CHAPTER XXI
HOW THEY TOOK THE COMMUNION UNDER THE TREE AT HIGUEROTE
"Follow thee? Follow thee? Wha wad na follow thee? Lang hast thou looed and trusted us fairly."
Amyas would have certainly taken the yellow fever, but for one reason,which he himself gave to Cary. He had no time to be sick while his menwere sick; a valid and sufficient reason (as many a noble soul inthe Crimea has known too well), as long as the excitement of work ispresent, but too apt to fail the hero, and to let him sink into the pitwhich he has so often over-leapt, the moment that his work is done.
He called a council of war, or rather a sanitary commission, thenext morning; for he was fairly at his wits' end. The men werepanic-stricken, ready to mutiny: Amyas told them that he could not seeany possible good which could accrue to them by killing him, or--(forthere were two sides to every question)--being killed by him; and thenwent below to consult. The doctor talked mere science, or nonscience,about humors, complexions, and animal spirits. Jack Brimblecombe, merepulpit, about its being the visitation of God. Cary, mere despair,though he jested over it with a smile. Yeo, mere stoic fatalism, thoughhe quoted Scripture to back the same. Drew, the master, had nothing tosay. His "business was to sail the ship, and not to cure calentures."
Whereon Amyas clutched his locks, according to custom; and at last brokeforth--"Doctor! a fig for your humors and complexions! Can you curea man's humors, or change his complexion? Can an Ethiopian change hisskin, or a leopard his spots? Don't shove off your ignorance on God,sir. I ask you what's the reason of this sickness, and you don't know.Jack Brimblecombe, don't talk to me about God's visitation; this looksmuch more like the devil's visitation, to my mind. We are doing God'swork, Sir John, and He is not likely to hinder us. So down with thedevil, say I. Cary, laughing killed the cat, but it won't cure aChristian. Yeo, when an angel tells me that it's God's will that weshould all die like dogs in a ditch, I'll call this God's will; but notbefore. Drew, you say your business is to sail the ship; then sail herout of this infernal poison-trap this very morning, if you can, whichyou can't. The mischief's in the air, and nowhere else. I felt it runthrough me coming down last night, and smelt it like any sewer: andif it was not in the air, why was my boat's crew taken first, tell methat?"
There was no answer.
"Then I'll tell you why they were taken first: because the mist, whenwe came through it, only rose five or six feet above the stream, and wewere in it, while you on board were above it. And those that were takenon board this morning, every one of them, slept on the main-deck, andevery one of them, too, was in fear of the fever, whereby I judge twothings,--Keep as high as you can, and fear nothing but God, and we'reall safe yet."
"But the fog was up to our round-tops at sunrise this morning," saidCary.
"I know it: but we who were on the half-deck were not in it so long asthose below, and that may have made the difference, let alone our havingfree air. Beside, I suspect the heat in the evening draws the poison outmore, and that when it gets cold toward morning, the venom of it goesoff somehow."
How it went off Amyas could not tell (right in his facts as he was), fornobody on earth knew I suppose, at that day; and it was not tillnearly two centuries of fatal experience that the settlers in Americadiscovered the simple laws of these epidemics which now every childknows, or ought to know. But common sense was on his side; and Yeo roseand spoke--
"As I have said before, many a time, the Lord has sent us a very youngDaniel for judge. I remember now to have heard the Spaniards say, howthese calentures lay always in the low ground, and never came more thana few hundred feet above the sea."
"Let us go up those few hundred feet, then."
Every man looked at Amyas, and then at his neighbor.
"Gentlemen, 'Look the devil straight in the face, if you would hit himin the right place.' We cannot get the ship to sea as she is; and if wecould, we cannot go home empty-handed; and we surely cannot stay here todie of fever.--We must leave the ship and go inland."
"Inland?" answered every voice but Yeo's.
"Up those hundred feet which Yeo talks of. Up to the mountains; stockadea camp, and get our sick and provisions thither."
"And what next?"
"And when we are recruited, march over the mountains, and surprise St.Jago de Leon."
Cary swore a great oath. "Amyas! you are a daring fellow!"
"Not a bit. It's the plain path of prudence."
"So it is, sir," said old Yeo, "and I follow you in it."
"And so do I," squeaked Jack Brimblecombe.
"Nay, then, Jack, thou shalt not outrun me. So I say yes too," quothCary.
"Mr. Drew?"
"At your service, sir, to live or die. I know naught about stockading;but Sir Francis would have given the same counsel, I verily believe, ifhe had been in your place."
"Then tell the men that we start in an hour's time. Win over thePelicans, Yeo and Drew; and the rest must follow, like sheep over ahedge."
The Pelicans, and the liberated galley-slaves, joined the project atonce; but the rest gave Amyas a stormy hour. The great question was,where were the hills? In that dense mangrove thicket they could not seefifty yards before them.
"The hills are not three miles to the south-west of you at this moment,"said Amyas. "I marked every shoulder of them as we ran in."
"I suppose you meant to take us there?"
The question set a light to a train--and angry suspicions were blazingup one after another, but Amyas silenced them with a countermine.
"Fools! if I had not wit enow to look ahead a little farther than youdo, where would you be? Are you mad as well as reckless, to rise againstyour own captain because he has two strings to his bow? Go my way, Isay, or, as I live, I'll blow up the ship and every soul on board, andsave you the pain of rotting here by inches."
The men knew that Amyas never said what he did not intend to do; notthat Amyas intended to do this, because he knew that the threat would beenough. So they, agreed to go; and were reassured by seeing that the oldPelican's men turned to the work heartily and cheerfully.
There is no use keeping the reader for five or six weary hours, under abroiling (or rather stewing) sun, stumbling over mangrove roots, hewinghis way through thorny thickets, dragging sick men and provisions upmountain steeps, amid disappointment, fatigue, murmurs, curses, snakes,mosquitoes, false alarms of Spaniards, and every misery, save cold,which flesh is heir to. Suffice it that by sunset that evening they hadgained a level spot, a full thousand feet above the sea, backed by aninaccessible cliff which formed the upper shoulder of a mighty mountain,defended below by steep wooded slopes, and needing but the felling of afew trees to make it impregnable.
Amyas settled the sick under the arched roots of an enormous cottonwoodtree, and made a second journey to the ship, to bring up hammocks andblankets for them; while Yeo's wisdom and courage were of inestimablevalue. He, as pioneer, had found the little brook up which they forcedtheir way; he had encouraged them to climb the cliffs over which itfell, arguing rightly that on its course they were sure to find someground fit for encampment within the reach of water; he had supportedAmyas, when again and again the weary crew entreated to be dragged nofarther, and had gone back again a dozen times to cheer them upward;while Cary, who brought up the rear, bullied and cheered on thestragglers who sat down and refused to move, drove back at the sword'spoint more than one who was beating a retreat, carried their burdens forthem, sang them songs on the halt; in all things approving himself thegallant and hopeful soul which he had always been: till Amyas, besidehimself with joy at finding that the two men on whom he had countedmost were utterly worthy of his trust, went so far as to whisper to themboth, in confidence, that very night--
"Cortez burnt his ships when he landed. Why should not we?"
Yeo leapt upright; and then sat down again, and whispered--
"Do you say that, captain? 'Tis from above, then, that's certain; forit's been hanging on my mind too all day."
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"There's no hurry," quoth Amyas; "we must clear her out first, youknow," while Cary sat silent and musing. Amyas had evidently moreschemes in his head than he chose to tell.
The men were too tired that evening to do much, but ere the sun rosenext morning Amyas had them hard at work fortifying their position. Itwas, as I said, strong enough by nature; for though it was commanded byhigh cliffs on three sides, yet there was no chance of an enemy comingover the enormous mountain-range behind them, and still less chancethat, if he came, he would discover them through the dense mass oftrees which crowned the cliff, and clothed the hills for a thousand feetabove. The attack, if it took place, would come from below; and againstthat Amyas guarded by felling the smaller trees, and laying them withtheir boughs outward over the crest of the slope, thus forming an abatis(as every one who has shot in thick cover knows to his cost) warrantedto bring up in two steps, horse, dog, or man. The trunks were sawn intologs, laid lengthwise, and steadied by stakes and mould; and three orfour hours' hard work finished a stockade which would defy anythingbut artillery. The work done, Amyas scrambled up into the boughs of theenormous ceiba-tree, and there sat inspecting his own handiwork, lookingout far and wide over the forest-covered plains and the blue sea beyond,and thinking, in his simple straightforward way, of what was to be donenext.
To stay there long was impossible; to avenge himself upon La Guayra wasimpossible; to go until he had found out whether Frank was alive or deadseemed at first equally impossible. But were Brimblecombe, Cary, andthose eighty men to be sacrificed a second time to his private interest?Amyas wept with rage, and then wept again with earnest, honest prayer,before he could make up his mind. But he made it up. There were ahundred chances to one that Frank was dead; and if not, he was equallypast their help; for he was--Amyas knew that too well--by this timein the hands of the Inquisition. Who could lift him from that pit? NotAmyas, at least! And crying aloud in his agony, "God help him! for Icannot!" Amyas made up his mind to move. But whither? Many an hour hethought and thought alone, there in his airy nest; and at last he wentdown, calm and cheerful, and drew Cary and Yeo aside. They could not,he said, refit the ship without dying of fever during the process; anassertion which neither of his hearers was bold enough to deny. Evenif they refitted her, they would be pretty certain to have to fight theSpaniards again; for it was impossible to doubt the Indian's story, thatthey had been forewarned of the Rose's coming, or to doubt, either, thatEustace had been the traitor.
"Let us try St. Jago, then; sack it, come down on La Guayra in the rear,take a ship there, and so get home."
"Nay, Will. If they have strengthened themselves against us at LaGuayra, where they had little to lose, surely they have done so at St.Jago, where they have much. I hear the town is large, though new; andbesides, how can we get over these mountains without a guide?"
"Or with one?" said Cary, with a sigh, looking up at the vast walls ofwood and rock which rose range on range for miles. "But it is strange tofind you, at least, throwing cold water on a daring plot."
"What if I had a still more daring one? Did you ever hear of the goldencity of Manoa?"
Yeo laughed a grim but joyful laugh. "I have, sir; and so have the oldhands from the Pelican and the Jesus of Lubec, I doubt not."
"So much the better;" and Amyas began to tell Cary all which he hadlearned from the Spaniard, while Yeo capped every word thereof withrumors and traditions of his own gathering. Cary sat half aghast asthe huge phantasmagoria unfolded itself before his dazzled eyes; and atlast--
"So that was why you wanted to burn the ship! Well, after all, nobodyneeds me at home, and one less at table won't be missed. So you want toplay Cortez, eh?"
"We shall never need to play Cortez (who was not such a bad fellow afterall, Will), because we shall have no such cannibal fiends' tyranny torid the earth of, as he had. And I trust we shall fear God enough not toplay Pizarro."
So the conversation dropped for the time, but none of them forgot it.
In that mountain-nook the party spent some ten days and more. Several ofthe sick men died, some from the fever superadded to their wounds;some, probably, from having been bled by the surgeon; the others mendedsteadily, by the help of certain herbs which Yeo administered, muchto the disgust of the doctor, who, of course, wanted to bleed the poorfellows all round, and was all but mutinous when Amyas stayed his hand.In the meanwhile, by dint of daily trips to the ship, provisionswere plentiful enough,--beside the raccoons, monkeys, and other smallanimals, which Yeo and the veterans of Hawkins's crew knew how to catch,and the fruit and vegetables; above all, the delicious mountain cabbageof the Areca palm, and the fresh milk of the cow-tree, which theybrought in daily, paying well thereby for the hospitality they received.
All day long a careful watch was kept among the branches of the mightyceiba-tree. And what a tree that was! The hugest English oak would haveseemed a stunted bush beside it. Borne up on roots, or rather walls,of twisted board, some twelve feet high, between which the wholecrew, their ammunitions, and provisions, were housed roomily, rosethe enormous trunk full forty feet in girth, towering like some talllighthouse, smooth for a hundred feet, then crowned with boughs, each ofwhich was a stately tree, whose topmost twigs were full two hundredand fifty feet from the ground. And yet it was easy for the sailors toascend; so many natural ropes had kind Nature lowered for their use, inthe smooth lianes which hung to the very earth, often without a knot orleaf. Once in the tree, you were within a new world, suspended betweenheaven and earth, and as Cary said, no wonder if, like Jack when heclimbed the magic bean-stalk, you had found a castle, a giant, and a fewacres of well-stocked park, packed away somewhere amid that labyrinth oftimber. Flower-gardens at least were there in plenty; for every limb wascovered with pendent cactuses, gorgeous orchises, and wild pines; andwhile one-half the tree was clothed in rich foliage, the other half,utterly leafless, bore on every twig brilliant yellow flowers, aroundwhich humming-birds whirred all day long. Parrots peeped in and out ofevery cranny, while, within the airy woodland, brilliant lizards baskedlike living gems upon the bark, gaudy finches flitted and chirruped,butterflies of every size and color hovered over the topmost twigs,innumerable insects hummed from morn till eve; and when the sun wentdown, tree-toads came out to snore and croak till dawn. There was morelife round that one tree than in a whole square mile of English soil.
And Amyas, as he lounged among the branches, felt at moments as if hewould be content to stay there forever, and feed his eyes and earswith all its wonders--and then started sighing from his dream, as herecollected that a few days must bring the foe upon them, and forcehim to decide upon some scheme at which the bravest heart might falterwithout shame. So there he sat (for he often took the scout's placehimself), looking out over the fantastic tropic forest at his feet,and the flat mangrove-swamps below, and the white sheet of foam-fleckedblue; and yet no sail appeared; and the men, as their fear of feversubsided, began to ask when they would go down and refit the ship, andAmyas put them off as best he could, till one noon he saw slippingalong the shore from the westward, a large ship under easy sail, andrecognized in her, or thought he did so, the ship which they had passedupon their way.
If it was she, she must have run past them to La Guayra in the night,and have now returned, perhaps, to search for them along the coast.
She crept along slowly. He was in hopes that she might pass the river'smouth: but no. She lay-to close to the shore; and, after a while, Amyassaw two boats pull in from her, and vanish behind the mangroves.
Sliding down a liane, he told what he had seen. The men, tired ofinactivity, received the news with a shout of joy, and set to work tomake all ready for their guests. Four brass swivels, which they hadbrought up, were mounted, fixed in logs, so as to command the path; themusketeers and archers clustered round them with their tackle ready, andhalf-a-dozen good marksmen volunteered into the cotton-tree with theirarquebuses, as a post whence "a man might have very pretty shooting."Prayers followed as a matter of course, and dinn
er as a matter ofcourse also; but two weary hours passed before there was any sign of theSpaniards.
Presently a wreath of white smoke curled up from the swamp, and then thereport of a caliver. Then, amid the growls of the English, the Spanishflag ran up above the trees, and floated--horrible to behold--at themast-head of the Rose. They were signalling the ship for more hands;and, in effect, a third boat soon pushed off and vanished into theforest.
Another hour, during which the men had thoroughly lost their temper, butnot their hearts, by waiting; and talked so loud, and strode up and downso wildly, that Amyas had to warn them that there was no need to betraythemselves; that the Spaniards might not find them after all; that theymight pass the stockade close without seeing it; that, unless they hitoff the track at once, they would probably return to their ship for thepresent; and exacted a promise from them that they would be perfectlysilent till he gave the word to fire.
Which wise commands had scarcely passed his lips, when, in the pathbelow, glanced the headpiece of a Spanish soldier, and then another andanother.
"Fools!" whispered Amyas to Cary; "they are coming up in single file,rushing on their own death. Lie close, men!"
The path was so narrow that two could seldom come up abreast, and sosteep that the enemy had much ado to struggle and stumble upwards. Themen seemed half unwilling to proceed, and hung back more than once;but Amyas could hear an authoritative voice behind, and presently thereemerged to the front, sword in hand, a figure at which Amyas and Caryboth started.
"Is it he?"
"Surely I know those legs among a thousand, though they are in armor."
"It is my turn for him, now, Cary, remember! Silence, silence, men!"
The Spaniards seemed to feel that they were leading a forlorn hope. DonGuzman (for there was little doubt that it was he) had much ado to getthem on at all.
"The fellows have heard how gently we handled the Guayra squadron,"whispers Cary, "and have no wish to become fellow-martyrs with thecaptain of the Madre Dolorosa."
At last the Spaniards get up the steep slope to within forty yards ofthe stockade, and pause, suspecting a trap, and puzzled by the completesilence. Amyas leaps on the top of it, a white flag in his hand; but hisheart beats so fiercely at the sight of that hated figure, that he canhardly get out the words--
"Don Guzman, the quarrel is between you and me, not between your men andmine. I would have sent in a challenge to you at La Guayra, but you wereaway; I challenge you now to single combat."
"Lutheran dog, I have a halter for you, but no sword! As you served usat Smerwick, we will serve you now. Pirate and ravisher, you and yoursshall share Oxenham's fate, as you have copied his crimes, and learnwhat it is to set foot unbidden on the dominions of the king of Spain."
"The devil take you and the king of Spain together!" shouts Amyas,laughing loudly. "This ground belongs to him no more than it does tome, but to the Queen Elizabeth, in whose name I have taken as lawfulpossession of it as you ever did of Caracas. Fire, men! and God defendthe right!"
Both parties obeyed the order; Amyas dropped down behind the stockadein time to let a caliver bullet whistle over his head; and the Spaniardsrecoiled as the narrow face of the stockade burst into one blaze ofmusketry and swivels, raking their long array from front to rear.
The front ranks fell over each other in heaps; the rear ones turned andran; overtaken, nevertheless, by the English bullets and arrows, whichtumbled them headlong down the steep path.
"Out, men, and charge them. See! the Don is running like the rest!" Andscrambling over the abattis, Amyas and about thirty followed them fast;for he had hope of learning from some prisoner his brother's fate.
Amyas was unjust in his last words. Don Guzman, as if by miracle, hadbeen only slightly wounded; and seeing his men run, had rushed back andtried to rally them, but was borne away by the fugitives.
However, the Spaniards were out of sight among the thick bushes beforethe English could overtake them; and Amyas, afraid lest they shouldrally and surround his small party, withdrew sorely against his will,and found in the pathway fourteen Spaniards, but all dead. For one ofthe wounded, with more courage than wisdom, had fired on the Englishas he lay; and Amyas's men, whose blood was maddened both by theirdesperate situation, and the frightful stories of the rescuedgalley-slaves, had killed them all before their captain could stop them.
"Are you mad?" cries Amyas, as he strikes up one fellow's sword. "Willyou kill an Indian?"
And he drags out of the bushes an Indian lad of sixteen, who, slightlywounded, is crawling away like a copper snake along the ground.
"The black vermin has sent an arrow through my leg; and poisoned too,most like."
"God grant not: but an Indian is worth his weight in gold to us now,"said Amyas, tucking his prize under his arm like a bundle. The lad, assoon as he saw there was no escape, resigned himself to his fate withtrue Indian stoicism, was brought in, and treated kindly enough, butrefused to eat. For which, after much questioning, he gave as a reason,that he would make them kill him at once; for fat him they should not;and gradually gave them to understand that the English always (soat least the Spaniards said) fatted and ate their prisoners likethe Caribs; and till he saw them go out and bury the bodies of theSpaniards, nothing would persuade him that the corpses were not to becooked for supper.
However, kind words, kind looks, and the present of that inestimabletreasure--a knife, brought him to reason; and he told Amyas that hebelonged to a Spaniard who had an "encomienda" of Indians some fifteenmiles to the south-west; that he had fled from his master, and livedby hunting for some months past; and having seen the ship where she laymoored, and boarded her in hope of plunder, had been surprised thereinby the Spaniards, and forced by threats to go with them as a guide intheir search for the English. But now came a part of his story whichfilled the soul of Amyas with delight. He was an Indian of the Llanos,or great savannahs which lay to the southward beyond the mountains, andhad actually been upon the Orinoco. He had been stolen as a boy by someSpaniards, who had gone down (as was the fashion of the Jesuits evenas late as 1790) for the pious purpose of converting the savages by thesimple process of catching, baptizing, and making servants of thosewhom they could carry off, and murdering those who resisted their gentlemethod of salvation. Did he know the way back again? Who could ask sucha question of an Indian? And the lad's black eyes flashed fire, as Amyasoffered him liberty and iron enough for a dozen Indians, if he wouldlead them through the passes of the mountains, and southward to themighty river, where lay their golden hopes. Hernando de Serpa, Amyasknew, had tried the same course, which was supposed to be about onehundred and twenty leagues, and failed, being overthrown utterly by theWikiri Indians; but Amyas knew enough of the Spaniards' brutal methodof treating those Indians, to be pretty sure that they had brought thatcatastrophe upon themselves, and that he might avoid it well enough bythat common justice and mercy toward the savages which he had learnedfrom his incomparable tutor, Francis Drake.
Now was the time to speak; and, assembling his men around him, Amyasopened his whole heart, simply and manfully. This was their only hopeof safety. Some of them had murmured that they should perish like JohnOxenham's crew. This plan was rather the only way to avoid perishinglike them. Don Guzman would certainly return to seek them; and not onlyhe, but land-forces from St. Jago. Even if the stockade was not forced,they would be soon starved out; why not move at once, ere the Spaniardscould return, and begin a blockade? As for taking St. Jago, it wasimpossible. The treasure would all be safely hidden, and the town wellprepared to meet them. If they wanted gold and glory, they must seek itelsewhere. Neither was there any use in marching along the coast, andtrying the ports: ships could outstrip them, and the country was alreadywarned. There was but this one chance; and on it Amyas, the first andlast time in his life, waxed eloquent, and set forth the glory of theenterprise, the service to the queen, the salvation of heathens, andthe certainty that, if successful, they should win honor and wealth andeverlast
ing fame, beyond that of Cortez or Pizarro, till the men, sulkyat first, warmed every moment; and one old Pelican broke out with--
"Yes, sir! we didn't go round the world with you for naught; and watchedyour works and ways, which was always those of a gentleman, as youare--who spoke a word for a poor fellow when he was in a scrape, and sawall you ought to see, and naught that you ought not. And we'll followyou, sir, all alone to ourselves; and let those that know you worsefollow after when they're come to their right mind."
Man after man capped this brave speech; the minority, who, if they likedlittle to go, liked still less to be left behind, gave in their consentperforce; and, to make a long story short, Amyas conquered, and the planwas accepted.
"This," said Amyas, "is indeed the proudest day of my life! I have lostone brother, but I have gained fourscore. God do so to me and more also,if I do not deal with you according to the trust which you have put inme this day!"
We, I suppose, are to believe that we have a right to laugh at Amyas'sscheme as frantic and chimerical. It is easy to amuse ourselves with thepremises, after the conclusion has been found for us. We know, now, thathe was mistaken: but we have not discovered his mistake for ourselves,and have no right to plume ourselves on other men's discoveries. Had welived in Amyas's days, we should have belonged either to the many wisemen who believed as he did, or to the many foolish men, who not onlysneered at the story of Manoa, but at a hundred other stories, which wenow know to be true. Columbus was laughed at: but he found a new world,nevertheless. Cortez was laughed at: but he found Mexico. Pizarro: buthe found Peru. I ask any fair reader of those two charming books, Mr.Prescott's Conquest of Mexico and his Conquest of Peru, whether the truewonders in them described do not outdo all the false wonders of Manoa.
But what reason was there to think them false? One quarter, perhaps, ofAmerica had been explored, and yet in that quarter two empires had beenalready found, in a state of mechanical, military, and agriculturalcivilization superior, in many things, to any nation of Europe. Wasit not most rational to suppose that in the remaining three-quarterssimilar empires existed? If a second Mexico had been discovered in themountains of Parima, and a second Peru in those of Brazil, what rightwould any man have had to wonder? As for the gold legends, nothing wastold of Manoa which had not been seen in Peru and Mexico by the bodilyeyes of men then living. Why should not the rocks of Guiana have beenas full of the precious metals (we do not know yet that they are not) asthe rocks of Peru and Mexico were known to be? Even the details of thestory, its standing on a lake, for instance, bore a probability withthem. Mexico actually stood in the centre of a lake--why should notManoa? The Peruvian worship centred round a sacred lake--why not thatof Manoa? Pizarro and Cortez, again, were led on to their desperateenterprises by the sight of small quantities of gold among savages, whotold them of a civilized gold-country near at hand; and they found thatthose savages spoke truth. Why was the unanimous report of the Caribtribes of the Orinoco to be disbelieved, when they told a similar tale?Sir Richard Schomburgk's admirable preface to Raleigh's Guiana proves,surely, that the Indians themselves were deceived, as well as deceivers.It was known, again, that vast quantities of the Peruvian treasure hadbeen concealed by the priests, and that members of the Inca family hadfled across the Andes, and held out against the Spaniards. Barely fiftyyears had elapsed since then;--what more probable than that this remnantof the Peruvian dynasty and treasure still existed? Even the story ofthe Amazons, though it may serve Hume as a point for his ungenerous anduntruthful attempt to make Raleigh out either fool or villain, hascome from Spaniards, who had with their own eyes seen the Indian womenfighting by their husbands' sides, and from Indians, who asserted theexistence of an Amazonian tribe. What right had Amyas, or any man, todisbelieve the story? The existence of the Amazons in ancient Asia, andof their intercourse with Alexander the Great, was then an accreditedpart of history, which it would have been gratuitous impertinence todeny. And what if some stories connected these warlike women with theEmperor of Manoa, and the capital itself? This generation ought surelyto be the last to laugh at such a story, at least as long as theAmazonian guards of the King of Dahomey continue to outvie the men inthat relentless ferocity, with which they have subdued every neighboringtribe, save the Christians of Abbeokuta. In this case, as in a hundredmore, fact not only outdoes, but justifies imagination; and Amyas spokecommon sense when he said to his men that day--
"Let fools laugh and stay at home. Wise men dare and win. Saul went tolook for his father's asses, and found a kingdom; and Columbus, my men,was called a madman for only going to seek China, and never knew, theysay, until his dying day, that he had found a whole new world insteadof it. Find Manoa? God only, who made all things, knows what we may findbeside!"
So underneath that giant ceiba-tree, those valiant men, reduced bybattle and sickness to some eighty, swore a great oath, and kept thatoath like men. To search for the golden city for two full years to come,whatever might befall; to stand to each other for weal or woe; to obeytheir officers to the death; to murmur privately against no man, butbring all complaints to a council of war; to use no profane oaths, butserve God daily with prayer; to take by violence from no man, save fromtheir natural enemies the Spaniards; to be civil and merciful to allsavages, and chaste and courteous to all women; to bring all booty andall food into the common stock, and observe to the utmost their faithwith the adventurers who had fitted out the ship; and finally, to marchat sunrise the next morning toward the south, trusting in God to betheir guide.
"It is a great oath, and a hard one," said Brimblecombe; "but God willgive us strength to keep it." And they knelt all together and receivedthe Holy Communion, and then rose to pack provisions and ammunition,and lay down again to sleep and to dream that they were sailing homeup Torridge stream--as Cavendish, returning from round the world, didactually sail home up Thames but five years afterwards--"with marinersand soldiers clothed in silk, with sails of damask, and topsails ofcloth of gold, and the richest prize which ever was brought at one timeunto English shores."
* * * * *
The Cross stands upright in the southern sky. It is the middle of thenight. Cary and Yeo glide silently up the hill and into the camp,and whisper to Amyas that they have done the deed. The sleepers areawakened, and the train sets forth.
Upward and southward ever: but whither, who can tell? They hardly thinkof the whither; but go like sleep-walkers, shaken out of one land ofdreams, only to find themselves in another and stranger one. All aroundis fantastic and unearthly; now each man starts as he sees the figuresof his fellows, clothed from head to foot in golden filigree; looks up,and sees the yellow moonlight through the fronds of the huge tree-fernsoverhead, as through a cloud of glittering lace. Now they are hewingtheir way through a thicket of enormous flags; now through bamboos fortyfeet high; now they are stumbling over boulders, waist-deep in cushionsof club-moss; now they are struggling through shrubberies of heaths andrhododendrons, and woolly incense-trees, where every leaf, as they brushpast, dashes some fresh scent into their faces, and
"The winds, with musky wing, About the cedarn alleys fling Nard and cassia's balmy smells."
Now they open upon some craggy brow, from whence they can see far belowan ocean of soft cloud, whose silver billows, girdled by the mountainsides, hide the lowland from their sight.
And from beneath the cloud strange voices rise; the screams of thousandnight-birds, and wild howls, which they used at first to fancy were thecries of ravenous beasts, till they found them to proceed from nothingfiercer than an ape. But what is that deeper note, like a seriesof muffled explosions,--arquebuses fired within some subterraneancavern,--the heavy pulse of which rolls up through the depths of theunseen forest? They hear it now for the first time, but they will hearit many a time again; and the Indian lad is hushed, and cowers closeto them, and then takes heart, as he looks upon their swords andarquebuses; for that is the roar of the jaguar, "seeking his meat fromGod."
But what is that glare away to the northward? The yellow moon is ringedwith gay rainbows; but that light is far too red to be the reflectionof any beams of hers. Now through the cloud rises a column of black andlurid smoke; the fog clears away right and left around it, and showsbeneath, a mighty fire.
The men look at each other with questioning eyes, each half suspecting,and yet not daring to confess their own suspicions; and Amyas whispersto Yeo--
"You took care to flood the powder?"
"Ay, ay, sir, and to unload the ordnance too. No use in making a noiseto tell the Spaniards our whereabouts."
Yes; that glare rises from the good ship Rose. Amyas, like Cortez ofold, has burnt his ship, and retreat is now impossible. Forward into theunknown abyss of the New World, and God be with them as they go!
The Indian knows a cunning path: it winds along the highest ridges ofthe mountains; but the travelling is far more open and easy.
They have passed the head of a valley which leads down to St. Jago.Beneath that long shining river of mist, which ends at the foot ofthe great Silla, lies (so says the Indian lad) the rich capital ofVenezuela; and beyond, the gold-mines of Los Teques and Baruta, whichfirst attracted the founder Diego de Losada; and many a longing eye isturned towards it as they pass the saddle at the valley head; but theattempt is hopeless, they turn again to the left, and so down towardsthe rancho, taking care (so the prudent Amyas had commanded) to breakdown, after crossing, the frail rope bridge which spans each torrent andravine.
They are at the rancho long before daybreak, and have secured there,not only fourteen mules, but eight or nine Indians stolen from offthe Llanos, like their guide, who are glad enough to escape from theirtyrants by taking service with them. And now southward and away, withlightened shoulders and hearts; for they are all but safe from pursuit.The broken bridges prevent the news of their raid reaching St. Jagountil nightfall; and in the meanwhile, Don Guzman returns to the rivermouth the next day to find the ship a blackened wreck, and the campempty; follows their trail over the hills till he is stopped by a brokenbridge; surmounts that difficulty, and meets a second; his men areworn out with heat, and a little afraid of stumbling on the hereticdesperadoes, and he returns by land to St. Jago; and when he arrivesthere, has news from home which gives him other things to think of thanfollowing those mad Englishmen, who have vanished into the wilderness."What need, after all, to follow them?" asked the Spaniards of eachother. "Blinded by the devil, whom they serve, they rush on in search ofcertain death, as many a larger company has before them, and they willfind it, and will trouble La Guayra no more forever." "Lutheran dogs andenemies of God," said Don Guzman to his soldiers, "they will leave theirbones to whiten on the Llanos, as may every heretic who sets foot onSpanish soil!"
Will they do so, Don Guzman? Or wilt thou and Amyas meet again upon amightier battlefield, to learn a lesson which neither of you yet haslearned?
Westward Ho! Or, The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, of Burrough, in the County of Devon, in the Reign of Her Most Glorious Majesty Queen Elizabeth Page 21