Page:Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.djvu/279

Rh and doubling himself inside, he braced his back, and drove both legs through the hammock, striking his feet violently against the ground; his whole body passed through. His struggles were dreadful. Suddenly the mass of bodies on the floor rolled against Captain D'Yriarte's bed, which broke down with a crash, and, with a fever upon him, he was obliged to scramble out of the way. In the interval of one of the most violent struggles, we heard a strange idiotic noise, which seemed like an attempt to crow. The Indians who crowded the hut laughed; and Dr. Drivon was so indignant at their heartlessness, that he seized a club and drove them all out of doors. An old naked African, who had been a slave at Balize, and had lost his own language without acquiring much of any other, returned with a bunch of feathers, which he wished to stick in the captain's nose and set fire to, saying it was the remedy of his country; but the doctor showed him his stick, and he retreated.

The convulsions continued for three hours, during which time the doctor considered the captain's situation very critical. The old woman persisted that the devil was in him, and would not give him up, and that he must die; and I could not but think of his young wife, who was sleeping a few miles off, unconscious of the calamity that threatened her. The fit was brought on, as the doctor said, by anxiety and distress of mind occasioned by his unfortunate voyage, and particularly by the mutiny of his crew. At eleven o'clock he fell asleep, and now we learned the cause of the strange noise which had affected us so unpleasantly. Tom was just preparing to go on board the vessel, when the African ran down to the shore, and told him that the captain was at the hut drunk. Tom, being himself in that state, felt that it was his duty to look after the captain; but he had just bought a parrot, for which he had paid a dollar, and, afraid to trust him in other hands, hauled his baggy shirt a foot more out of his trousers, and thrust the parrot into his bosom, almost smothering it with his neckcloth. The parrot, indignant at this confinement, was driving his beak constantly into Tom's breast, which was scarified and covered with blood; and once, when Tom thought it was going too far, he put his hand inside and pinched it, which produced the extraordinary sounds we had heard.

In a little while Tom and Darkey got the Indians to relieve them, and went out to drink the captain's health. On their return they took their places on the ground, one on each side of their commander. I threw myself into the broken hammock; and Dr. Drivon, charging them, if the captain awoke, not to say anything that could agitate him, went off to another hut.