Iraçéma: the Honey-lips, a Legend of Brazil/Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI.
The Tabajára warriors, rushing to the Taba, awaited the enemy in part of the Caiçára or Curral.[1]
The foe not coming, they went forth to seek him.
They beat the forests all around and scoured the plains. There was no trace of the Pytiguáras; yet the well-known War-boom of the Shell from the shores had sounded in the ears of the mountain braves. Of this none doubted.
Irapúam suspected that it was a stratagem of the daughter of Araken to save the stranger, and he went straight to the wigwam of the Pagé; as the Guará[2] runs along the skirts of the forest when following the trail of the escaping prey, so did the wrathful warrior hurry his steps.
Araken saw the great Tabajára chief enter his cabin, but he did not move. Sitting on his hammock with crossed legs, he was giving ear to Iraçéma. The maiden related the events of the evening; beholding the sinister countenance of Irapúam, she sprang to her bow and placed herself by the white warrior՚s side.
Martim put her gently away and advanced a few steps.
The protection with which the Tabajára maid surrounded him, a warrior, annoyed him.
"Araken! the vengeance of the Tabajáras demands the white warrior; Irapúam comes to fetch him."
"The Guest is the beloved of Tupan; who so molests the Stranger shall hear the voice of his Thunder."
"It is the Stranger who has offended Tupan, robbing him of his Virgin who keeps the dreams of the Juréma draught."
"The mouth of Irapúam lies like the hiss of the Giboia,"[3] exclaimed Iraçéma.
Martim said—
"Irapúam is vile, and unworthy to be the Chief of braves."
The Pagé spoke slow and solemnly—
"If the Virgin has yielded the flower of her Chastity to the white warrior, she will die; but the Guest of Tupan is sacred; none shall touch him; all shall serve him."
Irapúam raged; his hoarse growl rumbled within his muscular chest like the noise made by the Sucury[4] in the depths of the river.
"The wrath of Irapúam՚s anger will not let him hearken to the old Pagé! It will fall upon him if he dare to withdraw the Stranger from the vengeance of the Tabajaras."
At this moment the venerable Andíra, brother of the Pagé, entered the cabin. He grasped the terrible tomahawk, and a still more terrible fury gleamed in his eyes.
"The vampire comes to suck Irapúam՚s blood, if indeed it is blood and not honey[5] that runs in the veins of him who dares to threaten the old Pagé in his wigwam."
Araken stayed his brother.
"Peace and silence, Andíra !"
The Pagé raised his tall thin stature, and appeared like the angry viper[6] who crouches on the ground the better to spring upon his victim. His wrinkles waxed deeper, whilst his shrunken lips displayed his white and sharpened teeth.
"Let Irapúam venture one step more, and the wrath of Tupan shall crush him with the weight of this lean and withered hand!"
"At this moment Tupan is not with the Pagé," replied the Chief.
The Pagé laughed, and the sinister laugh seemed to roll round the enclosure like the bark of the Ariranha.[7]
"Hear his thunder,[8] and let the warrior՚s soul tremble as the earth in its depths!"
Araken pronouncing these terrible words, advanced to the middle of the wigwam. There he lifted up a great stone and stamped with force upon the ground, which suddenly clave asunder. A frightful noise, which seemed torn from the bowels of the earth, issued out from the dark cavern.
Irapúam neither trembled nor turned pale, but he felt his sight growing dim and his lips lost their power of speech.
"The Lord of Thunder is for the Pagé; the Lord of War will be for Irapúam."
The grim warrior left the wigwam, and soon his mighty form disappeared in the twilight.
The Pagé and his brother resumed their conversation in the doorway.
Martim, still surprised at what he had beheld, could not take his eyes off the deep cavern, which the stamp of the old Pagé had opened in the ground. A dull sound, like the distant boom of the waves breaking upon the shore, still echoed through the depths.
The Christian warrior reflected; he could not believe that the God of the Tabajáras had given such immense power to his priest.
Araken perceiving what was passing in the mind of the stranger, lit the Caximbo and seized the Maracá, or mystic rattle.
"It is time," he said, "to appease the wrath of Tupan and to hush the voice of his thunder."
So saying he left the cabin.
Iraçéma then approached the youth with laughing mouth and eyes sparkling with joy.
"The heart of Iraçéma is like the rice-plant, glad in the waves of the river.[9] None can hurt the white warrior in the wigwam of Araken."
"Keep away from the enemy, Tabajára maid," replied the stranger in a harsh voice. And retiring quickly to the opposite side of the wigwam, he hid his face from the tender complaining looks of the virgin.
"What has Iraçéma done that the white warrior should turn away his eyes from her as if she were the worm of the earth?"
The maiden՚s words, gently whispered, reached Martim's heart. Thus whisper the murmurs of the breeze in the fan-leaves of the palm-tree. The youth felt anger against himself and sorrow for her.
"Dost thou not hear, beautiful virgin?" exclaimed he, pointing to the speaking cave.
"It is the voice of Tupan!"
"Thy god speaks by the mouth of his Pagé : If the virgin of Tupan yield to the stranger the flower of her chastity, she shall die."
Iraçéma hung her head.
"It is not the voice of Tupan that the pale-faced warrior hears, but the song of the white virgin that calls to him."
Suddenly the strange sounds which came from the depths of the earth ceased, and there was so deep a silence in the wigwam, that the pulses throbbing through the warrior՚s veins and the sighs that trembled on the virgin՚s lips were heard.
- ↑ Caiçara, from cai, a bit of burnt wood, and the desinence çara, what is or is made. "What is made of burnt wood," i.e., a strong enclosure of pointed stakes—a Curral.
- ↑ Guará, a wild dog, the Brazilian wolf. The word decomposed with g, the relative u, to eat, and ara for a, the emphatic desinence is g-u-ára, "comedor," or "voracious eater."
- ↑ Giboia, the wild people so called the boa-constrictor, the largest snake in the Brazils, which can easily swallow a stag. The word comes from gi, a hatchet, and boia, any snake (the root of our "boa"), because the serpent strikes with its fangs like the blow of a hatchet.
- ↑ Sucury or Sucurin, a gigantic serpent which lies in deep rivers, and can swallow an ox. The word comes from suu, an animal, and cury or curu, a snorter, "the snorting or hissing beast."
- ↑ Si é que tens sangue e não mel nas veias. The meaning of the word Irapúam is "round honey." It must be remembered that Irapúam taunted Andira farther back about his name, which means "old vampire," and this was his retort.
- ↑ In the original Caninana.
- ↑ Ariranha, the largest species of Brazilian otter.
- ↑ Ouve seu trovão. This was a stratagem practised by the Pagés to rule their votaries by terror. The hut was built upon a rock which contained a subterraneous passage, communicating by a narrow aperture with the plain. Araken had taken the precaution to block up the two entrances with stones, and thus to hide them from the people. Removing one stone from each end caused the air to rush through the narrow spiral channel with a loud noise, as the sea-shell murmurs when applied to the ear.
- ↑ In the original abati, or abaty n՚agua. Abati is rice, which thrives when in water, and which Iraçéma used as a symbol of her joy.
This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content.
| Original: |
This work was published before January 1, 1930, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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| Translation: |
This work was published before January 1, 1930, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse |
