Born to Wander: A Boy's Book of Nomadic Adventures
“There were three or four bears altogether killed that forenoon, and I daresay a good many more frightened. However, about one o’clock the three friends were seated on the top of a breezy eminence overlooking the bonnie glen, and in sight of their horses, while they enjoyed their lunch or tiffin.
“‘What a lovely day!’ said Tom, as he lay at full length on the greensward. ‘How wildly sublime those hills are! Wooded almost to the summits everyone of them; and look, John, at that river far beneath yonder, like a silver thread winding away through the greenery of the forest. You’re not looking, John.’
“‘I’m looking at something else,’ said my grand-dad.
“Ugh!” cried the Indian chief, springing to his feet, seizing his gun, and pointing with it to a hill-top beyond the ravine.
“There were figures there – dark, creeping figures, no bigger apparently than coyotes.
“They were Indians.”
A Gallop for Life and Freedom“They were Indians sure enough, and doubtless only scouts of a bigger party.
“There was no time to lose. Sport and all was forgotten; they must mount their horses, and be off back to the prairie land. There they would be clear, at least, of an ambush, and could trust to the fleetness of their horses.
“They hurried madly down hill, reaching and mounting their mustangs just as a volley was fired from both sides of the stream, the bullets peppering the trees about, and splashing on the rocks and stones. They were off like the wind next minute. Rough though the path was, round rocks, over fallen trees, and slippery, mossy banks, the good nags kept their feet, and soon the prairie was gained.
“Once fairly in it, they ventured to look behind. To their surprise they found themselves followed by several mounted Indians – a dozen in all, at the very least.
“Out on the open prairie, the half-bred mustangs seemed to fly over the ground, but they were not so fresh as the horses of the pursuers, and the pace soon began to tell, and three out of the four savages came rattling on abreast.
“A bullet or two flew over them. It was evident they must fight. At a given signal, then, they wheeled their horses, and took deadly aim, and next moment there were two empty saddles; again they fired, and the bewildered third Indian came tumbling down over a dead horse.
“But the others came thundering on behind with yells for revenge, yells for blood and scalps.
Away went our gallant trio once again, but now, alas! Tom’s horse tripped and fell, and at the same moment the chief’s steed was shot.
“They must fight on foot now, and with terrible odds. But they were all determined to sell their lives dearly.
“Now, whatever old chroniclers may say to the contrary, American Indians never did fight fairly if they could do the reverse. So in this case, instead of coming on with a wild rush or a warlike shout, they paused, and quietly waited till their companions swarmed up. Meanwhile, Wild Eye had killed his horse, and also Tom’s fallen one. Why leave the poor brutes to fall into the hands of the enemy? Then the three entrenched themselves as well as they could behind them, and waited events.
“They had not very long to wait, either. A volley was fired by the savages who had guns. It was returned with interest, and as they were crowded together it must have had terrible effect.
“The yelling and buzzing was now frightful. It was as threatening as that which proceeds from a hollow tree with a hornet’s nest in it when you kick the trunk.
“And just as hornets rush out from their hive, so rushed those Indians now on, spreading out, and entirely surrounding the three brave men, shrieking and brandishing their tomahawks.
“My grand-dad said he never understood what put it into Wild Eye’s head to sing out ‘Surrender!’ but he did, and at once there was peace and a parley. The two Britishers would have preferred fighting to the bitter end, and having it over; but as most of the attacking savages had laid down their weapons, they felt in duty bound to cease firing, and submit to the fortune of war – to the inevitable.
“Tom and my grand-dad were bound with withes and tied together. Wild Eye was tied to an Indian, then without further palaver the march westward was commenced.
“My grandfather forgot how long they were on that terrible journey into the fastnesses of the far west. It must have been, he thought, fully a fortnight.
“They were fatigued beyond measure, footsore, heartsick, and weary. If they had entertained any hopes at first of being treated as prisoners of war, and in due time exchanged, every day’s journey served to dispel the illusion.
“Poor Wild Eye fell sick, and was slain. His wig was hung at the girdle of one of his captors, his body left to swelter in the sun, till birds and beasts should eat his flesh and ants pick his bones.
“Grand-dad was sufficiently conversant with the language of this tribe to know what the doom was that he and Tom had to look forward to. They were being hurried away to the wigwam village of their captors, to be tortured at the hands of squaws. The chief of the party even condescended to enliven the last few miles of the journey, by telling his prisoners such tales of the torture, that, brave though they were, made the blood run cold along their spines.
“At last they reached the Indian village, which they entered just as the sun was setting among clouds all fringed with gold and crimson above the western hills.
“What a smiling, peaceful valley it seemed. The purple mist of distance hung like a gauzy veil over the mountain tops, a blue haze half hid the greenery of the woods, there were parks of verdure dotted over with flowering trees and bushes, in which bright-winged birds flitted or sang. Deer roamed quietly about, or stood drowsily chewing the cud, and up through the trees on the banks of a broad, placid river, rose the smoke from the village fires.
“The whole scene was almost home-like in its gentle beauty. Who could have believed that it had been and would be the scene of a torture so refined and terrible that one shudders even to think of it?”
Book Two – Chapter Eight
Captain James Continues his Story – On the Subterranean River
“Forth from the dark recesses of the caveThe serpent cameWith searching eye, and lifted jaw and tongue,Quivering and hissing as a heavy showerUpon the summer woods.”Scene: The quarter-deck of the barque. Officers at the table. Men crowded with eager faces, respectfully listening to their captain’s story.
The preparations for the torture were finished ere the village sunk to slumber that night. Tied hand and foot, my grandfather and Tom lay beneath a tree. They could not sleep, and they cared not to talk; all hope had fled, and the gloom and terror of death were in their hearts.
“The night was clear and beautiful, and the stars never looked brighter or more impressive, but cold and heartless, as indeed seemed everything. Sometimes a dog would come round and snuff at them, then start back in alarm, and sit for long minutes and howl. When the dogs were silent there were wild, unearthly shrieks heard in the distant woods, doubtless the voices of birds and beasts of prey.
“Towards morning both prisoners fell into an uneasy doze, and were awakened at last by the joyful shouts of a band of Indians from a neighbouring village, who had come to share in the festival in which Tom and my grandfather were to play so prominent a part.” Skipper James paused a minute here to relight his pipe.
“Ah, mates!” he continued, “I’ve often wondered what my grandfather’s feelings and poor Tom Turner’s must have been when they were dragged out, and tied to trees on the torture ground, with the female executioners all ready, and pining to see the white men’s blood, the knives sharpened, the torture irons heated to redness, and that awful circle of upturned faces, in which they must have looked in vain for one pitying glance.
“‘Good-bye, John,’ cried Tom.
“‘Good-bye, Tom,’ cried my grandfather, as two vicious-looking squaws approached him, one carrying a knife, the other a white-hot iron rod.
“‘Hold!’ cried an old white-haired chief, stalking into the circle.
“Every one looked impatiently towards him.
“Why, they asked, should even a chief of chiefs attempt to spoil the sport?
“But this was none other than Red Bull himself, one whose word had been law for years.
“He quickly gathered around him a dozen of the head warriors of the tribe.
“‘Your father would speak,’ said Red Bull, when they had seated themselves around him, and close to the stakes or trees to which the prisoners were tied. ‘Your father would speak. To torture a white man is no pleasure. The white man screams like a squaw. Then he faints, soon he dies. Then gone for ever is the sport, for he feels no more. Send them rather beneath the earth to the silent spirit. The great river rolls through our valley. Soon it disappears. Every year our young men are drawn beneath. Send the white men to seek them in the caves of darkness. If they come not back the great serpent has devoured them.’
“The awful truth was soon revealed more plainly to the prisoners. They were to be placed in separate canoes, and sent adrift upon the river that flowed through this romantic valley, and which a few miles nearer the mountains entered a yawning cave, and was never seen again.
“Such a fate would have been enough to make the bravest hearts that ever beat stand still with fear. The torture itself seemed pleasure in comparison to it.
“But the old chief’s speech was hailed with shouts of acclamation, while those fiendish squaws brandishing their knives danced in a yelling circle around the prisoners.
“A certain amount of liberty was now granted them, but they were so well guarded that thoughts of escape never entered their minds. They were even fed on milk and fruit, though they couldn’t have had much heart to eat.
“Next morning all preparations for this terrible voyage were completed. There were three canoes in all – one for grand-dad, one for Tom, and one loaded with meat and grain as provisions. The three canoes were lashed together, and both prisoners were supplied with paddles.
“They had been told the story of the great serpent the evening before, in order to add, if possible, to the torture of their terror.
“The tradition about this frightful snake was, my grandfather said, common among a great many tribes, so you know there must have been some little truth in it. Whether it ever left its subterranean abode in summer or not no one was able to say; but when frost was hard and winter’s snow lay thick on the ground, it used to emerge at night from the black waters and caves of such rivers as that which flowed through this lovely fertile valley, and which suddenly disappeared. It used to emerge, I say, and travel far inward in search of prey, killing and swallowing whole buffaloes and even grizzly bears, which latter it would follow to their dens, and devour them there. The trail it always left behind it told the beholder its size. It was as if a wide-beamed boat had been dragged along, with here and there at each side the imprint of gigantic claws.
“One white man is said to have seen the monster on a bright moonlight night, and its appearance was dreadful to behold. It was hurrying back towards the river at its point of disappearance, with something in its jaws; it was snorting, and the breath from its nostrils rose like steam-clouds on the clear night air, its eyes glanced like green stars in a frosty sky. Arrived at the river, it sprang in, going out of sight at once with a booming plash.
“Amidst the yells and shouts of the savages the canoes were started, the Indians following down the banks on both sides, brandishing knives and tomahawks. Just before its disappearance, the river narrows considerably, and goes swirling through a gorge with great rapidity.
“My grandfather says that at this point Tom Turner started singing ‘Rule Britannia!’ and that his manly young voice could be heard high over the shouts of the savages. But grand-dad’s heart was too full to join him.
“He cast one wild, despairing glance around him at the rocks with their wild flowers, at the greenery of the hanging trees, the blue sky, the fleecy cloudlets, at the great sun itself; then everything was blotted out of sight in a moment, the canoes were swallowed up in the inky darkness.
“There were a few minutes of silence deep as death itself, for my grand-dad and Tom both were praying.
“‘Tom,’ cried grandfather at last.
“‘John,’ said Tom.
“And their voices sounded ringing-hollow, awful.
“‘Speak low, Tom.’
“‘Yes,’ whispered Tom, ‘but the suspense is terrible.’
“‘Where are we hurrying to? How I wish it were all over! I think I’m going mad, John. I believe I shall leap out of the canoe and meet my fate.’
“‘No, Tom, no; be brave, man, for my sake. A minute or two ago you were singing.’
“‘It was but to keep up my sinking heart.’
“‘Well, sing again.’
“‘Nay, nay; I dare not.’
“‘Well, Tom, stretch your hand out here, and let me grasp it. Thanks. This seems a little comfort, anyhow.’
“‘Shall we talk, Tom?’
“‘No, I feel more inclined to sleep. I feel a strange, unaccountable drowsiness steal – steal – ’
“Tom said no more. He was fast asleep.
“So was grand-dad.
“How long they slept or how far the canoes had drifted on through the subterranean darkness they never could tell, but they awoke at last, and found that the boats had grounded at the side.
“Tom struck a light, and lit a torch.
“Nothing around them but black wet rocks, and the black water rippling past.
“‘Tom,’ said my grand-dad, ‘it is possible enough, you know, that this river may run but a few more miles, then emerge into the light.’
“‘Oh, wouldn’t that be glorious!’ cried Tom.
“‘Well, let us push off again, and try to keep awake.’
“Tom extinguished the torch, and the boats were once more shoved into the stream.
“‘John,’ said Tom after a time.
“‘Yes, Tom.’
“‘Don’t you remember when we were at school reading in heathen books of the awful river Styx, that flows nine times round the abode of the dead.’
“‘Ay, Tom, and we seem on it now. It would hardly surprise me to see a door open in the rock, and the three-headed dog Cerberus appear, or the fearful ferryman.’
“The boats rushed on now for hours, without ever grounding, though at times they touched at either side; and all this time those poor despairing souls sat hand in hand, for the silence was as saddening as even the darkness.
“Gradually, however, a sound began to grow upon their ears, and increase and increase momentarily. It was the roar of a cataract far ahead.
“Tom speedily lit his torch, and they paddled in towards the side, and grounding, leapt on shore, and drew up the boats.
“If they could have been surprised at anything the warmth of the shore would have caused them to wonder, but they felt, in a measure, already dead, and their senses were benumbed. One sense, however, was left – that of hunger. They extracted provisions, and, strange to say, both ate heartily, then almost immediately sank to sleep.
“‘Tom,’ said grand-dad, awaking at last.
“‘John,’ said Tom.
“‘I think, Tom, we had better end this at once. Down yonder is the cataract. We have but to push off into the stream, and in a minute more all will be over.’
“‘Nonsense,’ replied Tom. ‘Come, John, old man, I’m getting hopeful; and I do think, if we can drag the boats along this gloomy shore, we may avoid that waterfall, and launch again below it. Let us try.’ So Tom lit the torch again, and away they went, dragging the light canoes behind them.
“It was rough work, but they succeeded at last.
“Once more the boats were launched, once more the same irrepressible drowsiness stole over them, and they slept for what seemed to them, when they awoke, a wondrously long time.
“Again they grounded, ate, and slept.
“And so they kept on and on and on, rushing down the mysterious subterranean river, but they came to no more cataracts.
“On and on, for days perhaps; for aught they knew for weeks.
“The regions in which they now found themselves were oppressively hot, but they only slept the sounder. Awakening one night, if one may so speak of a time that was all night, they were surprised in the extreme to find themselves in the midst of a strange glimmering light. It was a light by which they could see each other’s faces, and blue and ghastly they looked, but a light that cast no shadow, at which they marvelled much, till they found out that the river here had broadened out into a kind of lake, that the rocks all round them were covered with fungi or toadstools, all emitting a phosphorescent glimmer, and that the water itself contained thousands of strange fishes, and that these all gave light.
“There was but little current here, so paddles were got out, and the boats helped onwards, though, to tell the truth, both my grand-dad and Tom Turner were more frightened at the strange spectral light that now glared round them, than they had been of the darkness.
“The fishes, too, looked like things uncanny, and indeed they were wholly uncouth and quite dissimilar in shape and actions from anything they had ever seen in the world above.
“They had reached a part of the river when it began once more to narrow and the current to become stronger, while at the same time it began to get darker, and the spectral-like fishes fewer. But suddenly Tom clutched my grand-dad by the wrist with his disengaged hand, and with a visage distorted by terror he drew his attention to something that lay half curled up at the bottom of a deep slimy pool.
“However dark it had been they would have seen that awful creature, for its body from stem to stern was lit up with a phosphorescent gleam. It was in the shape of a gigantic snake, full twenty fathoms long, with two terrible alligator-like arms and claws in front. It had green glaring eyes, that never closed or winked. Its whole appearance was fearsome enough, my grand-dad said, to almost turn a beholder into stone.
“Whether it was asleep or awake they could not tell, but it seemed to glide astern as the boat swept over it, and gradually to lose shape and disappear. In a few minutes more they were plunged once more in Cimmerian darkness.
“For many days the boats plunged on and on over the subterranean river, till their very life became a burden and a weariness to them, that they would gladly have laid down for ever.
“But one time, on awaking from a deep sleep, they found that something very strange and unusual had occurred. They were still in darkness, but not altogether in silence; the water made a lapping sound on the rocky river bank, and the boat was no longer in motion.
“Moreover, it was less warm around them than usual.
“Tom lit a torch, and they landed. Yes, there was the water lapping up and receding again.
“‘Can you give us more light?’ said my grand-dad.
“‘We may burn the centre canoe,’ replied Tom, undoing it as he spoke, while his companion held the torch on high. There are no more provisions except enough for once and a few pounds of tallow.
“The canoe was broken up and set fire to. The flames leapt up, and lo! in front of them was the end of the mysterious river, a black and solid rock, beneath which no man or boat could penetrate.
“Tom looked at my grand-dad, and grand-dad looked at him.
“‘Lost! Imprisoned! The end has come!’
“These were the words they uttered.
“‘Let us eat our last meal, then,’ said Tom.
“‘Yes,’ said my grand-dad.
“When it was finished, they lay down with their feet towards the grateful blaze, and in a moment or two were once more sound asleep.
“When they awoke what a change! All was light and beauty. They were in a cave with a river rolling silently at their feet away out and joining the blue sea. Yonder it was, and the sky, too, and white fleecy clouds, and screaming sea-birds, and the glorious sun itself.
“They understood all now. They had come to the end of the river while the tide was up; it was now ebb, and they were free.
“They rushed out wild with delight, and wandered away along the sea-beach. It was weeks and weeks before they managed to attract the notice of a passing vessel, and their adventures on shore were many and strange, but I must not tell them now, for it is time to turn in.
“But I believe you know, and so did my grand-dad, that they had been actually in the home of the great sea-serpent, that he dwells in mysterious subterranean rivers like these, venturing out to sea but seldom, and hardly ever appearing on the surface.”
“Are you done?” said one sailor.
“I’m done.”
“Well,” said Rory O’Reilly, “it’s a quare story, a very quare story, deed and indeed. But I can’t be after swallowing the big sarpint.”
“I can believe the first half of the yarn,” quoth Captain Blunt.
“You can, can you?” quoth Rory. “Well, sure, it’s all roight after all; you belave the first half, and he belaves the second half himself; what more can you wish? Faith, it’s as roight as the rainbow.”
“Well, Rory,” said the skipper, laughing, “can’t you tell us a story yourself every word of which we can all believe?”
Rory scratched his head, with a comical look twinkling in his eyes and puckering his face.
“Deed and indeed,” he said, “if it be my turn, I won’t be after spoiling the fun.”
Book Two – Chapter Nine
Rory O’Reilly’s Queer Story
“Till now we quietly sailed on, Yet never a breeze did blow;Slowly and smoothly went the ship, Moved onward from beneath.“The upper air burst into life, And a hundred fire-flags sheen,To and fro they were hurried about, And to and fro and in and outThe war stars danced between.”Coleridge.“Deed and indeed,” said Rory, “if it be my turn I won’t be after spoiling the fun; and sure, boys, thim is the very words my great-grandfather said when he and a dozen more were going to be hanged at Ballyporeen in the troublesome times.
“And is it a story you said?”
“Yes, Rory, a story.”
Now Rory’s religious feelings and his sense of humour used oftentimes to be strangely at loggerheads. The fact is, he would not tell a wilful falsehood for all he was worth.
“But, sure,” he would say, “there can’t be a taste of harm in telling a story or two just to amuse the boys.” Yet, to make assurance doubly sure, and his conscience as easy as possible, he always prefaced his yarns with a bit of advice such as follows – “Now, boys, believe me, it’s lies I’m going to be after telling you entirely. Believe me, there isn’t a morsel av truth in any av me stories, from beginning to ind, and there’s sorra a lie in that.”
On this particular occasion, instead of commencing at once, Rory took his pipe from his mouth, and sat gazing for about a minute into dreamland, as one might say, with smiles playing at hide-and-seek all over his face.
“Thim was the glorious toimes, boys,” he said.
“What times, Rory?”
“Did I never tell you, then?” replied Rory, trying to look innocent.
“What! not about the beautiful island, and the mighty mountains, and the goold, and the jewels, and the big turtle and all?”
“No, Rory, never a word.”
“Well, then, to begin with, it’s ten years ago, and maybe a bit more, so I wasn’t so old as I am now. I hadn’t been more’n a year or two at sea, and mostly coasting that same would be, though sure enough my great ambition was to sail away beyond the sunrise, or away to the back av the north wind and seek me fortune. It was living at home in ould Oirland I was then, with mother and Molly – the saints be around them this noight! – and a swater, claner, tidier bit av a lass than me sister Molly there doesn’t live ’tween here and Tralee, and sure that is the only bit av real truth in the whole av me story.”
“We perfectly believe that, Rory.”
“Well thin, boys, it was crossing the bog I was one beautiful moonlight night about five o’clock in the morning, and a big wild bog it was, too, with never a house nor a cot in it, and nobody at all barrin’ the moor-snipes and the kelpies, when all at once, what or who should I see standing right foreninst me, beside a rick av peats, but a gentleman in sailor’s clothes, with gold all round his hat, and a bunch av seals dangling in front av him as big as turkey’s eggs. And sure it wasn’t shy he was at spaking either, boys.
