In Search of the Castaways; or the Children of Captain Grant

CHAPTER XVI THE NEWS OF THE LOST CAPTAIN

NEXT day, the 22d of Oc­to­ber, at eight o’clock in the morn­ing, Thal­cave gave the sig­nal for de­par­ture. Be­tween the 22d and 42d de­grees the Ar­gen­tine soil slopes east­ward, and all the trav­el­ers had to do was to fol­low the slope right down to the sea.

Gle­nar­van had sup­posed Thal­cave’s re­fusal of a horse was that he pre­ferred walk­ing, as some guides do, but he was mis­tak­en, for just as they were ready, the Patag­oni­an gave a pe­cu­liar whis­tle, and im­me­di­ate­ly a mag­nif­icent steed of the pure Ar­gen­tine breed came bound­ing out of a grove close by, at his mas­ter’s call. Both in form and col­or the an­imal was of per­fect beau­ty. The Ma­jor, who was a thor­ough judge of all the good points of a horse, was loud in ad­mi­ra­tion of this sam­ple of the Pam­pas breed, and con­sid­ered that, in many re­spects, he great­ly re­sem­bled an En­glish hunter. This splen­did crea­ture was called “Thaou­ka,” a word in Patag­onia which means bird, and he well de­served the name.

Thal­cave was a con­sum­mate horse­man, and to see him on his pranc­ing steed was a sight worth look­ing at. The sad­dle was adapt­ed to the two hunt­ing weapons in com­mon use on the Ar­gen­tine plains–the BO­LAS and the LA­ZO. The BO­LAS con­sists of three balls fas­tened to­geth­er by a strap of leather, at­tached to the front of the RECA­DO. The In­di­ans fling them of­ten at the dis­tance of a hun­dred feet from the an­imal or en­emy of which they are in pur­suit, and with such pre­ci­sion that they catch round their legs and throw them down in an in­stant. It is a formidable weapon in their hands, and one they han­dle with sur­pris­ing skill. The LA­ZO is al­ways re­tained in the hand. It is sim­ply a rope, thir­ty feet long, made of tight­ly twist­ed leather, with a slip knot at the end, which pass­es through an iron ring. This noose was thrown by the right hand, while the left keeps fast hold of the rope, the oth­er end of which is fas­tened to the sad­dle. A long car­bine, in the shoul­der belt com­plet­ed the ac­cou­ter­ments of the Patag­oni­an.

He took his place at the head of the par­ty, quite un­con­scious of the ad­mi­ra­tion he was ex­cit­ing, and they set off, go­ing al­ter­nate­ly at a gal­lop and walk­ing pace, for the “trot” seemed al­to­geth­er un­known to them. Robert proved to be a bold rid­er, and com­plete­ly re­as­sured Gle­nar­van as to his abil­ity to keep his seat.

The Pam­pas com­menced at the very foot of the Cordilleras. They may be di­vid­ed in­to three parts. The first ex­tends from the chain of the An­des, and stretch­es over an ex­tent of 250 miles cov­ered with stunt­ed trees and bush­es; the sec­ond 450 miles is clothed with mag­nif­icent herbage, and stops about 180 miles from Buenos Ayres; from this point to the sea, the foot of the trav­el­er treads over im­mense prairies of lucerne and this­tles, which con­sti­tute the third di­vi­sion of the Pam­pas.

On is­su­ing from the gorges of the Cordilleras, Gle­nar­van and his band came first to plains of sand, called MEDANOS, ly­ing in ridges like waves of the sea, and so ex­treme­ly fine that the least breath of wind ag­itat­ed the light par­ti­cles, and sent them fly­ing in clouds, which rose and fell like wa­ter-​spouts. It was a spec­ta­cle which caused both plea­sure and pain, for noth­ing could be more cu­ri­ous than to see the said wa­ter-​spouts wan­der­ing over the plain, com­ing in con­tact and min­gling with each oth­er, and falling and ris­ing in wild con­fu­sion; but, on the oth­er hand, noth­ing could be more dis­agree­able than the dust which was thrown off by these in­nu­mer­able MEDANOS, which was so im­pal­pa­ble that close one’s eyes as they might, it found its way through the lids.

This phe­nomenon last­ed the greater part of the day. The trav­el­ers made good progress, how­ev­er, and about four o’clock the Cordilleras lay full forty miles be­hind them, the dark out­lines be­ing al­ready al­most lost in the evening mists. They were all some­what fa­tigued with the jour­ney, and glad enough to halt for the night on the banks of the Neuquem, called Ramid, or Co­moe by cer­tain ge­og­ra­phers, a trou­bled, tur­bu­lent rapid flow­ing be­tween high red banks.

No in­ci­dent of any im­por­tance oc­curred that night or the fol­low­ing day. They rode well and fast, find­ing the ground firm, and the tem­per­ature bear­able. To­ward noon, how­ev­er, the sun’s rays were ex­treme­ly scorch­ing, and when evening came, a bar of clouds streaked the south­west hori­zon–a sure sign of a change in the weath­er. The Patag­oni­an point­ed it out to the ge­og­ra­pher, who replied:

“Yes, I know;” and turn­ing to his com­pan­ions, added, “see, a change of weath­er is com­ing! We are go­ing to have a taste of PAM­PERO.”

And he went on to ex­plain that this PAM­PERO is very com­mon in the Ar­gen­tine plains. It is an ex­treme­ly dry wind which blows from the south­west. Thal­cave was not mis­tak­en, for the PAM­PERO blew vi­olent­ly all night, and was suf­fi­cient­ly try­ing to poor fel­lows on­ly shel­tered by their pon­chos. The hors­es lay down on the ground, and the men stretched them­selves be­side them in a close group. Gle­nar­van was afraid they would be de­layed by the con­tin­uance of the hur­ri­cane, but Pa­ganel was able to re­as­sure him on that score, af­ter con­sult­ing his barom­eter.

“The PAM­PERO gen­er­al­ly brings a tem­pest which lasts three days, and may be al­ways fore­told by the de­pres­sion of the mer­cury,” he said. “But when the barom­eter ris­es, on the con­trary, which is the case now, all we need ex­pect is a few vi­olent blasts. So you can make your mind easy, my good friend; by sun­rise the sky will be quite clear again.”

“You talk like a book, Pa­ganel,” replied Gle­nar­van.

“And I am one; and what’s more, you are wel­come to turn over my leaves when­ev­er you like.”

The book was right. At one o’clock the wind sud­den­ly lulled, and the weary men fell asleep and woke at day­break, re­freshed and in­vig­orat­ed.

It was the 20th of Oc­to­ber, and the tenth day since they had left Talc­ahuano. They were still nine­ty miles from the point where the Rio Col­orado cross­es the thir­ty-​sev­enth par­al­lel, that is to say, about two days’ jour­ney. Gle­nar­van kept a sharp look­out for the ap­pear­ance of any In­di­ans, in­tend­ing to ques­tion them, through Thal­cave, about Cap­tain Grant, as Pa­ganel could not speak to him well enough for this. But the track they were fol­low­ing was one lit­tle fre­quent­ed by the na­tives, for the or­di­nary routes across the Pam­pas lie fur­ther north. If by chance some no­madic horse­man came in sight far away, he was off again like a dart, not car­ing to en­ter in­to con­ver­sa­tion with strangers. To a soli­tary in­di­vid­ual, a lit­tle troop of eight men, all mount­ed and well armed, wore a sus­pi­cious as­pect, so that any in­ter­course ei­ther with hon­est men or even ban­dit­ti, was al­most im­pos­si­ble.

Gle­nar­van was re­gret­ting this ex­ceed­ing­ly, when he un­ex­pect­ed­ly met with a sin­gu­lar jus­ti­fi­ca­tion of his ren­der­ing of the event­ful doc­ument.

In pur­su­ing the course the trav­el­ers had laid down for them­selves, they had sev­er­al times crossed the routes over the plains in com­mon use, but had struck in­to none of them. Hith­er­to Thal­cave had made no re­mark about this. He un­der­stood quite well, how­ev­er, that they were not bound for any par­tic­ular town, or vil­lage, or set­tle­ment. Ev­ery morn­ing they set out in a straight line to­ward the ris­ing sun, and went on with­out the least de­vi­ation. More­over, it must have struck Thal­cave that in­stead of be­ing the guide he was guid­ed; yet, with true In­di­an re­serve, he main­tained ab­so­lute si­lence. But on reach­ing a par­tic­ular point, he checked his horse sud­den­ly, and said to Pa­ganel:

“The Car­men route.”

“Yes, my good Patag­oni­an,” replied Pa­ganel in his best Span­ish; “the route from Car­men to Men­doza.”

“We are not go­ing to take it?”

“No,” replied Pa­ganel.

“Where are we go­ing then?”

“Al­ways to the east.”

“That’s go­ing nowhere.”

“Who knows?”

Thal­cave was silent, and gazed at the ge­og­ra­pher with an air of pro­found sur­prise. He had no sus­pi­cion that Pa­ganel was jok­ing, for an In­di­an is al­ways grave.

“You are not go­ing to Car­men, then?” he added, af­ter a mo­ment’s pause.

“No.”

“Nor to Men­doza?”

“No, nor to Men­doza.”

Just then Gle­nar­van came up to ask the rea­son of the stop­page, and what he and Thal­cave were dis­cussing.

“He want­ed to know whether we were go­ing to Car­men or Men­doza, and was very much sur­prised at my neg­ative re­ply to both ques­tions.”

“Well, cer­tain­ly, it must seem strange to him.”

“I think so. He says we are go­ing nowhere.”

“Well, Pa­ganel, I won­der if it is pos­si­ble to make him un­der­stand the ob­ject of our ex­pe­di­tion, and what our mo­tive is for al­ways go­ing east.”

“That would be a dif­fi­cult mat­ter, for an In­di­an knows noth­ing about de­grees, and the find­ing of the doc­ument would ap­pear to him a mere fan­tas­tic sto­ry.”

“Is it the sto­ry he would not un­der­stand, or the sto­ry­teller?” said Mc­Nabbs, qui­et­ly

“Ah, Mc­Nabbs, I see you have small faith in my Span­ish yet.”

“Well, try it, my good friend.”

“So I will.”

And turn­ing round to the Patag­oni­an he be­gan his nar­ra­tive, break­ing down fre­quent­ly for the want of a word, and the dif­fi­cul­ty of mak­ing cer­tain de­tails in­tel­li­gi­ble to a half-​civ­ilized In­di­an. It was quite a sight to see the learned ge­og­ra­pher. He ges­tic­ulat­ed and ar­tic­ulat­ed, and so worked him­self up over it, that the big drops of sweat fell in a cas­cade down his fore­head on to his chest. When his tongue failed, his arms were called to aid. Pa­ganel got down on the ground and traced a ge­ograph­ical map on the sand, show­ing where the lines of lat­itude and lon­gi­tude cross and where the two oceans were, along which the Car­men route led. Thal­cave looked on com­pos­ed­ly, with­out giv­ing any in­di­ca­tion of com­pre­hend­ing or not com­pre­hend­ing.

The les­son had last­ed half an hour, when the ge­og­ra­pher left off, wiped his stream­ing face, and wait­ed for the Patag­oni­an to speak.

“Does he un­der­stand?” said Gle­nar­van.

“That re­mains to be seen; but if he doesn’t, I give it up,” replied Pa­ganel.

Thal­cave nei­ther stirred nor spoke. His eyes re­mained fixed on the lines drawn on the sand, now be­com­ing fast ef­faced by the wind.

“Well?” said Pa­ganel to him at length.

The Patag­oni­an seemed not to hear. Pa­ganel fan­cied he could de­tect an iron­ical smile al­ready on the lips of the Ma­jor, and de­ter­mined to car­ry the day, was about to recom­mence his ge­ograph­ical il­lus­tra­tions, when the In­di­an stopped him by a ges­ture, and said:

“You are in search of a pris­on­er?”

“Yes,” replied Pa­ganel.

“And just on this line be­tween the set­ting and ris­ing sun?” added Thal­cave, speak­ing in In­di­an fash­ion of the route from west to east.

“Yes, yes, that’s it.”

“And it’s your God,” con­tin­ued the guide, “that has sent you the se­cret of this pris­on­er on the waves.”

“God him­self.”

“His will be ac­com­plished then,” replied the na­tive al­most solemn­ly. “We will march east, and if it needs be, to the sun.”

Pa­ganel, tri­umph­ing in his pupil, im­me­di­ate­ly trans­lat­ed his replies to his com­pan­ions, and ex­claimed:

“What an in­tel­li­gent race! All my ex­pla­na­tions would have been lost on nine­teen in ev­ery twen­ty of the peas­ants in my own coun­try.”

Gle­nar­van re­quest­ed him to ask the Patag­oni­an if he had heard of any for­eign­ers who had fall­en in­to the hands of the In­di­ans of the Pam­pas.

Pa­ganel did so, and wait­ed an an­swer.

“Per­haps I have.”

The re­ply was no soon­er trans­lat­ed than the Patag­oni­an found him­self sur­round­ed by the sev­en men ques­tion­ing him with ea­ger glances. Pa­ganel was so ex­cit­ed, he could hard­ly find words, and he gazed at the grave In­di­an as if he could read the re­ply on his lips.

Each word spo­ken by Thal­cave was in­stant­ly trans­lat­ed, so that the whole par­ty seemed to hear him speak in their moth­er tongue.

“And what about the pris­on­er?” asked Pa­ganel.

“He was a for­eign­er.”

“You have seen him?”

“No; but I have heard the In­di­an speak of him. He is brave; he has the heart of a bull.”

“The heart of a bull!” said Pa­ganel. “Ah, this mag­nif­icent Patag­oni­an lan­guage. You un­der­stand him, my friends, he means a coura­geous man.”

“My fa­ther!” ex­claimed Robert Grant, and, turn­ing to Pa­ganel, he asked what the Span­ish was for, “Is it my fa­ther.”

“_Es mio padre_,” replied the ge­og­ra­pher.

Im­me­di­ate­ly tak­ing Thal­cave’s hands in his own, the boy said, in a soft tone:

“_Es mio padre_.”

“_Suo padre_,” replied the Patag­oni­an, his face light­ing up.

He took the child in his arms, lift­ed him up on his horse, and gazed at him with pe­cu­liar sym­pa­thy. His in­tel­li­gent face was full of qui­et feel­ing.

But Pa­ganel had not com­plet­ed his in­ter­ro­ga­tions. “This pris­on­er, who was he? What was he do­ing? When had Thal­cave heard of him?” All these ques­tions poured up­on him at once.

He had not long to wait for an an­swer, and learned that the Eu­ro­pean was a slave in one of the tribes that roamed the coun­try be­tween the Col­orado and the Rio Ne­gro.

“But where was the last place he was in?”

“With the Cacique Cal­foucoura.”

“In the line we have been fol­low­ing?”

“Yes.”

“And who is this Cacique?”

“The chief of the Poyuch­es In­di­ans, a man with two tongues and two hearts.”

“That’s to say false in speech and false in ac­tion,” said Pa­ganel, af­ter he had trans­lat­ed this beau­ti­ful fig­ure of the Patag­oni­an lan­guage.

“And can we de­liv­er our friend?” he added.

“You may if he is still in the hands of the In­di­ans.”

“And when did you last hear of him?”

“A long while ago; the sun has brought two sum­mers since then to the Pam­pas.”

The joy of Gle­nar­van can not be de­scribed. This re­ply agreed per­fect­ly with the date of the doc­ument. But one ques­tion still re­mained for him to put to Thal­cave.

“You spoke of a pris­on­er,” he said; “but were there not three?”

“I don’t know,” said Thal­cave.

“And you know noth­ing of his present sit­ua­tion?”

“Noth­ing.”

This end­ed the con­ver­sa­tion. It was quite pos­si­ble that the three men had be­come sep­arat­ed long ago; but still this much was cer­tain, that the In­di­ans had spo­ken of a Eu­ro­pean that was in their pow­er; and the date of the cap­tiv­ity, and even the de­scrip­tive phrase about the cap­tive, ev­ident­ly point­ed to Har­ry Grant.