Robert Michael Ballantyne - The Hot Swamp

“Down?” exclaimed the captain in surprise, and with some hesitation. “We don’t want to return to the sea whence we have just come, do we?”

“Captain Arkal,” returned Bladud, sternly, “when you give orders on board ship, do you expect to have them questioned, or obeyed?”

“Lead on, guide,” returned the captain, stepping promptly into the water.

For about a quarter of a mile the prince led his followers in silence and with much care, for it was growing very dark. Presently they came to a place where the banks were swampy and the stream deep. Here their guide landed and continued to walk a short distance down the bank, ordering his followers to conceal their track as much as possible, by closing the long grass over each footprint. The result, even to the unpractised eyes of the seamen, did not seem satisfactory, but their leader made no comment. After proceeding about fifty yards further, he re-entered the stream and continued the descent for about a mile. Then he stopped abruptly, and, turning round, said, “Now, comrades, we will land for a moment, then re-enter the stream and ascend.”

The astonishment of Captain Arkal was so great, that he was again on the point of asking an explanation, for it seemed to him that wandering down the bed of a stream for the mere purpose of turning and wandering up it, when haste was urgent, could only be accounted for on the supposition that the prince had gone mad. Remembering his previous rebuff, however, he kept silence.

On reaching the swampy part of the bank their leader did not land, but held straight on, though the water reached nearly to their armpits. They were somewhat cooled, but not disagreeably so, for the night was warm.

In course of time they reached the spot where they had first entered the stream. Passing it, without landing, they held on their course for a considerable distance, until they came to a place where the stream was not more than ankle-deep. Here Bladud paused a few moments and turned to his companions.

“Now, captain,” he said, with a smile that may be said to have been almost audible though not visible, “do you understand my proceedings?”

“Not quite, though, to say truth, I begin to think you are not just so mad as you seemed at first.”

“Don’t you see,” continued the prince, “that when we first came to the stream, I entered it so that our footprints on the bank would show clearly that we had gone downwards. This will show our pursuers, when they arrive here, that, though we are wise enough to take to the water because it leaves no footprints, we are not experienced enough to be careful as to concealing the direction we have taken. When they reach the swampy bank and deep water, they will be led to think we did not like getting wet, and the effort made to cover our footprints, will make them think that we are very ignorant woodsmen. Then, with much confidence, they will continue to follow down stream, looking on the banks now and then for our footprints, until they begin to wonder whether we intend to make a highroad of the river all the way to the sea. After that they will become perplexed, astonished, suspicious as to our stupidity, and will scurry round in all directions, or hold a council, and, finally they will try up stream; but it will be too late, for by that time we shall be far away on our road towards the setting sun.”

“Good!” ejaculated Maikar, when this explanation was finished.

“Good!” echoed the captain, with an approving nod. “You understand your business, I see. Shove out your oars. We follow.”

Without further remark Bladud continued his progress up stream. It was necessarily slow at first, but as night advanced the moon rose, in her first quarter, and shed a feeble but sufficient light on their watery path.

At last they came to a place where the leader’s sharp eye observed signs of the presence of man. Stopping short and listening intently, they heard subdued voices not far from the spot where they stood.

“Stay where you are,” whispered Bladud. “Don’t move. I’ll return immediately.”

He entered the bushes cautiously and disappeared. Standing there without moving, and in profound silence, under the dark shadow of an overhanging bush, it is no wonder that the captain and his comrade began to think the time very long, yet it was only a few minutes after he had left them that their guide returned.

“Only a single family,” he whispered—“three men, two women, and four children. We have nothing to fear, but we must pass on in silence.”

The discovery of those natives obliged them to continue the march up the bed of the stream much longer than they had intended, and the night was far advanced before they thought it prudent to leave the water and pursue the journey on dry land.

Fortunately the country was open and comparatively free from underwood, so that they made progress much more rapidly; nevertheless, it was not thought safe to take rest until they had placed many a mile between them and the natives, who, it was thought probable, would be started in pursuit of them by the youth to whom Bladud had given chase.

Much wearied, and almost falling asleep while they advanced, the travellers halted at last in a dense thicket, and there, lying down without food or fire, they were soon buried in profound repose.

It is beyond the scope of this tale to describe minutely all that befell our adventurers on their long, fatiguing, and dangerous march through ancient Gaul, which land at that time had neither name nor history.

Suffice it to say that, after numerous adventures with savage beasts, and scarcely less savage men, and many hair-breadth escapes and thrilling incidents by flood and field, they at last found themselves on the shores of that narrow channel which separated the northern coast of Gaul from the white cliffs of Old Albion. They were guided thereto, as we have said, by the Pole-star, which shone in our sky in those days with its wonted brilliancy, though, probably, astronomers had not yet given to it a local habitation in their systems or a distinctive name.

Of course their passage through the land had been attended with great variety of fortune, good and bad. In some parts they met with natives who received them hospitably and sent them on their way rejoicing. Elsewhere they found banditti, fortunately in small bands, with whom they had to fight, and once they were seized and imprisoned by a tribe of inhospitable savages, from whom they escaped, as it were, by the skin of their teeth.

In all these vicissitudes the gigantic frame and the mild, kindly looks of Bladud went far to conciliate the uncertain, attract the friendly, and alarm the savage, for it is a curious fact, explain it how we may, that the union of immense physical power with childlike sweetness of countenance, has a wonderful influence in cowing angry spirits. It may be that strong, angry, blustering men are capable only of understanding each other. When they meet with strong men with womanlike tenderness they are puzzled, and puzzlement, we think, goes a long way to shake the nerves even of the brave. At all events it is well known that a sudden burst of wrath from one whose state of temper is usually serene, exerts a surprising and powerful effect on average mankind.

Whatever be the truth as to these things, it is certain that nearly every one who looked up at the face of Bladud liked him, and more than once when his ponderous sword sprang from its sheath, and his blue eyes flashed, and his fair face flushed, and his magnificent teeth went together with a snap, he has been known to cause a dozen men to turn and flee rather than encounter the shock of his onset.

Little Maikar, who was himself as brave as a lion, nearly lost his life on one occasion, because he was so taken up and charmed with the sight of one of Bladud’s rushes, that he utterly forgot what he was about, and would have been crushed by the smite of a savage club, if the captain had not promptly turned aside the blow and struck the club-man down.