Montezuma's Daughter

by H. Rider Haggard

  CHAPTER XII

  THOMAS COMES TO SHORE

  For an hour or more I stood thus craning my neck upwards to seek forthe priest. At length when I was about to sink back into the hold, forI could stand no longer in that cramped posture, I saw a woman's dresspass by the hole in the deck, and knew it for one that was worn by alady who had escaped with me in the boat.

  'Senora,' I whispered, 'for the love of God listen to me. It is I,d'Aila, who am chained down here among the slaves.'

  She started, then as the priest had done, she sat herself down upon thedeck, and I told her of my dreadful plight, not knowing that she wasacquainted with it, and of the horrors below.

  'Alas! senor,' she answered, 'they can be little worse than those above.A dreadful sickness is raging among the crew, six are already dead andmany more are raving in their last madness. I would that the sea hadswallowed us with the rest, for we have been rescued from it only tofall into hell. Already my mother is dead and my little brother isdying.'

  'Where is the priest?' I asked.

  'He died this morning and has just been cast into the sea. Before hedied he spoke of you, and prayed me to help you if I could. But hiswords were wild and I thought that he might be distraught. And indeedhow can I help you?'

  'Perhaps you can find me food and drink,' I answered 'and for ourfriend, God rest his soul. What of the Captain Sarceda? Is he alsodead?'

  'No, senor, he alone is recovering of all whom the scourge has smitten.And now I must go to my brother, but first I will seek food for you.'

  She went and presently returned with meat and a flask of wine which shehad hidden beneath her dress, and I ate and blessed her.

  For two days she fed me thus, bringing me food at night. On the secondnight she told me that her brother was dead and of all the crew onlyfifteen men and one officer remained untouched by the sickness, and thatshe herself grew ill. Also she said that the water was almost finished,and there was little food left for the slaves. After this she came nomore, and I suppose that she died also.

  It was within twenty hours of her last visit that I left this accursedship. For a day none had come to feed or tend the slaves, and indeedmany needed no tending, for they were dead. Some still lived however,though so far as I could see the most of them were smitten with theplague. I myself had escaped the sickness, perhaps because of thestrength and natural healthiness of my body, which has always saved mefrom fevers and diseases, fortified as it was by the good food that Ihad obtained. But now I knew that I could not live long, indeed chainedin this dreadful charnel-house I prayed for death to release me from thehorrors of such existence. The day passed as before in sweltering heat,unbroken by any air or motion, and night came at last, made hideous bythe barbarous ravings of the dying. But even there and then I slept anddreamed that I was walking with my love in the vale of Waveney.

  Towards the morning I was awakened by a sound of clanking iron, andopening my eyes, I saw that men were at work, by the light of lanterns,knocking the fetters from the dead and the living together. As thefetters were loosed a rope was put round the body of the slave, and deador quick, he was hauled through the hatchway. Presently a heavy splashin the water without told the rest of the tale. Now I understood thatall the slaves were being thrown overboard because of the want of water,and in the hope that it might avail to save from the pestilence those ofthe Spaniards who still remained alive.

  I watched them at their work for a while till there were but two slavesbetween me and the workers, of whom one was living and the other dead.Then I bethought me that this would be my fate also, to be cast quickinto the sea, and took counsel with myself as to whether I shoulddeclare that I was whole from the plague and pray them to spare me, orwhether I should suffer myself to be drowned. The desire for life wasstrong, but perhaps it may serve to show how great were the tormentsfrom which I was suffering, and how broken was my spirit by misfortunesand the horrors around me, when I say that I determined to make nofurther effort to live, but rather to accept death as a mercifulrelease. And, indeed, I knew that there was little likelihood of suchattempts being of avail, for I saw that the Spanish sailors were madwith fear and had but one desire, to be rid of the slaves who consumedthe water, and as they believed, had bred the pestilence. So I said suchprayers as came into my head, and although with a great shivering offear, for the poor flesh shrinks from its end and the unknown beyond it,however high may be the spirit, I prepared myself to die.

  Now, having dragged away my neighbour in misery, the living savage, themen turned to me. They were naked to the middle, and worked furiouslyto be done with their hateful task, sweating with the heat, and keepingthemselves from fainting by draughts of spirit.

  'This one is alive also and does not seem so sick,' said a man as hestruck the fetters from me.

  'Alive or dead, away with the dog!' answered another hoarsely, and I sawthat it was the same officer to whom I had been given as a slave. 'Itis that Englishman, and he it is who brought us ill luck. Cast the Jonahoverboard and let him try his evil eye upon the sharks.'

  'So be it,' answered the other man, and finished striking off myfetters. 'Those who have come to a cup of water each a day, do not presstheir guests to share it. They show them the door. Say your prayers,Englishman, and may they do you more good than they have done for moston this accursed ship. Here, this is the stuff to make drowning easy,and there is more of it on board than of water,' and he handed me theflask of spirit. I took it and drank deep, and it comforted me a little.Then they put the rope round me and at a signal those on the deck abovebegan to haul till I swung loose beneath the hatchway. As I passedthat Spaniard to whom I had been given in slavery, and who but now hadcounselled my casting away, I saw his face well in the light of thelantern, and there were signs on it that a physician could read clearly.

  'Farewell,' I said to him, 'we may soon meet again. Fool, why do youlabour? Take your rest, for the plague is on you. In six hours you willbe dead!'

  His jaw dropped with terror at my words, and for a moment he stoodspeechless. Then he uttered a fearful oath and aimed a blow at me withthe hammer he held, which would swiftly have put an end to my sufferingshad I not at that moment been lifted from his reach by those who pulledabove.

  In another second I had fallen on the deck as they slacked the rope.Near me stood two black men whose office it was to cast us poor wretchesinto the sea, and behind them, seated in a chair, his face haggard fromrecent illness, sat de Garcia fanning himself with his sombrero, for thenight was very hot.

  He recognised me at once in the moonlight, which was brilliant, andsaid, 'What! are you here and still alive, Cousin? You are tough indeed;I thought that you must be dead or dying. Indeed had it not been forthis accursed plague, I would have seen to it myself. Well, it has comeright at last, and here is the only lucky thing in all this voyage, thatI shall have the pleasure of sending you to the sharks. It consolesme for much, friend Wingfield. So you came across the seas to seekvengeance on me? Well, I hope that your stay has been pleasant. Theaccommodation was a little poor, but at least the welcome was hearty.And now it is time to speed the parting guest. Good night, ThomasWingfield; if you should chance to meet your mother presently, tell herfrom me that I was grieved to have to kill her, for she is the one beingwhom I have loved. I did not come to murder her as you may have thought,but she forced me to it to save myself, since had I not done so, Ishould never have lived to return to Spain. She had too much of my ownblood to suffer me to escape, and it seems that it runs strong in yourveins also, else you would scarcely hold so fast by vengeance. Well, ithas not prospered you!' And he dropped back into the chair and fell tofanning himself again with the broad hat.

  Even then, as I stood upon the eve of death, I felt my blood run hotwithin me at the sting of his coarse taunts. Truly de Garcia's triumphwas complete. I had come to hunt him down, and what was the end of it?He was about to hurl me to the sharks. Still I answered him with suchdignity as I could command.

  'You have me at some
disadvantage,' I said. 'Now if there is any manhoodleft in you, give me a sword and let us settle our quarrel once and forall. You are weak from sickness I know, but what am I who have spentcertain days and nights in this hell of yours. We should be wellmatched, de Garcia.'

  'Perhaps so, Cousin, but where is the need? To be frank, things have notgone over well with me when we stood face to face before, and it is odd,but do you know, I have been troubled with a foreboding that you wouldbe the end of me. That is one of the reasons why I sought a changeof air to these warmer regions. But see the folly of forebodings, myfriend. I am still alive, though I have been ill, and I mean to go onliving, but you are--forgive me for mentioning it--you are already dead.Indeed those gentlemen,' and he pointed to the two black men whowere taking advantage of our talk to throw into the sea the slavewho followed me up the hatchway, 'are waiting to put a stop to ourconversation. Have you any message that I can deliver for you? Ifso, out with it, for time is short and that hold must be cleared bydaybreak.'

  'I have no message to give you from myself, though I have a message foryou, de Garcia,' I answered. 'But before I tell it, let me say a word.You seem to have won, wicked murderer as you are, but perhaps the gameis not yet played. Your fears may still come true. I am dead, but myvengeance may yet live on, for I leave it to the Hand in which I shouldhave left it at first. You may live some years longer, but do you thinkthat you shall escape? One day you will die as surely as I must dieto-night, and what then, de Garcia?'

  'A truce, I pray you,' he said with a sneer. 'Surely you have notbeen consecrated priest. You had a message, you said. Pray deliver itquickly. Time presses, Cousin Wingfield. Who sends messages to an exilelike myself?'

  'Isabella de Siguenza, whom you cheated with a false marriage andabandoned,' I said.

  He started from his chair and stood over me.

  'What of her?' he whispered fiercely.

  'Only this, the monks walled her up alive with her babe.'

  'Walled her up alive! Mother of God! how do you know that?'

  'I chanced to see it done, that is all. She prayed me to tell you ofher end and the child's, and that she died hiding your name, loving andforgiving. This was all her message, but I will add to it. May she hauntyou for ever, she and my mother; may they haunt you through life anddeath, through earth and hell.'

  He covered his face with his hands for a moment, then dropping them sankback into the chair and called to the black sailors.

  'Away with this slave. Why are you so slow?'

  The men advanced upon me, but I was not minded to be handled by them ifI could help it, and I was minded to cause de Garcia to share my fate.Suddenly I bounded at him, and gripping him round the middle, I draggedhim from his chair. Such was the strength that rage and despair gave tome that I succeeded in swinging him up to the level of the bulwarks. Butthere the matter ended, for at that moment the two black sailors sprangupon us both, and tore him from my grip. Then seeing that all was lost,for they were about to cut me down with their swords, I placed my handupon the bulwark and leaped into the sea.

  My reason told me that I should do well to drown as quickly as possible,and I thought to myself that I would not try to swim, but would sink atonce. Yet love of life was too strong for me, and so soon as I touchedthe water, I struck out and began to swim along the side of the ship,keeping myself in her shadow, for I feared lest de Garcia should causeme to be shot at with arrows and musket balls. Presently as I went Iheard him say with an oath:

  'He has gone, and for good this time, but my foreboding went near tocoming true after all. Bah! how the sight of that man frightens me.'

  Now I knew in my heart that I was doing a mad thing, for though if noshark took me, I might float for six or eight hours in this warm wateryet I must sink at last, and what would my struggle have profited me?Still I swam on slowly, and after the filth and stench of the slavehold, the touch of the clean water and the breath of the pure air werelike food and wine to me, and I felt strength enter into me as I went.By this time I was a hundred yards or more from the ship, and thoughthose on board could scarcely have seen me, I could still hear thesplash of the bodies, as the slaves were flung from her, and thedrowning cries of such among them as still lived.

  I lifted my head and looked round the waste of water, and seeingsomething floating on it at a distance, I swam towards it, expectingthat every moment would be my last, because of the sharks which aboundin these seas. Soon I was near it, and to my joy I perceived that it wasa large barrel, which had been thrown from the ship, and was floatingupright in the water. I reached it, and pushing at it from below,contrived to tilt it so that I caught its upper edge with my hand. ThenI saw that it was half full of meal cakes, and that it had been castaway because the meal was stinking. It was the weight of these rottencakes acting as ballast, that caused the tub to float upright in thewater. Now I bethought me, that if I could get into this barrel I shouldbe safe from the sharks for a while, but how to do it I did not know.

  While I wondered, chancing to glance behind me, I saw the fin of a sharkstanding above the water not twenty paces away, and advancing rapidlytowards me. Then terror seized me and gave me strength and the wit ofdespair. Pulling down the edge of the barrel till the water began topour into it, I seized it on either side with my hands, and lifting myweight upon them, I doubled my knees. To this hour I cannot tell how Iaccomplished it, but the next second I was in the cask, with no otherhurt than a scraped shin. But though I had found a boat, the boat itselfwas like to sink, for what with my weight and that of the rotten meal,and of the water which had poured over the rim, the edge of the barrelwas not now an inch above the level of the sea, and I knew that didanother bucketful come aboard, it would no longer bear me. At thatmoment also I saw the fin of the shark within four yards, and then feltthe barrel shake as the fish struck it with his nose.

  Now I began to bail furiously with my hands, and as I bailed, the edgeof the cask lifted itself above the water. When it had risen sometwo inches, the shark, enraged at my escape, came to the surface, andturning on its side, bit at the tub so that I heard its teeth grateon the wood and iron bands, causing it to heel over and to spin round,shipping more water as it heeled. Now I must bail afresh, and had thefish renewed its onset, I should have been lost. But not finding woodand iron to its taste, it went away for a while, although I saw its finfrom time to time for the space of some hours. I bailed with my handstill I could lift the water no longer, then making shift to take off myboot, I bailed with that. Soon the edge of the cask stood twelve inchesabove the water, and I did not lighten it further, fearing lest itshould overturn. Now I had time to rest and to remember that all thiswas of no avail, since I must die at last either by the sea or becauseof thirst, and I lamented that my cowardice had only sufficed to prolongmy sufferings.

  Then I prayed to God to succour me, and never did I pray more heartilythan in that hour, and when I had finished praying some sort of peaceand hope fell upon me. I thought it marvellous that I should thus haveescaped thrice from great perils within the space of a few days, firstfrom the sinking carak, then from pestilence and starvation in the holdof the slave-ship, and now, if only for a while, from the cruel jaws ofthe sharks. It seemed to me that I had not been preserved from dangerswhich proved fatal to so many, only that I might perish miserably atlast, and even in my despair I began to hope when hope was folly; thoughwhether this relief was sent to me from above, or whether it was simplythat being so much alive at the moment I could not believe that I shouldsoon be dead, is not for me to say.

  At the least my courage rose again, and I could even find heart to notethe beauty of the night. The sea was smooth as a pond, there was nobreath of wind, and now that the moon began to sink, thousands of starsof a marvellous brightness, such as we do not see in England, gemmed theheavens everywhere. At last these grew pale, and dawn began to flush theeast, and after it came the first rays of sunlight. But now I could notsee fifty yards around me, because of a dense mist that gathered on theface of
the quiet water, and hung there for an hour or more. When thesun was well up and at length the mist cleared away, I perceived that Ihad drifted far from the ship, of which I could only see the masts thatgrew ever fainter till they vanished. Now the surface of the sea wasclear of fog except in one direction, where it hung in a thick bank ofvapour, though why it should rest there and nowhere else, I could notunderstand.

  Then the sun grew hot, and my sufferings commenced, for except thedraught of spirits that had been given me in the hold of the slave-ship,I had touched no drink for a day and a night. I will not tell themall in particular detail, it is enough to say that those can scarcelyimagine them who have never stood for hour after hour in a barrel,bare-headed and parched with thirst, while the fierce heat of a tropicalsun beat down on them from above, and was reflected upward from theglassy surface of the water. In time, indeed, I grew faint and dizzy,and could hardly save myself from falling into the sea, and at last Isank into a sort of sleep or insensibility, from which I was awakened bya sound of screaming birds and of falling water. I looked and saw tomy wonder and delight, that what I had taken to be a bank of mist wasreally low-lying land, and that I was drifting rapidly with the tidetowards the bar of a large river. The sound of birds came from greatflocks of sea-gulls that were preying on the shoals of fish, which fedat the meeting of the fresh and salt water. Presently, as I watched, agull seized a fish that could not have weighed less than three pounds,and strove to lift it from the sea. Failing in this, it beat the fish onthe head with its beak till it died, and had begun to devour it, when Idrifted down upon the spot and made haste to seize the fish. In anothermoment, dreadful as it may seem, I was devouring the food raw, and neverhave I eaten with better appetite, or found more refreshment in a meal.

  When I had swallowed all that I was able, without drinking water, I putthe rest of the fish into the pocket of my coat, and turned my thoughtsto the breakers on the bar. Soon it was evident to me that I could notpass them standing in my barrel, so I hastened to upset myself into thewater and to climb astride of it. Presently we were in the surf, and Ihad much ado to cling on, but the tide bore me forward bravely, and inhalf an hour more the breakers were past, and I was in the mouth of thegreat river. Now fortune favoured me still further, for I found a pieceof wood floating on the stream which served me for a paddle, and by itshelp I was enabled to steer my craft towards the shore, that as I went Iperceived to be clothed with thick reeds, in which tall and lovely treesgrew in groups, bearing clusters of large nuts in their crowns. Hitherto this shore I came without further accident, having spent some tenhours in my tub, though it was but a chance that I did so, because ofthe horrible reptiles called crocodiles, or, by some, alligators, withwhich this river swarmed. But of them I knew nothing as yet.

  I reached land but just in time, for before I was ashore the tideturned, and tide and current began to carry me out to sea again, whenceassuredly I had never come back. Indeed, for the last ten minutes, ittook all the strength that I had to force the barrel along towards thebank. At length, however, I perceived that it floated in not more thanfour feet of water, and sliding from it, I waded to the bank and castmyself at length there to rest and thank God who thus far had preservedme miraculously. But my thirst, which now returned upon me more fiercelythan ever, would not suffer me to lie thus for long, so I staggered tomy feet and walked along the bank of the river till I came to a pool ofrain water, which on the tasting, proved to be sweet and good. Then Idrank, weeping for joy at the taste of the water, drank till I coulddrink no more, and let those who have stood in such a plight rememberwhat water was to them, for no words of mine can tell it. After Ihad drunk and washed the brine from my face and body, I drew out theremainder of my fish and ate it thankfully, and thus refreshed, castmyself down to sleep in the shade of a bush bearing white flowers, for Iwas utterly outworn.

  When I opened my eyes again it was night, and doubtless I should haveslept on through many hours more had it not been for a dreadful itch andpain that took me in every part, till at length I sprang up and cursedin my agony. At first I was at a loss to know what occasioned thistorment, till I perceived that the air was alive with gnat-like insectswhich made a singing noise, and then settling on my flesh, sucked bloodand spat poison into the wound at one and the same time. These dreadfulinsects the Spaniards name mosquitoes. Nor were they the only flies, forhundreds of other creatures, no bigger than a pin's head, had fastenedon to me like bulldogs to a baited bear, boring their heads into theflesh, where in the end they cause festers. They are named garrapatasby the Spanish, and I take them to be the young of the tic. Others therewere, also, too numerous to mention, and of every shape and size, thoughthey had this in common, all bit and all were venomous. Before themorning these plagues had driven me almost to madness, for in no waycould I obtain relief from them. Towards dawn I went and lay in thewater, thinking to lessen my sufferings, but before I had been there tenminutes I saw a huge crocodile rise up from the mud beside me. I sprangaway to the bank horribly afraid, for never before had I beheld somonstrous and evil-looking a brute, to fall again into the clutches ofthe creatures, winged and crawling, that were waiting for me there bymyriads.

  But enough of these damnable insects!