His Unknown Wife, Louis Tracy [best black authors .TXT] 📗

Maseden was not greatly concerned about the dead Indian lying on the shore. What he really expected was a sudden rush of savages from an ambuscade, since it was now certain that a party of natives had descended on Hanover Island. Some might have escaped, but others had come to grief.

The mere presence of a body showed that one, at least, must have died quite recently, while the bleaching bones passed in Hell Gate had probably been alive two days earlier. Some vultures were already circling high overhead, and he wondered why the birds had not begun their ghoulish task.

He could not recollect what manner of sepulture the aborigines adopted, but, from every point of view, it was more than strange to find a corpse abandoned on the beach in such conditions, unless, indeed, some drowned man had just been cast up there by the receding tide.

If that were so, why did the vultures wait?

He was on the alert, therefore, for any suspicious movement among the nearest trees and tall grasses, and warned Sturgess to keep a sharp lookout in the same direction.

“These natives are treacherous brutes,” he said. “They may have seen that our boat was heading this way, and be simply waiting an opportunity to stick harpoons into us. Don’t shoot actually on sight, but be ready to put a stopper on anything like an attack.”

The words had hardly left his lips when the body on the beach moved! Slowly and, as it seemed, painfully, the Indian raised head and shoulders, and turned in the direction of the voice, finally sitting up sideways and using the right arm as a support.

Then, as Maseden drew near, he saw that this was not a man, but a woman, a woman so emaciated and feeble that the first astonished glance he took her to be middle-aged, whereas, in reality, she was not yet eighteen. She was stark naked, and he soon discovered that her left leg was broken.

The unfortunate wretch had dragged herself to an oyster bed, as an array of freshly opened shells testified; but there was no great supply in that place; the water was too shallow. At any rate, Maseden had no other means of estimating how long she had been there; indeed, he gave little thought to that consideration, because the problem of what to do with her arose x instantly.

He argued, however, that the members of her tribe could not be close at hand, since the merest instinct of self-preservation would lead them to assist one of their number rendered helpless by an accident, though, among these wild folk, an old woman might be regarded as of no account.

He spoke to her in Spanish, asking what had happened, and she appeared to have a vague sense of his meaning; but her eyes were glistening with terror and fever, and he could make nothing of a mumbled reply except a word that sounded like liumo, “smoke.” She showed extreme fear at sight of the gun carried by Sturgess. Holding out her left hand as if pleading for mercy, she collapsed with a groan.

Sturgess, of course, was as fully aware as his companion of the difficulties raised by the discovery of this maimed creature.

“Well, by way of a change, Alec, I guess we’re up against a mighty tough proposition,” he said, scratching his head in sheer perplexity.

“We have only one course open, I take it,” said Maseden, though he, like Sturgess, felt that they might well have been spared this additional burden.

“That’s so. But-are broken legs in your line?”

“I have a notion that the bone-setter has to straighten and adjust the fracture by main force, and then bind the limb tightly, leaving the rest to nature. We have a spare oar. Chop the blade into two lengths of about fifteen inches, and get the girls to cut narrow strips out of the canvas cover. Bring me my oilskin, and what is left of the cover. We can carry her in that. Leave the rifle with me-and hurry! On no account must either Nina or Madge come away from the boat. Be sure and impress that on them. We may have to run for our lives any second.”

Sturgess soon returned with the improvised splints and bandages. He also brought a tin of beef essence which Madge had found among the boat’s stores and was hoarding carefully for such Lucullian feast when soup would appear on the menu.

When Maseden spoke of the remains of the canvas cover he had in mind the fact that the girls had fashioned the greater part of the coarse material into divided skirts. Seals were not plentiful in Rotunda Bay, and the devising of garments had become a sheer necessity.

They persuaded the Indian girl to swallow some of the beef extract. After tasting the first mouthful she would have emptied the tin, but this Maseden would not permit, because he knew the ordeal that was coming.

It was a tough job, too. In a sense, it almost proved more trying for the amateur surgeons than for their unfortunate patient. Luckily, she fainted at the first wrench. Then they set their teeth and pulled the broken bones into their correct positions as well as they could adjudge them. When the girl revived she was already clothed in the oilskin and slung in the canvas sheet as in a hammock, while the limb was bound immovably between two roughly fashioned splints.

Maseden imagined that this creature of the wild was, in all probability, as hardy as a cormorant, and equally voracious. At any rate, when laid in the boat, she gobbled up the remaining contents of the tin, ate ravenously of ship’s biscuits and salt beef, and drank a mug of coffee in a gulp. When she discovered that no more food would be supplied she yielded to an evidently overwhelming desire to sleep.

Before closing her eyes, however, she had something to say. She was afraid of the men, but obviously placed trust in the two girls, neither of whom knew a syllable of Spanish beyond the few phrases which all travelers in South America must perforce acquire.

Madge, having the gift of music, contrived to mimic certain words with tolerable accuracy, and “smoke,” “boats,” “bad men,” seemed, to Maseden’s ear, to emerge from the guttural Indian accents. In one important respect, the wishes of the new addition to the party were quite understandable. She pointed to Providence Beach, indicated the boat, and made it clear that she counselled a prompt move eastward.

At last Maseden evolved a fairly intelligible notion of what she was endeavoring to convey. He believed, and rightly so, that she was telling her rescuers how a number of Indians had been attracted to Hanover Island by the smoke of the castaways’ fire. They assumed a wreck, with its prospect of loot, and, egged on by greed, had ultimately dared a passage hitherto regarded as impracticable. Some had been killed; others had escaped, and were now on the camping-ground at Providence Beach.

Apparently the girl was warning these strangers against her own people and recommending a speedy flight to safer quarters. Oddly enough, her advice coincided with Maseden’s own views. By landing on that part of the coast, and lighting a fire, they would be incurring a grave risk if there were Indians about, since the few miles’ strip of shore, difficult though it was, would be negotiated easily by natives.

The abandonment of the injured girl he could not account for, nor was he sure the boat had been observed, granted even that Providence Beach was not actually occupied by savages. But he was not inclined to take any chances. Deep water flowed yet in the main channel, and the day was not far advanced.

So he and Sturgess shipped the oars and pulled until they were weary; before night fell they had met the rising tide, and made a good landing, not on Hanover Island, but on the eastern end of Island Number Two.

They slept in the boat as best they could, the men taking turns at mounting guard, as in addition to the now somewhat improbable chance of being attacked, their craft had to be maneuvered into slack water as the tide rose and fell. They were all heartily glad to see the dawn and eat a good meal.

The very smell of food awakened the Indian girl. Like a healthy animal recovering from hardship, she was growing plumper and comelier under their very eye,s. With each hour she shed a year in appearance, and her confidence increased in about the same ration.

When she discovered that Maseden alone spoke Spanish she tried to explain matters to him. But her own knowledge of the language was of the slightest,