Kitabı oku: «Wild Life in the Land of the Giants: A Tale of Two Brothers», sayfa 10
Chapter Eighteen
The Story of our Rescue – A Dinner and a Ball – Peter and Dulzura
On our arrival at Sandy Point (Puenta Arenas) we, that is Jill and I, had been billeted at a pretty little bungalow belonging to a Chilian, and next morning early Peter came to see us, and tell us the story of our rescue.
“First and foremost,” he began, “let me tell you that I’m precious glad to see you again, Jack, and you too, Greenie; though, bother me if I’m not beginning to think you’re not half so green as you look, for the way he was fighting, Jack, when I landed to help you, was a caution to codgers, I can tell you. Ha, ha! why, I laugh to think how he was making the spear heads fly whenever a few of those Foogies made a thrust at him. How many Greenie killed I couldn’t wager; but I’m pretty certain he has found the cannibals in food for a fortnight.
“And you too, Jack. I got a blink of you before you fell. You were back to back, you two; and what with you being so precious like Jill, and Jill being so precious like you, I’m sure the Foogies were frightened and took the two of you for one. And of course they’re not far wrong, though you’re not fastened together like the Siamese twins by a bit of skin.”
“How did you find us?”
“Ay,” said Jill, “that’s more to the point.”
“Well, I’m going to tell you, Greenie, if you’ll only give me time. I’d have told you all about it yesterday, but you wouldn’t spare a minute away from Jack.
“You see, then, when we got separated in that snow-squall, we did not take much thought about you at first. We remembered you had a boat compass, and that Ritchie was a good man, and naturally supposed you would find your way here.
“The squally weather continued, but in the very thick of it we found ourselves alongside a steamer – the same saucy little Chilian man-o’-war that so kindly went in search of you. And it isn’t fun, I can tell you, to search all up and down among these coves and creeks and islands and forests and glens.
“Well, they took us on board, and made very much of us all the way to Sandy Point, and Captain Coates and our little mother Coates, with Leila, are now living with the governor.
“We waited two days to see if you would show your noses. Then matters looked serious, and as the captain of the gunboat had had several men killed by the Foogies two summers ago, he all the more readily consented to go to look for the missing boat.
“Well, we just looked till we found you. That is the long and the short of it. We searched the wrong shore first. But really I had hoped you had gone down in the squall; that your boat had foundered, and you had been all drowned-dead, as Ritchie would say.”
“But why, in the name of mystery, Peter, did you wish us drowned?”
“Why, because I imagined it would be death somehow; and, to tell you the truth, I couldn’t bear the thoughts of your being killed and eaten.
“Just fancy,” continued Peter, looking mischievously at Jill, “just fancy Greenie here served up with parsley and butter sauce, or however they do serve them up.”
“Never mind, Peter,” I said, laughing; “all’s well that ends well.”
“Yes, my boy, unless it ends better than well, and that’s how it’s going to.”
“How do you mean?” asked Jill. “Why, in a ball. And that’s what is going to be given. There are two ships here, and I’m so glad, because there is a pretty Chilian girl that I’m half mad on, the daughter of somebody or another, and – and she’ll be there. Do you see, Greenie?”
At little outlandish towns like Sandy Point it does not take a very long time, when ships are alongside, to get up an entertainment of any kind, so in less than a week the ball came off.
It was preceded by a dinner on board the man-o’-war, at which I was pleased to note that Jill was the hero of the hour. I really felt proud of him, but Jill took it all as a matter of course.
The dinner was excellent of its kind, though I think even Captain Coates missed the big solid English joints. Here all was made dishes, dishes of surprise you might say. Peter and I sat pretty close together, Jill being stowed away among the ladies somewhere, so I knew what Peter did. On the whole I should say he did well, and I should think he must have changed his plate about twenty times before dessert.
“My object was,” he told me next morning, “to taste everything. I wanted to improve the mind as well as the body. D’ye see?”
“Oh yes, we saw right enough.” Peter never failed to be explicit when he talked. For the first time in my life, we tasted guanaco and ostrich meat, and horseflesh; and the commander of the ship positively apologised because he had not been able to procure a fry of agouti and a curry of armadillo. I for one readily excused the gallant commander, and I suppose so did Peter; though I know this much, if steak of grampus and roast albatross had been placed before him, he would have felt it his duty to eat of these dishes.
When talking grew fast and furious, which it did about the middle of the seventeenth course – “the seventeenth round” Peter afterwards styled it – I had time to look around me and note the peculiarities of my companions at table.
The principal peculiarities of the foreign officers, I soon discovered, were excessive politeness and a gesticulatory method of talking, not by any means approaching to rudeness, but strange to an Englishman’s eye. The commander was a short, stout, good-natured little fellow, very round-faced, and cheerful in eye. I do not wonder at this, if he “fed” – the expression is Peter’s – as well every day as we had now done. His officers were second editions of himself, only boiled down, as it were. There were several gentlemen from the two merchant ships, and two ladies. One of the latter was a captain’s wife, who, like our little mother Coates, preferred to plough the stormy ocean with her husband to staying at home on the dull shore.
The other lady was she on whom Peter had gone mad, as he told us. I think I am right in asserting that poor Peter had eyes for nobody and nothing at table except her. She really was a charming girl. I did not wonder at Peter’s all too sensitive heart being smitten with her. Besides, you know, Peter was a sailor. He did not know her Christian name. He had simply given her one. He called her Dulzura, which certainly sounds very nice, and means “sweet,” “suave,” “pleasant,” “pretty,” and a whole regiment of other nice adjectives.
Near the head of the table sat Dulzura’s father. I knew him for her father at a glance. He was an exceedingly handsome man, but bold-looking as well as handsome, though most deferential and gentlemanly. His age might have been about fifty. I put him down at once as a soldier, but found out afterwards that, though he had been in the Chilian army, he was now, if anything, a sportsman and rover.
Well, after the dinner came the ball on the quarter-deck. There was not a great deal of room, certainly, but then our party was not large.
Señor Castizo, as Dulzura’s father was called, opened the ball, leading off in a waltz with our little mother Coates. Poor little mother Coates! she felt much flattered, but soon got tired. Darning was more in her way than dancing. But Castizo was not tired, and no sooner had Mrs Coates retired than, full of glee and delight, there rushed up to him his daughter. He might have been her elder brother, so gracefully did he waltz. The two were the admiration of all beholders, especially Peter. He was waiting to receive her, and I’ll never forget the kindly yet princely air with which her father handed the young lady over.
Peter led her away in triumph to breathe among the evergreens in the improvised conservatory. I saw Peter soon after, and I never noticed him look so happy before.
I saw him later on. He was out near the mainmast. I should have told you that the ball was on the upper deck, under an awning beautifully decorated with flags and greenery. Yes, I saw Peter there, and with him was Dulzura’s father. A glance told me he was doing the agreeable. Both were smoking such huge cigars that really Peter looked small behind his.
I next saw Peter among the musicians, playing on his clarionet. His soul seemed in it. His soul seemed more in it when asked by Dulzura to play a solo. I shall never forget that I did not know before he could play so sweetly. Surely, I thought, Peter is inspired.
Well, as far as appearances went that night it was my brother Jill who was the greater favourite with Dulzura. He could dance better than Peter.
But next day, when Peter came to breakfast with us, he could speak about nothing else but the dinner and ball of the previous evening.
I was amused, too, at the way he spoke to Jill.
“I’m awfully obliged to you, Greenie,” he said, “for dancing so much with my Dulzura. It was kind and considerate. I knew you wouldn’t make love and talk nonsense to her as some of the officers tried to do.”
“Oh no,” said Jill, with his quiet smile, “we talked nothing but politics, I assure you, and discussed the future prospects of the South Sea Islanders.”
“Do you like her, Greenie?”
“Assuredly.”
“Love, of course, is out of the question?”
“Certainly.”
“Well, you’ll be glad to know that she and I get on famously together. The worst of it is that she can’t talk much English, and I don’t know much Spanish. But she is going to teach me. About a fortnight will make me perfect.”
“About a fortnight, Peter,” I said in some surprise. “Why the boat for Monte Video comes round the day after to-morrow.”
“Ah! yes, but I’m not going in her. Neither are you nor Greenie here. That’s what I came to speak about.”
“Well, heave round. I’ll be glad to hear what you have to say.”
“It’s very simple. Señor Castizo has taken an inordinate fancy for me. Dear Dulzura goes home with her maid to Valparaiso in about three weeks time, but her father stops. He is going into the wilds of Patagonia, where he has been before, and knows the lay of the land well. And he asked me to stay too, and accompany him.”
“Yes, and what did you say?”
“I said I’d do so like a shot, if I got you and Greenie to come with us.”
Jill’s eyes sparkled with delight.
“It would be simply glorious,” he said. “And I’m sure mother wouldn’t mind, nor aunt either.”
“But we haven’t much money to rig up,” I said.
“Oh, we’ve enough, I assure you. It’s a cheap country to live in. Castizo says about all a man wants is a guanaco robe and a gun, with a horse or two, and there you are.”
I confess I was quite as struck with the notion of having a few wild adventures in the Land of the Giants as Jill was; but, being the elder, I was of course bound to prudence and discretion.
“We’d have to write a very long letter home,” I said.
“Well, you’re capable of doing that, I believe.”
“And state that there is little danger, and that it will recruit Jill’s health.”
“Capital phrase!” cried Peter. “Jack, you’re quite a diplomatist.”
“But,” I added, “is there much danger?”
“Not very much, from the way Castizo speaks. I would bear very lightly on those if I were you.”
“And you know, Jack,” said Jill, “adventures would not be much worth without just a soupçon of danger.”
“True. Well, I must confess I’m willing. What about Ritchie?”
“He and another man are coming with us.”
“And Captain Coates and our dear little mother?”
“Going home. They must, you know. We needn’t. And it isn’t French leave either. You and I and Jill are shipwrecked mariners – that, by the way, is why we are objects of interest and romance to Dulzura. We’re shipwrecked mariners, and it isn’t as if we were apprentices.”
“We are all passed mates.”
“And the Salamander was aunt’s ship,” added Jill. “She can get us another.”
“True, Jill; you’re a brick.”
“Well,” he added, “is it a bargain?”
“Yes,” I said, speaking for Jill and myself too. Then we all shook hands, and the conversation took another turn; that is – it went back to Dulzura.
Chapter Nineteen
Book III – The Land of Giants
All Alone on the Pampas – The Camp in the Cañon
Alone on the Pampas. Alone in the moonlight. Alone amidst scenery so black, so bare, so desolate, that looking back now through a long vista of years, as I sit by my cosy English fireside, I shudder to think of it.
There was nought of life to be seen anywhere, save that single horseman on his trusty steed who stopped for a moment on an upland ridge to gaze around him. Not a tree; hardly a bush; the very grass itself in stunted patches, with rough boulders lying here and there as if they had been rained from the heavens. No signs of house nor habitation, only the sharply undulating plain, wherever the eye might turn, and far away on the western horizon, hills or mountains snow-clad, glimmering white in the uncertain light of moon and stars.
The moon? Yes, and I have oftentimes thought, while on the Pampas, that if one could reach that orb, it would be just such a landscape as this he would see on every side; and if wind blows there at all, it would be just such a wind, as is now moaning and sighing over this dreary plain from the distant Cordilleras.
It was neither a wild nor a stormy night, however. Behind a huge bank of yellow clouds, that lay high over the mountains, the lightning was flickering and playing every moment; the breeze was not high nor was it extra cold, being early summer in this region. It is the desolation and the exceeding lonesomeness of the situation that strikes to the heart and feelings of one when he thinks of it.
And the deep silence!
Were there no sounds at all? Very few; only that moaning, sighing, whispering wind, rising at times into almost a shriek, then dying away again till it could scarce be heard. A wind in which, had you been at all nervous, you might have almost declared you heard voices, human or ghostly. Only the wind, and now and then the cry of some night-hawk or its victim; or the plaintive, peevish yap of the prairie fox.
Very marked indeed is the silence by night on the Patagonian Pampas. Not more so anywhere except on the broad, glittering snow-fields of the Arctic “pack,” or the highest plateaus of the Himalayan hills.
So tall and square is the figure of the horseman, whose rifle is slung across his shoulders, and so active, yet sturdy and strong, does his horse look, that standing there on the ridge, he has all the picturesqueness of a mounted Arab.
He shudders slightly now and draws his guanaco mantle closer about him, gazes once more around as if taking his bearings, then rides slowly on.
Presently he comes near a bush, a stunted barberia and draws rein speedily, for from under it fierce green eyes glare at him, and a sound, which is half yawn half yell of anger, makes him place a hand on his revolver.
He does not fire, however; he waits. Then a huge puma gathers itself up and edges off, drawing its graceful length along the ground, but making off still with head turned towards him, and breathing hoarse defiance, till, with bounds and leaps, he is soon out sight. When the puma has quite disappeared, he rides on again, but with a little more caution, avoiding the bushes. Where there is one puma there may be, and generally is, another.
He does not draw rein again for a good hour. Uphill and downhill, but mostly on the gravelly level, till all at once he finds himself on the bank of a cañon or ravine.
He bends down now and pats the neck of his horse. The animal neighs, and is answered from the bottom of the glen; then the horseman slowly descends, carefully, and with judicious hand restraining the impatience of his steed. So steep is the bank that the hind legs of the horse sometimes slip right under him, and loosened stones roll down to the green sward below.
Low down in the strath here there is a stream of water, a river in fact, rushing along, its waters sparkling in the moonlight, and everywhere on its banks the sward is green and beautiful. Here a whole herd of horses are quietly grazing. They look up as the horseman approaches, and toss their heads as if happy to have a new companion, while from some little distance the barking of dogs is heard, and presently a huge animal – looking huger still in the uncertain light – comes bounding straight through the herd of horses, and challenges the rider. The dog’s hair is erect from head to stern, and he growls low but ominously.
“Good dog,” says Señor Castizo; “don’t you know me? Poor Ossian, poor boy!”
The dog knows him very well indeed, but gives him to understand that he – Ossian – is on guard to-night, and must be careful.
“It is easy to know you,” Ossian seems to say. “My nose has not failed me yet. I’d know you with my eyes shut. But what are you doing out alone at night? It looks bad. No, you needn’t call me poor boy. I’m not I’m Ossian, and with the exception of honest Bruce, the other dogs are not worth a bark. You can follow me now, but be careful.”
Ossian ran on in front, growling low to himself, and the horseman followed. As soon as they had rounded the corner of a rock bluff, they came in sight of the camp, and now Ossian stopped short and gave vent to such an alarm-peal that every one speedily rushed outside their tents. It might be hostile Indians, they thought. When living in the desert one must be at all times cautious.
But here was no hostile Indian, only honest, bold Castizo.
Peter and I were the first to rush towards him, and bid him welcome. I caught the horse by the head. The brute was longing to join the herd. Peter, always impulsive, grasped his friend’s hand even before he had dismounted.
“We were really getting anxious about you.”
“And supper’s all ready,” I added.
“Ah, that’s the way. I confess I’m hungry. I gave you two days’ start from Santa Cruz station, and so you see I’ve overtaken you, and I only slept one night on the Pampas.”
“Weren’t you afraid, sir, the pumas would eat you?”
“No, they don’t like live meat; but now, young fellows, I’m not going to be ‘sir’-ed. We can’t live together free and easy if we stand on ceremony. We are all equal on the Pampas.”
“But there is a cacique or chief among the Ishmaelites?”
“Yes; but a cacique holds a kind of sinecure office. He is partly chief and partly magistrate, gives himself a great many airs; and the women often laugh at him behind his back. I’ll be cacique if you like, but not ‘Sir.’”
“Well,” said Peter, “I’ll be bound we won’t laugh at you behind your back.”
As he spoke, Peter divested the horse of saddle and bridle, as nimbly as if he had been brought up in a stable all his life. It quite took me by surprise.
The saddle is a mere bundle of wood and skins, covered with rugs and gear. It is not uncomfortable to ride on once you are acquainted with it; but although we had been a few days on the Pampas, and had ridden as neatly as we could, we were still tired and exceedingly sore. The bridle is also of guanaco skin, and the bit of wood and thong. Nevertheless these hardy horses of the plains are well used to such primitive harness.
There is one fault with the saddle, which we soon found out: unless it be particularly well girt it has a disagreeable habit of wheeling to one side just when you are at a pleasant canter, or gallop perhaps, and so emptying you out.
“Here,” cried Peter, stuffing the gear into my arms, “take hold of that, Greenie, and look lively; the cacique is hungry.”
“I’m not Greenie,” I said; “if I was, Peter, old man, I’d pull your ears.”
“Oh, you’re not Greenie! Well, Jack, then, you shouldn’t be so like him in the moonlight. I’m going to put a black spot on one of your noses, so that I can tell t’other from which. Then I suppose I’d forget which I put the black spot on.”
“Better not try it on me,” I said.
The horse was loose now and free, and with a happy nicker he went trotting off to quench his thirst in the stream, previously to having his supper.
“Come on, boys, I’m starving. Good Ossian. Ah! you can be friendly enough now. Where is your kau (tent), Peter?”
“My cow, mon ami?”
“Yes, your kau.”
“We haven’t got a cow. We have some condensed milk.”
Castizo laughed.
“Why,” he explained, “a kau is a toldo, or tent.”
“Well, Cacique, I’ve heard of people, when overtaken by a blizzard on the North American prairies, killing a horse, disembowelling it, then getting inside and hauling the hole in after them; but it’s the first time I ever heard of a cow being used as a tent. We live to learn. Here’s the cow, mon ami. Will you walk inside, Señor Cacique?”
“Ah!” cried Castizo, rubbing his hands gleefully.
“Here’s a blaze of light and glory! Here’s comfort; here’s luxury!”
Then, even before he shook hands with Jill and Ritchie, Castizo must elevate his palms like a Spanish girl dancing, cock his head a little on one side, and smilingly sing a verse of a song which caused his eyes to sparkle with merriment, and made those laugh who listened to him.
“We’re glad to see you,” said Jill.
“Right glad to see you,” said Ritchie.
“I know you all are, boys. Thought I would lose myself, I suppose. Ah, no! I have been too long on the plains, and in forests, mountains, and wildernesses, to do that. My good Pedro here knows me.”
“Master likes to be alone – much,” said Pedro, a dark-haired, black-eyed, black-bearded, sturdy little Chilian.
This man’s face was preternaturally white. No sunshine ever scorched him brown, or even red; but perhaps the darkness of his hair brought out the pallor more. He had a pleasant smile, and two rows of teeth as white as a young puppy’s.
Lawlor was not far away; and with him also Castizo shook hands. So equality was established.
Our tent was not of guanaco skins, like that of the Indians who accompanied us on this expedition. We had a canvas marquee of small dimensions, but most comfortable, and so neatly made that it could pack together into a load for one horse, poles and all.
Castizo had been a Patagonian traveller for years. At first, he told us, he “herded” with the Indians under their tents of skin, and lived quite as they did, with the exception of the drinking of rum; but he soon found it better to import a little civilisation into his mode of life. So he did; and I advise any one who meditates going to the Patagonian Pampas to do the same.
Here we were in our handsome tent, with every comfort before and around us which it is capable of transporting into the wilderness.
The table was a piece of canvas spread on the ground in the middle of the tent. Candles – real candles – burned in the centre, stuck in a rudely formed sconce of wood, which in its turn was stuck through the canvas into the ground. Our seats were our huge, gown-like guanaco mantles, which by and by would serve us for blankets, when we lay down to sleep on our couches of withered grass.
Our dishes and plates were all of tin, easily packed and easily carried, and we had knives and forks. Had our table been a raised wooden one, it would have groaned, not so much with the variety of good things, but with their solidness and substantiality. Here were steak of guanaco, and stew of horseflesh – one of our pack animals had broken a leg the day before, and we were wise to make use of him – and here were roast ducks. Cakes we had, too, made of flour which had been half-roasted before it left Valparaiso. These cakes were made by Pedro, who was our very excellent cook. I think there must have been something else in them as well as flour. However they were very nice, and tasted and looked somewhat like a happy combination of Scotch haggis, Australian damper, and Irish scone.
We had no beer to drink; we had no wine; but we had yerba maté, which combines the invigorating qualities of both, with all the soothing, calming influence of a cup of good coffee or tea.
It is a kind of tea made of the dried leaves of the Paraguayan ilex, and is infused and drunk just as tea is; though the Patagonian Indians and hunters usually drink it through tubes pierced with little holes, so that they can have the infusion without the powder or leaves.
“Well, boys,” said Castizo, whose English, by the way, was irreproachable, “we’ve made a fairly good start. And your captain, with his adorable little wife – what an amiable creature she is – will be nearly half-way home by this time. Are you sorry you haven’t gone with them to see the mother?”
“Ah!” I said, “I know mother well: she will be pleased to hear we are enjoying ourselves, and learning something at the same time. Won’t she, Jill?”
“Assuredly; and so will aunt.”
“Well,” said Castizo, with a laugh, “as to learning something, there is no doubt about that. You will learn to be men. The Pampas is the best school in the world.”
“Whose sentry-go is it to-night?” said Peter.
“Mine, I believe,” said Jill, looking at his watch; “I go on in half an hour. Then Lawlor.”
“That’s right,” said Lawlor.
In less than an hour, we were all curled up in our toldo or kau, wrapped in our good guanaco robes, and fast asleep.
Out in the moonlight, however, Jill, with his rifle at the shoulder, paced steadily to and fro on sentry, and not very far off, leaning against one of the posts of the great skin tent, stood a Patagonian, also on duty. He looked a noble savage, erect and stately, and tall enough in his robe of skin to have passed for a veritable giant. Lying carelessly across his left arm, its point upwards, and gaily decorated with ostrich feathers, was his spear. A formidable weapon is this Patagonian spear, of immense length and strength, and tipped with a knife of stoutest steel. A swordsman has little chance against so terrible an instrument of warfare, for your giant antagonist can strike home long before you can get near enough to do execution. If very active and you can succeed in parrying one blow, you may seize the instrument, and rush in and slay your man; but, as the Scotch put it, “What would he be doing all this time?” He will not wait till you get quietly up to him, depend upon it. So I say that the best fencer that ever switched a foil is not a match for a Patagonian spearsman.
The Patagonians who formed part of our present camp were good fellows all. They were hired by Castizo, some at Puento Arenas, and some from a tribe stationed at or near Santa Cruz. Those from the former place, our cacique – as we may as well now call Castizo – had taken north with him in his yacht to Santa Cruz, and altogether our Indians numbered twenty-four souls. No women, no children, save those of the chief and his second in command. Our cacique knew better than to encumber himself with many of these on the march.
That these Patagonians would remain faithful to us, we had little doubt. For, first and foremost, they are, on the whole, good-natured and friendly to white men; secondly, they had only been paid in part, and would not get the remainder of their stores till we returned to Santa Cruz.
A glance at the map will show where this last place lies. But do not think it is a town. At the time of which I speak, it consisted indeed of but one estancia, on an island. It has an excellent harbour, however, and ships in distress often come here. Others, again, come regularly to meet the Indian tribes, and purchase from them skins, ostrich feathers, and curios.
There is a regular Indian encampment here. They all live in tents, and for the matter of that compare favourably with the gipsies we meet on our own Scottish borders at home.
How sound one sleeps on the Pampas! I scarcely knew my head was on the pillow till it was morning again, dogs barking and yelping, Indians shouting, horses neighing, and the bold, strong voice of the Patagonian chief as he harangued his men, heard high above all.
