FOR HER BABY’S LIFE.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVI, Issue XXII, 30 May 1896, Page 637

FOR HER BABY’S LIFE.

A YOUNG mother crooning over her first born sat in her humble cabin on the border of the Great Tensas Swamp, that dismal, mysterious, and all but impenetrable jungle which stretches for many miles into the lower border of Alabama from the head of Mobile Bay. She was awaiting the return of her sturdy husband, a hunter by vocation, who had gone into the swamp for game. It was the middle of August and the day was exceedingly hot. The tall sedges and other grasses that began where the jungle ceased and that filled all the broad flat pampas region lying between the swamp and the forest of pines was dry and offered a temptation to fire.

The woman belonged to the common people, bnt the infinitely gracious light of motherhood shone in her blue eyes and invested with rare comeliness a face that bore beneath its present radiance hard traces of an inherited necessity to earn a sustenance by the sweat of the brow. Strength of limb and health of body were becoming accompaniments of the rich colouring of her cheeks, for, having issued from generations become accustomed to the miasms of the swamp, she was on her proper heath and her vigour reflected the bountiful luxuriance of the surrounding vegetation. Modified by the new happiness and light that filled her life the dullness of her comprehension was still dimly reflected in her face and in the heaviness of her movements.

But suddenly she paused in her crooning and play with her baby, raised her head and sat in rigid stillness, listening. Then her face blanched, and, snatching her baby to her breast she sprang to the door and eagerly scanned the vast stretch of dead grass palpitating in the sun. • O God !' she exclaimed, *it is coming.’

As she spoke a blast of hot air struck her white cheek, coming suddenly to disturb the dead calm that hitherto had prevailed. To the windward, rolling in great writhing wreaths towards the sky, was a dense gray smoke, that, mounting rapidly, in a moment turned the brilliant sunshine to a dusky opal hue. The flames, urged by a high wind, whose forerunner had just as-

sailed her, ran toward her with incredible speed and fury—with the speed of the wind and the fury of destruction. She knew what it was bringing to her in her lonely and exposed position. There was no time for regrets ; a precious treasure was clasped to her bosom, and that was the one thing in all the world to be saved from the merciless monster coming to raze and devour all that lay in its path. With a silent prayer to Almighty God for the safe deliverance of her treasure at her hands and with a dumb, blind hope that somewhere in the profound and trackless jungle she might find the one other next and most precious to her soul, she fled bareheaded and panting to the protection of the swamp. Of all the agonies which she thereupon encountered—fear of the roaring fire behind that sent broad sheets of flame athwart the sky and started small fires all about her ; concealed vines that tripped her feet and rebellious shrubs that tore her garments ; dread of black bears whose growls of alarm made her knees tremble ; terror of frightened panthers whose screams rang through the dark forest—of none of these things need much be told.

The woman fought her way through the jungle, now beside herself and under the influence of a rash eagerness to save her baby’s life from the innumerable menaces that dogged her feet. But she knew a little of these wilds, and with approximate accuracy could judge whether this tuft or that was treacherous or firm ; whether this vine would poison her and therefore her baby as it tore her flesh ; whether her leap was able to clear that black pool, and whether the dark knob of moss on the other side covered a slippery root or honest ground.

She held her baby clutched tightly to her breast, and its loud wailing brought forth from the darker clumps of dwarf palmetto certain hideous creatures that filled her with a terror far beyond that inspired by the growls of bears and the screams of panthers. These were the alligators, those ancient and formidable kingsof the southern swamps. The simple folk of these lowlands knew with what jealousy they had to guard the safety of their babes when these monsters were bunting food. Once in her flight she inadvertently stepped upon a young alligator, and its ensuing sharp squeal brought plunging

forth its enraged mother, which gave chase to the fleeing human mother so closely guarding her own young. The pursuit was soon abandoned, but it impaired the woman's remaining wits and she plunged, floundered, and staggered forward with but two purposes in her disordered mind—Hight onward and onward and the preservation of her child from harm. Indeed, to stop or turn back was impossible; not but that she was now perfectly safe from the pursuit of fire, but there was nothing to return to but danger in the swamp and a possible heap of ashes where her home bad been She must go on and on, daring not to call her husband’s name aloud for fear of the beasts, but plunging and floundering forward in the dumb and desperate hope that somewhere ahead she might find him, or somewhere beyond the jungle discover the safety of human companionship. It was thus that after some hours she was dismayed to find her progress barred by the broad expanse of the Tensas River. Behind her lay the terrible forest, its upper parts lashed by the gale and its still depths echoing the moaning and swishing of the cypress tops and the swaying muscadine vines that clambered from the roots bo the summits of the trees. Before her lay the broad stretch of tidewater, its surface deeply ruffled by the wind, and beyond its reach of two miles in width began interminable canebrakes. Besides a skurrying bird here and there not a living thing, not a sign of human habitation, greeted the wretched woman’s eager scanning.

She did not know where she was nor how many miles she had come. She knew only that she was helpless and desolate, that her baby was crying with fright and hunger, that her own clothes were nearly stripped from her body and that she was dying of thirst.

There was a hazy interval, though partly through it rang faintly the peevish, whimpering cry of an infant followed by silence. When the mother staggered to her feet she found her baby sleeping in the hot sand beside her. She staggered to a little pool a few steps away, drank her till of tepid, ill-smelling water and returned to her infant.

A new danger soon appeared—the twinkling eyes of mocassins, the most venemous

of all the snakes of the Southern jungles, peered at her and the child from small tufts of dwarf cane that fringed the river bank. She snatched up her baby and began cautiously to pick her way along the river, lest she set foot on one of these deadly reptiles. Soon she found a place of seeming safety, where she might enjoy a little rest and have time to bring her wits to order and devise means of escape. It was a great tree that bad stood on the low bank and had fallen into the river at an acute angle to the shore line. It was still anchored to the bank by a few unsevered roots on the under side, and although its great trunk was half submerged, the exposed part was broad and secure. Had not her observation been blunted or possibly her experience lame she would have ob served that the upper part, long denuded of its bark, bore certain signs that, had she known their meaning, would have made her avoid this refuge as the most deadly trap into which she could have fallen. Seeing none of these she walked out upon the log as far as she could go to the remaining stumps of broken limbs, and there she sat down, making herself comfortable with her back resting against a branch stump, and appeased the hunger of her whimpering child. The infant then fell into slumber. The spot where the woman sat was in the shade of the trees on shore. A feeling of utter exhaustion and of refreshing coolness came over her, and before she could realise her peril and summon her energies for renewed efforts to escape she went to sleep. Presently she was roused by a strange crackling and scrambling, and the log swayed so heavily that she clutched a broken branch barely in time to save herself from the water, which was dark and deep. It was a second or two after her heavy eyes had opened that she was able to perceive a huge alligator slowly creeping down the log toward her and thus completely shutting off all means of escape to the shore. To spring into the river was out of the question. A choking terror for a moment paralyzed all her faculties. She realised that her baby, which had awakened while she slept, was crying again, and that this sound bad attracted the hungry saurian. With wisdom and calmness born of a great horror dimly realised the woman stilled the cries of her

baby, at the same time wrenching a rotten limb from the prone trank and waving it menacingly at the beast. Tbe alligator stopped and watched her with blinking eyes. She coo IJ see his bro id Hvoks expand and contract with bis breathing, and the rank odour of the musk which issued from an orifice underneath his throat was borne to her senses with the hot breath that poured heavily from his nostrils. There he lay flat on bis belly, perfectly still, hugging the log and blinking stupidly at her with his small and watery black eyes.

He was not more than twenty feet from her, but presently he began to shorten the interval by creeping forward with an almost imperceptible motion. The woman believed that if she could command snfficient strength to rise and assume a threatening attitude the monster would retreat, for she knew that it was only in tbe protection of their young that alligators were ferocious ; but she felt that all her strength had tied. Her legs seemed to be bnt masses of stone, cold, heavy and inert; and her arms, though still retaining strength wherewithal to grasp her infant and the rotten branch, had lost their flexibility.

Worse than all, she found it impossible to remove her steadfast gaze from the blinking eyes whose glance was riveted upon her Nor could she even command the function of her eyelids, which remained fixedly open, leaving the eyeballs to dry and burn. The huge brown bulk, trailing thirty feet along the log and led by the glittering eyes, slowly crept toward her, while she breathed in short and noiseless gasps and pressed her baby to her bosom. Then came an unexpected horror. The unaccustomed weight upon the log broke the restraining roots asunder, and, with a deep rolling like that of a ship in distress, the log swung free of the shore and began slowly to drift out into the stream. This alarmed the alligator, for it was a new experience on his old basking-log So he rolled into the water with a heavy splash and disappeared beneath the surface.

This gave the log so heavy a roll that it dipped the woman and wetted her. In clutching to save herself, bnt never for an

instant relaxing her firm grasp of the child, she lost the club with which she bad held the monster at bay, and now sat helpless and unarmed. The tide was at the ebb and the farther the log drifted from the shore the more rapidly it began to move down the stream. A fortunate circumstance resided in the fact that a number of branches on the under side of the log remained intact and served as ballast to reduce tbe rolling of the trunk. The wind had fallen and a dead calm lay upon the dark water.

The mother, her babe’s mouth pressed to her empty breast, sat in numb despair. Not even the strength or intelligence to set the forest and brake ringing with cries for help abided in her. It was not conceivable to her that in all the world there could be anything but desolation and death. This brought a certain calmness upon her spirit. She remembered the little home that her own hands had done so much to make comfortable, but which to her was more precious as the nest whither she had gone with the man she loved, and who, next always to her baby, filled the meagre measure of her life. It was hard to give him up, hard to die thus miserably away from him, leaving no trace of the ones he loved so fondly and for whose protection he would have given his life ; no record of the horrors which had been endured nor of the terrible end at hand. And how desperately and eagerly he would have fought to save them ! How he would spend days and weeks in searching the jungle for them, calling upon them to answer !

From these bitter and despairing reflections she was recalled to her present state by a heavy scrambling on the log and a deep rolling of its bulk in the water. Her tormentor had returned—had indeed kept faithful watch upon bis prey from tbe time the log had swung free of the bank. He was more daring now, for delayed satisfaction of hnnger will invest the most cowardly beast with a certain order of courage. It is true that he clambered upon the further end of the log, which war fully sixty feet long, but it would not require a great length of time tor him to cover the interval.

Simultaneously with his advent the

hopeless mother, knowing that it was not she, but her baby, whose life was sought by this loathsome monster, became aware of a strange sound upon her ear. Although there was something vaguely familiar in it she could not think otherwise than that it proceeded from within her and was an admonition of her death. It was at first a low and distant rumbling, seemingly behind her, for by this time the log was headed straight down the river, and she sat with her face up stieim. The rumbling rapidly grew louder and became a roar, but it only added to tbe dumb cold terrors that held her soul in chains. The roar changed to a deafening clatter, as though a thousand smiths were hammering at their forges. Then came a screaming blast that filled all time, space and perception and transfixed her vitals with piercing pains. Upon that tbe huge black bulk of glittering eyes, heaving flanks and dripping scales plunged hastily into the tide. Tbe loud clattering and screaming ceased, and thinking that she was dying the woman pressed her baby closer to her bosom and closed her eyes. But the clattering had been as friendly as its cessation, and tbe wild scream bad been a notice of deliverance, for tie log had drifted to the great railroad br.dge which spans the river, and the people on the rambling train that was passing with so much noise bad seen the women and the fearful menace that sat facing her on tbe log. But the men who were lowered by ropes and who brought her and her precious charge up to safety and comfi rt, reported that she said nothing but this : ‘ Save my baby ! Save my baby ! D.m’t let him eat my baby !’ And they added that it was hours before she could say anything else or would permit the baby to be taken from her arms.