ODTAA: A novel

by John Masefield

XVII

He reckoned that he had breakfasted before seven, and had been at the ruin before nine: perhaps it was eleven now. Almost at once, he heard the chant of Indians and the drone of a pipe coming towards the clearing. “My luck is out again,” he thought. “Here are the Indians: this is where I shall stop, then.” He heard Letcombe-Bassett hail the Indians: he was still close to, at the edge of the clearing. Hi could hear the goobies clatter as the men trotted across to him. He heard the man address them, explaining what he wished them to do; and the grunting of the Indians as they understood and assented.

He was tempted to rise and run; but the memory of the swiftness of the man’s shooting held him back. “He would have half a dozen shots in the first half minute,” he thought, “and then the Indians would run me down. I’ve no chance that way; but this way I may get one bang at an Indian, if not at him.” He squirmed down into his patch, while the man led the Indians to the spot where he had entered cover some hours before. “Leu-in, hounds, eleu, ed-hoick,” the man called. The Indians came into cover, just like hounds, and began to cast, with little cries and ejaculations, like the whimper of hounds, feathering yet not quite owning to it. “Ed-hoick,” the man called. “Yooi, pash him up. Hoik to Chaunter: hoik. Hoik to Dowsabel. Yooi, yooi, yooi; fetch him out.”

“We all know you’ve been terrier-boy to the North Surrey,” Hi thought with bitterness. “You need not advertise the fact.”

The hounds came eastwards in a very wide cast. “It’s a drive,” Hi thought. “They’re going to make a semi-circle, and drive me up to the gun. He’s going to stay in the clearing, to pot me when I break.”

He had not time to consider the matter, for the Indians were moving swiftly to him, some above him, some below, and one straight for him. They were on the work they did best in the world. They were doing it with enjoyment, with little quick cries, one to another. “No power on earth can stop that Indian from seeing me,” Hi thought. “He’s coming straight for me.” In an instant the Indian had thrust aside the scrub, so that Hi saw him plainly. He was a short, squat, plump young Indian brave, in a cotton shirt; he had long black hair sleeked down with fat; he had a gold half-moon in his nose; he carried a spear, and bore a blow-pipe on his back. Their eyes met. Hi had never seen him before, that he could remember. He was a broad-faced, high-cheek-boned man, with hardly any nose, like most of the tribe. He looked at Hi and Hi at him for one marvellous second, in which they understood each other. So will a man and dog meet, understand and pass on, with no word said, yet the dog wagging his tail. The Indian smiled and passed on, and Hi knew that it was all right.

The little quick cries became a little louder, that was all, some sort of a message passed down the line, to let the Indians know.

Presently the Indians moved up into the clearing to report that the white man had escaped.

Their going was like the lifting of the cloud at the passing of the line-squall. Hi knew that there had been an overwhelming change in his fortunes, brought about by no merit of his own, but by something fortunate that happened. He had been upon the rack for hours: now he was suddenly free. He cleared his face and hands of midges, though their bites no longer seemed to matter. He rolled over, with a sigh of delight at being alive, and fell asleep.

Sometimes in childhood he had dreamed a recurring dream, of a most beautiful grave spirit of a woman, whom he knew as his “Elder Sister Ruth.” In his dreams, this spirit sometimes came to his bed, looked at him with eyes so beautiful that it was hard not to wake, and then, sometimes, some blessed times, took him by the hand and led him into the air, through the window and away, over the tree-tops, to strange lands, or to the stars. Even if such dreams were broken they were a joy to him: when they were not broken he thought of them for days.

He had not dreamed of Ruth for years; indeed, he had seldom thought of her since his going to his prep. school; but now he dreamed of her: she was there, that heavenly spirit, calling him “Christopher,” her name for him, just as she had called him, for the first time, in that night-nursery at Tencombe, in the nook where his cot was, when he had wakened (as he thought) to see her beside him, lit by the flicker from the fire. It was such joy to see her there, after those days of friendlessness, that the tears streamed down his face. He knew that it had been hard for her to come to him, and that it was hard for her to speak; yet what use were words, she understood.

For a moment he lay still in his happiness; then, thinking that he had not seen her for years, he gazed at her, and found that she had not changed; but that he could see more in her face than in the past. She had a calmness and wisdom of beauty that was not subject to change: all peace, courage, goodness and happiness were in her face, and a hope so bright that no danger made a drawback.

All this was joy to him for a moment, until, in his dream, the thought came to him that she only appeared to him in dream; that this was a dream, and that it would fade. She smiled at his thought. “No, it is not a dream,” she said, “look about you.”

Marvelling, he sat up and put out his hand upon the soft grey-green frondage of the sari-sari. That dry, feathery touch was real: that smell of mint and turpentine from the crushed fronds was real. The red-hearts in the glow of the sun were real; so were those little green wrynecks questing their bark for food. On the ground was the broken yellow fungus, and beyond it lay the two brass rifle-shells, with ants examining them. A little gust of wind came down the forest, the sari-sari bowed to it and glistened and dappled, like the grass under the wind on Blowbury. A buck of the forest, delicate and proud, appeared, wide-eyed as a hare, noble as a Persian prince; he scraped with his forefoot and tossed his head in challenge.

“You see, it is real,” Ruth said. “Shall we go on, then? We will set out together: it is not far.”

“O God, Ruth,” he said, “I’ve wanted you. I’ve wanted you.”

She knew that, without his telling: she helped him to his feet. The light became more glorious than he had ever known it: all the leaves upon the trees seemed to be edged with fire. The light upon Ruth’s face came from the beauty of her spirit: he knew that. This other beauty was a part of the happiness which she brought.

Instantly they set out through the forest side by side, so easily that they seemed to be moving upon the wind: the boughs gave way before them: they passed the hawk in her ravine and the wild-cat in his range: the deer gazed at them, but were not startled. In a glade of grass where a brook ran Ruth stopped him, because, in the brook, was a nest full of the eggs of a waterfowl, and in the grass were little blue mitai berries, known as the berries of our Lady from being ripe near Lady Day: of these he ate and took store.

After this they came to a jut of earth on which a dead tree stood with its roots exposed. Many mice in their holes here watched him with little bright eyes. At the foot of the jut was a shrub with hard, thick, dark-green leaves, and a rough bark, seamed with fibres like veins, as fragrant as incense from creamy gum.

“Put this cream upon your face and hands,” Ruth said, “then you will not feel the bites of the insects.”

He smeared himself as he was bidden and instantly the burning in his skin was soothed. He saw Ruth gravely considering him with eyes so beautiful that he felt that he could not bear their gaze.

“Will you be always with me?” he asked.

“Always.”

“Oh,” he said, “if you would help me to save Carlotta, who is in danger and trusting to me.”

“She is in no danger,” Ruth said, “but the trumpets are calling.”

As in a dream, the words “the trumpets are calling” seemed fraught with meanings from beyond the world. He gazed at Ruth, as though by gazing he would come to a knowledge of the truth. He saw, as it were darkly, a confusion of men doing terrible things to each other while the trumpeters blew. Then all this cleared away, he beheld nothing but Carlotta in white, looking upward, with a look of happiness such as he had never seen, save on Ruth’s face. Behind her, he saw the pinnacles of a church, glittering, as he thought, from the light catching the crockets, until he saw that the glittering was from winged spirits exulting in such beauty.

“It is not as man thinks,” Ruth says, “but as God wills.”

He felt the scene merge again into a dimness, so that he could not see, only feel, that he was moving away again, with Ruth near him, over country which would have been difficult but for her presence. She led him through thorns, which he never felt and through waters where she bare him up. Once, after the endless way, he would have sunk, had she not sung to him, as once before at Tencombe, a song so beautiful that it was as though the world were singing. What happened to him in these hours he never knew, save that he was miraculously helped: in a sense, those hours were as though they had not been: in another sense, they were among the intensest hours of his life.

It was after three o’clock in the next afternoon when he came out of the wood into the plain of San Jacinto. The forest ceased, the light became stronger suddenly: then, instead of the waving gloom stabbed with glare, he saw the plain, going on into the north in rolls of freedom: he saw the homes of men and heard the lowing of cattle.

Soon he came to a road running east and west; he turned to the east along it, till, at a wayside cross, he sat down, wondering whether he could go any further: the world seemed to be swaying beneath him and in front of him.

Half an hour later, a horseman hove in sight, closely followed by a three-horsed brake full of men and women, who were singing to a mandoline and a reed-pipe, under an awning of green and white stuff. The rider saluted Hi as he passed, then, being struck by his appearance, which was that of a corpse and a scarecrow combined, pulled up and caused the brake to halt. Some of the men dismounted and asked Hi, in Spanish, what was the matter. A plump and pale young woman, with eyes like big black plums, came down to look at him. Hi heard them decide that he was English and a caballero; but, then came a discussion of the question: how had a caballero gotten into this pickle?

“Where you been?” the girl asked, in English. “In the forest?”

“Yes.”

“Lost?”

“Yes.”

“Ay de mi. For how long?”

“I don’t know.”

“Dios mio. He had been lost in the forest. Regard the mud: see also the thorn-marks and the bitings of bichos.”

“Always some are lost in the forest: they go blind, then they go mad. They will drink fire, thinking it water.”

“Remember that man of Matoche: he who had nothing but a book.”

“Also that other: the Americano: for whom some Americana must still mourn. He had her locket, the poor man.”

“And this is but a boy and a caballero.”

“Yes, and very gentle,” the girl said. “His manners are so modest.”

She turned to Hi, and spoke again in English. “You go San Marco?” she asked. “We take you to San Marco?”

“Is that near Anselmo?”

“Near where?”

“Anselmo.”

This the girl did not know: she repeated it among her friends, who all seemed puzzled. Then one man said:

“Anselmo?”

“Si,” Hi repeated. “Anselmo.”

“Si,” the man said, with a swift jabber of assent and explanation to the company. “Anselmo.” He seemed to add that it could be reached through San Marco.

“Yes,” the girl called, “you get Anselmo there.”

“I’m not very tidy for riding with you,” Hi said, shewing the wreck of his clothes, torn in forty places and mired to the throat.

“That doesn’t matter,” the girl said. “Can you climb up?”

He could not climb up; he found that he could hardly stand. The girl and one of the men helped to steady him on his feet; then the men in the brake got hold of him and heaved him in, with cries of:

“Welcome the stranger.”

“Since thou mayst be Jesus, welcome: yet if thou beest not, welcome.”

The girl, who had spoken English, made room for him beside her, and as the brake drove on, she put her arm round him and called him, “My dear.” She had been drinking a little, but she was a very good young woman.

“I talk English, my dear; I love the English: some of them, what? We had two English in our house. Mr. and Mrs. Watson; do you know them? To-day, we been to a wedding.”

Here one of the musicians handed her a wicker-covered blue glass liqueur-bottle with a tin measure which could be screwed over the stopper.

“Isn’t Paco dreadful?” she said. “First we had wine: then we had brandy: now he’s going to give us all the Milk of Venus. We shall all be drunk, Paco.”

“No, no, not for you,” Paco said. “But for the Englishman.” They gave Hi a swig of the Milk of Venus, which revived him wonderfully: then they took swigs of it themselves till it was all gone: then they threw the bottle at Uncle Philip (as they called the rider), hit his horse on the crupper and made him buck. The plump young woman was very kind; she put her arm a good deal more tightly round Hi and said that she did love stars.

“You know, stars in the evening: they’re so like angels.”

Hi said that she was like an angel.

“A bit fallen angel; I don’t think: what?” she said.

A man with a mahogany-coloured face, “rather like a frog,” Hi thought, since his eyes turned up and his face was all going to throat, began to sing a doleful ballad, with a chorus in which all joined. As all felt better after this, one of the other men sang a song which went with great spirit, though it made the ladies blush. As he was pleased with its reception, he sang all the blushing parts of it a second time. Then the frog man produced a bag from under the seat: it contained three small bottles with brightly coloured labels showing ladies of a free disposition. The labels were printed with the words: “Smiles of the Muses.” There was much applause in the brake when they appeared.

“Ha. Smiles of the Muses. Three bottles.”

“Ha, the good Hernando, who knows what is good.”

“Always the good Smiles of the Muses, to drive away care and settle what went before.”

The brake pulled up by the wayside, so that no Smile might be spilled. The good Hernando dispensed something like a quarter of a bottle to each of the company. It was a syrup or cordial, about as thick as olive oil. It smelt, when opened, of all the flowers of heaven. At a first taste it reminded one of strawberries and of honey: then it warmed the throat: then, as it trickled along, it made a feeling glow all the way down.

When the brake drove on again, the mandoline struck up a Smile of the Muse: the reed-pipe piped to it and the company sang. The song had not much body to it, being indeed a catch about the eyes of a lady being as lovely as stars. It went on, during some miles of the way, till in the dusk of the evening the brake halted in San Marco, which was a town of six farms and a chapel.

Here, as weary as Hi was, he noticed that something had happened: someone had come in with news which brought all the town out of doors. When the news reached the wedding party, it changed their tone. The younger men hurried off to the group about the messenger, who stood on the chapel steps answering questions. The frog-faced man, the good Hernando, helped Hi down from the brake. Uncle Philip and the girl urged him to enter a lime-washed farm-house, with a smell of wine-press about it near which the brake had stopped. Hi was so dizzy with fatigue that he hardly knew what he was doing, yet he shrank from bringing his filthy state into a clean home.

“You come to the harness-room,” Uncle Philip said, through the girl, “for a bath, and to get out the thorns and jiggers.”

They brought him a half-cask and hot water: after his bathe they gave him a clean cotton sleeping suit and a bed with Christian sheets. They brought broth to him, when he was in bed, but he was asleep before it came: he slept for fifteen hours.

In the afternoon of the next day, when he woke, he found his clothes washed and mended. Uncle Philip and the girl brought him a coat, a sombrero and a pair of new shoes, which they pressed him to accept with a grace and sweetness of welcome which moved him almost to tears. “Guests come from God,” they said.

“Hosts, too,” he thought.

“If I ever can,” he said, “I will bring these things back: be sure. I can never, never thank you enough.”

When he had dressed, he came to the girl.

“What has happened?” he asked. “I’ve been lost for a week. What has happened in the country?”

“There is war,” she said.

“In Santa Barbara city?”

“We do not hear of the city, save once in the week, when the ore-train returns with the empty trucks. No; but one from the west came here yesterday to call us to war. There are thousands, he said, marching to Santa Barbara.”

“What for?”

“For our religion, so he said.”

“Is that Don Manuel?” Hi asked. “Is it Don Manuel’s army that is marching?”

“I do not know. It will be some army.”

“Where it is?” Hi asked. “Do you happen to know where it is?”

“It was near here, within a short ride, yesterday,” she said, “going to Anselmo, the place you asked about.”

“That is it,” he said. “If the army comes from the west and is marching east it must be Don Manuel’s army, going to save Carlotta. Is it a White army?”

“Yes.”

“Thank heaven,” he said, “Ezekiel Rust got through. You do not know, do you, whether the Reds have harmed one Señorita de Leyva?”

“No.”

“I suppose all the people here have gone to the army?”

“No,” the girl said. “One or two have gone.”

“Aren’t you Whites here? Are you Reds?”

“We have the work to do: it is the people in cities who have these quarrels.”

“But in this quarrel,” he said, “surely everyone must join.”

“The work has to be done. If these city people worked, they would not have the time to quarrel.”

“Oh, wouldn’t they,” he said, “that’s all you know of men. But, look here, how can I get to Anselmo?”

“You are not going to fight?”

“I’ve been trusted with a message to Don Manuel. If he is to be at Anselmo, I must try to get there to meet him. You’re sure it is Anselmo?”

“The men from here went there last night.”

“And how can I get there?”

“The ore-train to Piedras Blancas, going to-night,” she said, “would take you to within ten miles of it, so Hernando says.”

“Could I go in that?”

“Uncle Philip will speak to the engine driver.”

“Oh, thank you. At what time would the train reach the place within ten miles of Anselmo?”

“Who knows, with a thing so dangerous as a train? Perhaps at midnight: perhaps at dawn. Sometimes it is two days.”

“Good heaven. Is the engine-driver likely to refuse to take me?”

“Hernando says that soldiers were searching the line yesterday.”

“What soldiers?”

“Red soldiers: State soldiers from Meruel. They were looking to see if the Whites were coming by train.”

“Has there been any battle yet?”

“We have heard of none. They expected none till they are close to the city.”

“Thank heaven,” Hi said, “perhaps I shall be with them in time, after all. And, oh, will you ask your Uncle Philip to beseech the engine-driver to take me? Say it’s very, very important: for a woman’s life may depend on it.”

“He ask all right.”

“Suppose he refuse,” Hi said.

“He not refuse, unless he got soldiers with him. But Hernando says they may explode the line to stop the soldiers.”

However, at eight that evening, when the engine-driver took Hi as a passenger, the line had not been exploded and no news had come of a battle. The engine-driver was a Scot from Lanark, who had seen a detachment of the Western army away in the west two days before. “They came to the siding at Zamorra,” he said, “to lift the oats stored there for the teams. Their captain was with them, a very big man, fierce-looking, with fine hands. What’s this, they call him? Manuel.”

“Yes, Manuel.”

“The damned marauding son of a gun will get his neck in a noose before he’s much older.”

“Will he?” Hi asked. “He has the right on his side.”

“Be damned to the right on his side. He’s setting up a civil war here, because he don’t like the laws of the opposition. Yon’s a damned precedent. However, he’ll be soon hanged and his moss-troopers the same. Now get in, lad, to your nest: she’s starting.”

Hi leaned out to shake hands with the girl, Uncle Philip and Hernando, who had come to see him off. He thanked them again and again.

“If you come these way again,” the girl said, “you look us up, what?”

“That indeed I will do,” Hi said. “And I wish I could thank you or repay you.”

The train’s jerk at starting flung him from his farewells into his nest among the ore, where he passed this the last night of his journey to fetch Don Manuel.