The Admirable Lady Biddy Fane. Barrett Frank

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СКАЧАТЬ me this seemed an overstraining of sentiment; for I would have been content to take that dear girl for my wife, rich or poor; nay, I could not believe that any sense of dependence or bounty could exist in the union of two who love entirely. But I would not contrary him by speaking of this, which he would but have set down to want of decent pride and self-respect on my side.

      "There is no hope – no hope!" he continues, bitterly. "I am undone by my enemies, and you are one of them – a man I have sought only to help – a base wretch who would not speak a word to save me from my undoing."

      I held my peace, as I had before, when he spoke after this sort. For partly I felt that I deserved reproach, and partly I saw that he was beside himself with despair. So I let him be that he might vent freely all his passion. But he said no more; and for some while he lay there like one who cared not to move again. Then getting upon his feet savagely, as though ashamed of his weakness, he says:

      "Let us go from this cursed spot." Then, looking about him in bewilderment, "Where shall we go?"

      Be a man never so wretched he must eat and drink; so I told him we must first of all seek a stream to quench our thirst; and the land to the west looking most promising, I settled to explore in that direction; Sir Harry being indifferent so that we got away from this unlucky place where we had been set ashore. We took up our axes and muskets – which the thieving Cazique had left to us because they lay under our hands, as I may say, and he feared to awake us – and marched onwards, keeping to the sand, which was very level and firm, the tide being at low ebb. We kept on this way for best part of a league, and then the shore becoming soft with a kind of black mud, we were forced to seek higher ground; and here our progress was made very painful and slow by reason of the scrubby growth, which was mighty thick and prickly, so that we were torn at every step. To add to our discomfort, the sun, being now high, shone with prodigious heat upon us, and parched us with thirst. There were woods at hand, but here the thorny bush was so high and closely interwoven that we had to use our hatchets to make any way at all, and then were we no better off, but worse; wherefore we were obliged to return to that part where the earth was less encumbered. Some of these brambles had thorns two inches long, and curved like great claws; and one of these tearing my leg gave me much torment. As the sun rose higher, so our suffering increased, until, after marching best part of two hours, we were ready to drop with fatigue. Fruit there was in abundance, spread out temptingly under our feet; for nearly every bush bore some sort of apples or grapes; yet dared we not eat any for fear of its being venomous. Of this venomous fruit I had heard the seamen who had traveled in these parts tell, and how a man eating of it will presently go raving mad; and I pointed out to Sir Harry, who would fain have slaked his thirst with this growth, that we had as yet seen neither bird nor beast, which argued that this food was not wholesome.

      However, about midday, when we were as near spent as any living man could be, we came to a turn in the coast where the character of the growth changed; and here we found a great herb with leaves spreading out on all sides; but every leaf was a good twenty feet long and half a fathom across, so that it gave us ample shade to lie in; and never was man more content than I to get out of the sunshine. To our still greater comfort, Sir Harry presently spied at no great distance a low-growing thicket, in the midst of which grew a fruit that he knew for a pine-nut, which is a fruit bigger than any that grows in England, of a yellow complexion, and scaly without, but of excellent condition within. Cutting it in half with his knife, he gave me one part, and bade me eat it without fear; and this I did, though not without compunction, but I found it truly as he said, both meat and drink, and the most delicious ever man did eat, with no ill effects after.

      We rested ourselves some while, and then being much refreshed continued our journey over very fair ground, but yet keeping very near the water; and so rounding a headland, and facing pretty nearly due west, we perceived another headland across the water, but at a great distance, which led us to conceive that we were upon one of the mouths of the Oronoque, which, as we know, disembogues itself by many issues into the sea over a length of a hundred leagues and more along the coast of Guiana. And that this was a river, and not an inlet of the sea, we proved by tasting of the water, which was still running out very troubled; it was not salt and bitter, and yet too thick and brackish to drink. And now the trees approached the water-side, some hanging over, with thick growth everywhere; and though I know English trees well, and the different sorts of herbs, yet all here were new to me, and I saw none that I could name. For prodigious height and girth I never saw the like of the trees, which were besides wondrous fair to the eye, but painful to get through by reason of their great abundance, and the maze of vines and bramble (as I must call them, knowing not their names) which netted them together. Surely to one come there for pleasure and to satisfy his curiosity, there was on all sides something to please and interest, there being no end to the variety of flowers and fruits, their colors and forms; but to us, who were mainly concerned to discover where we were situated, we did wish best part of these trees and shrubs further.

      We made our way onward for two hours more, yet the land on the other side of the river appeared no nearer, for the rivers in these parts have no parallel for volume; and then we came (God be praised) to a small stream running from the interior, which we found at some little distance inward to be very sweet and good, so that we drank of it our fill. But what pleased me as much as the discovery of this water was the print of a cloven foot in a slough, hard by, which I judged, by the form and size, to be the foot of a swine; and so it proved, for going still further, but with caution, along the edge of this marshy land, we perceived a whole drove of this cattle stretched out in the warm mire, grunting from time to time as pleasantly as any English hogs. Seeing them thus within range, Sir Harry, ere I could check him, cocked his piece and let fly; and though he killed one dead on the spot, yet was I sorry he had spent his fire on this quarry, for I believe I might have knocked one on the head and done for him with a blow of my hatchet; and now were we left with only one charge of powder and ball to meet any emergency.

      We dragged this beast, which was a boar pig of some ten score, as I reckoned, away from the morass, which I dreaded to stay in for fear of serpents or other noxious beasts; and finding a place near the river high and dry, we resolved to stay there the night, for the day was nearly spent, as were we likewise. Here Sir Harry set about to get some dry fuel and make a fire, the while I skinned our pig, and a marvelous thick hide he had; and so much the better was I pleased, for I saw that with this hide cut in thongs I could make us a good gin to entrap other swine when we had occasion for them, also a sling for killing birds, and other things necessary to us in our forlorn, destitute condition. Sir Harry got some dry rotten wood, and grinding a little to powder he set it in the pan of his firelock, and snapping the cock twice or thrice succeeded in setting it burning; then blowing the ember gently on other rotten wood, and that on dry leaves and such-like, he in the end got a flame to put to his bonfire, and over this on pointed sticks we held some slices cut from our swine's ham; enough not only for our supper, but to serve us cold on the morrow; and well it was we did so then, for the next morning the carcase I had hung on a tree overnight was all green and so foul we were fain to cast it in the river to be washed away with the current; but that which we had cooked was sweet and good, though mighty tough eating.

      But I must tell of the strange way in which we were awakened that morning, which was by the crowing of a cock, and surely nothing in this land so full of unlooked-for things could be more unexpected than this familiar, homely cry. We two started up together at the sound, rubbing our eyes to be sure we were in a strange country and not at home in England. But again this bird crowed, and casting our eyes about, there we spied a fine red cock perched in the boughs of a tree with three pullets on one side of him and two on the other, all as comfortable as you please, and not yet astir, for the day was scarce broke. Upon this we concluded that there must be human habitation near, and overjoyed at the hope of seeing fellow-creatures in a land where we had thought to be all alone, we started to our feet and hallooed with all our might, not reckoning that the fellow-creatures might be cruel Indians who might murder us, and mayhap eat us afterwards for our pains.

      However, though we hallooed till we were hoarse and could halloa no longer, answer came there none, СКАЧАТЬ