"Let us try St.Jago, then; sack it, come down on La Guayra in the rear, take a ship there, and so get home.""Nay, Will.If they have strengthened themselves against us at La Guayra, where they had little to lose, surely they have done so at St.Jago, where they have much.I hear the town is large, though new; and besides, how can we get over these mountains without a guide?""Or with one?" said Cary, with a sigh, looking up at the vast walls of wood and rock which rose range on range for miles."But it is strange to find you, at least, throwing cold water on a daring plot.""What if I had a still more daring one? Did you ever hear of the golden city of Manoa?"Yeo laughed a grim but joyful laugh."I have, sir; and so have the old hands from the Pelican and the Jesus of Lubec, I doubt not.""So much the better;" and Amyas began to tell Cary all which he had learned from the Spaniard, while Yeo capped every word thereof with rumors and traditions of his own gathering.Cary sat half aghast as the huge phantasmagoria unfolded itself before his dazzled eyes;and at last--
"So that was why you wanted to burn the ship! Well, after all, nobody needs me at home, and one less at table won't be missed.So you want to play Cortez, eh?""We shall never need to play Cortez (who was not such a bad fellow after all, Will), because we shall have no such cannibal fiends'
tyranny to rid the earth of, as he had.And I trust we shall fear God enough not to play Pizarro."So the conversation dropped for the time, but none of them forgot it.
In that mountain-nook the party spent some ten days and more.
Several of the sick men died, some from the fever superadded to their wounds; some, probably, from having been bled by the surgeon;the others mended steadily, by the help of certain herbs which Yeo administered, much to the disgust of the doctor, who, of course, wanted to bleed the poor fellows all round, and was all but mutinous when Amyas stayed his hand.In the meanwhile, by dint of daily trips to the ship, provisions were plentiful enough,--beside the raccoons, monkeys, and other small animals, which Yeo and the veterans of Hawkins's crew knew how to catch, and the fruit and vegetables; above all, the delicious mountain cabbage of the Areca palm, and the fresh milk of the cow-tree, which they brought in daily, paying well thereby for the hospitality they received.
All day long a careful watch was kept among the branches of the mighty ceiba-tree.And what a tree that was! The hugest English oak would have seemed a stunted bush beside it.Borne up on roots, or rather walls, of twisted board, some twelve feet high, between which the whole crew, their ammunitions, and provisions, were housed roomily, rose the enormous trunk full forty feet in girth, towering like some tall lighthouse, smooth for a hundred feet, then crowned with boughs, each of which was a stately tree, whose topmost twigs were full two hundred and fifty feet from the ground.
And yet it was easy for the sailors to ascend; so many natural ropes had kind Nature lowered for their use, in the smooth lianes which hung to the very earth, often without a knot or leaf.Once in the tree, you were within a new world, suspended between heaven and earth, and as Cary said, no wonder if, like Jack when he climbed the magic bean-stalk, you had found a castle, a giant, and a few acres of well-stocked park, packed away somewhere amid that labyrinth of timber.Flower-gardens at least were there in plenty;for every limb was covered with pendent cactuses, gorgeous orchises, and wild pines; and while one-half the tree was clothed in rich foliage, the other half, utterly leafless, bore on every twig brilliant yellow flowers, around which humming-birds whirred all day long.Parrots peeped in and out of every cranny, while, within the airy woodland, brilliant lizards basked like living gems upon the bark, gaudy finches flitted and chirruped, butterflies of every size and color hovered over the topmost twigs, innumerable insects hummed from morn till eve; and when the sun went down, tree-toads came out to snore and croak till dawn.There was more life round that one tree than in a whole square mile of English soil.
And Amyas, as he lounged among the branches, felt at moments as if he would be content to stay there forever, and feed his eyes and ears with all its wonders--and then started sighing from his dream, as he recollected that a few days must bring the foe upon them, and force him to decide upon some scheme at which the bravest heart might falter without shame.So there he sat (for he often took the scout's place himself), looking out over the fantastic tropic forest at his feet, and the flat mangrove-swamps below, and the white sheet of foam-flecked blue; and yet no sail appeared; and the men, as their fear of fever subsided, began to ask when they would go down and refit the ship, and Amyas put them off as best he could, till one noon he saw slipping along the shore from the westward, a large ship under easy sail, and recognized in her, or thought he did so, the ship which they had passed upon their way.
If it was she, she must have run past them to La Guayra in the night, and have now returned, perhaps, to search for them along the coast.
She crept along slowly.He was in hopes that she might pass the river's mouth: but no.She lay-to close to the shore; and, after a while, Amyas saw two boats pull in from her, and vanish behind the mangroves.