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_ For another week or more I remained upon the /Blanche/ waiting till my
full strength returned, also because Kari said I must do so. When I
asked him why, he replied for the reason that he wished news of my
coming to spread far and wide throughout the land from one tribe to
another, which it would do with great swiftness, flying, as he put it,
like a bird. Meanwhile, every day I sat upon the poop in the armour
for an hour or more, and both these people and others from afar came
to look at me, bringing me presents in such quantity that we knew not
what to do with them. Indeed, they built an altar and sacrificed wild
creatures to me, and birds, burning them with fire. Both those that I
had seen and the other folk from a long way off made this offering.
At last one night, when, having eaten, Kari and I were seated together
in the moonshine before we slept, I turned on him suddenly, hoping
thus to surprise the truth out of his secret heart, and said:
"What is your plan, Kari? For, know, I weary of this life."
"I was waiting for the Master to ask that question," he replied with
his gentle smile. (Again, I give not the very words he spoke in his
bad English, but the substance of them.) "Now will the Master be
pleased to listen? As I have told the Master, I believe that the gods,
his God and my God, have brought me back to that part of the world
which is unknown to the Master, where I was born. I believed this from
the first hour that my eyes opened on it after our swoon, for I knew
the trees and the flowers and the smell of the earth, and saw that the
stars in the heavens stood where I used to see them. When I went
ashore and mingled with the natives, I discovered that this belief was
right, since I could understand something of their talk and they could
understand something of mine. Moreover, among them was a man who came
from far away, who said that he had seen me in past years, wandering
like one mad, only that this man whom he had seen wore the image of a
certain god about his neck, whose name was too high for him to
mention. Then I opened my robe and showed him that which I wear about
my neck, and he fell down and worshipped it, crying out that I was the
very man."
"If so, it is marvellous," I said. "But what shall we do?"
"The Master can do one of two things. He can stop here, where these
simple people will make him their king and give him wives and all that
he desires, and so live out his life, since of return to the land
whence he came there is no hope."
"And if there were I would not go," I interrupted.
"Or," went on Kari, "he can try to travel to my country. But that is
very far away. Something of the journey which I made when I was mad
comes back and tells me that it is very, very far away. First, yonder
mountains must be crossed till another sea is reached, which is no
great journey, though rough. Then the coast of that sea must be
followed southward, for I know not how far, but, as I think, for
months or years of journeying, till at length the country of my people
is reached. Moreover, that journeying is hard and terrible, since the
road runs through forests and deserts where dwell savage tribes and
huge snakes and wild beasts, like those planted on the flag of your
country, and where famine and sicknesses are common. Therefore my
counsel to the Master is that he should leave it unattempted."
Now I thought awhile, and asked what he meant to do if I took this
counsel of his. To which he replied:
"I shall wait here awhile till I see the Master made a king among
these people and established in his rule. Then I shall start on that
journey alone, hoping that what I could do when I was mad I shall be
able to do again when I am not mad."
"I thought it," I said. "But tell me, Kari, if we were to make this
journey and perchance live to reach your people, how would they
welcome us?"
"I do not know, Master; but I think that of the master they would make
a god, as will all the other people of this country. Perhaps, too,
they will sacrifice this god that his strength and beauty may enter
into them. As for me, some of them will try to kill me and others will
cling to me. Who will conquer I do not know, and to me it matters
little. I go to take my own and to be avenged, and if in seeking
vengeance I die--well, I die in honour."
"I understand," I said. "And now, Kari, let us start as soon as
possible before I become as mad from staring at those trees and
flowers and those big-eyed natives, that you say would make me a king,
as you tell me you were when you left your country. Whether we shall
ever find that country I cannot say. But at least we shall have done
our best and, if we fail, shall perish seeking, as in this way or in
that it is the lot of all brave men to do."
"The Master has spoken," said Kari, even more quietly than usual,
though as he spoke I saw his dark eyes flash and a trembling as of joy
run down his body. "Knowing all, he has made his choice, and whatever
happens, being what it is, he will not blame me. Yet because the
Master has thus chosen, I say this--that if we reach my country, and
if, perchance, I become a king there, even more than before I shall be
the Master's servant."
"That is easy to promise now, Kari, but it will be time to talk of it
when we do reach your land," I said, laughing, and asked him when we
were to start.
He replied not yet awhile, as he must make plans, and that in the
meantime I must walk upon the shore so that my legs might grow strong
again. So there every day I walked in the cool of the morning and in
the evening, not going out of sight of the wreck. I went armed and
carrying my big bow, but saw no one, since the natives had been warned
that I should walk and must not be looked upon while I did so.
Therefore, even when I passed through one of their villages of huts
built of mud and thatched with leaves, it seemed to be deserted.
Still, in the end the bow did not come amiss, for one evening, hearing
a little noise in a big tree under which I was about to pass that
reminded me of the purring of a cat, I looked up and saw a great beast
of the tiger sort lying on the bough of the tree and watching me. Then
I drew the bow and sent an arrow through that beast, piercing it from
side to side, and down it came roaring and writhing, and biting at the
arrow till it died.
After this I returned to the ship and told Kari what had happened. He
said it was fortunate I had killed the beast, which was of a very
fierce kind, and if I had not seen it, would have leapt on me as I
passed under the tree. Also he sent natives to skin it who when they
saw that it was pierced through and through by the arrow, were amazed
and thought me an even greater god than before, their own bows being
but feeble and their arrows tipped with bone.
Three days after the killing of this beast we started on our journey
into a land unknown. For a long while before Kari and I had been
engaged in collecting all the knives we could find in the ship, also
arrows, nails, axes, tools of carpentering, clothes, and I know not
what else besides, which goods we tied up in bundles wrapped in
sailcloth, each bundle weighing from thirty to forty pounds, to serve
as presents to natives or to trade away with them. When I asked who
would carry them, Kari answered that I should see. This I did at dawn
on the following morning when there arrived upon the shore a great
number of men, quite a hundred indeed, who brought with them two
litters made of light wood jointed like reeds, only harder, in which
Kari said he and I were to be carried. Among these men he parcelled
out the loads which they were to bear upon their heads, and then said
that it was time for us to start in the litters.
So we started, but first I went down into a cabin and kneeling on my
knees, thanked God for having brought me safe so far, and prayed Him
and St. Hubert to protect me on my further wanderings, and if I died,
to receive my soul. This done I left the ship and while the natives
bowed themselves about me, entered my litter, which was comfortable
enough, having grass mats to lie on and other mats for curtains, very
finely woven, so that they would turn even the heaviest rain.
Then away we went, eight men bearing the pole to which each litter was
slung on their shoulders, while others carried the bundles upon their
heads. Our road ran through forest uphill, and on the crest of the
first hill I descended from the litter and looked back.
There in the creek below lay the wreck of the /Blanche/, now but a
small black blot showing against the water, and beyond it the great
sea over which we had travelled. Yonder broken hulk was the last link
which bound me to my distant home thousands of miles across the ocean,
that home, which my heart told me I should never see again, for how
could I win back from a land that no white foot had ever trod?
On the deck of this ship Blanche herself had stood and smiled and
talked, for once we visited it together shortly before our marriage,
and I remembered how I had kissed her in its cabin. Now Blanche was
dead by her own hand and I, the great London merchant, was an outcast
among savages in a country of which I did not even know the name,
where everything was new and different. And there the ship with her
rich cargo, after bearing us so bravely through weeks of tempest, must
lie until she rotted in the sun and rain and never again would my eyes
behold her. Oh! then it was that a sense of all my misery and
loneliness gripped my heart as it had not done before since I rode
away after killing Deleroy with the sword Wave-Flame, and I wondered
why I had been born, and almost hoped that soon I might die and go to
seek the reason.
Back into the litter I crept and there hid my face and wept like a
child. Truly I, the prosperous merchant of London town who might have
lived to become its mayor and magistrate and win nobility, was now an
outcast adventurer of the humblest. Well, so God had decreed, and
there was no more to say.
That night we encamped upon a hilltop past which rushed a river in the
vale below and were troubled with heat and insects that hummed and
bit, for to these as yet I was not accustomed, and ate of the food
that we had brought with us, dried flesh and corn.
Next morning with the light we started on again, up and down mountains
and through more forests, following the course of the river and the
shores of a lake. So it went on until on the third evening from high
land we saw the sea beneath us, a different sea from that which we had
left, for it seemed that we had been crossing an isthmus, not so wide
but that if any had the skill, a canal might be cut across it joining
those two great seas.
Now it was that our real travels began, for here, after staring at the
stars and brooding apart for a long while, Kari turned southwards.
With this I had nothing to do who did not greatly care which way he
turned. Nor did he speak to me of the matter, except to say that his
god and such memory as remained to him through his time of madness
told him that the land of his people lay towards the south, though
very far away.
So southwards we went, following paths through the forests with the
ocean on our right hand. After a week of this wearisome marching we
came to another tribe of natives of whose talk those with us could
understand enough to tell them our story. Indeed the rumour that a
white god had appeared in the land out of the sea had already reached
them, and therefore they were prepared to worship me. Here our people
left us, saying that they dared not go further from their own country.
The scene of the departure was strange, since every one of them came
and rubbed his forehead in the dust before me and then went away,
walking backwards and bowing. Still their going did not make a great
difference to us, since the new tribe was much as the old one, though
if anything, rather less clothed and more dirty. Also it accepted me
as a god without question and gave us all the food we needed.
Moreover, when we left their land men were provided to carry the
litters and the loads.
Thus, then, passing from tribe to tribe, we travelled on southward,
ever southwards, finding always that the rumour of the coming of "the
god" had gone before us. So gentle were all these people, that not
once did we meet with any who tried to harm us or to steal our goods,
or who refused us the best of what they had. Our adventures, it is
true, were many. Thus, twice we came to tribes that were at war with
other tribes, though on my appearance they laid down their arms, at
any rate, for a time, and bore our litters forward.
Again, sometimes we met tribes who were cannibals and then we suffered
much from want of meat, since we dared not touch their food unless it
were grain. In the town of the first of these cannibal people, being
moved with fury, I killed a man whom I found about to murder a child
and eat her, sweeping off his head with my sword. For this deed I
expected that they would murder us, but they did not. They only
shrugged their shoulders and saying that a god can do as he pleases,
took away the slain man and ate him.
Sometimes our road ran through terrible forests where the great trees
shut out the light of day, and a path must be hacked through the
undergrowth. Sometimes it was haunted by tigers or tree lions such as
I have spoken of, against which we must watch continuously, especially
at night, keeping the brutes off by means of fires. Sometimes we were
forced to wade great rivers, or worse still, to walk over them on
swaying bridges made of cables of twisted reeds that until I grew
accustomed to them caused my head to swim, though never did I permit
myself to show fear before the natives. Again, once we came to swampy
lands that were full of snakes which terrified me much, especially
after I had seen some natives whom they bit, die within a few minutes.
Other snakes there were also, as thick as a man's body, and four or
five paces in length, which lived in trees and killed their food by
coiling round it and pressing it to death. These snakes, it was said,
would take men in this fashion, though I never saw one of them do so.
At any rate, they were terrible to look on, and reminded me of their
forefather through whose mouth Satan talked with Mother Eve in the
Garden of Eden, and thus brought us all to woe.
Once, too, on the bank of a great river, I saw such a snake that at
the sight of it my knees knocked together. By St. Hubert, the beast
was sixty feet or more in length; its head was of the bigness of a
barrel, and its skin was of all the colours of the rainbow. Moreover,
it seemed to hold me with its eyes, for till it slipped away into the
river I could not move a foot.
Month after month we travelled thus, covering a matter of perhaps five
miles a day, since sometimes the country was open and we crossed it
with speed. Yet although our dangers were so many, strangely enough,
during all this time, even in that heat neither of us fell sick, as I
think because of the herb which Kari carried in his bag, that I found
was named /Coca/, whereof we obtained more as we went and ate from
time to time. Nor did we ever really suffer from starvation, since
when we were hungry we took more of this herb which supported us until
we could find food. These mercies I set down to the good offices of
St. Hubert watching from Heaven over me, his poor namesake and godson,
though perhaps the skill and courage of Kari which provided against
everything had something to do with them.
At length, in the ninth month of our travelling, as Kari reckoned it
by means of knots which he tied on pieces of native string, for I had
long lost count of time, we came to the borders of a great desert that
the natives said stretched southwards for a hundred leagues and more
and was without water. Moreover, to the east of this desert rose a
chain of mountains bordered by precipices up which no man could climb.
Here, therefore, it seemed as though our journey must end, since Kari
had no knowledge of how he crossed or went round this desert in his
madness of bygone years, if indeed he ever travelled that road at all,
a matter of which I was not certain.
For a week or more we remained among the tribe that lived in a
beautiful watered valley upon the borders of this desert, wondering
what we should do. For my part I was by now so tired of travelling
upon an endless quest that I should have been glad to stay among that
tribe, a very gentle and friendly people, who like all the rest
believed me to be a god, and make my home there till I died. But this
was not Kari's mind, which was set fiercely upon winning back to his
own country that he believed to lie towards the south.
Day by day we sat there regaining our strength upon the good food of
that valley, and staring first at the desert to the south, then at the
precipices on our left hand, and lastly at the ocean upon our right.
Now this people, I should say, drew their wealth from the sea as well
as from the land, since they were great fishermen and went out upon it
in rude boats or rafts made of a wooden frame to which were lashed
blown-up skins and bundles of dried reeds. Upon these boats, frail as
they seemed, such as further south were called balsas, they made
considerable journeys to distant islands where they caught vast
quantities of fish, some of which they used to manure their land.
Moreover, besides the oars, they rigged a square cotton sail upon the
balsas which enabled them to run before the wind without labour,
steering the craft by means of a paddle at the stern.
While we were there I observed that on the springing up of a wind from
the north, although it was of no great strength, the /balsas/ all came
to shore and were drawn up out of reach of the waves. When I inquired
why through Kari, the answer given was because the fishing season was
over, since that wind from the north would blow for a long time
without changing and those who went out in it upon the sea might be
driven southwards to return no more. They stated, indeed, that often
this had happened to venturesome men who had vanished away and been
lost.
"If you wish to travel south, there is a way of doing so," I said to
Kari.
At the time he made no answer, but on the following day asked me
suddenly if I dared attempt such a journey.
"Why not?" I answered. "It is as easy to die in the water as on land
and I weary of journeying through endless swamps and forests or of
crossing torrents and climbing mountain ridges."
The end of it was that for a knife and a few nails Kari purchased the
largest /balsa/ that these people had, provisioning it with as much
dried fish, corn and water in earthenware jars as it would carry
together with ourselves, and such of our remaining goods as we wished
to take with us. Then we announced that I, the god who had come out of
the sea, desired to return into the sea with himself, my servant.
So on a certain fine morning when the wind was blowing steadily but
not too strongly from the north, we embarked upon that /balsa/ while
the simple savages made obeisance with wonder in their eyes, hoisted
the square canvas, and sailed away upon what I suppose was one of the
maddest voyages ever made by man.
Although it was so clumsy the /balsa/ moved through the water at a
good rate, covering quite two leagues the hour, I should say, before
that strong and steady wind. Soon the village that we had left
vanished; then the mountains behind it grew dim and in time vanished
also, and there remained nothing but the great wilderness upon our
left and the vast sea around. Steering clear of the land so as to
avoid sunken rocks, we sailed on all that day and all the night that
followed, and when the light came again perceived that we were running
past a coastline that was backed by high mountains on some of which
lay snow. By the second evening these mountains had become tremendous,
and between them I saw valleys down which ran streams of water.
Thus we went on for three days and nights, the wind from the north
blowing all the while and the /balsa/ taking no hurt, by the end of
which time I reckon that we had travelled as far along the coast as we
had done in six months when we journeyed over land, at which I
rejoiced. Kari rejoiced also, because he said that the shape and
greatness of the mountains we were passing reminded him of those of
his own country, to which he believed that we were drawing near.
On the fourth morning, however, our troubles began, since the friendly
wind from the north grew steadily stronger, till at length it rose to
a gale. Soon our little rag of canvas was torn away, but still we
rushed on before the following seas at a very great speed.
Now I thought of trying to make the land, but found that we could not
do so with the oars, because of the current that set out towards the
ocean against which it was impossible to urge our clumsy craft.
Therefore we must content ourselves with trying to keep her head
straight with the steering oar, but even then we were often whirled
round and round.
About two hours after noon the sky clouded over, and there burst upon
us a great thunder-storm with torrents of rain; also the wind grew
stronger and stronger.
Now we could no longer steer or do anything except lie flat upon the
bottom of the /balsa/, gripping the cords with which it was tied
together, to save ourselves from being washed overboard, since often
the foaming crests of the waves broke upon us. Indeed, it was
marvellous that this frail craft should hang together at all, but
owing to the lightness of the reeds and the blown-up skins that were
tied in them, still she floated and, whirling round and round, sped
upon her southward path. Yet I knew that this could not endure for
very long, and committed my soul to God as well as I was able in my
half-drowned state, wishing that my miseries were ended.
The darkness came down, but still the thunder roared and the lightning
blazed, and by the flare of it I caught sight of snow-capped mountains
far away upon the coast, also of Kari clinging to the reeds of the
/balsa/ at my side, and from time to time kissing the golden image of
Pachacamac which hung about his neck. Presently he set his lips
against my ear and shouted:
"Be bold! Our gods are still with us in storm."
"Yes," I answered, "and soon we shall be with our gods--in peace."
After this I heard no more of him, and fell to thinking with such wits
as were left to me of how many perils we had passed since we saw the
shores of Thames, and that it seemed sad that all should have been for
nothing, since it would have been better to die at the beginning than
now at the end, after so much misery. Then the glare of the lightning
shone upon the handle of the sword Wave-Flame, which was still
strapped about me, and I remembered the rune written upon it which my
mother had rendered to me upon the morning of the fight against the
Frenchmen. How did it run?
He who lifts Wave-Flame on high
In love shall live and in battle die.
Storm-tossed o'er wide seas shall roam
And in strange lands shall make his home.
Conquering, conquered shall he be
And far away shall sleep with me.
It fitted well, though of the love I had known little and that most
unhappy, and the battle in which I must die was one with water. Also,
I had conquered nothing who myself was conquered by Fate. In short,
the thing could be read two ways, like all prophecies, and only one
line of it was true beyond a doubt--namely, that Wave-Flame and I
should sleep together.
Awhile later the lightning shone awesomely, like to the swords of a
whole army of destroying angels, so that the sky became alive with
fire. In its light for an instant I saw ahead of us great breakers,
and beyond them what looked like a dark mass of land. Now we were in
them, for the first of those hungry, curling waves got a hold of the
/balsa/ and tossed it up dizzily, then flung it down into a deep
valley of water. Another came and another, till my senses reeled and
went. I cried to St. Hubert, but he was a land saint and could not
help me; so I cried to Another greater than he.
My last vision was of myself riding a huge breaker as though it were a
horse. Then there came a crash and darkness.
Lo! it seemed to me as though one were calling me back from the depths
of sleep. With trouble I opened my eyes only to shut them again
because of the glare of the light. Then after a while I sat up, which
gave me pain, for I felt as if I had been beaten all over, and looked
once more. Above me shone the sun in a sky of deepest blue; before me
was the sea almost calm, while around were rocks and sand, among which
crawled great reptiles that I knew for turtles, as I had seen many of
them in our wanderings. Moreover, kneeling at my side, with the sword
that he had taken from the body of Deleroy still strapped about him,
was Kari, who bled from some wound and was almost white with encrusted
salt, but otherwise seemed unharmed. I stared at him, unable to open
my mouth from amazement, so it was he who spoke the first, saying, in
a voice that had a note of triumph in it:
"Did I not tell you that the gods were with us? Where is your faith, O
White Man! Look! They have brought me back to the land of which I am
Prince."
Now there was that in Kari's tone which in my weak state angered me.
Why did he scold me about faith? Why did he address me as "White Man"
instead of "Master"? Was it because he had reached a country where he
was great and I was nothing? I supposed so, and answered;
"And are these your subjects, O noble Kari?" and I pointed to the
crawling turtles. "And is this the rich and wondrous land where gold
and silver are as mud?" and I pointed to the barren rocks and sand
around.
He smiled at my jest, and answered more humbly:
"Nay, Master, yonder is my land."
Then I looked, following his glance, and saw many leagues way across
the water two snowclad peaks rising above a bank of clouds.
"I know those mountains," he went on; "without doubt they are one of
the gateways of my land."
"Then we might as well be in London for all the hope we have of
passing that gate, Kari. But tell me what has chanced."
"This, I think. A very great wave caught us and threw us right over
those rocks on to the shore. Look--there is the /balsa/," and he
pointed to a broken heap of reeds and pierced skins.
With his help I rose and went to it. Now none could know that it had
been a boat. Still, the /balsa/ it was and nothing else, and tied in
its tangled mass still remained those things which we had brought with
us, such as my black bow and armour, though all the jars were broken.
"It has borne us well, but will never bear us again," I said.
"That is so, Master. But if we were in my own country yonder I would
set its fragments in a case of gold and place them in the Temple of
the Sun as a memorial."
Then we went to a pool of rainwater that lay in a hollow rock near by,
and drank our fill, for we were very thirsty. Also among the ruins of
the /balsa/ we found some of the dried fish that was left to us, and
having washed it, filled ourselves. After this we limped to the crest
of the land behind and perceived that we were on a little island,
perhaps two hundred English acres in extent, whereon nothing grew
except some coarse grass. This island, however, was the haunt of great
numbers of seafowl which nested there, also of the turtles that I have
mentioned, and of certain beasts like seals or otters.
"At least we shall not starve," I said, "though in the dry season we
may die of thirst."
Now there on that island we remained for four long months. For food we
ate the turtles, which we cooked over fires that Kari made by
cunningly twirling a pointed piece of driftwood in the hollow of
another piece that he filled with the dust of dried grass. Had he
lacked that knowledge we must have starved or lived on raw flesh. As
it was, we had plenty with this meat and that of birds and their eggs,
also of fish that we caught in the pools when the tide was down. From
the shells of the turtles, by the help of stones, we built us a kind
of hut to keep off the sun and the rain, which in that hot place was
sufficient shelter; also, when the stench was out of them, we used
other shells in which to catch rainwater that we stored as best we
could against seasons of drought. Lastly, with my big bow which was
saved with the armour, I shot sea-otters, and from their pelts we made
us garments after rubbing the skins with turtle fat and handling them
to make them soft.
Thus, then, we lived from moon to moon upon that desert place, till I
thought I should go mad with loneliness and despair, for no help came
near us. There were the mountains of the mainland far away, but
between them and us stretched leagues of sea that we could not swim,
nor had we anything of which to make a boat.
"Here we must remain until we die!" at last I cried in my
wretchedness.
"Nay," answered Kari, "our gods are still with us and will save us in
their season."
This, indeed, they did in a strange fashion. _
Read next: BOOK II: CHAPTER III - THE DAUGHTER OF THE MOON
Read previous: BOOK II: CHAPTER I - THE NEW WORLD
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