Riallaro: The Archipelago of Exiles

by Godfrey Sweven

But Sneekape did not care to waste time over talk. He knew from the experience of former deputies from his island how prompt and complete was the punishment for being caught in the workshop of Tirralaria. So we set out again and doubled on our path; he kept his eye on the cloud over the peak, and ever and again put aside the foliage to have a look at the sea. He clearly knew every district of the island. Once or twice he stopped and listened intently. He thought he heard the far-off cry of the pursuers. He seemed satisfied, and took advantage of the pause to search for wild fruit; we both ate eagerly from several trees and bushes. But he was not at ease. The success of the pursuit depended on whether they knew that his falla lay off shore for him. He had kept the fact from them, but they might have seen her from the mountain. He had also a canoe from her lying in the shelter of a cave on the least frequented shore. If he could put his pursuers on a false trail and then gain this means of escape, there would be no danger for us. All day we lay in a thicket some hundreds of feet above the beach waiting the protection of twilight and night. We sated our appetites with the berries and nuts around us and put a small store away in one of our loose and unnecessary rags. He kept his eye on the sea through a crevice in the foliage, and once as the sun began to wester he started with alarm; he saw the blistered track of some boat that had crept close to the shore bronzing in the yellow light. Whether it was the enemy or his own men it was difficult to say. He crept, still under cover, to the point of a promontory that shot sheer down into the ocean; and looking over he saw the rags of the Tirralarians flutter in the wind as they bent to the oars. Almost at the same moment he noticed his own falla tacking far on the horizon, evidently waiting some emergency.

He returned and told me the result of his reconnaissance. He conjectured that the overseers had communicated with the capital and that a boat had been immediately dispatched along shore to cut off our embarkation on the falla. Our best chance lay in its keeping on its course to his usual place of departure. It was likely that his falla would lie off that spot and that the Tirralarian boat would remain all night between it and the shore. We would then make for the canoe which lay farther to the west, if the night favoured us.

Happily the gloom was profound, for the sky was moonless, and the starlight was drenched with moisture and shone with lustreless and dull edge. As soon as twilight had shuttled its pall for the dead sun we took our little store of fruits and started down the hill with extreme caution. If either of us snapped a twig or dry stick, we stood with beating hearts, all ears. Then on again with slow pacing. It must have been midnight when we reached the rocky shore. Sneekape felt his way till he found a tree of singular growth, all bent and gnarled by the beat of the waves and the salt spray. Then he doffed his rags and dived from the edge of the rock. Within a few minutes he had found his canoe in the cave, unmoored it, and paddled his way to an easy descent. I carried down his rags and our stores, and embarked.

Cautiously we stole out from the shelter of the cliffs; he shot his paddle into the water with such care that not a ripple could be heard, and I aided with my hands over the side. About three or four hundred yards from the shore we opened out a bay behind a far out-jutting promontory; and as I looked back I saw a dark object close inshore break the faint gleam of starlight on the water. Sneekape raised his eyes and fell into his former panic. His paddle would have fallen into the sea had I not caught it. The movement seemed to awaken the distant shadow, and the sound of oars soon broke the still night air. Our pursuers were on our track.

Sneekape immediately recovered his presence of mind. Our only chance of escape lay in what he took to be the position of the falla. We were quite two miles away from our would-be captors. We strained every nerve. Yet they gained on us. The two miles were rapidly reducing to one. We could hear the muffled beat of their oars.

My companion seemed, however, less excited than he had been. He even seemed to relieve the tension of his paddle in its stroke. Was he losing his senses? I dared not break in upon his work lest it should lapse altogether. I felt a shiver run through me as if a cold wind had blown. I looked behind, and the island had vanished in mist. And even as I gazed, the dim veil enveloped the dark shadow on the water that was straining after us. I could feel our canoe jerk into another direction, almost at right angles to our previous path. The beat of the pursuing oars was swallowed up in silence. In about half an hour my companion laid his paddle down and threw himself down on the bottom of our canoe and laughed a long, low laugh. The fog had outwitted the revenge of the advisers of the people.

We were so wearied with the long strain that in spite of our rags and the chill of the night we stretched ourselves and fell asleep. When morning broke the thick veil was still over the sea, and where we were we knew not. We relieved the pangs of hunger and waited. It seemed as if we had got into some current, for either we were moving with considerable swiftness through the mist, or the mist was driving over us.

As the sun rose towards the zenith the dense veil grew more transparent, and then rent in twain. We saw the blue sky above; and soon the whole envelopment of the world had melted into the azure. Klimarol was a white phantom on the horizon with a thin blossom of cloud above it. Nothing else broke the outlook in that direction; but in the opposite, whither we were rapidly drifting, a low coast lay like a thin nebulous stratum.

Sneekape, when he looked round at my gesture, gave a cry of surprise. He had expected to be near his falla. But it was not to be seen; and he had not yet made out what island it was that we were bearing down on. This consolation we had, that we had enough fruit with us to serve the day’s wants, and the new land seemed less than a day’s journey from where we were.