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Read Ebook: The Bee Hunters: A Tale of Adventure by Aimard Gustave Wraxall Lascelles Sir Translator
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Ebook has 1471 lines and 68842 words, and 30 pages
to save this girl for your sake; and, whatever may be the motives inducing me, I exempt you from all feelings of gratitude."
"You may possibly harbour such thoughts; but for myself--"
"Enough," rudely broke in the unknown; "we have already lost too much time in idle words; let us make haste, if we would not be too late."
All were silent.
The unknown looked around.
We have already said that the strangers had halted at the edge of the forest; over their heads the last trees of the covert expanded their mighty branches.
Approaching the trees, the unknown examined them carefully, apparently in search of something he could not find.
All of a sudden, he uttered a cry of joy; and, unsheathing the long knife fastened to his right knee, he cut a branch from a creeper, and returned to the strangers, who were anxiously watching his proceedings.
Then the unknown turned to the father:
"In what part of the body has this child been bitten?"
"A little below the left ankle."
"Has she much courage?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Answer! Time presses."
"The poor child is quite worn out; she is very weak."
"Then we must hesitate no longer; the operation must be performed."
"An operation!" cried the stranger, affrighted.
"Would you rather she should die?"
"Is this operation indispensable?"
"It is: we have already lost too much time."
"Then perform it. God grant you may succeed!"
The girl's leg was horribly swollen; the part round the serpent's bite, terribly tumefied, was already taking a greenish hue.
"Alas," muttered the unknown, "there is not a moment to spare. Hold the child so that she cannot stir while I perform the operation."
In these last words the voice of the unknown had assumed such an accent of command, that the strangers obeyed without hesitation.
The former seated himself on the ground, took the limb of the girl upon his knee, and made his preparations. Luckily the moon shone at this moment so clearly, that her vivid rays flooded the landscape, and everything was almost as visible as in broad daylight.
When the girl had first felt the bite, she had immediately, and happily for herself, torn off her silk stocking. The unknown grasped the blade of his knife an inch from the point, and, lowering his brow with terrible determination, buried the point in the wound, and made a cruciform incision about six lines deep, and more than an inch long.
The poor child must have felt terrible anguish; for she gave utterance to a dreadful scream, and twisted herself about nervously.
The unknown took the leaves, parted asunder the lips of the wound, and gently, carefully expressed their juice on the palpitating flesh. Making a kind of plaster of the same leaves, he applied it to the wound, tied it down firmly with a bandage, placed the foot carefully on the ground, and rose.
As soon as a certain quantity of the sap of the creeper had fallen upon the wound, the girl had seemed to experience a sensation of great relief; the nervous spasms began to abate; she closed her eyes; and finally she leaned back without attempting to struggle any longer with the persons who held her in their arms.
"You may leave her now," whispered the unknown; "she is asleep."
In fact, the regular though feeble breathing of the patient proved her to be plunged in a profound slumber.
"God be praised!" exclaimed the poor father, clasping his hands in ecstasy; "Then she is really saved?"
"She is," answered the unknown leisurely; "bating unforeseen accidents, she has nothing more to fear."
"But what is the extraordinary remedy you have employed to obtain such a happy result?"
The unknown smiled with disdain, and did not seem willing to reply; however, after a short hesitation, yielding perhaps to that secret vanity which induces us all to make a parade of our wisdom, he decided upon giving the information demanded.
"The pettiest things astonish you fellows who dwell in cities," said he ironically; "the man who has passed his whole life in the wilderness knows many things of which the inhabitants of your brilliant towns are ignorant, although, with the sole aim of humiliating, they take pleasure in parading their false science before us poor savages. Nature hides not the secret of her mysterious harmonics from him who ceaselessly pries into the darkness of night and the brightness of day, with a patience beyond proof, without suffering himself to be discouraged by failure. The sublime Architect, when he had created this immense universe, did not let it fall from his omnipotent hands until it had been made perfect, nor till the amount of good should counterbalance everywhere the amount of evil--placing, so to say, the antidote side by side with the poison."
The stranger listened with increasing surprise to the words of this man, whose real character was an enigma to him, and who at every moment showed himself in lights diametrically opposed, and under forms entirely distinct.
"I cannot doubt it, after having witnessed its efficacy; but how were the virtues of this creeper discovered?" said the stranger, involuntarily interested in the highest degree.
"And did he execute his project?" cried the stranger.
"You must not go before you have told me your name."
"What good will this pertinacity do you?"
"I wish to embalm the name in my memory as that of a man to whom I have vowed a gratitude which will only end with my life."
"You are mad!" rudely answered the unknown. "It is useless to pronounce to you a name which you will very likely learn but too soon."
"I know the Hacienda de las Norias de San Antonio. Its owner ought to belong to the happy ones of earth, according to the opinion of those who dwell in cities. So much the better: if it does belong to you, I do not envy riches with which I should not know what to do. Now, you have nothing more to say, have you? Well, then, adieu!"
"What! Adieu! You will leave us?"
"Certainly; do you think I intend to remain all night with you?"
"I hoped, at least, you would not leave unfinished the work you have undertaken."
"I do not understand you; caballero."
"Will you abandon us thus? Will you leave my daughter in her present state, lost in the wilderness, without the means of escape,--in the depths of this forest, which has been so nearly fatal to her?"
The unknown frowned several times, then cast a stolen look on the girl. A violent struggle seemed to commence in his bosom; he remained silent for several minutes, uncertain how to decide. At last he raised his head.
"And why?" said the stranger, surprised.
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