“These natives are treacherous brutes,” he said. “They may have seen that our boat was heading this way, and be simply waiting an opportunity to stick harpoons into us. Don’t shoot actually on sight, but be ready to put a stopper on anything like an attack.”
The words had hardly left his lips when the body on the beach moved! Slowly and, as it seemed, painfully, the Indian raised head and shoulders, and turned in the direction of the voice, finally sitting up sideways and using the right arm as a support.
Then, as Maseden drew near, he saw that this was not a man, but a woman, a woman so emaciated and feeble that the first astonished glance he took her to be middle-aged, whereas, in reality, she was not yet eighteen. She was stark naked, and he soon discovered that her left leg was broken.
The unfortunate wretch had dragged herself to an oyster bed, as an array of freshly opened shells testified; but there was no great supply in that place; the water was too shallow. At any rate, Maseden had no other means of estimating how long she had been there; indeed, he gave little thought to that consideration, because the problem of what to do with her arose instantly.
He argued, however, that the members of her tribe could not be close at hand, since the merest instinct of self-preservation would lead them to assist one of their number rendered helpless by an accident, though, among these wild folk, an old woman might be regarded as of no account.
He spoke to her in Spanish, asking what had happened, and she appeared to have a vague sense of his meaning; but her eyes were glistening with terror and fever, and he could make nothing of a mumbled reply except a word that sounded like humo, “smoke.” She showed extreme fear at sight of the gun carried by Sturgess. Holding out her left hand as if pleading for mercy, she collapsed with a groan.
Sturgess, of course, was as fully aware as his companion of the difficulties raised by the discovery of this maimed creature.
“Well, by way of a change, Alec, I guess we’re up against a mighty tough proposition,” he said, scratching his head in sheer perplexity.
“We have only one course open, I take it,” said Maseden, though he, like Sturgess, felt that they might well have been spared this additional burden.