The Rover of the Andes, Robert Michael Ballantyne [my reading book .TXT] 📗

last effort, as you know, nearly cost me my life."

"And what will you now do?" asked Tiger.

"I will visit a few more places in the hope that some of the people may support us. After that, I'll mount and away over the Pampas to Buenos Ayres; see the colonel, and deliver Manuela to her father."

"The white-haired chief?" asked Tiger.

"Even so," replied Pedro.

During the foregoing conversation Quashy had thrust his fat nose down on a plank and gone to sleep, while Lawrence and Manuela, having nothing better to do, taught each other Spanish and English respectively! And, strange though it may appear, it is a fact that Manuela, with all her quick-witted intelligence, was wonderfully slow at learning English. To Lawrence's intense astonishment and, it must be confessed, to his no small disappointment, the Indian maiden not only made the same blunders over and over again, and seemed to be incapable of making progress, but even laughed at her own stupidity. This somewhat cooled his admiration of her character, which coolness afforded him satisfaction rather than the reverse, as going far to prove that he was not really, (as how could he be?) _in love_ with the brown-skinned, uneducated, half-savage girl, but only much impressed with her amiable qualities. Poor fellow, he was much comforted by these thoughts, because, had it been otherwise, how terrible would have been his fate!--either, on the one hand, to marry her and go and dwell with her savage relations--perhaps be compelled to paint his visage scarlet with arabesque devices in charcoal, and go on the war-path against the white man; or, on the other hand, to introduce his Indian bride into the _salons_ of civilisation, with the certainty of beholding the sneer of contempt on the face of outraged society; with the probability of innumerable violations of the rules of etiquette, and the possibility of Manuela exhibiting the squaw's preference for the floor to a chair, fingers to knives and forks, and--pooh! the thing was absurd, _utterly_ out of the question!

Towards sunset they came to a part of the river where there were a good many sandbanks, as well as extensive reaches of sand along shore.

On one of these low-lying spits they drew up the canoe, and encamped for that night in the bushes, close enough to the edge to be able to see the river, where a wide-spreading tree canopied them from the dews of night.

Solemn and inexpressibly sad were the views of life taken by Lawrence that night as he stood by the river's brink in the moonlight, while his companions were preparing the evening meal, and gave himself up to the contemplation of things past, present, and to come,--which is very much like saying that he thought about nothing in particular. What he felt quite sure of was that he was horribly depressed--dissatisfied with himself, his companions and his surroundings, and ashamed in no small degree of his dissatisfaction. As well he might be; for were not his companions particularly agreeable, and were not his surroundings exquisitely beautiful and intensely romantic? The moon in a cloudless sky glittered in the broad stream, and threw its rippling silver treasures at his very feet. A gentle balmy air fanned his cheek, on which mantled the hue of redundant health, and the tremendous puffs and long-drawn sighs of the alligators, with the growl of jaguars, croak and whistle of frogs, and the voice of the howling monkey, combined to fill his ear with the music of thrilling romance, if not of sweetness.

"What more could I wish?" he murmured, self-reproachfully.

A tremendous slap on the face--dealt by his own hand, as a giant mosquito found and probed some tenderer spot than usual--reminded him that some few things, which he did not wish for, were left to mingle in his cup of too great felicity, and reduce it, like water in overproof whisky, to the level of human capacity.

Still dissatisfied, despite his reflections, he returned to the fire under the spreading tree, and sat down to enjoy a splendid basin of turtle soup,--soup prepared by Tiger the day before from the flesh of a turtle slain by his own hand, and warmed up for the supper of that evening. A large tin dish or tureen full of the same was placed at his elbow to tempt his appetite, which, to say truth, required no tempting.

Manuela, having already supped, sat with her little hands clasped in her lap, and her lustrous eyes gazing pensively into the fire. Perhaps she was attempting to read her fortune in the blazing embers. Perchance engaged in thinking of that very common subject--nothing! If Pedro had smoked the same thing, it would have been better for his health and pocket; but Pedro, thinking otherwise, fumigated his fine moustache, and disconcerted the mosquitoes in the region of his nose.

Quashy, having just replenished the fire until the logs rose two feet or more from the ground, turned his back on the same, warmed his hands behind him, and gazed up through the over-arching boughs at the starry sky with that wistfully philosophical expression which negroes are apt to assume when their thoughts are "too deep," or too complex, "for utterance."

Spotted Tiger continued to dally with the turtle soup, and seemed loath to give in as he slowly, with many a pause between, raised the huge iron spoon to his lips.

No one seemed inclined to break the silence into which they had sunk, for all were more or less fatigued; and it seemed as if the very brutes around sympathised with them, for there was a perceptible lull in the whistling of the frogs, the howling monkeys appeared to have gone to rest, and the sighing alligators to have subsided and sunk, so that the breaking of a twig or the falling of a leaf was perceptible to the listening ear.

Things were in this state of profound and peaceful calm when a slight rustling was heard among the branches of the tree above them.

The instant glare of Quashy's eyes; the gaze of Manuela's; the cock of Pedro's ear, and the sudden pause of our hero's spoon on its way to his lips, were sights to behold! The Indian alone seemed comparatively indifferent to the sound, though he looked up inquiringly.

At that moment there burst forth an ear-splitting, marrow-shrivelling blood-curdling yell, that seemed to rouse the entire universe into a state of wild insanity. There could be no mistaking it--the peculiar, horrid, shrieking, only too familiar war-whoop of the painted savage!

Quashy staggered back. He could not recover himself, for a log had caught his heel. To sit down on the fire he knew would be death, therefore he bounded over it backwards and fell into Lawrence's lap, crushing that youth's plate almost into the region where the soup had already gone, and dashing his feet into the tureen!

Lawrence roared; Manuela shrieked; Pedro sprang up and seized his weapons. So did Lawrence and his man, regardless of the soup.

Tiger alone sat still, conveying the iron spoon slowly to his lips, but with a peculiar motion of his broad shoulders which suggested that the usually grave savage was convulsed with internal laughter.

"Ghosts and crokidiles!--what's dat?" gasped Quashy, staring up into the tree, and ready to fire at the first visible object.

Tiger also looked up, made a peculiar sound with his mouth, and held out his hand.

Immediately a huge bird, responding to the call, descended from the tree and settled on his wrist.

Quashy's brief commentary explained it all.

"Purrit!"

It was indeed the Indian's faithful pet-parrot, which he had taught thus to raise the war-cry of his tribe, and which, having bestowed its entire affections on its master, was in the habit of taking occasional flights after him when he went away from home.


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.


IN WHICH INGENUITY, COMICALITY, FEROCITY, ECCENTRICITY, FECUNDITY, AND SOME OTHER "ITIES" IN MAN AND BEAST ARE MENTIONED.

Plain sailing, fair weather, perpetual calm and sunshine are not the lot of any man or woman here.

The weather, that fertile source of human intercourse, is occasionally boisterous as well as serene in the regions of Peru and Bolivia. A day or two after the events recounted in the last chapter our travellers experienced a sudden change.

We have said that they had come to a part of the river where there were occasional stretches of sand, and here they had evidence of the improvident nature of Indians, in the number of turtle-shells found lying on the sands with parts of the animals still adhering to them.

On one particular spot they found a space, of about seventy yards in diameter completely covered with the upper and under shells of turtles. These had evidently been cut asunder violently with hatchets, and reddish-brown furrows in the sands told where streams of blood had flowed during the massacre.

"What wanton slaughter!" exclaimed Lawrence, as he and his friends stood looking at the scene.

"And it is not long since it was done," said Pedro, "for the flesh--at least what's left of it--is still fresh."

"Ugh, you brutes!" exclaimed Quashy, referring to a number of urubu vultures which stood on the shells, all more or less gorged, some still tearing sleepily at the meat, others standing in apoplectic apathy, quite unable to fly.

They counted upwards of three hundred dead turtles, and this carnage, it was afterwards ascertained, had been the work of only a dozen or so of Indians--not for food, but for the sake of the fine yellow fat covering the intestines, which formed an article of commerce at the time between the red men and the white.

That night after supper time the party busied themselves in making mosquito-curtains out of a small quantity of green muslin obtained from Spotted Tiger's father-in-law, who had received it from the missionaries. The supply being quite insufficient to make curtains for them all, Quashy had set his fertile brain to work and devised a species of net which, having never been seen in that country before, deserves special notice. It may serve as a hint to other mortals similarly situated and tormented.

"You mus' know," remarked Quashy to his friends, who watched him while he fabricated the first of these curtains, "dat my gran'fadder was a injineer, an' some ob his geenus comed down to me. Dat's why I's so clebber wid my hands. Has you got dem hoops tied, massa?"

"All right, Quashy, I'm just finishing the last one. There--are these the right sizes?"

"Das right, massa. Biggest two one futt six in dameter; oder two leetle ones, one futt. Now, you looks here, ladies an' gen'lemen. See, I's made a bag ob dis muzzlin 'bout two futt six long an' 'bout two futt wide. Well, one end ob de bag is close up--as you see. 'Tother end am open--as you b'hold. Vwalla! as de Frenchman says. Now, I puts into de closed end one small hoop--so. Den de two large hoops--so--'bout six inches apart. Den de leetle hoop--so. Which makes my bag into what you may call a gauze-barrel, wid de hoops inside 'stead ob outside. Nixt, I puts it ober my head, lets de bottom hoop rest on my shoulders, shoves de slack ob de veil--I calls it a veil, not a curtin,--down my neck under my poncho, so's nuffin can git inside, an' dere you are. No skeeters git at me