A Little Boy Lost Page 8

  CHAPTER VI

  MARTIN MEETS WITH SAVAGES

  When, on waking next morning, Martin took his first peep over thegrass, there, directly before him, loomed the great blue hills, orSierras as they are called in that country. He had often seen them,long ago in his distant home on clear mornings, when they hadappeared like a blue cloud on the horizon. He had even wished to getto them, to tread their beautiful blue summits that looked as ifthey would be soft to his feet--softer than the moist springy turfon the plain; but he wished it only as one wishes to get to somefar-off impossible place--a white cloud, for instance, or the bluesky itself. Now all at once he unexpectedly found himself near them,and the sight fired him with a new desire. The level plain hadnothing half so enchanting as the cloud-like blue airy hills, andvery soon he was up on his feet and hurrying towards them. In spiteof hurrying he did not seem to get any nearer; still it was pleasantto be always going on and on, knowing that he would get to them atlast. He had now left the drier plains behind; the earth was clothedwith green and yellow grass easy to the feet, and during the day hefound many sweet roots to refresh him. He also found quantities ofcam-berries, a round fruit a little less than a cherry in size,bright yellow in colour, and each berry inside a green case orsheath shaped like a heart. They were very sweet. At night he sleptonce more in the long grass, and when daylight returned he travelledon, feeling very happy there alone--happy to think that he would getto the beautiful hills at last. But only in the early morning wouldthey look distinct and near; later in the day, when the sun grew hot,they would seem further off, like a cloud resting on the earth,which made him think sometimes that they moved on as he went towardsthem.

  On the third day he came to a high piece of ground; and when he gotto the top and looked over to the other side he saw a broad greenvalley with a stream of water running in it: on one hand the valleywith its gleaming water stretched away as far as he could see, oruntil it lost itself in the distant haze; but on the other hand, onlooking up the valley, there appeared a great forest, looking bluein the distance; and this was the first forest Martin had ever seen.Close by, down in the green valley before him, there was somethingelse to attract his attention, and this was a large group of men andhorses. No sooner had he caught sight of them than he set off at arun towards them, greatly excited; and as he drew near they all roseup from the grass where they had been sitting or lying to stare athim, filled with wonder at the sight of that small boy alone in thedesert. There were about twenty men and women, and several children;the men were very big and tall, and were dressed only in robes madeof the skins of some wild animal; they had broad, flat faces, anddark copper-coloured skins, and their long black hair hung downloose on their backs.

  These strange, rude-looking people were savages, and are supposed tobe cruel and wicked, and to take pleasure in torturing and killingany lost or stray person that falls into their hands; but indeed itis not so, as you shall shortly find. Poor ignorant little Martin,who had never read a book in his life, having always refused tolearn his letters, knew nothing about savages, and feared them nomore than he had feared old Jacob, or the small spotted snake, thevery sight of which had made grown-up people scream and run away. Sohe marched boldly up and stared at them, and they in turn stared athim out of their great, dark, savage eyes.

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  They had just been eating their supper of deer's flesh, roasted onthe coals, and after a time one of the savages, as an experiment,took up a bone of meat and offered it to him. Being very hungry hegladly took it, and began gnawing the meat off the bone.

  When he had satisfied his hunger, he began to look round him, stillstared at by the others. Then one of the women, who had agood-humoured face, caught him up, and seating him on her knees,tried to talk to him.

  "Melu-melumia quiltahou papa shani cha silmata," she spoke, gazingvery earnestly into his face.

  They had all been talking among themselves while he was eating; buthe did not know that savages had a language of their own differentfrom ours, and so thought that they had only been amusing themselveswith a kind of nonsense talk, which meant nothing. Now when thewoman addressed this funny kind of talk to him, he answered her inher own way, as he imagined, readily enough: "Hey diddle-diddle, thecat's in the fiddle, fe fo fi fum, chumpty-chumpty-chum, with bingson her ringers, and tells on her boes."

  They all listened with grave attention, as if he had said somethingvery important. Then the woman continued: "Huanatopa ana anaquiltahou."

  To which Martin answered, "Theophilus Thistle, the thistle-sifter,sifted a sieve of unsifted thistles; and if Theophilus--oh, I won'tsay any more!"

  Then she said, "Quira-holata silhoa mari changa changa."

  "Cock-a-doodle-do!" cried Martin, getting tired and impatient."Baa, baa, black sheep, bow, wow, wow; goosey, goosey gander; see-saw,Mary Daw; chick-a-dee-dee, will you listen to me. And now let me go!"

  But she held him fast and kept on talking her nonsense language tohim, until becoming vexed he caught hold of her hair and pulled it.She only laughed and tossed him up into the air and caught him again,just as he might have tossed and caught a small kitten. At lengthshe released him, for now they were all beginning to lie down by thefire to sleep, as it was getting dark; Martin being very tiredsettled himself down among them, and as one of the women threw askin over him he slept very comfortably.

  Next morning the hills looked nearer than ever just across the river;but little he cared for hills now, and when the little savagechildren went out to hunt for berries and sweet roots he followedand spent the day agreeably enough in their company.

  On the afternoon of the second day his new playfellows all threw offtheir little skin cloaks and plunged into the stream to bathe; andMartin, seeing how much they seemed to enjoy being in the water,undressed himself and went in after them. The water was not too deepin that place, and as it was rare fun splashing about and trying tokeep his legs in the swift current and clambering over slippery rocks,he went out some distance from the bank. All at once he discoveredthat the others had left him, and looking back he saw that they wereall scrambling out on to the bank and fighting over his clothes.Back he dashed in haste to rescue his property, but by the time hereached the spot they had finished dividing the spoil, and jumpingup they ran away and scattered in all directions, one wearing hisjacket, another his knickerbockers, another his shirt and one sock,another his cap and shoes, and the last the one remaining sock only.In vain he pursued and called after them; and at last he wascompelled to follow them unclothed to the camping ground, where hepresented himself crying piteously; but the women who had been sokind to him would not help him now, and only laughed to see howwhite his skin looked by contrast with the dark copper-coloured skinsof the other children. At length one of them compassionately gavehim a small soft-furred skin of some wild animal, and fastened it onhim like a cloak; and this he was compelled to wear with shame andgrief, feeling very strange and uncomfortable in it. But the feelingof discomfort in that new savage dress was nothing to the sense ofinjury that stung him, and in his secret heart he was determined notto lose his own clothes.

  When the children went out next day he followed them, watching andwaiting for a chance to recover anything that belonged to him; andat last, seeing the little boy who wore his cap off his guard, hemade a sudden rush, and snatching it off the young savage's head,put it firmly upon his own. But the little savage now regarded thatcap as his very own: he had taken it by force or stratagem, and hadworn it on his head since the day before, and that made it hisproperty; and so at Martin he went, and they fought stoutly together,and being nearly of a size, he could not conquer the little white boy.Then he cried out to the others to help him, and they came andoverthrew Martin, and deprived him not only of his cap, but of hislittle skin cloak as well, and then punished him until he screamedaloud with pain. Leaving him crying on the ground, they ran back tothe camp. He followed shortly afterwards, but got no sympathy, for,as a rule, grown-up savages do not trouble themselves very much aboutthese
little matters: they leave their children to settle their owndisputes.

  During the rest of that day Martin sulked by himself behind a greattussock of grass, refusing to eat with the others, and when one ofthe women went to him and offered him a piece of meat he struck itvindictively out of her hand. She only laughed a little and left him.

  Now when the sun was setting, and he was beginning to feel very coldand miserable in his nakedness, the men were seen returning from thehunt; but instead of riding slowly to the camp as on other days,they came riding furiously and shouting. The moment they were seenand their shouts heard the women jumped up and began hastily packingthe skins and all their belongings into bundles; and in less thanten minutes the whole company was mounted on horseback and ready forflight. One of the men picked Martin up and placed him on thehorse's back before him, and then they all started at a swift canterup the valley towards that great blue forest in the distance.

  In about an hour they came to it: it was then quite dark, the skypowdered with numberless stars; but when they got among the treesthe blue, dusky sky and brilliant stars disappeared from sight, asif a black cloud had come over them, so dark was it in the forest.For the trees were very tall and mingled their branches overhead;but they had got into a narrow path known to them, and moving slowlyin single file, they kept on for about two hours longer, thenstopped and dismounted under the great trees, and lying down allclose together, went to sleep. Martin, lying among them, crept underthe edge of one of the large skin robes and, feeling warm, he soonfell fast asleep and did not wake till daylight.

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