CHAPTER IX
AN AMAZING NARRATION
When the captain had gone out again into the open air, he was followed bythe rest of the party, for, if there were no danger, they all wanted tosee what was to be seen. What they saw was a party of six black men onthe plateau, Maka in the lead. There could be no doubt that the newcomerswere the remainder of the party of Africans who had been enslaved by theRackbirds, and the desire of the captain and his companions to know howthey had got away, and what news they brought, was most intense.
Maka now hurried forward, leading one of the strangers. "Great thingsthey tell," said he. "This Cheditafa. He speak English good as me. Hetell you."
"The first thing I want," cried the captain, "is some news of thoseRackbirds. Have they found we are here? Will they be coming after thesemen, or have they gone off somewhere else? Tell me this, and be quick."
"Oh, yes," cried Maka, "they found out we here. But Cheditafa tellyou--he tell you everything. Great things!"
"Very well, then," said the captain. "Let him begin and be quickabout it."
The appearance of Cheditafa was quite as miserable as that of poor Mok,but his countenance was much more intelligent, and his English, althoughvery much broken, was better even than Maka's, and he was able to makehimself perfectly understood. He spoke briefly, and this is the substanceof his story:
About the middle of the afternoon of the day before, a wonderful thinghappened. The Rackbirds had had their dinner, which they had cookedthemselves, and they were all lying down in their huts or in the shadowsof the rocks, either asleep, or smoking and telling stories. Cheditafaknew why they were resting. The Rackbirds had no idea that he understoodEnglish, for he had been careful to keep this fact from them after hefound out what sort of men they were,--and this knowledge had come verysoon to him,--and they spoke freely before him. He had heard some of themen who had been out looking for Mok, and who had come back early thatmorning, tell about some shipwrecked people in a cave up the coast, andhad heard all the plans which had been made for the attack upon themduring the night. He also knew why he and his fellows had been cooped upin the cave in the rock in which they lived, all that day, and had notbeen allowed to come down and do any work.
They were lying huddled in their little cave, feeling very hungry andmiserable, and whispering together,--for if they spoke out or made anynoise, one of the men below would be likely to fire a load of shot atthem,--when suddenly a strange thing happened.
They heard a great roar like a thousand bulls, which came from thehigher part of the ravine, and peeping out, they saw what seemed like awall of rock stretching across the little valley. But in a second theysaw it was not rock--it was water, and before they could take two breathsit had reached them. Then it passed on, and they saw only the surface ofa furious and raging stream, the waves curling and dashing over eachother, and reaching almost up to the floor of their cave.
They were so frightened that they pressed back as far as they could get,and even tried to climb up the sides of the rocky cavity, so fearful werethey that the water would dash in upon them. But the raging flood roaredand surged outside, and none of it came into their cave. Then the soundof it became not quite so loud, and grew less and less. But stillCheditafa and his companions were so frightened and so startled by thisawful thing, happening so suddenly, as if it had been magic, that it wassome time--he did not know how long--before they lifted their faces fromthe rocks against which they were pressing them.
Then Cheditafa crept forward and looked out. The great waves and theroaring water were gone. There was no water to be seen, except the brookwhich always ran at the bottom of the ravine, and which now seemed notvery much bigger than it had been that morning.
But the little brook was all there was in the ravine, except the barerocks, wet and glistening. There were no huts, no Rackbirds, nothing.Even the vines and bushes which had been growing up the sides of thestream were all gone. Not a weed, not a stick, not a clod of earth, wasleft--nothing but a great, rocky ravine, washed bare and clean.
Edna Markham stepped suddenly forward and seized the captain by the arm."It was the lake," she cried. "The lake swept down that ravine!"
"Yes," said the captain, "it must have been. But listen--let us hearmore. Go on," he said to Cheditafa, who proceeded to tell how he and hiscompanions looked out for a long time, but they saw nor heard nothing ofany living creature. It would be easy enough for anybody to come back upthe ravine, but nobody came.
They had now grown so hungry that they could have almost eaten eachother. They felt they must get out of the cave and go to look for food.It would be better to be shot than to sit there and starve.
Then they devised a plan by which they could get down. The smallest mangot out of the cave and let himself hang, holding to the outer edge ofthe floor with his hands. Then another man put his feet over the edge ofthe rock, and let the hanging man take hold of them. The other two eachseized an arm of the second man, and lowered the two down as far as theycould reach. When they had done this, the bottom man dropped, and did nothurt himself. Then they had to pull up the second man, for the fall wouldhave been too great for him.
After that they had to wait a long time, while the man who had got outwent to look for something by which the others could help themselvesdown--the ladder they had used having been carried away with everythingelse. After going a good way down the ravine to a place where it grewmuch wider, with the walls lower, he found things that had been thrown upon the sides, and among these was the trunk of a young tree, which,after a great deal of hard work, he brought back to the cave, and by thehelp of this they all scrambled down.
They hurried down the ravine, and as they approached the lower part,where it became wider before opening into the little bay into which thestream ran, they found that the flood, as it had grown shallower andspread itself out, had left here and there various things which it hadbrought down from the camp--bits of the huts, articles of clothing, andafter a while they came to a Rackbird, quite dead, and hanging upon apoint of projecting rock. Farther on they found two or three more bodiesstranded, and later in the day some Rackbirds who had been washed out tosea came back with the tide, and were found upon the beach. It wasimpossible, Cheditafa said, for any of them to have escaped from thatraging torrent, which hurled them against the rocks as it carried themdown to the sea.
But the little party of hungry Africans did not stop to examine anythingwhich had been left. What they wanted was something to eat, and theyknew where to get it. About a quarter of a mile back from the beach wasthe storehouse of the Rackbirds, a sort of cellar which they had made ina sand-hill. As the Africans had carried the stores over from the vesselwhich had brought them, and had afterwards taken to the camp suchsupplies as were needed from time to time, of course they knew where tofind them, and they lost no time in making a hearty meal.
According to Cheditafa's earnest assertions, they had never eaten asthey had eaten then. He believed that the reason they had been leftwithout food was that the Rackbirds were too proud to wait on blackmen, and had concluded to let them suffer until they had returned fromtheir expedition, and the negroes could be let down to attend to theirown wants.
After they had eaten, the Africans went to a spot which commanded a viewup the ravine, as well as the whole of the bay, and there they hidthemselves, and watched as long as it was daylight, so that if any ofthe Rackbirds had escaped they could see them. But they saw nothing, andbeing very anxious to find good white people who would take care ofthem, they started out before dawn that morning to look for theshipwrecked party about whom Cheditafa had heard the Rackbirds talking,and with whom they hoped to find their companion Mok, and thus it wasthat they were here.
"And those men were coming to attack us last night?" asked the captain."You are sure of that?"
"Yes," said Cheditafa, "it was last night. They not know how many youare, and all were coming."
"And some of them had already been here?"
"Yes," replied
the African. "One day before, three went out to look forMok, and they found his track and more track, and they waited in theblack darkness, and then came here, and they heard you all sleep andsnore that night. They were to come again, and if they--"
"And yesterday afternoon the lake came down and swept them out ofexistence!" exclaimed Mrs. Cliff.