CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.
FRIEND AND PATIENT.
They had sought in vain for the lost man; and when in utter despair theyhad been on the point of giving up the search, he had struggled back tothem, his last steps guided by the fire when he had felt that he mustlie down utterly exhausted, to die.
"Mr Brazier! At last!" cried Rob; and he went down upon his knee andgrasped his leader's hand, but there was no response, and the fingers heheld were cold as ice.
"Here, lend a hand, Mr Rob, sir," cried Shaddy roughly, "and help me toget him on my back."
"Let me help carry him."
"No, sir; my way's easiest--quickest, and will hurt him least. He'shalf dead of starvation, and cold as cold. Quick, sir! let's get himdown by the fire. It will be too dark in the hovel to do anything."
Rob helped to raise the wanderer, Shaddy swung him on his back lightlyand easily, and stepping quickly toward the fire, soon had the poorfellow lying with his feet exposed to the blaze, while water was givento him a little at a time, and soon after a few morsels of the tenderfish, which he swallowed with difficulty.
They had no rest that night, but, with the strange cries and noises ofthe forest around them, mingled with the splashings anddanger-threatening sounds of the river, they tended and cared for theinsensible man, giving him food and water from time to time, but inquantities suggestive of homoeopathic treatment. Still they felt nofatigue for the great joy in both their hearts, for neither of them hadthe faintest hope of ever seeing their leader again.
Once or twice during the night Mr Brazier had seemed so cold and rigidthat Rob had glanced wildly at the guide, who replied by feeling theinsensible man's feet.
"Only sleep, my lad!" he said softly. "I daresay he will not come tofor a couple of days. A man can't pass through the horror of being lostwithout going off his head more or less."
"Do you think he'll be delirious, then?"
"Off his head, my lad? Yes. It will be almost like a fever, I shouldsay, and we shall have to nurse him a long time till he comes round."
The guide was quite right. The strong man was utterly brought down bythe terrible struggle of the past three days, and as they looked at hishollow eyes and sunken cheeks it was plain to see what he had sufferedbodily from hunger, while his wanderings told of how great the shockmust have been to his brain.
The mystery of the blood was explained simply enough by his roughlybandaged left arm, on which as they examined it, while he lay perfectlyweak and insensible, they found a severe wound cleanly cut by a knife.
"He must have been attacked, then," cried Rob as he looked at the woundin horror, while in a quiet, methodical way Shaddy proceeded to sew ittogether by the simple process of thrusting a couple of pins through theskin and then winding a thread of silk round them in turn from head topoint, after which he firmly bandaged the wound before making a reply toRob's words.
"Yes, my lad," he said; "right arm attacked his left. He must have beenmaking a chop at some of the plants on a branch, and the tool slipped.You take out his knife and open it, and see if it ain't marked."
Shaddy was quite right, for there on the handle were some dried-uptraces of how the wound must have bled.
It was a week before the patient began to show tokens of amendment,during which time Rob and Shaddy had been hard pressed for ways tosupply his wants. There were endless things necessary for the invalidwhich they could not supply, but, from old forest lore and knowledgepicked up during his adventurous life, the guide was able to find theleaves of a shrub, which leaves he beat into a pulp between two pebbles,put the bruised stems into the cup of a water flask, added water, andgave it to the patient to drink.
"It is of no use to ask me what it is, Mr Rob, sir," said the guide;"all I know is that the Indians use it, and that there isn't anythingbetter to keep down fever and get up strength."
"Then it must be quinine," said Rob.
"No, my lad; it isn't that, but it's very good. These wild sort ofpeople seem to have picked up the knack of doctoring themselves and offinding out poisons to put on their arrows somehow or another, andthere's no nonsense about them."
The prisoners in the vast forest--for they were as much prisoners as ifshut up in some huge building--had to scheme hard to obtain theirsupplies so as to make them suitable to their patient. Fish theycaught, as a rule, abundantly enough; birds they trapped and shot witharrows; and fruit was to be had after much searching; but their greatwant was some kind of vessel in which to cook, till after severalfailures Rob built up a very rough pot of clay from the river bed bymaking long thin rolls and laying one upon the other and rubbing themtogether. This pot he built up on a piece of thin shaley stone, driedit in the sun, and ended by baking it in the embers--covering it overwith the hot ashes, and leaving it all one night.
Shaddy watched him with a grim smile, and kept on giving him words ofencouragement, as he worked, tending Mr Brazier the while, brushing theflies away and arranging green boughs over him to keep him in the shade,declaring that he would be better out there in the open than in theforest.
"Well done, my lad!" said the old sailor as Rob held up the finished potbefore placing it in the fire; "'tis a rough 'un, but I daresay therehas been worse ones made. What I'm scared about is the firing. Strikesme it will crack all to shivers."
To Rob's great delight, the pot came out of the wood ashes perfectlysound, and their next experiment was the careful stewing down of aniguana and the production of a quantity of broth, which Shaddypronounced to be finer than any chicken soup ever made; Rob, aftertrying hard to conquer his repugnance to food prepared from such ahideous-looking creature, said it was not bad; and their patient drankwith avidity.
"There," said Shaddy, "we shall go on swimmingly in the kitchen now; andas we can have hot water I don't see why we shouldn't have some tea."
"You'd better go to the grocer's, then, for a pound," said Rob, with alaugh.
"Oh no, I shan't," said Shaddy; "here's plenty of leaves to dry in thesun such as people out here use, and you'll say it ain't such bad tea,neither; but strikes me, Mr Rob, that the sooner you make another potthe better."
Rob set to at once, and failed in the baking, but succeeded admirablywith his next attempt, the new pot being better baked than the old, andthat night he partook of some of Shad's infusion of leaves, which wasconfessed to be only wanting in sugar and cream to be very palatable.
That day they found a deer lying among the bushes, with the neck andbreast eaten, evidently the puma's work, and, after what Shaddy called afair division, the legs and loins were carried off to roast and stew,giving the party, with the fruit and fish, a delightful change.
The next day was one to be marked with a red letter, for towards eveningMr Brazier's eyes had in them the look of returned consciousness.
Rob saw it first as he knelt down beside his friend, who smiled at himfaintly, and spoke in quite a whisper.
From that hour he began to amend fast, and a week after he related how,in his ardour to secure new plants, he had lost his bearings, and goneon wandering here and there in the most helpless way, sustaining life onsuch berries and other fruits as he could find, till the horror of hissituation was more than his brain could bear. Face to face with thefact that he might go on wandering there till forced by weakness to liedown and die, he said the horror mastered him all at once, and the restwas like some terrible dream of going on and on, with intervals thatwere full of delight, and in which he seemed to be amongst gloriousflowers, which he was always collecting, till the heaps crushed himdown, and all was horror, agony, and wild imagination. Then he awokelying beneath the bower of leaves, shaded from the sunshine, listeningto the birds, the rushing sound of the river, and, best of all, thevoices of his two companions.
Rob Harlow's Adventures: A Story of the Grand Chaco Page 29