No hearts were more joyful than ours at this escape from that cave of eternal night (as my lady called it). To us the little stars were as full of radiance and comfort as the sun of midday, so that we could do naught but feast our eyes for a long while. But we were not unmindful of our debt to Providence for this deliverance, taking it as a special mercy that we had been brought out in the night; for the light of day would have blinded us to a certainty after being plunged so long in impenetrable darkness, as men eating after starvation do drop dead of surfeit.
Being no more inclined to sleep than a throstle in the morn (for this was to us, indeed, rather the break of day than the fall of night), we went gently down with the stream, which was of a reasonable body, winding awhile amongst rocks, but coming at length to an open country, whence we caught sight of the moon resting on the tops of those mountains we had passed under, and more fair than ever we had counted it before.
For many days our minds were haunted (as of a dream) with the recollection of those fearful hours under the mountains, and meeting some friendly Ingas we questioned them about it; but as well as we could make out, they knew it only for a mighty den, whence they supposed the river sprang; but they knew nothing of the issue on the other side, none ever having dared to go beyond a few fathoms of its entrance, because of the prodigious darkness and obscurity therein, etc.
I could write several books of our adventures in descending that river into the Baraquan, and so down the Oronoque, if I had the patience; but I have not. For a man can not be forever a-counting of mile-stones, but must needs (seeing himself near his journey's end) run on amain, taking little heed of things of the wayside. And, in truth, having got again on the broad river, with an easy, free current to bear us onward, and Nature above and around smiling upon us encouragement, we openly deemed that the worst of our troubles were over.
I say we openly deemed this, but secretly I judged that the worst of my troubles was to come. For I could no longer blind myself, as I had in the beginning of our journey, to the fact that in the end we must part. Nay, remembering the terrible shock I had sustained that day in our cavern, when I thought it possible my dear lady might die of fever, I now felt it my duty to contemplate our inevitable separation, in order that when the time came for our farewell I might bear myself with becoming fortitude. So every night, when I lay down, I repeated to myself that awful question, "What should I do without her?" setting myself to devise some manner of life by which I might reconcile myself to the will of Providence. In this way I strove to armor myself against the sure arrow of adversity.
Whether Smidmore were alive or dead, as I sometimes guessed he might be, the result must be the same when my lady came again amongst her friends in England; for there must she resume her condition, and be honored as a lady of position, whilst I must ever be plain Benet Pengilly, and a man of the woods. Thus, knowing I must lose her, I begrudged the movement of the sun, and saw him set each evening with a profound melancholy, knowing another day was past from the few that were to give me happiness.
How I clung to those days, how I strained my senses to catch every word and gesture of my dear lady's, only they can imagine who have been warned by physicians that their dearest friend must surely die ere long. 'Twas, indeed, the feeling that had choked me when I believed my dear lady to be dying, only lessened by the hope that after my last hour of joy was come, long years of happiness might be her portion.
We were many weeks—nay, months—on the river, and, as I say, we had adventures of divers kinds without number: some pleasant, and some distressful; but, on the whole, my dear lady's health and spirits being of the best, our journey was prosperous. But as weeks and weeks passed on, it did seem we should never come to the end of this great river and now we began to grow mighty anxious lest the rains should set in again ere we reached the coast of Guiana, which would enforce us to take refuge from the floods till the season was past. One day we set ourselves to calculate how long we had been a-coming from the cave, and what time we might yet have for our going; and as near as we could reckon, rain might be expected in three weeks. But as to our distance from the coast, we were without means of calculation, the Ingas on this part of the river whom we encountered understanding nothing of what we said, and showing such hostile spirit as made us chary in seeking them for information.
It was our practice of a morning to leave our canoe in the mooring we had found for it the night before, and go a-hunting in the woods for such fruit and game as we required for the day. From one of these expeditions we were making our way back to the canoe with nothing but some fruit, and that none of the best, for we were in an unfavored part, and our eyes on the lookout for any kind of game that might serve our turn, when my lady, being in advance of me, suddenly came to a stand.
"I am convinced," says she in a whisper, as I came quickly to her side, "that I saw something leap behind yonder thicket," pointing to a clump of shrubs about a furlong distant. "Do you go, Benet, to the right, while I make my way to the left, that between us we do not miss our game, for I am greatly mistaken if it be not a tayacutirica."[7]