And this was the end of it, and of the man's hope; for as the bridge fell it took the woman with it in a sea of flame, and her cry of death rang out horridly in the hills; but the cry was answered again by one far up in the heights who wailed, as they had first heard him, a weird, sobbing cry as of a doomed soul.
XXVII. IN THE VALLEY OF SILENCE
It was early on the morning of the second day after the passage of the bridge when Fisher and Messenger began in any way to think of their future, or, for the matter of that, of escape from the place in which they found themselves. The crossing of the ravine had brought them to a great valley, which, for all the life in it, was a valley of silence, of dark woods and pools, and even of tiny cataracts where a river plunged from the higher mountains in its path to the sea. But impassable precipices shut them in on all sides; and while this made for their protection from pursuit, the way of escape from the place of solitude was altogether hid from them.
To the lad the danger of the situation was plain from the beginning; but though many hours had passed, the man was still in darkness. Blindness, utter and hopeless, had come upon him, and he knew that never again would the veil be taken from his eyes. He could only lie upon the grass of a little wood to which the other had led him, and there shiver with his pain, scarce daring to ask, What has happened? where are the others? what is our situation? But Fisher tended him all through with hands as gentle as those of a loving woman. He bound his eyes with wet rags; he brought him abundantly of the luscious fruit that lay ripening everywhere around them; and he told him, in the best spirit of the consoler, that all would be well sooner or later.
This was well enough for the moment, but soon it was evident that, if the man did not arouse himself before many hours passed, the two of them would die where they lay of sheer starvation. The nuts and the roots and the fruits were the poorest sustenance to men bruised in mind and in body; the shock of the terrible night compelled nature to call for strong remedies; and though brandy was found in the bottle in Messenger's pocket, it was all insufficient for the more serious need. Thus it came that, after the man had slept for a few hours on the second night, Fisher spoke to him earnestly at dawn, and besought him to take heart for the journey.
"Look here," he said: "I'd sooner see you in the hands of the Spanish soldiers than lying in this state. At least they'd relieve your pain, and I can do nothing—nothing at all!"
"What you could do you've done," said Messenger. "I should have died if it had not been for you. There's weight in my eyes enough to kill a man. I shall never see again!"
"Who can say that?" exclaimed Fisher earnestly. "Once we're back in civilization who knows what cannot be done for you? But, old man, we'll starve here."
"If it wasn't for you," said he earnestly, "I'd cut my throat. What have I got to look to—years in a country I don't know, and me blind. Could anything be worse than that?"
"You say that now; but when the danger's past, you'll think otherwise. You've always your head. Prince, and I can be your eyes."
"Ah!" said he, a sudden flush of a blind man's hope coming to him, "you'll be a friend to me now—now that I want it, Hal. And look: you're making me think again. If we could get on the road, I've money in my pocket! I filled up with sovereigns and ingots when the cases burst. I must hold at least a thousand pounds' worth of the stuff!"
He pulled out from the rags about his breast a yellow bar of gold, and from the pockets of his trousers there came a handful of sovereigns, and then another, which he spread upon the turf and counted thrice.
"How much does it come to?" he asked, beginning to count again, and feeling about for the gold with a wild touch. "Is it a hundred in all? I've been weighed down with it like a sack, but I brought it through. Hal, man, you won't cheat me now?"
"Cheat you!" cried Fisher, starting back. "Cheat you—God forbid!"
"Ah, I knew you wouldn't, but my head's going with my eyes. You don't know what sight is to a man; but I'm learning. Give me the stuff again."
He gathered it all up to him again, thrusting the ingot into his breast, while he counted the sovereigns with a wolf-like eagerness and mechanically tore the bandage from his eyes, revealing a forehead from which the flesh had gone; but his scorched and withered pupils stared into vacancy and gave him no light. Then he gnashed his teeth, and dug his hands into the grass, and foam came upon his lips.
"I will see, by Heaven!" he cried. "I'll have light—light, I tell you! Man, it's all dark—dark as death!"
His frenzy was the frenzy of the moment; but the paroxysm had robbed him of the money, which now rolled all around him, and he sat hugging his knees and chattering, while Fisher bound up his head again with the rag damped in the river. Then the lad picked up the sovereigns from the grass and pressed them gently upon him.
"Here is your money," said he. "Had you not better put it back in your clothes?"
But the man had sobered down again.
"No," said he; "it's nothing to me now. You hold to it. I was mad just now, and said things which you'll forget. Tell me: how did the woman go down?"
"She went down when the bridge burned through. She was at the far end of it, and could not move either way. Didn't you hear her cry out?"
"Yes, I must have. What a voice she had! Ha, ha! we should have made a pretty pair! So the hag knocked her brains out on the stones! Well, they were very good brains. I never met her like all the world through; she had the wits of ten men. What do you think she told me? That this place of hers was worth three thousand a year from the wrecks that came ashore alone. It seems that she and her people have lived here for years; it's a family place, and there never was one of them that didn't wreck. She was the last of her line. Her husband, a Mexican, was shot in his own country a few years ago. But she must have lived a life! There's not a man within five miles that wasn't in league with her; and they brought the stuff from the ships into that lagoon of hers until they could sell it inland. That light we saw in the bay was a false light she put out to lure boats. Think of that in this day! Ah! it's enough to make you tingle, isn't it? And it was all her work!"
"I wonder they didn'tfall foul of us us when we came ashore?" asked Fisher, encouraging him to talk.
"So they would have done if we'd come in the daylight. The night saved us—and the rock. It wanted quick eyes to pick out the poop in the cradle if you didn't look for it; and, as you saw yourself, ships gave the reef a wide berth. That's nothing against the hag, for once she heard of Englishmen being ashore, and her men got a glass on me, she put two and two together and made it four. If it hadn't been for the voice, we'd be half-way on the road to Finisterre, sure and safe! There was a curse in that cry. I said it when first I heard it."
"It was Billy, the mad boy, who uttered it," said Fisher thoughtfully. "He must have come off safe from the ship, and we never knew it."
"That's true," said the other. "We'd never have found the nigger and the long-boat but for the firing. Well, it's all ended now, and we're adrift again. There was a curse upon it from the start."
"There must have been," was Fisher's answer.
"And now my eyes are burned out, and you're going to say I brought it on me!" said the man savagely. "You're ready with your tongue when there's that talk. If ever I come to decent land again, I'll put a white tie on you and send you out to croak! You'd make a fortune out of the old women;