Chapter Twenty Four.
A Journey to the Country of the Gualichu—The Earthquake—a wondrous sight—“I will pray to the Great Good Spirit.”
“I feel unusually fresh this morning,” said Peter one day as we all squatted down to breakfast.
“Considering,” he added, “the roughish time we had yesterday, I’m a little astonished at my recuperative powers.”
“What ship did you say?” said Ritchie.
“Recuperative powers, Edward. That’s the ship. And I didn’t know I had any. Why, when I turned in last night I said to Jack there, ‘Jack,’ says I, ‘I’m feeling ninety years of age.’ But this morning I can hold my age like a young hawk.”
“And the bumps, Peter?” I said.
“Gone down beautifully, Jack. Hardly a bump visible to-day. Just a blueness on some of the bone ends. Greenie, I’ll trouble you for another slice of that ostrich gizzard.”
“Well,” said Castizo, “I’m glad to see you all looking so bright and jolly. ‘Jolly’ is English, is it not?”
“Oh, thorough English!”
“Because, my boys all, I want to make a détour to-day, and pay a visit to an old friend of mine, Kaiso to name—King Kaiso in full. Kaiso means big, and big he is.”
“A giant.”
“A giant among giants, for he has surrounded himself with the biggest fellows he could find anywhere. He’s a funny fellow himself. He has been far travelled too: been to Chili and Monte Video, where he went as a show on the boards of a small theatre or concert place. As soon as he made money, however, he bought all the pretty and useful things he could find, and so retired to the fastnesses of his mountains. His troops are a strange band, of northern and southern Indians. The wonder to me is how he manages to keep peace among them. He keeps a private witch, however, a tame puma, and a medicine man.”
“I don’t mind the witch much,” said Peter, “they are usually pretty tame; but the puma, mon ami, is it tame? Has he a dog licence? Does he keep it chained up?”
“Oh, no, but it is very affectionate. Don’t let it lick your hand, that is all, for its tongue is exceedingly rough, and if it tastes blood, it is like King Kaiso with rum, it wants more. Jill, my plate is empty.”
“And does this King Kaiso,” said Ritchie, “live far from here.”
“Yes, several days’ hard ride.”
Peter groaned.
“But we’ll have a good rest when we get there. Then a few days more will take us home.”
Peter smiled now, and passed his plate to Jill again.
“Last time, and the only time in fact,” continued our cacique, “that I visited Kaiso, he condemned me to death. But this was at night, and Kaiso had some rum. He told me he would himself do me the honour to cut my head off with one of his very best swords. I thanked him, of course, and appeared quite pleased about it. But lo! in the morning he had forgotten all about it. We were half-way through breakfast when he said, ‘Oh, by de way, I was goin’ to lop your head off dis mornin’. But I too tire. I much too tire. Some oder day p’r’aps.’ I assured him not to trouble about the matter; that I could afford to wait, and would wait to oblige him.”
“And there was no more about it?”
“Never a word. He had finished all the rum, you see. But Kaiso lives in a strange land. His home is in the country of the Gualichu.”
“Gualichu! That’s the evil spirit, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Jill. But the only evil spirit I ever saw there had been imported from Jamaica.”
“Rum?”
“Rum, yes, that’s the real Gualichu. Well, Jack, you have good influence with Jeeka; go and tell him where we mean going. He will demur; I had the greatest difficulty in getting him to go last time, and he said he never would return.”
So as soon as breakfast was finished I paid a visit to Jeeka’s toldo. He was waiting while his people, harnessed up and were ready for the road.
“Jeeka,” I said, coming to the point at once, “we are going to visit King Kaiso!”
Jeeka’s face assumed an aspect of almost terror.
“What!” he said. “Go to Kaiso. Kaiso bad man. Kaiso all same’s Gualichu. He live in Gualichu land. Hum-m-m. I will not go. Kaiso kill us all. Hum-m. He have snake to hiss and bite. He have puma to roar and tear. He keep Gualichu man and Gualichu karken. He have fire all round de forest. But the forest itself not burn!”
I sat with Jeeka and Nadi a whole hour, and it needed all my powers of persuasion to make them consent to lead the way to the Gualichu land.
They did so at last, however, and long before the sun was high in the north we were well on our road.
It would take the greater part of a goodly volume, to give anything like a correct description and history of our journey to the land of the Gualichu. We had hills to climb, mountain torrents to wade, long dreary plains to cross that seemed never-ending, and deep jungle-like forests to penetrate through. Sometimes these last were as dark as gloaming even under the midday sun. In their gloomy thickets we could hear the voices of angry pumas, and we saw and shot some of these of immense size.
We saw one immense snake of the boa description, and we also saw some deer.
Castizo marvelled much at this.
“I did not know,” he said, “there were deer so far south.”
“Strayed out of some gentleman’s park,” said Peter, quizzingly.
“And as for boas, if that was a boa, how on earth did it come there!” continued Castizo.
“Oh, I know,” said Peter.
“Do you?” said Ritchie; “tell us.”
“Why it has escaped from Wombell’s Menagerie, of course.”
The idea of gentleman’s parks or Wombell’s Menagerie being in this wilderness was ridiculous enough; but Peter was in one of his funny moods.
We did not stop anywhere for sport, only when any wild creature crossed our hawse, as Ritchie phrased it, we brought it down for sake of its flesh or skin.
Hawks and vultures we found very numerous in these regions, and many strange animals we had never seen before, some of the ant-eating fraternity, others like ermines, but brilliantly coloured, and others again that seemed partly rat and partly nondescript. There were otters in the mountain streams, and fish in such marvellous abundance that, in one hour, Jill and I caught nearly one hundred and fifty.
(This would, indeed, be a land of pleasure for the sportsman. And yet only a month ago, I heard a member of a West-End club assure a friend that sport was played out. He had been everywhere, he said, and shot everything, and there really wasn’t anything left worth pointing a gun at.)
One dark night, while encamped near the borders of a deep, dark wood, we were all awakened by a strange feeling of qualmishness.
“I dreamt,” said Jill, “I was at sea for the first time again.”
“Something we’ve all eaten,” said Peter, “that hasn’t agreed with us, though I had nothing for supper except about a pound of that puma steak, and a few handfuls of ba-ba roots.”
“Hark! Listen.”
“Hark! Listen,” from Jill and me.
There was a noise in the distance as of heavy waggons rolling over a metal road, then the earth trembled and shook with a strange heaving motion as if water were rushing beneath the surface. The same feeling of qualmishness shot over us, and we all pressed our hands to our heads.
It was an earthquake.
The vibration had no sooner ceased than we heard Castizo’s voice calling to us.
“Come out, boys, and you’ll see something.”
We hurried on our clothes. I felt more nervous and frightened than ever I had done in my life before. So were Jill and Peter.
“I hope,” said the latter, “the earth won’t open and swallow us up. Fancy being buried alive!”
“It would soon be all over, Peter,” said Jill.
Castizo, Lawlor and Ritchie were already out in the open and gazing westward. A fitful, changeful light was on their faces, such as I had never seen before. Sometimes it was a rosy glimmer, then it would change to pale yellow or blue.
The light came from the western horizon, and the appearance there was simply appalling. A great cone-shaped hill was vomiting forth columns of smoke alternating with fierce and terrible flames. In the midst of the fire we saw innumerable dark bodies which were undoubtedly rocks.
The night was very dark, so that the eruption was more fearful than it would otherwise have been.
All the Indians were out; most of them lying on their faces, and, I thought, praying.
I went to Jeeka, who sat beside his wife on the grass. Nadi was weeping and moaning.
“Jeeka,” I said, “do not pray to the Gualichu. Pray to Him who made everything, and who loves us—the Great Good Spirit.”
“Did He make that fiery hill?”
“He made and governs everything.”
“Does He govern the Gualichu?”
“He governs every one on earth, and all things on and under the earth.”
“I will pray to the Great Good Spirit.”
Towards morning the eruption died away as quickly as it had begun. Then we retired, and slept well and soundly for several hours.
But next day there was something very like mutiny in our camp. The Indians now refused point blank to go farther with us into the land of the Gualichu.
Jeeka would have braved everything to oblige us, but cacique though he was, he could not go entirely against the wishes of his people.
So it was determined to leave them here in camp till we returned. It was but one day’s journey now to King Kaiso’s country, and Jeeka gave us a solemn pledge that he would not let his people desert. He would shoot them first, he said.
Then we white men saddled our horses, the Indians loaded our pack mares, and off we started all alone to see the terrible king, who kept pet pumas and snakes, tame witches and medicine men.