"At least, tell me then," I continued, "your name, for what purpose I am brought here, and whither you are taking me."
"My name is Sylvia Cervantes," replied my captor, proudly. "As to why you are brought here, ask the wise-ones whom you shall presently see.
Yonder islands are the Islands of Engano."
In the surprise which her words occasioned I almost forgot the anger which had begun to burn within me when I thought of how basely I had been betrayed. Before me were the wonderful Male and Female Islands, fabled by Marco Polo. I had come upon this voyage with Dirk Hartog in quest of adventure. Well, here was an adventure awaiting me that was likely to prove the most remarkable I had yet encountered.
As we drew near, to one of the islands, I was impressed by the extreme beauty of the scene. The cliffs rose to great heights, forming a dark, clear-cut line against the sky, while between the lofty walls, verdant valleys stretched down to the white, sandy beaches, upon which the waves broke in glistening spume. Toward a beach, somewhere about the centre of the island, our course was laid, and upon coming to the shallows, the girls shipped their paddles and sprang into the water, when, with others helping them, they ran the canoe on to the beach, making no more of my weight than if I had been a child.
I now observed among the woods of the, very ancient stone buildings, which, at one time, must have been occupied by a people possessing a high state of civilization. They were in ruins, and overgrown by flowering shrubs and creepers, but were apparently still used as habitations for it was to one of these houses I was presently conducted. Here I was invited to rest and refresh myself with some delicious fruit that was set before me, the like of which I do not remember having tasted before.
Sylvia Cervantes now joined me, and in the witchery of her presence I forgot my perilous plight, and gave myself up to the luxury and enjoyment of the moment.
From Sylvia I learnt the history of my capture, and why she had come to entice me away with her.
Having inquired my name, which I gave her, Sylvia continued as follows:--
"You must know, then, Peter," she said, "that we are ruled here by custom which may not be changed. The wise-ones who live on the mountain tops tell us what to do, and we do it without question. The wise-ones are not as others are. They see what others cannot see, and they know many things that others cannot even guess at, so when the wise-ones told me your ship was on the other side of the Great Barren Island, and that I was to take my canoe and bring you here, I could not help but obey."
"How is it possible," I asked, "that mortal eyes can see so far?"
"The eyes of the wise-ones are not as mortal eyes," replied Sylvia, gravely. "Rest now, and to-morrow you shall hear what is required of you."
I was so affected by the calamity which had overtaken me that I lacked the disposition to question Sylvia more closely on the matter. It was plain I was a captive, and helpless to avert my fate, whatever it might be. As well then accept the inevitable, and make the most of the pa.s.sing hour. I did not value life, since Anna"s death, at a pin"s ransom. If, therefore, the end of all things for me in this world was at hand, let it come. I would welcome it without regret.
Sylvia now told me as much as she knew about the island to which I had been brought, and of its people.
In ages gone by, she said, when the stone houses were new, and a flourishing city stood in the valley, a disagreement had arisen between the king and queen, who held equal sway over the two islands, of such a nature that the breach became impossible to be healed.
Instead of going to war with each other, and thus sacrificing the lives of many of their respective followers in battle, who had no part in their quarrel, an agreement was come to whereby the king withdrew himself to the western island, leaving the queen in undisputed possession in the east. The king took to him all the men in both islands, giving up to the queen the women, to become her subjects. Since then the Male and Female Islands had been managed as separate communities. There was no king or queen now, the people of both islands being ruled by the wise-ones, who lived on the mountain tops in the Female Island. But the inhabitants of the two islands still continued to live apart, the males on one island and the females on the other. On the Male Island the males dwelt alone, without their wives, or any other women. Every year, in the month of March, the men came to the Female Island, and tarried there three months, to wit, March, April, and May, dwelling with their wives for that s.p.a.ce. At the end of those three months they returned to their own island, and pursued their avocation there, selling ambergris to the traders from Sumatra. As for the children whom their wives bore them, if they were girls they stayed with their mothers; but if they were boys their mothers brought them up until they were fourteen years old, and then sent them to their fathers. Those women who were married did nothing but nurse and rear their children.
Their husbands provided them with all necessaries. Those who were unmarried, and until marriage, became Amazons, doing all the work on the island that would, in the ordinary course, be done by men. They were very strictly reared, and were as hardy as boys. If necessary they could fight in defence of their country with a courage equal to that displayed by the bravest warriors. Such were the strange customs of the people on these two islands as related to me by Sylvia Cervantes.
CHAPTER x.x.xVII
A TASK IS SET ME
On the day after I was made captive to the people on the Female Island in the Engano group, I was given an opportunity to observe the customs which prevail among these Amazons. They appeared to be a happy, healthy people, nor could I fail to notice the absence of ill-temper and discord, which may be observed in all communities in which men and women live together, and where jealousy between the s.e.xes is too often the cause of lifelong feuds. Here the matrons seemed content to devote themselves to the rearing of their offspring, who, in return, rendered heart-whole affection to their mothers. I never witnessed such docility and loving obedience as was displayed by the children of this island to those who had the care of them, and while I remained at Engano I never heard a child cry or saw a woman in tears.
As the girls reach maturity, which they do in these lat.i.tudes at the age of about twelve years, they are instructed by their mothers how to perform the necessary work, and become very skilful at throwing the lance, harpoon, or any manner of dart, being bred to it from their infancy. These girls, from this training, possess wonderful eyesight, and will descry a sail at sea farther than any sailor could see it.
The dress adopted by the dwellers on the Female Island, though scanty to civilized eyes, is nevertheless suited to their manner of life. It consists of tapa cloth cut in a deep fringe depending from waist to knee. Their hair, which is long, hangs down their backs. Those who, like Sylvia, have red hair, are mostly freckled and rosy, which, so far from detracting from their beauty, rather adds to their charms. The dark-haired ones are burnt brown by the sun.
I was now taken by Sylvia to be presented to the wise-ones, at whose instigation I had been brought to the island. These I found to be men, if indeed they could be called such, but they were so wizened in appearance as more to resemble monkeys. Their manner of life is so austere as to make it a matter for marvel that body and soul could cling together. They will not kill an animal for food, or for any other purpose, not even a fly or a flea, or anything in fact that has life; for they say they have all souls, and it would be a sin to kill them.
They eat no vegetables in a green state, only such as are dry, for they believe that even green leaves have life. And they sleep on the bare ground, naked, without anything to cover them, or to soften the mountain rocks which form their bed. They fast every day, and drink nothing but water. Yet, in spite of the rigour of their discipline, they attain to extreme old age; not one of the wise men, so Sylvia informed me, being less than one hundred years old, while some were accredited with upwards of two centuries of life. By reason of their abstinence, they are supposed to be gifted with mysterious occult powers, notably second sight, by which they are able to locate strangers at a great distance from their own country, and to foretell their advent. Not long since they had foretold the coming to the island of a Spanish fleet, when the whole Amazon population had taken refuge in subterranean caves until the Spaniards had left, which they did under the belief that the island was deserted. It was by means of this second sight that the "Golden Seahorse" had been located, and that I had been selected from among the crew to carry out a project which the wise men had in view, and the particulars of which I was about to learn.
The chief of the wise-ones, who acted as spokesman, now informed me of the reason I had been brought to the island.
"You must know, Signor," said he, addressing me as though I was a Spaniard; an appellation which I felt inclined to resent, "that we are troubled by a demon we have found it impossible to slay. Many of our girls have fallen victims to the monster, while the men from the Male Island have repeatedly attacked it during the months of their residence here, without being able to overcome it. In length the creature is thirty feet, and of great bulk. It has two forelegs near the head, armed with claws. The head is very big, and the eyes stand out from it on k.n.o.b-like excrescences. The mouth is big enough to swallow a man whole, and is armed with pointed teeth. In short, the monster is so fierce that all stand in fear at the sight of it. Now it is known that the men of your race are brave, and possess weapons of which we have no knowledge, so, when it was revealed to us that your ship was close by on the other side of the Great Barren Island, we resolved to bring you here; who seemed, in our eyes, to be a brave man, so that you may rid us of the demon which threatens our peace, if not our very existence."
"Alas! oh, wise-one," I answered. "How much better to have brought the ship also! On board of her, it is true, we possess weapons against which even such a monster as you tell me of could not prevail. But these weapons I have not with me. How then can I, single-handed, hope to overcome so terrible a creature as you describe? Rather send me back to my ship, when I promise to bring her here, so that a party of us, well armed, may attack the demon, when no doubt we shall be able to destroy it." But at this the wise-one shook his head.
"To bring the ship here," said he, "would be easy. But how do we know we could be rid of her without injury to our people?"
"I would pa.s.s you my word as to that," I answered.
"So you say now," replied the wise-one. "But how shall we know that you would keep your word?"
An angry retort sprang to my lips, but I restrained myself on receiving a warning glance from Sylvia, which reminded me that I stood at the mercy of these monkey men.
"Give me three days, then," I answered, "to devise some means for destroying the monster. If I succeed, I demand to be sent back to my ship. Without this promise I will do nothing for you, let the consequences to me be what they may."
The wise-one seemed to ponder my words carefully.
"Be it so, then," he answered. "If in three days you rid us of this demon I will see that you are restored to your friends. But if you should fail, and survive, you must nevertheless be put to death. We have no room on the Islands of Engano for strangers."
CHAPTER x.x.xVIII
THE SLAYING OF THE GREAT CROCODILE
I now bethought me of how I might best set about the task of vanquishing the monster which held the Female Island in terror, and which, from the description given me by the wise-ones, I judged to be a crocodile. Nor in this was I mistaken, for, being taken by Sylvia to a place of safety from which I could see the demon, I was confirmed in the opinion I had formed by what I saw, although I had never seen a crocodile of such amazing proportions before. It lived in a cave close to a fertile plain, where goats belonging to the islanders were pastured. Not far off was a stream at which it went to drink, and a deep furrow in the sand marked the road it made to the water. During the day it remained in its cave, but toward evening it would issue forth and attack the goats, three or four of which it would kill, and carry off to its lair. Those in charge of the goats dared not interfere, lest the monster, deprived of its accustomed food, might seek its dinner among the ruined stone houses in which the islanders lived.
Now I noticed that the road along which the crocodile travelled to the water was very deeply furrowed, thus proving how the great lizard had repeatedly dragged its heavy bulk over the same spot on its way to drink at the stream, and I bethought me of a plan to deal with the reptile. The only weapon I had upon me when kidnapped from my ship was a short sabre or manchette, which I wore as a sidearm. But this I hoped would prove a formidable weapon when put to the use for which I now intended it.
During the morning of the next day, when we knew that the crocodile would be asleep in his cave, Sylvia and I went together to the road which the reptile had made, by the weight of his body, to his usual watering-place.
Here, with such rude implements as the islanders possessed, we dug a trench the width of the road, and for some distance along it. At the bottom of the trench we laid a stout log, in which was firmly fixed my manchette, its sharp point upward. We then filled up the trench with soft sand, and retired to the place of vantage which I had occupied the previous day, and from which we could see the crocodile make his evening raid. Towards sundown he came forth with a rush among the terrified goats, four of which he slew with a stroke from his powerful tail, after which he proceeded to drag their mangled carcases into his lair. We waited an hour, when, just before sundown, the reptile came forth again on his way to the water. We watched him with bated breath, and Sylvia, who now, for the first time, began to understand the trap I had set, could hardly contain her excitement. When the crocodile came to the sand-pit we had dug on the road he sank down, when the sharp blade of the manchette entered his breast, and as he dashed forward, rove him to the navel, so that he died on the spot in the greatest agony.
Sylvia now summoned the islanders to see my work. They came from all parts, and raised so great a shout when they saw their enemy dead that the sound of it reached the wise-ones on the mountain-tops, who peered down at the beast where he lay in a mora.s.s of blood which deluged the sand so that it ran into the stream, dyeing the water a deep red.
The death of the reptile, and the craft and cunning I had displayed in the killing of it, so impressed the Amazons that they came to me in a body, with Sylvia as their mouthpiece, asking me to stay and be their king, nor did the wise-ones raise any objection to this proposal. But although I admired Sylvia, I had no desire to spend the rest of my days at Engano, not even as King of the Amazons. I therefore answered that my comrades were no doubt looking for me, nor would they continue their voyage home until all hope of my rescue had been abandoned, and I reminded the wise-ones of the promise they had made me of safe conduct back to my vessel, in case I should succeed in ridding the island of their enemy. The justice of my claim was not to be denied, and with the dawn of the morrow the wise-ones undertook to ascertain the direction in which the ship lay and to send me aboard her.
That evening a feast was held in my honour; some of the men from the Male Island came over, by special permission of the wise-ones, in order to be present, and to see the man who had slain the monster against which they had been unable to prevail.
The men from the Male Island I found to be as free from ill-will toward one another as were the women on the Female Island. Since they had neither wife nor child, they a.s.sociated in pairs, and mutually rendered each other all the services a master could reasonably expect from a servant, being together in so perfect a community that the survivor always succeeded his dead partner to any property he may have had.
They behave to each other with the greatest justness and openness of heart. It is a crime to keep anything hidden. On the other hand, the least pilfering is unpardonable, and punished by death. And indeed there can be no great temptation to steal when it is reckoned a point of honour never to refuse a neighbour what he wants; and when there is so little property of value it is impossible there should be many disputes over it. If any happened, the wise-ones interposed, and soon put an end to the difference.
In all my travels I never met with happier or more gently disposed persons than the people of the Male and Female Islands of Engano.
CHAPTER x.x.xIX
I BECOME A VICTIM OF DOMESTIC INFELICITY