CHAPTER XLII
WE ARE PURSUED BY DOGS AND PORTUGALS
In this discourse we retraced our steps, and crossing the valley (yet wide of the station) we ascended again that chain of hills crossed the day before; for Lewis de Pino, as I was now informed by Matthew, had turned out of his road to sell me and traffic for gold; and after a long and painful march we came about daylight to the woods.
Here we rested, though against my inclination, being tormented with apprehensions concerning my dear Lady Biddy; but Matthew was pretty nigh spent with fatigue, having less strength than I, and none of that terrible anxiety which pricked me onward. Thus, in one way and another, was a good deal of precious time lost.
When Matthew perceived that my impatience was becoming intolerable to me, he rose, and we once more pushed on. Yet he had a difficulty to keep pace with me, and from time to time he would remonstrate at my pace, saying, "Not so fast, master – not so fast; you forget that your legs are a quarter of a yard longer than mine," and the like.
The road still skirted the mountains pretty high up, yet still amidst the woods, whence now and then we caught a glimpse of the river shining below, very sweet and peaceful in the gray light of the morning.
"Now, master," says Matthew, when we had gone about a couple of leagues along this road – "now we shall do well to quit this road, and make our way as best we may through the woods; for I reckon we are getting nigh a station, and at any turn are likely to be spied."
Accordingly we struck into the wood, and none too soon, for ere we had made a hundred yards we were brought to a stand by the furious barking of a dog.
"If we can't silence that brute we are undone," whispered Matthew, "for they are trained to hunt down runaways, and will not quit their quarry till the huntsmen are come up with it."
Presently the barking ceased for a minute, and we heard the voices of men egging the dog on; yet could we see neither one nor the other for the thick growth, though their cries sounded no further off than a couple of hundred yards or so.
"Master," says Matthew, very much crestfallen, "promise me one thing."
"Ay," says I, "and you may depend on it I will keep my word."
He pressed my hand and nodded; then says he:
"Promise me that if I am taken, and you see a chance to pass your sword through me, you will put an end to my life."
"Nay," says I, shrinking before such a cruel possibility, "things will not come to that pass."
"Promise me, all the same," says he, very earnestly.
"You have my promise, friend," says I, though I would not have given it had I foreseen what he was about to ask.
"Good," says he. "I could lose another ell of my skin without much more than a day's howling; and I believe I could stand having my feet roasted, after the first scorching had taken my senses away; but I couldn't endure to be taken back a slave and lose my freedom."
I felt for the poor fellow with all my heart, sympathizing with his love of liberty, till he added, in a still more melancholy tone:
"I am not a family man."
Then I felt as if I must laugh, despite our peril, for it appeared that he dreaded being restored to his wives and children more than all the tortures the Portugals could inflict, and preferred death. Yet I am now inclined to think this reason was but an afterthought of his, and that he merely put it forward to hide his grave dread by way of pleasantry; for I have remarked that men of humor will in their most painful moments put forward a jest, when at another time they would be silent. So I have seen some jest over their disease when they know it to be mortal, and others even who have died with a pleasantry at their own expense on their lips.
All this time we stood in the midst of great feather-plants2 as high as my shoulder, hoping the dog would come nigh enough for us to cut him down ere we were spied by the men, who, we doubted not, had muskets to defend them; also we dared not move, lest we should be heard by the dog or be seen by the men. Presently the barking and the sound of voices went further away, as if the dogs had got on our track and were hunting it back the way we had come; then the barking ceased altogether, to our great content, for we made sure thereby the scent was lost, and the chase given up.
"Now," says Matthew, "let us put our right leg foremost and get down to the river as best we may, for if we get t'other side of that unseen we may laugh at dogs and Portugals."
"Nay," says I, "go if you will, but I can not get away from this station until I know whether my dear cousin be there or not. You live for freedom," adds I, "but I live for something more than that."
"No need to tell me that," says he. "Lord love you, master, do you think I don't know what's the matter with you? Trust me, I'll play you no scurvy trick, though I don't relish the society of females. Do as I wish you, and believe me I am thinking as much of your welfare and happiness as my own. But, for Heaven's sake, do not let us waste time a-talking here like so many attorneys. You shall have all the explanation you need when we get t'other side of the water."
I felt sure of this good fellow's honesty, and believing his judgment better than mine, knowing more of these parts and the ways of Portugals than ever I did, I yielded to his persuasions, and we scuttled down the hillside as quickly as we might for the obstructions that pestered us more and more as we advanced. For in the lower sides of these hills, towards the bottom, where the sun burns fiercer, the soil is moister, and a greater depth of earth lies over the rock, the growth is prodigiously thick; and besides the mass of shrubs upon the ground that one must pick one's way through not to be torn in pieces, the trees are all netted together with lianas as stout as a ship's tackle; brambles, briars, and hanging vines of a hundred sorts; so there is no way betwixt them but what a man may cut for himself with his sword.
"Give me a valley like that we have left behind, where there is naught but stones and rocks," says Matthew; "for though you may break your shins one moment and your nose the next, yet can you make some headway. But here," says he, "no man can roll down a hundred yards without setting foot to the ground. Howsomever, we're shut of the dog for our consolation."
Scarce were these words out of his mouth when they were forcibly contradicted by a fierce barking close in our rear; and turning about we spied the brute (as big as a wolf and as horrid) bounding towards us. But seeing us prepared with our swords to cut him in pieces, he stops short. Nor would he anyhow permit us to get near him (though Matthew, to tempt him, hid his sword behind him, and made forward with his hand out, saying "Poor doggy" very civilly, as though he would caress him), but backing when we advanced towards him, approaching as we went on, the dog contrived ever to keep well out of our reach, all the while barking to be heard a mile off.
"This will never do," says I; "the Portugals will be down on us directly."
"Ay," says he; "do you cut a way through the briars, while I keep this brute off."
So I hacked away with all my might at the lianas, while Matthew occupied himself with the dog, sometimes in Portuguese, commanding him (as I judged) to go home in a tone of authority, or entreating him mildly to come near and get a chop for his pains; but all to no purpose, except that he kept him from doing us a mischief with his fangs.
"Go home, you beast!" cries he: and then in the same breath, "Would we were back in my old valley, master: I'd brain you with a rock in a twinkling. But here is nothing to hurl at the cursed beast. Nice old doggy, come here!"
But now he had to hold his peace, for we could hear in the woods above us the voices of Portugals crying to one another, and shouting encouragement to the dog; nor dare I chop our way further, lest the flashing of the sword should be seen above the growth about us, and bring a shower of musket-balls upon us.
The only thing that saved us from immediate discovery and apprehension was that our pursuers found the same difficulty in advancing that we had overcome, and had to cut their way to where they heard the barking of the dog.
"If we could only silence that vile dog!" whispered Matthew, grinding his teeth.
"Ay," says I, "but how may we do that?"
"I see but one way," says he, "and that not very promising, but 'tis better than to wait here and be shot. Let us go back the way we have come."
"Why," says I, "that is but to offer ourselves the sooner to the Portugals."
"Nay," says he, "they are still a pretty fair distance off. Come and do as I ask you."
"Lead on, friend," says I. "You are better acquainted with this warfare than I."
So Matthew started at once to go back up the hill by the way we had cut through the growth, which did seem to me the rankest folly in the world. And what made it look worse was that, instead of trying to pacify the dog, he enraged it more than ever by thrusting at it with his sword, spitting at it, etc., but in betwixt he gave me instructions, and opened out his designs.
"You see the big tree on your right hand in front?" says he.
"Ay," says I.
"Get behind me, and when I pass that tree slip behind it and wait ready with your sword. The dog knows me, and takes no note of you."
There was no time to say more, for he had come abreast of the tree, and here he did draw the dog into a greater rage than ever, so that (as he had directed) I slipped behind the tree unobserved. And now, seeing Matthew's excellent design, I waited with my sword raised above my head.
After he had gone forward another two or three paces, Matthew begins to draw back, all the while gibing and jeering at the dog, who was now so furious that he even ventured to snap at the sword-blade when Matthew thrust it forward; and so step-by-step Matthew falls back until, passing me a couple of paces, the dog comes snapping and snarling forward after him till he is fairly within my reach, when with one swift blow I did cut him right through the loins clean in two halves.
CHAPTER XLIII
WE LAY OUR HEADS TOGETHER CONCERNING WHAT IS BEST TO BE DONE
Now having slain the dog, as I have shown, we crouched us down, that we might not be seen, feeling pretty secure; for those who pursued were a good way to the north of the path we had cut for ourselves, and unless by accident they hit upon that, they might hack and hew for a whole week (now there was no dog to betray our whereabouts) without coming nigh us. Indeed, as the old saying goes, 'twas like searching of a needle in a bottle of hay, with this addition – that they who searched were no bigger than the needles they sought. As we squatted there we could plainly see them chopping at the growth to make a passage (which was a comforting assurance they had not hit upon the alley we had made), together with much cursing and swearing; very grateful also to our ears, as showing they liked not their business, and crying out to the dog, who, for aught they knew, had started some game or was busy battening upon his prey.
For some time this uproar continued, and at one moment it seemed to be coming perilously near; but in the end they overshot us, going down the hill some way below. Then they gave over shouting, and we heard no more of them, by which we judged they had given up the attempt to find us or the dog in despair, and were gone back the way they had come.
So when we counted it safe to move, we once more began to force our passage down to the river; and, not to tire the reader as much as we tired ourselves in this business, we at length reached the water-side.
Here, being exhausted with our exertions and faint for want of food, we made a fire, and ate a serpent roasted on the embers, which Matthew had cut down; and this I recollect, because it was the first time I had tasted of these reptiles; nor should I then have eaten it, having a great loathing for such worms, but that Matthew assured me they were excellent meat, as indeed they are for those who can get no better.
While we were regaling ourselves I begged Matthew to tell me why he had come down to the river instead of returning to the road.
"For two reasons, master," he replies. "First of all, there was not a bend of that road that was safe for us, seeing that at any turn we might have marched smack into the hands of the Portugals."
"I don't see that," says I; "for we had stood a better chance of catching sight of Lewis de Pino and his train going on before us than they of spying us creeping on behind them."
"How about the others?" says he.
"What others?"
"Why, they who have been hunting us with the dog."
"They, I take it, are Lewis de Pino's men," says I.
"Lord love you, master, not they!" says he. "Do you think that dog was his, too? Oh, no! He and I are old enemies. He belongs to my old master the factor, and is kept at the station to hunt poor runaways. I knew the moment I heard his bark that my factor's men were on our heels. Villain! he is shrewd enough to know you would follow in your cousin's steps, and dispatched his men – if he be not himself at their head – to search the road and apprise De Pino of your escape. Now, master, if they had slipped by without being betrayed by the dog they would have spurred on till they overtook De Pino, and finding us not with him would have laid in ambush to take us as we followed after. Do you think I'm far out in my calculation?"
"No," says I; "you're right, I must allow, Matthew; and now for your second reason."
"The second hangs on to the first, master; for it stands to reason that if we ran a fair chance of losing our own liberty by sticking to the road, we were in a poor way to save the female. I went a bit too far maybe in supposing that you had no certain scheme of your own for circumventing De Pino."
"No," says I; "you were in the right again there: I had no fixed purpose."
"You had a notion maybe that we might catch De Pino and his men all napping, and that we might just get away with the female before they woke."
I admitted that if I had any scheme at all it was no better than that.
"Well, master," says Matthew, "we must give the Portugals credit for having sense enough to sleep with one eye open after being warned that you were at large, and so you must see that it would be courting our own destruction to attempt any such design as that."
"Ay," says I, "but I sha'n't be content to escape destruction myself if my cousin is to be abandoned to a worse fate."
"True, master," says he; "but as her escape depends on our existence, we must insure the latter for to compass the former."
"There I agree with you," says I; "but do you, if you can, show me by what means you reckon to get at my Lady Biddy, for up to this you have only led me further away from her."
"Master," says he, "so far as my observation goes, the best part of mortal success has been achieved by the turning of happy accidents to advantage, and our success in this undertaking must likewise depend upon favorable circumstances coming to our hand. Nevertheless, we can do something, and the best chance of gaining a victory is to attack the enemy on the side where assault is least looked for; and so," says he, seeing I was pretty well driven to the end of my patience with his philosophy, "instead of hanging about in De Pino's rear, where he undoubtedly expects to spy us, we must get in front of him, where he as little looks to meet us as the man in the moon."
"And how on earth do you expect to get in front of him by coming down here?"
"By the river," says he, "where there are neither rocks to throw us over, nor briars to balk our progress."
"He will be leagues ahead of us, man, before nightfall," says I, in desperation.
"No matter for that; we'll be leagues ahead of him before daybreak. I warrant we'll be at Valetta a day before he arrives."
"Where is Valetta?"
"Valetta is a town on this river that he must pass through. 'Tis four days' march from here by road – a shorter journey than by the river; but we must advance while he is resting, journeying by night as well as by day. Turn and turn about, we need never stop at our oars save to eat our meals together."
"But we have no boat," says I.
"We must make one," says he.
I laughed, yet not merrily, and asked him if he expected we could make a boat in four days, when it had cost me four months and more to make a raft.
"Lord love you, master," says he, "we'll be afloat in four hours."
CHAPTER XLIV
IN WHICH MATTHEW PLAYS THE BEGGAR AND I THE FOOL
My comrade had no sooner made promise that we should be afloat in four hours than he started about carrying out his design.
There was in that swamp that bordered the river an amazing quantity of great cane-reeds, some twenty feet in height and more, and of these he began to cut down with his sword such as were most proper to his purpose, bidding me do the like, and choose those of last year's growth, which were dry, light, and of good girth. Nothing loath, I waded into the morass (with a care that I trod on no water-serpent) until I was pretty well up to my middle in water, and there I laid about me with a will, until I had cut as many as I could carry, which I then took to a point where the water was deep and free from this growth, and laid them beside Matthew's store. In this way we proceeded until we had laid up a good stock of these canes.
"Now," says Matthew, eyeing them, "I judge we have enough; so do you go, master, and cut me one of those plaguey vines that gave us so much trouble this morning, while I set these reeds shipshape."
Perceiving his object, I went up into the wood and cut ten or a dozen fathoms of the lianes, which, as I say, are like any ship's tackle for toughness and soundness. While I was about this, Matthew sets the canes out, with the thick end of one overlapping about three parts of its length the thick end of another in such a manner that (all being served and tightly bound with the liana at both ends, and again in two or three places towards the middle) they made a huge bundle about a yard through at its largest girth, and four yards long, tapering off at each end like a fishing-float. This being done, and the lianes bound securely to Matthew's mind, he begs me to lend him a hand at cutting away certain of the canes in the middle with my knife, which was tough work indeed (for the canes were prodigious hard), and labor we might have spared ourselves had we bethought us to dispose the canes differently before we bound them up; but this did not occur to us till we were pretty nigh the end of our job.
However, having cut out of the middle a space about four feet long by two broad, and as much in depth, our business was done.
This was the boat which was to carry us up the river, and Matthew was not a little proud of it; though I was still in a taking for fear it should turn over when we set foot into it, and capsize us both into the water; but this it did not, but carried us as steadily as we could wish, and capital good we found it for such a boat as it was.
For our sweeps or paddles we bound two stout canes together, stretching them asunder at one end and covering that part with a broad tough grass.
In this craft we made our way up that river three days and four nights, only stopping to take such rest as was needful and to procure refreshment. Many difficulties and perils we encountered by the way, but of these I have no space to tell had I the inclination, for it seems as I write that I have the same burning impatience which urged me on then to come to my Lady Biddy. Every obstacle that delayed progress enraged me. I could scarcely bring myself to let my comrade get his fair and necessary amount of sleep, but would be twitching him to awake ere he had got soundly asleep; for as to one sleeping in the boat while the other rowed, that we found impossible, because there was no room to lie down there, and necessary it was, for fear of cramps, at times to take our feet out of the water, which we had no means to keep from coming in betwixt the reeds.
But Matthew bore with me, seeing my great anxiety of mind, and that I did not rest a quarter as much as he; and though he grumbled again (but chiefly in pretense), he roused himself after the second or third twitch, and did all man could to give me hope. Indeed, a fellow of gentler temper, a more cheerful, kind friend, I never knew of his sex.
Soon after daybreak on the fourth day, having been at our sweeps a couple of hours maybe, we spied some fishing-canoes moored by the shore, and some little cot-houses hard by, by which we judged we had come to the outskirts of Valetta. Whereupon we drew into the bank, and going up through the woods to the top of a little hill, came upon tilled fields, beyond which lay the town, very gray and quiet in the creeping light of that early morning.
"Now, master," says Matthew, "the first thing is to learn if De Pino and his train have yet arrived in the town; and we can't do that standing here looking at it."
"Nay," says I, "I'm ready to go into the town at once if you are. But we must be secret."
"Ay," says he; "and for that reason you will have to bide here."
"I can not do that," says I. "Think, Matthew – she may stand in need of my help. I shall be mad if I stay here idle."
"Not so mad," says he, "as if you venture into that town. Look at your state. Could any man clap eyes on you without pointing you out to his neighbor?"
Truly I was in a sad pickle – my fine clothes that I had of Dom Sebastian rent in a hundred places with the thorns through which we had torn our way in escaping by the woods; no hat to my head; my silk stockings stained with the blood from my scratched legs and the mud of the morass; and my hands and face swollen with the bite of those flies that haunt the river.
"You look," continues he, "as if you had broke loose from a prison, and like nothing else; and if you be taken to task by the mayor, or other busybody, to account for your condition, your answer or your silence will at once betray you for a foreigner. So will you be clapped up in jail, and the female be worse off than ever."
I was forced to admit that he was in the right, and to ask what he designed.
"Why," says he, "I shall go into the town as a shipwrecked mariner, cast ashore off Buenaventure, fallen sick of a leprosy, and begging my way to my friends at Cartagena, and no one shall count this a lie by the bravery of my dress."
Indeed he looked beggarly enough, having not a rag of shirt to his back, nor any clothes but his shoes, breeches, and a jacket of skins, with an old hat that no one would have picked off a dust-heap.
"In this guise," continues he, "may I go all through that town, asking alms in good Portuguese, so that men will be more glad to get out of my way than to stop me. And if, when I have been to all the inns and places of rest, I find De Pino is not yet come, I will sit me down against a church-door, the town gate, or elsewhere most convenient for spying who enters by the road from Darien, and wait there till nightfall, when I will come again to you. And, lest I get no broken victuals, do you have a good supper ready by way of alms to give a hungry beggar."
I promised him he should not lack for food.
"Now, master," says he, "give me something as a token that I may slip into the female's hand, when I go to beg of her, as she passes, whereby she may know that you are at hand."
I was greatly pleased with his forethought, which showed a kind consideration for Lady Biddy's happiness, and delighted to think I might thus communicate with her. So, undoing my waistcoat, I cut a fair piece from the breast of my shirt, which was of fine linen, and having pierced my finger with a thorn I contrived to trace "B. P." on this rag with my blood.
Meanwhile Matthew had gone about to find some purple berries which he crushed in divers places upon the flesh of his legs and face, so that when he came forth I scarcely knew him again, as he looked for all the world, by reason of this disfigurement, like one who was sore of a plague.
"I wager," says he, "no one will want to lay hands on me now; and as for De Pino, he will turn away in disgust at the first glance, for these Portugals pretend to have mighty nice stomachs. Howsomever, I must give myself another touch or two to deceive his eye."
Therewith he takes his knife and saws away at his bushy beard until he had brought it down to a point, after the Portugals' mode. Then he begged me to crop the hair of his head, which I did forthwith; and to see me a-trimming his head with my sword was a sight to set any barber's teeth on edge. This done, he give me his sword to take charge of, and hides his knife inside his jacket, with my token for Lady Biddy. Then folding his arms on his chest, drawing up his shoulders to his ears, and putting on a most woe-begone look, he asks me if I think he will pass muster.
"Ay," says I, "you are horrid enough, in all conscience; but with those loathsome-seeming sores upon you I doubt if my cousin will care to take my token from your hand."
"Lord love you, master," says he with a laugh, "if you knew as much of females as I do you would have no doubt on that head. There's no disguise will deceive their eyes when they have a man in their thoughts; and," adds he in a graver tone, "there's no form of distress will make them shrink from a tender office."
He gave me his hand, bidding me farewell, and went his way with a shuffling gait and a sly leer back at me to show me he understood his business.
I watched him until he entered the fields, where the tall plants presently hid him from my sight. Then I bethought me to set adrift our boat, which might have excited curiosity and suspicion had it been seen by any one passing on the river; and this I did, after cutting the lianes that bound it, so that it might go to pieces as it went down with the current. After that, with a sling I managed to kill half a dozen birds, about the size of pigeons, and these I cooked in the midst of the wood, where the smoke from my fire might not be seen. Also I gathered some good fruit, and of this food I set by enough to serve for a meal when Matthew returned. Then I sat me down at that point whence my comrade had departed, watching for his return through the fields.
Hour after hour I sat there, turning my eyes neither to the right nor to the left, for my eagerness to see him again, and my thoughts all the while running on my dear lady; but no reflections worthy to be recorded. The sun sank and the twilight faded away; but the stars were bright in the sky before I heard any sign of Matthew; then I caught a snuffling, whining voice, which I knew to be his, crying:
"Is there 'ere a kind friend will give a bit to a poor sick seafaring man?" at the same time I perceived a figure coming towards me.
"What news, Matthew – what news?" I cried, running to meet him.
"Plenty," says he; "I've done a rare day's business."
"Lord be praised!" says I; "what have you learnt?"
"That a canting rogue may earn more in a day than an honest man in a week."
"What else, what else?" says I impatiently.
"That for winning true respect there's naught like sham sores."
"For the love of Heaven do not torment me! What of my cousin?"
"Oh, she has not yet come into the town," says he; "nor will she to-night for certain; the gates were being shut when I crawled out. I told you, master, we should get here a day before De Pino."
On this I heaved a great sigh for disappointment.
"Lord love you, master," says he, "don't heave a sigh like that afore you're married, or you'll have none left for a better occasion."
This pleasantry made me sadder that before, for it put me in mind that, come what might, Lady Biddy could never be mine, nor I anything to her but as a poor faithful servant.
"Cheer up, master," says Matthew. "You may wager that if I haven't brought you one sort of comfort, I've brought you another. Feel the weight of this."
I then perceived, for the first time, that Matthew had a load on his back.
"What in the world have you got there, friend?" says I, feeling the great distended skin bag he carried.
"Wine, master – wine of the best, and a couple of gallons of it."
"How did you come by it?"
"Honestly. I paid for it with good silver, and I've enough left against times of need. For, you see, while wholesome beggars were taken into the kitchen for a paltry mess of broken victuals, I no sooner showed my face in a doorway but a silver piece was tossed into the road to get rid of me. Bless every one with a nice stomach, say I; they give me the whole street to myself when they catch sight of me, and go a roundabout way to their goal. You wonder why I wasn't turned out of the town. Lord love you, there was not a constable had the heart to lay his hand on me. A sort of a kind of a beadle came and looked at me from a distance, and I was half afeared he meditated getting me shot with a long gun; but when I sat me down peaceably in the church-door, he saw I could do no one any mischief there, and so went away to trounce some silly folks who were trying to turn a penny or two with a dancing dog."
In this manner did he run on, telling me of his adventures during the day, until all our birds were eaten and the wine-skin half empty, when he laid himself down, chuckling over the prospect of a long night's sleep, and warning me not to arouse him too soon, as he had been forced to wait an hour at the gates.
"And," says he, "if I show myself an early riser, they may well doubt if I be a true beggar."