THE TALE THAT COST A DOLLAR
WE sailed for many a day, Bob and I, up narrow channels and down wide ones, twisting and turning this way and that, east, west, north, south, because of wind and tide and cape and bay, and then we came to a kind of S-shaped strait. Through it we went and found that it opened into a wide water, as smooth as glass and so clear that we could see down to the sandy bottom where seaweeds clung to rocks and fishes swam in a strange greenish light. Then, by great good luck, we found a place where was deep water and followed the channel landward, and it turned out to be the cutting made by a stream of very cold water that came down from the mountain. So there was strange rowing for us, for we worked our boat into the rivulet which was so narrow that very often both oars were on the grassy land. When at last we stopped, it was because the banks came so close together that our boat blocked the passage, so we stepped to land as easily as one might step onto a wharf.
Next morning, having covered our things from the foxes and made all neat and shipshape, we set off on a walk, climbed a high ridge and looked for a while over a confusion of little islands and narrow straits, then wondered at the blue of sea and sky, and after that wandered down a long slope, to come soon to a pleasant valley, and the more we saw of it the better we liked it. It seemed to have everything desirable, soft grass, clear and cool water, shelter from the winds, and peaceful quiet. A half-dozen horses could be seen a little way off, and on a blue hill in the distance there were cows and sheep. Soon we heard the voices of children and the interlacing echoes. So we rounded the hill and came upon houses, four of them altogether and all thatched with yellow rushes. The children that we had heard we saw, and they were playing with a pet huanaco, and at one of the doors, seated on a rush-bottomed chair was an old woman whose face was wrinkled and brown though her body seemed as supple as that of a young person. Seeing us the children left their play and stood, their dove-eyes full of wonder.
For the rest of that day we rested, enjoying the place. In the evening, when men and lads returned from their hunting or their fishing or their herding or whatever they did, there was good fellowship in the pleasant December twilight, and as we talked and sang we became better acquainted. Of course, like all travellers in that or any other open country, we had to tell the tale of our wanderings, how we came to be there and why, and when we had done, one or the other of them told us what might be said to be the history of their people, one helping the other out, correcting the talker when he was at fault, and sometimes taking the tale from him to tell it better.
They talked Spanish, for all were originally from Chile, and we learned that the old woman’s husband, who was no longer living, had been a soldier who had fought against Peru and was on board a warship called theEsmeraldawhich was sunk by another, and on that sad day, she said, more than a hundred were drowned. A merciful Heaven permitted her husband to get ashore after much danger, and wandering, he had found the valley in which we then were (for having found it he had gone to his own place, which I took to be Ancud or somewhere near there), and with three neighbour families they had wandered, delighted to find a place where were no din and clashes and war. “And,” said the old woman, lifting her hands and throwing them a little apart, “here by the grace of Heaven we are at peace.”
When she had done the children chattered a little, insisting that she had missed the most interesting part of all. She should, they held, tell the strangers the tale of how the valley had been made, of why there was a river, of how it had come to pass that there were woods through which the river flowed and especially why Laguna Viedma was salt. The caballeros, they were sure, would like to know all that, it being a tale most wonderful and strange. But the old woman shook her head and made herself a cigarette, saying that it was a tale told her by a very, very old Indian woman who was there when she first saw the place, and the Indian had heard it from her mother, and she from her mother, and she again from her mother, so the tale went so far back that whether it had truth in it or not none could tell. At that the young people said that, true or not, it was a good tale, and they were so politely insistent, especially a little girl who petted a blue-eyed kitten, that we heard the story which, so far as I know, has never yet been written, and were it not written now might be forgotten for ever. So here it is, and my daughters, Julia and Helen, like it better than any story in this book, though their brothers are in favour of the tale of the Noseless People.
Long ago, said the old woman, south of the Laguna Viedma lived a bruja, or kind of witch, a mean and wicked creature who had a house at the foot of the cordilleras built of great slabs of stone, in which there were three rooms. In one of these rooms she had imprisoned a boy and in another a girl, and the boy she allowed to roam about in the garden in the daytime but locked him up whenever the sun set, and the girl she locked up whenever the sun rose, so that the boy had never known night and the girl had never seen day, nor had the boy or the girl cast eyes on one another.
The boy, growing out of childhood, grew restless, and one day he dug a passage in his stone cell under the wall and up on the other side, much as a rabbit might have done, so that after being locked up he could spend a little time in the twilight, watching the dancing green stars that were fireflies. Still, whenever it grew dark and the edges of the things that he saw were no longer sharp, he scuttled back to his stone room, not knowing what clawed horror might unfold from the dark. For we must remember, said the old woman who told the tale, in all his life he had seen no human being but the witch, and knew no more of the moving world than the horses that we use know of the horses that drag a thousand noisy wheels in the city streets. Nor did he know of the ten thousand silver lights in the sky at night, nor of the bright glory of the Southern Cross.
One evening when the boy was in the vega, he having crawled through his passage, his heart fell when he saw a strange creature dressed in white, with long black hair and soft eyes. When the strange thing walked towards him he was startled, for he also saw the gray mist from which she came, and in that mist he seemed to see other thickening shapes. So, for a moment, he had a mind to kill the long-haired creature as an evil thing, and picked up a sharp stone, but his heart somehow bade him do otherwise, and he turned and fled, running straight to his hole by the side of the bush, then dropped to his knees without a backward look, scrambled to his cell and put a big flat stone over the hole, lest the long-haired one should follow and kill him. As for the girl, seeing the swift-running lad, she watched in surprise for a little, then followed, and coming to the hole in the ground shuddered with fear, believing that under the earth she trod lived thousands of such creatures that, perchance, roamed in the daytime and did evil.
The next day when the witch let the lad out after shutting the girl in her stone place, she was surprised to see fear in his eyes, for all that night he had lain awake in his dread of the long-haired one, trembling at every sound, lest the unknown should find the passage and creep through into his cell of safety.
All that day he worked hard, rolling a great boulder up from the valley so that he might close the outer opening of his burrow, but so heavy was the rock and so far the distance, that the sun set before he had rolled it to its place. Still, he moved it a long way and got it over his burrow and close to the bush. Then he sought the witch so that she might lock him up for the night, but to his grief she did not come, and this is why:
After she had unlocked the girl’s door that evening she remembered the look of fear that had been in the lad’s eyes, so went into his cell to see if anything harmful was there, and her foot struck the flat stone. Then she found the opening of the hole. Wondering greatly, she crawled into the passage, pushing hard because it was too small for her. At one place she had to remove much dirt above her head because the roof was so low, and pulling away a stone, down came a shower of little stones and of earth, then more and still more, until with a thundering noise the big boulder, which the lad had rolled and left, fell into the hole and very narrowly escaped the witch. So she was stuck fast, deep buried in the ground, her onward way blocked by the boulder against which she butted her head in vain. As for getting back by the way she had come, that was impossible, for, finding night coming on and no guardian witch, the boy fled to his cell. There he saw the black, uncovered hole and the flat rock he had placed over it, and listening he heard sounds in the tunnel. In his fear of the long-haired creature he pulled the flat rock over the hole again and on it piled rock upon rock. That done he gave a sigh of relief and straightened himself, but his heart sank when he saw in his cell the very thing that he most dreaded. For the girl, being brave in the dark and glad in the silence, sought a companion in her loneliness, and found the boy’s cell with its open door. But with the lad night brought fear. In the golden sunshine he met danger gladly enough, but in the soft moonlight when the true forms of things were lost, the world seemed baseless and dreamlike and unsubstantial. So, seeing the creature of the night in his cell, he threw up his arms and, not daring to look, fled into the garden and into the ghostly world.
The whispering stillness of what he saw made him tremble violently, for it was a dead world and not the world throbbing with the sweet song of friendly birds and the noise of busy insects. The green and gold of day had strangely gone and the brave hardness that he knew in his world was not in the sky, but instead, a soft black roof hung with strange lights. And even his feet were robbed of speed, and trees and bushes clawed him. As he fled he looked over his shoulder in affright because of the long-haired pursuer. Not far did he go before a creeping vine caught him about the ankle and his foot struck a root, so that he fell headlong, striking his head against a tree-trunk. The silver-sprinkled sky whirled wildly and then all went black.
He woke to the touch of delicate light hands bathing his face with cool water, but lay with fast-closed eyes, believing, hoping that it was a dream. Presently, though still faint and weary and in pain, he opened his eyes to see the face of the maiden as she bent over him, and the cloud of soft hair that rippled as silk grass ripples when touched by the breeze. As he looked, finding something gentle and kind in the face, he chanced to see the white moon, great and cold, rushing swiftly through an army of silver clouds. The sight was new and terrible and he grew dizzy and faint. Something evil seemed to have stolen the warmth from the sky so that the birds had died and the flowers withered.
With eyelids closed he wrestled with his fear and heard the golden voice of the girl saying again and again:
“Am I not your friend in this lonely place? Am I not your friend? Why then do you run from me?”
In spite of his fear he was wrapped in happiness at the words, for he knew that he had been long lonely, though he had not told himself so until then. Yet the darkness stretching wide and the stars and the shadows made him chill at heart, though like a true man he strove to master his fear. While he kept his eyes closed it was well enough, but to open them on the sunless world was pain. For all that, he nerved himself to speak.
“Yes. Let us go,” he said, “from this world of shadows,” and she, thinking that he meant the place of the witch, took his hand and said, “Yes. Let us go, my new-found friend.”
He rose to his feet then and said that he was ready, though he covered his eyes with his hand. Then she told him to wait, saying she knew of a hollow place in a tree in which was a flint the old witch had hidden, and the armadillo had told her there was some magic in it, though what that magic power was he did not know, except that it had the power to cut down trees. It would be well, she added, for them to take it with them.
Great was his loneliness while she was away, and though he opened his eyes once, all things were so strange and cold and silent that he closed them again. Once he heard the shrieking voice of the witch-woman under the ground and he wondered why the sound was so muffled. Had she, too, come near to death in the black world? Again he heard the voice of the owl, melancholy and solemn.
But his new-found friend came soon, to his joy, and she gave him the flint and took his hand to lead him, for he dared not open his eyes because of the moon, and she thought him sightless. So all that night they ran thus, hand in hand, over places where there were cruel sharp stones, across mist-blown swamps and pantano lands, and where the way was hard he carried the maiden, though he always kept his eyes closed and trusted to her guidance.
So the girl was strong and helpful to him until the dark began to pass, then, with the rose of dawn the lad cried joyfully, “I fear no more now and am strong again. Perhaps it is the magic of the flint that makes me so.”
But she said, “Alas! I fear that the stone we carry is not good but evil. Let us throw it away, for I grow weak and afraid and ill at ease. Greatly I fear the sky so hard and blue, my new-found friend.”
Hearing that, he laughed a little and called her his Golden One and bade her trust in him, so she was comforted a little, though still afraid. Then, as the rose and gold of sunrise sped across the sky and the thousand birds awoke and burst into song, his heart was full of happiness, but she, having heard no such noise before, wept with the utter pain of it, clapping her hands over her ears. Her eyes, too, were full of burning pain because of the growing flood of light. Still, she fought with her fear for a while, though she was sadly longing for the world with its friendly dark. But when the sun came up in his brilliancy and the boy greeted it with a great shout of joy, she was as one stunned and said:
“Alas! Go, dear lad, and leave me to die all parched and withered. For into the burning light I cannot go. My eyes are scorched and my brain is on fire. The sweet silence is no more and the heart of night is dead.”
At that sad speech the lad was full of grief lest he should lose his new-found friend, so he pulled from the trees light-green branches and wove them into a canopy and bound about her brow a veil of cool greenness, then lifting her in his arms, he went on happy in the singing sunshine, yet sad because she was white-faced and full of strange tremblings. At noon, when the heat of day was like brass and the sky was fierce with light, they came to a place of tender green coolness where was a vine-hung hollow in the mountainside, and there they rested awhile. The lad made for the maid a seat of matted leaves and mosses and brought to her berries and fruits and tender roots, and for drink, cool water in a leaf.
So at last came the light between day and night when neither was afraid, she brave at heart because of the passing of the burning light of day and he fearless because the night of sorrow had not yet come. Hand in hand they went towards a great plain all flower-spangled and smiling.
The witch they had forgotten, or thinking of her had supposed her to be fast in her own place. Yet it was not so, for deep in the burrow in which she had vainly tried to go back and as vainly tried to go forward she had her mind made up to escape by some means. With a mighty heave, for she was of great strength, she burst her way out of the ground and then stood, shaking the dirt out of her eyes and her ears and her hair. That done she sought the boy and the girl, but found no trace of them. At last the armadillo who always tells secrets, told her of what had happened, so she sought the magic flint, the terrible cutting flint which she could throw to kill. Finding it, too, gone, she was in mad rage, whirling, leaping, and screaming. Another moment and she left the place, going in mighty leaps, her bow and arrow in her hand, and soon from the top of a hill she saw the boy and girl as they stood looking at the smiling valley.
Now that valley was the valley of the huanacos wherein the witch was powerless, and that she well knew. Did the two once gain the shelter of the mountains, all her witcheries would be of no avail. Indeed, that very thing the sentinel huanaco was telling the children at the very moment the witch caught sight of them, and the animal bade them haste lest the witch touch them before they crossed the plain. So hand in hand boy and girl ran, and seeing them so near safety the witch went over the ground like a horse, bounding over bush and stone, taking five yards at each stride.
Then to help the children, from right and from left came huanacos, by tens and twenties and hundreds, their proud heads held high, their soft eyes full of loving kindness, and they ran by the side of the two who fled, and some formed in a body behind them so that the arrows shot by the witch could not touch boy or girl, though many a good huanaco laid down his life, thus shielding them.
Seeing the pass to which things had come, the old witch bethought her of another plan, and taking her magic arrow she shot it high in the air so that it passed over the herd of huanacos and fell to earth far in front of the boy and girl. As soon as the shaft touched the ground it split into a thousand pieces, each no thicker than spider silk, and each fragment took root and became a tree. In a single moment the whole plain was covered with a thick, solemn tangle of forest through which no living creature could hope to pass, and sadly enough, boy and girl turned to behold the witch coming toward them fast. But all about her feet were the animal friends of the boy and girl, foxes and small creatures, while about her head flew many tinamou-partridges, so that soon she was forced to slacken her pace. Then to boy and girl came a puma, smooth and beautiful, and it said, “El pedernal! El pedernal!” and they at once remembered the magic flint.
Taking the stone and poising it the lad threw with all his might. Through the air it hummed, and hearing the music of it the old witch gave a piercing yell, for well she knew its power. Straight toward the forest the stone flew, and before it trees fell to right and left as though the stone had been a great and keen axe handled by a giant, and the path it made was straight and open and clear, so that through the gap they saw the valley. Again the huanacos closed about the boy and girl so that nothing might harm them, and down through the straight opening they all went. Nor was that all. Having cut a way through the forest tangle the flint dropped and buried itself into the ground, boring down and down, until it fell into the lake of clear water that lies hidden under the ground. Out of the hole came bubbling a stream of water, silver and cool, and it flowed down the gap in the forest and passed out on the farther side, then split to run on both sides of the witch, to whom water was death. Deeper and deeper became the water until it covered the very colina on which she stood, and when at last the water touched her feet, she melted as sugar does.
“The stream,” said the old woman who told us the tale, “went on and on and became Laguna Viedma, and the forest is the forest you see. As for the boy and the girl, they became man and wife and lived in the place where we now sit for many, many years, and about them stayed many huanacos and deer and tinamou, and the sorry past was soon forgotten like a last year’s nest.”
* * *
Having said all that, the old woman, whose face was wrinkled and brown, drew a white woollen poncho over her shoulders and eyed me. After a while she said that she had told that tale to four men at different times and each of them had liked it so well that he had given her a dollar of silver.
“And,” said she with spirit, “I can show you the dollars to prove that what I say is true.” So getting up she went into the house and soon came out again with four silver coins, carrying them in her open palm. For a little while she was silent and so was I, and the men sitting around pretended to be inattentive and lit cigarettes and blew smoke rings, jangling their big spurs now and then. Presently the old woman said:
“Some day a brave caballero will hear the tale and he will make the four dollars to be five.”
Thinking it well to be counted brave, and hoping that I was a gentleman, I brought her expectations to pass, having a dollar with me, as luck had it. And certainly I think that the tale was worth a dollar, and if it was not, then it was worth many dollars to rest a while in that quiet place and to meet such worthy and simple folk.
THE MAGIC KNOT
THERE was once a lad whose name was Borac who might have been the son of a king, and again might not. No one ever really knew, though a wise old woman who lived near by said that he was, and so many things that she said were found to be true that people believed what she said of Borac. Borac was found by the side of a lake by a man who was gathering fruit. This man saw what he took to be a shining white stone, and, going to it, found a basket neatly made of silk grass lined with soft white feathers, and in it, warm and cosy like a bird in a nest, was the child Borac. So the man took the basket and the baby home with him, and his children were delighted with their new playmate. That made four children for the man and his wife to take care of, for he had three of his own, but good luck came to him from the day he found Borac and things went very well. As for the newcomer, he was treated exactly as were the rest of the children in that house, and like them grew strong of limb and ruddy of face.
So there were two boys and two girls, playmates, and each day was a golden one for them. Somehow, Borac seemed to see things and to know things that the others often missed. Not that his sight was any better than the sight of his foster-brother and -sisters, for in the place where they lived at the foot of the mountains, where the air was clean and sharp, everyone had good eyesight. Things at a distance were as clear-cut as things are when you look through a field-glass. But as Borac grew, he saw beauty in common things and pointed out to the others the colours in the sunset sky, the pure blue of the lake water, the sun-sparkle on the stream, and the fresh green of the hill grass. Then, too, there were the songs of the birds. That music they had grown up with, had heard so often that they had forgotten the beauty of it all, until one day Borac began to call like a bird and from every tree and bush came a chorus so rich and so wonderful that the joy in their hearts was more like a sweet pain. You know how that is.
Now there was a place in the mountains where the cliff ran straight up, and so smooth it was that no one had ever climbed it, though the children there were sure-footed as goats and could climb the highest places without growing faint or dizzy when high up.
Half-way up this cliff was a broad ledge on which a condor had built its nest, and Borac and his friends often played at the foot of the cliff and loved to watch the condor drop off of his rock shelf with spread wings and float far above, winding in mighty circles for hours, floating higher and higher into the sky without wing motion and just leaning over, it seemed, to go with the wind or against the wind, up and up, until he looked no larger than a humming-bird against the blue. So high he went sometimes that if one but blinked for a moment, the little black spot seemed to disappear. If any one of them had been granted a wish, that wish would have been that he or she might have the power to soar and wheel like the great bird, sweeping up in a great curve to hang in the air, floating downward in a long, long line, sliding, as it were, to sweep up again at will.
One day when Borac and his three friends were there, one of the girls called out in great trouble, pointing up the face of the cliff to a place where was a cranny, and looking, the others saw a large mottled owl with two staring eyes perched on a point of rock, and just below they could make out a pigeon on its nest. It seemed to them that the owl was screaming, “Ah! I see you, little dove. Sharp as needles are my claws. Sharp, too, is my beak to tear you, and little owls are hungry for the flesh of doves.”
That seemed very terrible to those who saw, and the four children began to shout and to throw stones, trying to chase the owl away, but it was of no use. The nest of the rock-pigeon was too far away and the face of the rock too smooth and sheer for any of them to climb, so there seemed nothing for it but to watch until the little bird was captured. The pigeon, they saw, was in great fear, but in spite of the danger stayed on the nest. As for the owl, he turned his face downwards toward them, hearing the noise, and they saw his cruel eyes and his head-feathers that were like horns, but he gave no sign of going away. Indeed, he hooted at them, as if to say, “Who cares for you, little earth-creatures?”
To the watchers it was like a jailor hanging over a prisoner who is innocent, or like a man with a sword about to deal a death-blow to a child. It was very sad to them to see the dove all helpless and, above her, the owl ready to dash down at any moment. As for Borac, he was so full of grief that he had started to climb the cliff, though it was clear to him as well as to his friends that he could not mount far. When he had climbed some little way up, a wonderful thing came to pass. From the sky where the condor wheeled, came dropping a long feather, a wing-feather which the great bird had plucked, and it fell spinning and at last rested on a little rock hump close to Borac’s right hand. His left hand, meanwhile, was clutching fast to the rock above his head.
Now why Borac should pick up such a thing as a feather when he needed his hands free he did not know, and certainly none of his friends could guess. But he did so, and not only that but looked at it curiously, just as you would do, to note the smooth lines of it and the beauty of the thing. And as he did this he twisted it just a little, gave it a turn with his fingers. At that he floated gently from the face of the rock, out from the cliff and into the air, until he was poised over the heads of his companions, hanging as lightly as a piece of thistle-down. Again he twisted it, just a little, and went upward. Then he tried other things, pointing it a little toward the face of the cliff, and, wonderful enough, floated that way. So he as well as the children knew that there was magic in the feather. Up then he darted with its aid, swiftly as the swiftest bird, rushing through the air, then swooped away from the cliff most beautifully, went upward again, made a great circle as he dived again, then shot upward, and so to the place where the owl sat.
Seeing him, the sharp-clawed thing raised its wings and softly flew away and was seen no more.
Somehow, the three at the foot of the cliff were not at all afraid. They knew everything would come right. Indeed, they leaped with joy and delight when they saw Borac standing on the rock ledge, and they clapped their hands when they heard the little slate-coloured creature coo with gratitude when the owl vanished. But what Borac did next they could not tell, though they saw him stoop and pick up something.
This is what happened: Borac, up there, saw behind the dove’s nest a coil of silky stuff no thicker than a fine thread, and in the middle of it was a queer knot. At first he thought it was a part of the nest, so would not touch it, but soon the bird rose from its nest, picked up the end of the thread, and walked with it to Borac. He took it then, wound in the rest of the coil, and it lay in his hand taking up no more room than a wild cherry would, so very fine it was in texture. But he knew at once that he had the magic knot of which the old woman had so often spoken, the magic knot that could bind evil things, though they were so strong that they could lift rocks. How the magic knot got there neither he nor any one else could know, and it did not matter very much. Certainly but for it, the owl would have captured the dove. The condor may have known about it, for condors are very wise, travel far, and see much that escapes the eyes of men. Anyway, Borac did not stay long, but feather in hand leaped into the air, though he was so high that his friends looked to him no larger than foxes, and swooping down landed lightly on the earth.
Then there were experiments. Each of the children wanted to try the feather in turn and great fun they had that evening, flying higher and higher as they grew braver, until at last each of them had stood on the faraway shelf where was the condor’s nest. It was easy to do and they found that all would go well so long as there was neither doubt nor fear. The magic feather would carry them quite safely so long as they believed in it. If they did not believe in it, then not a foot could they get from the earth. As for the magic thread with its wonderful knot, what good that might be they did not know, but it was certainly magic, and magic things, as they knew, always come in useful. So they guarded it carefully, packing it away in a nutshell where it should be handy when needed. And the magic knot came in useful much sooner than they expected, and if you are not going to be scared you may hear the tale, but if the hearing of it will make you nervous in the dark, or cause you to be afraid so that at night, being outside the house and nearing it, you make a hurried run to get to the door, then you had better read no farther. For you may as well understand that the magic knot did actually do the work and the thing that it bound is bound for ever and ever, so that no one of you should be afraid of the dark, nor be shivery as your hand is set on the door latch lest something should leap out of the dark and seize you.
Here then is the place to stop if you are timid, but if you are not you may read what comes next and after these three stars:
* * *
One night in the village next to that in which Borac and his three friends lived, something happened. In a little house that sat near a clearing some people were sitting talking, and being thirsty one of them asked the boy of the house to take the gourd and go to the stream for water. He did so, going bravely into the dark, for the stream was but a hundred steps away from the house door. The people in the house waited and waited, wondering why the boy was so long, and at last someone went to look for him. Down to the little river they went and back again, but there was no sign of the boy.
Now that was bad enough, but what was worse was that on the next night a boy went to visit a friend who lived five houses away, and that boy never reached his friend’s house. His father and mother went to look for him and traced his footsteps in the sandy road, but came to a place where the steps stopped and beyond was smooth sand. Then on the third night something happened. A girl and her sister were visiting and the younger girl started to go home alone. No sooner had she left than her sister, remembering how the boys had vanished, ran after her to bear her company. The night was moonless and a thin cold mist hid the stars, but the sister could see the little one’s white dress a little way ahead. She could not see very plainly because it was so dark, but there was no mistake about it. The fluttering white thing was in front, cloudy looking certainly, but there. Then of a sudden something happened. The white cloud that was a dress had vanished. So the older sister ran to the place and heard a voice calling and the sound seemed to come from above her head. She looked up and saw a flutter of white for an instant, then nothing more. Her sister had vanished exactly as a bubble vanishes.
Because of all that there was terror in the village. In the day the people were nervous enough, but at night there was great fear. No one dared stir out after sunset. Even within doors people sat as if on thorns. Then one night when there was no glimmer of light in the sky, a family sitting in a house heard a great tearing sound as if some giant hand was pulling at the thatched roof. The light in the house went out and those who sat in the room crouched trembling, crowding close to one another, their hearts throbbing. When at last it was quiet again they saw that a ragged hole was in the roof, and on the earth floor there was a mark like the claw of a great bird.
That was all, but there was trouble in the hearts of the people, and soon the news of it all came to Borac. He listened to the tale attentively and so did the wise old woman who was there. She nodded thoughtfully and said:
“But have no fear. Things will not go ill while the moon shines.”
She said much more, particularly asking Borac if he had the magic knot, and then she told him what to do. And with the growing moon the trouble ceased.
Meanwhile, Borac was busy. The old woman had talked with him as has been said, and day after day with the help of his magic feather he made great flights, circling high in the sky, crossing valleys, and passing over mountain and lake, and seeing strange lands far to the west and the great ocean that reached far until it touched the sky. Then the condors were good to him and with them he flew hither and thither, as fast and as high as they, never tiring, never lagging, and they took him in a new direction and to a place where out of a great bare valley rose a monstrous black bird, a bird so strong that it could bear away a llama in each claw and another in its beak. So big it was that beside it a condor seemed tiny. It was an ugly bird and the eye of it was heavy-lidded and baleful, its claws sharp. The wings flapped so heavily that the wind from them caused the trees near by to bend their tops as if they leaned to whisper, one to another. Borac at once knew it for the great bird of evil that swooped down on dark nights and carried men away, and he also knew that in the world there was but one and that it laid but one egg.
For many days the lad watched, following the bird wherever it went, and at last discovered its foul nest high up in the mountains where man never set foot. By the side of its nest, in which was an egg so great that a goat might have hidden in the shell of it, was a hole in the rock. In this hole, the sides of which were very steep, were all those whom the great bird had carried away. Day by day, as Borac saw, the bird dropped fruit down into the hole, so that the unhappy creatures might live until the egg was hatched, when they would, he knew, be taken out and given to the young one to eat. When the great bird had flown away, Borac ventured close to the hole and called out to the people there to be of good cheer, for he would rescue them soon and also kill the bird.
Back to his own place he flew then with his magic feather and told everyone what he had seen, and, as the wise old woman advised, Borac and his friends chose a stout tree and cut the top and the branches from it. They then formed the trunk into the shape of a youth, leaving the roots fast in the earth. This figure they painted and covered with a garment and in the hand of it they put a large gourd, so that from afar the thing looked like one going for water. Close to it they built a house of poles and covered it with grass for a roof, in the fashion of the country, and all that they had ready before the moon was again dark. Then everything being prepared, Borac went into the house and waited.
Three nights he was there, then taking his feather flew here and there. At last he saw a great black cloud swiftly moving, which he knew to be the evil bird, so he made for his house and soon there came a great tearing sound in the air. As the bird came it set up a terrific screeching and the noise that it made with the beating of its wings was like thunder-claps. Down it swooped on the man of wood, claws outstretched and beak open, and in another moment it had seized the figure and was trying to lift it. The more the figure resisted, the tighter the evil bird held, its claws and beak fast sunk in the wood. So fearful were its struggles that the earth about the root of the tree heaved, and it seemed as if the roots would be torn out bodily. Then finding that it could not move the thing, the bird made to fly away, but its talons and beak were held by the wood as if in a vise. All its flappings and tearings then were of no avail, and try as it would, it could not release itself. Faster and harder it beat its wings and the wind from them bowed the bushes and shook the house in which Borac was hidden.
Then Borac came forth with magic feather and magic knot, and was soon in the air above the struggling bird. Hovering there he unloosed the thread with the magic knot and lowered it. Down it dropped and was soon entangled in the beating wings like a web about a fly, and, slight though the thread was, against the power of the magic knot nothing could prevail. So in a short time the great black bird was bound for ever.
In the morning Borac flew to the nest in the far valley and went down into the pit in which were the unlucky ones that the bird had caught. One by one he carried them from that place and to their homes. As for the egg, putting his shoulder against it he tumbled it from the ledge where the nest was, and it fell and was smashed to pieces. So there was an end of the evil bird, which soon died; and it was the last of its kind; and to-day, of all the birds of the air, there are none to do harm to man.
THE BAD WISHERS
FOR days and days and for weeks and weeks Canassa and I rode to the south, and the only break in our days was when we changed our tired horses for fresh ones. That we did sometimes four times in the day. We had plenty of choice, for we were driving some three hundred mares and colts. Canassa was a gaucho, a plainsman, as we would say, and a most excellent horseman, so he made nothing at all of catching an unbroken colt with his lasso and saddling and riding it, doing his share of the driving with the horse new to saddle.
With so much of it I grew tired, and one night as we sat about our little campfire heating water for our maté, the tea we made from herbs, I said that I wished the job was at an end.
Canassa strummed his guitar awhile, then laid it aside and said:
“Wishes are no good and he who wishes, risks. For why? Whenever you wish, you leave out something that should not be left out, and so things go wrong.”
I told him that a small wish might be all right, but this he would not allow. Things had to go just so, he said, and no one in the world was wise enough to wish things as they should be wished. Then, in the way of the men of the pampas, he told me a tale to prove the truth of what he said, and this was the tale:
Once there was a woman in Paraguay who had no children and she wished day and night for a boy and a girl. She did more than wish, going to a place in the woods where were wild sweet limes and oranges and lemons, and where the pools were covered with great leaves of waterliles, and in the quiet of that place she made a song about the children she wished for. In that song she sang of the boy as handsome and swift of foot and strong of arm, and she sang of the girl as a light creature with keen eyes and silken hair. Day after day she did this and at last her wish came true, for she had a boy and a girl and the boy was straight-limbed and well made and the girl as lovely as a flower of the air.
So far, so good. But that was not the end. The woman had wished that the boy might be strong and brave and swift and all these he was. But she had not thought of other things, and, sad to say, he lacked sight. For him there was neither day nor night, neither sun nor moon, neither green of the pampas nor blue of the sky. As for the girl, it is true that she had sight so keen that she could see the eye of a humming-bird at a hundred paces, but her legs were withered and useless and she could not walk, for the mother in wishing had said nothing of her health and strength. To crawl about, helping herself with her hands, was as much as she could do.
Seeing what had come to pass the mother was very sad, for her dream had become a very pesadilla, a nightmare. So she grieved and each day grew paler, and at last one evening caught her children in her arms and kissed them and they saw her no more, the neighbours next morning telling them that she had died.
Now one day when the children were well grown, there came to the house in which they lived a man in a torn poncho who said that he had walked hundreds of miles, from the land of the Noseless People where it is always cold. He was tired and hungry and torn with thorn-bushes, and his feet were cut with stones. So the boy and girl took him into the house and gave him water to wash himself with and chipa bread made of mandioca flour and sweet raspadura in banana leaves. When he was well rested and refreshed, in return for their great kindness he told them of a strange old witch-woman who lived far away, one who knew many secrets by means of which she could do wonderful things.
“In a turn of the hand,” said he, “she could make the girl strong of limb and with another turn could restore sight to the lad.”
Then he went on to tell of other witches that he knew, saying that there were many who were not all bad, but like men, were a mixture. True, they sometimes kept children, but that was not to be laid to their meanness but rather to their love of beauty. “For,” he said, “it is no more wrong to keep a child to look at than it is to pluck a flower or to cage a bird. Or, to put it another way, it is as wrong to cage a bird as it is to steal a child.”
The meal being done the three of them sang a little, and the sun being set the old man bade them good-night and stretched out under a tree to sleep, and the next morning before the children awoke he had gone.
All that day brother and sister talked much of what the old man had told them, and the girl’s face flushed red and her eyes were bright as she looked at her brother and thought of how sweet it would be if he could see the mists of the morning and the cool cleanness of the night. Meanwhile he in his dark world wondered how he could find his way to the witch and persuade her to work her magic, so that his sister might be able to go up and down, and to skip and dance on limbs that were alive. So at last they fell to talking, and the end of it all was that they started on a journey to the witch, the brother carrying the sister on his shoulder while she guided him safely through thorn-thicket, past swamps where alligators lay hidden, and through valleys where bushy palmetto grew shoulder high. Each night they found some cool place where was a spring of crystal, or a pool of dark sweet water, and at last they came to the little hills where the witch lived.
They found that all was as the old man had said, for the witch was a lonely creature who saw few, because few passed that way. She was glad enough to see her visitors and led them to a fragrant leafy place, and seeing that the girl was drooping like a wind-wearied bird, did what things she could. To the boy she told tales of the birds and the golden light of the sun and the green of spreading branches, thinking that with her tales they would be comforted and content to stay with her in her soft green valley. But the more she did for their comfort and the more she told them of the wonders of the world, the greater was their desire to be whole, the girl with her limbs unbound, the boy with his eyes unsealed.
Before long the lad told the witch of the old man’s visit and of their hopes that had led them to take the great journey, and then the old woman’s heart fell as she saw her dream of companionship vanish. She knew that as soon as they were whole again they would leave her as the birds that she fed and tended in nesting time left her when winter came. Then she told them no more pleasant tales, but tales of things dead and cold, of gray skies and desert places, of tangled forests where evil things lived.
“It is better not to see at all,” she said, “than to see foul things and heart-searing things.”
But the boy spoke up and said:
“There being such things, the more I would have my eyesight, so that I might clear those tangled forests of the evil beasts of which you speak.”
Hearing that, the witch sighed, though her heart was glad at the boy’s words. So she turned to the girl, telling her of the harm that sometimes came to those who walked, of the creatures that do violence and scratch and maul; of stocks and stones that hurt and cut tender feet; of venomous things that hide under rocks. But the girl heard patiently, then clasped her hands and said:
“And that is all the more reason that I ask what I ask, for with feet light and active I can skip away from the hurtful things, if indeed my brother does not kill them.”
“Well,” said the witch, “perhaps when you know the beauty of the place in which I live, you will be content to stay with me. I must do what you ask because you are what you are by reason of a wish that went wrong. Now to get the magic leaves with which to cure you I must take a journey of a day and a night, and it is part of the magic that those who would be cured must do a task. So to-morrow while I am away you must work, and if I find the task finished you shall be cured. But if you should not finish the task, then all will remain as it is; but I will be eyes for the boy, telling him of the fine things of the world, and for the girl I will be as limbs, running for her, working for her. But I shall do and not wish. Truth is that I would gladly see both of you whole again, but then you would go away, and I sorely lack companionship.”
After a little the witch said to the girl:
“Tell me, little one, if this place were yours what would you do to make it better to live in?”
“I would,” answered the girl, “have all the thorn-bushes taken away that are now in the little forest behind the house, so that Brother could walk about without being scratched and torn.”
“That is fair enough,” said the witch. “And you, boy, what would your wish be?”
“I would have all the little stones that are in the valley taken away, so that Sister could play on the soft grass without being hurt.”
“Well,” said the witch, “it is in the magic that you set your own tasks. So the boy must have every stone cleared away before I return and the girl must see to it that there are no more thorn-bushes. Hard are the things that you have wished.”
After the witch had gone there was no joy in the hearts of the children, for it seemed impossible that a blind boy should gather the stones and no more possible for a lame girl to clear the forest. There was a little time in which they tried, but they had to give up. So they stood wondering, and for a moment thought of starting for their own home.
Suddenly, strange to tell, who should come over the hill but the old man in the torn poncho, and they were both very glad to see him. After he had rested awhile they told him their troubles and spoke of their grief because, in spite of all their efforts, it seemed as though all must come to naught.
“I wish——” began the boy, but the old man stopped him with lifted finger.
“Wishing never does,” he said. “But help does much and many can help one.” He put his fingers to his mouth and gave a peculiar whistle, and at once the sky was darkened with birds and each bird dropped to the ground, picked up a stone and flew away with it, so that the valley was cleared in a moment. He gave another whistle and from everywhere came rabbits which ran into the woods, skipping and leaping, and at once set to work to gnaw the stems of the bushes. And as soon as the bushes fell, foxes came and dragged them away, so that in an hour the forest was clear, and when the witch came back, behold, the set task was done!
So the witch took the leaves that she had brought and made a brew of them, giving the liquid to brother and sister to drink. “But,” said she, “see to it that you speak no word, for if you do before sunset, then back you go to your old state.”
Both promised that heartily and drank. But as soon as the boy saw the green of the grass, and the blue and crimson and purple flowers, and the humming-birds like living diamonds in the shade, he called out in his great joy:
“Oh, Sister, see how beautiful!” and at once he was in utter darkness again. At the same moment, feeling her limbs strong, the girl was filled with such delight that she tossed her arms into the air and danced. Then from her came a keen cry of pain as she heard her brother’s cry and knew that he was blind again. There was a moment when she wanted to lose all that she had gained so that she could tell her brother that she shared his grief, but she remembered that being strong she could help him in his pain, so she went to him and took him by the hand and kissed his cheek.
At sunset the boy, who had been sitting quiet, spoke, turning his sightless face to the witch.
“You have tried to be good to us,” he said, “and you have been as kind as it lay in your power to be. Since Sister is well, I am content. And I have seen the beauty of the world, though it was in a flash. So, mother witch, since you have not been able to give us all we ask, we will give you all that we have. Come, then, to the place where we live and see the things that we love, the birds and the flowers and the trees, and we will try in kindness to repay you for what you have done.”
Hearing that, the witch suddenly burst into singing and hand-clapping and told them that the spell was broken because she had been befriended.
“No witch am I,” she said, “but your own mother who did not die, but was changed to this form for vain wishes.”
Then the boy regained his sight and the mother became as she had been, tall and straight and beautiful and kind, and the three of them went to their old home and lived there for many years, very happy and contented.