“Why, Tom,” quoth Aaron, “it is only three in the afternoon, as you say, although by the sky I could almost vouch for its being midnight,—but I don’t like that shouting—Did you ever read of a water-kelpie, Don Richy?”
“Poo, poo, nonsense,” said the Don; “Mr Cringle is, I fear, right enough.” At this moment the wind thundered at the door and window shutters, and howled amongst the neighbouring trees and round the roof, as if it would have blown the house down upon our devoted heads. The cry was again heard, during a momentary pause.
“Zounds!” said Bang, “it is the skipper’s voice, as sure as fate—he must be in danger—let us go and see, Tom.”
“Take me with you,” said Campana,—the foremost always when any good deed was to be done——and, in place of clapping on his great-coat to meet the storm, to our unutterable surprise, he began to disrobe himself, all to his trowsers and large straw hat. He then called one of the servants, “Trae me un lasso.” The lasso, a long thong of plaited hide, was forthwith brought; he coiled it up in his left hand. “Now, Pedro,” said he to the negro servant who had fetched it, (a tall strapping fellow,) “you and Caspar follow me. Gentlemen, are you ready?” Caspar appeared, properly accoutred, with a long pole in one hand and a thong similar to Don Ricardo’s in the other, he as well as his comrade being stark naked all to their waistcloths. “Ah, well done, my sons,” said Don Ricardo, as both the negroes prepared to follow him. So off we started to the door, although we heard the tormenta raging without with appalling fury. Bang undid the latch, and the next moment he was flat on his back, the large leaf having flown open with tremendous violence, capsizing him like an infant.
The Padre from the inner chamber came to our assistance, and by our joint exertions we at length got the door to again and barricaded, after which we made our exit from the lee-side of the house by a window. Under other circumstances, it would have been difficult to refrain from laughing at the appearance we made. We were all drenched in an instant after we left the shelter of the house, and there was old Campana, naked to the waist, with his large sombrero and long pigtail hanging down his back, like a mandarin of twenty buttons. Next followed his two black assistants, naked as I have described them, all three with their coils of rope in their hands, like a hangman and his deputies; then advanced friend Bang and myself, without our coats or hats, with handkerchiefs tied round our heads, and our bodies bent down so as to stem the gale as strongly as we could.
But the planting attorney, a great schemer, a kind of Will Wimble in his way, had thought fit, of all things in the world, to bring his umbrella, which the wind, as might have been expected, reversed most unceremoniously the moment he attempted to hoist it, and tore it from the staff, so that, on the impulse of the moment, he had to clutch the flying red silk and thrust his head through the centre, where the stick had stood, as if he had been some curious flower. As we turned the corner of the house, the full force of the storm met us right in the teeth, when flap flew Don Ricardo’s hat past us; but the two blackamoors had taken the precaution to strap each of theirs down with a strong grass lanyard. We continued to work to windward, while every now and then the hollo came past us on the gale louder and louder, until it guided us to the fording which we had crossed on our first arrival. We stopped there;—the red torrent was rushing tumultuously past us, but we saw nothing save a few wet and shivering negroes on the opposite side, who had sheltered themselves under a cliff, and were busily employed in attempting to light a fire. The holloing continued.
“Why, what can be wrong?” at length said Don Ricardo, and he shouted to the people on the opposite side.
He might as well have spared his breath, for, although they saw his gestures and the motion of his lips, they no more heard him than we did them, as they very considerately in return made mouths at us, bellowing no doubt that they could not hear us.
“Don Ricardo—Don Ricardo!” at this crisis sung out Caspar, who had clambered up the rock, to have a peep about him—“Ave Maria—Alla son dos pobres, que peresquen pronto, si nosotros no pueden Hydros.”
“Whereabouts?” said Campana—“whereabouts? speak, man, speak.”