“So they look upon our countrymen as lords and masters, and do their bidding with the simple faith of children.... Brave, honest, kindly souls! who knows not what eminent service they have done us in our conflict with that Spanish tyrant?[B]
“This Mosquito Indian loved the lad, whom he took for dead; and, crying aloud with a bitter cry, he cast himself upon the ground at his side, fawning upon him as a dog fawns upon the body of its master. But, on a sudden, he gave another cry. He perceived that the lad lived; and, getting swiftly to his feet, he caught him up, and sped off with him into the wood.
“Ouvery lay as one dead. They plied him with rum, forcing his teeth asunder to get the liquor down; they bathed his hands and brow with water fetched from a crystal spring. But ’twas all one: he gave no sign.
“‘Blazing Sue’s gone!’ said a pirate.
“But he did mistake. For, filling his mouth with water from the spring, another of the pirates began to blow it in a fine spray in Ouvery’s eyes and ears (’Tis a thing that revives even dying men); and he began to recover his senses, and presently staggered to his feet. When he recalled what had befallen him, his rage was great. Yet he kept it under; only he cast a baleful look upon us, as he pointed to the opening in the thicket and cried:
“‘Forward into the Promised Land!’
“You may be sure, my lad, that no man was very eager to obey the command. The chasm had a fearsome look. Whither did it lead?
“The terror of the unknown lay heavy on us. Yet in our reluctance and fear was an itch of curiosity; and, though an opportunity of escape and freedom had proffered then, I, at least, would not have taken it! Moreover the pistols of the guards constrained us; so we entered the chasm and advanced in the darkness.
“We went on through a passage, as it should seem, hewed out of rock. Soon the darkness became less; and soon, in a strange, livid, ghost light, we could descry the walls and roof. The passage was excavated in the rock.
“Now the strange illumination became exceeding bright; a cold, sepulchral, white light, such as I had never known before. Nor was there any lamp, or flame of fire, to acquaint us whence it came.