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“You had better wait till you have been to my cabin near Roraima, when I can better explain the nature of the undertaking. Then, if you do not care to join me in it, or we seem unlikely to get on well together, we will part friends and you will merely have had an interesting bit of travelling.” So all farther explanation had been adjourned.

“I call this more than a ‘cabin,’” said Leonard, when they had had time to make a sort of tour of inspection. “I think we ought to give it a better name. Suppose we call it ‘Monella Lodge.’” And ‘Monella Lodge’ it was henceforth called.

CHAPTER V
IN THE ‘DEMONS’ WOOD.’

The following day, Monella led the two friends to the road he had begun to cut into Roraima Forest; but first he showed them two llamas that were kept in a rough corral near his dwelling.

“I brought them all the way from the other side of the continent,” he said. “You know that there they are the only beasts of burden, and in this country there are none. They will be useful to us later.”

As to the so-called ‘road,’ it was really but a pathway; and, in places, almost a kind of tunnel. The great trees of this primæval forest were so high and dense that but little daylight penetrated to the ground beneath; and on all sides the undergrowth was so thick and tangled that almost every foot had to be cut out with the axe. Here and there one could see for a few yards between the giant trunks, and at these spots the path had been made wider. One curious thing Jack noted: the path did not start from that part of the wood opposite to ‘Monella Lodge’; nor even from the margin of the wood itself.

Asked why this was, Monella thus made answer: “If in our absence others should come here, they might hunt up and down for the path a long time before they hit upon it – and very likely never find it. On this stony ground the tracks we leave are very slight and difficult to trace.”

“But,” said Jack, “your Indians know the way.”

Monella smiled.

“Not one of them would ever show another man the way,” he replied, “let him offer what he might.”

“But why all these precautions?”

“Later you will understand.”

But, when Jack came to look round, his heart sank within him.

“I should not care to have a few miles of railway to cut through wood like this,” he said. “It’s the worst I ever saw. I do not wonder you have found it more than you could manage – only yourself and these Indians – and it’s a wonder you ever got them to join at all, considering all the circumstances.”

“Yes; that’s where it is,” Monella answered. “Many men would have despaired, I think. We have had trouble, too. Two Indians met with accidents and were badly hurt; though now they are recovering. Then, some of the small streams that issue from the mountain became suddenly swollen once or twice, and washed away the rough bridges we had made across them; and we have met with many unexpected obstacles, such as great masses of rock, or a fallen tree, some giant of the forest that was so big it was easier to go round it than to cut through it.”

That evening, Monella explained his project, and showed the young men the plans and diagrams Dr. Lorien had spoken of, and then went on to say,

“If you decide to join me, you ought to know something of the language in which these old documents are written. I both read and write it, and I speak it too. You will find it interesting to decipher them, and an occupation for the evenings.”

Jack was not enthusiastic at this suggestion; but Leonard cordially embraced it.

“To learn the language of an unknown nation that has passed away will be curious and very interesting,” he declared, “and will, as you say, help to pass the time. You may as well learn it too, Jack. You speak the Indian – why not learn this? Then we can talk together in a tongue that no one but ourselves and our friend here can understand.”

“And where did these ancient people ‘hang out’?” asked Jack irreverently.

“Have you heard of the lake of Titicaca and the ancient ruins of the great city of Tiahuanaco; a city on this continent believed by archæologists to be at least as old as Thebes and the Pyramids?” Monella asked.

“I have,” Leonard answered, “though I know very little about them. But I believe I was in that country when very young, and had a curious escape from death there.”

Monella turned his gaze quickly upon the young man.

“Tell me about it. What do you remember?” he asked.

“Oh, I do not remember anything; I was too young. But I have been told how that my father went somewhere in that district on a prospecting expedition, and, not liking to be separated from my mother, took her with him, and my nurse, Carenna, and myself. Whilst there they came across a small settlement of white people, as I understand, and remained with them some time. There was amongst these people a child of my own age, and so exactly like me, that my nurse grew almost as fond of it as she was of me, and used to like to take the two out together. One day, it seems, we both went to sleep on the grass, and she left us for a few minutes to gather fruit. When she returned a poisonous snake crawled hissing away, and she found the other poor little child had been bitten and was dead.

“That’s all I know about it. Who the people were, and where the place was, I cannot say. I have always understood, however, that it was somewhere in the direction of Lake Titicaca. But Carenna could tell you more.”

“And what about this ancient people of yours?” Templemore asked of Monella, who still gazed thoughtfully and inquiringly at Leonard. Templemore had heard of Elwood’s early adventure many times before.

“High up on the eastern slopes of the great Andes is an extensive plain, as large as the whole of British Guiana,” the old man replied. “It is twelve thousand feet above the level of the sea, and there, at that great height, is also the largest lake of South America, Lake Titicaca, over three thousand square miles in extent, on the shores of which was once a mighty city called Tiahuanaco. It is now in ruins; yet, even amongst its ruins, it boasts of some of the oldest and most wonderful monuments in the world. Two thousand feet above this again, are another large plain and another lake, little known to the outside world, being, indeed, almost inaccessible. It was there my people dwelt, and tradition asserts that they retired thither when driven out of Tiahuanaco by some invasion of hordes from other parts of the continent.”

“Is it a very old language, do you suppose?” Jack asked.

“Undoubtedly one of the oldest in the world; and yet not difficult to acquire by those who know the language of Matava and his tribe – as you do. It has some affinity to it.”

As regards the tongue spoken by the Indians, Leonard had learnt it from Carenna in his childhood; and Templemore had picked up a good deal from the same source, as well as on his hunting expeditions with Leonard and Matava.

When it came to discussing terms, Monella declared that he had none to make, except that on no consideration whatever should any other white man be invited or allowed to join them. As to the rest, he simply suggested that any wealth they might acquire by their enterprise should be shared equally between them.

“Suppose one of us were to die,” observed Jack. “How then? Might not the survivors choose some one else to join them? Though,” he added thoughtfully, “if it were you, we should not be likely to go on.”

“I shall not die, my friend, until my task be finished,” replied Monella with conviction.

“You cannot say,” was Jack’s rejoinder.

“No, I do not say I know, yet I can say I feel it. No man dieth till he hath fulfilled the work in life allotted to him by God,” Monella finished solemnly.

The others already knew him, by this time, as a man with deep-seated religious convictions; though he made no parade of his beliefs. He seemed to have a simple, steady faith in an overruling Providence, and showed it, unostentatiously, in many ways, both in his actions, and in the advice he gave, on occasion, to the young men.

In the result, the bargain – if it can be so termed – was concluded. Elwood and Templemore formally enrolled themselves under Monella’s leadership, and henceforth performed the duties he assigned to them; amongst other things assisting almost daily in the formation of the path that was to take them through the forest. When not so engaged, they would go out with some of the Indians on hunting or fishing excursions in search of food.

Monella had with him, amongst other things, a beautifully finished theodolite of wonderful accuracy and delicacy; with this he settled the direction of the road from day to day. Often, obstacles were encountered that made it impossible to go straight; these had to be worked round and the proper direction picked up again by means of Monella’s calculations.

Another circumstance worthy of note and that caused the two young men at first some surprise, was the fact that Monella had with him some mirrors specially prepared and fixed in strong cases for carrying about in rough travel, and intended for heliographic signalling. They frequently took these out and practised with them by sending messages to one another from the ridges of hills far apart. Monella tried also to instruct Matava and some of the Indians in the work, but without success. They were indeed afraid of the glasses, and looked upon it all as some kind of magic.

“Wouldn’t it be simpler to go up the bed of this stream that you seem to have been following more or less all the time, even if it be longer?” observed Jack one day.

Monella shook his head.

“No use, my friend. It divides into so many branches; and then again, in case of a rise of its waters, we should have all our road submerged at once.”

On Sundays they always rested. This, it appeared, had been Monella’s custom all along.

In his conversations in the evenings and during their Sunday strolls, he would instruct and amuse his hearers with his reminiscences and adventures in all parts of the world, or with his intimate knowledge of the wild life around them. From his account, he had undergone, at times, terrible and extraordinary hardships and privations on the plains and in the forests of India and Africa; of Australia; the Steppes of Tartary; the Highlands of Thibet; the interior of China and Japan; the wilds of Siberia; of Canada; the prairies of North America, and the pampas, plains, and rugged mountains of South America – all, as Dr. Lorien had said, seemed to be alike known to him. Nor was he less familiar with the countries and cities of Europe; yet he spoke of his travels and experiences in a simple manner that had in it nothing of boastfulness or ostentation, but as though his sole object were to amuse and entertain his two young friends.

As they penetrated farther into the forest, their work became harder and the progress slower. This latter was unavoidable, since each day they had to walk farther and farther to and fro. Moreover, the Indians, who had displayed greater courage – so Monella had said – now that they had two more white men with them, once more began to show signs of nervous apprehension and fear.

This was doubtless due to the great difference in many ways – some definite enough, others indefinable and vague – between this forest and those generally to be found in the tropical regions of South America. Not only were the trees still more gigantic – making it gloomier – and the undergrowths more dense and tangled, but the birds and animals, judging from their cries, were unfamiliar to them. Many of the sounds usual to forest life in British Guiana were absent; the constant note of the ‘bell-bird’ was not heard, nor was even the startling roar of the howling monkeys. Instead were heard other sounds and noises of an entirely novel and peculiar kind, unknown even to the Indians who had been used to forest travelling all their lives; sounds that even Monella either could not explain – or hesitated to. One of these was a horrid combination of hiss and snort and whistle, loud and prolonged like the stertorous breathings of some monstrous creature. Some of the Indians declared that this was the sound traditionally said to proceed from the great ‘camoodi,’ the monstrous serpent that is supposed to guard the way to Roraima mountain; while others inclined to the opinion that it was made by the equally dreaded ‘didi,’ the gigantic ‘wild man of the woods,’ that also had, as they averred, its special haunts in this particular forest. At times, a startling, long-drawn cry would echo through the wood, so human in its tones as sometimes to cause them to rush in the direction it seemed to come from, in the belief that it was a cry for help from one of the party who was in danger. This strange, harrowing cry, the Indians called ‘The cry of a Lost Soul’⁶; and they were always seized with panic when it was heard.

There were other cries and sounds equally mysterious and perplexing; and, so the Indians began to declare, strange sights too. Of these they could give no clear account, but they maintained that, in the shadows in the darker places, or just before nightfall, while returning from their work, they now and then caught passing glimpses of vague shapes that seemed to peer at them and then disappear within the gloomy forest depths. And even Elwood and Templemore were conscious of the occasional presence of these silent unfamiliar shapes, and sometimes fired at them, though without result. These facts they made no attempt to conceal from one another, though, in their intercourse with the Indians, they put a bold face on matters, and affected to disbelieve the stories told them.

Monella alone was – or appeared to be – entirely undisturbed by all these things. If conscious of them, he gave no sign of it, but went about whatever he had to do as though danger were to him an unknown quantity.

There was, however, one unpleasant fact that could not be ignored, and that was the unusual number of ‘bush-masters’ of large size in the wood. This is a poisonous snake, very gaudily coloured, whose bite is certain death. It does not – like most serpents – try to get out of the way of human beings, but, instead, rushes to attack them with great swiftness and ferocity. It is the only aggressive venomous snake of the American continent. It usually attains a length of five or six feet; but, in this forest, the explorers killed many of eight or nine feet, and two – that came on to the attack together – were nearly eleven feet long, with fangs as large as a parrot’s claw. In consequence of the frequency of the attacks of these reptiles, so much dreaded by the Indians, and indeed by all travellers, one or two of a working party, armed with shot guns, had to be told off to keep watch; rifles being of no use for the purpose.

Templemore, as it happened, had had a bad fright when a child from an adventure with a snake; and this – as is frequently the case – had left in his mind, all the rest of his life, a great horror of serpents. He found, therefore, the presence of these ‘lords of the woods,’ as their Indian name implies, a source of ever-present abhorrence.

Besides the ‘bush-masters,’ there were the ‘labarri’ – also a large venomous snake, but not aggressive like the other – and rattlesnakes. There were also, no doubt, boa-constrictors, or ‘camoodis,’ of the ordinary kind; but, thus far, only one had been seen, and that, though large, was nothing out of the way as regards size for that country.

Nor were serpents their only visible enemies; there were others of a kind new to the two young men. One day, while with the working party at the farthest part of the track, they heard the whole forest suddenly resound with a perfect babel of discordant noises. There were shrill cries and squeals, hoarse roars and growls, then a kind of trumpeting. The Indians retreated, throwing down their axes to pick up their rifles. As they hastily retired, four large animals sprang into their path, one after the other, with loud roars and growls. But Monella, who was behind Elwood, stepped forward and rolled two over with his repeating rifle, and Jack stopped another of the beasts with his. The fourth, apparently not liking the way things were going, leaped into the thicket and disappeared; though, judging from the sounds that came from the direction it had taken, there were many more of its fellows close at hand. Gradually their cries grew fainter, until they died away in the distance.

Meanwhile, further shots had given the coup de grâce to the three that had been knocked over, and the victors went up to examine them. They seemed to be a kind of panther or leopard of a light grey colour, approaching white in places, with markings of a deeper colour.

Neither Templemore nor Elwood had ever previously seen any animal, or the skin of one, at all like these. They were, moreover, of different shape from either the jaguar or the tiger-cat; larger than the latter, and more thick-set than the former.

“These must be the ‘white jaguars’ that the Indians say help to guard Roraima,” Jack observed, looking in perplexity at the strange creatures.

“Yes,” said Matava, who had now come up, “and they are ‘Warracaba tigers.’”⁷

“What on earth are they?” asked Leonard.

“Warracaba tiger,” Monella said, “is the name given to a species of small ‘tiger’ (in America all such animals are called ‘tigers’) that hunts in packs, and is reputed to be unusually ferocious. They have a peculiar trumpeting cry, not unlike the sound made by the Warracaba bird – the ‘trumpet-bird’ – hence their name.”

“They look to me more like light-coloured pumas,” Jack remarked.

“No; pumas are not marked like that, and do not make the sounds we heard. Besides, you need never fear a puma, and should never shoot at one, unless it is attacking your domestic animals.”

Both Templemore and Elwood looked up in surprise.

“I always thought,” the latter said, “that pumas were such bloodthirsty animals.”

“So they are, to other animals – even the jaguar they attack and kill. But men they never touch, if let alone. I do not believe there is a single authenticated instance of a puma’s hurting any human being, man, woman or child. In the Andes and Brazil – where I have lived long enough to know – the Gauchos call the puma ‘Amigo del cristiano’ – ‘the friend of man’ – and they think it an evil thing to kill one.”⁸

A few days after, they were attacked again by these furious creatures, and this time did not come off so well, for two of the Indians were badly mauled. But for Monella’s cool bravery, indeed, matters would have been much worse; and Templemore had a narrow escape. Then, a day or two later, one of the Indians was stung by a scorpion; and Jack came near being bitten by a rattlesnake – would have been but for Monella, who, just in time, boldly seized the reptile by the tail, and, swinging it two or three times round his head, dashed its brains out against a piece of rock.

Indeed, upon all occasions where there was any kind of danger, Monella’s ready, quiet courage was always displayed in a manner that won both the admiration of his white colleagues and the devotion of his Indian followers. Moreover, as Dr. Lorien had stated, and as Leonard had found by actual experience, he was skilled in medicine and surgery. To wounds he applied the leaves of some plant, of which he had a store with him in a dried state, the curative effects of which were reputed among the Indians to be almost marvellous.

But even these incidents were surpassed by a startling experience they had a short time afterwards. On going to their working ground one morning, two or three Indians in advance of the remainder of the party saw, lying across the path, what they took to be the trunk of a tree that had fallen during the night; and they sat upon it, indolently, to wait for the others to come up. Suddenly, one of them sprang up, exclaiming, “It’s alive! I felt it move! It is breathing!” They all jumped up, in alarm, when the great snake – for such it proved to be – glided off into the wood. Most likely the others would have ridiculed their story, but that Templemore happened to come up in time to witness what occurred. And through the underwood, on both sides of the path, was plainly to be seen a sort of small tunnel that marked the place where the serpent had been lying asleep.

Matava and his fellows, of course, insisted that this was the great ‘camoodi,’ that Indian tradition had long declared existed in this forest – set there specially, by the demons of the mountain, to guard it from intrusion.

These constant dangers and adventures made the task of keeping the Indians from deserting doubly difficult, and rendered the work both harassing and tedious to the others. Only Monella showed no weariness, no sign of the strain it all involved; so far from that, these troubles seemed only to increase his vigilance, his power of endurance, and his determination.

And all the time they were cutting their way through vegetation that would have astonished and delighted the heart of a botanical collector such as Dr. Lorien. Not only within the wood, but in the whole district round, unknown and wondrous flowers and plants abounded. But the explorers had neither time nor inclination to take that interest in them they merited, and would, at any other time, have undoubtedly excited.⁹