The Hot Swamp - Robert Michael Ballantyne (debian ebook reader TXT) 📗

leaves no footprints, we are not experienced enough to be careful as to concealing the direction we have taken. When they reach the swampy bank and deep water, they will be led to think we did not like getting wet, and the effort made to cover our footprints, will make them think that we are very ignorant woodsmen. Then, with much confidence, they will continue to follow down stream, looking on the banks now and then for our footprints, until they begin to wonder whether we intend to make a highroad of the river all the way to the sea. After that they will become perplexed, astonished, suspicious as to our stupidity, and will scurry round in all directions, or hold a council, and, finally they will try up stream; but it will be too late, for by that time we shall be far away on our road towards the setting sun."

"Good!" ejaculated Maikar, when this explanation was finished.

"Good!" echoed the captain, with an approving nod. "You understand your business, I see. Shove out your oars. We follow."

Without further remark Bladud continued his progress up stream. It was necessarily slow at first, but as night advanced the moon rose, in her first quarter, and shed a feeble but sufficient light on their watery path.

At last they came to a place where the leader's sharp eye observed signs of the presence of man. Stopping short and listening intently, they heard subdued voices not far from the spot where they stood.

"Stay where you are," whispered Bladud. "Don't move. I'll return immediately."

He entered the bushes cautiously and disappeared. Standing there without moving, and in profound silence, under the dark shadow of an overhanging bush, it is no wonder that the captain and his comrade began to think the time very long, yet it was only a few minutes after he had left them that their guide returned.

"Only a single family," he whispered--"three men, two women, and four children. We have nothing to fear, but we must pass on in silence."

The discovery of those natives obliged them to continue the march up the bed of the stream much longer than they had intended, and the night was far advanced before they thought it prudent to leave the water and pursue the journey on dry land.

Fortunately the country was open and comparatively free from underwood, so that they made progress much more rapidly; nevertheless, it was not thought safe to take rest until they had placed many a mile between them and the natives, who, it was thought probable, would be started in pursuit of them by the youth to whom Bladud had given chase.

Much wearied, and almost falling asleep while they advanced, the travellers halted at last in a dense thicket, and there, lying down without food or fire, they were soon buried in profound repose.


CHAPTER NINE.


HOMECOMING.

It is beyond the scope of this tale to describe minutely all that befell our adventurers on their long, fatiguing, and dangerous march through ancient Gaul, which land at that time had neither name nor history.

Suffice it to say that, after numerous adventures with savage beasts, and scarcely less savage men, and many hair-breadth escapes and thrilling incidents by flood and field, they at last found themselves on the shores of that narrow channel which separated the northern coast of Gaul from the white cliffs of Old Albion. They were guided thereto, as we have said, by the Pole-star, which shone in our sky in those days with its wonted brilliancy, though, probably, astronomers had not yet given to it a local habitation in their systems or a distinctive name.

Of course their passage through the land had been attended with great variety of fortune, good and bad. In some parts they met with natives who received them hospitably and sent them on their way rejoicing. Elsewhere they found banditti, fortunately in small bands, with whom they had to fight, and once they were seized and imprisoned by a tribe of inhospitable savages, from whom they escaped, as it were, by the skin of their teeth.

In all these vicissitudes the gigantic frame and the mild, kindly looks of Bladud went far to conciliate the uncertain, attract the friendly, and alarm the savage, for it is a curious fact, explain it how we may, that the union of immense physical power with childlike sweetness of countenance, has a wonderful influence in cowing angry spirits. It may be that strong, angry, blustering men are capable only of understanding each other. When they meet with strong men with womanlike tenderness they are puzzled, and puzzlement, we think, goes a long way to shake the nerves even of the brave. At all events it is well known that a sudden burst of wrath from one whose state of temper is usually serene, exerts a surprising and powerful effect on average mankind.

Whatever be the truth as to these things, it is certain that nearly every one who looked up at the face of Bladud liked him, and more than once when his ponderous sword sprang from its sheath, and his blue eyes flashed, and his fair face flushed, and his magnificent teeth went together with a snap, he has been known to cause a dozen men to turn and flee rather than encounter the shock of his onset.

Little Maikar, who was himself as brave as a lion, nearly lost his life on one occasion, because he was so taken up and charmed with the sight of one of Bladud's rushes, that he utterly forgot what he was about, and would have been crushed by the smite of a savage club, if the captain had not promptly turned aside the blow and struck the club-man down.

"At last!" exclaimed the prince, with a gaze of enthusiasm at the opposite cliffs, "my native land! Well do I love it and well do I know it, for I have stood on this shore and seen it from this very spot when I was quite a boy."

"Indeed! How was that?" asked Arkal.

"I used to be fond of the sea, and was wont to travel far from my father's home to reach it. I made friends with the fishermen, and used to go off with them in their little skiffs. One day a storm arose suddenly, blew us off shore, and, when we were yet a long distance from this coast, overturned our skiff. What became of my companions I know not. Probably they were drowned, for I never more saw them; but I swam ashore, where I think I should have died of exhaustion if I had not been picked up by an old fisherman of this land, who carried me to his hut and took care of me. With the old man I remained several months, for the fishermen on the two sides of the channel had been quarrelling at the time, and the old man did not dare to venture across. I did not care much, for I enjoyed playing with his grandson, and soon learned their language. After a time the quarrelling ceased, and the old man landed me on my own side."

"That is interesting. I only wish the old fisherman was here now with his skiff, for there is no village in sight and no skiff to be seen, so how we are to get over I cannot tell,--swimming being impossible and wings out of the question."

"Ay, except in the case of fish and birds," observed Maikar.

"True, and as we are neither fish nor birds," rejoined the captain, "what is to be done?"

"We must find a skiff," said the prince.

"Good, but where?"

"On the other side of yon bluff cape," replied Bladud. "It was there that my friend the old fisherman lived. Mayhap he may live there still."

Pushing on along shore they passed the bold cape referred to, and there, sure enough, they found the old man's hut, and the old man himself was seated on a boulder outside enjoying the sunshine.

Great was his surprise on seeing the three strangers approach, but greater was his joy on learning that the biggest of the three was the boy whom he had succoured many years before.

After the first greetings were over, Bladud asked if he and his friends could be taken across in a skiff.

The old man shook his head.

"All that I possess," he said, "you are welcome to, but my skiff is not here, and if it was I am too old to manage it now. My son, your old companion, has had it away these two days, and I don't expect him home till to-morrow. But you can rest in my poor hut till he comes."

As there seemed nothing better to be done, the travellers agreed to this. Next day the son arrived, but was so changed in appearance, that Bladud would not have recognised his old playmate had not his father called him by name.

The skiff, although primitive and rude in its construction, was comparatively large, and a considerable advance on the dug-outs, or wooden canoes, and the skin coracles of the period. It had a square or lug-sail, and was steered by a rudder.

"My son is a strange man," remarked the old fisherman, as the party sauntered down to the shore, up which the skiff had been dragged. "He invented that skiff as well as made it, and the curious little thing behind that steers it."

"Able and strange men seem to work their minds in the same way," returned Bladud; "for the thing is not altogether new. I have seen something very like it in the East; and, to my mind, it is a great improvement on the long oar when the boat is driven through the water, but it is of no use at all when there is no motion."

"No; neither is it of use when one wishes to sweep round in a hurry," observed the captain, when this was translated to him. "If it had not been for my steering-oar bringing you sharp round when we were attacking the pirate, you would hardly have managed to spit the chief as you did, strong though you be."

It was found that the new style of skiff was a good sailer, for, although the wind was light, her lug-sail carried her over to the coast of Albion in about four hours.

"There has been some bad feeling of late between the men from the islands and the men of our side--there often is," said the young fisherman, who steered. "I am not sure that it will be safe to land here."

"If that be so, hold on close along the shore in the direction of the setting sun," returned Bladud, "and land us after nightfall. I know the whole country well, and can easily guide my comrades through the woods to my father's town on the great river."

The young fisherman did not reply for a few seconds. He seemed in doubt as to this proposal.

"There has been war lately," he said, "between your father and the southern tribes, and it may be dangerous for so small a party to traverse the lands of the enemy. I would gladly go and help you, but what could one arm more do to aid you against a host? Besides, my father is