 | CHAPTER VIII. Guarica, the charib bride |  |
8. CHAPTER VIII.
After the death of Herreiro, and the
capture of De Leon, the Charibs, who had
so suddenly unmasked their ambuscade, in
which, with the wonted patience of an
Indian, they had lain during the occurrence
of events which to them must have
seemed strange and inexplicable, appeared,
for some short time, to be in confusion,
hurrying to and fro, like bees alarmed and
swarming in their hives, without any very
distinct plan or method.
After a little while, however, they were
brought into comparative order by the exertion
of their chieftan, and were arrayed
in five parallel columns, in the well-known
Indian file; each headed by a plumed
cacique, and containing, as nearly as Hernando
could conjecture, each, something
better than a hundred warriors.
In the mean time, Hernando, with the
page, was compelled to sit down at the foot
of the tree to which Alonzo's horse and the
bloodhounds were attached, and were both
bound firmly with their arms pinioned
behind them to the mossy trunk.
An interval of nearly half an hour followed,
the chiefs being continually on the
look out, as if they expected messengers;
and as these did not come, even more uncertainty
was displayed than before in the
movements of the savages, who broke their
ranks, and crowded round a little knoll, at
perceive a tall, powerful Indian, with a
plumed crown, and many ornaments of gold
on his breast, and about his neck and arms,
whom he took to be Caonabo, the great
Charib chief; the most resolute opponent
and formidable foe the Spaniards had encountered
on the island.
Around this chief there was soon collected
a group of chiefs, gesticulating violently,
and speaking very loud; so much so
that Hernando was well nigh convinced
that, once or twice, he heard his own name
mentioned: an idea in which he was confirmed
by seeing that many of the Indians
looked toward him, and two or three pointed
with their hands, as the sounds which he
judged to be intended for his name were
repeated.
Looking more earnestly, as he now did,
he thought one of the figures of the younger
chiefs resembled Orozimbo; and he was
certain that this person was arguing violently
with the great chief, and, as he believed,
concerning himself likewise.
While he was gazing with all his eyes,
a deep and sudden sound came down the
wind, from the direction of the Spanish
town: It was the heavy din of the alarm
bell, followed, almost immediately, by the
faint rattle of the drums, scarce audible at
that distance, calling the garrison to arms.
This in an instant, put an end, as if by
magic, to the confused debate.
The men hurried back into their files,
the chiefs took their places at the head of
each; and if it was indeed Orozimbo whom
he had seen, he could no more distinguish
him among the crowd: nor did he again
see the person whom he had fancied to be
he, during the whole course of the day.
Scarcely were the Charibs again steady
in their ranks, before three or four Indian
scouts came rushing up, breathless and
black with sweat, from the forest, with
tidings, it would seem, of great importance.
For they flew straight to the gigantic
chieftain, and he, after hearing their report,
called out four or five of the old
caçiques, and held a short, grave consulta
tion. After this, Hernando and his page
were unbound from the tree, and, with their
arms still fettered, placed, each apart from
the other, in the centre of a file, between
two stout Indians.
A word was given; it was passed from
man to man, and then they began their
march, silent and slow, in one long, single
file, toward the dark and distant wilderness.
All day long did the wily savages retreat,
through the most wild and devious
recesses of the forest, toward their mountain
fastnesses, forcing their hapless captives,
wounded though they were, and faint
and weary, to strain every muscle to keep
up with them. At mid-day, for a short
hour, they halted at a bright, crystal
spring, deep-bosomed in the pathless wilderness,
kindled their fires, and applied
themselves to the preparation of their artless
meal. Most picturesque and striking
was the aspect of that wild halt. The
white smoke, curling up in snowy columns,
strangely relieved by the dark foliage; the
bright and flashing fires casting their red
reflections on the gigantic brows of the
innumerable trees; the flexible and graceful
forms of the lythe, active natives, reclining,
in small groups, upon the deep,
rich turf, or hurrying to and fro, with swift
and agile movements—their arms piled up
in glittering stacks; or swinging from the
limbs of the embowering shrubs. Most
picturesque it was, and most romantic; and
had it been at any other time, no eye would
have dwelt on it with more earnest pleasure
—no fancy would have sported more poetically
with all its thousand accidents of
light and shade,—repose contrasted with
swift motion, rare grouping, and bright
coloring,—than that of the young Spaniard.
But as he lay beneath the canopy of a
superb mimosa, with his arms painfully
lashed behind his back with thongs, recently
cut from a raw deer-hide, his
thoughts were all too painfully absorbed,
too vague, wandering, and distracted, to
suffer him to dwell upon, or notice, that
gay spectacle.
Conjecture was at work within his brain;
but, busy as it was, no clue presented itself
to his mind, whereby to solve the mystery.
All was dark, intricate, and gloomy! By
no means could he discover or divine what
could have been the cause of such an
inroad; or by what strange accident he
should himself have fixed the rendezvous
for the precise spot where the Charibs had
laid their ambuscade,—for that they could
have learned the premeditated duel was,
on the very face of things, impossible.
Why such a force of Indians should have
been mustered, (for the band was, at the
very least reckoning, five hundred strong,)
under their most redoubted champion,
merely to interrupt a combat between two
Spanish warriors; or why, supposing, as it
was far more natural to deem, that the true
object of the expedition had contemplated
some end widely different, after the accidental
capture of one soldier, had the real
purpose of the onslaught been laid by, and
overlooked, in the delight arising from a
success so slight and unimportant! Deeply,
however, as he pondered, he found not,
heretofore, the smallest clue whereby to
reach the termination of the maze in which
his thoughts were so mysteriously involved.
At times, a wild and anxious terror would
possess his mind with the idea that his
capture must be connected in some wise
with his repeated visits to the Charib
maiden, whom he had so devotedly enthroned
within his heart of hearts,—meet
idol for that magic shrine!—that the most
distant surmise of peril to which she should
be exposed, shook his strong nerves, even
as an earthquake agitates the rock-ribbed
mountains. Anon, as reason told him that
such fancies were the mere visionary
workings of a self-tormenting spirit, his
features would array themselves in a wan,
sickly smile, and he would deem, for a brief
moment, that cheerfulness and hope were
re-established in his heart.
Thus passed the mid-day halt; the simple
preparations for the Indian meal were
ended, and seated on the velvet cushioned
greensward, the natives ate in silence and
in haste, betokening the need of rare and,
to their inert and voluptuous characters,
unwelcome toil and exertion. Food and a
calabash of water were set before Hernando;
and a significant, although mute, gesture
urged him to profit by the opportunity
thus offered—but, though he was aware of
the necessity of keeping up, as far as possible,
his physical, as well as mental powers,
in order to exert himself on any chance
occasion to effect his own escape, and that
of his loved page, from the fierce savages,
the fever of his wounds, enhanced by the
anxiety and burning bitterness of his soul,
had parched his throat and lips, and he
turned with irrepressible and painful loathing
from the viands, which, though rude
and simple, might well have satisfied the
palate of a soldier fasting since the preceding
night, and spent with toil and travel.
Deeply, however, did he drink of the cool
liquid crystal, with which his calabash was
often and again replenished by a bright
eyed youth of gentler mien, and milder features
than any other of the Charibs, who,
from the first, had hovered unremarked
about the captives, and who now smiled
cheerily upon Hernando, while ministering
with something of solicitude and tenderness
to his most pressing wants. After the
Spaniard had exhausted at a single draught
the second gourd of water, and had relapsed
into the deep abstraction of his own fevered
thoughts, he was half startled by the soothing
pressure of a cool soft hand upon his
burning brow, laving his temples with the
same pure icy element which had so gratefully
relieved his burning thirst—turning
his eyes up with a sudden impulse, he
caught again the features of the slight Indian
boy, which several times before had
met his gaze that morning, although unnoticed
in the engrossing tumult of his senses.
Again a brilliant smile glanced over the
dark lineaments, and a quick flashing light,
as if of well-pleased recognition, leaped
from the lustrous eyes. Although his face
was strange, although to the best of the
young Spaniard's memory, never before had
those dusky features met his eyes, there
was familiar, something which brought
back—Hernando knew not why—bright
thoughts of by-gone days, and kindled
livelier hopes of future welfare—something
of indistinct and vague similitude to
some one he had seen before, although he
could not, on the instant, bring to his mind,
or time, or place, or person. Thought was
at work within him, to make out wherein,
and to whom, lay this strange similitude,
while still the gentle hand steeped his hot
forehead, and the mild eyes gazed into his
with almost female tenderness. Sudden it
flashed upon him—sudden as the electric
gleam! A radiant light shot from his
clouded eyes, his lips moved, and the first
syllables of an Indian word were quivering
on his tongue, when the boy instantly appreciating
the meaning of that sudden lustre,
assumed a grave and warning air—
pressed his forefinger on his lip, and waved
his left hand with a gesture so slight, as to
be imperceptible except to him for whom it
was intended, toward the great chieftain
Caonabo, who lay at a short distance under
the overbowering shadow of a huge forest
tree, mantled with thousands of sweet parasites,
engaged in consultation—as it would
seem from their grave bows and quiet gestures—of
deep import with his superior
warriors. This done, he turned away and
was lost instantly to the sight of Hernando
among the Charib soldiery, who were now
mustering fast, their simple meal concluded,
as for their onward route. Another
moment, and the gigantic cacique up-started
to his feet, snatched from the branch,
whence they hung, his long tough bow and
gaily decorated quiver, slung them across
his naked shoulders, braced on his left arm
a light buckler covered with thin plates of
the purest gold, and grasping in his right a
ponderous mace of iron wood, curiously
carved, and toothed at every angle with
rows of jagged shells, stalked with an air
of native dignity—which could not have
been outdone, had it been equaled, by the
noblest potentate of Europe's haughtiest
court—across the green savannah, and
stood among his warrior subjects, the
mightiest and noblest of them all—the
mightiest and noblest—not in the vainer
attributes of rank and birth alone, not in
the temporal power only, which may be
and oft is bestowed upon the weak of limb
and low of spirit, but in the thews and
sinews, the energies, the daring and the
soul, the power to do and suffer, the sublime
and unmoved constancy of purpose,
the indomitable, irresistible resolve, the all
which makes one man superior to his fellows.
A moment he stood there, gazing
around him with a fearless and proud
glance upon the muster of his tribe's best
soldiery; then speaking a few words to a
tall savage, who throughout the day had
been the nighest to his person, he stalked
off slowly, followed by four at least of the
five hundred which composed his band, in
a direction nearly at right angles to the
blind path, which they had hitherto pursued,
and which might be perceived beyond
the little area diving right onward between
walls of impenetrable verdure, into
the far depths of the forest. No clash of
weapons, no clang of martial instruments,
no heavy tramp of footsteps betrayed the
movements of that armed array. Silently,
one by one, in single file, they gleamed,
like ghosts, upon the eye of De Leon as
they disappeared, each after each, and shot
again, each after each, into sight for a moment's
space among the vast trunks of the
forest, through which they held their noiseless
march.
Scarce had the last of this train vanished
from his sight, before the same tall savage
to whose ear the parting words of Caonabo
had been uttered, marshaled the little band
which had been left, as it would seem under
his sole command. Fifty of these, bearing
their long bows ready bent, with a flint-headed
arrow notched on the string of
each, filed off under the guidance of an old
hoary headed Charib, whose wrinkled brow
and lean attenuated frame would have denoted
him as one unfit for deeds of toil or
daring, had not they been even more distinctly
contradicted by the light vigor of
glaring eye-ball, and by the sinewy grace
with which he wielded his war weapons.
At the same stealthy cat-like pace, which
he had marked in the warriors of the larger
band, these dark-skinned archers threaded
the defile of the umbrageous path, which
was so narrow as scarcely to admit one
man, and was so densely walled by brakes
of cane and prickly shrubs, that it would
have been a harder task to penetrate their
leafy rampart, than to carve out a path
through the most powerful bastions that
mortal workmen ever framed of eternal
granite. A signal from the chief directed
him to follow, and conscious of the entire
hopelessness of any present opposition to
his will, recruited somewhat by his brief
repose, and cheered yet more by the imagination
that in the number of his captors he
had found at the least one friend, Hernando
entered with a quick and springy step the
dim pass, while, hard upon his heels, urging
him up close to the warrior who preceded
him, strode the tall figure of the
Charib captain, followed in turn by the remainder
of his train, with, in their midst,
the frail and fettered form of the young
Alonzo. Onward they marched, still onward,
tracking the windings of that narrow
road, through the deep matted swamp, over
the rocky ledge, among the giants of the
forest! still walled at every point by masses
of luxuriant verdure, so dense as to make
twilight of the scorching noonday, still so
defined that a blind man might have groped
out his way unerring, and still so strait that
it was utterly impossible for two to go
abreast.
The only changes in the dark monotony
of this dim defile were when it forded some
wild torrent brawling along in gloomy discontent
among the tangled thickets, or
when it crossed, upheld on narrow causeways
of rude logs, some woodgirt pool, half
lake and half morass, where, for a little
space, the weary eye might strive to penetrate
the arched vista through which foamed
the restless streamlet, or dwell upon the
dull and lead-like surface of the small stand
ing pool. Onward they marched, still onward!
The sun, which all unmasked had
clomb the height of heaven, and all unseen
descended to its western verge, stooped like
a giant bridegroom to his bed, and a more
dull and browner horror overspread the
trackless forest. The stars came out in
the translucent skies, spangling the firmament
with their unnumbered smiles, but
not one mirthful glance might penetrate
the solid vault of greenery which overcanopied
their route—the broad, bright
moon soared up far over the tangled tree-tops,
and here and there a pencil of soft
lustre streamed downward through some
verdant crevice, and a mild, hazy light diffused
itself even in that murky avenue.
Onward they marched, still onward, at one
unwearied, even, silent pace. No halt was
made at even-tide, no halt at the deep midnight,
and the young Spaniard, proud though
he was of his capacity to bear, well trained
in every manly and martial exercise, felt
that he was but a child in strength, and in
activity, among the dark sons of the forest.
The boy, Alonzo, had long since given out,
and had been borne an unresisting and almost
insensible weight in the stout arms
of two powerful savages. Onward they
went, still onward, and it was only by the
utmost and most resolute exertion that
Hernando could maintain the steady, swift
pace which his captors held, without one
pant disturbing the calm tenor of their
breathing, or one sweat-drop appearing on
their muscular, swart frames.
Daybreak was near at hand—a deeper
gloom had followed on the setting moon—
the stars had waned, and a chill freshness
in the air betokened the approach of
morning, although the skies were yet untinged
by any gleam of light, when a low
whistle was heard from the head of the
long file; man by man it passed rearward,
and all halted. After a second's space
there was a forward movement; and, after
a few steps, Hernando might perceive that
the path opened somewhat, and that the
men who went before him, fell orderly and
steadily as they advanced, into a column of
so, in order that no interval might be left in
their line of march. Then scarcely had he
moved half a yard beyond the spot whereat
the wider road commenced, before the tall
chief mentioned heretofore, and the man
next behind, moved simultaneously, by a
quick, pard-like spring to either side of him,
and grasped his arms above the elbow with
a firm, though not painful pressure.
Meanwhile the heavens had brightened
somewhat, and he might see that a huge
rocky hill, or, as it might have been termed,
not inaptly, mountain—rose suddenly,
an abrupt and giant barrier, directly in their
front. A narrow road, climbing the height
by different precipitous zigzags, so steep
and rugged that even the well-breathed
and active natives were forced, from time
to time, to pause in the ascent, to catch
their failing wind, scaled this vast front of
bare and shrubless rock; and, as they
paused at every angle, Hernando might
look back upon the little progress they had
made, and mark the almost insuperable difficulties
which would present themselves
to the advance of any civilized force by so
untamed a road. Rough as it was, however,
and difficult of access, an hour of constant
labor brought them in safety to the
summit, where a scene widely different
from the bleak herbless crags which with
so much of labor they had scaled, presented
itself to the Spaniard's eyes. A table of rich
fertile land, of many miles circumference,
was here outspread upon the ledgy top of
the huge hill, which fell abruptly down on
every side, a precipice of several hundred
feet in sheer descent, accessible alone by
steep and zigzag paths, like that up which
his weary feet had painfully surmounted
its ascent. Groves of the freshest verdure
towered high above the black and broken
rocks which walled them in on every side,
fields richly clothed with the tall maize,
rustled and twinkled in the morning air—
streamlets of crystal water meandered to
and fro until they reached the steep brink,
whence they plunged in bright and foaming
cataracts down to the vale below—and here
embosomed in the verdant groves, circled
with rich and fertile fields, watered by rills
of most translucent water; here, on a summit
never before trodden by the feet of European,
lay the secluded fastness of the
Charib Caonabo—a village larger and more
neatly built than any which Hernando had
yet seen in the fair island of Hispaniola.
Some two, or at the most three hundred
cottages, of the low Indian fashion, with
roofs thatched by the spreading palm-leaves,
and pillared porticos scattered
about in careless groups, irregularly mixed
with groves and gardens, were carefully
surrounded by a deep ditch, supplied with
water from a dam upon a neighboring
streamlet—and a stockade composed of
massive timbers of the already famous
iron-wood, framed with much skill and ingenuity,
in imitation of Spanish palisadoes.
Columns of smoke were curling gaily upward
from every cottage roof, and lights
were glancing cheerily from every open
door and wide unlatticed casement; and
merry voices rung in friendly converse or
unthinking song, through the long village
streets; but none came forth to greet, or
cheer the wounded weary stranger, who
was dragged on—right on—wistfully eyeing
the bright firesides, and listening with
envious ears to the gay sounds of merriment,
among which he stood alone and
almost hopeless. At length, when he had
passed every house—when the lights and
sounds had faded into distance, the hand
which might be said to bear, rather than
now to lead him onward, halted before a
towering pile of rock, upon the farther
verge of the small area of table land contiguous
to the stern precipice. A light was
procured instantly by one of the inferiors of
the tribe, and by it was revealed a natural
aperture in the dark rock, defended by a
grated wicket, composed, like the stockade,
of massive beams of iron-wood, securely
fastened by a lock of Spanish manufacture.
A key was instantly produced from the tall
chieftain's girdle, and without any word of
explanation the gate was opened, the Spaniard's
bonds were loosened, a pile of cloaks
in a dark recess of the cave—which, by the
dim light of the flickering torch, appeared
to be of immense magnitude. Hernando
was thrust violently in, the torch extinguished,
and the gate closed on the moment—locked
and double-locked behind
him. For a short time he listened to the
departing footsteps of his captors, and then,
outdone with weariness and wo, muttered
his hasty prayers, and throwing himself
down at full length on the simple pallet,
slept heavily and soundly until the sun of
the succeeding day was high in the blue
heavens, when he awoke again to the recollection
of his griefs, and the feverish torture
of his wounds.
| CHAPTER VIII. Guarica, the charib bride | |