CHAPTER XXVI
WE turned from the sea. Thick forest came between us and it. We weregoing with Caonabo to the mountains. Beltran and I thought that it hadbeen in question whether he should kill us at once, or hold us in lifeuntil we had been shown as trophies in Maguana, and that the pride andvanity of the latter course prevailed. After two days in this ruinedplace, during which we saw no Guarico Indian, we departed. The raid wasover. All their war is by raid. They carried everything from the fortsave the fort itself and the two lombards. In the narrow paths that arethis world's roads, one man must walk after another, and their columnseems endless where it winds and is lost and appears again. Beltran andI were no longer bound. Nor were we treated unkindly, starved nor hurtin any way. All that waited until we should reach Caonabo's town.
Caonabo was a most handsome barbarian, strong and fierce andintelligent, more fierce, more intelligent than Guacanagari. All hadbeen painted, but the heat of the lowland and their great exertion hadmade the coloring run and mix most unseemly. When they left Guaricothey plunged into the river and washed the whole away, coming out clearred-brown, shining and better to look upon. Caonabo washed, but then hewould renew his marking with the paint which he carried with him in alittle calabash.
A pool, still and reflecting as any polished shield, made his mirror.He painted in a terrific pattern what seemed meant for lightning andserpent. It was armor and plume and banner to him. I thought of our owndevices, comforting or discomforting kinships! He had black, lustroushair, no beard--they pluck out all body hair save the head thatch--highfeatures, a studied look of settled and cold fierceness. Such was thisCarib in Hispaniola.
Presently they put a watch and the rest all lay down and slept, Beltranbeside me. The day had been clear, and now a great moon made silver,silver, the land around. It shone upon the Spanish sailor and upon theCarib chief and all the naked Manguana men. I thought of Europe, andof how all this or its like had been going on hundred years by hundredyears, while perished Rome and quickened our kingdoms, while Charlemagnegoverned, while the Church rose until she towered and covered like thesky, while we went crusades and pilgrimages, while Venice and Genoaand Lisbon rose and flourished, while letters went on and we studiedAristotle, while question arose, and wider knowledge. At last Juan Lepe,too, went to sleep.
Next day we traveled among and over mountains. Our path, so narrow,climbed by rock and tree. Now it overhung deep, tree-crammed vales, nowit bore through just-parted cliffs. Beltran and Juan Lepe had need forall their strength of body.
The worst was that that old tremor and weakness of one leg and side,left after some sea fight, which had made Beltran the cook from Beltranthe mariner, came back. I saw his step begin to halt and drag. Thisincreased. An hour later, the path going over tree roots knotted likeserpents, he stumbled and fell. He picked himself up. "Hard to keep deckin this gale!"
When he went down there had been an exclamation from those Indiansnearest us. "Aiya!" It was their word for rotten, no good, spoiled,disappointing, crippled or diseased, for a misformed child or an old manor woman arrived at helplessness. Such, I had learned from Guarin, theyalmost invariably killed. It was why, from the first, we hardly sawdwarfed or humped or crippled among them.
We had to cross a torrent upon a tree that falling had made from sideto side a rounded bridge. Again that old hurt betrayed him. He slipped,would have fallen into the torrent below, but that I, turning, caughthim and the Indian behind us helped. We managed across. "My ship," saidBeltran, "is going to pieces on the rocks."
The path became ladder steep. Now Beltran delayed all, for it was a lameman climbing. I helped him all I could.
The sun was near its setting. We were aloft in these mountains. Greenheads still rose over us, but we were aloft, far above the sea. And nowwe were going through a ravine or pass where the walking was better.Here, too, a wind reached us and it was cooler. Cool eve of the heightsdrew on. We came to a bubbling well of coldest water and drank to ourgreat refreshment. Veritable pine trees, which we never saw in thelowlands, towered above and sang. The path was easier, but hardly,hardly, could Beltran drag himself along it. His arm was over myshoulder.
Out of the dark pass we came upon a table almost bare of treesand covered with a fine soft grass. The mountains of Cibao, fiveleagues--maybe more--away, hung in emerald purple and gold under thesinking sun. The highest rocky peaks rose pale gold. Below us andbetween those mountains on which we stood and the golden mountains ofCibao, spread that plain, so beautiful, so wide and long, so fertile andsmiling and vast, that afterwards was called the Royal Plain! East andwest one might not see the end; south only the golden mountains stoppedit. And rivers shone, one great river and many lesser streams. And wesaw afar many plumes of smoke from many villages, and we made out maizefields, for the plain was populous. _Vega Real_! So lovely was it inthat bright eve! The very pain of the day made it lovelier.
The high grassy space ran upon one side to sheer precipice, droppingclear two hundred feet. But there was camping ground enough--and the sunalmost touched the far, violet earth.
The Indians threw themselves down. When they had supper they would eatit, when they had it not they would wait for breakfast. But Caonabo withtwenty young men came to us. He said something, and my arms were caughtfrom behind and held. He faced Beltran seated against a pine. "Aiya!" hesaid. His voice was deep and harsh, and he made a gesture of repugnance.There was a powerfully made Indian beside him, and I saw the lastgleam of the sun strike the long, sharp, stone knife. "Kill!" said thecacique.
A dozen flung themselves upon Beltran, but there was no need, for hesat quite still with a steady face. He had time to cry to Juan Lepe,who cried to him, "That's what I say! Good cheer and courage and meetagain!"
He had no long suffering. The knife was driven quickly to his heart.They drew the shell to the edge of the precipice and dropped it over.
It was early night, it was middle night, it was late night. They had setno watch, for where and what was the danger here on this mountain top?
One side went down in a precipice, one sloping less steeply we hadclimbed from the pine trees and the well, one of a like descent wewould take to-morrow down to the plain, but the fourth was mountainhead hanging above us and thick wood,--dark, entangled, pathless. Andit chanced or it was that Juan Lepe lay upon the side toward the peak,close to forest. The Indians had no thought to guard me. We lay downunder the moon, and that bronze host slept, naked beautiful statues, inevery attitude of rest.
The moon shone until there was silver day. Juan Lepe was not sleeping.
There was no wind, but he watched a branch move. It looked like a man'sarm, then it moved farther and was a full man,--an Indian, noiseless,out clear in the moon, from the wood. I knew him. It was the priestGuarin, priest and physician, for they are the same here. Palm againstearth, I half rose. He nodded, made a sign to rise wholly and come. Idid so. I stood and saw under the moon no waking face nor upspringingform. I stepped across an Indian, another, a third. Then was clearspace, the wood, Guarin. There was no sound save only the constant soundof this forest by night when a million million insects waken.
He took my hand and drew me into the brake and wilderness. There wasno path. I followed him over I know not what of twined root and thickancient soil, a powder and flake that gave under foot, to a hidden,rocky shelf that broke and came again and broke and came again. Now wewere a hundred feet above that camp and going over mountain brow, goingto the north again. Gone were Caonabo and his Indians; gone the view ofthe plain and the mountains of Cibao. Again we met low cliff, long stonyledges sunk in the forest, invisible from below. I began to see thatthey would not know how to follow. Caonabo might know well the mountainsof Cibao, but this sierra that was straight behind Guarico, Guaricoknew. It is a blessed habit of their priests to go wandering in theforest, making their medicine, learning the country, discovering,using certain haunts for meditation. Sometimes they are gone from theirvillages for days and weeks. None indeed of these wild peoples fea
rreasonable solitude. Out of all which comes the fact that Guarin knewthis mountain. We were not far, as flies the bird, from the burned townof Guarico, from the sea without sail, from the ruined La Navidad. Whenthe dawn broke we saw ocean.
He took me straight to a cavern, such another as that in which Jerezand Luis Torres and I had harbored in Cuba. But this had fine sand forfloor, and a row of calabashes, and wood laid for fire.
Here Juan Lepe dropped, for all his head was swimming with weariness.
The sun was up, the place glistered. Guarin showed how it was hidden. "Ifound it when I was a boy, and none but Guarin hath ever come hereuntil you come, Juan Lepe!" He had no fear, it was evident, of Caonabo'scoming. "They will think your idol helped you away. If they look foryou, it will be in the cloud. They will say, 'See that dark mark movinground edge of cloud mountain! That is he!'" I asked him, "Where areGuacanagari and the rest?"
"Guacanagari had an arrow through his thigh and a deep cut upon thehead. He was bleeding and in a swoon. His brother and the Guarico menand I with them took him, and the women took the children, and we wentaway, save a few that were killed, upon the path that we used when in myfather's time, the Caribs came in canoes. After a while we will go downto Guacanagari. But now rest!"
He looked at me, and then from a little trickling spring he took waterin a calabash no larger than an orange and from another vessel a whitedust which he stirred into it, and made me drink. I did not know what itwas, but I went to sleep.
But that sleep did not refresh. It was filled with heavy and dreadfuldreams, and I woke with an aching head and a burning skin. Juan Lepe whohad nursed the sick down there in La Navidad knew feebly what it was. Hesaw in a mist the naked priest, his friend and rescuer, seated upon thesandy floor regarding him with a wrinkled brow and compressed lips, andthen he sank into fever visions uncouth and dreadful, or mirage-pleasingwith a mirage-ecstasy.
Juan Lepe did not die, but he lay ill and like to die for two months.It was deep in October, that day at dawn when I came quietly, evenly,to myself again, and lay most weak, but with seeing eyes. At first Ithought I was alone in the cavern, but then I saw Guarin where he layasleep.
That day I strengthened, and the next day and the next. But I had lainlong at the very feet of death, and full strength was a tortoise inreturning. So good to Juan Lepe was Guarin!
Now he was with me, and now he went away to that village where wasGuacanagari. He had done this from the first coming here, nursing me,then going down through the forest to see that all was well with hiswounded cacique and the folk whose butio he was. They knew his ways anddid not try to keep him when he would return to the mountain, to "makemedicine." So none knew of the cavern or that there was one Spaniardleft alive in all Hayti.
I strengthened. At last I could draw myself out of cave and lie, in thenow so pleasant weather, upon the ledge before it. All the vast heat andmoisture was gone by; now again was weather of last year when we foundSan Salvador.
I could see ocean. No sail, and were he returning, surely it should havebeen before this! He might never return.
When Guarin was away I sat or lay or moved about a small demesne andstill prospered. There were clean rock, the water, the marvelous forest.He brought cassava cake, fruit, fish from the sea. He brought me forentertainment a talking parrot, and there lived in a seam of the rocka beautiful lizard with whom I made friends. The air was balm, balm!A steady soft wind made cataract sound in the forest. Sunrise, noon,sunset, midnight, were great glories.
It was November; it was mid-November and after.
Now I was strong and wandered in the forest, though never far from thatcliff and cavern. It was settled between us that in five days I shouldgo down with Guarin to Guacanagari. He proposed that I should be takenformally into the tribe. They had a ceremony of adoption, and after thatJuan Lepe would be Guarico. He would live with and teach the Guaricos,becoming butio--he and Guarin butios together. I pondered it. If theAdmiral came not again it was the one thing to do.
I remember the very odor and exquisite touch of the morning. Guarinwas away. I had to myself cave and ledge and little waterfall and greattrees that now I was telling one from another. I had parrot andlizard and spoke now to the one and now to the other. I remember thebutterflies and the humming birds.
I looked out to sea and saw a sail!
It was afar, a white point. I leaned against the rock for I was suddenlyweak who the moment before had felt strong. The white point swelled.It would be a goodly large ship. Over blue rim slipped another flake.A little off I saw a third, then a fourth. Juan Lepe rubbed his eyes.Before there came no more he had counted seventeen sail. They grew; theywere so beauteous. Toward the harbor sailed a fleet. Now I made out theflagship.
O Life, thou wondrous goddess of happenings!
An hour I sat on cliff edge and watched. They were making in, thelovely white swans. When they were fairly near, when in little time theforemost would bring to, down sail and drop anchor, Juan Lepe, gatheringhis belongings together, bidding the lizard farewell and taking theparrot with him on shoulder, left cavern and cliff and took Guarin'spath down through the forest.
Halfway to level land he met Guarin coming up; the two met beneath atree huge and spreading, curtained with a vine, starred with flowers."He has come!" cried the Indian. "They have come!" In his voice wasmarveling, awe, perturbation.
The sun in the sky shone, and in the bay hung that wonder of return,the many ships for the _Nina_. Juan Lepe and Guarin went on down throughwood to a narrow silver beach, out upon which had cast itself an Indianvillage.
Guacanagari was not here. He waited within his house for the Admiral.But his brother, and others of Guarico, saw me and there rose a clamorand excitement that for the moment took them from the ships. Guarinexplained and Juan Lepe explained, but still this miraculous day dyedalso for them my presence here. I had been slain, and had come to lifeto greet the Great Cacique! It grew to a legend. I met it so, longafterwards in Hispaniola.
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