In your own North America, you tell me, the firefly is a weak and tiny thing compared to the big beetle which glows so bright in our Brazilian jungle. That does not surprise me, for the United States is a colder country—is it not?—and so the little light-bugs can not grow so big and strong.
But I am much astonished to hear you say that the fireflies flash their lanterns so that they can recognize comrades and friends, just as men use lights to see one another in the dark. You tell me, too, that the reason why other beetles which have no lights make noises in the night is because they know one another's voices, as we do and in this way they find their friends whom they can not see.
It may be so. I have noticed that you two explorers know many odd things about living creatures—things which even we rubber-workers who live among those creatures do not know. We are too busy keeping ourselves alive among the dangers of the deadly Javary region to study deeply into the lives of beasts and birds and bugs.
Yet as the months pass by we too see strange things, senhores. And I sometimes think that the most strange and wonderful thing in all the world is life itself—that unseen power and impulse within a creature which makes it move and act in different ways under different conditions.
Why are we what we are? Why do we do what we do? Why do some men hate each other at sight? Why can some women be trusted and others not? I do not know. I know only that we are wrong as often as right, and I think perhaps we are little better than those lightless beetles of which you spoke, struggling along in life, making a noise as we go, and doing the best we can.
What is that, senhor? You say I am a philosopher? I do not know what sort of thing a “philosopher” may be, for I am only a humble seringueiro of the Amazon headwaters, and those big words mean nothing to me.
You will pardon me if my talk is tiresome. But perhaps now I can speak of something more interesting as we float on down the great river and those fireflies flash over yonder on the black shore. Listen, and you shall hear of a firefly far more beautiful than they.
In the time of the great floods, when all work in the swampy rubber-forests of old Coronel Nunes was stopped by the high water, I had gone out on an adventurous canoe-trip with another seringueiro—a handsome, happy-go-lucky young comrade of mine named Pedro. We had paddled far into hilly country on the frontier of Brazil and Peru, and, after using up most of our food and cartridges, had started back to headquarters.
On this return trip I had gotten into a bad fight with some caboclos while helping a young fellow to rescue the girl he loved from a cage where she was shut up by her drunken father; and in this fight I had been pounded so severely that every muscle in me was lame. So now, paddling on down the river the next day, I found myself so stiff and full of aches that it was hard for me to keep at work.
I shut my teeth and said nothing, hoping that the pain would work out as my muscles loosened up. In this I was disappointed. True, my arms did not hurt so much after a while, but the ache in my legs grew worse, as they were cramped by the canoe. Besides, I had wrenched my back, and the swing of paddling seemed to give me a sharp stab every time I stroked.
So, though I choked back the grunts and groans boiling up inside me and tried to do my share of the work, Pedro soon felt the difference from my usual power. He stopped paddling and looked back.
"Let us go ashore, Lourenço, and rest today,” he suggested. “You are too lame to keep on. I will give you a good rubbing now and another tonight, and tomorrow you will be yourself again."
He spoke sense. But I was feeling sour, both from pain and from vexation at myself, and I would not quit.
"I am not an old woman,” I growled. “And you know very well that we can not waste time in resting now—we have hardly any food left, and very few cartridges. I will not go ashore at all today, even to eat. I will push this canoe until dark."
He laughed.
"If you are not an old woman do not talk like one,” he advised me. “You speak like a cross old grandmother. What if we have only a little food? The time to worry is when we have none at all. But if you enjoy torturing yourself do not let me interfere with your pleasure. Let me see you do this."
And he twirled his paddle over his head and around behind him in a way that would have made me yelp with pain if I had tried it.
"Let me see you do this,” I retorted, shoving with my paddle so hard that the canoe jumped and he nearly fell overboard.
It hurt my aching back, but it showed him that I was in earnest. He laughed again, then settled down to his regular long-distance stroke. And all that day we swung on down the river, covering considerable distance with the aid of the current.
At last, when night was nearly on us, he moved his head toward a cove at our left.
"Unless you wish to paddle all night, senhora, perhaps we had better go ashore there,” he said. “We must make camp soon if we are to make it at all, and we are not likely to find a better place."
I knew that as well as he did, and I was more than ready to stop. I was rather ashamed of myself, too, for having answered him so sharply that morning. But now he had spoken as if to an unreasonable old woman and even called me “senhora” with a mocking grin that made me cross again. So I only grunted as I turned the dugout up the cove, and after we went ashore and made camp I kept my mouth shut. He was in a teasing mood, and I was not in the humor to be plagued.
We slung our hammocks, ate and smoked. Night came before our cigarettes were burned down. I intended, after finishing my smoke, to curl up in my hammock and sleep. But that intention, like some others I have had, was not to be carried out.
Lights came into the darkness—spots of light twinkling above us and all around us there in the bush. They floated out over the black water too, looking very beautiful as they rose and dipped and drifted in the gloom. Watching them, I forgot my aches and pains.
"We have come into a bay of cucujus,” I said. “They will swing their little lanterns over us while we sleep."
"I hope they will not show us to some hungry jaguar,” laughed Pedro. “I am tired tonight, and I expect to sleep soundly. It would be unpleasant to wake up in the morning and find myself trotting around in the belly of the big cat."
Before I could answer there came a sound. It made us sit motionless, breathless, staring in wonder at each other. It was not a noise of the jungle, nor even the voices of men. There in the darkness, somewhere out beyond the gliding fireflies, a woman was singing!
Soft, sweet, low but clear, the music of her voice floated to us along the water. In that wild and savage place, far from where any woman should be, it seemed a voice from another world—an impossible dream, which presently would flit away like wind-blown smoke. Yet, dream or not, it held us still as men of wood while it sang on. After a time it died out of the air.
"Nossa Senhora!" whispered Pedro. “Are we awake, comrade, and in our right minds? A woman, singing in this black hole where only fireflies live! A white woman, too—for no Indian could sing so sweetly, or would even try to. We have not seen any human thing in all this day, and the last persons we did see were only caboclos. Did you too hear that voice?"
I made no answer for a time, and we both strained our ears for some further sound of human life. None came. At length I said:
"Pedro, I do not know what this thing may be, but I shall not sleep well tonight unless I find out. A sound drifting along the surface of the water is hard to place, but this singing seemed to come from the right, at the end of this enseada. We have not been down there, and it must be that someone lives there. Let us go and see."
We had some trouble in starting, for the night was so black that we could hardly find the canoe, though we knew just where it was. We had been sitting beside our little fire, you understand, and at first our eyes would not see in the dark. But after we left the shore behind us we began to make out the things near us, though faintly. Very slowly and carefully we felt our way along the murky water toward the head of the flooded bay.
Thoug
h the distance was not great, we took some time in covering it. The darkness seemed to grow even more dense as we moved, and the fireflies which before had looked so beautiful now confused us—for in thick gloom a man's gaze will follow a moving spot of light in spite of himself, and where his eyes turn his body is likely to turn also.
Yet they helped us too, those tiny lanterns, for we knew most of them were on the land, and so by keeping away from them we avoided running aground. Finally, however, the canoe bumped softly into the shore and stopped.
"We are at the end,” said Pedro, up in the bow. “I do not see anything new. Do you?"
I saw nothing at all but the flaming insects. We stayed there for a time listening. No sound came, except a few of the usual night noises of the bush.
"We had best go back—” I started to say, when I was struck dumb. Near us, ahead of us in the unseen bush, the voice broke out again in song.
"Glitter, glitter, pretty firefly!
Born but to dance and flash and die!
Blaze ye the way through the dark night's span;
Leading me back to the love of my man!
Back to the lights on a far-off shore,
Back to the laughter I hear no more—
Floating along like a star above,
Show me the road back to life and love!"
For long minutes after the song ended we crouched there, motionless and wordless. Somehow I felt chilly, and the skin of my back prickled. The thing was so weird that I wished I were back beside my fire, where I could see Pedro's face and my hammock and the other things to which I was accustomed. And while I was thinking of this, a thing occurred that made me doubt my senses.
Some of the fireflies drifting about in the bush before us suddenly disappeared. They vanished as if seized by a swift, silent hand. Then they blazed out again, but now they were not floating along as before, but resting on something—something that moved. It was too small to be a man, but still it acted like a man. It snatched at the flies and put them on itself. Yet, though the cluster of insects grew larger and their combined light increased, we could not see the thing that did this.
Before us grew the outline of a small head and shoulders, and at times I thought I could catch the glimmer of little eyes, but that was all. It made no sound. It seemed alive yet not alive, human but not human, an uncanny creature made of the darkness itself.
Then we found that this thing was real. It coughed. The noise told us instantly what it was.
"A monkey!” marveled Pedro. “A monkey as big as a child, lighting himself with fireflies like a village belle! Did you ever see such a thing?"
At the sound of his voice the creature stood very still. We knew it was looking at us. Then instead of jumping away and hiding, it moved straight toward us.
It came rather slowly, stopping now and then, but advancing each time. We kept very quiet. Finally it halted at the bow of our dugout and stood watching us. Some of the light-bugs had jumped off it and others had been brushed away by the leaves as it came, but enough remained to let us see its head quite plainly.
As my partner had said, it was as big as a child. It seemed as unafraid as a child, too. Soon it swung itself up into the boat, and I saw a shadowy arm reach out toward Pedro.
"Welcome, compadre!” chuckled Pedro. “You are a friendly fellow. I am glad to find that you are flesh and blood—I almost thought you were a demon. Now sing again for us."
Senhores, I should not have been greatly surprised if that monkey had done so. He had already amazed me much, and he seemed to be the only living thing there besides ourselves and the bugs. But he made no sound at all. I could not see him well, because Pedro was between him and me, but it seemed that he was pulling at my comrade. Soon I found that this was so.
"He is trying to take me ashore, Lourenço,” said Pedro. “He wants me to go somewhere with him. And I am going."
Stepping out on land, he added to the monkey:
"Take my finger, compadre, and lead me where you want to go. ‘Show me the road to light and love.’”
I got out, pulled the canoe farther up on shore so that it would not drift off, and followed. It was quite easy to see the little animal and my partner stooping to give him a good hold on his hand, but I could not see much else.
As I trailed behind the pair I marveled. I have been guided through the bush in odd ways, following sights and sounds and even smells, but never before nor since have I followed an illuminated monkey through blackness, seeking a voice. Yet I could not ask for a better guide than that wordless beast proved to be. Perhaps he did not know where we wanted to go, but he knew exactly where he wished us to go, and it came to the same thing.
The ground under foot was firm and fairly dear of bush, feeling like an old path nearly grown over. We followed, our queer guide with no difficulty and with little noise. Presently Pedro halted.
"A house!” he whispered.
Peering around him, I saw close beside him a section of mud wall showing in the light from the monkey's fireflies. It looked old; it was cracked, and vines grew on it. Somehow I felt that the house was empty. This proved to be true.
The monkey tugged at Pedro, and we went on. I passed my hand along the wall until it struck a window. There I looked in and sniffed. The place was black and had an odor of decay. Nobody lived there.
Beyond this house the monkey pulled Pedro to the right. My comrade made a soft noise in his throat, I looked again. A few strides ahead of us a faint light came out through the window of another house.
Under this window the monkey stopped. Strong wooden bars ran across the opening, but they were meant only for safety, and it was easy to see between them. We peered in, and stood amazed by what we saw.
The room beyond those bars was well lit, but the light was not made by fire or oil. It came from two large hanging cages, out of which shone the lights of many fireflies. This use of the insects was not new to us, for we had sometimes seen little cages of them in other parts of our river country, so that we were not much surprised now. It was the woman under them that held us silent and still.
She too was ablaze with fireflies. They were fastened in her black hair, on the dark-red gown that flowed down around her, and even on her bare arms and her throat. She was slender and shapely, with big dark eyes, a pouting scarlet mouth, and a skin as clear and white as the waters of a brook falling over a cliff.
Facing us, she was looking at something near the window where we stood, smiling a little as if she saw something that pleased her and holding her head to one side in an alluring way. With the silent lights of the caged night insects shining softly down on her and the other beetles flashing from her hair to her knees, she was so beautiful that she seemed more than human.
She moved toward us a little, still looking at the same spot, and slowly moved her round bare arms out to the side and overhead. I saw how she kept the fireflies on her smooth skin—they were fastened into narrow bracelets and a necklace made from small vines. Gradually her arms came down until her hands rested on her shoulders, then sank to her sides. Her lips opened in song.
"Come through the night,
O heart of my heart?
Speed o'er the leagues that hold us apart!
Clasped in your arms I will—"
We lost the rest. A black hairy thing rose into our faces, startling us so that we jumped back and poised to strike at it. Then, seeing what it was, we withheld the blow. It was the monkey, which we had forgotten and which now had swung himself up to the opening. Grasping the bars, he chattered through them to the woman. She broke off her song.
"You—you little beast!” she scolded. “You frightened me. Stop shaking those bars. Go to the door, and you may come in."
She passed to one side, and at her movement the monkey dropped to the ground. We followed close behind him. A bar dropped and a door opened, letting out a vague path of light. The monkey swung himself inside. We stepped into the light and halted.
"Good evening, senhorita,”
Pedro greeted her, sweeping off his hat and bowing. “Do not fear. We are friends."
With a startled gasp she sprang back. One hand leaped to her breast, rose a little, and stopped. Below her fingers we caught the glint of a half-drawn dagger.
"If we frightened you, senhorita, pardon us—we shall go away at once,” my comrade added. “We are here only because we heard a wonderful voice singing in the night and could not rest until we found the singer. Our camp is down the enseada.
"But before we go, will you not sing once more for us? It is not often that travelers in the wilderness hear the voice of an angel."
Though I did not glance at him, I knew he was smiling at her. I knew too what a winning smile this handsome young partner of mine could give a woman if he would. An answering smile came into her face, and in her eyes dawned the look of admiration I had seen in the eyes of other women when they gazed at him. The knife slipped out of sight.
"Perhaps I may,” she said. “First tell me who you are."
"Pedro, senhorita—Pedro Andrada. I have with me a cross old lady named Senhora Lourenço Moraes. She is very lame, and really ought not to be out at night, but I dared not leave her behind for fear she would fall into the fire."
The Firefly Lady laughed at that, looking much more lovely than before. I grinned, though I did not like to be made fun of before her.
"Your old lady needs to shave,” she answered. “Her beard is terribly black. You must have traveled far; is it not so?"
Now I saw my chance to repay Pedro. At the place where we had recently fought the caboclos he had led the people to think we were scouts of a big company which dealt in medicinal herbs and bark. So now, to plague him, I spoke up and told her the same tale, intending then to enjoy his efforts to carry out his part.
"We have traveled far, indeed, senhorita,” I told her. “We have been seeking sarsaparilla and Peruvian bark and such things among the Indian towns above here for the markets in Europe. A big new company of Englishmen at Tabatinga, on the Solimoes, has sent us out as scouts to find where good trade is, before beginning to send in boats for these medical things. We are now on our way back."
Amazon Nights: Classic Adventure Tales from the Pulps Page 7
