Читать книгу With Drake on the Spanish Main - George Herbert Ely - Страница 13

During his operations about the wreck, Dennis had noticed that the monkey showed a strange aversion for the sea. At low tide, when the vessel was high and dry, he quite cheerfully accompanied his benefactor on board; but as a rule, when he saw the tide rolling in, he chattered angrily, swarmed down the side of the vessel, and posted himself at the nearest point above high-water mark. Only on the one occasion, when he mounted the windlass, did he remain on deck when the tide was at flood; there he seemed to regard himself as out of reach of the waves. Dennis wondered whether the dread of the sea was a characteristic of the monkey tribe, or whether Mirandola had at some time suffered a sea-change which it was determined not to repeat.

He took endless pleasure in studying the amiable creature; and when, his work with the ship being finished, he began once more to take lengthy strolls across the island, he drew a new delight from the companionship of the monkey. The friendship being so firmly established, Mirandola showed off his accomplishments with a freedom he had not displayed when he regarded this newcomer with distrust and suspicion. Dennis laughed to see his antics in the trees. He would curl his long tail about a branch, and swing to and fro with manifest enjoyment. Sometimes, clutching a banana with one hand, he would pick another with one foot, and hold a third to his mouth with the second hand. Sometimes when he saw Dennis holding his forehead in a brown study, he would rub his long gaunt arms over his own brow with a wistful look that brought a smile to the lad's face. He was amiability itself, and showed genuine distress when Dennis took occasion to scold him for some piece of inconvenient prankishness.

Now that his thoughts were no longer engrossed with his salvage work, Dennis more often speculated on his future. The prospect was not very encouraging. Supposing he could carry out his half-formed purpose of building a boat, what chance was there of surviving a voyage across the ocean in a vessel that, untrained as he was in handicraft, must necessarily be a clumsy thing? And unless he could risk an ocean voyage he felt that he had better remain where he was. No European nation but the Spaniards and the Portuguese had settlements on the American coast. What might be expected at the hands of the Spaniards he knew full well. Had he not heard from the lips of one Master John Merridew fearsome tales of their treachery and cruelty? John Merridew had sailed with Captain John Hawkins to the West Indies, with Master Francis Drake as one of the company. Forced by foul weather into the port of St. John de Ulua, the Captain made great account of a certain Spanish gentleman named Augustine de Villa Nueva, and used him like a nobleman. Yet this same Augustine, sitting at dinner one day with the Captain, would certainly have killed him with a poniard which he had secretly in his sleeve, had not one John Chamberlain espied the weapon and prevented the foul deed. And recalling Merridew's narrative, Dennis wondered what had become of those hundred poor wretches who, when victuals ran short, and the ship's company were driven to eat parrots and monkeys and the very rats that swarmed in the hold, preferred to shift for themselves on shore, rather than starve on ship-board. In imagination he saw that touching scene, when the General, as Merridew called Captain Hawkins, gave to each man five yards of cloth, embraced them in turn, counselled them to serve God and love one another; and thus courteously bade them a sorrowful farewell, promising, if God sent him safe to England, to do what he could to bring home such as remained alive. That Captain Hawkins would fulfil his promise Dennis believed; but how many of those Englishmen were still living? He reflected that he at least had food and present safety; compared with theirs his lot was a king's.

But he was not to escape misfortune altogether. One day the storm he had so long been expecting broke over the island, hurling great seas into the mouth of the chine, threatening to dash the Maid Marian against the rocks or sweep her out into the ocean. In the midst of pelting, blinding rain Dennis strove to ensure her safety. She wrenched at her anchor; every moment he feared lest her mooring ropes should be snapped; he could do little but keep a watch on the fastenings. And while he was thus watching, a roaring flood passed through the gully from the plateau above, swamping his hut, washing away some of his hardly-won stores; and the fierce blast tore off the roof of one of his sheds, exposing its contents to all the fury of the weather.

Next day he did what he could to repair the damage. Fortunately much of his perishable goods was contained in stout boxes which he always kept securely fastened, and the things he lost were those he could best spare.

In the afternoon of that day, he went across to the opposite side of the island, as he was wont to do at intervals, to take a look-out from the high cliff there. He wondered whether the storm had cast any other ill-fated vessel upon the shore. But, scanning the whole horizon, he saw nothing but league upon league of restless sea.

"Our solitude is not to be disturbed, Mirandola," he said to the monkey, "for which let us be thankful. Or ought we to deplore it? I wish you could speak, my friend, and tell me something of your history. Are you the last of your race, I wonder? Well, so am I. I have no kith nor kin; nor, as it appears, have you. I have a humble estate in an island—to be sure, somewhat larger than this. Now I come to think of it, this island is yours; it is a mark of nobility of soul—or is it poverty of spirit? I cannot say—that you do not regard me as a supplanter. Good Holles, my steward, would not brook the intrusion of any adventurer on my lands. Heigh ho! How fares the old fellow, I wonder? How he shook his old head when I acquainted him with my purpose to join Sir Martin Blunt in his voyage to the Spanish Main! 'God save you, sir!' said he, and asked whether he should sell my whippets! One thing I know, Mirandola: that if it please God to bring me safe home in season, Holles will give me a faithful account of his stewardship. Let me think I am your steward, good my friend. And now let us return to our honey-pot."

On the way back, Dennis struck somewhat to the left of his usual path, to skirt the marsh on its south-western instead of its north-eastern side. It was far larger in area than when he had first seen it; its outlet was too narrow to carry off the surplusage due to the tremendous rains. Dennis was picking his way around the oozy edge, letting his thoughts travel back to the pleasant land of Devon, when suddenly he was brought up short by the sight of a mark in the soft earth, the strangeness of which mightily surprised and perplexed him. Parallel with his own tracks there ran for a few yards a faint ribbon-like track—such a track as might be made by a large cart wheel that had rested very lightly on the surface. It was a single track: following its course, he found that it disappeared into the water, just as he had seen the mark of a cart wheel disappear into a roadside horse-pond at home.

He looked around. There was nothing to account for the mark. He scouted the idea that it had been actually made by a wheel; a vehicle must have been drawn by animals, and there were no hoof-marks to match. With all his puzzling he could find no explanation, and though he looked warily about him as he went on his way, with some return of his old feeling of nervousness, he saw no sign to suggest that the island had been visited.

It was a day or two before he again found himself near the marsh. He had been fishing from the base of the high cliff that formed his usual look-out. A kind of natural pier of broken rock jutted out from the cliff seawards, and the deep water on each side was the favourite resort at high tide of shoals of small fish, which chose it, he supposed, because the depth was not great enough for the ground sharks that sometimes made their appearance off the shore, and the little fish could disport themselves there in security.

Carrying his catch on a string—enough for his own dinner, for Mirandola would not touch it—he passed again by the brink of the marsh, and once more was puzzled by the wheel-like track which he had seen before and been unable to explain. The marsh had somewhat shrunk in the interval; the receding water had left more of the track visible: and the outer soil having been baked hard by the sun, the strange imprint was clearer and more definite.

It occurred to Dennis now to attempt to trace the mark in the opposite direction, away from the point where it disappeared in the water. It speedily grew fainter as he came to harder soil, and he lost it altogether where it entered undergrowth which had no doubt been partially submerged when the marsh was at its highest. But after some search he found it again where it emerged from the rank vegetation, and from that point he traced it with little difficulty, for it kept fairly close to the margin of the lake. Its resemblance to the track of a wheel had now ceased; not even the most rickety of carts, driven by a drunken tranter on a Devonshire lane, could have made such erratic movements as must have caused this shallow winding mark on the soil. Dennis followed its curves with persistent curiosity, not unmixed with a vague uneasiness. Mirandola accompanied him, springing lightly from bough to bough of the trees nearest the edge of the marsh, descending with extraordinary quickness and loping along the ground where gaps intervened, or the fringe of the woodland belt took a trend inwards.

At length the tracking came perforce to an end. Again the trail disappeared into the water, and Dennis halted, feeling a little vexed that his patience was, after all, to bear no fruit. He looked round for Mirandola. The monkey had disappeared, exploring, no doubt, thought Dennis, a close-packed thicket that came within a few yards of the morass, having apparently crowded out all nobler trees save one slender cedar which, dominating the undergrowth, seemed taller than it really was.

Dennis was about to give up the problem as hopeless and go on his way, when suddenly he heard Mirandola chattering in a manner that was new to him. The moment after, the monkey sprang from the thicket into the tree, and climbed with frantic speed to the very top, where he sat gibbering and shaking with terror. Dennis, wondering what had perturbed him, took a step forward, then started back in a cold shiver. A huge serpent was rearing itself from the midst of the undergrowth and winding its coils about the trunk of the tree.

Mirandola on the topmost branch had now ceased his chattering, and clung, watching the monster with dilated eyes. The poor creature was helpless. To descend from his perch would have been fatal; there was no other tree at hand to which it might escape. Indeed, under the fascination of the serpent's baleful eyes, as it slowly drew its immense coils up the trunk, the monkey lost all power of motion; and Dennis himself, even with the thicket between him and the monster, felt a sort of chill paralysis as he watched its sinister movements. For half a minute he stood rooted to the spot; then, making an effort to throw off this dire oppression, he tried to think of some means of helping the monkey. At that moment of danger, he was conscious for the first time of the strength of his affection for the animal whose companionship had done so much to relieve the awful solitude of the island. Unless he intervened, Mirandola was doomed, and the thought of losing Mirandola filled him with a fierce longing to slay this monster that was crawling inch by inch towards its prey.

His first impulse was to run back to his hut for the gun he kept there ready loaded; but slow as the serpent's progress was, before he could return to the spot the tragedy would have ended. Then he remembered how the reptiles in the woods at home were killed. A blow on the vertebrae crippled them; could he cripple this huge creature, which even yet had not heaved all its length into the tree? His only weapon was the sailor's clasp-knife which he always carried at his girdle. He opened it impulsively, then hesitated. If he failed to hit the vertebrae, and dealt only a flesh wound, he might perchance save the monkey, but could he then save himself? He knew nothing of a boa constrictor's power of movement; yet his instinct told him that, if once enfolded in those monstrous coils, he must inevitably be crushed to death. But he could not stand and see his pet mangled and devoured: the serpent, moving deliberately, as though aware of its victim's paralysis, was not yet beyond his reach. Springing through the undergrowth, he marked a spot some distance from the reptile's tail. The serpent heard his approach, and turned its head slowly in his direction; but a second later Dennis drove his knife with all his force at the centre of the sleek round mass.

Next moment he was thrown sprawling on the ground, by a flick of the tail as the upper part of the serpent's body writhed convulsively under the blow. He jerked himself to his feet and leapt away through the undergrowth in panic fear. A few steps brought him to open ground, and then, crushing down his nervous terror, he looked back. The coils were slipping down the tree, and in a moment it was clear that the serpent's power was gone; its huge bulk moved uncontrollably: its motor force was destroyed. Dennis ventured to enter the thicket again. When the serpent reached the ground, it writhed as he had seen injured eels and earthworms writhe, but its movements were all involuntary; Mirandola was saved.

"Dennis saves Mirandola."

The monkey was now chattering volubly, but still clung to his perch. Clearly he would not venture to descend while his enemy moved. For some time Dennis watched it; then, feeling that he must put an end to its maimed life, he hurried away to fetch his gun. A bullet in the head: and the reptile lay motionless.

Even then some little time elapsed before Mirandola yielded to Dennis's persuasive calls and slid, still somewhat nervously, to the ground. He avoided the reptile's body, and scampered away with shrill cries to the open. When Dennis overtook him, the monkey sprang upon his shoulder, and so they returned to the hut.

After this thrilling experience Dennis felt somewhat less at ease in his peregrinations of the island. He had come to think that he had nothing to fear there so long as it was unvisited by men. But the thickets that gave hiding to one huge reptile might harbour many more. Henceforth he walked more warily, and never ventured far from his hut without a gun.