III.
WE LIFTED him and bore him to the fire.
For the moment we forgot the girl and everything else except this stout-hearted, two-handed comrade of ours. We had seen him a prisoner, but defiant, in the power of savage enemies. We had watched him walk alone into the stronghold of another brutal foe and shoot that foe dead. We had traveled many a weary mile with him, endured all sorts of discomfort and danger with him, and found him always ready to laugh in the face of death and always able to defeat it. And now he hung limp in our grip, helpless, senseless, shot down by some sneaking coward.
Softly we laid him down on the ground and swiftly we examined him. Then the oaths that had frozen in our throats came tumbling out in the warmth of sudden hope. His heart still beat.
“Water!” I demanded.
Pedro seized a blazing stick from the fire and disappeared over the edge of the bank. Both of us had forgotten the little brook near by. While I waited I peered closely at the senseless man's wound, then felt it with my fingers. My hope mounted. The bullet had not gone through the skull.
It seemed that Pedro was gone a long time before he reappeared with the water. And then he brought it, not in a gourd from the canoes, but in his hat.
“Lourenço!” he breathed hoarsely. “The canoes are gone!”
“Gone?”
“Gone. Both gone. And—” he glanced swiftly around once more “—so is the senhorita.”
I sprang up. For a moment the only thought in my mind was that the girl had done the shooting and fled. Then, ashamed of myself, I knelt again beside our stricken comrade and commenced working to bring him back to life.
Pedro made two more trips to the water before Senhor Tom's eyes opened. When they did open, they rested on me with a blank stare.
“God be praised!” I cried. “You are alive again, senhor. Lie still a little while. You have a bad head.”
He made no answer. His eyelids flickered, he blinked a few times, and then his eyes stayed open. Looking down into them, I began to feel chilly. Something was wrong; something was missing in that blue stare.
Slowly I moved my head back, watching him all the time. His eyes did not turn to follow me. I passed a hand above them. He did not blink. Then I jabbed my fingers at them as if about to gouge him. Even then he gave no sign that he saw.
“Vive Deus!” Pedro swore softly. We stared at each other, as shocked as we had been by the discovery of the wounded man.
Senhor Tom was blind.
If we had doubted it we should have had proof the next moment. His lips moved.
“What's up?” he asked hoarsely. “What ails the fire? It gives no light.”
We looked at him pityingly. The firelight was bright on his face. He could feel its heat, smell its smoke, but he could not see it.
“We have concealed it with mud,” I lied. “It is almost out, too, and the night is black. What has happened to you?”
He wet his lips before answering. His face knotted as if from pain and thought combined.
“Don't know,” he said. “Something slammed me over the head, I guess. Seems as if I heard a shot, but can't be sure. I was getting wood—dropped a stick—bent to pick it up—head seemed to explode. Give me some water.”
He gulped down a long drink from the hat. When he spoke again his voice was stronger.
“Why the don't you fellows light a match or something? You must be owl-eyed. What's up, I asked you? Is Miss Marshall all right?”
“Not so loud, comrade!” Pedro cautioned him. “She is asleep. You have been knocked out for a long time.”
“Oh, that's it.”
Before we could stop him, he sat up. His face twisted and turned white.
“Gee, I'm sick!” he whispered, as we steadied him. “Head aches horribly.”
“I told you to lie still,” I scolded. “Now keep quiet and let us lift you.”
With that I motioned toward the tambo, and Pedro nodded. We raised him and carried him to his hammock. There I cut off my shirt-sleeves and bandaged the wound with one of them, after which I soaked the other in the last of our water and laid it on his forehead as a cooling pad to ease the ache.
“Now,” I said, “keep quiet and go to sleep. You are feverish, but sleep will do you much good. We are going away for a little while. Do not wake the senhorita.”
He was too sick from pain to say anything, and we left him there. Each of us carrying a fresh torch from the fire, we went down the bank to the place where our canoes had lain.
It was true—they were gone. Only the blank black water lay before us. In the clay bank were the marks of their bows, and other marks too: the prints of bare feet, and traces of something having been dragged down from above.
Saying nothing, we followed those traces back upward. We searched the ground, which was quite soft, and near the fire we found signs of a struggle. Over by the tree where Senhor Tom had lain we also found his short ax and the armful of wood which he had dropped when struck down by the bullet. And that was all.
We had moved very quietly, and Senhor Tom had not heard us prowling about. Now we went over to the little brook, let ourselves down and drank deep of its cool water, made cigarets, and talked low.
“The thing is clear, so far as it goes,” said Pedro. “Some man came here while we were away, shot Senhor Tom without warning, overpowered the senhorita, and went away with both our canoes and all our supplies. He caught them by surprize, or he never would have lived to leave here—Senhor Tom is lightning and death with that revolver of his, and the girl is no weakling; she would have seized Senhor Tom's rifle there in the tambo, and used it, if she had had time to reach it. As it was, she fought him with her bare hands until he struck her down or choked her senseless. Then he got away as fast as possible, knowing we were near. If only those devil-pigs had not treed us”
He growled and stopped talking. Thinking of the blind man behind us and the girl somewhere out in the dark in the power of a murderous brute, I echoed the growl. We smoked fiercely until the butts burned our fingers.
“And now we have only our clothes, our guns, a few cartridges—and a blind man,” I said. “No boats, no food but two pigs that will quickly spoil”
“And plenty of money, which is worth nothing.”
I had forgotten the money. It was true, we had plenty; for in the camp of the dead Black Hawk we had found much money wrung from the people of Viciado and from river-traders and plundered from dead men; and this we had divided among us as spoils of war. It was true also that it now was useless to us. But it gave me an idea.
“I wonder if the vile brute who did this was one of the Hawk's crew,” I suggested. “Some mongrel who knew we must have found money and has been following us to steal it and the girl.”
“No, I think not. Senhor Tom was not robbed—at least his guns were not taken, and a man stopping to loot his body would also take his revolver. Either the assassin was after the girl, or he was desperately in need of a boat and food. If it was the canoes he wanted, he took the girl because he saw his chance to get her too. We may learn when daylight comes. Until then we can do nothing. Come. Let us eat.”
So, though our appetites were gone, we went back to the fire and cooked peccary meat. Senhor Tom lay quiet, and we did not disturb him. After forcing down all the meat we could hold—for we did not know when we could eat again after leaving here—we squatted looking soberly at the dim hammock where our comrade lay in darkness. Finally Pedro, muttering another curse on the sneaking cur who had shot from ambush, rose and got the small ax.
With this, working as quietly as possible, we cut away sections of the thin but tough root-buttresses of a tall matamata-tree near the fire, and with our machetes we fashioned rough paddles. Neither of us felt like sleeping. To go stumbling through the unknown bush, dragging-our companion after us, was not to be thought of. We must go by the creek.
When the paddles were made, however, we could do no more until day. We were tired, too, and our eyes burned in our heads from strain and smoke. So we crept into our hammocks. Sleep came to me after a time, and I knew nothing more until the waking birds of the forest roused me by their screams at dawn.
PEDRO and I arose and stood silent beside Senhor Tom, dreading to tell him the truth. But we found that we need not tell him. His eyes were open, and as he listened to the noises and saw only blackness his face became like that of a dead man. He put a hand to his eyes, moved his head, and slowly let the hand fall.
“Pedro! Lourenço!” he gasped.
“We are here, comrade,” Pedro said gently.
The hand came groping out, seeking us. I took it.
“What time is it?”
“Daybreak,” I told him.
His jaw set. His hand gripped mine as if he were falling over the edge of a gulf. Then slowly his face smoothed out, though his teeth stayed clenched.
“So—I am blind,” he muttered.
“It will pass away,” Pedro tried to comfort him. “You were shot in the head, senhor. Your eyes were not touched. It may be a few days before you can”
“Tell me the truth!” he cut in, his voice turning hard. “Tell me all of it! I heard you working and whispering in the night. You lied to me—I know it. Now come clean!”
We told him all.
“Now we start to find that snake who bit you from behind,” I finished. “We shall make a small raft, pointed at the ends. Paddles are ready, and we shall cut poles also. First we shall look for traces that may show”
“All right, get going!” he snapped, sitting up. “Good God! Marion's got to be found quick! Jump out of here!”
Black though his world was, he had forgotten himself already. He staggered up out of his hammock, his right fist on his revolver-butt.
“Jump!” he roared. “Find her—and put me in front of the man! him, I'll kill him if I'm blind, deaf, dumb and paralyzed! What are you standing around here for? Move!”
“Sit down, comrade,” Pedro soothed. “We waste no time. We go now.”
And he pressed the blank-eyed man back into his hammock. When he sat safely we obeyed his command sand jumped to our work.
As the spot where our camp stood had no small trees and we could not spend time cutting down thick-bodied trunks, we went out along one shore of the cove to find suitable material for our raft. Having found it, we went on to the point where cove and creek met. We hardly dared hope to find any sign of the vanished canoes, but we did not neglect to look. As we had expected, the stream was bare. But as I turned back Pedro caught my arm.
“Look!” he exclaimed. “There in the mud!”
I looked, and gave thanks to Deus Padre. At the water's edge was a blunt dent in the wet clay, and beside it were a few footmarks. A canoe had bumped and stuck there, and a man had jumped ashore to shove it off. We knew the man had been in such haste to leave the cove that he had run too close to shore in making his turn, and one of the boats—probably the one towing behind—had struck. And by that sign we knew which way he had gone—down-stream.
This cheered us, for we had worried in the night because we could not tell where to turn when we should start in pursuit. Now we hurried back to the trees we had selected and attacked them with ax and machete. Swiftly we built, from logs and bush-rope, a raft that would hold all three of us. When it was done we stood a minute breathing and mopping our faces.
It was then that we smelt an old camp. In the damp air hung the odor of dead ashes and decaying flesh. We turned and cut our way a short distance from the water, sniffing the air as we went. Soon we found what we hunted.
A flimsy palm-leaf shelter at the base of a fallen tree, charred embers of secret fires, bones of small animals and birds, a blood-stained club, and the half-eaten body of a sloth—that was all. It was the camp of a man without a canoe and with few cartridges, forced to exist on what little he could kill by stealth. He had seen or heard us arrive, spied on our camp while we two were away, taken a desperate chance and succeeded.
Pedro, searching the dirt floor, picked up an old cartridge-shell. It was of the same caliber as our own. We looked at each other and nodded. The thief now had plenty of ammunition, for we had left most of our bullets in the stolen canoes.
Wasting no more time in the place, we went back to our raft, and with poles in hand we shoved it to the spot where our-canoes had floated. Up above, we found Senhor Tom fumbling around and trying to make a fire.
As we built the fire for him we told him what we had found. His teeth gleamed in a deadly grin.
“Cut his trail, eh? A measly bush-bum, playing a lone hand. Thinks I'm dead and you boys are left flat with no boat. He's got another think coming. He couldn't get far in the dark last night, and that extra canoe he's towing will hold him back some. We'll be right on top of him soon, with any luck. And then may the have mercy on him—we won't!”
“You have said it, amigo,” Pedro rumbled. “We have no mercy for snakes. Come. This meat is roasted enough to eat, and we can chew it as we travel.”
“Right! Let's go!”
Down the bank we guided him to the raft. Then we rushed our hammocks and meat and weapons from the camp to the logs and got aboard. A minute later we two were poling our sluggish craft out into the creek. Between us, silent and sightless, Senhor Tom sat grimly fingering his gun.