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He was looking up at her, as if struck dumb, roiling his eye wildly. He
jumped up.

"You--Senorita! For a miserable old man! You break my heart."

And with long strides he disappeared in the darkness, leaving us
wondering.

We sat side by side on the couch of leaves. With Castro there I felt
we were quite equal to dealing with the two Lugarenos if they had the
unlucky idea of intruding upon us. Indeed, a vigilant man, posted on one
side of the end of the passage, could have disputed the entrance against
ten, twenty, almost any number, as long as he kept his strength and had
something heavy enough to knock them over. Faint sounds reached me, as
if at a great distance Castro had been shouting to himself. I called to
him. He did not answer, but unexpectedly his short person showed itself
in the brightest part of the light.

"Senor!" he called out with a strange intonation. I got up and went
to him. He seemed to be listening intently with his ear turned to the
opening. Then suddenly:

"Look at me, Senor. Am I Castro--the same Castro? old and friendless?"

He stood biting his forefinger and looking up at me from under his
knitted eyebrows. I didn't know what to say. What was this nonsense?

He ejaculated a sort of incomprehensible babble, and, passing by me,
rushed towards Seraphina; she sat up, startled, on her couch of leaves.
Falling before her on his plump knees, he seized her hand, pressed it
against his ragged moustache.

"Excellency, forgive me! No--no forgiveness! Ha! old man! Ha--thou old
man...."

He bowed before her shadowy figure, that sustained the pale oval of
the face, till his forehead struck the rock. Plunging his hand into the
ashes, he poured a fistful with inarticulate low cries over his gray
hairs; and the agitation of that obese little body on its knees had a
lamentable and grotesque inconsequence, as inexplicable in itself as
the sorrow of a madman. Full of wonder before his abject collapse, she
murmured:

"What have you done?"

He tried to fling himself upon her feet, but my hand was in his collar,
and after an unmerciful shaking, I sat him down by main force. He
gulped, blinked the whites of his eyes, then, in a whisper full of rage:

"Horror, shame, misery, and malediction; I have betrayed you."

At once she said soothingly, "Tomasr I do not believe this"; while I
thought to myself: How? Why? For what reason? In what manner betrayed?
How was it possible? And, if so, why did he come back to us? But, as
things stood, he would never dare approach a Lugareno. If he had, they
would never have let him go again.

"You told them we were here?" I asked, so perfectly incredulous that I
was not at all surprised to hear him protest, by all the saints, that
he never did--never would do. Never. Never.... But why should he? Was he
the prey of some strange hallucination? Rocking himself, he struck his
breast with his clenched hand, then suddenly caught at his hair and
remained perfectly motionless. Minutes passed; this despairing
stillness inspired in me a feeling of awe at last--the awe of something
inconceivable. My head buzzed so with the effort to think that I had the
illusions of faint murmurs in the cave, the very shadows of murmurs.
And all at once a real voice--his voice--burst out fearfully rapid and
voluble.

He had really gone out to get a provision of water. Waking up early,
he saw us sleeping, and felt a great pity for the senorita. As to the
_caballero_--his saviour from drowning, alas!--the senorita would need
every ounce of his strength. He would let us sleep till his return from
the spring; and, there being a blessed freshness in the air, he caught
up the flask and started bare-headed. The sun had just risen. Would to
God he had never seen it! After plunging his face in the running water,
he remained on his knees and busied himself in rinsing and filling the
flask. The torrent, gushing with force, made a loud noise, and after he
had done screwing the top on, he was about to rise, when, glancing about
carelessly, he saw two men leaning on their _escopetas_ and looking at
him in perfect silence. They were standing right over him; he knew
them well; one they called El Rubio; the other, the little one, was
Jose--squinting Jose. They said nothing; nothing at all. With a sudden
and mighty effort he preserved his self-command, affected unconcern and,
instead of getting up, only shifted his pose to a sitting position, took
off his shoes and stockings, and proceeded to bathe his feet. But it was
as if a blazing fire had been kindled in his breast, and a tornado had
been blowing in his head.

He could not tell whence these two had come, with what object, or how
much they knew. They might have been only messengers from Rio Medio to
Havana. They generally went in couples. If Manuel had escaped alive
out of the sea, everything was known in Rio Medio. From where he sat he
beheld the empty, open sea over the dunes, but the edge of the upland,
cleft by many ravines (of which the one we had ascended was the
deepest), concealed from him the little basin and the inlet. He was
certain these men had not come up that way. They had approached him over
the plain. But there was more than one way by which the upland could
be reached from below. The thoughts rushed round and round his head.
He remembered that our boat must be floating or lying stranded in the
little bay, and resolved, in case of necessity, to say that we two were
dead, that we had been drowned.

It was El Rubio who put the very question to him, in an insolent tone,
and sitting on the ground out of his reach, with his gun across his
knees. His long knife ready in his hand, squinting Jose remained
standing over Castro. Those two men nodded to each other significantly
at the intelligence. He perceived that they were more than half disposed
to credit his story. They had nearly been drowned themselves pursuing
that accursed heretic of an Englishman. When, from their remarks, he
learned that the schooner was in the bay, he began putting on his shoes,
though the hope of making a sudden dash for his life down the ravine
abandoned him.

The schooner had been run in at night during the gale, and in such
distress that they let her take the ground. She was not injured,
however, and some of them were preparing to haul her off. Our boat, as
I conceived, after bumping along the beach, had drifted within the
influence of the current created by the little river, or else by the
water forced into the basin by the tempest, seeking to escape, and had
been carried out towards the inlet. She was seen at daylight, knocking
about amongst the breakers, bottom up, and in such shallow water that
three or four men wading out knee-deep managed to turn her over. They
had found Mrs. Williams' woollen shawl and my cap floating underneath.
At the same time the broken mast and sail were made out, tossing upon
the waves, not very far off to seaward. That the boat had been in the
bay at all did not seem to have occurred to them. It had been concluded
that she had capsized outside the entrance. It was very possible that
we had been drowned under her. Castro hastened to confirm the idea by
relating how he had been clinging to the bottom of the boat for a long
time. Thus he had saved himself, he declared.

"Manuel will be glad," observed El Rubio then, with an evil laugh. And
for a long time nobody said a word.

El Rubio, cross-legged, was observing him with the eyes of a basilisk,
but Castro swore a great oath that, as to himself, he showed no signs
of fear. He looked at the water gushing from the rock, bubbling up,
sparkling, running away in a succession of tiny leaps and falls. Why
should he fear? Was he not old, and tired, and without any hope of peace
on earth? What was death? Nothing. It was absolutely nothing. It comes
to all. It was rest after much vain trouble--and he trusted that,
through his devotion to the Mother of God, his sins would be forgiven
after a short time in purgatory. But, as he had made up his mind not
to fall into Manuel's hands, he resolved that presently he would stab
himself to the heart, where he sat--over this running water. For it
would not be like a suicide. He was doomed, and surely God did not want
his body to be tormented by such a devil as Manuel before death.

He would lean far over before he struck his faithful blade into his
breast, so as to fall with his face in the water. It looked deliciously
cool, and the sun was heavy on his bare head. Suddenly, El Rubio sprang
to his feet, saying:

"Now, Jose."

It is clear that these ruffians stood in awe of his blade. In their
cowardly hearts they did not think it quite safe (being only two to one)
to try and disarm that old man. They backed away a step or two, and,
levelling their pieces, suddenly ordered him to get up and walk before.
He threw at them an obscene word. He thought to himself, "_Bueno!_ They
will blow my head off my shoulders." No emotion stirred in him, as if
his blood had already ceased to run in his veins. They remained, all
three, in a state of suspended animation, but at last El Rubio hissed
through his teeth with vexation, and grunted:

"Attention, Jose. Take aim. We will break his legs and take away the
sting of this old scorpion."

Castro's blood felt chilly in his limbs, but instead of planting
his knife in his breast, he spoke up to ask them where, supposing he
consented, they wished to conduct him.

"To Manuel--our captain. He would like to embrace you before you die,"
said El Rubio, advancing a stride nearer, his gun to his shoulder. "Get
up! March!"

And Castro found himself on his feet, looking straight into the black
holes of the barrels.

"Walk!" they exclaimed together, stepping upon him.

The time had come to die.

"Ha! _Canalla!_" he said.

They made a menacing clamour, "Walk _viejo_, traitor; walk."

"Senorita--I walked." The heartrending effort of the voice, the
trembling of this gray head, the sobs under the words, oppressed our
breast with dismay and dread. Ardently he would have us believe that
at this juncture he was thinking of us only--of us wondering, alone,
ignorant of danger, and hidden blindly under the earth. His purpose was
to provoke the two _Luga-renos_ to shoot, so that we should be warned by
the reports. Besides, an opportunity for escape might yet present itself
in some most unlikely way, perhaps at the very last moment. Had he not
his own life in his own hands? He cared not for it. It was in his power
to end it at any time. And there would be dense thickets on the way;
long grass where one could plunge suddenly--who knows! And overgrown
ravines where one could hide--creep under the bushes--escape--and return
with help.... But when he faced the plains its greatness crushed his
poor strength. The uncovered vastness imprisoned him as effectually as
a wall. He knew himself for what he was: an old man, short of breath,
heavy of foot; nevertheless he walked on hastily, his eyes on the
ground. The footsteps of his captors sounded behind him, and he tried to
edge towards the ravine. When nearly above the opening of the cavern he
would, he thought, swerve inland, and dash off as fast as he was able.
Then they would have to fire at him; we would be sure to hear the shots,
the warning would be clear... and suddenly, looking up, he saw that a
small band of _Lugarenos_, having just ascended the brow of the upland,
were coming to meet him. Now was the time to get shot; he turned
sharply, and began to run over that great plain towards a distant clump
of trees.

Nobody fired at him. He heard only the mingled jeers and shouts of the
two men behind, "Quicker, Castro; quicker!" They followed him, holding
their sides. Those ahead had already spread themselves out over the
plain, yelling to each other, and were converging upon him. That was
the time to stop, and with one blow fall dead at their feet. He doubled
round in front of Manuel, who stood waving his arms and screeching
orders, and ran back towards the ravine. The plain rang with furious
shouts. They rushed at him from every side. He would throw himself over.
It was a race for the precipice. He won it.

I suppose he found it not so easy to die, to part with the warmth of
sunshine, the taste of food; to break that material servitude to life,
contemptible as a vice, that binds us about like a chain on the limbs of
hopeless slaves. He showered blows upon his chest, sitting before us, he
battered with his fist at the side of his head till I caught his arm. We
could always sell our lives dearly, I said. He would have to defend the
entrance with me. We two could hold it till it was blocked with their
corpses.

He jumped up with a derisive shriek; a cloud of ashes flew from under
his stumble, and he vanished in the darkness with mad gesticulations.

"Their corpses--their corpses--their... Ha! ha! ha!"

The snarling sound died away; and I understood, then, what meant this
illusion of ghostly murmurs that once or twice had seemed to tremble
in the narrow region of gray light around the arch. The sunshine of the
earth, and the voices of men, expired on the threshold of the eternal
obscurity and stillness in which we were imprisoned, as if in a grave
with inexorable death standing between us and the free spaces of the
world.




CHAPTER NINE

For it meant that. Imprisoned! Castro's derisive shriek meant that. And
I had known it before. He emerged back out of the black depths, with
livid, swollen features, and foam about his mouth, to splutter:

"Their corpses, you say.... Ha! Our corpses," and retreated again, where
I could only hear incoherent mutters.

Seraphina clutched my arm. "Juan--together--no separation."

I had known it, even as I spoke of selling our lives dearly. They could
only be surrendered. Surrendered miserably to these wretches, or to the
everlasting darkness in which Castro muttered his despair. I needed not
to hear this ominous and sinister sound--nor yet Seraphina's cry. She
understood, too. They would never come down unless to look upon us
when we were dead. I need not have gone to the entrance of the cave
to understand all the horror of our fate. The _Lugarenos_ had already
lighted a fire. Very near the brink, too.

It was burning some thirty feet above my head; and the sheer wall on the
other side caught up and sent across into my face the crackling of
dry branches, the loud excited talking, the arguments, the oaths, the
laughter; now and then a very shriek of joy. Manuel was giving orders.
Some advanced the opinion that the cursed _Inglez_, the spy who came
from Jamaica to see whom he could get for a hanging without a priest,
was down there, too. So that was it! O'Brien knew how to stir their
hate. I should get a short shrift. "He was a fiend, the _Inglez_: look
how many of us he has killed!" they cried; and Manuel would have loved
to cut my flesh, in small pieces, off my bones--only, alas! I was now
beyond his vengeance, he feared. However, somebody was left.

He must have thrown himself flat, with his head over the brink, for his
yell of "Castro!" exploded, and rolled heavily between the rocks.

"Castro! Castro! Castro!" he shouted twenty times, till he set the whole
ravine in an uproar. He waited, and when the clamour had quieted down
amongst the bushes below, called out softly, "Do you hear me, Castro, my
victim? Thou art my victim, Castro."

Castro had crept into the passage after me. He pushed his head beyond my
shoulder.

"I defy thee, Manuel," he screamed.

A hubbub arose. "He's there! He is there!"

"Bravo, Castro," Manuel shouted from above. "I love thee because thou
art my victim. I shall sing a song for thee. Come up. Hey! Castro!
Castro! Come up.... No? Then the dead to their grave, and the living to
their feast."

Sometimes a little earth, detached from the layer of soil covering the
rock, would fall streaming from above. The men told off to guard the
cornice walked to and fro near the edge, and the confused murmur of
voices hung subdued in the air of the cleft, like a modulated tremor.
Castro, moaning gently, stumbled back into the cave.

Seraphina had remained sitting on the stone seat. The twilight rested
on her knees, on her face, on the heap of cold ashes at her feet. But
Castro, who had stood stock-still, with a hand to his forehead, turned
to me excitedly:

"The peons, _for Dios!_" Had I ever thought of the peons belonging to
the _estancia?_

Well, that was a hope. I did not know exactly how matters stood between
them and the _Lugarenos_. There was no love lost. A fight was likely;
but, even if no actual collision took place, they would be sure to visit
the camp above in no very friendly spirit; a chance might offer to make
our position known to these men, who had no reason to hate either me
or Castro--and would not be afraid of thwarting the miserable band of
ghouls sitting above our grave. How our presence could be made known
I was not sure. Perhaps simply by shouting with all our might from the
mouth of the cave. We could offer rewards--say who we were, summon them
for the service of their own Senorita. But, probably, they had never
heard of her. No matter. The news would soon reach the _hacienda_, and
Enrico had two hundred slaves at his back. One of us must always remain
at the mouth of the cave listening to what went on above. There would
be the trampling of horses' hoofs--quarrelling, no doubt--anyway, much
talk--new voices--something to inform us. Only, how soon would they
come? They were not likely to be riding where there were no cattle. Had
Castro seen any signs of a herd on the uplands near by?

His face fell. He had not. There were many _savannas_ within the belt
of forests, and the herds might be miles away, stampeded inland by the
storm. Sitting down suddenly, as if overcome, he averted his eyes and
began to scratch the rock between his legs with the point of his blade.

We were all silent. How long could we wait? How long could people
live?... I looked at Seraphina. How long could she live?... The
thought seared my heart like a hot iron. I wrung my hands stealthily.

"Ha! my blade!" muttered Castro. "My sting.... Old scorpion! They did
not take my sting away.... Only--bah!"

He, a man, had not risen to the fortitude of a venomous creature. He was
defeated. He groaned profoundly. Life was too much. It clung to one. A
scorpion--an insect--within a ring of flames, would lift its sting
and stab venom into its own head. And he--Castro--a man--a man, _por
Dios_--had less firmness than a creeping thing. Why--why, did he not
stab this dishonoured old heart?

"Senorita," he cried agonizingly, "I swear I did shout to them to
fire--so--in to my breast--and then..."

Seraphina leaned over him pityingly.

"Enough, Castro. One lives because of hope. And grieve not. Thy death
would have done no good."

Her face had a splendid pallor, the radiant whiteness and majesty of
marble; it had never before appeared to me more beautiful: and her hair
unrolling its dark undulations, as if tinged deep with the funereal
gloom of the background, covered her magnificently right down to her
elbows. Her eyes were incredibly profound. Her person had taken on an
indefinable beauty, a new beauty, that, like the comeliness that comes
from joy, love, or success, seemed to rise from the depths of her being,
as if an unsuspected and sombre quality of her soul had responded to the
horror of our situation. The fierce trials had gradually developed her,
as burning sunshine opens the bud of a flower; and I beheld her now in
the plenitude of her nature. From time to time Castro would raise up to
her his blinking old eyes, full of timidity and distress.

He had not been young enough to throw himself over--he had worn the
chain for too many years, had lived well and softly too long, was too
old a slave. And yet--if he had had the courage of the act! Who knows?
I rejected the thought far from me. It returned, and I caught myself
looking at him with irritated eyes. But this first day passed not
intolerably. We ignored our sufferings. Indeed, I felt none for my part.
We had kept our thoughts bound to the slow blank minutes. And if we
exchanged a few words now and then, it was to speak of patience, of
resolution to endure and to hope.

At night, from the hot ravine full of shadows, came the cool fretting
of the stream. The big blaze they kept up above crackled distinctly,
throwing a fiery, restless stain on the face of the rock in front of the
cave, high up under the darkness and the stars of the sky--and a pair
of feet would appear stamping, the shadow of a pair of ankles and feet,
fantastic, sustaining no gigantic body, but enormous, tramping slowly,
resembling two coffins leaping to a slow measure. I see them in my
dreams now, sometimes. They disappeared.

Manuel would sing; far in the night the monotonous staccato of the
guitar went on, accompanying plaintive murmurs, outbursts of anger and
cries of pain, the tremulous moans of sorrow. My nerves vibrated, I
broke my nails on the rock, and seemed to hear once more the parody of
all the transports and of every anguish, even to death--a tragic and
ignoble rendering of life. He was a true artist, powerful and scorned,
admired with derision, obeyed with jeers. It was a song of mourning; he
sat on the brink with his feet dangling over the precipice that sent him
back his inspired tones with a confused noise of sobs and desolation....
His idol had been snatched from the humility of his adoring silence,
like a falling star from the sight of the worm that crawls.... He
stormed on the strings; and his voice emerged like the crying of a
castaway in the tumult of the gale. He apostrophized his instrument....
Woe! Woe! No more songs. He would break it. Its work was done. He
would dash it against the rock.... His palm slapped the hollow wood
furiously.... So that it should lie shattered and mute like his own
heart!

A frenzied explosion of yells, jests, and applause covered the finale.

A complete silence would follow, as if in the acclamations they had
exhausted at once every bestial sound. Somebody would cough pitifully
for a long time--and when he had done spluttering and cursing, the world
outside appeared lost in an even more profound stillness. The red stain
of the fire wavered across to play under the dark brow of the rock. The
irritated murmur of the torrent, tearing along below, returned timidly
at first, expanded, filled the ravine, ran through my ears in an angry
babble. The deadened footfalls on the brink sometimes dislodged a
pebble: it would start with a feeble rattle and be heard no more.

In the daytime, too, there were silences up there, perfect, profound. No
prowl of feet disturbed them; the sun blazed between the rocks, and even
the hum of insects could be heard. It seemed impossible not to believe
that they had all died by a miracle, or else had been driven away by a
silent panic. But two or more were always on the watch, directly above,
with their heads over the edge; and suddenly they would begin to talk
together in drowsy tones. It was as if some barbarous somnambulists had
mumbled in the daytime the bizarre atrocity of their thoughts.

They discussed Williams' flask, which had been picked up. Was the cup
made of silver, they wondered. Manuel had appropriated it for his own
use, it seems. Well--he was the _capataz_. The _Inglez_, should he
appear by an impossible chance, was to be shot down at once; but Castro
must be allowed to give himself up. And they would snigger ferociously.
Sometimes quarrels arose, very noisy, a great hubbub of bickerings
touching their jealousies, their fears, their unspeakable hopes of
murder and rapine. They did not feel very safe where they were. Some
would maintain that Castro could not have saved himself, alone. The
_Inglez_ was there, and even the senorita herself... Manuel scouted the
idea with contempt. He advanced the violence of the storm, the fury of
the waves, the broken mast, the position of the boat. How could they
expect a woman!.... No. It was as his song had it. And he defended his
point of view angrily, as though he could not bear being robbed of that
source of poetical inspiration. He emitted profound sighs and superb
declamations.

Castro and I listened to them at the mouth of the cave. Our tongues were
dry and swollen in our mouths, there was the pressure of an iron clutch
on our windpipes, fire in our throats, and the pangs of hunger that tore
at us like iron pincers. But we could hear that the bandits above were
anxious to be gone; they had but very few charges for their guns, and it
was apparent that they were afraid of a collision with the peons of the
_hacienda_. Glaring at each other with bloodshot, uncertain eyes, Castro
and I imagined longingly a vision of men in _ponchos_ spurring madly out
of the woods, bent low, and swinging _riatas_ over the necks of their
horses--with the thunder of the galloping hoofs in the cave. Seraphina
had withdrawn further into the darkness. And, with a shrinking fear, I
would join her, to eat my heart out by the side of her tense and mute
contemplation.

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