Leonard Lindsay ;

by Angus B. Reach

‘None, none,’ I replied; wondering with my whole soul at the meaning of this strange scene.

‘Follow me, then, and do as I do,’ replied Peralta. He swallowed his last cup of wine, and smiled when he saw me copying his example to the letter. Then, blowing the lamp out, we all three sallied forth into the night, walking quickly but cautiously amongst the scattered huts. I knew that it was no time for questions, so put none, though I was almost bursting with curiosity. In a minute or two we heard the measured tramp of soldiers advancing, and presently the clash of their arms and the gleam of their lamps burst forth together as they marched round the corner of a small street, followed by a great many Indians. There was a hollow place close by where we stood, with ridges of oyster shells on either side. Into this Peralta sank suddenly, flinging himself flat upon the ground, while the mulatto and I followed his example. In a minute the soldiers marched by, with their attendant rout of Indians gabbling and chattering very eagerly.

‘Now,’ quoth Peralta, ‘for the beach, and make as little noise as you can in running.’

With these words off he set, going over the ground much faster than to look at him I should have thought possible. However, the mulatto and I kept close behind him, meeting nobody, although we heard a distant tumult of voices in the ranchiera, and the tramp of people running hither and thither. There were half a dozen skiffs and canoes moored to as many stakes rising from a small slippery jetty, and sheering backwards and forwards as the current of the ebbing tide ran swiftly beneath them. Into the outermost of these skiffs Peralta leaped as nimbly and steadily as if he had been a waterman at Whitehall Stairs, we following closely upon his heels; but just as we had, as by instinct, sat down to the oars, Peralta cried out to us to hold, and then stepping back upon the jetty, very coolly cast loose the painters of the whole of the remainder of the boats from their fastenings, and gathering the ends of the ropes together, as a coachman does his reins, he shuffled back again into the stern sheets, casting off our moorings as he passed by, and then, with a low chuckle to himself, we pushed off and rowed into the stream, the squadron of boats following in our wake.

‘Pull away, my good fellows,’ Peralta then said, taking an oar out of one of the skiffs behind us, ‘I will steer you.’ Our course was down the stream, and we swept along very rapidly, while, looking back, we could see, by the lights which came dancing all down the beach from the houses, that the Spaniards were in hard pursuit. In a minute more a cluster of these lanterns shone upon the jetty, and instantly their bearers raised a clamour and shouting that all the boats were gone. Señor Peralta only laughed to himself.

‘Well,’ he muttered in a moment or two, ‘it is a shabby way to leave old friends, but needs must when the devil or an angry Spaniard drives.’

All this time we were shooting swiftly down the river, the broad surface of which, gleaming in the starlight, now began to heave and undulate, as the swells of the sea, rolling over the bar, affected it. As we pulled, Peralta, taking advantage of a great shout faintly heard from the shore, hailed, ‘Disco! Disco, ahoy!’

A long shrill whistle was the reply, and, looking round, we saw the low dusky form of the piragua, with her two high raking masts, and, pausing on our oars, we heard the rush of the tide against her sharp bows.

‘Disco is all awake,’ said Peralta, and in a moment more we were alongside and tumbling into the piragua, which, notwithstanding her very considerable size, was so light as to rock violently as, one by one, we leaped over her gunwale.

Disco himself, a Mosquito Indian, as I judged him, appeared to have been just aroused by the clamour on shore, and he asked eagerly what the matter was.