University of Virginia Library

9. CHAPTER IX.

The sun was high in heaven, when Hernando
de Leon awoke from the deep but perturbed
and restless slumbers which, induced by
the fever of his wounds, and the toilsome journey
of the preceding day, had fallen on him almost
before his limbs were stretched upon their
temporary couch. The bright rays streaming
in between the massive beams that barred the
portal of his dungeon, full of ten thousand
dancing motes, had fallen full upon his face,
and uncurtained eyelids, dazzling the orbs
within; so that when he upstarted from his
dreamless sleep, it was a moment or two before
he could so far collect his thoughts as to discover
where he was, or what had been the circumstances
which placed him in that wild
abode. By slow degrees, however, the truth
dawned on his mind, and with the truth that
dull sense of oppression that dense and smothering
weight, which to souls of the highest order
and most delicate perceptions, seems ever to attend
the loss of liberty. For a while, therefore,
he brooded gloomily and darkly over the strange
events of the past day; the singular mode in
which he had been so unexpectedly entrapped,
the unexplained and unintelligible conduct of the
savages, and, above all, the motives which had
influenced them in their treatment of himself.

Thence his thoughts strayed, by no unnatural
transition, to the mild features and kind ministry
of the Charib boy; and when he probed
his memory, he clearly recollected him to be
one of the slaves of Orozimbo's household,
though from this he could draw no plausible
conjecture, either for good or evil. After a little
space, wandering again, his spirit began to
reflect upon the chances of his liberation; nor
did he meditate long on this topic, before he
came to the conclusion that for his present escape
from the hands of the fierce cacique, and
for his ultimate return to the settlements of his
countrymen, he must rely entirely on his own
energies. Hope of assistance from without
was evidently desperate. The speed and secresy
with which the Indians had conducted
their retreat—the ignorance of all his comrades

respecting his own movements on that eventful
morning—the death, flight, or capture of all
those who had been privy to the time or place
of his encounter with Herreriro, and above all
the great and almost certain probability that
some ulterior object, involving inroads on the
Spanish posts, of magnitude sufficient to engage
their occupants exclusively in their own
self-preservation, had drawn the wily Caonabo
to such a distance from his usual fastnesses,
all these considerations led the young captive
to believe that on himself alone, on his own
often tried resources, on his own resolute will
and unflinching nerves, on his own deep sagacity
and dauntless courage, on his own hardihood
of heart and corresponding energy of
thews and sinews, depended all his hope of
extrication from an imprisonment which promised
to be long indeed, and painful, unless it
should be brought to a more speedy, though
no less unwished termination through the medium
of a violent and cruel death.

Stimulated, by reflections such as these, to
something of exertion, Hernando rose from his
lowly couch, with the intent of exploring, to
the utmost, the secrets of his prison house,
which, so far as the uncertain light, checkered
and broken by the gratings through which it
found its way, permitted him to judge, seemed
of considerable depth and magnitude, when,
to his great surprise, as he raised himself, he
perceived that, during his slumbers, his dungeon
had been visited by some one who had
left, hard by his pillow, a calabash of pure,
cold water, with a slight meal of fruits and the
cassava bread, which formed the principal article
of nutriment among the simple Indians.
So sound, however, had been his sleep, that the
noise of opening the heavy creaking gate had fallen
unheard and unheeded on his dulled senses
To lave his heated brow and hands, in the cool
element—to quaff a long, long draught, more
soothing, in his present temper, than the
most fragrant wines of Xenes, or the yet more
renowned and costly Val de Peñas—was his
first impulse; but when refreshed and reinvigorated
by the innocent cup, he turned to taste the
eatables before him, his very soul revolted
from the untouched morsel, the rising spasm of
the throat, the hysterica passio of poor Lear,
convulsed him; and, casting the food from him,
he buried his hot aching temples in his hands,
and remained for many minutes, plunged, as it
were, in a deep stupor—then, by a mighty effort,
shaking off the lethargic gloom, he drank
again more deeply than before, sprang to his
feet, and strode, with firm and rapid steps, several
times to and fro the area of his prison, immediately
within the wicket, where fell the
brightest glances of the half-interrupted sunlight.

“Shame, shame!” he cried, at length giving
articulate expression to his thoughts—
“shame, shame on thee. Hernando!—to
pine and give way thus beneath the pressure
of so slight an evil—for what is this to thy
hard soul-cankering captivity, among the
savage paynimry of Spain—where fettered
to the floor thou languishedst for nine long
months, unvisited by the fair light of
Heaven. Shame! it must not be!” and he
manned himself, upon the instant, by a single
effort, and, turning from the light, explored
with cautious scrutiny each nook and angle
of the cavern. It was of large extent, wide,
deep, and full of irregular recesses; and
seemed to have been used as a species of
magazine, or store-house; for piles of dried
fish, baskets of wicker-work heaped with the
golden ears of maize, or roots of the cassava,
cumbered the floor; while on rude shelves
were stowed away the simple fabric of the
Indian broom, mattings, and rolls of cotton
cloth, fantastically dyed, and in one—the
most secret—nook, protected by a wooden
door, a mass of glittering ornaments, some
wrought of the purest gold, and others of the
adulterated metal, which the savages termed
guanin, breast-plates, and crowns and bracelets,
enough to have satisfied the avarice insatiate
of a Pizarro or a Cortez. Nor were
these all; for visible amid the darkness, by
the rays which their own gorgeous substance
concentrated, lay bars, and ingots and huge
wedges, of the virgin metal, beside a pile of
unwrought ore, gleaming with massy veins,
of value utterly uncalculable. Slight was
the glance which the young Spaniard cast
upon these more than kingly treasures—a
single crevice opening to the outer air had
been to him a discovery more precious than
the concentrated wealth of all the mighty
mines of the new world—a single coat of
plate, with helm and buckler, and a good
Spanish blade to match them, he would have
clutched with hands that scorned the richer
metal—but these were not; and he turned
from the cacique's treasury with a heedless
air, to resume his hitherto unprofitable search.
Not far did he go, however, before another
wooden door presented itself, closed only by
an artificial latch, which yielded instantly
to his impatient fingers. It opened—and before
him extended a huge and stately hall, for
such it seemed, wide as the cloistered chancel
of some gothic pile, and loftier; walled,
paved and vaulted by the primeval hand of
nature, first and unrivalled architect, with the
eternal granite—not as the outer chamber,
obscure, or dimly seem by half-excluded daylight—but
flooded with pure, all-pervading
sunshine, which poured in unpolluted and
unveiled, through the vast natural arch which
terminated the superb arcade. His heart
leaped, as it seemed, with the vast joy of the
moment, into his very throat! All suffering,
all anxiety, all woe was instantly forgotten!
for he was free! free as the fresh summer

wind that was tossed round his head, rife
with the perfumes of a thousand flowing hills!
free as the glowing sunshine that streamed
through that broad portal! With a quick
step, and bounding pulse, he leaped towards
the opening! he reached!—he stood upon the
threshold! Wherefore that sudden start?
wherefore that ashy pallor pervading brow
and cheek and lip? One other step, and he
had been precipitated hundreds of feet from
the sheer verge of the huge rock, which fell
a perpendicular descent of ninety fathom,
down to the cultured plains below! His feet
were now tottering on the very brink, and it
required more than an ordinary effort of his
strong active frame to check the impulse of
his forward motion, which had been so impetuously
swift, that but a little more would
have sufficed to hurl him into the empty air.
With a dull leaden weight that sudden disappointment
crushed down the burning aspirations
of his soul—his heart fell sick within
him; he clasped his hands over his throbbing
temples—he was again a captive! It was,
however, but for a moment he was unmanned.
Before a second had elapsed, he was engaged
with all his energies, in the examination of
the smallest peculiarities of the place, hoping,
alas! in vain, that he should still discover
there some path whereby to quit his prison-house;
but not the faintest track—not the
most slight projection, whereon to plant a
foot, was there—above, below, to right and
left of that huge arch, the massy precipice
was smooth and hard and slippery as glass—
and, after a minute inspection, the Spaniard
was reluctantly compelled to own to his excited
hopes, which fain would have deceived
themselves, that nothing had been
gained by his discovery beyond the power
of gazing forth over the beauties of that boundless
scene, which stretched away, for miles
and miles, beneath his feet to the blue waters
of the ocean, which lost themselves in turn in
the illimitable azure of the cloudless skies.
Wistfully did he strain his eyes over the wide-spread
plain, which from that lofty eminence
showed, map-like and distinct, its every variation
of hill, or sloping upland, tangled ravine,
or broad and fertile valley, clearly delineated
by the undulations of those mighty shadows
which—thrown by the strong sunshine from a
hundred sweeping clouds—careered like giant
beings over the glittering landscape. Suddenly,
while he yet lingered over this distant
prospect, a faint sound burst on his ear—a
sound oft heard and unforgotten; though so
faint that now it scarcely rose above the whisper
of the breeze waving the myriad tree-tops
of that untrodden solitude; and the small voice
of the far river whose angry roar was mellowed,
by the influence of distance, into a soft and
soothing murmur. He started, and glanced
hurriedly around—again that sound—nearer
and clearer than before—the remote din of ordnance!
Towards the east he gazed, and there,
winding their way through the calm waters in
close propinquity to the green margin of the
isle, he saw four caravellas, with every snow-white
sail spread to the favoring gales, with
fluttering signals streaming from their mastheads,
and by their oft repeated salvos, soliciting
the notice of their countrymen. It was—
it was, past doubt, the squadron of Columbus—
long wished for, and arrived too late! Hopeless
although he was, he watched those caravellas
with a gaze as eagerly solicitous as that which
the benighted sailor keeps on the beacon of his
safety—while, one by one, they were lost to
his sight behind some towering promontory,
and re-appeared again, each after each, glittering
forth with all their white sails shimmering
in the meridian light. At length he might behold
them shortening sail, as though their
haven was at hand, and by and by they shot
into the shadow of a wide wood-crowned hill;
and, though the watcher kept his post until the
sun was bending down towards the western
verge of the horizon, they issued not again
upon the azure waters, beyond that mass of
frowning verdure. With a heart sicker than
before, he had already turned away, in order
to go back into the outer cavern, when a sharp
whizzing sound beside him attracted his attention,
and ere he could look around the long
shaft of a Charib arrow splintered itself against
the rocky archway, and fell in fragments at his
feet. The first glance of the dauntless Spaniard
was outward, to descry, if possible, the
archer who had launched that missile, and with
so true an aim! Nor was he long in doubt—
for perched on a projecting crag of the same
line of cliffs, wherein was perforated the wide
cave within the mouth of which he stood, a
hundred yards, at the least calculation, distant,
he saw the Charib Orozimbo. A quiver was
suspended from his shoulders, and a long Indian
bow was yet raised in his right hand, to
the level of his eye; but by the friendly wafture
of his left, he seemed to deprecate the
notion that he was hostilely inclined. Again
he waved his hand aloft, pointed towards the
broken arrow, and turning hastily away, was
out of sight before Hernando could reply to
his brief amicable gestures. As soon as he
had roused his scattered energies of mind, the
youthful Spaniard turned his attention to the
fragments of the splintered shaft, and instantly
discovered a small packet securely fastened to
the flint head. Tearing it hence with eager
haste—couched in the Spanish tongue, and
traced upon the scrap of parchment by a remembered
hand—he read the following sentences:—

“Be of good cheer—friends are about us.
When the moon sets to-night, watch at the cavern
mouth—a clue of thread shall be conveyed
to thee, by which thou shalt draw up a cord

sufficient for thy weight—means of escape
shall wait thee at the cliff's foot. These,
through the Charib Orozimbo, from thine,