The Rover of the Andes: A Tale of Adventure on South America, R. M. Ballantyne [world of reading .txt] 📗

supper the first gusts of a storm, which had for some time been brewing, shook the little hut, and before they had all fallen into the profound slumber which usually followed their day’s journey, a heavy gale was howling among the mountain gorges with a noise like the roaring of a thousand lions. For two days the gale raged so furiously that travelling—especially in the higher regions of the Andes—became impossible. The Indian girl, Pedro, and the negro, bore their detention with that stoicism which is not an infrequent characteristic of mountaineers, guides, and savages. As for our hero, he devoted himself and all his skill to his patient—to which duty he was the more reconciled that it afforded him a good opportunity at once for improving his Spanish and pointing out to the bandit the error of his ways.

To do the man justice, he seemed to be fully sensible of the young doctor’s kindness, and thanked him, with tears in his eyes, not only for his previous intention to save him from the tremendous fall over the cliff, but for his subsequent efforts to alleviate the evil consequences thereof.

It mattered nothing to the great warm-hearted, loose-jointed Englishman that when he mentioned these hopeful signs in his patient to Pedro, that worthy shook his head and smiled sarcastically, or that Quashy received the same information with a closing of the eyes and an expansion of the jaws which revealed the red recesses of his throat to their darkest deeps! Lawrence, being a man of strong opinions, was not to be shaken out of them either by sarcasm or good-humoured contempt.

Turning to the Indian girl for sympathy, he related the matter to her at a time when the other inhabitants of the hut had gone out and left them alone.

“You see,—Manuela,” he said, with the frown of meditation on his brow, and his eyes fixed on the ceiling, “I have no belief in the very common idea that there is a soft spot in the heart of every man, however bad; but I do believe that the heart of the very worst of men may be made soft by the Spirit of God, and that He employs us, who call ourselves Christians, as His agents in bringing about the result. It is quite possible that I may have been thrown in the way of this robber for the very purpose of touching his heart through kindness—God’s own motive-power—and that the Spirit will soften his heart to receive the touch.”

He paused, and, withdrawing his gaze from the ceiling, observed that the girl’s eyes were fixed on his face with an expression of perplexity and earnestness.

It then suddenly occurred to him that, having spoken in English, she could not have understood him.

“But you do look as if you had some idea of what I have been saying, Manuela. Have you?”

“Si, senhor, some,” was the reply, as she dropped her eyes with an embarrassed look and blushed so as to make her pretty brown face look alarmingly red.

Endeavouring to convey the same ideas through the medium of Spanish, Lawrence made such a bungle of it that Manuela, instead of expressing sympathy, began to struggle so obviously with her feelings that the poor Englishman gave up the attempt, and good-naturedly joined his companion in a little burst of laughter. They were in the midst of this when the door opened and Quashy entered.

“You ’pears to be jolly,” observed the genial negro, with every wrinkle of his black visage ready to join in sympathetically, “was de jok a desprit good un?”

“Not very desperate, Quashy,” said Lawrence, “it was only my bad Spanish which made Manuela laugh. If you had been here to interpret we might have got on better with our philosophical discourse.”

“O massa!” returned the black—solemn remonstrance, both in manner and tone, putting to sudden flight the beaming look of sympathy—“don’t speak of me ’terpretin’ Spinich. Nebber could take kindly to dat stuff. Ob course I kin talk wid de peons an’ de gauchos, whose conv’sation am mostly ’bout grub, an’ hosses, an’ cattle, an’ dollars, an’ murder, but when I tries to go in for flosuffy, an’ sitch like, I breaks down altogidder.”

At this point the Indian girl’s tendency to laugh increased, but whether because of fresh views of the absurdity of what had passed, or because of some faint perception of the negro’s meaning, Lawrence had no power to decide.

“I should have thought, Quashy,” he said, with a return of his wonted gravity, “that a man of a thoughtful and contemplative turn of mind like you would have acquired the power of expressing almost any idea in Spanish by this time.”

“T’ank you for de compl’ment, massa,” replied Quashy, “but I not so clebber as you t’ink. Der am some tings in flosuffy dat beats me. When I tries to putt ’em afore oder peepil in Spinich, I somehow gits de brain-pan into sitch a conglomeration ob fumbustication dat I not able to see quite clar what I mean myself—dough, ob course, I knows dat I’m right.”

“Indeed!”

“Yis; but de great consolation I has is dat de peepil I’m talkin’ to don’t onderstand me a mossel better nor myself; an’, ob course, as noting in de wurl could show dem dey was wrong, it don’t much matter.”

“That is good philosophy, at all events. Isn’t it, Manuela?” asked Lawrence in Spanish.

“Si, senhor,” replied the girl, with sparkling eyes and a dazzling display of little teeth which seemed to indicate that she fully appreciated what was said.

“Strange,” thought Lawrence—“so grave and pensive, yet at times so sprightly; so intelligent, yet, of course, so ignorant; so very brown, and yet so pretty. What a pity she is not white!”

He only said, however, with a sigh, “Is the gale abating, Quashy?”

To which the negro replied, with a responsive sigh, “Yis, massa,—it am.”

After two days’ delay our travellers were enabled to proceed. While their host was busy saddling the mules Lawrence took Pedro aside.

“I am anxious about that bandit,” he said. “It is not his power of recovering I am afraid of, but our host’s willingness to take care of him.”

“Have you not spoken to him about it, senhor, and paid him in advance, like the good Samaritan?”

“Truly I have, but that does not secure fidelity in our host, and the man’s life may depend on his treatment during the next few days. I almost wish that we might delay our journey a little.”

“That cannot be,” returned Pedro, with decision. “Besides, it is unnecessary, for I have spoken to our host, and told him to take good care of the fellow.”

Lawrence could scarcely forbear smiling at the quiet assurance with which Pedro spoke.

“Surely,” he said, “you cannot count on his being influenced by your commands after you are gone?”

“Yes, senhor, I can count on that, for he knows me, and I occasionally pass this way.”

Pedro turned away as he spoke and went towards the mules, the fastenings of whose loads he carefully inspected. Lawrence went to look after his own animal with his mind much relieved, for the manner of Pedro was such as to inspire irresistible, almost blind, confidence.

During the first mile or two, as they rode along, our hero puzzled himself in a vain attempt to analyse the cause of this confidence. Was it the result of that imperturbable self-possession and invariable readiness of resource which marked the guide; or was it the stern truthfulness of his dark eyes, coupled with the retiring modesty and gravity of his demeanour? Perhaps it was the union of these characteristics. He could not tell.

While thus engaged in profound thought he was roused by Manuela riding alongside of him, and pointing upwards with animated looks while she exclaimed—

“See—look—senhor!”

Much surprised, for this was the first time during the journey that the girl had ventured to attract his attention, the youth looked in the direction indicated, and certainly the view that met his eyes was calculated to banish not only the surprise, but all other feelings save those of admiration of Nature and reverence for Nature’s God.

They had just rounded one of those rocky bluffs which so frequently interrupted their view during their upward journey, and had come upon a scene which they could not find words adequately to describe. As interjectional phrases alone could indicate something of their emotions to each other, so fragmentary sentences alone will convey a faint semblance of the truth to the intelligence of the reader.

Mountains, glens, and mighty cliffs; hideous precipices and yawning gulfs; snow-clad summits high above them, and rock-riven gorges far below. Distance upon distance ranging backward and upward to infinity, where all was mingled with cloudland; sunlit here, darkest shadowed there—wildness, weirdness, grandeur, and magnificence everywhere!

In the immediate foreground the serpentine path wound upward among rugged rocks, and the riders, picking their steps, as it were, midway up the face of a stupendous precipice, looked upward on the left at an apparently summitless wall, and downward on the right into an almost bottomless valley, through which a river roared as if mad with joy at having escaped its glacier-prison; though its roaring was softened well-nigh to silence by distance, while in appearance it seemed little larger than a silver thread.

“I could almost believe that to be a giant’s castle,” remarked Lawrence, pointing to the opposite side of the ravine, where a huge perpendicular mountain of porphyry was so broken into turrets, towers, and battlements, that it was difficult, except for its size, to believe it other than the work of man. There were even holes and formations about it that had the appearance of antique windows, gates, and drawbridges!

“Yes, it is a strange place,” said the guide, checking his mule; “moreover, we must spend the night under its shadow, for it is impossible to reach a better place of shelter to-night; and, by good fortune, yonder is something fresh for supper.”

Pedro pointed to a spot about seven or eight hundred yards distant, where a group of guanacos stood gazing at the intruders with profound attention.

“How will you get near enough for a shot?” asked Lawrence; “they will be gone before you can get across the ravine, and there is little or no cover.”

“You shall see,” said Pedro, cocking his rifle.

“But—but no weapon short of a cannon will carry so far—at least with accuracy,” exclaimed Lawrence in surprise, for at the time of which we write breech-loaders and the long-range weapons of precision had not been introduced in those regions. Indeed, the armies of South America, and of Europe also, still slew each other with the familiar Brown Bess and the clumsy flint-lock at that time.

Pedro paid no attention to the remark, but, dismounting, slowly raised the rifle to his shoulder. The guide was one of those men who seem to live in advance of their age. He had thought out, and carried out in a rough-and-ready manner, ideas which have since been scientifically reduced to practice. Being well aware that any projectile is drawn downward in its flight by the law of gravitation, and that if you want to hit a distant point you must aim considerably above it, he had, by careful experiment, found out how high above an object at a given distance one must aim in order to hit, and, by constant practice in judging distance, as well as in taking aim above his mark, he had attained to such skill as a long-range marksman that his friends almost believed it impossible for game to get beyond the range of his deadly weapon, and foes never felt easy till they were entirely out of his sight. The comparative slowness, too, of the flint-lock in discharging a rifle, had necessitated in him a degree of steadiness, not only while taking aim, but even after pulling the trigger, which rendered him what we might term statuesque in his action as he levelled his piece.

For a few seconds the rock beside him was not more steady. Then the cliffs burst into a fusillade of echoes,