XIII
SO, señores, that is the tale of Black White; of the man who once, at this table, laughed at a proud white girl and a law thousands of miles away, and who was trapped by a bare brown maiden and branded by the law of the Carib hills.
Because of that black brand, he now roams like a caged tigre from end to end and from side to side of that Parima upland which has become his prison, and in which walks no other white man except, at times, Loco León. It is a huge outdoor prison, to be sure—hundreds of miles long and wide—but still a prison; for that blackened skin and the cancered mind it has given him will hold him there forever.
How he lives, what he does, where he goes, are questions which white men may ask but which receive no answer; for the mouths of the Maquiritares, who alone know, are shut. They seem to feel now, those sons of the Caribs, that El Blanco Negro is one of the creatures which belong to their Parima and so belong to themselves; and that his life is one of the matters of which no other blanco may know. Even I, Loco León, friend of Maquiritares, never can get a word from them about him, except—
“He lives.”
Yet I know certain things. I know that the Maquiritares and the Macusi Indians of Guayana Inglesa—British Guiana—are friends, and that they trade back and forth by making overland marches now and then to each other’s country. I know some of those men of the Macusi, having met them on their journeys to the Maquiritare paraguas; and since they are not Maquiritares, they have no reason to keep Maquiritare secrets unless so minded. And from them I know this:
At times there appears on the river Cuyuni, which flows from our Venezuela into Guayana Inglesa, and on which men hunt gold and diamonds, a small band of Maquiritares. They are not always the same ones, but they bring always the same things: small hide bags and a cartridge shell. The bags hold gold, in dust and nuggets. The men will trade this gold for only one thing—cartridges. And those cartridges must be of the same size as the shell they bring. That size is caliber .30.
They tell no men whence they come, or where they get the gold, or what they do with the cartridges. They take the bullets and go, and that is the end of them. A few men have tried to follow them and find out where the gold comes from, but those men have never come back—except one who floated down the river with his head split. So nobody follows them now. The gold-hunters of the Cuyuni call them “The Thirty Gang.”
Now, I know that the Maquiritares have no rifles; their few guns all are long-muzzle-loading shotguns of very weak power, which they get from the Macusi. I know also that the rifles used by us Venezolanos are of caliber .44. But I happen to know that the gun of Black White is a .30.
I know, too, that the girl Juana still is with El Blanco Negro. Sometimes in the dry season, when I am scouting for new balata or, having found it, merely rambling about the land of Parima to see whatever I may see, I hear light footfalls in the darkness near some little night camp of mine. And presently out of the night speaks a woman’s voice.
“Loco León!” it calls softly. “Loco León!”
“Quién es?” I answer, peering into the gloom.
“Juana de Uaunana,” says the voice. “Y El Blanco.”
The first time I heard this I started to rise from my hammock and step forward. But I was stopped by the click of a rifle-hammer and the hard, strained voice of El Blanco himself.
“Sit still!” he commanded. “Don’t come near me or I’ll shoot. No white man sees me and lives. Talk! Talk English!”
So for some time I sat still and talked English, telling all I could think of about matters outside. At length, though I heard no movement, I felt that I spoke to the empty dark; and when I called his name no answer came.
Since then I have never tried to rise. When that woman’s voice comes to me I say:
“Buen’ noche’, Juana. Como está uste’?”
“Bien,” she answers. “Well.”
Then comes White’s harsh order:
“Talk! Talk English!”
And I, who brought him to Uaunana and so to his prison, talk the language of his own land as nearly as I may, and feed his hunger for the white-man words he never can hear from another tongue. And, as on that first night, when he goes it is like an Indian, with no farewell.
Once, and once only, I have spoken of his business, his home, his father, telling him I had heard that inquiry was made about him at Bolívar by the American Minister at Caracas. He stopped me with a bitter curse.
“I’m dead!” he snarled. “Dead! Understand? I died at Salta Para with the rest. I was smashed to jelly and the crocs ate the jelly. Father? ! The little shrimp needn’t worry any more about my disgracing him. I’m dead!”
Then he broke into a laugh that chilled my blood, and I heard that horrible laugh go away in the night and die out at last, leaving me covered with cold sweat. When at length I could speak again I said to the darkness where he had been:
“It is true. You are dead.”
And to the world which knew him he is dead for all time. And although he nearly killed me too, that last day at Uaunana, often I have pitied him; for he was no worse than many another man, and much better than some. Yet who shall say that the grim mystery-mountains of the Land of Falling Waters have not measured out justice, and that the red yucut’ ’sehi of the Maquiritares has not saved many a girl in your North America from tasting a far more bitter cup?
Quién sabe?