CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
PEDRO BECOMES COMMUNICATIVE; MANUELA VOCAL; LAWRENCE PREPOSTEROUS;QUASHY AND TIGER VIOLENT--THE WHOLE ENDING IN A GRAND CATASTROPHE.
"Senhor Armstrong," said Pedro, the evening after that on which thecapture of turtles took place, "I have received some bad news--at leastunsatisfactory news--which will necessitate a change in our style oftravelling, and a more rapid progress towards our journey's end."
"I'm sorry for that," Lawrence answered, "for, to my mind, our style oftravelling is very agreeable, and the rate quite fast enough, especiallyfor one who has no definite purpose in view."
"That may be so, senhor," returned Pedro, with a grim smile, "but as _I_have something of a definite purpose in view, the case is different."
"True, Pedro,--true. I do not object to any change in your plans; Imerely comment on the very pleasant time we are having, and shall beready to act as you desire; so, you see, I am as I promised to be--anobedient follower. But where got you this news from? I have seen noone arrive in the camp since we came. What may the nature of the newsbe, if I may venture to ask of one who is so--so very reticent?"
The guide pondered some time before replying to these questions. Then,with the air of one who has made up his mind on an uncertain point,said--
"I had no intention of rousing your curiosity by needless secrecy. Ihave not very many or very profound secrets. Only, in a disturbedcountry it behoves a man to hold his tongue in regard to his affairs.But I feel that you are a friend, Senhor Armstrong, who may be trusted;not that I have much to trust to you,--and yet, my doings are so mixedup with the affairs of other people that to some extent I amtongue-tied. I may tell you, however, that I am a secret agent of thegovernment, to which I have volunteered my services solely because Ilove peace and hate war, and am desirous of doing all I can to promotethe first and abate the last. The idea may appear to you Quixotic,but--"
"Pardon me, Senhor Pedro," interrupted Lawrence, promptly. "I think youthe reverse of Quixotic. I honour you for your sentiments, andsympathise with you most heartily. Do I not remember that it iswritten, `Blessed are the peacemakers,' and also, `Scatter thou thepeople that delight in war?'"
"Yes, I have gathered from your conversation that such are yoursentiments, but do not misunderstand me. I am not of those who wouldhave peace at any price. I believe in the right of self-defence. Irecognise the right of oppressed nations to rise up and draw the swordin order to free themselves from tyrants; in short, I believe that thereare some things that are worse even than war; but while I concede somuch, I hold that most of the wars recorded in history have beenundertaken without just cause, many of them without any real or obviouscause at all, too many of them with a distinctly bad cause. Even in thepresent day, and among Christian nations, there is far too littletendency to appeal to arbitration, which is the only legitimate way for_reasonable_ men to settle any dispute or quarrel. Does your sympathygo with me thus far?"
Lawrence, with a glow of enthusiasm on his face, extended his hand, and,grasping that of his companion, shook it warmly.
"I go with you in every word, Pedro. You are a man after my own heart;and I say, God prosper you in your good work wherever you go!"
Manuela, who was standing near at the time, looked up at theenthusiastic youth quickly. Her knowledge of English must have beenimproving, despite the badness of her pronunciation, for she seemed tounderstand the conversation, and to regard Lawrence with profoundinterest.
The youth was so carried away with his feelings, however, that he didnot observe the girl's look or expression.
"That is well," Pedro said, with a pleased look, as he returned hisfriend's grasp; "but I fear you won't find many of our way of thinkingin this unhappy country. You are aware, no doubt, that it isfrequently--I might almost say every three or four years--disturbed byfactious quarrels which too often end in riot and bloodshed, thoughthese are not often on so large a scale as to be styled civil war.Well, there is a party of peace-lovers even here, who do their best tobring about a better state of things, and a more settled and powerfulgovernment. Some of the men of influence at Buenos Ayres, and some evenof the military men, are of this party. I am, as I have said, theirsecret agent--secret, because if I were to attempt the thing openly, oras a government agent, I should be treated with ridicule by some, or bemurdered perhaps by others, in either of which cases my influence wouldbe gone. Of course, as you have seen, I run considerable risk intravelling through the land on my mission, for I have been several timestaken for a spy, but I don't object to run risk, the cause being a goodone.
"As to the news, which I have received by mere chance from a passingIndian, it is another outbreak in the San Juan district which makes achange in the disposition of troops necessary; and as I have particularbusiness with one of the officers, I must change my route and make forBuenos Ayres as straight as possible. That is all the mystery about it;so you see, as I said, it is not very profound."
"It is very interesting, however," returned Lawrence, "and you maydepend on my falling in with your plans, whatever they are."
"Well, then," returned the guide, "the first part of my plan is simpleenough--merely to start off to-morrow by the first peep of day. Willyou go, therefore, and tell Quashy to get ready, while I have a talkwith Manuela?"
We do not intend to inflict on the reader the whole of the conversationthat took place in the Indian tongue between the little brown maiden andthe guide. A small portion of it will suffice.
"I repeat, Manuela," said the latter, in a remonstrative tone, "that youare not wise."
"My kind protector forgets," replied the girl, with a modest look, "thatI have never set up any claim to wisdom."
"But what will your father say?"
"I really cannot guess what he will say," she answered, with one of herprettiest little smiles.
"But you may be quite sure that the thing is impossible. Consider theimmense difference between you, and, forgive me, Manuela, but I think itis not fair."
"Now my protector forgets _himself_," returned the maiden, drawingherself up and bestowing a look on the guide which was quite worthy ofan Inca princess--supposing Lawrence to have been right in hisconjecture on that point!
"Well, well, please yourself, Manuela," returned Pedro, with a laugh, inwhich exasperation slightly mingled, "but do me the justice to tell yourfather when you meet that I fairly remonstrated with and warned you.After all, nothing would please me better,--if it should ever comeabout."
He turned on his heel and went off, with a mingling of expressions onhis handsome face, to look after the canoe and make preparations for anearly start in the morning.
Canoe travelling appears to be rather slow work while it is going on,even when descending the current of a river. Each point of land seemsto be reached and passed so gradually; every vista of the river seems soextensive, and the trees on shore drop so leisurely astern, that whenyou think of the hundreds of miles which lie in advance, you are apt tofeel as if the journey or voyage would never come to an end. But whenyou forget the present and reflect on the past, when you think how manyhundreds of miles now lie behind, although it seems but yesterday thatyou set out on the journey, then you realise the fact that the "power oflittles," of steady, daily unremitting perseverance, has had too littleweight with you in your estimates, and that, just as fast as yourstarting-point recedes from you, exactly so fast does your goalapproach, although those misleading factors, your feelings, may haveinduced you to think otherwise.
Five days after the occurrence of the events on what we may styleTurtle-beach, Lawrence found himself wondering at what appeared to bethe far-off-ness of the spot, considering the slowness of the hourlyprogress, yet at the same time wondering if they should _ever_ traversethe nine hundred or a thousand miles that yet intervened between him andBuenos Ayres.
To do Lawrence Armstrong justice, however, he was by no means impatient.He was quite satisfied that things should go as slowly as they pleased,for was h
e not travelling through the most interesting of countries, inwhich the flora and the fauna and the geological features furnishedabundant--ay, superabundant--food for the satisfaction of his scientificappetite, while his companions were of the pleasantest character?Pedro, since the opening up of his heart to him, had laid aside much--though not all--of his reserve, and shown himself to be a man ofextensive information and profound thought.
Spotted Tiger was a splendid specimen, physically and mentally, of thesons of the soil, in the contemplation of whom he could expend whateversmattering he possessed of ethnological science. Then Quashy--was notthat negro the very soul and embodiment of courage, fidelity, andgood-humour, the changes of whose April face alone might have furnishedrich material for the study of a physiognomist or a Rembrandt.
And as for Manuela--we cannot analyse his thoughts about her. It isprobable that he could not have expounded them himself. Take thefollowing sample of them, as overheard by us one day when he had strayedinto the wild woods alone, and was seated on the roots of a mighty tree,pencil in hand, attempting unsuccessfully to make a sketch.
"I do believe," he murmured, with a gesture of impatience--for he haddrawn a small convolvulus, hanging from a tree, with such disregard forthe rules of linear perspective that it was the proportionate size of anomnibus--"I do believe that that girl has come between me and my wits.Of course it is not love. That is quite out of the question. A whiteman _could_ not fall in love with a black woman."
Yes, he did the poor girl the injustice, in his perplexed indignationwith himself, to call her black, although it must have been obvious tothe most careless observer that she was only reddish-brown, or, to speakmore correctly, brownish-red.
"I can't understand it," he continued to murmur in that low, slow,absent far-away tone and manner characteristic of artists when at work."No doubt her nose is Grecian, and her mouth small, as well asexquisitely formed, her chin full and rounded, her teeth faultless, hereyes gorgeous, and her whole contour perfect, but--but--she's black--atleast," (correcting himself with a touch of compunction), "she's brown.No; I see what it is--it's--(well that's more like a balloon than awater-lily)--yes, it _must_ be that I am in love with her spirit.That's it! I've said so before, and--and--I say it again."
He drew back his head at this point, and looked critically--evensternly--at the sketch. There was room both for criticism andindignation, for the display, in so small a compass, of bad drawing,vile composition, ridiculous chiaro-oscuro, and impossible perspective,could only have been justified by the supposition that his intellect hadbeen warped through the heart, in consequence of an unheard ofperplexity connected therewith.
"Yes," he continued, resuming his work with the air of an invincibleman, "there is something distinctly and exasperatingly wrong here. I amin love with her spirit, and not with her person! Is it possible thatthe human race, descending from Adam and Eve, should have reached thenineteenth century without such a case ever having been heard of before,and that I--I should be the first wretched example--or--or victim! Itis like loving the jewel without caring for the cas--no, that's a badsimile, for one could throw away a casket and keep the jewel, whichcould not conveniently be done in this case. I wonder what it is thatmakes the rules of perspective so difficult, and the practice so im--"
His meditations were checked at this point by a sound so sweet that hisheart almost stood still, his pencil remained suspended over the sketch,and the half-formed word remained in the half-opened mouth. It was asif an angel had come to earth, and were warbling the airs of paradise.
Peeping through the bushes, Lawrence saw that it was Manuela! She wassauntering along pensively, humming as she went. He sat still, amazedand silent. From what cause we know not, but the Indian girl had notuntil that day opened her mouth in song. The youth's surprise wasincreased when she came near enough to let him hear that the words wereSpanish; but suddenly remembering that English girls sometimes learnedItalian songs by rote, like parrots, his surprise partly abated--whyshould not an Indian girl learn Spanish songs by rote?
Manuela passed close to the tree behind which our hero sat. Onobserving him she stopped, and blushed intensely red. Evidently she hadthought herself quite alone, and experienced the usual dislike ofhumanity to being caught in the act of singing to itself!
In a burst of great enthusiasm Lawrence sprang up, overturned hisdrawing materials, seized the girl's hand, and dropped it again as if ithad burnt him, as he exclaimed--
"I wish--oh! I _wish_, Manuela, that I were your _brother_!"
The lightning flash is said to be quick, and we suppose, relativelyspeaking, it is so, but we are quite sure that lightning cannot hold acandle to thought in this respect. Lawrence, as the reader hasdoubtless observed, was not a man of much more than averageintelligence, or action of mind, yet between the first "wish" and theword "brother," he had perceived and condemned the impropriety ofexhibiting strong feeling in thus grasping Manuela's hand; theunmanliness of doing or saying anything to her that had the remotestapproach to love-making while in circumstances where the poor girl couldnot get out of his way, however much she might wish to do so, and themeanness, not to say absurdity, of showing anything like a lover'saffection for a spirit which could only make itself known through themedium of a brown visage. Hence Lawrence, who was the soul of honourand gallantry, got out of the dilemma by suddenly conceiving andexpressing the above intense wish to be Manuela's brother!
It did not occur to him that the gratification of his wish might haveinvolved war-paint and feathers, a semi-nude body, a wild unletteredlife, and a predilection for raw meat and murder. No, rapid thoughthought is, it did not convey these ideas to his mind. His one desire--after the first unguarded "exclamation" and impulsive grasp of the hand,was to escape from his false position without committing himself, andwithout giving pain or annoyance to the unprotected girl. And hissuccess was in proportion to his boldness, for Manuela burst into ahearty laugh, and said--
"Why you wants be my brudder?"
"Brother, Manuela, not brudder," replied Lawrence, joining in the laugh,and much relieved in mind. "The word is spelt with t-h, not with twod's. The reason is that I should then have the right to order you tosit at my feet and sing me these pretty songs whenever I liked. And Ifear I should be a very tyrannical brother to you, for I would make yousing all day."
"What--is--t'rannical?" asked the girl, whose tendency to laugh wasevidently not yet quite subdued.
"Hallo! hi! Quashy!" came the guide's strong voice at that moment,ringing through the arches of the forest, and preventing theexplanation, that might have been, of "t'rannical."
But Quashy replied not. It was the end of the noontide siesta. WhileLawrence, as we have seen, had taken to sketching and Manuela tosinging, the negro had gone off on his own account, and Pedro was nowanxious to have his assistance in getting ready to start.
As Lawrence hurriedly collected his pencils the Indian girl stoodadmiring his work--poor ignorant thing! Just then there arose in theforest a sound which filled them both with mingled surprise and alarm.
It was a peculiar, dull sound, almost indescribable, but something likewhat one might expect to hear from a hundred spades or pickaxes workingtogether in the depths of the forest. After a minute or two it ceased,and profound silence reigned. Dead silence in critical circumstances iseven more alarming than definite noise, for then the imagination isallowed full play, and only those who have got the imaginationpowerfully developed know of what wild and terrifying vagaries it iscapable!
Lawrence and Manuela looked at each other. The former had often beforeadmired the gorgeous black orbs of the latter, but he had not till thenthought them to be so very large.
Suddenly the earth trembled under their feet; it seemed as if a volcanowere heaving underground. The memory of San Ambrosio rushed upon them,and they too trembled--at least the girl did. At the same time a shoutarose which seemed to them not unfamiliar. The noise increased tosomething like the galloping
of a distant squadron of cavalry.
"Let me lift you into this tree," said Lawrence, quickly.
Manuela did not object. He lifted her by the waist with his two largehands as if she had been a little child, and placed her on a branch thathappened to be just within his reach. Scarcely had he done so when ahost, a very army, of American wild-hogs, or peccaries, burst from thebushes like a tornado and bore down on them. They were so near thatthere was no time for Lawrence to climb up beside Manuela. He couldonly seize the branch with both hands and draw up his long legs. Theliving torrent passed under him in a few seconds, and thus--thanks tohis gymnastic training at school--he escaped being ripped up in alldirections by the creatures' tusks.
It was these same tusks digging round trees for the purpose of grubbingup roots that had produced the strange sounds, and it was the shouts ofQuashy and Tiger in pursuit that had awakened the echoes of the forest.
On the heels of the large animals came galloping and squealing a herd oflittle ones, and close upon these followed the two hunters just named--panting, war-whooping, and cheering. Several of the little pigs werespeared; some were even caught by the tail, and a goodly supply of meatwas obtained for at least that day and the next. But before noon ofthat next day an event of a very different and much more serious natureoccurred.
It was early morning at the time. They were traversing a wide sheet ofwater, both banks of which were high, richly-wooded, and all aglow withconvolvuli and other flowers, and innumerable rope-like creepers, thegraceful festoons and hanging tendrils of which gave inexpressiblesoftness to the scene. In the middle of the lake-like expanse werenumerous mud-flats, partly covered with tropical reeds and rushes ofgigantic size.
The course our voyagers had to pursue made it necessary to keep closeunder the right bank, which was unusually steep and high. They were allsilent, for the hour and the slumbering elements induced quiescence. Asevere thunderstorm accompanied by heavy rains had broken over thatdistrict two days before, and Lawrence observed that deep watercourseshad been ploughed among the trees and bushes in several places, butevery other trace of the elemental war had vanished, and the quiet ofearly morning seemed to him sweet beyond expression, inducing hisearnest spirit to wish that the mystery of sin had never been permitted,and that it were still possible for man to walk humbly with his God in aworld of peacefulness as real as that of inanimate nature around him.
When the sun arose, a legion of living creatures came out from wood andswamp and reedy isle to welcome him. Flamingoes, otters, herons whiteand grey, and even jaguars, then began to set about their daily work offishing for breakfast. Rugged alligators, like animated trunks offallen trees, crawled in slimy beds or ploughed up the sands of theshore in deep furrows, while birds of gorgeous plumage and graceful--sometimes clumsy--form audibly, if not always visibly, united to chanttheir morning hymn.
Such were the sights on which our travellers' eyes rested, with a sortof quiet delight, when Pedro broke the silence in a low voice.
"You'd better keep a little farther out into the stream," he said toTiger.
The Indian silently obeyed.
It was well that he did so promptly, for, in less than a minute, andwithout the slightest premonition, the immense bank above them slid witha terrific rumbling noise into the river. The enormous mass of sand andvegetable detritus thus detached could not have been much, if at all,less than half a mile in extent. It came surging and hurling down--trees and roots and rocks and mud intermingling in a chaos of grandconfusion, the great cable-like creepers twining like snakes in agony,and snapping as if they were mere strands of packthread; timbercrashing; rock grinding, sometimes bursting like cannon shots, and thewhole plunging into the water and raising a great wave that swept thealligators from the mud-flats, and swallowed up the reeds and rushes,sending herons, kingfishers, and flamingoes screaming into the air, anddashing high into the jungle on the opposite shore.
As we have said, the canoe got out of reach of the terrible avalanchejust in time, but it could not escape the wave. The Indian, however,was prepared for that. It was not the first time he had seen such acatastrophe. Turning the bow of the canoe instantly towards the fallingbank, he thus met the wave, as it were, in the teeth, and rode safelyover it.
If he had been less alive to the danger, or less prompt to meet it, orif he had under-estimated it, and allowed the wave to catch them on theside of the canoe, the adventures of our five friends had that day cometo an abrupt close, and, what is probably of greater consequence to thereader, this faithful record would never have been written!