl in years, being but thirteen, she seemed a woman inall her sympathies.
Beautiful? Yes; scarcely changed as to face from the child of six heused to roam in the woods with in the long, long ago. Her dark hairhung to her waist and farther in two broad plaits. Her black eyesbrimmed over with joy, and there was a flush of excitement on hersun-kissed cheeks.
"Weenah! Oh, Weenah! Can it be you?" he exclaimed in the Indiantongue.
"It is your own little child-love, your Weenah; and ah! how I havelonged for you, and searched for you far and near. See, I am clad inthe skins of the puma and the otter; I have killed the jaguar, too, andI have been far north and fought with terrible men. They fell before thepoison of my arrows. They tried to catch me; but fleet of foot isWeenah, and they never can see me when I fly. In trees I have slept, onthe open heather, in caves of rocks, and in jungle. But never, nevercould I find my Benee. Ah! life of mine, you will never go and leave usagain.
"Yes," she added, "Mother and Father live, and are well. Our home havewe enlarged. 'Tis big now, and there is room in it for Benee.
"Come; come--shall we go? But what strange, strange war-weapons youcarry. Ah! they are the fire-spears of the white man."
"Yes, Weenah mine! and deadly are they as the lightning's bolt thatflashes downward from the storm-sky and lays dead the llama and the ox.
"See yonder eagle, Weenah? Benee's aim is unerring; his hand is thehand of the rock, his eye the eye of the kron-dah" (a kind of hawk),"yet his touch on the trigger light as the moss-flax. Behold!"
He raised the rifle as he spoke, and without even appearing to take aimhe fired.
Next moment the bird of Jove turned a somersault. It was a death-spasm.Down, down he fell earthwards, his breast-feathers following moreslowly, like a shower of snow sparkling in the sunshine.
Weenah was almost paralysed with terror, but Benee took her gently inhis arms, and, kissing her brow and bonnie raven hair, soothed her andstilled her alarms.
Hand in hand now through the forest, as in the days of yore! Bothalmost too happy to speak, Benee and his little Indian maiden! Hand inhand over the plain, through the crimson heath and the heather, heedingnothing, seeing nothing, knowing nothing save their own great happiness!Hand in hand until they stood beside Weenah's mother's cottage; and herparents soon ran out to welcome and to bless them!
Theirs was no ordinary hut, for the father had been far to the east andhad dwelt among white men on the banks of the rapid-rolling Madeira.
When he had returned, slaves had come with him--young men whom he hadbought, for the aborigines barter their children for cloth or schnapps.And these slaves brought with them tools of the white men--axes, saws,adzes, hammers, spades, and shovels.
Then Shooks-gee (swift of foot) had cut himself timber from the forest,and, aided by his slaves, had set to work; and lo! in three moons thiscottage by the wood arose, and the queen of the cannibals herself hadnone better.
But Benee was welcomed and food set before him, milk of the llama,corn-cakes, and eggs of the heron and treel-ba (a kind of plover).
Then warm drinks of coca (not cocoa) were given him, and the childWeenah's eyes were never turned away while he ate and drank.
He smoked then, the girl sitting close by him on the bench and watchingthe strange, curling rings of reek rolling upwards towards the black andglittering rafters.
"But," said Weenah's mother, "poor Benee has walked far and is muchtired. Would not Benee like to cover his feet?"
"Yes, our mother, Benee would sleep."
"And I will watch and sing," said Weenah.
"Sing the song of the forest," murmured Benee.
Then Weenah sang low beside him while Benee slept.