Kitabı oku: «Wild Life in the Land of the Giants: A Tale of Two Brothers», sayfa 16

Chapter Thirty
“It is better thus.”

Yes, Jill was saved. He soon revived, and was able to follow me down to the toldos.

My hands were badly burned, but I did not feel pain then. Such a gush of happiness had come over my heart when Jill spoke to me again, that I forgot everything else.

Daylight had by this time spread itself right athwart the sky; and I remember the morning was beautiful with one crimson feathery cloud over the eastern horizon, where the sun was soon to show.

By the time we reached the Indian camp, the battle was over and won. The survivors of the Northern Indians had been beaten back to the woods from which they had sallied, and there was but little fear that they would come again. Too many of their saddles had been emptied to encourage a renewal of the warfare.

It was a sad scene. The tents torn and flapping in the morning breeze, some of them down; broken spears and guns and daggers lying here and there; dead and dying horses; dead and dying men, the anguish of the women, the wailing of the children.

I took all this in at a glance. Then my eyes were riveted on a group at some little distance, and I hastened thither, to find Castizo kneeling beside the tall noble form of the prostrate Prince Jeeka.

He holds out his right hand as I approach; Castizo gives place to me, and I kneel where he had knelt. At his other side crouches Nadi. She is bewildered and silent, grief and anguish depicted in every line of her poor drawn, pinched face.

“Jeeka, Jeeka, are you much hurt? Who has done this?”

“Hurt? Yes. Ya shank, ya shank.” (I am tired and sleepy). “So, so.”

He closed his eyes for a moment. I thought he was gone, but he slowly opened them again, and looked at me.

“Poor Nadi!” he said. “It – was – her brother. So, so.”

This, then, was the key to the awful night’s work. Revenge. Verily these Patagonian Indians are men of like passions with ourselves.

“The Great Good Spirit is come. Jeeka goes – home. Tell me – the story of the – world. So, so.”

These were the last words poor Prince Jeeka ever spoke on earth. He had gone to learn the story of the world, in a better world than ours.

We all came away and left Nadi with her dear husband. Her face had fallen forward on his big broad chest, and she appeared convulsed with grief.

“Leave her a little,” Castizo said. “It is ever better thus.”

In about half an hour, or it might have been less, Peter and I returned.

Nadi had never moved from her position.

“Nadi, my poor woman,” said Peter. “Nadi, Nadi.”

She was still.

Peter touched her shoulder, then turned quickly round to me.

“She does not need our consolation, Jack,” he said, solemnly.

“What,” I cried, “is Nadi dead?”

“Nadi is dead!”

If I have any consolation at all in looking back to the events of that morning, it is to think that Jill and I had told to these poor heathens the sad, sweet story of this world.

Jeeka and his wife are buried side by side on the banks of the river that rolls through the forest, close to the spot where our old log-house stood.

 
“Amidst the forests of the West,
By a dark stream they’re laid;
The Indian knows their place of rest
Far in the cedar shade.”
 

Chapter Thirty One
On the Good Yacht “Magdalena” – “The very Seas used to sing to us” – The Home-Coming – The End

At sea once more.

At sea in one of the smartest yachts that ever walked the waters like a thing of life.

At sea, and homeward bound. Ah! that was what sent the joyful flush to our cheeks and the glad glitter to our eyes, whenever we chose to think of the fact, and try to realise it.

The Magdalena in which we were sailing was no racer, but a splendid sea craft, and one that, as Ritchie said, could have shown a pair of clean heels to the best tea-ship in the merchant service. And that was saying a deal. She was broad in the beam for a yacht, but consequently safe and comfortable. Her masts were tall, but they were also strong, and she carried such a cloud of canvas that, seen from a distance, she must have looked a perfect albatross.

To say that her decks were as white as snow would be to talk figuratively, but literally they were as white as cocoanut husk and holystone could make them. The sails were really like snow in the sunshine, and there was not a bit of polished wood about her decks, whether in binnacle or capstan, that did not look as if varnished; nor a morsel of brass or copper that did not shine.

There was an awning over the quarter-deck by day, for we were in the tropics, and the sun blazed down with a heat sufficient to soften the pitch, if it did not absolutely make it boil.

Yonder, under the awning, sits Castizo, in a light coat and straw hat, quietly reading a book. Jill and I are walking rapidly up and down the deck, and Dulzura is standing beside Peter. Both are gazing down at the bubbling green water, that goes eddying along the good ship’s sides. Yet I do not think that either Dulzura or he is thinking very much about it.

But why, it may be reasonably asked, are we homeward bound, instead of bearing up for Castizo’s place at Valparaiso? Ah! thereby hangs a tale. And I will endeavour to tell it as it was told to us, on the very last night we spent on the Pampa.

We were barely one day’s journey from the port of Santa Cruz, and were bivouacked in a green cañon under the lee of the west barranca. Not far off were the toldos of our faithful Indians. Alas! we sadly missed Jeeka and poor Nadi, though. Not far off, the horses quietly grazed by the water’s edge.

We sat beside the fire of roots on our guanaco skins for the night was not warm.

There had been silence for a brief space. We were waiting for our maté. Presently it came in steaming bowls.

“Ah! thank you, Pedro. What should we do without you?” said Castizo.

“What, indeed?” “What, indeed?” said Jill and I.

“How anxious your daughter will be,” said Peter. “She has had quite a long time to wait for us.”

Castizo smiled.

“My daughter,” he replied, “will not be idle. She will have gone cruising. She is like me and like her poor mother – she hates inactivity.”

“You have only once before mentioned Miss Castizo’s mother in our hearing,” said Peter.

“True, Peter. But now that we are so soon to part – for you will meet a steamer at Puentas Arenas to take you back to your own country, and we may never meet again – I may as well give you a very brief outline of my life.”

We are all silent, and presently Castizo continued:

“It must be brief indeed; I am but a poor storyteller. Besides, I have but little to tell, and there is a tinge of sorrow over it all.

“I was born of a noble Spanish family, and found myself fatherless and wealthy at a very early age. I was always fond of wild sport and of a nomadic life, and before I had reached the age of twenty-five had visited most parts of the world in my own yacht, and been a soldier to boot. At a ball one night in Madrid I fell deeply in love with a beautiful young lady. She was quite of my own way of thinking as regards a wandering life. I will not dwell upon the happiness of my married life. Suffice it to say that Magdalena became the one bright star in my mental firmament. I do not think any one could have loved each other more than we did. Zenona, whom you, Peter, call Dulzura, was the first pledge of that love. About two years after her birth I accepted a post of great honour in Monte Video, and thither we went to settle down. We even sold our yacht, so content were we with the climate. Then Silvana was born.

“It was about a year after this that I noticed a marked change in my poor wife. She began to look ill. I wish now I had thrown up my post of honour. What did I need with honour, when I had riches and the whole love of such a wife as Magdalena?

“She must have a change. She must go home. I would follow in the course of a year. Ah! my dear friends, it is here the sorrow comes in. She entreated me, she begged of me in tears and anguish, not to ask her to leave me.

“No, no, no. I was obdurate. Oh, I must have been hard-hearted – mad, even.

“She went away. She sailed in a ship bound for France, a Spanish barque.”

Castizo paused, and I could see the tears in his eyes by the light of the fire.

“And the ship was wrecked?” said Peter.

I had never seen Peter look so strange before; he appeared almost wild.

“The ship,” said Castizo, slowly, almost solemnly, “must have foundered at sea, for I never saw nor heard of her more, nor of my poor dear wife and baby. That is my story: that is the key to the seeming mystery of my restlessness, and of my love for being alone at times. That is all.”

“No,” cried Peter, half rising from the recumbent position he had resumed when Castizo began to speak. “No, my friend Castizo; that is not all. That is not all, Jack. Is it?”

“I think not,” I said, and I was almost as excited now as Peter, while Jill, too, sat up with his eyes fixed on Castizo’s face, on which was a look of mingled curiosity and amazement.

“I will finish the story,” continued Peter, speaking as slowly as he could. “I knew your daughter Zenona the moment I first saw her at Puentas Arenas. I knew her eyes, her strangely beautiful face; I knew her hair, her wondrous hair. We have her counterpart at home, in the old house by the sea, where dwell Jack’s mother and aunt. You have heard them,” – he pointed to Jill and me – “you have heard them speak of their sister Mattie. Mattie is that counterpart.”

“I do not understand,” said Castizo.

“Nay, but listen, and you shall. The ship in which your poor wife and child were sent home, did not founder at sea. She was wrecked on the coast of Cornwall, and went in pieces next day. Not a timber of her was saved, her very name would have been unknown but that two sailors out of all the crew were saved, and your wife and child.”

“My wife and child! Say those words again!”

“Do not let me raise hopes, my friend, that must end in disappointment. The lady died.”

Castizo fell back with a moan, but sat up once more as Peter went on talking.

“But the child lived; is living now – at least so we must hope, for we left her well. She is their adopted sister Mattie.”

“This is indeed a strange ending to my story. What name did the ship so cast away sail by.”

Peter was silent.

“Neither Jill nor I remember,” I replied. “We are not quite sure we ever heard it. One of the shipwrecked sailors was killed. The other, whose name is Adriano, I have lost sight of for many a long year.”

Castizo’s face fell.

“There was no such man on board the Zenobia. I knew every man in the barque. Ha, Peter, my dear boy, I fear it was someone else’s ship, someone else’s wife and child. Can you give me the date?”

“Alas!” I said, “I cannot even do that for certain. It was a fisherman’s boat that saved those who were saved. It was the fisherman’s wife who kept the child, till by accident she became our sister. There is no other clue.”

“Was there not a large chest,” said Peter.

“Yes,” I said. Then I described the box most minutely to Castizo. It was such a strange box, taller than it was broad, the length and width the same, and painted blue.

It was Castizo’s turn now to show anxiety and excitement. He made me describe the box over and over again. I even took a pencil and sketched it from memory on a fly-leaf of the Bible dear mother had given me when a boy.

Then Castizo said, “That was my poor Magdalena’s box. Thank God, our child lives.”

He put but one more question to me.

“Was there nothing of value in the chest? Were there no papers, money, or rings or watches?”

“Nothing save clothes. I’ve often and often heard Mummy Gray, as Mattie calls her, wonder at that.”

“Then I’m more than ever convinced the chest was hers. It had a false bottom. The box was specially prepared for the voyage. Oh, boys, Heaven, in sending you to Puentas Arenas, condescended to answer my prayers. Now, instead of returning to Valparaiso, my yacht shall take you back to England.”

That, then, was what occurred on our last night on the Pampa; and the story begun by Castizo, and so opportunely finished by Peter with a little assistance from Jill and me, was the cause of our being here altogether, homeward bound in the good sea yacht Magdalena.

That was indeed an idyllic voyage. Even to Jill and me it was idyllic, ten times more so must it have been to Peter and Dulzura.

With the exception of a week in the doldrums while crossing the line, we had glorious weather all the way, with just the breezes a sailor loves, enough to fill the sails and carry us merrily onwards.

The very seas used to sing to us as they went seething past and away astern; and on sighting the dear chalky cliffs of England, the gulls that came out in flocks to meet us seemed to shriek us a welcome, and tell us all was well.

Perhaps we ought to have come farther up the Channel than we did, and sailed right into the great naval seaport, where dear father used to be stationed.

But no. We would do nothing of the sort, but – the weather being fine and only a gentle breeze now blowing – go right into the little bay, and anchor before our own door.

And so we did.

Yonder it was, dear old-fashioned Trafalgar Cottage. We all looked at it through the glass. Nothing altered, nothing. Balcony, garden, railings, and climbers all the same.

But there were no signs of life about, though smoke came from the chimney.

Oh dear, how a sailor’s heart does beat with anxiety when he reaches once more his native land; and how he does keep worrying and wondering whether his relations and friends are alive and well!

We are in the bay now, and the anchor is let go. What a delicious sound is that of the chain running out! No music in the world is half so sweet.

“Jack, Jack!” cries Jill, who was forward in the bows, the wind blowing off the land. “Run, Jack, run!”

I rushed forward.

“What is it, Jill? What is it?”

“Robert bringing round Trots. Hurrah!”

So it was. The same old Robert. The same old Trots.

“Look again. Look, look! Yonder is Aunt Serapheema getting in. And darling mother in the doorway.”

We were near enough to shout.

And shout we did. Peter joined in with a will, and Ritchie and Lawlor joined to help us.

Jill and I even crept out along bowsprit and jib-boom, and waved our handkerchiefs and shouted again.

Was there ever such an home-coming in the world I wonder!

Auntie knows our voices. Mother waves back to us.

“Call away the boat!”

In a few minutes more, rowed by the sturdy arms of Lawlor and Ritchie, the little boat is bounding over the water.

Then it is beached, and mother, half hysterical and wholly in tears, does not know which of us to hug first.

And the fact is she does not know till we tell her which is Jack and which is Jill.

“I’m Jack, mother;” “I’m Jill, mother,” we say.

Then we go all up home together.

Mattie was well, but away at school. She returned next day, however, and Jill and I were half afraid of her, so tall and beautiful had she become. But dear Mattie was self-possessed enough, though we semi-civilised sailors were shy.

This was a never-to-be-forgotten day. We had brought Mattie – we would always call her Mattie – a father and a sister. For this box was the box, and that is saying enough.

For many voyages after this, Jill and I sailed together in the same ships. And very often Ritchie and Lawlor were our shipmates.

We never saw nor heard anything more of Adriano. That was a little morsel of mystery never cleared up.

Castizo settled down in England, having bought property not far from the little churchyard where his dear wife is sleeping. He is there now, though he is getting old. With him live Peter and his wife Dulzura, as he still calls her, and it is ever a pleasure to meet them, and oftentimes, I scarcely need say, we talk of the dear old days on the Pampas and our life in the Land of the Giants.

Alas, poor Jill, though! It is sad to record how we were parted at last. We who thought the same thoughts, dreamt the same dreams, and were seldom separate by night or by day. We who had come through so many wild and stormy adventures hand in hand, I might say, to be parted so strangely.

We had come off a long voyage to the Arctic ice, and were together in London. We left each other but for an hour, it was agreed. I was back in time at the appointed place, but poor Jill never appeared. I never saw my brother again. No one could find out, though all search was made, whither he had gone, or been taken!

Long years have passed away since then. I have fallen heir to our long lost estates. Mother and aunt live with me in our noble home.

Mattie is my wife.

They say I look a sadder man.

This may be so. Yet I live in hope that poor Jill and I are sure to meet again some day – somewhere. And when lying awake at night, thinking about the past, I sometimes seem to hear a voice which I know to be my brother’s, saying —

“Come to me, Jack; come to me, for I cannot come to you.”

The End.