 | CHAPTER XIV.
THE REBEL IN THE MOUNTAINS. The damsel of Darien |  |
14. CHAPTER XIV.
THE REBEL IN THE MOUNTAINS.
The consultation of the conspirators terminated in their
resort to the wine flagon, and their debauch lasted the better
part of the night. Garabito, to the surprise of his attendants,
who had formed their plans for capturing the rebellious
chief Caonabo with a reference to the habits of
indulgence of their master on such occasions, continued
tolerably sober through the night, and gave them no opportunity
of leaving him for their contemplated expedition.
The reader will remember their conference on this subject.
The outlawed cassique, whom it was their purpose to entrap,
was a man no less wary than valorous. He was a
Carib by birth, and, with all the inflexible valour of his people,
he contrived to infuse a sufficient portion of it into the
bosoms of his subjects of Maguana—the territory over
which he ruled in the Island of Hayti when the Spaniards
first appeared—to enable them for a long while to make
head against their invaders, to baffle them in frequent enterprises
and conflicts, and, though defeated and destroyed
at last, to protract the period of their independence long after
the rest of the island had been subjected to their inhuman
invaders. His followers were either annihilated or in
chains, his wife was a captive and a labourer; and his son,
as we have seen, the victim of a most wanton cruelty; but
the chief, himself, had baffled all the arts if not the arms
of the Spaniard, and now wandered under the doom of
outlawry, a convict, but still free! The price which had
been set upon his head had tempted many in his pursuit,
but he escaped all their arts, and, sometimes, even hurled
death in a Parthian arrow, among his most forward pursuers.
If it be asked why his wife had not shared the
fate has occupied so much of our story, it may be sufficient
to revert to the perilous and midnight wanderings which
Caonabo was compelled to take in his flight from his enemies—of
the difficulties of his own escape from a tyranny
which hunted him with bloodhounds, and scrupled at no
crime, no artifice, in the completion of its cruel conquests.
The bald chances for escape of a warrior like Caonabo,
who was strong of limb, swift of foot, fearless of heart and
subtle in contrivance, opposed to such a systematic and
superior power as that of the Spaniard, would have been
utterly lost had he been encumbered with the care of the
feeble woman and still feebler child. Their presence in
the moment of danger would have served only to baffle his
own speed and bring him more completely within the
power of his foe; and, however much the proud spirit of
the Carib might chafe within him at the necessity of leaving
them behind him, he preferred to endure his own privations
patiently, and to shut his eyes to the daily degradation
and cruelty to which they were subjected in the
encomienda of the Spaniard, rather than expose to certain
ruin and the most inhuman death, both them and himself,
by taking them with him in a premature flight. Little did
the noble savage dream that the tender age of his child
would be inadequate to the protection of his life from the
brutal and bloody nature of that tyranny from which he
himself fled in safety, but in fear.
But he had made his preparations for their final flight,
not less than his own, and the hour was approaching fast
when it was his hope to rescue them from bondage.
With that passion of unrestraint—it might not be safe to
describe it as a love of liberty, which implies a fine moral
sense and a just regard to those duties which the
desultory Indian never did perform—he had resolved
rather to fly to the homes of other and unknown savages,
than abide in his own, subject to the monstrous tyranny
which now pervaded it. With this resolution he had wandered
to the rocky parts of the seashore of Santo Domingo,
over paths almost inaccessible to the Spaniard. Here,
with his instruments of stone, he had contrived with
great, and unwearying assiduity, to cut down a gigantic
tree, one of the spongy kind called the Jaruma, which he
proceeded to hollow out in the shape of a canoe. Oars he
degrees, he had provided supplies of mandioc, maize,
and water, in order to sustain himself and companion in
the perilous voyage which he proposed to undertake in
pursuit of his wild liberty in foreign lands. These arrangements
were completed, and launching his boat from
the crevice among the rocks in which his labour for many
tedious weeks had been patiently carried on, he at length
beheld it glide into the deep water, with a rapture only to
be guessed by those who, for the first time, realize an
achievement on which, while hope has doubted, the heart
has been set with a resolute enthusiasm that seemed to
declare it a portion of the very life of the labourer. Lingering
for a moment upon the rock to which he had fastened
the green wythes that secured it, his eye was
stretched across the waste of waters in his gaze, as if to
penetrate the distant worlds in which he had resolved to
pierce—his soul seemed to freshen with the breeze that
blew from the ocean, and flattering himself with a trust
that has proved illusory to all his race, he stretched his
hands in rapture towards the dim regions upon which
he strove to look, as if the security was already found
for which he was prepared to perish. He little dreamed
of the new trial which awaited him.
Night set in—the day of storm was over—the last hurricane
had passed—and the mountains, for the first time in
many months, seemed entirely free from the dim vapours
that had covered them. The starlight guided the steps of
the rebel as, springing from crag to crag, and over cleft
and chasm, with a fearlessness that came from habit, he
ascended from the shore to the hills which lined it, and
proceeded on his way to the habitation of his wife and
child. His were the past hopes of one about, as it were,
to begin his life and fortune anew. He felt the utter hopelessness
of striving against the Spaniard, whose superior
arms, science, and habitual warfare, rendered it obvious
enough even to the most fervent patriotism that nothing
could be done by a people feeble like the Haytiens, in opposition
to their power. Yet this had not been left unattempted
by the hero. He had headed no less than three
several insurrections; more than once had his efforts
been attended by partial success, and with the support of
men not utterly enfeebled by inaction and the seductive
as Caonabo might have prolonged the war for an indefinite
period, even if he had not brought it to a successful termination.
There were hundreds of fastnesses among the
mountains of Hispaniola, which the feet of the invaders
had never yet explored, and into the recesses of which,
no opponent could be found sufficiently courageous to
follow a fearless band who valued liberty more than life.
But the warrior had no hope that looked to his own people.
Yet he was not utterly without hope of vengeance,
at least for the wrongs which they had suffered. In flying
from Santo Domingo, he did not propose to fly from the
Spaniard. He well knew that go where he would, their
rapacious appetites would follow him. His comprehensive
mind readily saw that, like the swarming locusts whom
sterility at home has driven into foreign regions, and who
must make the devastation which they fly from in all
places to which they come, they would overspread the
vast surface of the new country. His purpose was to
meet them on fresh ground, and with new opponents. The
Charaibees, his own people, the fiercest of all the tribes
of the new world, and the perpetual terror of the Haytien,
offered to the sagacious Caonabo the material for
bold resistance. To throw himself into their country, to
guide their battles, or to follow efficient warriors in their
conflict with the pale invaders, was the pregnant feeling
of his soul. But this feeling was the secret of his own
mind. The wife of his bosom, the beloved Buru, knew
nothing of his purpose, except that he was to bear herself
and boy to a shore of peace, where the Spaniard brought
neither scourge nor shackle, and where the fruits planted
by nature, and growing to their hands, were not denied
to their enjoyment. Miserable woman! what were all
these hopes, as she gazed upon the bloody spectacle
before her,—the headless child who lay on the straw matting
in her hovel! What cared she in that moment for
flight, what fear had she then of servitude, what desire for
that liberty, which, only the day before, appeared to be the
blessing beyond all beside,—the boon dearer than life,
and love, and youth—dearer than her own dreams of happiness
in that hour of her morning when she first grew
to the bosom of the chief and yielded him the young
pledge of her true affection whom the tyrant had so mercilessly
the bloody spectacle,—she feared the presence of her husband!
The hour for his coming was at hand, and she went
forth to meet him at an appointed spot. The moon, round
and transparent, was rising brightly above the brown
mountains, and the pale light lay like trembling water
along their edges. She saw not the light that helped her
progress as she stole from the valley in which stood the
bohios of her tribe,—the little leafy mansions lay scattered
like green dots of verdure in the distance, their miserable
occupants either moaning over their condition of
pain, or sunk in that sleep of the animal, which is produced
in spite of pain, by exhaustion. Her own wigwam,
as she looked backward, was within sight, and, though
she did not see, she well knew what was its terrible possession.
The image of her murdered child gleamed upon
her fancy as she gazed, and covering her eyes with her
hands, she hastened up the hill, and stood hidden among
the slanted firs that crowned its summits. To her ears
came the hoarse murmur of the ocean. The rocks seemed
to vibrate and tremble under its chafing waters. She
hearkened for a brief space, yet heard no other sound.
But she remained not long a watcher. Detaching a small
rock from the spot on which she stood, she whirled it with
a practised hand over the precipice beyond, and a few
seconds gave her back the token of its fall, seemingly, by
the plashing sound which followed, into some deep lake or
water-course below. A whistle reached her ears a moment
after, and she advanced in the direction whence it
came. The signal was followed by the appearance of a
man on a projecting crag beneath, whose voice a moment
after proved him to be her husband.
“Buru!” said the rebel, with a gentle utterance.
“Caonabo!” was the answer of the woman, but her
lips faltered, and her heart grew faint, to speak only the
single word. Well did she know what would be the next
speech of the chief.
“The boy, Buru—Zemi!—where is he?”
To this there was no answer. The woman advanced
a pace in silence, then remained stationary, and Caonabo
drew nigh, and put his arm upon her shoulder.
“It is done, Buru!” he said in his own language, and
of his labour was so well calculated to inspire.
“The canoe is ready, and this very night frees us from
the tyranny of the accursed Spaniard. Where is the
boy—where is Zemi? He should be with thee, Buru.
We should be even now upon the waters, sailing for the
blue islands of the Charaibee. Go, bid him waken—bring
him forth from the bohio, and cumber not thyself with
any thing beside. I have provided the maize and manoca
already, and there is little time for loss. Every
instant of delay under the scourge of these bloody tyrants
is a pang to the free spirit. Go—bring the boy—I
will await thee here.”
But the woman was motionless, and for the first time
the chief beheld the tear that glistened in her eyes, and
noted the speechless agony in her face. With a new
anxiety he repeated his demand; clutching her wrist with
a sudden grasp as he did so.
“Where is he—Zemi—the boy?”
“The boy!—the boy! Caonabo, is it the boy?” Such
was the unmeaning and unconscious answer of the
wretched woman.
“Ay, Buru, the boy! Hear you not?—know you not?
Zemi, our boy! You should have brought him. Is he
not here?—is he not in the bohio?—He should be. Go,
then and bring him forth—bring nothing beside, I tell
thee—leave the accursed guanin in the earth. Zemi
only,—away! while I await ye upon the crag.”
“Alas! for me—for the poor Buru—Caonabo—father—
chief! Be pitiful! be merciful!—curse me not with thy
tongue!—spurn me not with thy feet! I am but a woman
under thee, but I love thee, and I would live.”
She sank upon the ground as she spoke; she clung to
his knees—she buried her lips in the earth beneath his
feet, and grovelled before him, as he receded from her in
astonishment.
“Spurn thee!—Curse thee, Buru! When has Caonabo
done thee this wrong, that thou speakest thus strangely
in his ears? Wherefore shouldst thou fear the anger of
Caonabo? What hast thou done, woman?—Speak!—
What of the boy?—what of Zemi, the son of Caonabo?”
“Thou wilt slay me—the poor Buru,—thou wilt
strike!” she muttered as she lay.
The voice of the chief grew hoarse—the tones thick
and husky—it trembled—his whole frame trembled.
“I fear me, Buru—I have great fear—harm has come
to the boy!—What harm—where is he? Why hast thou
left him behind? Lives he, woman?—Speak!”
“Alas! alas! ask me not, Caonabo, but kill me.”
“The Spaniard!—Ha!—The Spaniard! Wilt thou not
speak, Buru? What harm has happened to the boy?”
“Alas, alas!” was her only answer, as crawling to his
receding feet, she buried her face in the earth between
them, while her arms clasped his legs.
“I will curse thee, woman—I will slay thee, of a truth,
if thou speakest not. Thy fear comes like the arrow of
the Charaibee into the heart of the chief. Speak, woman!
What of the boy? Went he forth with thee to-day to
the city of bohios—didst thou not take him with thee to
the big canoes of the Spaniard?”
“It was thy word, Caonabo, that I should not leave the
boy when I went forth at the bidding of the Spaniard.”
“Thou sayest truth! That was the word of Caonabo;
—and thou leftest him behind thee, and the barking dog of
the Spaniard has found him in the mountains!—Ha! is it
this, Buru?”
“Alas! no. The boy went forth with Buru. Buru
was heavy laden, for the Spaniard, Ribiero—”
“The curses of a long death be on him! What of
him? He hath not scourged the boy with whips, nor put
the red iron on his cheek! The boy, woman!—he hath
not perished under the lash?—thou darest not tell me
that!”
“No, no! oh, no!—but—”
“Speak then! speak out!” cried the fierce chief, with
something more of calmness in his tones. “If the boy has
not perished beneath the lash nor the brand—if he
lives—”
“Alas! alas!” Her exclamation silenced him for an
instant; when he recovered himself his speech was more
firm and slow.
“Buru, woman! is the son of Caonabo dead—that thou
criest aloud in this manner?”
“Slay not the wife—slay not the mother, Caonabo!—
Oh! master, thou hast said!”
A sudden shiver shook the frame of the strong man;
his hands covered his face which was lifted towards heaven.
The woman moaned at his feet, to which she had
again crawled, and which she clasped with despairing and
convulsive emotion. The iron spirit of the warrior was
dissolved within him; but he uttered no word, and,
save by the frozen and statue-like position which he kept,
of an agony that stiffened the frame, he gave no sign of
that sorrow beneath which his inmost soul was convulsed
and writhing.
| CHAPTER XIV.
THE REBEL IN THE MOUNTAINS. The damsel of Darien | |