WE ARE PURSUED BY DOGS AND PORTUGALS.
In this discourse we retraced our steps, and crossing the valley (yet wide of the station) we ascended again that chain of hills crossed the day before; for Lewis de Pino, as I was now informed by Matthew, had turned out of his road to sell me and traffic for gold; and after a long and painful march we came about daylight to the woods.
Here we rested, though against my inclination, being tormented with apprehensions concerning my dear Lady Biddy; but Matthew was pretty nigh spent with fatigue, having less strength than I, and none of that terrible anxiety which pricked me onward. Thus, in one way and another, was a good deal of precious time lost.
When Matthew perceived that my impatience was becoming intolerable to me, he rose, and we once more pushed on. Yet he had a difficulty to keep pace with me, and from time to time he would remonstrate at my pace, saying, "Not so fast, master—not so fast; you forget that your legs are a quarter of a yard longer than mine," and the like.
The road still skirted the mountains pretty high up, yet still amidst the woods, whence now and then we caught a glimpse of the river shining below, very sweet and peaceful in the gray light of the morning.
"Now, master," says Matthew, when we had gone about a couple of leagues along this road—"now we shall do well to quit this road, and make our way as best we may through the woods; for I reckon we are getting nigh a station, and at any turn are likely to be spied."
Accordingly we struck into the wood, and none too soon, for ere we had made a hundred yards we were brought to a stand by the furious barking of a dog.
"If we can't silence that brute we are undone," whispered Matthew, "for they are trained to hunt down runaways, and will not quit their quarry till the huntsmen are come up with it."
Presently the barking ceased for a minute, and we heard the voices of men egging the dog on; yet could we see neither one nor the other for the thick growth, though their cries sounded no further off than a couple of hundred yards or so.
"Master," says Matthew, very much crestfallen, "promise me one thing."
"Ay," says I, "and you may depend on it I will keep my word."
He pressed my hand and nodded; then says he:
"Promise me that if I am taken, and you see a chance to pass your sword through me, you will put an end to my life."
"Nay," says I, shrinking before such a cruel possibility, "things will not come to that pass."
"Promise me, all the same," says he, very earnestly.
"You have my promise, friend," says I, though I would not have given it had I foreseen what he was about to ask.
"Good," says he. "I could lose another ell of my skin without much more than a day's howling; and I believe I could stand having my feet roasted, after the first scorching had taken my senses away; but I couldn't endure to be taken back a slave and lose my freedom."
I felt for the poor fellow with all my heart, sympathizing with his love of liberty, till he added, in a still more melancholy tone:
"I am not a family man."
Then I felt as if I must laugh, despite our peril, for it appeared that he dreaded being restored to his wives and children more than all the tortures the Portugals could inflict, and preferred death. Yet I am now inclined to think this reason was but an afterthought of his, and that he merely put it forward to hide his grave dread by way of pleasantry; for I have remarked that men of humor will in their most painful moments put forward a jest, when at another time they would be silent. So I have seen some jest over their disease when they know it to be mortal, and others even who have died with a pleasantry at their own expense on their lips.
All this time we stood in the midst of great feather-plants[2] as high as my shoulder, hoping the dog would come nigh enough for us to cut him down ere we were spied by the men, who, we doubted not, had muskets to defend them; also we dared not move, lest we should be heard by the dog or be seen by the men. Presently the barking and the sound of voices went further away, as if the dogs had got on our track and were hunting it back the way we had come; then the barking ceased altogether, to our great content, for we made sure thereby the scent was lost, and the chase given up.
"Now," says Matthew, "let us put our right leg foremost and get down to the river as best we may, for if we get t'other side of that unseen we may laugh at dogs and Portugals."
"Nay," says I, "go if you will, but I can not get away from this station until I know whether my dear cousin be there or not. You live for freedom," adds I, "but I live for something more than that."
"No need to tell me that," says he. "Lord love you, master, do you think I don't know what's the matter with you? Trust me, I'll play you no scurvy trick, though I don't relish the society of females. Do as I wish you, and believe me I am thinking as much of your welfare and happiness as my own. But, for Heaven's sake, do not let us waste time a-talking here like so many attorneys. You shall have all the explanation you need when we get t'other side of the water."
I felt sure of this good fellow's honesty, and believing his judgment better than mine, knowing more of these parts and the ways of Portugals than ever I did, I yielded to his persuasions, and we scuttled down the hillside as quickly as we might for the obstructions that pestered us more and more as we advanced. For in the lower sides of these hills, towards the bottom, where the sun burns fiercer, the soil is moister, and a greater depth of earth lies over the rock, the growth is prodigiously thick; and besides the mass of shrubs upon the ground that one must pick one's way through not to be torn in pieces, the trees are all netted together with lianas as stout as a ship's tackle; brambles, briars, and hanging vines of a hundred sorts; so there is no way betwixt them but what a man may cut for himself with his sword.
"Give me a valley like that we have left behind, where there is naught but stones and rocks," says Matthew; "for though you may break your shins one moment and your nose the next, yet can you make some headway. But here," says he, "no man can roll down a hundred yards without setting foot to the ground. Howsomever, we're shut of the dog for our consolation."
Scarce were these words out of his mouth when they were forcibly contradicted by a fierce barking close in our rear; and turning about we spied the brute (as big as a wolf and as horrid) bounding towards us. But seeing us prepared with our swords to cut him in pieces, he stops short. Nor would he anyhow permit us to get near him (though Matthew, to tempt him, hid his sword behind him, and made forward with his hand out, saying "Poor doggy" very civilly, as though he would caress him), but backing when we advanced towards him, approaching as we went on, the dog contrived ever to keep well out of our reach, all the while barking to be heard a mile off.
"This will never do," says I; "the Portugals will be down on us directly."
"Ay," says he; "do you cut a way through the briars, while I keep this brute off."
So I hacked away with all my might at the lianas, while Matthew occupied himself with the dog, sometimes in Portuguese, commanding him (as I judged) to go home in a tone of authority, or entreating him mildly to come near and get a chop for his pains; but all to no purpose, except that he kept him from doing us a mischief with his fangs.
"Go home, you beast!" cries he: and then in the same breath, "Would we were back in my old valley, master: I'd brain you with a rock in a twinkling. But here is nothing to hurl at the cursed beast. Nice old doggy, come here!"
But now he had to hold his peace, for we could hear in the woods above us the voices of Portugals crying to one another, and shouting encouragement to the dog; nor dare I chop our way further, lest the flashing of the sword should be seen above the growth about us, and bring a shower of musket-balls upon us.
The only thing that saved us from immediate discovery and apprehension was that our pursuers found the same difficulty in advancing that we had overcome, and had to cut their way to where they heard the barking of the dog.
"If we could only silence that vile dog!" whispered Matthew, grinding his teeth.
"Ay," says I, "but how may we do that?"
"I see but one way," says he, "and that not very promising, but 'tis better than to wait here and be shot. Let us go back the way we have come."
"Why," says I, "that is but to offer ourselves the sooner to the Portugals."
"Nay," says he, "they are still a pretty fair distance off. Come and do as I ask you."
"Lead on, friend," says I. "You are better acquainted with this warfare than I."
So Matthew started at once to go back up the hill by the way we had cut through the growth, which did seem to me the rankest folly in the world. And what made it look worse was that, instead of trying to pacify the dog, he enraged it more than ever by thrusting at it with his sword, spitting at it, etc., but in betwixt he gave me instructions, and opened out his designs.
"You see the big tree on your right hand in front?" says he.
"Ay," says I.
"Get behind me, and when I pass that tree slip behind it and wait ready with your sword. The dog knows me, and takes no note of you."
There was no time to say more, for he had come abreast of the tree, and here he did draw the dog into a greater rage than ever, so that (as he had directed) I slipped behind the tree unobserved. And now, seeing Matthew's excellent design, I waited with my sword raised above my head.
After he had gone forward another two or three paces, Matthew begins to draw back, all the while gibing and jeering at the dog, who was now so furious that he even ventured to snap at the sword-blade when Matthew thrust it forward; and so step-by-step Matthew falls back until, passing me a couple of paces, the dog comes snapping and snarling forward after him till he is fairly within my reach, when with one swift blow I did cut him right through the loins clean in two halves.