Westward Ho! Or, The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, of Burrough, in the County of Devon, in the Reign of Her Most Glorious Majesty Queen Elizabeth by - (best books to read for self development TXT) 📕

“Senor,” said Jack, “the best way to punish oneself for doing ill, seems to me to go and do good; and the best way to find out whether God means you well, is to find out whether He will help you to do well. If you have wronged Indians in time past, see whether you cannot right them now. If you can, you are safe. For the Lord will not send the devil's servants to do His work.”

The old man held down his head.

“Right the Indians? Alas! what is done, is done!”

“Not altogether, senor,” said Amyas, “as long as an Indian remains alive in New Granada.”

“Senor, shall I confess my weakness? A voice within me has bid me a hundred times go forth and labor, for those oppressed wretches, but I dare not obey. I dare not look them in the face. I should fancy that they knew my story; that the very birds upon the trees would reveal my crime, and bid them turn from me with horror.”

“Senor,” said Amyas, “these are but the sick fancies of a noble spirit, feeding on itself in solitude. You have but to try to conquer.”

“And look now,” said Jack, “if you dare not go forth to help the Indians, see now how God has brought the Indians to your own door. Oh, excellent sir—”

“Call me not excellent,” said the old man, smiting his breast.

“I do, and shall, sir, while I see in you an excellent repentance, an excellent humility, and an excellent justice,” said Jack. “But oh, sir, look upon these forty souls, whom we must leave behind, like sheep which have no shepherd. Could you not teach them to fear God and to love each other, to live like rational men, perhaps to die like Christians? They would obey you as a dog obeys his master. You might be their king, their father, yea, their pope, if you would.”

“You do not speak like a Lutheran.”

“I am not a Lutheran, but an Englishman: but, Protestant as I am, God knows, I had sooner see these poor souls of your creed, than of none.”

“But I am no priest.”

“When they are ready,” said Jack, “the Lord will send a priest. If you begin the good work, you may trust to Him to finish it.”

“God help me!” said the old warrior.

The talk lasted long into the night, but Amyas was up long before daybreak, felling the trees; and as he and Cary walked back to breakfast, the first thing which they saw was the old man in his garden with four or five Indian children round him, talking smilingly to them.

“The old man's heart is sound still,” said Will. “No man is lost who still is fond of little children.”

“Ah, senors!” said the hermit as they came up, “you see that I have begun already to act upon your advice.”

“And you have begun at the right end,” quoth Amyas; “if you win the children, you win the mothers.”

“And if you win the mothers,” quoth Will, “the poor fathers must needs obey their wives, and follow in the wake.”

The old man only sighed. “The prattle of these little ones softens my hard heart, senors, with a new pleasure; but it saddens me, when I recollect that there may be children of mine now in the world—children who have never known a father's love—never known aught but a master's threats—”

“God has taken care of these little ones. Trust that He has taken care of yours.”

That day Amyas assembled the Indians, and told them that they must obey the hermit as their king, and settle there as best they could: for if they broke up and wandered away, nothing was left for them but to fall one by one into the hands of the Spaniards. They heard him with their usual melancholy and stupid acquiescence, and went and came as they were bid, like animated machines; but the negroes were of a different temper; and four or five stout fellows gave Amyas to understand that they had been warriors in their own country, and that warriors they would be still; and nothing should keep them from Spaniard-hunting. Amyas saw that the presence of these desperadoes in the new colony would both endanger the authority of the hermit, and bring the Spaniards down upon it in a few weeks; so, making a virtue of necessity, he asked them whether they would go Spaniard-hunting with him.

This was just what the bold Coromantees wished for; they grinned and shouted their delight at serving under so great a warrior, and then set to work most gallantly, getting through more in the day than any ten Indians, and indeed than any two Englishmen.

So went on several days, during which the trees were felled, and the process of digging them out began; while Ayacanora, silent and moody, wandered into the woods all day with her blow-gun, and brought home at evening a load of parrots, monkeys, and curassows; two or three old hands were sent out to hunt likewise; so that, what with the game and the fish of the river, which seemed inexhaustible, and the fruit of the neighboring palm-trees, there was no lack of food in the camp. But what to do with Ayacanora weighed heavily on the mind of Amyas. He opened his heart on the matter to the old hermit, and asked him whether he would take charge of her. The latter smiled, and shook his head at the notion. “If your report of her be true, I may as well take in hand to tame a jaguar.” However, he promised to try; and one evening, as they were all standing together before the mouth of the cave, Ayacanora came up smiling with the fruit of her day's sport; and Amyas, thinking this a fit opportunity, began a carefully prepared harangue to her, which he intended to be altogether soothing, and even pathetic,—to the effect that the maiden, having no parents, was to look upon this good old man as her father; that he would instruct her in the white man's religion (at which promise Yeo, as a good Protestant, winced a good deal), and teach her how to be happy and good, and so forth; and that, in fine, she was to remain there with the hermit.

She heard him quietly, her great dark eyes opening wider and wider, her bosom swelling, her stature seeming to grow taller every moment, as she clenched her weapons firmly in both her hands. Beautiful as she always was, she had never looked so beautiful before; and as Amyas spoke of parting with her, it was like throwing away a lovely toy; but it must be done, for her sake, for his, perhaps for that of all the crew.

The last words had hardly passed his lips, when, with a shriek of mingled scorn, rage, and fear, she dashed through the astonished group.

“Stop her!” were Amyas's first words; but his next were, “Let her go!” for, springing like a deer through the little garden and over the flower-fence, she turned, menacing with her blow-gun the sailors, who had already started in her pursuit.

“Let her alone, for Heaven's sake!” shouted Amyas, who, he scarce knew