CHAPTER XXIX
THE SPANIARDS
THE slave-seekers, one hundred and fifty armed men, struck a flag intothe earth before the village and demanded a parley. Their leader orcaptain was a tall, black-bearded person, fierce and fell of voice andaspect. He came to the front and shouted to the Indians in a mixtureof Spanish and Indian words. Also he made friendly-seeming gestures.“No harm meant—no harm meant! Friends—friends! Your kindred send youmessages—from a happy country—much happier than here where you live!Let us come into your village and talk.—We have beads and scarletcloth—”
But the village kept silence. At Aderhold’s instigation, immediatelyafter the ship’s first visit, it had digged around itself a shallowditch and planted in part a stockade of sharpened stakes, in part atall and thorny hedge. Within this manner of wall were gathered somefour hundred souls, counting men, women, and children. Besides theinfants and the small boys and girls there were the old and infirm andthe sick. All were naked of other defence than this one barrier andthe frail, booth-like walls of their huts. They were armed only withprimitive weapons. The word “Spaniard” meant to them ogre and giant.
If they were not truly ogres and giants, the slave-seekers were yetactive, hardened, picked men, trained in cruelty, practised in wiles,fired with lust of the golden price. When the village held silent, theleader tried again with blandishments; when there came no answer butthe hot sunshine and the murmur of wood and sea, the company lifted itsflag and advanced with deliberation. From behind the wall came a flightof spears and arrows. A Spaniard staggered and fell. Some savage arm,more sinewy than most, had sent a spear full through his neck. Therearose a roar of anger. The men from the ships, the black-bearded oneat their head, rushed forward, came tilt against the stockade and thethorn hedge.... They had not believed in the stoutness of any defence,nor of these Indians’ hearts. But driven back, they must believe.Carrying with them their wounded, they withdrew halfway to the sea andheld council.
In the village they mended the gaps in the wall of stakes and thornygrowth, and that done, watched and waited. The sun rode high, thechildren went to sleep.... The old chief—the fighting men, the womengathered around him—talked with high, ironic passion of days gone byin this island, in this island group. “They came, and our fathers’fathers thought they were gods or men like gods! They had their woodencross, and they planted it in the sand, side by side with their flagthat says ‘Slay!’ They said that both were pleasing to the GreatSpirit, and that they were his favoured children. They went away andour fathers’ fathers thought of them as gods and their country as thehouse of the Great Spirit.... They who had been children when they camegrew to be men. There were men and men, then, in this land, men andmen! Then the Spaniards came again. They told our fathers that theycame from heavenly shores. They said that there, would our fathersonly go with them in their many ships, they would find their deadagain! Find them living and bright and always young. Find them theyloved. Find their forefathers whom the Great Spirit loved and keptalways about him. Find all they dreamed about. Find happiness.... Theywere weak of mind and they believed! They went into the Spaniards’ships—hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. Next year the Spaniards cameagain and they brought what they said were messages from the red menwho had gone last year to the heavenly shores. It was truly where theGreat Spirit dwelt and where the dead lived again and all the red menwho could should come.... And they whose islands these were were weakin judgment and listened and believed and went. The Spaniards carriedthem away in their ships—men and men and men and women and children.They loaded their ships with them as though they were nuts or fruit orfish they had caught, or the gold that they are always seeking. Theycarried them away, and next year they came for more. They took thesetoo. And now this country was growing as it is to-day—trees where oncethere were people. But at last one escaped from the ‘heavenly shores,’and after long toil and suffering reached these islands and told thetruth. So at last when the Spaniards came the people fought them. Butthey were strong and the people were weak. And more and more trees grewwhere once there had been men! Now”—said the old chief—“I will tellyou about those heavenly shores, for I, too, have been there. I willtell you of what we from this country do there, and what is done tous.” He told, circumstantially, a tale of fearful suffering.
Many of the Indians, men and women alike, determined to die ratherthan be taken. But many, and perhaps the most, were neither strongnor stoic, and there was a doubt, Aderhold and Joan felt, and the oldchief felt.... Neither that day nor that night did there befall anotherattack. The Spaniards camped upon the shore, but the watching villagesaw boats go to and fro between the land and the ships. The night wasdark and they saw moving lanterns. With the dawn one of the shipsslowly felt her way farther into the crooked channel; when she anchoredagain she lay much nearer than before, and her row of culverins grinnedagainst the village. Moreover, three lesser pieces had been dismountedand brought ashore. In the night-time they had made a platform andmounted these falcons or sakers.
As the sun rushed up, they sent a broadside against the wall and thehuts beyond. The flame and thunder terrified, the iron shot wroughthavoc. They sent another round, tore a great gap in the hedge, thenwith a shout charged, the whole company, across the open strip.... Thebravest of the village fought desperately, but the breach was made.Many of the assailants were partly mailed. The Indians’ weapons turnedagainst steel headpieces and backs and breasts. The Spaniards’ pikesand cutlasses had advantage; their strength and ruthless practice hadadvantage; their name, their face, their voice carried terror to theseforest people. Yet they fought, the braver sort striking twice—forthemselves and for those whose joints were as water. The old chief grewyoung again. His eyes breathed fire; he fought and he cried his peopleon with a great, chanting voice.... A turn in the confused strugglebrought the black-bearded Spaniard facing Aderhold and Joan. “Mother ofGod! What’s here? White skins leading these devils and fighting againstus? Flay you alive—”
Men drove between. There was a great noise, a panting heat, a rockingand swimming of all things before the eyes. A crying arose. Unlookedfor, suddenly, there had been sent ashore from the ships the finalnumbers of their crew and company. Thirty fresh assailants poured withshouts and lifted weapons through the broken defences.... The fearfulamong the Indians, and those who thought slavery better than death,threw down whatever weapons they bore and made gestures of submissionand entreaty. Others were overpowered. There were many who could notfight—the sick, the infirm, and aged, many children. The terror ofthese and their wailings weakened the hearts of those who did fight.Moreover, the Spaniards knew what to do. They took a child and threwit from pike point to pike point, and found Indian words in which tothreaten a like fate to every babe. The Indian mothers cried out tofight no more.
The slave-seekers came in mass against those who yet struggled. Theycut down the old chief, fighting grimly; they ran him through the bodywith a pike and slew him. Aderhold and Joan with others, men and women,fought before a hut in which had been placed a number of children. ASpaniard came behind Aderhold and struck him down with a blow upon thehead. He lay for a minute stunned; when his senses cleared all wasover. All were beaten down, cowed, disarmed. Hands would have seizedJoan. She fought them off, sprang into the hut and caught up her child,then, with her in her arms, came back to Aderhold’s side....
The victors were accustomed to victory. The fighting over, the businessconducted itself according to custom. This affair differed onlyfrom many others in that there had been a resistance of unexpectedfirmness. Victory had not been without hurt, without, even, the lossof Spanish lives. Business, reacting, conducted itself therefore withsomething less of contemptuous and careless disregard of pain inflictedand something more of vindictive willingness to inflict it. Theconquered were driven together and stripped of every belonging which,by any ingenuity, might be converted into a weapon either against theirmasters or their own now wretched lives. The black-bearded captaintold of
f guards, and beside pike and cutlass the lash appeared....The ships were to be furnished fruit and cassava cakes and the casksfilled with water. The already slaves were set to the task. Gravesmust be dug for the Spanish dead, and these the slaves dug. Theirown dead went unburied. The black-bearded man walked in front of therows of captives and with a jerk of his thumb indicated the too badlywounded, the sick who would not survive the voyage, the too old. Thesethey put away with sword or dagger or pike thrust. The children wereto go—healthy children had value. At last he came to Aderhold andJoan. He stood still before them, looked them up and down, his beardbristling. “Spanish?” he said. “No, no! I think not!—English, then?English—English—English! How did you come here?”
“Through shipwreck.”
“You taught them to fight us. English—English—English! Well, we shallsee, English!—Are you heretics?”
“If you mean are we of the English Church, we are not of the EnglishChurch.”
“English have no church. There is only one church and religion. Are youof the Holy Catholic Church and Religion?”
“No.”
“Then,” said the black-bearded man and spat toward them, “I will takeyou as a present to those who are.”
He stood off and regarded them. Joan with the child sat on the earth,in the hot sunlight. The child’s terrified crying had hushed; in hermother’s arms she had sobbed herself to sleep. She lay half coveredby Joan’s skirt, shadowed by her mother’s bending breast and face.The Spaniard’s countenance twisted until it was like a gargoyle’s forcruelty and ungenial mirth. Without a word he stooped and with onegreat slashing stroke of his dagger slew the child....
They bound Joan, and she lay at last, prostrate upon the earth, herforehead touching the child’s still feet. Aderhold sat beside the deadand the living love.... Around was heat and glare, huge suffering,brute indifference, brute triumph, life brought low, life iron-shodtrampling life, a battlefield of instincts, a welter of emotions,tendencies in impact, old and deep ideas opposed to ideas ... and allwith which he and Joan were ranged in time and space,—their stream andcurrent—here and now, as often before and often to come, the loser,the loser drowning in defeat.... He felt the wide cold, the check, thebitter diminishing, felt it impersonally for the enormous current, thestream where there were so many drops; then, because he was man, feltit for this childish people, felt it, a bitter and overwhelming tide,for himself and Joan. Woe—woe—there was so much woe in living....
All the rest of that day the enslaved brought food and rolled casks ofwater for the ships. When night came they were let to sleep, lying onthe ground, in a herd. Now and again through the darkness rose a sharpcry of grief, or ran from one to another a sobbing and groaning. Butthe most slept heavily, without movement. Dawn came, and the slaveswere roused. They were permitted to eat a little food—and then theywere driven to the shore and into the boats.... Their dead, theirvillage, their island were severed from them. They were left naked tothe beating of new tides....
Joan and Aderhold were put upon the ship with the darker sails—theship that had come first to the island. The hold of this ship wasinexpressibly, fearfully crowded with the enslaved. When the hatcheswere closed, it was a black pit, a place of gasping, fighting forbreath. When morning came the Spaniards, seeing that otherwise muchof their property would die and become no man’s property, drew outseveral score and penned them in a narrow space upon the deck. Aderholdand Joan were brought forth with the others, driven here with them,pressed by the mass close against the ship’s side.
Day crept away, sunset came. The island where they had dwelled was longfallen from sight. Out of the sea before them, though as yet at somedistance, rose the shape of an outermost islet of this group. When thatshould be passed, there would lie an expanse of ocean, and, at last,driving south, would rise the great island to which they were bound.The sun dipped below the horizon, but over against it rose the roundand silver moon. By its light could be seen the strengthening outlineof the last island, at length the very curve of surf, the beach andsombre palms.
Aderhold moved, touched Joan who sat as if in a trance. About themmany of the Indians had fallen asleep or lay, beaten down to ahalf-consciousness. At no great distance were the guards. But thesehad no fear now of that cowed shipload, and so paid little attention.Amidships and forward were Spaniards enough, but these talked and sworeor gamed among themselves or gazed at the island without lights bywhich they were slipping. Aderhold bent and whispered in Joan’s ear.For a moment she sat motionless; then slowly the mind returned andbecame active, though through dark veils of woe.
She nodded. “Yes, yes! Let us go! If we die we may find her.”
“Wait until that cloud is between us and the moon.”
It came between and the ship and the decks darkened. The two rose withcaution to their feet. About them were darkness, shadowy forms, blendedsounds, but no eye seemed to see what they were about, no voice criedout an alarm. They were close to the ship’s side—one other moment andthey had swung themselves up, leaped overboard.... They touched thedark water, went under, rose, struck out. In their ears rang no shoutor sound of discovery. The sucking and turmoil of the water about themlessened. A fresh wind was blowing and the ship sailed swiftly. She wasno longer huge above them, they came out of her shadow; she was seen ata slight distance, then at a greater and a greater.... They were freeof her, free also of her consort, the other ship. The wide ocean sweptaround.
It swept around save where the island rose. It rose not at all faraway, a quiet and lonely strand. A light surf broke upon its shore.Sometimes floating, sometimes swimming, the two who would yet have lifegained toward it. They gained toward it until at last they reached it,came out of the beating surf, and lay with closed eyes and flutteringbreath upon the moonlight-coloured sand.
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