"See? Yes. Don"t ask me."
"But where are they?"
"Sleep. Drunk, I think. After they"d tied us prisoners all up and shut up all the women and children in the big _whare_, what do you think they did?"
"Kill them?"
"Killed "em? No. Lit fires, and set to and had a reg"lar feast, and danced about--them as could!" added Jem with a chuckle. "Some on "em had got too many holes in "em to enjoy dancing much. But, Mas" Don."
"Yes, Jem."
"Don"t ask me to tell you no more, my lad. I"m too badly, just now.
Think you could go to sleep?"
"I don"t know, Jem. I don"t think so."
"I"d say, let"s try and get ourselves loose, and set to and get away, for I don"t think anybody"s watching us; but I couldn"t go two steps, I know. Could you run away by yourself?"
"I don"t know," said Don. "I"m not going to try."
"Well, but that"s stupid, Mas" Don, when you might go somewhere, p"r"aps, and get help."
"Where, Jem?"
"Ah!" said the poor fellow, after a pause, "I never thought about that."
They lay still under the blinking stars, with the wind blowing chill from the icy mountains; and the feeling of bitter despondency which hung over Don"s spirit seemed to grow darker. His head throbbed violently, and a dull numbing pain was in his wrists and ankles. Then, too, as he opened his lips, he felt a cruel, parching, feverish thirst, which seemed by degrees to pa.s.s away as he listened to the low moaning, and then for a few minutes he lost consciousness.
But it was only to start into wakefulness again, and stare wildly at the faintly-seen fence of the great _pah_, right over his head, and through which he could see the twinkling of a star.
As he realised where he was once more, he whispered Jem"s name again and again, but a heavy breathing was the only response, and he lay thinking of home and of his bedroom all those thousand miles away. And as he thought of Bristol, a curious feeling of thankfulness came over him that his mother was in ignorance of the fate that had befallen her son.
"What would she say--what would she think, if she knew that I was lying here on the ground, a prisoner, and wounded--here at the mercy of a set of savages--what would she say?"
A short time before Don had been thinking that fate had done its worst for him, and that his position could not possibly have been more grave.
But he thought now that it might have been far worse, for his mother was spared his horror.
And then as he lay helpless there, and in pain, with his companion badly hurt, and the low moan of some wounded savage now and then making him shudder, the scene of the desperate fight seemed to come back, and he felt feverish and wild. But after a time that pa.s.sed off, and the pain and chill troubled him, but only to pa.s.s off as well, and be succeeded by a drowsy sensation.
And then as he lay there, the words of the old, old prayers he had repeated at his mother"s knee rose to his lips, and he was repeating them as sleep fell upon his weary eyes; and the agony and horrors of that terrible time were as nothing to him then.
The Adventures of Don Lavington--by George Manville Fenn
CHAPTER FORTY ONE.
PRISONERS OF WAR.
"I wish our old ship was here, and I was at one of the guns to help give these beggars a broadside."
"It is very, very horrible, Jem."
"Ten times as horrid as that, Mas" Don. Here was we all as quiet and comf"table as could be--taking our warm baths. I say, shouldn"t I like one now! I"m that stiff and sore I can hardly move."
"Yes, it would be a comfort, Jem."
"Yes, and as I was saying, here was we going on as quiet as could be, and interfering with n.o.body, when these warmints came; and look at things now."
"Yes," said Don, sadly, as he looked round; "half the men dead, the others wounded and prisoners, with the women and children."
"And the village--I s"pose they calls this a village; I don"t, for there arn"t no church--all racked and ruined."
They sat together, with their hands tightly bound behind them, gazing at the desolation. The prisoners were all huddled together, perfectly silent, and with a dull, sullen, despairing look in their countenances, which seemed to suggest that they were accepting their fate as a matter of course.
It was a horrible scene, so many of the warriors being badly wounded, but they made no complaint; and, truth to tell, most of those who were now helpless prisoners had taken part in raids to inflict the pain they now suffered themselves.
The dead had been dragged away before Don woke that morning, but there were hideous traces on the trampled ground, with broken weapons scattered here and there, while the wounded were lying together perfectly untended, many of them bound, to prevent escape--hardly possible even to an uninjured man, for a guard was keeping watch over them ready to advance threateningly, spear in hand, if a prisoner attempted to move.
Where Don and Jem were sitting a portion of the great fence was broken, and they could see through it down to the sh.o.r.e.
"What a shame it seems on such a glorious morning, Jem!"
"Shame! Mas" Don? I should just like to shame "em. Head hurt much?"
"Not so very much, Jem. How is your shoulder?"
"Rather pickly."
"Rather what?"
"Pickly, as if there was vinegar and pepper and salt being rubbed into it. But my old mother used to say that it was a good sign when a cut smarted a lot. So I s"pose my wound"s first rate, for it smarts like a furze bush in a fit."
"I wish I could bathe it for you, Jem."
"Thank ye, Mas" Don. I wish my Sally could do it. More in her way."
"We must try and bear it all, I suppose, Jem. How hot the sun is; and, ill as I am, I should be so glad of something to eat and drink."
"I"m that hungry, Mas" Don," growled Jem, "that I could eat one o" these here savages. Not all at once, of course."
"Look, Jem. What are they doing there?"
Don nodded his head in the direction of the broken fence; and together they looked down from the eminence on which the _pah_ was formed, right upon the black volcanic sand, over which the sea ran foaming like so much glistening silver.
There were about fifty of the enemy busy there running to and fro, and the spectators were not long left in doubt as to what they were doing, for amid a great deal of shouting one of the huge war canoes was run down over the sand and launched, a couple of men being left to keep her by the sh.o.r.e, while their comrades busied themselves in launching others, till every canoe belonging to the conquered tribe was in the water.
"That"s it, is it?" said Jem. "They came over land, and now they"re going back by water. Well, I s"pose, they"ll do as they like."