The Hot Swamp by R. M. Ballantyne (room on the broom read aloud TXT) 📕
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- Author: R. M. Ballantyne
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“Oh! poor, poor Gunrig! I’m so sorry to see you like this!—so very, very sorry!”
She could say no more, but covered her face with both hands and wept.
“Nay, take not your hand from me,” said the dying man, again grasping the hand which she had withdrawn; “its soft grip sends a rush of joy to my sinking soul.”
“Say not that you are sinking, Gunrig,” returned the girl in pitying tones; “for it is in the power of the All-seeing One to restore you to health if it be His will.”
“If He is All-seeing, then there is no chance of His restoring me to health; for He has seen that I have lived a wicked life. Ah! Branwen, you do not know what I have been. If there is a place of rewards and punishment, as some tell us there is, assuredly my place will be that of punishment, for my life has been one of wrong-doing. And there is something within me that I have felt before, but never so strong as now, which tells me that there is such a place, and that I am condemned to it.”
“But I have heard from the Hebrew—who reads strange things marked on a roll of white cloth—that the All-seeing One’s nature is love, and that He has resolved Himself to come and save men from wrong-doing.”
“That would be good news indeed, Branwen, if it were true.”
“The Hebrew says it is true. He says he believes it, and the All-seeing One is a Redeemer who will save all men from wrong-doing.”
“Would that I could find Him, Branwen, for that is what I wish. I know not whether there shall be a hereafter or not, but if there is I shall hope for deliverance from wrong-doing. A place of punishment I care not much about, for I never shrank from pain or feared death. What I do fear is a hereafter, in which I shall live over again the old bad life—and I am glad it is drawing to a close with your sweet voice sounding in my ears. I believe it was that voice which first shot into my heart the desire to do right, and the hatred of wrong.”
“I am glad to hear that, Gunrig, though it never entered into my head, I confess, to do you such a good turn. And surely it must have been the All-seeing One who enabled me to influence you thus, and who now recalls to my mind what the Hebrew read to me—one of those sayings of the good men of his nation which are marked in the white roll I spoke of. It is this—‘God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.’”
“That is a good word, if it be a true one,” returned the chief, “and I hope it is. Now, my end is not far off. I am so glad and thankful that you have forgiven me before the end. Another thing that comforts me is that Bladud and I have been reconciled.”
“Bladud!” exclaimed the girl.
“Ay, the prince with whom I fought at the games, you remember.”
“Remember! ay, right well do I remember. It was a notable fight.”
“It was,” returned the chief, with a faint smile, “and from that day I hated him and resolved to kill him till I met him at the Hot Swamp, where I got this fatal wound. He nursed me there, and did his best to save my life, but it was not to be. Yet I think that his tenderness, as well as your sweet voice, had something to do with turning my angry spirit round. I would see my mother now. The world is darkening, and the time is getting short.”
The deathly pallor of the man’s cheeks bore witness to the truth of his words. Yet he had strength to call his mother into the room.
On entering and beholding a beautiful girl kneeling, and in tears, where she had left a feeble old woman, she almost fell down with superstitious fear, deeming that an angel had been sent to comfort her son—and so indeed one had been sent, in a sense, though not such an one as superstition suggested.
A few minutes’ talk with Gunrig, however, cleared up the mystery. But the unwonted excitement and exertion had caused the sands of life to run more rapidly than might otherwise have been the case. The chief’s voice became suddenly much more feeble, and frequently he gasped for breath.
“Mother,” he said, “Branwen wants to get home without any one knowing that she has been here. You will send our stoutest man with her to-night, to guard her through the woods as far as the Hebrew’s cave. Let him not talk to her by the way, and bid him do whatever she commands.”
“Yes, my dear, dear son, what else can I do to comfort you?”
“Come and sit beside me, mother, and let me lay my head on your knee. You were the first to comfort me in this life, and I want you to be the last. Speak with Branwen, mother, after I am gone. She will comfort you as no one else can. Give me your hand, mother; I would sleep now as in the days gone by.”
The bronzed warrior laid his shaggy head on the lap where he had been so often fondled when he was a little child, and gently fell into that slumber from which he never more awoke.
We turn now to Beniah the Hebrew. On arriving at the Hot Swamp he was amazed to find the change that had been made in the appearance of the locality in so short a time.
“United action, you see,” said Captain Arkal, who did the honours of the new settlement in the absence of Bladud and his friends, these being still absent on their vain search for the lad Cormac, “united action, perseveringly continued, leads to amazing results.”
He repeated this to himself, in a low tone, as if he were rather proud of having hit on a neat way of expressing a great truth which he believed was an original discovery of his own. “Yes,” he continued, “I have got my men, you see, into splendid working order. They act from morning to night in concert—one consequence of which is that all is Harmony, and there is but one man at the helm, the consequence of which is, that all is Power. Harmony and Power! I have no faith, Beniah, in a divided command. My men work together and feed together and play together and sleep together, united in the one object of carrying out the grand designs of Prince Bladud, while I, as the superintendent of the work, see to it that the work is properly done. Nothing could be more simple or satisfactory.”
“Or more amazing,” added Beniah, as they walked by the margin of a hot rivulet. “I could scarcely have known the Swamp had I not recognised its beautiful surroundings.”
“Just so; it is all, as I have said, the result of union, which I hold to be the very foundation of human power, for united action is strong,” said the captain, with enthusiasm, as he originated the idea which, years afterwards, became the familiar proverb, “Union is Strength.”
“Most true, O mariner,” returned Beniah, “your wisdom reminds me of one of our kings who wrote many of our wisest sayings.”
“Ah, wise sayings have their value, undoubtedly,” returned Arkal, “but commend me to wise doings. Look here, now, at the clever way in which Bladud has utilised this bush-covered knoll. It is made to divide this rivulet in two, so that one branch, as you see, fills this pond, which is intended for the male population of the place, while the other branch fills another pond—not in sight at present—intended for the women. Then, you see that large pond away to the left, a considerable distance from the fountain-head—that is supplied by a very small stream of the hot water, so that it soon becomes quite cold, and branch rivulets from the cold pond to the hot ponds cool them down till they are bearable. It took six days to fill up the cold pond.”
“We have not yet got the booths made for the women to dress in,” continued the captain, “for we have no women yet in our settlement; but you see what convenient ones we have set up for the men.”
“But surely,” said the Hebrew, looking round with interest, “you have far more hot water than you require.”
“Yes, much more.”
“What, then, do you do with the surplus?”
“We just let it run into the swamp at present, as it has always done, but we are digging a big drain to carry it off into the river. Then, when the swamp is dry, we will plant eatable things in it, and perhaps set up more booths and huts and dig more baths. Thus, in course of time—who knows?—we may have a big town here, and King Hudibras himself may condescend to lave his royal limbs in our waters.”
“That may well be,” returned the Hebrew thoughtfully. “The Hot Spring is a good gift from the All-seeing One, and if it cures others as it has cured Prince Bladud, I should not wonder to see the people of the whole land streaming to the place before long. But have you given up all thought of returning to your native land, Arkal? Do you mean to settle here?”
“Nay, verily—that be far from me! Have I not a fair wife in Hellas, who is as the light of mine eyes; and a little son who is as the plague of my life? No, I shall return home once more to fetch my wife and child here—then I shall have done with salt water for ever, and devote myself to hot water in time to come.”
“A wise resolve, no doubt,” said Beniah, “and in keeping with all your other doings.”
“See,” interrupted Arkal, “there is the river and the women’s bath, and the big drain that I spoke of.”
He pointed to a wide ditch extending from the swamp towards the river. It had been cut to within a few yards of the latter, and all the men of the place were busily engaged with primitive picks, spades, and shovels, in that harmonious unity of action of which the captain had expressed such a high opinion.
A few more yards of cutting, and the ditch, or drain, would be completed, when the waters of the swamp would be turned into it. Those waters had been banked up at the head of the drain and formed a lake of considerable size, which, when the neck of land separating it from the drain should be cut, would rush down the artificial channel and disappear in the river.
Engineering in those days, however, had not been studied—at least in Albion—to the extent which now prevails in England. The neck of land was not equal to the pressure brought to bear on it, and while the captain and his friend were looking at it, there appeared symptoms which caused the former some anxiety.
At that moment Konar the hunter came up. Although attached to the settlement as hunter, he had agreed to take his turn with the diggers, for the water accumulated in the lake so fast that the work had to be done rapidly, and every available man at the place was pressed into the service. The overseer himself, even, lent a hand occasionally.
“I don’t like the look of the lower part of that neck,” he remarked to the hunter.
Konar was a man of few words. By way of reply he laid aside his bow and descended the bank to examine the weak point. He was still engaged in the investigation and bending over a moist spot, when the entire mass of earth gave way and the waters burst into the drain with a gush and a roar quite indescribable. Konar was swept away instantly
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