CHAPTER XX.
The light grew ever stronger behind the hurrying clouds, but the deepplaces in the forest held their shadows still. Tall cypress-trees rearedtheir heads amid the hollows and spread their branches like a widecanopy over our heads; huge live-oaks crowned the hummocks; and here andthere great laurels lifted their pyramids of glossy, dark-green foliage.Our passage was frequently obstructed by fallen logs, mossed over withthe growth of years; and tangles of vine, tough-stemmed and supple,flung themselves from tree to tree across our path, resisting ouradvance. All through the forest's higher corridors howled the riotouswind; but along the tunneled ways we traveled it was scarce perceptibleat times.
In spite of my fatigue I felt a greater strength rising within me. Wehad come so far without pursuit! I began to hope as I had never donebefore; for was not my dear love free, and my face also set towardfriends?
As I mused thus we reached a higher level, and, through a rent in thestormy sky a shaft of morning sunlight glanced across my shoulder andplunged forward into the woods beyond. I looked back, startled, and fora brief moment saw the sun's golden disc; then a black cloud effaced itfrom the sky.
"Padre!" I cried, "we are travelling westward!"
"Yes," he said calmly.
"Westward!" I exclaimed again. "Westward--and inland! when the Englishsettlement lies to the north of us, upon the coast!"
He bowed again in silent acquiescence. Then my indignation broke forth,and without stopping for further question I accused him bitterly ofbreach of trust.
"Did you not promise Dona Orosia to deliver me to my friends?" I cried.
"What cause have you to doubt my good faith?" he asked, turning hissombre eyes toward me, but still speaking in the same calm tones. "Had Ia ship at San Augustin in which we could set sail? Or could such a shiphave left the harbour unperceived? Not even a canoe could have beenobtained there without danger of discovery. We have a long journeybefore us,--could we set out upon it unprovisioned?"
I hung my head, ashamed, of my doubts. Once it was not my nature to besuspicious; but so much of trouble had come to me of late that I beganto fear I would never again feel the same confidence in my fellowcreatures, the same implicit trust in Heaven that I had held two yearsago. I had never been a stranger to trouble; but, as a child, I knew itonly as a formless cloud that cast its shadow sometimes on my path,dimming the sunlight for a moment and hushing the song upon my lips.Even when my mother died I was too young for more than a child'sgrief--an April shower of tears; and although my earliest maidenhood wasoften lonely, I had made me my own happiness with bright imaginings, andprayed God to bring them to pass. So I awaited my future always with asmile and never doubted that it would be fair. All that had gone by.Trouble had shown its face to me, and I knew it for something terribleand strong, ready to leap at my throat and crush life out of me. Whatwonder, then, that I walked fearfully from hour to hour?
Padre Felipe spoke again after a time. "The woods are thinning," hesaid. "A few more steps and we shall come out on the shores of the SanJuan, near to a small village of the Yemassees, in which there are manywhose eyes have been opened to the truth. There we shall find shelterfrom the storm, and means to pursue our journey when the clouds arepast. Let us hasten; the bearers with the litter are far ahead."
He gave me his arm once more, and ere many minutes were past, we came insight of the bold stream of the San Juan and the crowded huts of anIndian village.
The settlement did not appear to be near so large as that at SantaCatalina, nor did the buildings seem of as great size andcommodiousness. The most imposing edifice I took to be the missionchapel, for before it was the great cross mounted aloft. It was circularin shape, with mud walls, and a thatched roof rising to an apex. Therewas a door in the side, of heavy planks battened strongly together; butI could perceive no windows, only a few very small square apertures,close under the eaves, for light and air.
The clouds were beginning to spill great drops upon our heads, so wequickened our steps into a run. The litter and its bearers had pausedbeside the door of the chapel, and from the neighbouring huts severalIndians emerged and advanced to meet us. A young woman with a littlecopper-coloured babe strapped to her back, its tiny head just visibleover her shoulder, peered at us from the low doorway of her mud-walleddwelling, but meeting my eyes, drew back hastily out of sight.
I was very weary, and Barbara, who had dismounted from the litter,seemed unable to stand. The padre was holding converse with those of hisdark-skinned flock who had approached; so we two women crouched downunder the chapel eaves and gazed around us at the wind-tossed,rain-blurred scene.
Before us was a thick grove of trees; to the left we could catchglimpses of the river, gray and angry like the sky, and all along itsbanks the huddled dwellings of the poor barbarians, whose ideals ofarchitecture were no whit better than those of the wasp,--not near socomplex as those of the ant and the bee.
Suddenly, while we waited there forlorn, my thoughts flew back to anEnglish home, with its ivied walls, its turreted roof, its long facadeof warm red brick. I saw green slopes, broad terraces, a generousportal, and a spacious hall; I thought of a room with an ample chimneyset round with painted tiles, and I pictured myself kneeling upon thebearskin rug before a blazing fire, with my head upon my mother's kneeand her fingers toying with my hair. For that moment I forgot even mydear love, and I would have given all the world just to be a littlechild at home.
The padre turned to us at last and motioned us to follow him. He led usto the rear of the chapel, where, plastered against the wall, was asemicircular excrescence,--a tiny cell, with a narrow door hewn from asingle plank and fastened with a heavy padlock. Drawing forth a key fromhis belt he unlocked this and bade us enter. We did so, and he closedthe door behind us.
Within, the hard earth floor was slightly raised and covered with matsof woven palmetto-leaves. A narrow chink in the wall admitted a faintray of light, enabling us to perceive dimly the few objects which theroom contained. Apparently it was Padre Felipe's sleeping apartment andthe chapel vestry combined in one. There was a curtained doorway thatgave access to the chapel itself; pushing aside the hangings, we couldsee the dim interior, empty except for the high altar set with tallcandles, and a carven crucifix upon the wall.
As I caught sight of these emblems of a Christian faith I bethought meof the bloody sacrifices that had been offered to a pitiful God in thename of orthodoxy, and I wondered whether heretics like us would not besafer out in the wild woods and the driving storm--aye, even at themercy of infidel barbarians; but suddenly I remembered the solid silverservice which was to be the gift of Dona Orosia to this little newmission, and I took courage.
The rain was now pouring in torrents from the thatched roof, and thewind, which blew from the northeast, dashed it back against the mudwalls of our refuge. I turned to Barbara and gave voice to an anxietythat for some time, had been growing within me.
"Dear dame," I said, "think you this storm is worse at sea?"
"Aye, my lamb,'tis from an ugly quarter; but the _Carolina_ hasweathered harder blows, and haply she has found good anchorage in somesafe harbour."
I tried to think the same; nevertheless, in the long hours that we satthere, listening to the heavy gusts and beating rain, my heart wentfaint at the possibility of this new danger to my beloved.
It must have been past noon when the padre came to us again. He broughtfood with him freshly cooked,--meat and fish, and broth of parchedcorn-flour, not unpleasant to the taste.
"The wind is abating," he declared, "and the clouds are breaking away.When the rain ceases we may venture to pursue our journey."
I begged to know how he purposed to convey us, for neither Barbara norI could go afoot much longer.
Then he laid his plans before us. This wide river, the San Juan, flowingby the settlement, continues northward for many miles and then curveseastward and empties itself into the sea. We were to start in two swiftcanoes--piraguas, he styled them--and, keeping at fir
st under the lee ofthe shore, follow the river to its mouth, then proceed up the coastalong the safe passage afforded by an outlying chain of islands. Itwould be a journey of about ten days to the Indian settlement at SantaHelena; the Indians there, he explained, were allies of our Englishfriends and would doubtless aid us to rejoin them.
I asked if we must pass by Santa Catalina; and he said 'twas on our way,but no one there would hinder us while we were under his protection.
"Unless," he added, "the Governor of San Augustin sends out a ship tointercept us there, or anywhere upon the way; in which case there willbe naught for me to do but give you up to him."
Upon that I was in a fever to be gone; for I felt that the day could notpass by without Melinza's discovering my flight, and I would endure anyhardship rather than risk his intercepting us.