Wild Life in the Land of the Giants: A Tale of Two Brothers

Captain Coates put another question to Ritchie:

“Should we or should we not fire the ship, Mr Ritchie, think you?”

“For the matter o’ that,” replied Ritchie, “I’d as soon feed snakes in the woods as put any good thing in the way o’ these cannibal fiends, but I think, sir, leaving the ship for them will be our salvation. You ask my opinion, sir, and I give it. The wind is changing round already. It’s a way the winds have here, where the Pacific and the Atlantic seem to me to fight for mastery like. We needn’t be in a hurry then to leave the ship till they come.”

“You feel sure they’ll come?”

“Ah! never doubt ’em, sir. When they see we’re leaving the ship, they won’t chase us till they’ve cleared the wreck. My advice is, have up the ’baccy for ’em all ready, and the rum too. Let them look for everything else.”

“You seem obliging to them.”

“There’s a method in my obligingness, sir. Let’s leave the rum in different jars about, and cut the ’baccy all in bits and scatter it over the decks. Wolves, sir, fighting over a dead horse’ll be nothing to the scramble they’ll have for the ’baccy and rum.”

The boats were now lowered and laden with the ship’s valuables. Each boat was well provisioned, and supplied with water and rum, and also armed.

The men were twenty and two, all told, giving about five to each of two whalers, and seven to the largest whaler or cutter, as she was sometimes called. The captain himself took charge of this, his wife and Leila as passengers; Peter took command of the second boat, and I of the third, in my boat Ritchie being rifleman. Jill, it is needless to say, came with me, his elder brother. Ah! that five minutes of difference in our ages made me the man, you see, and Jill the child, and I would not have had it otherwise for all the world.

The day wore on. Noon passed, yet never a sign of Indian was seen. So we did what all right-thinking Englishmen would have done under the circumstances. We dined.

We made both ladies swallow a ration of rum. Poor Mrs Coates’ eyes watered, and Leila became a little hysterical and finally cried.

The wind went round and round, till at last it was fair.

Everything looked so propitious. But why did not the savages appear?

“I have it, sir,” said Ritchie. “They’re waiting to attack us at night, and I now propose we start. They’re hidden somewhere, depend upon it.”

Ritchie was right, and no sooner had we got fairly into the offing, than out their canoes swarmed after us.

“Keep well together in a line,” cried the captain, “and stand by to give them a volley.”

Ritchie stood up in his boat, and shouted at the foremost boat in broken Spanish. He tried to tell them that the tobacco was in the ship.

But on they came. Mrs Coates and Leila were made to lie down in the boat, and only just in time, for a shower of arrows flew over us next minute.

“Fire!”

Half a dozen rifles rang out in the still air, dusky forms sprang up in the canoes and fell to rise no more. Again and again our guns spread death in their ranks, and the nearer they came the hotter they had it.

We had spears in the boats, boarding pikes and axes. Would we have to use them? For a moment it seemed likely. All sail was set, and almost every hand was free for a tulzie that, if it came, would indeed be a terrible one.

One more telling volley. Would they now draw off? Yes, for over the water from the wreck came a mingled shout and yell. The canoes at once were stopped. Greed did what our guns had failed to accomplish. Murder and revenge are sweet to a savage, but tobacco and rum are sweeter still.

In ten minutes time we and our dusky foes were far apart indeed, the savages having a grand canoe race back to the wreck, we dancing away over the waves and heading straight for the east.

“Thank Heaven,” said Ritchie, fervidly, “they’re gone.”

“Do you think we could have beaten them off, Ritchie?” I asked.

“One can never tell how things will go in a hand-to-hand fight. Not as ever I’ve been in many, but, bless your innocent soul, lad, I’ve come through so much. I came to close quarters once on the African shore with a crowd o’ canoes just like that. I could have sworn we’d have beaten them off easy. And so we might have done, if our boats had continued on an even keel. But that wasn’t their game. No, they threw themselves like wild cats on one gunwale, and over we went. They had us in the water; and by the time a boat shoved off from the Wasp and came to our assistance, there was hardly a man among us left to tell tales.”

“That was fearful!”

“Ye see – haul aft the main sheet a bit – you see, sir, mostly all savages has their own ways o’ fightin’, their own tactics as you might say. Drat ’em all, I say.”

“You don’t believe in the noble savage?” said Jill.

“Not same’s they make ’em nowadays, sir. ’Cause why, we white men have spiled them. And now we want to kill ’em all off the face o’ the earth. It’s just like an ignorant old party having a dog for a pet. He’s everything at first, and the very cat takes liberties with him, till one day he snaps. It’s only natural, but what does the ignorant old party do? – why puts him in a bag and drowns him. It’s the same wi’ the savage: the white man has spoiled him, and now he thinks he’d better get rid of him entirely. Well, young gentlemen, by your leave I’ll have a smoke. You’ve got the compass all right, Mr Jill? Thank ye. ’Cause if the weather changes for the worst, then – ”

“Hush, hush. Why you are a pessimist!”

“I don’t know that ship. But never mind. You don’t smoke?”

“N-no,” said Jill, “not yet.”

“Let me catch him at it,” I said.

“What have ye got under the sail, sir?”

“Why, the dogs,” said Jill, laughing. “You didn’t think I was going to leave them, did you? Look here.” He lifted the corner of the sail as he spoke, and there, sure enough, were Ossian the noble Scottish deerhound, and Bruce the collie.

“Mind,” continued Jill, “both o’ these would have done a little fighting if the worst had come to the worst.”

The wind held steadily from the west and by north, and blew stiff after a time, but the boats sailed dry – neither were far distant from the other – and everything was as comfortable as could be expected under the sad circumstances.

“If there doesn’t come any more north in it than this,” said Ritchie, with a glance skyward, “it’ll do. But, you see, we ought to be heading up Famine Reach now.”

“What a name!” said Jill.

“Ay, and there is a sad and terrible story to it too, that some day I may perhaps tell you.”

The afternoon wore slowly away, neither Jill nor I saying much; Ritchie, with his old-world yarns, doing nearly all the talking, and indeed it was a treat to listen to him. There was nothing of the nature of what are called sailor’s yarns about Ritchie’s talk, but an air of truthfulness in every sentence. Many a time by the galley fire in the dear lost Salamander, when asked by some of the men to “spin ’em a yarn,” Ritchie would reply —

“If I thinks on anything as has really happened, I’ll tell that. Mind ye, men,” he would add, “I’m going on for fifty. That ain’t a spring chicken, and I’ve knocked about so much and seen such a deal, that if I tells all the truth an’ nobbut the truth, why I’ll be seventy afore I’m finished. By that time I reckon it’ll be time to clear up decks to enter the eternal port.”

Now, being senior officer, I really was in charge of the boat, still I determined to take advice in everything from Ritchie, as in duty bound, he being my superior by far and away both in age and experience, and I may add in wisdom.

So, when near sundown, I asked him if the men should eat, he shook his head and said – “Not yet awhile.”

I did not feel easy in my mind at the answer, nor at his presently relapsing into silence, pulling harder at his pipe than usual without seeming to enjoy it, and casting so many half-uneasy glances skywards.

I feared that we were not yet out of danger. Jill had gone to sleep in the bottom of the boat, and somehow this also made me nervous and uneasy. I drew the sail over him with the exception of his face, and there he lay snug enough to all appearance, his head pillowed on the collie’s shoulder. I could not help wondering to myself where he was in his dreams. At home, I could have wagered two to one – two turnips to a leg of mutton, for instance.

Presently his features became pained, set and rigid, and his hands were clutched in the sail, while he moaned or half screamed like one in a nightmare.

Ritchie noticed it too.

“Call his name. Call his name, sir. That’s allers the way to bring ’em out of it.”

Well, desperate diseases need desperate remedies, so I did call his name – in full too.

“Rupert Domville Ffoljambe-Foley Jillard Jones” I shouted, so loud that the other boats must have thought I was hailing them.

Jill sat bolt upright, looking bewildered.

Ossian and Bruce jumped up and barked.

The men all laughed, and no wonder.

“Well,” said Ritchie, “blow me teetotally tight if ever in all my born days I ’eard sich a name as that ’afore. Why ’twould wake old Rip himself. After that I think the men better have ’alf a biscuit and a bite o’ bacon. It’ll do ’em good – after that.”

Chapter Fifteen

Lost in the Snowstorm – What we Saw in the Forest

We all felt “heartier,” as Ritchie phrased it, after our dainty morsel of supper. The pork, of course, was new, and, sailor fashion, we dipped our biscuits in the sea, to give them a relish, before we ate them.

The dogs shared just as if they had been part of the crew. So they were for that matter.

The wind fell off as the sun sank behind the snowy mountains, fell off and off, till we were becalmed. Then I gave the orders —

“In sail,” and “out oars.”

After spanking along under sail for so long a time as we had done, to be reduced to rowing seems dreary work. However, there is nothing like the sea for teaching one patience, so we did not murmur.

The sunset was gorgeous enough, in all conscience, and played all sorts of fantastic tricks of colouring among the snowy cliffs, peaks, and glaciers, making a picture such as few artists could, if they would, produce on canvas, or would dare to if they could.

As we had nothing else to do, Jill and I sat silently staring at the ever changing sky, with as much inward pleasure as ever child gazed upon the flowers in a kaleidoscope.

Even after the sun had set entirely, the sky was wondrous in its beauty. It seemed to me as if the artist Nature, whom we all try to copy, were mixing her colours to commence some great new work, and that the sky was her palette.

But that palette itself was a picture, oh how grand and solemn! First we had the sea, darkling now under the shadows of the giant hill, yet borrowing tints from the clouds. Then the wild wooded cliffs, and pointed rocks looking almost black against the background of snow and ice rising up, and up, and up its sharpest lines, softened till it ended in the rugged serrated horizon.

High up in the heavens, where in the rifts the sky could be seen, it was of a light cerulean blue, pure, ethereal, the grey clouds in bars and piles, still the same shaped bars of cloud lower down; but here the rifts of sky were of an ineffably lovely tint of pale sea green, and the clouds were purple, while all along the horizon the naked sky was of the deepest orange, almost approaching to crimson, all aglow with light.

Even as we gazed, a change came over the spirit of the scene; for the green rifts changed to a milky white, with a hazy blush of crimson floating over it, borrowed from the splendour beneath and beyond.

Still another change: the rifts away to the north and the south had all turned to sea green, and right in the east, when we look round, we find that the higher clouds that erst were grey and dull, are now a burning bronze and crimson.

Then the clouds kept borrowing each other’s colours at second hand. But at last crimson and yellow changed to lurid bronze and purple, then to grey and to darker grey, and soon, out from the only green rift left, shone a pale star.

It is night.

The air is chill and cold. Birds – strange, wild, low-flying creatures whose names we know not – hurry past us, or over us, to their eeries in some distant rock, and the silence is unbroken save by the clunk-clank – clunk-clank – of the oars in the rowlocks.

Jill is leaning against me, and I feel him shiver slightly.

“Jill,” I say, “you’re not well, old man.”

“Oh yes, brother, I’m well enough.”

“But you’re not downright, jolly well.”

“I feel a trifle shivery, that’s all, brother. I had an ugly dream; and besides, I don’t think I’ve quite recovered my sea-bath yet.”

“Look ’ee here, sir,” said Ritchie. “That young man isn’t quite the thing. Now I’m going to prescribe. He’s going to bed down among the dogs, and what’s more, he’s going to sleep. He’ll have a tot o’ rum as medicine. There are times, gentlemen, when such a thing may do good. Now’s one o’ them. And if he doesn’t wake up early in the morning his old self, then my name isn’t Ted Ritchie.”

I left my brother in Ritchie’s hands, and soon he had him snug in bed.

There was more moonlight to-night, but still the moon had a struggle for it.

I happened to be looking behind me towards the bay where we had left the good old Salamander, and Ritchie was looking too – both thinking the same thoughts perhaps – when suddenly a huge pear-shaped column of fire-rays shot up into the sky, then gradually died away. We spoke not, but listened, till over the water came a dull crashing rumble, the like of which I had never heard before. The sound died away among the hills like thunder.

“She’s gone,” said one of the men, and for a few moments all lay on their oars.

“Ay, right enough,” said Ritchie, “and there’s more’n a score o’ them sea-fiends gone with her, I’ll warrant.

“It’s the gunpowder we were taking to Honolulu that’s done it,” he continued.

“A pity,” I said, “we did not throw that overboard.”

“I dunno so much about that. Those Indian savages would have had to die sometime. It’s just as well now, as before they do more mischief.”

I laughed.

“That is queer philosophy,” I said; “we should never do evil, nor wish for evil, that good may come. I wonder how they managed it.”

“Why, sir, they’re as inquisitive as monkeys – they be. They would find out a barrel and take it for rum. Off would come the lid, one fellow holding the light. A dozen hands would be plunged in, and they would taste the black stuff. Well, they wouldn’t like it, and one savage would pitch a handful at the other. That would begin the fun. We’ve just heard how it ended. Well, gentlemen, I feel a sort of satisfied now, for blame me if I half liked the idea of leaving our old bones there for these savages to pick at.”

A red gleam now illumined the sky where we had noticed the flash; it was evident the old Salamander was on fire, and burning fast and furiously.

“Now, then,” I said presently, “I’ll take the first watch, Ritchie. You turn in there. You go to the dogs with Jill.”

“Ay, sir; and I’ll sleep sound now I’ve seen the last of my dear old ship.”

As the night wore on I was concerned to notice the moon become obscured. Although on the water there was not a puff of wind, still, high over head, the clouds were hurrying over the sky from east to west. Something was coming, but I did not care to wake Ritchie yet. He needed all the rest he could get, having been awake so long and working so hard.

It grew very dark now, and I could not see the other boats, though they must have been close at hand. We had kept well together on purpose, for we cared not to show signal lights.

Presently there came a puff of wind. Then almost before words could describe it, a snow-squall. It was the spring of the year, but indeed even during summer, in this dreary region, snow-storms are not uncommon.

How soundly Ritchie slept! There was hail rattling on the canvas over him, and there had been one or two sharp peals of thunder also, but still he slumbered on. The men could make no headway against the storm; in fact we must have been losing way considerably, for the poor fellows were tired, and, even before the squall, had been nodding at their oars. Still they would not give in, nor give up. By and by came the lull, but the wind still blew with a good deal of force, and the snow was blinding.

“In oars,” I said, “and get the sail up now; we’ll tack a bit.”

We did so, reaching well over on both sides, as far as we thought was safe; the snow continuing thick and fast. Presently another squall came. And so on and off for many long hours. I would not think of waking Ritchie, for I felt very fresh and fit for duty, and what could he do even if up. I allowed the men to sleep, two at a time, for an hour or so. Thus I managed to keep them fresh also.

The snow left off at last, and the sky cleared a little, but the wind kept up and blew from the same quarter. Just at grey daylight in the morning Ritchie threw off his tarpaulin and sat up, looking dazed for a moment or two.

“My dear young sir, I’m ashamed of myself,” he said, looking at his watch; “but where in the world are we?”

“No where that I know of; it has been blowing and snowing all night long, and now we’re close under some wooded cliffs, and the other boats are not in sight.”

“This is bad,” said Ritchie.

I had taken off my jacket, and was wringing the sleeves when Jill appeared.

“I’m as fresh as a daisy,” he said; “but what a time I must have slept! Are we nearly at Sandy Point?”

We laughed.

“Sandy Point, my dear sir; you won’t see Sandy Point for a week if it keeps on like this.”

“Well, we’ll have breakfast, I suppose. I could eat a hunter.”

“Good sign. We’ll all join you.”

By and by Ritchie stood up and had a good look round.

“I know where we are. I’ve been here before in happier times. We’ll run in shore and rest. No good trying to beat up against this breeze. The other boats sail more closely to the wind, and I hope by this time they are well on to Froward Reach, and round the corner.”

The boat was now put about, and in a few minutes we found ourselves in a bay, and sheltered cove off the bay.

At another time and under happier auspices we could have afforded to admire the scenery around us. At first glance, had you been there, you might have fancied yourself in some lovely glen in the wilds of Scotland or Wales. That is so long as your glance did not go too high, away up to the hills of everlasting snow. But all about us, except a few yards of shore, was wood and forest, among the trees being several such as the beech – just breaking into bud – with which the English eye is familiar. Here, too, were ferns and mosses such as we had seen growing in the woods and sylvan dells at home.

We had landed, as I have said, in a cove off the bay, and this was really the mouth of a little river, very silent here and very deep, but a little more inland hurrying along over its stony bed with a noise like thunder. It was doubtless fed by the melting snows of the Cordilleras.

Jill and I left the men to draw up the boat while we took a little ramble into the interior, promising Ritchie not to go beyond hail. We wanted to stretch our legs and get fully awakened.

Jill was his old self again, so I was happy accordingly.

“How’s all this going to end, Jill?” I said.

“I don’t know,” replied Jill; “but I suppose we might as well be here as anywhere else.”

“Certainly; if those interesting savages do not give us more trouble.”

“Oh, bother take them; never mind. We gave them such a dose yesterday they’ll hardly want another.”

“Jill,” I said, “look!”

We had come to a bit of clearing on the banks of the river, and close by a huge tree were the remains of a fire. The ground round it, too, was well beaten down, as if people had lately been round it.

“Strange!” said Jill, “and no one seems about.”

I took up two half-burned branches. The ends were covered with ashes and looked cold. I struck them together, sparks flew out!

“Jill,” I said, “we’ll go back now. The Indians are near us now.”

Chapter Sixteen

A State of Siege

We hastened back to give Ritchie the news.

If we had expected he would exhibit any surprise we were mistaken.

“It’s no more’n I expected,” he said quietly.

“Perhaps,” I hazarded, “these are friendly Fuegians?”

“I never met ’em,” he replied. “Must be some new tribe. All that ever I saw could be friendly enough when driving a good bargain, and scraping the butter all to their own side of the dish. Their motto is, ‘Take all we can get, and take it anyhow.’ My dear lad,” he continued, “could anything be handier for these savages than to collar a white man. He is dressed, and has nick-nacks in his pocket; well, they want the dress and the nick-nacks, for you see they don’t have any clothes of their own worth mentioning; then the body of the white man comes in handy for a side-dish. They think no more of killing a white man than they do of sending an arrow through the heart of a guanaco. No, never trust a Fuegian farther than you can fling him, and that’d be over the cliff if I had all my will.”

Hark! There was a crashing sound among the bushes not far off. I ran to my gun. So did Jill. But Ritchie never moved step nor muscle, at which I was at first a little surprised. Not, however, when a guanaco appeared in the clearing not far off, and had a long-necked look at us.

“Don’t fire!” he cried. “We’re not ready for the niggers yet.”

“Didn’t you fancy,” I asked, “that the savages were on us when you heard the bushes crackling?”

“That I didn’t. They don’t come like that. You don’t see them, and you never hear them. No, they’re all from home. That fire was lit last night, and left burning. But they’ll come back. So now to get ready. You see, young gentlemen, the gentry very likely look upon the glen and woods round here as a kind of happy hunting-ground. There is fish in the river, too, and fish in the bay. So, though it may be days before they come, we may as well cook their dinner in time.”

“But surely we won’t be here for days?”

“Maybe not. But it’s just as likely to be days as not. It all depends.”

As he spoke, Ritchie advanced some little distance to the right, beckoning us to follow.

He drew the bushes aside from the foot of the rock, and lo! the entrance to a large cave.

“It’s still there, you see,” said Ritchie. “Not a bit altered since I was here before. No; caves are like keyholes, they never fly away.”

He entered, and we followed, the men holding the branches aside to admit the light. The place was large and roomy, and evidently constantly inhabited. Here were the remains of a fire, here a heap of bones, and here again a bed of dry leaves.

The most of the forenoon was spent in preparing our fortifications. The bushes were cut down from the front, admitting light and air, and a bulwark of small tree trunks was built in front, the boat being hauled inside. There was plenty of fallen wood about, so that our work was by no means difficult.

After all had been done that could be done, we had nothing to do but watch and wait.

Watch and wait for the wind to change and give us a chance, or for the foe to come.

I do not know anything more irksome than such a position. When there is danger ahead, it is human nature to wish to face it at once and be done with it. But in this case we did not know whence the danger would come, nor what would be its precise character when it did come.

All that day – and a dreary one it was – the wind blew steadily from the east, whitening the waves, and moaning mournfully through the trees in the forest around us. We kept a good outlook on the Reach for any steamer or ship that might be passing, but none appeared.

The sun set in a gloomy sky to-night, and the moon failed to show. This was no disadvantage. Our sentry was set, and beside him the two dogs kept watch and ward. We lay down armed all in the dark, Jill and I side by side, on our couches of leaves. I think Ritchie began to tell a story, and I set myself to listen, but exhausted Nature would assert herself, and I was soon hard and fast asleep. Nor did I waken till broad daylight was streaming in at the mouth of the cave.