Kiana. James Jackson Jarves

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СКАЧАТЬ though the earth may gain in fertility from not having to wait so long for the fruitful warmth.

      It was well nigh morning when the caravel broke up in the reef. The air was warm, and although the surf roared as loudly as ever, the wind had gone down. Soon the sun began to appear above the horizon. Beatriz, availing herself of its earliest light, began to search for her brother and his company. Tolta was active also. Bits of the wreck strewed the beach, with here and there articles that might still be of service, but she paid no attention to them. Hurriedly looking about her, hoping yet fearful, she espied a body half-buried in the sand. In an instant she was beside it, but it was one of the crew, stiff and cold. There was no time to spare for a corpse, so she continued her search for the living. An object half hidden amid low shrubbery caught her eye. Hastening thither, she saw the well known white robe of Olmedo. With a cry of joy she rushed to it, and then breathlessly knelt at his side, placing her hand upon Olmedo’s heart and her mouth close to his, to detect any signs of life. He was warm and breathing. His eyes slowly opened, and recognizing Beatriz, for a moment he seemed to have forgotten the wreck, and to imagine himself still at sea. As he stretched out his hand with a smile, to give her his wonted welcome, she seized it passionately, kissed it and burst into tears.

      The good father, surprised at this feeling in one usually so calm, yet carried away by it without knowing why, pressed her hand warmly in return, while a tear found its way also to his eye. Instantly recovering her usual manner, Beatriz asked if he could give her tidings of Juan.

      The question recalled to Olmedo the disaster of the night. He had himself been thrown ashore, on top of a plank to which he had clung at the breaking up of the caravel, and had scrambled up the beach, until he reached the bushes, where he had been found half gone in faintness and sleep.

      At the name of Juan he started to his feet and said, “Let us lose no time in looking for him. The wreck was so sudden that human efforts could not have availed to save any one. God may have brought him safely to shore as he has us.”

      They had not gone far before a well known voice was heard calling loudly upon Beatriz. In an instant, she was clasped in the embrace of her brother. He had rushed from a neighboring grove, as he caught sight of his sister, and now the two in their sudden joy clung to each other with mingled sobs and laughter; for being twins their active affections had been formed together in one maternal mould.

      Juan led the party to the spot from which he had emerged, where they found three of the seamen. It seems that Juan had reached the land, somewhat bruised, in company with them, and the four had spent their time in searching for Beatriz and others of the crew, but owing to the darkness of the night and the loudness of the surf, they were neither seen nor heard. Farther search assured them that they were the sole survivors of the wreck. Accordingly having secured the few objects of utility that had been thrown ashore from it, they began to explore their new home in reference to their future wants.

      The land was much broken and thickly covered with vegetation, some of which was familiar to them from being common to the “tierra caliente” of Mexico. As they wandered inland they came to cultivated patches of yam and the sweet potato. Many of the fields were enclosed in well constructed stone walls. They were therefore in an inhabited land, and, as they thought, must soon meet the tillers of the soil. Bananas and other fruit hung within their reach. Numerous paths intersected grounds, which were divided into square or oblong lots, surrounded by dykes, planted with the broad leafed, nutritious taro, and irrigated by so admirable a network of water-courses as to extort from all exclamations of surprise. Following up the most trodden of these paths, they came to a retired valley embosomed amid forest-clad hills, with a quiet stream flowing through its centre, and cultivated as far up as the eye could see, in the same manner as the fields through which they had passed. Soon houses came into view. They were in clusters, low, of thatch, raised on embankments, with stone pavements around them, or fenced in by rude palisades.

      Expecting each minute to meet the owners, they proceeded cautiously towards them. They were disappointed, however, for not a human being appeared; not even a dog or domestic animal of any kind; the air was still and the sun hot; there was no hum of insects or song of birds; the sole life that met their view was now and then a stray lizard, that glided so quickly and silently away as but to make the surrounding stillness still more sensible.

      They began to distrust their senses. Were they in an enchanted land? Was their shipwreck real, or were they dreaming? Their very voices seemed to die out in the universal silence. They gathered fruit and eat, and this reassured them of the reality of their appetites at least, but their own shadows as they lengthened before them seemed unreal, while those of tree and rock cast spectral forms about their path.

      Terrible and oppressive grew upon them the ambiguity of their position. Were they watched and being led by enchantment into the power of savage foes, or were they tantalized by illusions, like the dreams of starving men who rave of dainties ever within their reach? What meant this life without life, harvest without reapers, houses without owners, this atmosphere without insect-hum or bird-song? The very waters enclosed in rocky basins, or overshadowed by motionless foliage, were unrippled by current or wave, and repeating the landscape in their still depths, made it even more unreal. The gracefully shaped canoes which floated upon them without moving, looked as if painted upon the surface of the stream.

      Juan’s impatient spirit chafed for want of action. “By the Holy Mass, father Olmedo,” he cried, “this silence beats that which made us hold our breaths on the night when we marched out of Mexico, thinking we were stealing away unseen from those red devils, when tens of thousands of their impish eyes were glaring upon us, awaiting the signal to drag us to their damnable temples. Well must you remember it, and how sad a night they made of it to us, after the silence was once broken by their infernal yells, as they dragged away so many of our companions to have their hearts torn from their living bodies, as offerings to their hideous war-god. Jesu Maria! I like not this awful stillness. Give me rather a hundred foes and my own trusty horse, that I might dash among them with our old battle-cry;”—and in the excitement of the moment, he sprang forward, waved his sword and shouted at the top of his voice, “At them, cavaliers; Santiago for Spain.”

      “Ah! I have started you at last,” he exultingly exclaimed. “Hark! By the Holy Virgin, they reply in our blessed language. A dozen wax candles for our Lady’s shrine for this, as soon as I can get them—we are among friends, Beatriz.”

      “You mistake, Juan,” replied Beatriz. “The words you hear are only your own sent back from the hills.”

      Juan, distrusting her more acute senses, again shouted, and convinced himself that it was only the rocks that mockingly echoed the shout. It was the first time since their creation, that they had given back a sound foreign to their own shores, and it seemed to linger long among them as if they relished its notes. Then the silence brooded over the scene more ominously than before, as no foes appeared, and no human voice sent back the defiance. Tolta’s eyes, however, glared furiously on Juan at his ill-timed allusion to “La Noche Triste,” but it was only for a moment. Beatriz had observed the look, and in a low whisper said to Juan, “Nay, brother, forbear, that night was a sad one to many besides ourselves. Why provoke Tolta to revengeful thoughts? He has done us both faithful service. For my sake respect his feelings.”

      Chafed as he was at the mysterious silence, which only angered him, while it awed, not through fear, but from the depths of its repose, the hearts of Olmedo and Beatriz, who found something in it kindred to their own position, Juan’s hasty impulse would have been to have vented his irritation upon the Mexican, but a second look from his sister restored his better nature, and he frankly held out his hand to him, exclaiming, “Pardon my hastiness, Tolta, I meant not to vex you.”

      The Mexican’s features resumed their usual apathy, and no one would have supposed from them, that an emotion had ever touched his heart. Yet among them all, no eye or ear was keener than his, no nature more sensitive, none so СКАЧАТЬ