PATAGONIA.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLV, Issue 6, 10 August 1910, Page 50

PATAGONIA.

By

EDITH RICKERT.

HEN 1 was in Patagonia,” beA 4 I gan Simson slowly. IIL I think we all sat up a little, and somebody asked: “When was that?” “It's a funny thing,” moralised Simeon, “that we should wander up and down Broadway, in and out of the club, year after year, and know no more of one another's in’ards than Payne does of the cat’s.” “That's a digression, Sim,” said Forbes. “You were in Patagonia, u nd ■” “You think this just one more of your yarns. Maybe it is, but I don't know about that,” said Simson in his glow way. “This ones true—happened ito me myself, and if any of you chaps has got a philosophy to lit it. when I'm done, he can just trot it out quick, for I'm hanged if I see the moral. “After all. 1 must go back a little earlier than Patagonia. My best chum at Yale was a man called lloare—Pilgrim lloare. It was a funny thing how I managed to like the chap. Not that he was a bad sort; but he always stepped in and got the things I wanted, lie was put on the crew; I just missed •it. lie w a- (me of the 'leven; I played in no-count games wit'll small fry. < lever fellow, too; you could tell by the look of him that he went in for culture and all that - tall, lean, hooknosed. fair, elean-skinned chap, with a biceps that was a beauty to feel, and—■ oh. the cult are dripped from his eyeglasses. The very set of them on his nose was correct. Full of blue blood, he was Norman, he called it. Dated it back to nowhere or Noah. "In spite of the fact that he had all the makings of a prig, lloare somehow escaped being one. If he 'had a fault, it

aas his way sometimes of soaring off into the clouds, biceps and all, and forgetting to come back to earth again. There was a—what you might call surplus of ideal about him. Well, he capped the climax by getting engaged to a girl I admired—only girl I ever wanted, .’nd in spite of that, we went off to Patagonia together. “We were exploring, seeing life —what you call it. 1 hadn’t any regular profession, vagrancy just suited me, and lloare— well, he joked about his name being Pilgrim, and his father had made his pile out of a gold mine, so we fitted up a little beauty of a ship, and turned our faces toward Patagonia. We wanted to see what it was like—cannibals, volcanoes, and all.” “And what did you find?’’ demanded St a rt. “We found, after climbing rocks, t ramping over plains, getting lost, starving, freezing, and all that, after stuffing our blame note-books full of birds and weeds and chips of stones and other rubbish, we found well, be found a cliff that did for him.” “.Huh!*’ from Forbes. “Well, you know, afterward we climbed up and down that place, every manjack of the party; and we crawled in and out of hides till our knees were black and blue. We dangled one another with ropes, and one chap was saved by the skin of his teeth from going the same way —rope cut on a jagged edge. We didn’t find lloare. I think we spent a week about the place. And then I brought the ship home”—he paused to smoke- “and delivered up his note books and diaries and that to the girl. Of course, I had wired as soon as I could after the accident.” He paused as if he had reached the end.

“Well,” said Forbes, “it’s very sad, of course, but 1 don’t see anything remarkable about it.” “No?” said Simson savagely, for him. •‘Well, you haven't heard it yet—wait. As I said, 1 had to call on the girl. It

was six months—no, longer, after Hoare’s death; and I had to sit down and go over the whole scene again to the girl 1 wanted "myself, and .see her crying for him—huh! She was in black and all that, and she had the room dark. It was a blazing day, though, outside—l remember mopping my brow—maybe that was why. 1 couldn't half see her face for thi* blinds and her handkerchief. She was quiet enough, only she wanted his last words. Unreasonable, I called it—he .hadn’t any lust words—went over in too much of a hurry. I saw him kick up his heels, and then a cloud of dust and small pebbles went knocking after him. I couldn't tell her that.” “What did you tell her?” demanded Forbes, perhaps with an eye to copy. “f said 1 was too upset to hear any last words—she liked me for that. Well, I’ll get over this part, but it was rough having to sit by and hear her making good out of clay. When I left the house I felt that 1 wasn't good enough to tread the earth beside even the memory of Pilgrim lloare. Still, I kept going to see her: 1 think she would have sent for me if 1 hadn't. And by and by her family made her go out of mourning and we became good friends, just as if lloare had never existed. “At last— I gave her time enough—T ewear I did —I spoke for myself. That brought it all on again. She said she had never forgotten him and-never wotild forget; and in five minutes she made me want to crawl away and’hide from the ■memory of that chap. But I pressed her hard and she admitted that she liked me very well; but that she had never loved anybody ’but him. and she never would marry until ishe knew, past all doubting, that he was dead —until somebody found his body or found somebody who had seen it. “‘l'll find it,’ said I grimly. “•But you tried before/ said ehe reproa ch f Lilly.

“ ‘To be sure I did; but there weren’t any stakes for it then/ 1 retorted. ‘She shivered and began a lot of talk about—well, I guess it was the philosophy of love—how if you loved a man once, you loved him forever and noth-

ing in this earth —or out of it, I gathered -—-could ever make you change. “At that, I plucked up a bit and said: ‘That's supposing we always remain the same ourselves. Suppose, instead, you had married him and he had taken to drink or morphine or ’ “‘Don't,’ said .she. I knew I was brutal. But—was I—or wasn't I right? —1 don't know !” “1 gather that you found him?” Forbes ventured at last. “I found him,” he answered, with the solemnity of a litany. “And not dead, since a miracle is required,” insisted Forbes. “Not dead/’ he admitted. After a time he resumed: “Took sama old ship, same old crew, as far as I coul 1 get 'em, went on the same old spot find it on the map, if you like — latitude so and so, longitude so and so. “Landed at the foot of the cliff on a misty morning with eight men of the crew; we lay at anchor off there in a small bay, like this —it hasn't got a name yet, 1 believe.” . He figured the situation for us in the ashes on the polished table. “We marched inland to the cairn of stones we had set up, round a corner of the hill, so to speak, and thought we’d pitch there at the foot and lie low until the mist dispersed. We turned sharp like, and at the same moment three of us saw a monkey shoot up the face of the rock. At least, we called it a monkey, though how' the deuce a lone monkey came in those barren wastes of dried lava was} more than wo could conceive. “We got a little brushwood and made a fire and cooked a meal after a time. And all the while I posted two lookout mon. for I couldn’t unravel the meaning of that monkey. It was afternoon before we judged it clear enough to begin our search. We divided into two parties, four above and four below. Wasn’t much danger from natives in those parts. The ground was top poor to feed ft mule.

“We didn't find anything, of course; and perhaps 1 didn’t have time for a few reflect ions on a darned fool called JSiinson who had sailed some thousands of miles and all that, just to look at lava-beds that he knew by heart already. 1 reasoned it out coolly enough then; it was fourteen months and more since lloare had gone over exposed to the vultures or in a pit, there’d In* nothing hut bare bone of him left by now; and even if I had found that 1 had a droll notion, grim enough, too, that if I found that, I’d burn it—see?- and take home the lish. I fancied she’d like it better. She could moon over it as some fool woman did once over a flower-pot or something Ithat a man’s head was stuck into. • “I didn’t find any bones: I found something else. It occurred to me on tire second day. while the other chaps were still beating about the scrub at the foot (he rocks—hadn’t I gone over every inch of that ground myself, before ever I left the place? Well, it occurred tl ine to try to scramble up the clift where we had seen that monkey-thing. I’ve got an eye for distance, and I guess I hit the very spot or near it. where the thing bad s-tarted up. I stood there, looking upward, more idly than any- * thing, for it was from three hundred to [lthree hundred and fifty feet of as sheer rock as yon please. Then 1 saw a kind of ledge about three feet from the ground. I stepped on it and. by Jove, there was another, a little to one side — inot a ledge, von know, a crack, a hollow iibi<» enough foi half the foot. I climbed a little way, hinging on to some scrub, find in a minute it flashed upon me that i there was a kind of ladder cut out of I the rock. I didn’t shout to the boys, as by all means 1 should have done; 1 didn’t have time to think of consequences. I only knew th.it I was going j lip that place if I broke my neck for it. Besides, the girl in short, I was getting reckless, and all that. ‘1 pretty nearly did break my neck. There were times when I hung on, panting, looking for the next hole, not darling to turn my eyes up or down, when a °felt that my moment had come. I didn’t hear anything from the chaps below. They said afterward that they first caught, sight of me near a hundred feet lip, and didn’t dare shout for fear 1 Should tumble. I’csides, what could they do? Ky “After a time I had the unmistakable sensation of being watched. At | level of my bead was a real ledge, perhaps two feet deep or more, and on ihe inner side of it there grew a stubbly bush. And through that bush 1 could see a pair of eyes nothing else. Hound, ; black eyes, dull like a snake's, but bigger. 1 looked at them and they looked «it me. I gave a sudden tug upward. !'A flash of colour red mostly—passed ; before my sight. Then I was on the ledge and the even were gone. “But there was a sting on my left shoulder. I put my right hand there mechanically. and touched blood. Involuntarily 1 looked down to find the cause and picked up a Hint arrow—bloody tip bound to a wooden shaft. 4 “‘Where. there’s an arrow, there's a man,’ 1 remember observing like a philosopher; and like a fool, I pushed at the bush and stepped forward. “J. was not surprised to find a hollow there —the monkey-thing had gone that Way. 1 walked quite unconcernedly, even {jauntily, down a sort of rift or chasm with just a strip of sky overhead. And in a smlden burst of daylight 1 came, upon a crowd of heads peeping out of a hole. It was a sort of irregular, halfroofed, natural courtyard among the rocks. 1 “For a minute everything was a blur of black and red before my eyes; then I beard the whistle and tick of an arrow above my head, and I realised that I yas being shot at. 1 hadn’t sense enough to get back into the passage. I suppose 1 was too surprised. i “There came a sort of black whirlwind across the stones, and an evilsmelling thing, taller than I, laid itself across me so as to protect my head and chest—fairly hugging me to its greasy okin, while it jabbered shrilly in some tongue that to my ears was like the cries of cockatoos and the laughter of hyenas. “At that, the ticking of the arrow’s ceased, the creature removed his weight, and I st iggered away from his foulness and stared at the crowd huddled on the ground before me that, while 1 gazed, was rein forced by more dark ‘figures creeping out of the rock. “You won’t believe me—they were

the real thing: cliff-dwellers, cave-men. You won’t believe it, ‘but it’s true. In Patagonia 1 saw them alive, with these eyes. Oh, I’ve seen ’em dead and mummies out in Colorado -and Arizona, but these chaps, 1 tell you, breathed and jabbered. They were little people, with hair like mud —not black, you know—• and their faces were coffee colour—cafe au lait—and they were beardless and had string** of beads and striped stuff—* sashes, tunics, what-you-call-’ems, made of hemp—l’m sure it must have been hemp—woven coarsely, after a fashion —I saw a hand-loom after, when 1 went in—and dyed, the Lord knows how. “The creature that had rushed at me now put a hand between my shoulders and pushed me forward toward the lot of them. 1 turned and looked at him. 1 remember thinking, he’s the king, sure enough, twice as big as any of the others.

Oh, Lord, Lord, lie was lighter-coloured, too, and his hair was not dark, but a mess of fine, matted, no-coloured stuff. I felt a cold shiver running over me from head to foot, and 1 knew —you guess? It was Pilgrim Hoare himself. “I shouldn’t have known him—l swear I shouldn’t—but for the eyes. No snakepupils about them — red and bleary — he was always shortsighted, you know, and 1 don’t suppose his glasses had survived the fall—but, God! they were still blue as the sky —and that, lie hadn’t a beard, cither, or even a moustache such as he used to wear. I guess they had scraped it off him with a Hint—maybe it was part of their religion—but he was all scrubby and dirty ami burnt to any colour you please, lie was a sight. “ I managed somehow to choke out his name. He laughed and jabbered in the same awful tongue—full of sh’s and chk’s. Then he put up his hand and pushed away that mane of his, and I saw a scar that looked as if his whole front had been bashed in and badly mended. “ In a Hash I worked out the whole thing. He had come down head foremost on the ledge, perhaps had caught blindly at the bush; ami long before we had fairly begun our blundering search, they had dragged him within and made what they could of him. We thought naturally we had searched every available inch of that cliff. Bless you, from below and above the ledge didn’t make a wrinkle on the bare rock. We mav

have seen the bush; but there was nothing on it when we looked. “ 1 t<dl you, I’d a thousand times rather have found his skeleton, in any state of decay you please. It couldn’t have been so horrible as to look at that thing that was once a man. It made me sick.

“ They got me into the caves somehow, and of all the evil-smelling places of the world, 1 never was in one the equal of that. They had a fire—the Lord knows how they got it, and there was a hag, the only old person I saw—draw your own conclusions—stirring some rancidsmelling stuff in a pot. She ladled out pieces—l saw it was flesh—upon stones, the floor, anywhere you please, and they grabbed it up like dogs, and jabbered and tore at one another’s bits. Bless you, I won’t tell any more. But the floor was strewn with bones from other feasts—-

a big animal—l don’t know what—what do you think? The old woman held outlier ladle-like thing to be. 1 was afraid to refuse. 1 could not make up my mind to take it. lloare greedily stretched out his fingers to his own piece, and burnt them; but though he danced about on one foot and the other, shifting the hot thing from one hand to the other, he never let it go, and the moment the heat was bearable, tore off great lumps of flesh and crunched at sinews and bones as well. I felt that I should faint if 1 didn’t get out of the place. “ ‘ lloare,’ said I, speaking very slowly and distinctly, ‘ the old ship’s below; come home with me. The Madeline, you know"—she was named for the gin -—‘the Madeline. Come home.’ “At first he grinned when I spoke. Then he seemed to listen, and his painfully contracted eyes took on a searching look. He made some indistinguishable sounds that seemed to me, however, unlike the gibberish of the savages. They were all munching now, and had for the moment forgotten their curiosity about me. “ I stepped to the mouth of the cave to get away from the reek from within, and Hoare pattered to my side, with his whole attention bent, as it seemed, upon a fresh chunk of meat. And as we stood ■there, I debated whether it was worth while, whether it was kind or even decent, to take him away as he was, to restore him to his people, to—her. By Jove, I thought it would have been kinder to kill him as he stood. Mere

savage life for fourteen or fifteen months should not have undone so much—ah, but that blow on the head! No doubt he had had to begin at the beginning, language and all, and where was there room for hope? Still, society bids us save the life, always save the life, let the strong sutler and sink, if you will, but save and prop up by all means the physically weak, tlie insane, the vicious. Perhaps, though, it was the memory of my oath that moved me to my decision. ‘“All right,’ said I to myself, ‘l’ll take him home alive.’ “ ‘ Come along,’ 1 commanded him sharply, with a gesture towards the passage by which I had entered. I walked a few steps to encourage him; but he only stared after me wistfully. So 1. went back and took his hand. 1 expected resistance, but he came like a docile child. The worst of it was, they followed; and I seemed to gather from a certain menace in their tones that arrows would follow, to, in a minute. J. had a sudden inspiration, 1 threw my cap among them, my coat and vest and collar and necktie, everything superfluous that I could get at in a moment—emptied my pockets of trinkets and rubbish and bright coins. And while they settled like a flock of bees, I made a dash for the passage, still gripping Hoare’s hand. He ran willingly and far more lightly than I. Was it race instinct that called him, as I believe that it had made him save me a few moments before? “Arrived at the bush, he made a sigu that he would go first—perhaps to show the way. 1 followed as I could, though the momentary expectation of a shower of flint arrows did not add steadiness or speed to my descent. I made up time, however, by falling the last thirty feet of the way. Luckily, the lads were on the lookout, and caught me, and luckily —no, I won’t say that, but anyhow one chap had caught Hoare and pinioned him arms and legs, or 1 believe he would have got away then, so dismayed and frightened did he seem at the sight of them. Of course, we got off ail right. I picture the monkey-things decked out in my belongings, squabbling over my compass, watch, knife, and memo.-books, and all that. Anyway, they didn’t send any arrows; or, if they did, we were gone.

“Well, I’m not going to describe that homeward trip. It was hell. 1 attempted to make that thing into a man, and I—well, I failed. We all tried to teach him English. There we got on a bit. By the time we were coasting along the Carolinas he could speak a good many sentences, and seemed to have some understanding of their meaning, though it was largely parrot-work. But he never got beyond a halting sort of utterance, either because his ideas wouldn’t connect, or because he feared punishment for making a siistake. We gave him a few notions, perhaps; we couldn’t make him less of a brute. It was weeks before we could keep him even half clothed. He cried like a baby when we cut his matted hair. We had to make him eat alone —couldn’t stand it to watch him. Knife and fork he wouldn’t touch. We tried every kind of device we could invent—no go. He was unhappy, too—that was the worst part of it—wandered about the ship, up and down and round and round, wailing like an animal and jabbering the savage tongue that we were trying to make him forget. Lord, it was a time! “Nothing seemed to have any associations for him. I tried every mortal thing. At last in despair I mentioned her name, you know, Madeline. ‘“Madeline, Madeline,’ lie repeated, hesitatingly, after me, looking as if he wondered what meaning there might be in those sounds. I even showed him one day a photograph of herself that she had given him, and that I had stolen from his kit.. I confess it. No doubt she thought it had gone over the cliff with him. She never asked for it. Well, I showed him the picture, at the same time speaking her name. He passed his hand softly over the face as if he liked it, and repeated the name after me; but he evidently did not connect the two or have the faintest glimmer of association with either name or face. “It was hopeless. Luring the last davs of the voyage I gave it up, and sat moodily by myself, wondering how 1 should explain and—you may laugh—what I was to do with him when I got him ashore. We had patched him up as Well as we could, grown him a moustache, and made him stay dressed in some decent sailor-clothes. We even found a. pair of spectacles—l’m not sure that they weren’t an old pair of his own—and triad to make him wear them. But in a second he always pulled them off,

and fell to rubbing his nose with such a perplexed and troubled expression that we gave that up, too. “I tell you, fellows. I wasn’t a happy man when we. went sailing up New York Harbour and came in sight of Liberty and the skyscrapers ami Brooklyn Bridge. I Ton re was leaning over the rail, trying to see ami seeing but imperfectly, as I guessed, for every minute he kept brushing the air before his nose ami shaking his head, as if to get rid of cobwebs there. •“See anything you know, old chap?’ I asked him filially. “He shook his head and made as if to brush me off, too; so 1 went away and left him there. “Presently, wheji we got through the harbour formalities. 1 went ashore, and, with a sense that I might as well plunge into the worst of it at once. L called a cab and drove straight to her house. “It was well on to a year since I had been there, and this day was near as hot as that other; but the muslin curtains were winging in ami out in a breeze as 1 sat waiting by the library window; and the garden outside was a cloud of pink bush-honeysuckle. She came in soon, from the garden. I judged, for she swung a sun-hat on her arm, and there were sprigs of honeysuckle in the belt, of her pink dress. “She started back ami paled when she saw me, for 1 had given no name. Then she plucked up courage to come forward and offer a hand, saving: ‘You have changed, oh. you have changed. 1 scarcely knew you.’ “ ‘lt’s my beard,' I muttered, to ease her down a bit. “ ‘No, it’s something else. You’re as white as—as’—l forget what she compared me to —‘and you look worried to death.’ “ ‘I am worried to death,' 1 took her up. “‘l’m sorry,' she said, but did not pursue the subject. ‘I suppose you’ll be wandering off again soon? One never knows where you are.’ “ ‘No,’. I answered at random. ‘Are you married yet ?’ “She looked at me reproachfully. Of course, I had asked for her under the old “‘Or engaged?’ I pursued. “‘How can you!’ she exclaimed, with the tears coming, so that, like a miserable fool, I put my foot in still further: ‘Because I’ve come to claim your promise.’ “I saw that she understood. ‘What promise?’ she asked, turning so pale that I went over to stand by her. “ ‘Have you then—have you found his —body?” she whispered. “‘Yes,’ said I, God knows with what truth, ‘just that.’ “Then she began to rock herself and cry so that it was maddening to hear and see—l’ll pass over that if you don't mind. 1 tried to comfort her as well as I could. “Suddenly she started up from her chair and faced me. ‘You said —before—that you would bring him—it—home?’ “‘I have done so,’ said I solemnly. “Then she trembled so that 1 had to hold her up. She didn't know how she was hanging on to me while she said that she must get her hat and come with me—l don’t suppose she knew what she said or meant; but I understood that she felt that she had a duty —of some sort —- you see. “ ‘Not yet awhile,’ I tried to put her oft’; but go she would that very moment. “ ‘You and I must have some more talk, first,’ I insisted, and at last 1 got her quiet and in her chair again. But it wasn’t so altogether easy to explain. “1 couldn’t got it out. “‘ls there anything fresh to tell me? she asked. “ ‘O, Lord, yes!’ 1 groaned. “Then she was on her feet with a cry that I thought m ust have brought the whole household in upon us. ‘He’s alive,’ said she. ‘He is alive!’ “I assured her—and I believed that 1 told no lie—that if was his body alone that I brought. “‘Your news, then? Your news?’ she hurried me. “‘There are worse things than death, you knew,’ I began some ■such rigmarole. “ ‘No,’ s’he contradicted. ‘Don't put me off.’ “ ‘But T say there are.’ Perhaps a vague notion of deceiving her was growing in my mind. T say you should be glad. There are some kimLs of life worse than death. Insanity, fur instance? “‘What have you to tell me?’ she insisted. “Then, in .sheer desperation, I gave in and told her to get ready and come with

me, hoping to work out some sort of explanation on the way. “The first inkling I had that she had in any degree outgrown her love for Hoare was when she came down in a black dress. I’m not much of a psychologist; but I knew somehow that there was sentiment in that. True love would have gone as it was, even in a pink dress—huh? “I had left the Madeline at anchor a little way off the pier, waiting for another ship to clear out; but I thought the mate would have got her in by this. No such thing. 1 signalled, and a boat put off almost at once. She must have ■been already in the water, as if on the lookout for us. That struck me as a little odd, as tlie mate must have expected to go into dock every moment. As a matter of fact, indeed, the other ship backed out just as we went aboard; but we were thinking of other tilings then. “My mate stood by when I handed my companion aboard, and then touched me on the elbow, as a sign that he wished to speak apart. “ ‘Poor chap’s gone,’ said he. “‘Gone where?’ I asked. “ ‘Overboard,’ says he. ‘Done for. Like a shot. Head over heels. Seems like he got top-heavy leanin’ over the rails. We tried to catch him, but we wasn’t quick enough. Bill jumped in and we got the •boat round in no time.’ “‘Got him, then?’ I asked, with a lightening of the breast that 1 struggled, to control. “ ‘Av, av, sir.’ “‘Dead?’' “ ‘Quite dead. In fact, I suspicion •’ “‘Well?’ “‘I suspicion he was dead afore he touched water. Will you come and have a look?’ “ ‘l’ll be back in a moment,’ said I to Madeline. “To me he seemed far more the old Hoare than at any time since 1 had discovered him—peaceful, sentient. “She must have followed close behind, notwithstanding their efforts to stop her. 1 heard her gasp, and then s'he fainted. The shock of the change was too horrible—she was ill after it'.” He threw down his pipe with a gesture that seemed to betoken the end. “Where’s your philosophical comment?” lie asked, after a pause, with a touch of patience. “We haven’t heard the finish yet,” said Forbes, hugging his knee. “Oh, we were married after a while,” said Simson. “But that isn’t the point. It’s this: I’m not one to waste much time over my soul, but, fellows, that chap might have been you or me—might lie—l mean if might happen to any of “Shall I tell you where you make your mistake, Simson?” asked Forbes. “You assume-,, that Hoare 'before he went to Patagonia was of a certain, fairly high degree of value to the universe; and when you found him among the savages, and mail at that, his value was nothing. But how do. you know that' he wasn’t worth absolutely more after his misfortune than before? You don’t! Very likely he was. Look at what he brought out in all you chaps on the homeward voyage. Oh, you can work that out in detail and smoke it.

“As for himself, there’s no saying but that liv’d very likely get another chance in this world or the next. His dust will make other human beings —maybe his ■soul-particles another soul—l don't know. It may be so. What 1 am sure of is that Hoare’s value in the universe—l mein Hoare as Hoare—not a nian as a man — was an unknown quantity, of which it is impossible to predicate anything. Put it another way. There are a few million people living on this globe whose face value appears to be nil. That they have some negotiable value in the great business of the planets 1 am prepared to believe; but I don’t understand the system, 1 confess it. Do you? Then let's drop the twaddle about my value or yours, or anybody’s. Make the best show of decency you can anil hang speculation. That’s what' I think—oh, yes, and it all makes copy, of course, from my point of view. Who’s right? Who knows? Go home and be happy, which means, just now, go to bed. I’ll to the office aiid slave for humanity. Even a philosopher must live.”