The Americans pulled up their horses, and Stephens drew a pistol.

"All right," he said. "We're going to be in this."

"Then pray begin by putting that pistol out of the way, there's a good fellow," said Major Walrond, the young man who had spoken to the half-caste. "We shall be very glad if you'll back us up. We want to get out of it without firing on them if we can."

"What's the row?"

"These Mestizos belong to the rebels, and are recruiting among the Indians; promising them all sorts of plunder, no doubt, and they rather think of practising on us for a start; want us to empty our pockets and game-bags, and give up our guns and ammunition. Look out, you fellows."

Seeing a reinforcement for the white men, yet not one that need be feared so far as they could see, the ruffians were becoming impatient, and one or two had c.o.c.ked their guns.

"Ride 'em down; use your whips, but for goodness' sake don't fire a shot while we're on this side of the boundary," said the senior officer hurriedly. "Bravo, Spencer; over with him"; for a subaltern had seized the rifle of one of the half-breeds and was wrenching it out of his hands. "Thank you, Mr. Stephens."

The last remark was occasioned by the American's felling with his pistol-stock an Indian who was taking aim at the Major. Then the white men began to hit out, shoulder to shoulder. The Indians were quickly overpowered, for they were more than half afraid of the guns they held, and, on these being wrested from them, fled to the nearest ravine. But the Mestizos were more of a handful. There had been five of them to begin with; the subaltern had disarmed one, and he had fled; Major Walrond had just knocked another down with his fist, and he lay unconscious; but the other three, artful enough to reflect that even if their opponents decided to fire on them, their guns were only charged with bird-shot, harmless at any appreciable distance, were running away with the evident intention of using their own ball-cartridges from some point of vantage.

Stephens' matter-of-fact Yankee way of looking at things now became a valuable a.s.set.

"_We're_ no British subjects," he said hurriedly, "and you'll not be to blame if we fire on these chaps"; and, pistol in hand, he spurred after one fugitive while Catherwood pursued a second. The third fired at Catherwood, the bullet carrying away his hat, but one of the subalterns was on him before he could load again, wrenched the rifle out of his hands, and gave him a complimentary tap on the head with the b.u.t.t thereof. The other two, seeing that the hors.e.m.e.n at least would have no scruple about using firearms, stopped when called upon to do so, and sullenly gave up their guns.

But that mile back to British territory seemed a most amazingly long one. The Carib fugitives had alarmed the neighbourhood, and knots of Indians were gathering, armed with bows and arrows, which they seemed desirous of using on the white men, for the two or three venomous lies circulated all in a moment by the Mestizos had soon swelled to two or three dozen; and to the Caribs, the opportune arrival of the two men on horseback was part of a deep-laid plot against their liberties.

"Shall we ride in and disperse them?" suggested Catherwood.

"Better not; it'll only make matters worse," said one of the Englishmen gloomily. "They'll let go with their bows if you do. I think we look fools enough as it is, sneaking along like this; better not make it any worse."

"No; we can't afford to have Guatemala declaring war against Great Britain," laughed Walrond. "If they attempt to shoot we must let them have it; but it mustn't be said that we fired first."

It was a queer procession; every man felt that he was cutting a hang-dog figure; he was not afraid of an arrow, but he was mortally afraid of looking ridiculous. All knew, too, that if serious trouble arose, the commanding officer would forbid their crossing the frontier any more, and there was no shooting to be had on their own side of it that could compare with that here.

"All right, my chickens," muttered Walrond at last; "if you follow us just fifty yards farther, we may be able to deal with you."

The fifty yards were covered; the white men were on their own ground again, but still the Indians--proudly indifferent to frontiers other than those recognised by their own tribe--followed at a distance of about forty paces, debating their tactics in low tones, and by no means unwilling to make a rush for the Englishmen and rob them of their guns.

"Now let's tickle them a little," said Major Walrond; and he turned sharply and sent a charge of small shot among the Indians. "Down, quick; 'ware arrows."

The two hors.e.m.e.n jumped out of their stirrups and fell on the gra.s.s, and the little shower of arrows pa.s.sed harmlessly over the heads of all. The other four officers fired in quick succession. This was too much for the Caribs, many of whom were peppered right painfully; and, with no further pretence at shooting, they turned and fled towards their village, leaving the white men masters of the field.

CHAPTER XI

A PRINCE'S ADVENTURES IN BRAZIL

Prince Adalbert of Prussia, a nephew of Friedrich Wilhelm III, is less remembered as a traveller than as a frequent visitor to this country, and one who sought to build up a German navy that should, in time, be an exact copy of our own. Yet, in his younger days, before he took seriously to sailoring, he led a restless, wandering life, and, in the course of about eighteen years, contrived to see almost every country in the world.

In 1842, when he was a little over thirty, he landed at Parahiba, in Northern Brazil, with a small suite of Prussian officers, determined to make a cross-country journey to the Andes and back. Needless to say, such a march promised no small amount of excitement and danger; for European settlements were few and far between, and the greater part of the inhabited regions were in the hands of Caribs and Guaranis, who, even where they were not savage and bloodthirsty, were usually so jealous of the intrusion of white men that they would offer every hindrance to their progress through the country.

The initial difficulty was the not uncommon one of obtaining guides.

Guides by the score--Indian, half-blood, Spanish and Italian--were ready enough to show the way to Caxias, two hundred and fifty miles distant; but the Prince happened to have an excellent chart of the country as far as even three hundred miles beyond that (to the other side of the Para River). But beyond the river no one had been or had any intention of going, for fear of the Indians, who were popularly supposed to number cannibalism among their other little eccentricities. Pa.s.sably good horses, however, were not hard to come by, and the little cavalcade crossed the first five or six hundred miles of plain and forest without mishap, and without seeing any other Indians than those who were mildly and agriculturally disposed.

But now they came to what looked like an untouched and absolutely impenetrable forest, where neither man nor horses could move unless a path was first cut; and to render this gloomy neighbourhood a little more uninviting, there appeared to be no dearth of jaguars, wild cats, and boa-constrictors. Several of the officers separated and, for a whole day, rode in every direction, exploring every possible curve and opening that might be the beginning of a road; losing themselves and each other a score of times. But at sundown, when all met at a prearranged spot, Count Oriolla--the last to arrive--triumphantly announced that he had found a winding path that showed signs of rare but comparatively recent use. He had traced this for a good ten miles, and it still promised to remain open and to lead "somewhere."

To a band of men who were young, strong, well armed, and romantically inclined, the prospect offered by this mysterious path was a delightful one, and by daybreak everyone was waiting and anxious to continue the journey. Count Oriolla led the way through various palm clumps and then alongside a wall of forest where every tree seemed to be linked inextricably to its neighbour by creepers and lianas; and, after some five miles of this, to a little wedge-like opening which continued in a sharp backward turn, and which no one but himself had noticed on the preceding day. For just a few yards this was so narrow that the horses could only move in single file, but it very quickly widened to the breadth of an ordinary country lane.

Close examination by the scientist of the party showed that it was a path chiefly of Nature's making; probably a dried-up watercourse which had been used by men and cattle at sufficiently frequent intervals to prevent the saplings, suckers, and undergrowth from becoming a serious obstruction.

Travelling very much at their ease, the Prince and his companions followed this road for about fifteen miles before stopping for the midday meal and siesta. In consequence of the great heat they usually all rested from twelve till four; but to-day Count Oriolla and Captain Bromberg preferred to walk on for a mile or two as soon as they had lunched, in order to see what possibilities the neighbourhood offered in the way of game, fruit, and water. A few hundred yards from the camp they came to a veritable cherry orchard on a small scale; a grove of tall trees laden with small black fruit and having leaves and bark precisely the same as those of the European cherry. The fruit was the "jabuticabas," or Brazilian cherry; the two young men tasted some "windfalls," and these were so promising that the Count urged his more active companion to climb one of the trunks and shake down a good supply.

For a sailor this was no difficulty; and Captain Bromberg was soon in the fork of a tree, rocking the branches vigorously, while the Count stowed the falling fruit in a small game-bag. Presently the Captain happened to peer down from his perch, and then, to his bewilderment, he saw that a third person had appeared on the scene. The Count was still on his knees, diligently filling the bag; while, unperceived by him, a tall Indian, armed with a spear, bow, and quiver, stood near him as motionless as a statue.

Bromberg at once swung himself down and dropped beside his friend, so suddenly that the Count sprang up in alarm, though the Indian betrayed no shadow of surprise. The Count, turning his head and finding himself face to face with a Carib, started back with a cry of astonishment and fumbled in his pocket for the pistol which he usually carried there; but the stranger's demeanour was so mild and amiable, that he at once felt ashamed of himself.

"Why don't you speak to him in Spanish?" said Bromberg; "no doubt he would understand."

The Count, himself half Spanish, spoke civilly to the Carib, who at once answered in that tongue, at the same time turning his spear-point to the ground in token of peace. He pointed to the end of the grove of fruit trees.

"That is where I live, gentlemen"; and for the first time they noticed a thin column of smoke rising from a hut or tent a couple of hundred yards away.

"Is there an Indian village here then?" asked the Count.

"Nearly a mile farther on; I and my parents keep an inn outside it."

The outlook seemed promising, and the Count at once asked as to the likelihood of their finding suitable guides.

"You want to go by way of Santaren? Yes; any of us will guide you as far as there, or even to the Madeira River. But we should not choose to go any farther, for we are ill friends with the Guaranis just now; nor would you do well to venture far up the Amazon; between Indians, reptiles, and _tigres_, your lives would never be safe."

The two officers laughed; and the Count, giving their new acquaintance a drop of brandy from his flask in token of good will, easily persuaded him to return with them to the spot where they had left their companions.

The Prince at once asked to be conducted to the village. This consisted of a very picturesque street of palm-thatched huts, whose owners looked cleaner, more robust, and more thriving than any Indians Prince Adalbert had seen. A deputation, consisting of two chiefs and a native Catholic priest, came to bid the new-comers welcome, and begged them to accept the hospitality of the village for as long as it might suit them. They confirmed what the other Indian had said: the way was safe enough and agreeable enough as far as the confluence of the Amazon and Madeira, but no farther.

On learning that the white men would pa.s.s that night in the village, everyone was resolved to make the stay an entertaining one. The visitors were shown the parish church, school, stores, etc., and eventually led to the older chief's house for an elaborate meal of fish, turtle-eggs, mushrooms, venison, partridges, and stewed monkey, with fruit jellies, cakes, and native beer. The hut was neatly furnished with cane-seated benches or lounges; and--not always to the guests' greater comfort--a puma, various snakes, a couple of monkeys, and three parrots, all very tame, wandered about the place at will.

Soon after supper, while Prince Adalbert smoked with the chiefs and the padre, he unconsciously committed a very serious breach of local etiquette. Attracted by the great size and artistic workmanship of two bows that stood against the wall close by him, he leant forward and took up one to examine it more closely. Immediately a heart-rending scream rose from the only woman present--the cacique's widowed mother--who, springing forward, s.n.a.t.c.hed the weapon from the stranger's hand and replaced it with great care and reverence.

The courtier-instinct of the Prussian officers was naturally scandalised, the cacique remained perfectly still, though he looked very uncomfortable, and said something in dialect to his mother that appeared to be a gentle reproach; while the Indian padre, whose education had brought him more in touch with white men and their notions of hospitality, hastened politely to explain and apologise.

The bows, he said, were the last weapons used by the woman's late husband, and it was the custom of the tribe to regard such things as extremely sacred; no one but the deceased's widow or eldest son might so much as touch them or stand within a pace of them. The Prince was, of course, too much a man of the world to feel any annoyance, and quickly put his entertainers at their ease again by expressing keen interest in the customs peculiar to the Caribs; and this led to the cacique's inviting him to witness a dance which was being arranged in his honour. He led the way to the public square or _plaza_, which was now illuminated by a symmetrical arrangement of torches and a huge bonfire. As soon as all were seated under a canopy, the cacique struck a gong, and, from every corner of the square, the young men of the tribe appeared, each armed with a blunted spear and a round wooden shield; and, at a second beat of the gong, all these began an awkward, waddling march round and round the fire. This had gone on for some minutes when, with a roar that was a splendid imitation of a bull's bellowing, a man sprang up from the ground and, with head down, pretended to run at full charge through the procession. The march stopped instantly, every man turned his spear on the disturber, and then followed a really admirable pantomime of a bull-fight, which ended in the vanquishing and pretended death of the "bull."

In the morning the Prussians sought to press various gifts on the hospitable Indians; but they were only received under protest and on condition of the visitors accepting others in return; moreover, the cacique appointed five mounted men to act as guides as far as the river; and these, he said, were on no account to accept any payment beyond their daily rations.

A march of something like four hundred miles now lay before the travellers, and this was accomplished, by easy stages, within about a fortnight. When once the river was in sight the Indians did not, as the Prince had expected, promptly desert; nevertheless, they reground their knives and the points of their spears and arrows as though they antic.i.p.ated an attack at any moment. But no other Indians were sighted for a while; the ford of the Madeira marked on the chart was found, and the explorers crossed the river in comfort and bade good-bye to the honest fellows who had guided them so far and so faithfully.

Now came a temporary break in the forest land; and for several miles the road was a mere sand-strip, like a towpath, running between the Amazon and some low, marshy ground. No one was sorry to escape from this district to the higher and more wooded lands again, for not only do such marshes breed all kinds of fever, but they are the chosen lurking-places of crocodiles, water-serpents, and other abominations.

On the third afternoon of the new march, Count Oriolla noticed, as they entered upon more forest land, that dark-skinned figures continually flitted among the trees, as though someone were spying on or keeping up with the hors.e.m.e.n. He reported this, and the Prince gave orders for all to draw more together and to have their weapons ready to hand. At every step, too, the track betrayed more and more signs of recent use by horses and cattle; and, from the top of the next hill, a haze like the smoke from dozens of houses was visible.

"What are those?" asked the Prince as he pointed to some dark objects moving on the surface of the water a long way ahead.