Once or twice during the night Quashy rose to replenish the fires, for the jaguars kept up a concert that rendered attention to this protection advisable; but he did it with half-closed eyes, and a sort of semi-wakefulness which changed into profound repose the instant he tumbled back into his hammock. Lawrence, not being so well accustomed to the situation, lay awake a short time at first, having his loaded pistols under his pillow; but, as we have said, he soon slumbered, and it is probable that all the jaguars, pumas, peccaries, tapirs, alligators, and wild cats in that district might have walked in procession under his hammock without disturbing him in the least, had they been so minded. As for Manuela, with that quiet indifference to mere prospective danger that usually characterises her race, she laid her head on her tiger-skin pillow, and slept the sleep of innocence—having absolute faith, no doubt, in the vigilance and care of her protectors.
It might have been observed, however, that before lying down the Indian maiden knelt beside her hammock and hid her face in her hands. Indeed from the first it had been seen by her fellow-travellers that Manuela thus communed with her God, and on one occasion Lawrence, remarking on the fact, had asked Pedro if she were a Christian.
“She is a Christian,” was Pedro’s reply, but as he manifested an evident intention not to be communicative on the subject, Lawrence forbore to put further questions, although he felt his interest in the girl as well as his curiosity increasing, and he longed to know how and when she had been turned from heathen worship to the knowledge of Christ.
When daylight began to glimmer in the east, the bird, beast, and insect worlds began to stir. And a wonderful stir do these worlds make at that hour in the grand regions of Central South America; for although nocturnal birds and beasts retire and, at least partially, hide their diminished heads at daylight, the myriad denizens of the forests bound forth with renewed life and vigour to sing a morning hymn of praise to their Maker—involuntarily or voluntarily, who can tell which, and what right has man to say dogmatically that it cannot be the latter? Thousands of cooing doves, legions of chattering parrots, made the air vocal; millions of little birds of every size and hue twittered an accompaniment, and myriads of mosquitoes and other insects filled up the orchestra with a high pitched drone, while alligators and other aquatic monsters beat time with flipper, fin, and tail.
Breakfast, consisting of excellent fish, eggs, maize, jaguar-steak, roast duck, alligator-ragout, and chocolate, was prepared outside the Indian hut. The hut itself was unusually clean, Tiger being a peculiar and eccentric savage, who seemed to have been born, as the saying is, in advance of his generation. He was a noted man among his brethren, not only for strength and prowess, but for strange ideas and practices, especially for his total disregard of public opinion.
In respect of cleanliness, his hut differed from the huts of all other men of his tribe. It was built of sun-dried mud. The furniture consisted of two beds, or heaps of leaves and skins, and several rude vessels of clay. The walls were decorated with bows, arrows, blow-pipes, lances, game-bags, fishing-lines, and other articles of the chase, as well as with miniature weapons and appliances of a similar kind, varying its size according to the ages of the little Tigers. Besides these, there hung from the rafters—if we may so name the sticks that stretched overhead—several network hammocks and unfinished garments, the handiwork of Mrs Tiger.
That lady herself was a fat and by no means uncomely young woman, simply clothed in a white tunic, fastened at the waist with a belt—the arms and neck being bare. Her black hair was cut straight across the forehead, an extremely ugly but simple mode of freeing the face from interference, which we might say is peculiar to all savage nations had not the highly civilised English of the present day adopted it, thus proving the truth of the proverb that “extremes meet”! The rest of her hair was gathered into one long heavy plait, which hung down behind. Altogether, Madame Tiger was clean and pleasant looking—for a savage. This is more than could be said of her progeny, which swarmed about the place in undisguised contempt of cleanliness or propriety.
Stepping into the hut after kindling the fire outside, Quashy proceeded to make himself at home by sitting down on a bundle.
The bundle spurted out a yell, wriggled violently, and proved itself to be a boy!
Jumping up in haste, Quashy discommoded a tame parrot on the rafters, which, with a horrible shriek in the Indian tongue, descended on his head and grasped his hair, while a tame monkey made faces at him and a tame turtle waddled out of his way.