Call of the Caribbean/Chapter 7
VII.
JACK STUART was awake before me, and I grumbled at making preparations for the day’s march. It was a sullen, stifling morning, with the heat of a glaring sun dissipating the night’s damp. Our canopy of lofty trees kept off the direct light of the sun, but underneath the branches the air was void of life.
In spite of this, the lad insisted on pushing ahead. We had calculated that we were then above the source of.the Jordan, and he wished to make a circular cast across the hills. Johnny Gorai, like myself, was unwilling to go forward.
“Look here, Jack,” I said firmly. “We haven’t come across a trace of your missing city. If it ever existed, it is buried under this monstrous growth. We haven’t a notion of where to go. Our food supply is half gone and”
“But we can live on the stuff all around us,” he protested. “Come, old man. We must give the Quiros city a fair trial—make a thorough survey of the hills hereabouts.”
“We can’t see a hundred yards ahead of us.”
“If you and Johnny Gorai want to go back” he said stiffly.
“You know blooming well I won’t leave you, Jack,” I sighed.
And then Mary dropped among us. I had christened her Mary after Johnny Gorai’s first speech, having no means of knowing her real name. For that matter, I don’t think she had any. And I say she dropped among us, quite truthfully. She did—from the branch of an overhanging tree, as silently as she had left us.
The face of the boy brightened at sight of the slim woman who smiled at him mischievously.
“Good morning, Mary,” he said, with the gravity of an Englishman.
By way of answer she took a flower from her circlet and placed it in his hair. She did this smilingly, and by the simple action I understood that she claimed him for a friend. Actions mean much among people who live close to the earth. Stuart blushed. I felt rather sorry she had not honored me, also.
It was clear to me before long, however, that Mary’s interest did not extend to me. She tripped along by the lad’s side as we pushed ahead through the bush. Every now and then she touched the sleeve of his shirt, or his cartridge bandoleer curiously.
She was as artlessly happy as a kitten with a new playmate. And I don’t think Stuart, in spite of his air of gravity, was much less pleased with her. She made a pretty sight, the sunlight playing across her bright face and her tangle of dark hair. And she was talking to him all the time, laughing and chattering like an excited bird.
Occasionally Mary would point out things among the trees which we did not see. Then Stuart would laugh at her, and she would skip at the sound of it. The girl was a child, playful and careless as an animal. It seemed to make no difference to her where we went. But it did to me.
“Look here, young man,” I said, after a while. “If you want to walk through the bush in a circle you can. But it won’t help you to find the Quiros city very much.”
A squint at the sun had shown me that we were beginning to do just that. It was natural enough, as Stuart was leading, and his attention seemed to be taken up mostly by Mary.
He halted at that, with an embarrassed laugh. We three looked about, into the tangle of the bush rather helplessly, I fancy. The girl watched us curiously, perched on a low limb of a breadfruit. I slipped my pack and sat beside her.
“I’m going to make a palaver, my lad,” I told him. “It’s time we tried to get some information from your comely flower girl.
“How?” he asked indifferently.
I placed the muzzle of my rifle gently under Johnny Gorai’s nose ring. He had seen me insert a cartridge previously, and he winced.
“Look here, Johnny Gorai,” I said plainly. “You do what I say. You make good fellow palaver along Mary, plenty quick. A big fellow bullet stops along this rifle. You do this, or you catch ’em bullet—understand?”
Where his own welfare was concerned our pilot and guide was quick of comprehension. An islander in those days had a whole-hearted respect for a gun, and had not yet learned how slow an Englishman is to shoot—judging others by themselves, I supose. I withdrew the rifle a foot from his facial ornament, and he began clucking to the girl.
Mary listened without much interest. Yet the fact that she listened showed that she understood much, if not all, of the islander’s gibberish.
“What name stop along her?” I suggested.
Johnny Gorai clucked for a moment. Mary stared at him blandly.
“A misfire, old man,” smiled Stuart, who was enjoying my irritation.
“What fellow tribe stop along her?” I demanded.
This time our interpreter’s effort made ah impression. The girl responded in a soft flow of sounds, as musical as the tinkle of a brook, and as meaningless to Johnny Gorai.
Then, accenting my observation with the gun muzzle, I inquired if there was a village of her people near at hand.
Mary flung out her shapely arms at that, in a gesture which plainly meant no such thing existed. Then she pointed to the trees, and drew her feet up under her on the branch, snuggling against the bole of the tree. It was pretty clear what she meant.
“If they are your new Jerusalem pilgrims, Jack,” I said dourly, “they seem to have become tree climbers.”
By painstaking work we got a certain amount of information from her. Mary was not alone in the interior of Santo. But there were no others of her kind. She lived with, and was provided for, by others. Who these others were, she did not make clear. They were certainly not the coast tribes, for they lived in the hills of Santo.
Her companions gave her food, attended to her wishes generally. They had brought her the calico which she had made into a dress. Mary would not take us to them. When Johnny Gorai asked her why, she pointed to the treetops, moving her hand quickly from branch to branch.
“What do you make of it?” Stuart asked me.
“It looks to me,” I said slowly, “as if Mary’s guardians were the tribes of the interior, who may or may not be dwarfs. Now we’ll hear what Johnny Gorai has to say about it.”
The rifle was called into play, and our pilot made a full confession. It seemed that the girl had been seen occasionally by men of the coast tribes. The young bucks had hunted for her a bit at first, until two or three had been found with arrows sticking from their throats. After that Mary had been let alone. She was watched jealously by the “small fellow boys” who held her in high esteem. She was nearly as adept as they at running through the trees.
“Long time,” he said, “ship come along Santo. White man and white Mary go along hills altogether.”
“That must have been the Quiros party!” cried Stuart. I stared at him blankly. How could that have been? It was hardly to be believed that white people had lived in the hills of Santo all these years. And Mary was not three hundred years old. Could she be a survivor of those who had come with Don Quiros?
A thought crossed my mind, of which I said nothing to Stuart. Later, it returned in greater force. But for the present the lad was filled with the idea of the Quiros city. He insisted on our pushing on.
To make greater speed, we gave portions of our packs to Johnny Gorai. We gave little heed to it at the time. But we had cause to regret it.