Westward Ho!

C >> Charles Kingsley >> Westward Ho!


"We have found something," said Cary; "I only hope it may not be a
mare's nest, like many another of our finding."

"Or an adder's," said Yeo. "We must beware of treachery."

"We must beware of no such thing," said Amyas, pretty sharply. "Have I
not told you fifty times, that if they see that we trust them, they will
trust us, and if they see that we suspect them, they will suspect us?
And when two parties are watching to see who strikes the first blow,
they are sure to come to fisticuffs from mere dirty fear of each other."

Amyas spoke truth; for almost every atrocity against savages which had
been committed by the Spaniards, and which was in later and worse times
committed by the English, was wont to be excused in that same base fear
of treachery. Amyas's plan, like that of Drake, and Cook, and all
great English voyagers, had been all along to inspire at once awe
and confidence, by a frank and fearless carriage; and he was not
disappointed here. He bade the men step boldly into their canoes, and
follow the old Indian whither he would. The simple children of the
forest bowed themselves reverently before the mighty strangers, and then
led them smilingly across the stream, and through a narrow passage in
the covert, to a hidden lagoon, on the banks of which stood, not Manoa,
but a tiny Indian village.



CHAPTER XXIV

HOW AMYAS WAS TEMPTED OF THE DEVIL

"Let us alone. What pleasure can we have
To war with evil? Is there any peace
In always climbing up the climbing wave?
All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave
In silence; ripen, fall, and cease:
Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease."

TENNYSON.

Humboldt has somewhere a curious passage; in which, looking on some
wretched group of Indians, squatting stupidly round their fires,
besmeared with grease and paint, and devouring ants and clay, he
somewhat naively remarks, that were it not for science, which teaches
us that such is the crude material of humanity, and this the state from
which we all have risen, he should have been tempted rather to look upon
those hapless beings as the last degraded remnants of some fallen and
dying race. One wishes that the great traveller had been bold enough
to yield to that temptation, which his own reason and common sense
presented to him as the real explanation of the sad sight, instead
of following the dogmas of a so-called science, which has not a fact
whereon to base its wild notion, and must ignore a thousand facts in
asserting it. His own good sense, it seems, coincided instinctively with
the Bible doctrine, that man in a state of nature is a fallen being,
doomed to death--a view which may be a sad one, but still one more
honorable to poor humanity than the theory, that we all began as some
sort of two-handed apes. It is surely more hopeful to believe that those
poor Otomacs or Guahibas were not what they ought to be, than to believe
that they were. It is certainly more complimentary to them to think that
they had been somewhat nobler and more prudent in centuries gone by,
than that they were such blockheads as to have dragged on, the son after
the father, for all the thousands of years which have elapsed since man
was made, without having had wit enough to discover any better food than
ants and clay.

Our voyagers, however, like those of their time, troubled their heads
with no such questions. Taking the Bible story as they found it, they
agreed with Humboldt's reason, and not with his science; or, to speak
correctly, agreed with Humboldt's self, and not with the shallow
anthropologic theories which happened to be in vogue fifty years ago;
and their new hosts were in their eyes immortal souls like themselves,
"captivated by the devil at his will," lost there in the pathless
forests, likely to be lost hereafter.

And certainly facts seemed to bear out their old-fashioned theories;
although these Indians had sunk by no means so low as the Guahibas whom
they had met upon the lower waters of the same river.

They beheld, on landing, a scattered village of palm-leaf sheds, under
which, as usual, the hammocks were slung from tree to tree. Here
and there, in openings in the forest, patches of cassava and indigo
appeared; and there was a look of neatness and comfort about the little
settlement superior to the average.

But now for the signs of the evil spirit. Certainly it was no good
spirit who had inspired them with the art of music; or else (as Cary
said) Apollo and Mercury (if they ever visited America) had played their
forefathers a shabby trick, and put them off with very poor instruments,
and still poorer taste. For on either side of the landing-place were
arranged four or five stout fellows, each with a tall drum, or long
earthen trumpet, swelling out in the course of its length into several
hollow balls from which arose, the moment the strangers set foot on
shore, so deafening a cacophony of howls, and groans, and thumps, as
fully to justify Yeo's remark, "They are calling upon their devil, sir."
To which Cary answered, with some show of reason, that "they were the
less likely to be disappointed, for none but Sir Urian would ever come
to listen to such a noise."

"And you mark, sirs," said Yeo, "there's some feast or sacrifice toward.
I'm not overconfident of them yet."

"Nonsense!" said Amyas, "we could kill every soul of them in
half-an-hour, and they know that as well as we."

But some great demonstration was plainly toward; for the children of the
forest were arrayed in two lines, right and left of the open space, the
men in front, and the women behind; and all bedizened, to the best of
their power, with arnotto, indigo, and feathers.

Next, with a hideous yell, leapt into the centre of the space a
personage who certainly could not have complained if any one had taken
him for the devil, for he had dressed himself up carefully for that very
intent, in a jaguar-skin with a long tail, grinning teeth, a pair of
horns, a plume of black and yellow feathers, and a huge rattle.

"Here's the Piache, the rascal," says Amyas.

"Ay," says Yeo, "in Satan's livery, and I've no doubt his works are
according, trust him for it."

"Don't be frightened, Jack," says Cary, backing up Brimblecombe from
behind. "It's your business to tackle him, you know. At him boldly, and
he'll run."

Whereat all the men laughed; and the Piache, who had intended to produce
a very solemn impression, hung fire a little. However, being accustomed
to get his bread by his impudence, he soon recovered himself, advanced,
smote one of the musicians over the head with his rattle to procure
silence; and then began a harangue, to which Amyas listened patiently,
cigar in mouth.

"What's it all about, boy?"

"He wants to know whether you have seen Amalivaca on the other shore of
the great water?"

Amyas was accustomed to this inquiry after the mythic civilizer of
the forest Indians, who, after carving the mysterious sculptures which
appear upon so many inland cliffs of that region, returned again whence
he came, beyond the ocean. He answered, as usual, by setting forth the
praises of Queen Elizabeth.

To which the Piache replied, that she must be one of Amalivaca's seven
daughters, some of whom he took back with him, while he broke the legs
of the rest to prevent their running away, and left them to people the
forests.

To which Amyas replied, that his queen's legs were certainly not broken;
for she was a very model of grace and activity, and the best dancer in
all her dominions; but that it was more important to him to know whether
the tribe would give them cassava bread, and let them stay peaceably on
that island, to rest a while before they went on to fight the clothed
men (the Spaniards), on the other side of the mountains.

On which the Piache, after capering and turning head over heels with
much howling, beckoned Amyas and his party to follow him; they did so,
seeing that the Indians were all unarmed, and evidently in the highest
good humor.

The Piache went toward the door of a carefully closed hut, and crawling
up to it on all-fours in most abject fashion, began whining to some one
within.

"Ask what he is about, boy."

The lad asked the old cacique, who had accompanied them, and received
for answer, that he was consulting the Daughter of the Sun.

"Here is our mare's nest at last," quoth Cary, as the Piache from whines
rose to screams and gesticulations, and then to violent convulsions,
foaming at the mouth, and rolling of the eyeballs, till he suddenly sank
exhausted, and lay for dead.

"As good as a stage play."

"The devil has played his part," says Jack; "and now by the rules of all
plays Vice should come on."

"And a very fair Vice it will be, I suspect; a right sweet Iniquity, my
Jack! Listen."

And from the interior of the hut rose a low sweet song, at which all
the simple Indians bowed their heads in reverence; and the English were
hushed in astonishment; for the voice was not shrill or guttural, like
that of an Indian, but round, clear, and rich, like a European's; and as
it swelled and rose louder and louder, showed a compass and power which
would have been extraordinary anywhere (and many a man of the party,
as was usual in musical old England, was a good judge enough of such
a matter, and could hold his part right well in glee, and catch, and
roundelay, and psalm). And as it leaped, and ran, and sank again, and
rose once more to fall once more, all but inarticulate, yet perfect in
melody, like the voice of bird on bough, the wild wanderers were rapt
in new delight, and did not wonder at the Indians as they bowed their
heads, and welcomed the notes as messengers from some higher world. At
last one triumphant burst, so shrill that all ears rang again, and then
dead silence. The Piache, suddenly restored to life, jumped upright, and
recommenced preaching at Amyas.

"Tell the howling villain to make short work of it, lad! His tune won't
do after that last one."

The lad, grinning, informed Amyas that the Piache signified their
acceptance as friends by the Daughter of the Sun; that her friends were
theirs, and her foes theirs. Whereon the Indians set up a scream of
delight, and Amyas, rolling another tobacco leaf up in another strip of
plantain, answered,--

"Then let her give us some cassava," and lighted a fresh cigar.

Whereon the door of the hut opened, and the Indians prostrated
themselves to the earth, as there came forth the same fair apparition
which they had encountered upon the island, but decked now in
feather-robes, and plumes of every imaginable hue.

Slowly and stately, as one accustomed to command, she walked up to
Amyas, glancing proudly round on her prostrate adorers, and pointing
with graceful arms to the trees, the gardens, and the huts, gave him to
understand by signs (so expressive were her looks, that no words were
needed) that all was at his service; after which, taking his hand, she
lifted it gently to her forehead.

At that sign of submission a shout of rapture rose from the crowd; and
as the mysterious maiden retired again to her hut, they pressed round
the English, caressing and admiring, pointing with equal surprise to
their swords, to their Indian bows and blow-guns, and to the trophies
of wild beasts with which they were clothed; while women hastened off
to bring fruit, and flowers, and cassava, and (to Amyas's great anxiety)
calabashes of intoxicating drink; and, to make a long story short, the
English sat down beneath the trees, and feasted merrily, while the drums
and trumpets made hideous music, and lithe young girls and lads danced
uncouth dances, which so scandalized both Brimblecombe and Yeo, that
they persuaded Amyas to beat an early retreat. He was willing enough
to get back to the island while the men were still sober; so there were
many leave-takings and promises of return on the morrow, and the party
paddled back to their island-fortress, racking their wits as to who or
what the mysterious maid could be.

Amyas, however, had settled in his mind that she was one of the lost
Inca race; perhaps a descendant of that very fair girl, wife of the
Inca Manco, whom Pizarro, forty years before, had, merely to torture
the fugitive king's heart, as his body was safe from the tyrant's reach,
stripped, scourged, and shot to death with arrows, uncomplaining to the
last.

They all assembled for the evening service (hardly a day had passed
since they left England on which they had not done the same); and after
it was over, they must needs sing a Psalm, and then a catch or two, ere
they went to sleep; and till the moon was high in heaven, twenty mellow
voices rang out above the roar of the cataract, in many a good old tune.
Once or twice they thought they heard an echo to their song: but they
took no note of it, till Cary, who had gone apart for a few minutes,
returned, and whispered Amyas away.

"The sweet Iniquity is mimicking us, lad."

They went to the brink of the river; and there (for their ears were by
this time dead to the noise of the torrent) they could hear plainly the
same voice which had so surprised them in the hut, repeating, clear
and true, snatches of the airs which they had sung. Strange and solemn
enough was the effect of the men's deep voices on the island, answered
out of the dark forest by those sweet treble notes; and the two young
men stood a long while listening and looking out across the eddies,
which swirled down golden in the moonlight: but they could see nothing
beyond save the black wall of trees. After a while the voice ceased, and
the two returned to dream of Incas and nightingales.

They visited the village again next day; and every day for a week or
more: but the maiden appeared but rarely, and when she did, kept her
distance as haughtily as a queen.

Amyas, of course, as soon as he could converse somewhat better with his
new friends, was not long before he questioned the cacique about
her. But the old man made an owl's face at her name, and intimated by
mysterious shakes of the head, that she was a very strange personage,
and the less said about her the better. She was "a child of the Sun,"
and that was enough.

"Tell him, boy," quoth Cary, "that we are the children of the Sun by
his first wife; and have orders from him to inquire how the Indians
have behaved to our step-sister, for he cannot see all their tricks down
here, the trees are so thick. So let him tell us, or all the cassava
plants shall be blighted."

"Will, Will, don't play with lying!" said Amyas: but the threat was
enough for the cacique, and taking them in his canoe a full mile down
the stream, as if in fear that the wonderful maiden should overhear him,
he told them, in a sort of rhythmic chant, how, many moons ago (he
could not tell how many), his tribe was a mighty nation, and dwelt in
Papamene, till the Spaniards drove them forth. And how, as they wandered
northward, far away upon the mountain spurs beneath the flaming cone
of Cotopaxi, they had found this fair creature wandering in the forest,
about the bigness of a seven years' child. Wondering at her white skin
and her delicate beauty, the simple Indians worshipped her as a god,
and led her home with them. And when they found that she was human like
themselves, their wonder scarcely lessened. How could so tender a being
have sustained life in those forests, and escaped the jaguar and the
snake? She must be under some Divine protection: she must be a daughter
of the Sun, one of that mighty Inca race, the news of whose fearful
fall had reached even those lonely wildernesses; who had, many of them,
haunted for years as exiles the eastern slopes of the Andes, about the
Ucalayi and the Maranon; who would, as all Indians knew, rise again
some day to power, when bearded white men should come across the seas to
restore them to their ancient throne.

So, as the girl grew up among them, she was tended with royal honors,
by command of the conjuror of the tribe, that so her forefather the Sun
might be propitious to them, and the Incas might show favor to the poor
ruined Omaguas, in the day of their coming glory. And as she grew, she
had become, it seemed, somewhat of a prophetess among them, as well
as an object of fetish-worship; for she was more prudent in council,
valiant in war, and cunning in the chase, than all the elders of the
tribe; and those strange and sweet songs of hers, which had so surprised
the white men, were full of mysterious wisdom about the birds, and the
animals, and the flowers, and the rivers, which the Sun and the Good
Spirit taught her from above. So she had lived among them, unmarried
still, not only because she despised the addresses of all Indian youths,
but because the conjuror had declared it to be profane in them to mingle
with the race of the Sun, and had assigned her a cabin near his own,
where she was served in state, and gave some sort of oracular responses,
as they had seen, to the questions which he put to her.

Such was the cacique's tale; on which Cary remarked, probably not
unjustly, that he "dared to say the conjuror made a very good thing of
it:" but Amyas was silent, full of dreams, if not about Manoa, still
about the remnant of the Inca race. What if they were still to be found
about the southern sources of the Amazon? He must have been very near
them already, in that case. It was vexatious; but at least he might
be sure that they had formed no great kingdom in that direction, or he
should have heard of it long ago. Perhaps they had moved lately from
thence eastward, to escape some fresh encroachment of the Spaniards; and
this girl had been left behind in their flight. And then he recollected,
with a sigh, how hopeless was any further search with his diminished
band. At least, he might learn something of the truth from the maiden
herself. It might be useful to him in some future attempt; for he
had not yet given up Manoa. If he but got safe home, there was many a
gallant gentleman (and Raleigh came at once into his mind) who would
join him in a fresh search for the Golden City of Guiana; not by the
upper waters, but by the mouth of the Orinoco.

So they paddled back, while the simple cacique entreated them to tell
the Sun, in their daily prayers, how well the wild people had treated
his descendant; and besought them not to take her away with them, lest
the Sun should forget the poor Omaguas, and ripen their manioc and their
fruit no more.

Amyas had no wish to stay where he was longer than was absolutely
necessary to bring up the sick men from the Orinoco; but this, he well
knew, would be a journey probably of some months, and attended with much
danger.

Cary volunteered at once, however, to undertake the adventure, if
half-a-dozen men would join him, and the Indians would send a few young
men to help in working the canoe: but this latter item was not an easy
one to obtain; for the tribe with whom they now were, stood in some fear
of the fierce and brutal Guahibas, through whose country they must pass;
and every Indian tribe, as Amyas knew well enough, looks on each tribe
of different language to itself as natural enemies, hateful, and made
only to be destroyed wherever met. This strange fact, too, Amyas and his
party attributed to delusion of the devil, the divider and accuser; and
I am of opinion that they were perfectly right: only let Amyas take care
that while he is discovering the devil in the Indians, he does not give
place to him in himself, and that in more ways than one. But of that
more hereafter.

Whether, however, it was pride or shyness which kept the maiden aloof,
she conquered it after a while; perhaps through mere woman's curiosity;
and perhaps, too, from mere longing for amusement in a place so
unspeakably stupid as the forest. She gave the English to understand,
however, that though they all might be very important personages, none
of them was to be her companion but Amyas. And ere a month was past, she
was often hunting with him far and wide in the neighboring forest, with
a train of chosen nymphs, whom she had persuaded to follow her example
and spurn the dusky suitors around. This fashion, not uncommon, perhaps,
among the Indian tribes, where women are continually escaping to
the forest from the tyranny of the men, and often, perhaps, forming
temporary communities, was to the English a plain proof that they were
near the land of the famous Amazons, of whom they had heard so often
from the Indians; while Amyas had no doubt that, as a descendant of the
Incas, the maiden preserved the tradition of the Virgins of the Sun, and
of the austere monastic rule of the Peruvian superstition. Had not that
valiant German, George of Spires, and Jeronimo Ortal too, fifty years
before, found convents of the Sun upon these very upper waters?

So a harmless friendship sprang up between Amyas and the girl, which
soon turned to good account. For she no sooner heard that he needed a
crew of Indians, than she consulted the Piache, assembled the tribe, and
having retired to her hut, commenced a song, which (unless the Piache
lied) was a command to furnish young men for Cary's expedition,
under penalty of the sovereign displeasure of an evil spirit with an
unpronounceable name--an argument which succeeded on the spot, and the
canoe departed on its perilous errand.

John Brimblecombe had great doubts whether a venture thus started by
direct help and patronage of the fiend would succeed; and Amyas himself,
disliking the humbug, told Ayacanora that it would be better to have
told the tribe that it was a good deed, and pleasing to the Good Spirit.

"Ah!" said she, naively enough, "they know better than that. The Good
Spirit is big and lazy; and he smiles, and takes no trouble: but the
little bad spirit, he is so busy--here, and there, and everywhere," and
she waved her pretty hands up and down; "he is the useful one to have
for a friend!" Which sentiment the Piache much approved, as became his
occupation; and once told Brimblecombe pretty sharply, that he was a
meddlesome fellow for telling the Indians that the Good Spirit cared for
them; "for," quoth he, "if they begin to ask the Good Spirit for what
they want, who will bring me cassava and coca for keeping the bad spirit
quiet?" This argument, however forcible the devil's priests in all ages
have felt it to be, did not stop Jack's preaching (and very good and
righteous preaching it was, moreover), and much less the morning and
evening service in the island camp. This last, the Indians, attracted
by the singing, attended in such numbers, that the Piache found his
occupation gone, and vowed to put an end to Jack's Gospel with a
poisoned arrow.

Which plan he (blinded by his master, Satan, so Jack phrased it) took
into his head to impart to Ayacanora, as the partner of his tithes and
offerings; and was exceedingly astonished to receive in answer a box on
the ear, and a storm of abuse. After which, Ayacanora went to Amyas,
and telling him all, proposed that the Piache should be thrown to the
alligators, and Jack installed in his place; declaring that whatsoever
the bearded men said must be true, and whosoever plotted against them
should die the death.

Jack, however, magnanimously forgave his foe, and preached on, of course
with fresh zeal; but not, alas! with much success. For the conjuror,
though his main treasure was gone over to the camp of the enemy, had a
reserve in a certain holy trumpet, which was hidden mysteriously in a
cave on the neighboring hills, not to be looked on by woman under pain
of death; and it was well known, and had been known for generations,
that unless that trumpet, after fastings, flagellations, and other
solemn rites, was blown by night throughout the woods, the palm-trees
would bear no fruit; yea, so great was the fame of that trumpet, that
neighboring tribes sent at the proper season to hire it and the blower
thereof, by payment of much precious trumpery, that so they might be
sharers in its fertilizing powers.

So the Piache announced one day in public, that in consequence of the
impiety of the Omaguas, he should retire to a neighboring tribe, of more
religious turn of mind; and taking with him the precious instrument,
leave their palms to blight, and themselves to the evil spirit.

Dire was the wailing, and dire the wrath throughout the village.
Jack's words were allowed to be good words; but what was the Gospel in
comparison of the trumpet? The rascal saw his advantage, and began
a fierce harangue against the heretic strangers. As he maddened, his
hearers maddened; the savage nature, capricious as a child's, flashed
out in wild suspicion. Women yelled, men scowled, and ran hastily to
their huts for bows and blow-guns. The case was grown critical. There
were not more than a dozen men with Amyas at the time, and they had only
their swords, while the Indian men might muster nearly a hundred. Amyas
forbade his men either to draw or to retreat; but poisoned arrows were
weapons before which the boldest might well quail; and more than one
cheek grew pale, which had seldom been pale before.