Chapter Sixteen.
A State of Siege.
We hastened back to give Ritchie the news.
If we had expected he would exhibit any surprise we were mistaken.
“It’s no more’n I expected,” he said quietly.
“Perhaps,” I hazarded, “these are friendly Fuegians?”
“I never met ’em,” he replied. “Must be some new tribe. All that ever I saw could be friendly enough when driving a good bargain, and scraping the butter all to their own side of the dish. Their motto is, ‘Take all we can get, and take it anyhow.’ My dear lad,” he continued, “could anything be handier for these savages than to collar a white man. He is dressed, and has nick-nacks in his pocket; well, they want the dress and the nick-nacks, for you see they don’t have any clothes of their own worth mentioning; then the body of the white man comes in handy for a side-dish. They think no more of killing a white man than they do of sending an arrow through the heart of a guanaco. No, never trust a Fuegian farther than you can fling him, and that’d be over the cliff if I had all my will.”
Hark! There was a crashing sound among the bushes not far off. I ran to my gun. So did Jill. But Ritchie never moved step nor muscle, at which I was at first a little surprised. Not, however, when a guanaco appeared in the clearing not far off, and had a long-necked look at us.
“Don’t fire!” he cried. “We’re not ready for the niggers yet.”
“Didn’t you fancy,” I asked, “that the savages were on us when you heard the bushes crackling?”
“That I didn’t. They don’t come like that. You don’t see them, and you never hear them. No, they’re all from home. That fire was lit last night, and left burning. But they’ll come back. So now to get ready. You see, young gentlemen, the gentry very likely look upon the glen and woods round here as a kind of happy hunting-ground. There is fish in the river, too, and fish in the bay. So, though it may be days before they come, we may as well cook their dinner in time.”
“But surely we won’t be here for days?”
“Maybe not. But it’s just as likely to be days as not. It all depends.”
As he spoke, Ritchie advanced some little distance to the right, beckoning us to follow.
He drew the bushes aside from the foot of the rock, and lo! the entrance to a large cave.
“It’s still there, you see,” said Ritchie. “Not a bit altered since I was here before. No; caves are like keyholes, they never fly away.”
He entered, and we followed, the men holding the branches aside to admit the light. The place was large and roomy, and evidently constantly inhabited. Here were the remains of a fire, here a heap of bones, and here again a bed of dry leaves.
The most of the forenoon was spent in preparing our fortifications. The bushes were cut down from the front, admitting light and air, and a bulwark of small tree trunks was built in front, the boat being hauled inside. There was plenty of fallen wood about, so that our work was by no means difficult.
After all had been done that could be done, we had nothing to do but watch and wait.
Watch and wait for the wind to change and give us a chance, or for the foe to come.
I do not know anything more irksome than such a position. When there is danger ahead, it is human nature to wish to face it at once and be done with it. But in this case we did not know whence the danger would come, nor what would be its precise character when it did come.
All that day—and a dreary one it was—the wind blew steadily from the east, whitening the waves, and moaning mournfully through the trees in the forest around us. We kept a good outlook on the Reach for any steamer or ship that might be passing, but none appeared.
The sun set in a gloomy sky to-night, and the moon failed to show. This was no disadvantage. Our sentry was set, and beside him the two dogs kept watch and ward. We lay down armed all in the dark, Jill and I side by side, on our couches of leaves. I think Ritchie began to tell a story, and I set myself to listen, but exhausted Nature would assert herself, and I was soon hard and fast asleep. Nor did I waken till broad daylight was streaming in at the mouth of the cave.
Another day went slowly past, without any alteration in the wind, and without our friend the foe appearing.
About sundown Jill bantered Ritchie about the Pacific and Atlantic fighting for mastery, and the frequent changes in the wind; but Ritchie took it very good-naturedly.
“It is evident,” Jill said, “the Atlantic has it all its own way this time, Ritchie.”
Night fell again, as dark and wild as ever. About ten o’clock, just as we were thinking of settling, one of the dogs uttered a low and ominous growl, but was at once muzzled by the sentry’s hand.
A canoe had suddenly glided into the little creek or river’s mouth, but it passed on. Another and another followed, till we had counted seven in all; but from the constant jabbering they kept up it was evident they had not observed us.
“That makes the fleet,” whispered Ritchie. “Seven is a magic number with many savages.”
About an hour after, Ritchie stole quietly out of the little fort. He soon returned and asked me to come. I obeyed. Jill wanted to accompany me, but I forbade him.
We stole quietly up the river, keeping well in under the shade of the trees, and ere long saw the light of a fire glimmering through the bush ahead. We crept on still more silently now, careful not even to snap a twig.
We reached high ground just a little way above the clearing, and gradually drew near the glimmering light. Then Ritchie cautiously lifted a branch of evergreen.
A more fantastic and horrible sight I never saw. The fire was fiercely hot, and evidently made of hard dry old wood. Around it, but at a goodly distance, sat, crouched, or lay fully a score of semi-naked savages, all men, all armed—at least their weapons lay near them—and all silent. Many had hats and garments of our men on; woollen shirts or linen ones, some bloodstained. But their legs and arms were all bare. Every eye was turned towards the fire, where, spitted against the tree up which the red flames were now roaring, were huge masses of flesh that a glance told me was human. There was a hideous grotesqueness about the whole scene that made me draw back and shudder. But some movement on the part of the cannibals made me look again. The feast was about to begin.
Ritchie and I drew back and cautiously took our departure.
We never spoke till near the creek side, and then only in whispers.
“Those are the fellows from the Salamander,” said Ritchie. “The very flesh they are now gorging on is part of their companions that were blown in pieces.”
The Fuegians evidently set no sentries, so their canoes, which we soon came upon drawn up in a row, were entirely at our mercy.
Our mercy was excessively meagre in this instance.
These canoes are merely planks of wood fashioned with knives and fire, and lashed together by means of pieces of skin.
It took us no great length of time to dismember them, nor to launch the pieces into the stream afterwards.
“And now,” said Ritchie, “the forest itself is our principal danger. These chaps’ll be all about us to-morrow morning early, like bluebottles round a dead mouse: more’ll come to help them, and the bush ’ll be their cover. We’ll fire it. The wind is favourable.”
“It really is a pity,” I remarked, half seriously, “to spoil this scenery.”
“Come,” was all my companion added.
So well and willingly did we both work, that in less that half an hour we had fired the forest in five different places. The amount of underwood and of fallen decayed trees was very great, so that the very earth itself would undoubtedly smoulder and burn for days, thus affording us protection from the savages.
I have seen many a conflagration in my time, but none, I think, so awful as that.
So closely did the fire rage around us at one time and so great was the heat, that we were considering whether we should not launch our boat and put out to sea. From the high cliff above us burning branches ever came toppling down, but these were easily removed.
Then the fire receded, and attacked the glen above and around the bay, the crackling and roaring of the flames became indescribable; tongues of fire seeming also to be carried away with the clouds of rolling smoke, as if even that itself were ablaze. Ritchie and I both stood appalled to behold the vastness of the ruin our work had effected.
Long after the flames had left them, and gone over the hill and high up the valley towards the snow-line, the sturdy arms of the beech-trees stretched out red against a background of black, and every now and then a limb would fall with a loud report, sending up volumes of ashes, smoke, and sparks.
Whether or not on the first outbreak of the fire, the savages had left their fearful orgies and made a rush to the spot where they had left their canoes can never be known. It was evident enough by next morning, nevertheless, that they had found out we were in the bay, and had managed even that night to communicate by signal fires to their companions on other shores and on islands, that white men were about; for as early as dawn canoes were seen off the coast—more and more came, till there was quite a swarm.
We were besieged. The wind might change if it liked, or remain where it was, it could make no difference to us now. To have ventured to run out against such odds would have been to throw our lives recklessly away. But our position was good.
As we expected, the decayed mould of which, the bottom of the glen and hills was composed—centuries old, perhaps—kept on smouldering, and would do so for weeks. Then the bay was in our front and to our right the open sea.
No, we were safe for a time. But how long would our provisions last?
We made a careful survey, and found that with great economy we had enough for a week or even longer.
When we first appeared in the open, the yelling and menacing of the savages in their canoes was dreadful to hear and behold. For a time Ritchie thought they would cast prudence to the winds and attempt to force a landing.
Two boats did come near enough to fire arrows at us, but they dearly paid for their rashness, and three at least of the Indians would never fire an arrow more.
Long before sundown the enemy had drawn off, and there was not a canoe to be seen anywhere.
“Now would be a chance,” said Jill, “if the wind would only change.”
Ritchie looked at him and smiled.
“My dear lad,” he said, “we wouldn’t be two hundred yards beyond the bar before they would be on us. We wouldn’t be able to get back, and we’d never get far on in this world. No, that’s only a trick, and a very transparent one; just the same as pussy plays with a mouse. But I’m too old for ’em. Drat ’em! Oh, I do love ’em, don’t I just?”
He did not look as if he did.
Day after day—two, three, five, went hopelessly by. The weather kept fine, and the wind was now favourable for a sortie if we were at length compelled to run the gauntlet.
We had hoisted a signal on the cliff top in the hopes that passing ships might see it and perhaps send to our assistance. But the ships we saw were a long way off, and noticed not our signal, for we were some distance out of the usual track of vessels.
On the fifth day Jill and I went up stream some little distance through the burnt forest, and Ossian, the dog, found near the bank a guanaco half-roasted. This was indeed a blessing, and we dined more heartily that evening than we had done for a week. We tried fishing, hoping thereby to add to our larder, but were only indifferently successful. Having neither lines nor bait, we were reduced to the plan called “guddling” by Scottish schoolboys, where you wade and catch the trout with your hands.
Affairs grew desperate on the seventh day, not so much for want of food as from the fact that the ground had ceased to burn, and cooled sufficiently to permit one to walk over the ashes.
A combined attack by land and sea was therefore hourly expected by us, all the more so in that the canoes seemed more active than usual, flitting about hither and thither, but apparently paying no heed to us.
“They’re too silent to please me,” said Ritchie; “they’ll be on us to-night as sure as shot.”
On the same afternoon far away out in the Reach we noticed a noble steamer.
Jill and I stood looking at her until she had gone down out of sight on the horizon. We could easily fancy ourselves on board of her. We could see in imagination the orderly, clean white decks, the burnished brass and wood, the sailors and officers in their smart uniforms, the chairs on deck where lounged the passengers reading, talking, and quietly napping, the officer on the bridge and the sturdy seaman at the wheel. It was so sad; and we waiting—to sell our lives as dearly as possible. That is the last consolation of the brave. And Jill and I had promised ourselves so much, at least.
Jill put such a strange question to Ritchie this afternoon, but I knew what the poor lad was thinking about.
“Ritchie,” he said, “do these horrid Indians torture their prisoners if they take any alive?”
“I’ve never heard they did,” was the quiet reply. “And indeed I don’t think they have the sense—drat ’em.”
The time, we thought, wore all too quickly to a close, and almost as soon as the sun went down in the west, up rose the full moon in the east, and then everything—if not as bright as day—was light enough at all events for the work so soon to commence.