The Jungle Trail/Chapter 10

OW it was black midnight without moon. The torch glowed feebly; the fire in the clearing had been rekindled and its light flooded the hut. Botello and Ruiz spoke in whispers, while Inez, sitting between them, listened.

"Escape we must!" Ruiz said. "Warn De Balboa we must! Were we free now, we'd have but a few hours start of them."

"But how—" Botello asked.

"Here is where wit and strategy come in, good friend. I have studied natives somewhat. They are curious individuals. Do you stand at one side of the door, good Bartolmeo, and be ready to do your part at the proper time."

Botello stood at one side of the door. Ruiz went to the doorway and looked out. One of the native guards was asleep; the other paced back and forth ten feet away.

Down upon his knees in the dirt of the doorway went Ruiz, and his hand fumbled at his belt. The guard stopped pacing to watch. Ruiz removed his hand, chuckled—and two dice fell at his feet. Now he bent forward, paying no attention to the guard, and cast the dice. He chuckled again, picked them up, cast again. The guard walked closer, and Botello kept to the shadows. The light of the fire showed the guard that here was an insane Spaniard playing with something the like of which the native never had seen before. Perchance it was bad medicine the Spaniard was making. Perhaps kneeling in the dirt and hurling little white cubes and chuckling was a religious rite, an invocation to the Spaniard's gods to assist him and deliver him from the heathen.

The guard stepped nearer and voiced guttural phrases, but Ruiz did not even look up at him. He cast the dice again, stretched forward and regarded them gravely. Then he chuckled once more, this time in an excited manner, and for the first time looked up at the guard, and then pointed down at the dice.

The guard bent over to see. And Botello sprang!

Long before Botello had guessed Ruiz's plan. And when he sprang his hands clasped the native's throat and pressed with all their strength, and his knee went into the small of the savage's back and remained there. A wrench, and the guard was inside the hut; another moment of choking, and he was unconscious. Botello took his spear and stone knife.

"Quickly, my friend!" Ruiz whispered.

He grasped Inez by the hand. With Ruiz in the lead they sprang from the hut into the bright light of the clearing. There was quick action now. As Botello dashed with Inez to the edge of the jungle, Ruiz caught the spear from his hand. He ran to the sleeping guard and thrust the weapon home, taking his spear.

It was less than a hundred feet to the blackness of the jungle's edge, yet it seemed leagues to the fugitives. Every second they expected an uproar behind them, swift pursuit. Breathlessly they ran over the rough ground, stumbling over roots and creepers, ready for quick work if they encountered a native sentinel. On and on—and then the refuge of the blackness was reached!

There was no time now to move forward with caution and keep far from the trails. Botello and Ruiz shielded Inez between them as they fought the undergrowth, and presently they came to the main jungle trail and hurried along it. The trail was narrow, overgrown in places—it was a continual struggle to keep in it and make progress. In time they reached the crest of a slope and paused for a moment to look back. In the distance was the reflection of the fire, and it seemed they could hear savage shouts.

Nor was there any sparing of Inez now. De Balboa was to be saved, and none could be spared in the saving. When the dawn came they had gone some distance, yet not so much that they felt satisfaction. There always was danger of meeting hostile natives. And the band behind them, they knew, would make such speed through country familiar to them that they would gain rapidly.

So on they went through the morning, not stopping to rest or eat, drinking water from their gourds when they must, the perspiration streaming from them, hands and faces scratched by thorns and rough brush, feet sore and weary. At times Botello carried Inez in his arms, and at times he let Ruiz carry her. At the top of every hill they looked behind as far as possible, searching for signs that would tell them a large body of men was passing through the jungle.

"Perchance they have not sent runners out after us," Ruiz said. "They may think we went toward Antigua."

"Garabito would know better than that," replied Botello.

"Then they would not believe we would keep to the trail. They'd think we penetrated the jungle to hide."

"Yet, once on the trail, they will make all speed possible. They must strike De Balboa, the cacique knows, before the enthusiasm of his savages dies."

Now they struck a stretch of bad country where the trail scarcely could be followed. Through it they toiled, carrying Inez half the time, and by mid-afternoon they reached the crest of another slope. There they paused to rest and to look backward again.

"Dios!" Ruiz cried.

A mile behind them the jungle grass waved as if driven by a hurricane, and there was not a breath of wind. The sun flashed from the tips of spears. The grass ripples ran forward toward the slope—here and there natives appeared, leading the tribe, spying out the land.

"They must have traveled like the wind," Ruiz said.

"And so must we!"

Even as he spoke, Botello picked Inez up again and ran down the slope. Before them was a narrow valley almost free of tropical growth, and beyond that was another hill where the dense jungle began again. To reach the side of the hill was their endeavor, and there to bear away to one side and seek a hiding-place. It seemed impossible for them to maintain the lead of the savages and reach De Balboa in time to warn him. At least they had tried—it was honorable to think only of saving themselves now.

The bare valley was half a mile wide, and they rushed across it as speedily as possible, breathing in gasps, their hearts pounding at their ribs. Before they reached the jungle's edge they heard a chorus of cries behind them, and, looking backward, saw that they had been observed. There seemed but a small chance of escape now, yet there was some hope left. Once in that dense undergrowth, they could turn either to right or left, and there were a multitude of places where three could hide.

They reached the protecting growth, and there they paused a moment to glance behind. They saw the tribesmen gathering in the valley, saw them stop and collect in groups, and then begin to maneuver.

"What means that?" Botello exclaimed.

The answer came from the other direction—came from half a thousand savage throats—and down the side of the hill through the brush came painted warriors, rank upon rank.

"We are trapped!" Ruiz cried. "I know those tall fellows, good Bartolmeo. They are the Great Cacique's men! They are here to form junction with these others and aid in exterminating De Balboa. We are done, comrade—we are between the two forces! We can but die like men!"

Again they stood with backs against a rock and Inez crouching at their feet behind them. Nearer and nearer the Great Cacique's men approached, and those in the valley held their positions. The juncture of the two forces was to be made there in the open, they supposed. Spears in hand they stood, ready to sell their lives as clearly as the god of battle willed. They had exchanged glances regarding Inez, and that was enough—she would not be left to grace the hut of a cacique.

The Great Cacique's first line of warriors was within fifty yards now. Botello glanced around again, but there seemed no way to escape to a hiding-place. The brush to one side cracked—they whirled with spears uplifted. The head of a native appeared. A gasp sounded.

"Master! Master!" a voice called.

The native fell at Botello's feet; it was Tarama.

"To see you again—and the señora—and your friend!" he cried. "You did not think ill of me, master? I did what I thought was best—as you had instructed me to do."

"Tamara! What mean you?" Botello demanded, with all trust in the native, though Ruiz held spear ready. "Quick! You have scant time to tell your story. Perchance you can die with us as becomes a brave man!"

"Die, master? You are safe—do you not understand?"

"Speak—speak!"

"When I left you I was taken captive, master. I heard then of a conspiracy. It was two days before I could escape, and then I knew you would have continued your journey. And what had you told me often, master? You had said a good soldier thinks always of the great majority, had you not? That the army, the king's cause, came before relatives or friends, or even life! So I carried the warning, master—"

"The warning—" Botello cried.

"First to the Great Cacique, who is friendly with De Balboa. He knew naught of the conspiracy, and sent his warriors to punish these other tribesmen and stop it. And then I hurried on to the camp on the Great South Sea. Hence the Great Cacique's warriors have come in time to save you."

"Hah! And if they had not—"

"Yet would you have been saved, master mine! For—look to the right, master! What see you there? Has Tamara done well?"

And then the cry of Botello rang out so that it could be heard by the savages in the valley below, and the cry of Ruiz echoed his, and Inez clapped her hands for sudden gladness, thinking of no other immediate way to express it.

For, to the right, the sun tried hard to glisten from the tarnished breastplates of good men of Spain, caballeros in tatters and rags, but with blades clean and sharp: and at their head strode one like a king, who threw wide his arms in greeting and smiled beneath his great mustache at sight of Bartolmeo Botello.

"Hah, comrade! Thrice welcome! And what is it I hear told of how you stole a bride?"

Then the great De Balboa held a laughing, sobbing, begrimed, and weary caballero in his strong arms.

A sunset of red and gold!

Bartolmeo Botello stood beneath a giant palm, Inez clasped in his arms. Below them were the scattered huts of De Balboa's men and his ship-yard on the shore of the Rio Sabanas, where it flowed into the Great South Sea the leader had found. In the distance that sea gleamed in the dying sun.

"It was my wish to be here at this time, beloved," Botello said in a low voice. "I was spared the killing of him, yet once he was an honorable caballero, and I could not watch him swing on the gallows even for treason."

He stooped and touched her lips with his, glad to see that the smiles and dimples already were coming back into the face he loved so well. Three days had they been in De Balboa's camp, and already she was beloved of all.

And when he raised his head again he saw a man toiling up the slope toward him. Botello bent forward and shaded his eyes against the dying sun.

"’Tis Felipe!" he cried. "’Tis Fray Felipe, beloved! Now is my cup of happiness full!"

The fray raised his hands in blessing.

"I am glad, my son, that you have been spared, together with your bride and your friend," he said. "Honorable men generally win through, I find. I have but come from listening to the pleadings of a dishonorable one for mercy. In the wilderness I found the bodies of Señor Bonilla and his daughter—suicides. Such is the end of treason! The governor sent me out to stay this uprising, since I have some small influence with the natives. I have worked hard, first with the tribes near to Antigua, and so was delayed reaching the Great South Sea. I was overjoyed when they told me you were here, and made haste to greet you. For I bear messages—"

"Messages?" Botello asked.

"Two, señor. One is from his excellency, who bids me tell you he will welcome you royally to Antigua. His one regret, he says, is that you did not slay Señor Garabito when you had your little duel. The other is from an old man, Señor Malpartida. 'Tell my daughter and my new son that my arms are open and awaiting them,' he said. 'I wait the day of their return.’"

Fray Felipe was making his way slowly back down the hill. The dusk was deepening. On the bank of the river a fire had been lighted.

"It seems we have been in peril for an age, beloved," Botello said.

He looked down upon the mean huts, at the neighboring swamp, at the dense jungle. Dank and dirty it looked after Seville—even after Antigua. But he knew brave and loyal hearts were there, though the buildings were but huts with floors of earth, and food was not of the best, and there was small comfort for either man or tender woman. Dirty and dank it looked, and yet—

"Now we are in paradise!" he affirmed and clasped his bride to him again.

Which shows that everything depends upon the view-point, after all.