 | CHAPTER VIII. Tales of the Spanish seas |  |
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 chieftain, 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 meantime, 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 both were 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 some distance,
on which Hernando could perceive a
tall, powerful Indian, with a plumed crown,
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 towards 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 that 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 old caçiques, and held a short, grave
consultation. 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, towards
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; 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,
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 replemished 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
yet something in their aspect which 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 tender
ness. 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, assuming 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, towards 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 consulation—as it would
seem from their grave brows 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
equalled, 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.
Scarce had the last of this train vanished
from sight, before the same tall savage to
whose ear the parting words of Caonabo had
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 his every motion, by the
keen fire of his glaring eye-ball, and by the
sinewy grace with which he wielded his war
weapons. At the same cat-like pace, which
Hernando 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 ram part,
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 straight 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
arch vista through which foamed the restless
streamlet, or dwell upon the dull and lead-like
surface of the small standing pool. Onward
they marched, still onward! The sun,
which all unmarked had climbed the height
of heaven, and all unseen descended to its
western verge, stooped like a giant bride-groom
to his bed, and a more dull and brown
er 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 over-canopied 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 three front; halting, however, as
they did 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
glant barrier, directly in their front. 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
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 porticoes
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 rang 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 further 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 stock-side,
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 of the rude native
cotton was flung down 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 woe, 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 recollection of his griefs, and the feverish
torture of his wounds.
| CHAPTER VIII. Tales of the Spanish seas | |