CHAPTER XLV
WE GO FROM VALETTA TO SEEK MY LADY BIDDY ELSEWHERE
The next day seemed to me as if it would never come to an end, having nothing much else to do than to watch for Matthew's return; and what made it more tedious and wearisome was that my comrade had started bidding me expect him back before midday.
"For," says he, "the next station, if I remember right, is but a matter of four or five leagues distant; so that, starting betimes, they must needs arrive about ten or eleven at the outside."
When he came not at noon I began to torment myself with fears lest some mischance had happened to Matthew; either that he had been clapped up in a bridewell to cure him of his sores, or had been recognized by Lewis de Pino, to his great misfortune. And though this was grievous enough to think on (for I loved the kind, honest rogue), yet it was nothing beside the concern I felt for Lady Biddy had such an accident arrived; for while I was lingering here, with my hands idle by my side, Lewis de Pino might be hurrying away with her to Quito.
As soon as the first star began to twinkle I could bear this suspense no longer, and started out towards the town; for if Matthew were free, I knew he would leave the town when the gates were about to be closed. About half a league from the town I met him (to my great joy), and my first question was what news he had brought with him.
Instead of beating about the bush and making a joke of my impatience, he answered, very soberly, that De Pino and his train had not yet entered the town.
"Hows'mever," says he, "there's no call to be cast down about that matter, for I may very well have made a mistake in the distance, seeing I have traveled over the road but once, and that ten or a dozen years ago. One thing is certain, master – they must arrive to-morrow, and this delay is all to our advantage, since it has given me time to pry about the town, and examine in what manner we may best contrive to get the female out of De Pino's hands."
Therewith he entered into the design he had formed for this purpose, describing the inn at which the merchants stayed, with the means of getting out of the town, and into it, without passing the gate, etc., etc., in such detail that he gave me no time to think of anything else till we had eaten our supper and emptied the wine-skin, when he declared he was too tired to converse longer; and so, laying himself down, bade me good-night and presently began to snore.
But then, my mind being no longer occupied with his return, I grew uneasy again about this delay, and could not close an eye for my trouble. I had noticed that Matthew was much less merry than usual, and now I took it into my head that the long-winded description of the inn, and his ingenious project for rescuing "the female," was nothing but a design to divert my mind, and make his own uneasiness less noticeable.
'Twas useless attempting to sleep in this disorder of mind, and I could no longer lie still when day broke; but getting up quietly, so that I might not awake Matthew, I went to a little distance and paced backwards and forwards with a heavy heart. Presently Matthew, getting up, comes to my side, and says he:
"Can't you sleep, master?"
"No," says I.
"No more can I," says he, "and I took a pretty stiff dose of wine, too, for my nightcap. I ha'n't slept a wink all night."
"You've snored pretty continually, nevertheless," says I.
"As for that," says he, "I'm a man that must be doing something; and 'tis as easy to snore as to wear spots on your face; but one is no more a sign of sleep than t'other is of a distemper."
"Why couldn't you sleep, Matthew?" says I. "What's amiss?"
"Well," says he, "De Pino and the female ought to have come in yesterday morning at the latest."
"But you said you might have made a mistake as to the distance?"
"So I might," says he slyly; "but, to make quite sure, I took the pains to inquire last night of my friend at the inn, outside the town, and I found I had not."
"Then you believe they ought to have been here before now?" says I sharply.
"Yes, master," says he gravely. "They ought to have come in the night afore last, or yesterday morning at the latest. When it came noon yesterday I gave them up; yet I stayed there in the hope I was wrong. First saying to myself that, being warned of your escape by the factor, he had thought it well to make an ambush, and wait for you to come up; and then that he had stopped for some reason of his business; but these arguments wouldn't do – and, to cut a long story short, I made up my mind when I saw the gates closed last night, and no sign of De Pino along the road for half a mile – I made up my mind, I say, that he had taken another road."
"Taken another road!" says I, in a terrible amazement.
"Ay," says he. "I can account for it in no other way."
"And why did you not tell me this last night?" I asks angrily.
"We could do nothing in the dark, and I hoped you would get a good night's sleep and be fresh for a march this morning," says he simply. "There was no good in plaguing you before your time."
I could not be angry with the fellow after that, for he was in the right, and, 'twas out of pure kindness of heart he had held his tongue.
"I though you were so sure of the road, Matthew?" says I.
"So I was, master; and more fool I. Don't spare me; I deserve all the blame, for 'twas I who would have you come by the river when you would have gone by the road."
"Did you make no inquiry about this road last night?"
"Ay," says he. "No other road to Quito is known to the innkeeper but this. Yet he may be as great a fool as I in that matter; and though De Pino could take no other road to Quito, he might, for all that, have turned aside to some other place."
"What do you propose we should do now, Matthew?"
"Get on to the road, and hark back as soon as there is light enough for us to pick our way. We will hit the road within sight of the town-gates before they are opened, to make certain they have not come up."
The poor fellow was so crestfallen, having now no heart to disguise his discomfiture, that to cheer him I professed to be in no way disheartened by this failure.
"For," says I, "there is this advantage about it: I shall not have to rest idle here any longer. 'Twill be light enough to begin our march in half an hour."
"Why, that's true, master," says he, brightening up; "and, not to waste time, we'll have a good meal to strengthen us against fatigue."
"There's nothing to eat," says I; "we finished every scrap last night."
"Nay," says he; "I laid out for that, and brought home a peck loaf and a roast loin of mutton with me last night."
I remembered he was pretty well charged when we met overnight, but had taken no heed of what he carried, thinking in the dark it was but another skin of wine.
"Parrots are all very well for high feeding, and so are serpents and such-like," says he, fetching his loaf and the loin of mutton, "but give me bread and roast mutton when there's work to be done."
When we had finished our repast, Matthew buckled on his sword, and we started off. Striking the road after an hour's march, and making sure that no cavalcade lay between us and the town, we turned our faces to the north, and strode out with a will: nor did we check our pace for two hours, albeit the way lay all up hill and none too smooth. We met not a soul all that time, for only merchants with their trains of mules, etc., pass this way, and they not frequently, so that for a whole week there may not be a single traveler to be met. Indeed, we had scarcely dared to travel that way otherwise, for our appearance would have justified any one in taking us for outlaws – I in my tattered finery, with a peck loaf slung on my shoulder, as great knife in my girdle, a long sword in my hand, and nothing but an uncombed crop of hair on my head; and Matthew likewise fiercely armed, with a wine-skin and a bundle of broken victuals at his back, scarcely enough clothes to cover his nakedness, and a complexion as if he had just escaped from a lazar-house – in fine, as unwelcome a knight and squire as any one might wish to meet. Nor were our movements much more reassuring than our appearance, for at every turn of the road we would stop with our swords firmly gripped, peering round the rocks and betwixt the bushes, as if we were on the lookout for some one to waylay and murder.
At length we came in sight of a station, and here with great prudence we went about to spy into it, and yet not be seen ourselves; and this, by reason of its position and the chance of encountering hunters in the surrounding wood, was a painful and tedious business; but finally getting upon the further side, and crawling near with terrible fear (lest we might arouse some watch-dog, and so have a repetition of our former trouble), we got a fair sight into the village, where was nothing to be seen but four bearded rascals playing of cards. And so, creeping out of that wood as carefully as we had crept in, we once more got into the road, and pushed onward till noon without stopping, except at the bends of the road as aforesaid.
At noon we stooped to eat and refresh ourselves, and that done, we went onward again for best part of two hours, though the sun was now at its height; but by reason we were now very high up on the side of the mountain, and that in many places the rock sheltered us with an agreeable shade, we were not so hot but that we could still march with a good heart. Yet here we stayed to consult together, for we had come to a part of the road where we could not conceal ourselves if we met Lewis de Pino, nor retreat without exposing ourselves to the fire of his arquebuses. For the path wound along close by the side of the mountain, with no growth of herbs, and all barren for a long distance in front; nor was it possible to get out of the path by clambering upwards or sliding downwards for the prodigious steepness of it, and the road so narrow that no two pack-mules could pass each other, except by standing aside in certain cavities hewn here and there in the rock in case of one train meeting another. Down below lay the woods, but so deep that the highest tree-tops came no nearer than a couple of hundred feet of where we stood.
"Master," says Matthew, "if we meet De Pino and his merry men on this road 'twill be a bad job for us."
"Ay," says I; "and the sooner we get to the other end of it the safer we shall be."
"Lord love you, master," says he, "what a thing it is to be a philosopher! Here might I jeopardize my precious life another ten minutes but for your wisdom."
CHAPTER XLVI
HOW WE CAME TO THAT PLACE WHICH I CALL THE VALLEY OF DEATH
As we followed this path, we discovered that, where opportunity offered, bridges of long trees had been thrown from one jutting rock to another, to save the labor of cutting a way in the side of the mountain. We had crossed two of these bridges when Matthew, being ahead of me, suddenly mended his pace, and then, coming to a stand, turns about and cries:
"Hang me if I wasn't right after all, master. They have come along this road, but have turned back."
"How can you answer for that, friend?" says I.
"Why, look you," says he, pointing to the road a dozen yards ahead of us. "Here is a bridge broke."
Stepping briskly forward, I found that it truly was as he said, for there yawned a great gap, which no man could jump; and that there had been a bridge here we could plainly see by the print of the tree-trunks in the rubble on the ledge cut for them in the rock. Moreover, looking over the edge, we spied one of these timbers lying athwart of a rock down below.
This discovery so comforted me (for I made sure I was now near my Lady Biddy, instead of being all at sea as to her whereabouts) that I set up a great shout of joy.
"For the love of Heaven, master, have a care!" cried Matthew in a whisper, after listening a moment in terror. "Did you not hear that answer to your shout?"
"Nay," says I; "what answer?"
"I know not," says he, looking around him in a scare; "pray Heaven it be not our enemies."
"Nonsense," says I, beside myself with this return of hope; "'twas but an echo from the rocks – hark!" And with that I hallooed again as loud as I could, which was the maddest thing to do, and not to be done save by a man reckless with despair or with joy.
On this Matthew claps his hand on his mouth in terror, as if it was he who had sung out, and then lifting his finger crouches down on his hams, overcome with fear and expecting nothing less, I believe, than to be riddled with musket-balls the next minute. But he had cause for alarm, and I only was the fool, for now I distinctly heard over and above the echoes of my voice a cry harsh and hoarse, but like nothing human, so that I was brought to my sober senses in a moment. So we stood silent and still for the space of a minute, wondering whence this sound came (and I not much braver than Matthew), and then I fell laughing like a fool.
"See," says I, pointing to a great buzzard which was sweeping in a circle over the trees below, "there is the only enemy I have roused, and one whose flight is more to be counted on than his attack."
But Matthew would not join in my mirth, and, albeit he got back his courage presently, he was not so light of heart as he had been before, for he took this bird to be a sign of ill-omen.
"Come, master," says he, "instead of playing the fool here, let us think how we are to get t'other side this chasm, unless you are minded to rest here content. For my own part, I see no way to get across."
"Have patience with me, Matthew," says I, seeing I had wounded his feelings by laughing at his terror. "I have been so unhappy that this change in our fortune has turned my head."
"Lord love you, master," says he kindly, "I like a jest as well as any man, but hang me if I see any joking matter here, or any change of fortune to be charmed with. For at the next station De Pino will get all the Portugals he can to return with his own fellows to restore this bridge, so we are like to have a score of arquebuses against us instead of ten or a dozen."
This brought our danger and our difficulties so clearly to my mind that I grew sober at once, and began to cast about with Matthew very earnestly how we might bridge the chasm. But there was nothing there for such a purpose, and there was no way but to climb up the rocks or down until we found some jutting points by which we could scramble along the face of the mountain. After calculating by which method we were least likely to break our necks, we resolved to go upwards, yet had we to go back some way to get at any part that could be scaled. But after climbing up some fifty feet we found ourselves (thanks be to God) on a ledge of smooth rock, which we had not seen from the road below for its height and the rock that overhung it. This ledge, as I judge, had been formed by a slip in the mountain, for there a seam of glittering rock ran all along beside it; but be that as it may, it formed a level path as good as that we had quitted, and better, though mighty narrow in parts, so that it was a ticklish business to go forward, and that sideways and clinging with every nail to the rock; and the narrowest part was (as luck would have it) just over that part where the bridge had been broken away, so that we felt exceeding grateful to Providence when we were safe on the other side.
We now considered whether we should get down again into the made road, but seeing the side was still vastly steep and difficult to descend, we were content to follow our ledge, in the hope we should presently come to a part where we might descend more easily. We had gone about a hundred yards when, looking over the side, I stopped, and called Matthew's attention to the road below.
"Lord love us, master," cried he, casting his eye down, "why, there's another bridge gone!"
There was, indeed, another great gap in the road, not less extensive than the first.
"Can you make out what this signifies?" says Matthew.
"No," says I. "'Tis no accident, that's pretty clear; and it looks as if it were done of a design to check pursuit."
"What pursuit had they for to fear?" says Matthew; "not ours, to be sure." Then scratching his head, after tilting his hat for'ard, as was his wont, he says, half aloud, as if trying to grasp the points of the problem: "They are going south; they cross the first bridge and come to the second. They destroy that so carefully that not a stick is left; go back, cross the first bridge again, and pull that down as carefully as they served the other." He could make nothing of it, which seemed to exasperate him; for he presently claps his hat back in its place, and dropping on his hands and knees, the better to survey the road, cranes over the edge of the rock, casting his eye to the right, and then to the left, and finally fixing it on the ground beneath.
"Master," says he, "do you tell me what marks you see in the road down there."
So down go I on my hands and knees, and looking intently for some time —
"I can see," says I, "the marks of the mules' feet in the dust, but whether they are turned north or south I can't make out."
"Nor I, neither," says he; "but do you see anything besides?"
"I see a trace where the hoof-marks seem to be smudged out; as if something had been dragged along the ground towards the edge of the abyss."
"That's what I mean. Now what does that argify?" he asks, getting off his hands, squatting on his heels, and once more scratching his head.
I could make no reply, but still leaned over, trying to make out these marks.
"Good God!" exclaimed Matthew, all of a sudden, "what's this?"
Turning about hastily, I found him regarding a patch on the rock just in front of where he was kneeling. Looking closer, I saw that it was almost black, yet with a purple tinge. Matthew scraped it with his nail, and as it showed deep red below the surface he looks up into my face and says, dropping his voice almost to a whisper:
"Blood!"
Glancing round he scanned the rocky ledge behind him; then suddenly he points his finger without a word to another stain not a foot off; but this told its tale more clearly, for it formed a print of an open hand; as if a wounded man, after trying to stanch the blood from a wound, had been forced to clap that hand on the rock to save him from falling into the road below.
That others had been on that ledge before us was clear enough, but it beat me to know how a wounded man could have crawled up there, or what his purpose had been.
"Come on, master," says Matthew, springing to his feet, "we must lose no time. This riddle concerns us, or I am wrong in my reckoning. God grant no mischief has come to the female; that's all I pray."
My heart was chilled to hear him speak thus, for I saw that he argued more from these signs than he chose to tell, and that he had grave fears to make him utter this prayer. I followed him close at his heels, quaking in every muscle for fear, until we came to a part where it looked possible to slide down into the road without very great danger; yet was it such a venture as we might not have made at another time, but Matthew was as desperate as I.
"Master," says he, as we lay down to slip over the edge; "we'll both let go at the same time, so that one may not have to bury the other if this hazard does our business."
So we hung over the side, and, recommending ourselves to Providence, nodded to each other, and let go. In about two minutes we slid down about fifty feet and more; but by a happy chance came upon our feet at the bottom in the middle of that narrow road, not much more bruised and torn than we had hoped for.
As soon as he had fetched breath, Matthew falls to examining the dust in the road foot by foot, going in the direction of the chasm where the bridge had been (the northernmost of the two), I following in silence, for I had not his intelligence, yet looking stupidly on the ground, as if I expected to see Lady Biddy's history writ there.
When he had come right to the edge of the gulf and could go no further, he turns to me and says very gravely:
"Master, have you got a stout heart?"
"Ay," says I; but my voice belied me, for it was feeble as a child's, knowing by this prelude that he had come to a conclusion which must be terrible to my ear.
Matthew unslung his wine-skin and bade me drink.
"For," says he, "I warn you there is a call for all your manhood."
When I had drank I bade him tell me the worst of his fears.
"Look you," says he, pointing to the dust of the road, "here are the marks of mules' hoofs, and here the prints of those great boots the Portugals wear."
"Yes," says I, waiting with a throbbing heart for what was to follow hence.
"The boot-prints go all in one direction – south; not one is turned north as I can find; but the mules' hoofs turn both south and north; and see, here is one turned north that is right in the midst of a footprint turned south."
"Go on, Matthew," says I faintly, yet with a show of courage, that he might finish.
"The Ingas have been at work. I see the hand of those murderous savages in this; yet we should not call 'em hard names neither, for they only do that for revenge which the Portugals do for gold. They dread and hate every white face, and from time to time they travel in a great band leagues and leagues to come to a place like this, where they may rid themselves of these Portugal tyrants. Here was a place after their very heart. They destroy the further bridge, and when De Pino has passed they came from their ambuscade, which, as we know, was in the rock above, and withdraw the timbers of the hither one, which they may have been loosing and preparing for weeks, and thus, when the whole train can neither go onward nor backward, they go up to the ledge again, and shoot down with their arrows from the rock above every one of their enemies. Then, when their deadly work is finished, they replace the timbers to fetch off the mules and their booty. To end all they cast down the timbers to delay discovery and give them time to escape. This is how it comes about that we see the hoofs turned north, but not a single footmark of those who went south with them."
"Out with it, Matthew!" I cries, in a passion of despair; "tell me that she is massacred with the rest – that not one has escaped!"
"Master," says he, with a great compassion in his voice, "the Ingas have no more pity for a white woman than a white man. All are gone!"
"No, no!" cries I imploringly; "'tis not so. They found the bridge broke and went back."
Without a word Matthew put his hand on my arm and pointed down to the valley where the great buzzard that I had laughed at but half an hour before was again sweeping round above the trees.
My heart stopped, and I felt it lie like a cold stone within me as I thought upon what dainty flesh this foul bird of carrion had been gorging.