1940-10-18 — Page 34

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THE CHINA MAIL FRIDAY SUPPLEMENT, OCTOBER 18, 1940.

SHORT STORYKO

The Condors' Revenge By V.G. CALDERON

I've never awakened an Indian by kicking him, though Captain Gonzalez, who had such a pretty, with gold-handled whip, loaded six inches of lead, once tried teach me how to do it.

to

"Good-for-nothing"! roared the captain, twirling his Don Juan's moustache. "All these rogues are alike. I ordered him to saddle up at five in the morning, and there he is sleeping like a hog at seven-I've got to be at Huaraz in two days."

The Indian was sleeping in the open air fully dressed, his head pillowed on an old saddle. At the first kick he stretched and got to his feet. I've never been able to make out whether the punishment produced anger or respect.

further

got a girl friend in every cottage. He served under me last year, and now the Prefect, who's a friend of mine, has sent him to me as an orderly. He's scared to death of my little whip!"

For some, time I examined ad- miringly the skilfully woven rat- tans of the. "little whip." whose lash gradually narrowed, to end in a ball of lead-irresistible, no doubt, when applied to the backs of animals or Indians.

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The martial more through the inn:---

voice. rang once the court-yard of

"And the black fur cloak, you dog? You'll catch it if you don't hurry!"

"I'm fetching it now mister." And the Indian plunged into the stable in search of the fur cloak. Ten, twenty, thirty minutes, which provoked in orchestral cresendo an explosion of the most varied invective,

As he was rather slow in walk- ing to his round of daily miser ies, the soldier lashed him across The Indian stood the forehead. trembling, blood running off his face like tears! I was trembling myself, for I still had the senti- mental prejudices of a theorist. I forcibly restrained the violent Native interjections jostled God captain and so avoided

and Virgin on the lips of the cap- bloodshed,

tain as in the rites of the moun- tain witches. But the orderly, "Idle good-for-nothing,' re that most admirable guide, could peated the tormentor. Then, turn- not be found anywhere in the port, ing his hard eyes towards me and so Captain Gonzalez set out "That's the way to treat these alone promising him more disas- barbarians. You don't know trous punishments in the future. them, doctor."

"Don't go with the captain, he's Captain Gonzalez had conferred a barbarian," advised the innkeep university degree on me as sooner, and so I delayed my departure as he saw my shining boots, my on the ground that I had to make new cloak, unstained by the wea- some purchases. Two hours lat ther, and my guileless townsman's er, while I was saddling my fine charity.

win- trotting mule, Last night, after

tousle-headed ning four Peruvian pounds from man in a dusty sheepskin me at checkers in the mean little came up to me and murmured: harbour inn, he adopted me with "Shall I come with you, mister?" a paternal smile, saying. "Let's travel to Huaraz together, dear Should he come! It was the doctor. We'll have some fine dun lost Indian. For an hour I also with my lout of an Indian, he's had been looking for a guide who

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could lead me over the bad passes An hour of this sort of progress er with. their wings, he loses his topples into the of the Sierra, and mend the nar- set my nerves on edge, and the balance and row road between the rocks and very whistling of the wind among chasm; that's what happened to the abyss, which the rains or a the rocks made me feel giddy. The Captain Gonzalez, poor chap." single fall of stones can destroy condors, familiar spirits of in a matter of seconds.

high peaks, now passed so that their wings tanned my face and I could see the glare of their eyes.

I agreed without fixing any price, and the man explained in his broken speech that I should meet him at the gates of the vil- lage.

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E

the.

near.

We had reached a narrow de- file, from which I could catch a glimpse of the yellowish cactus- covered tableland, breaking the I had stopped at a cottage to drab monotony of the mountain ask for a cup of that harian range. The guide suddenly mut- maize liquor which has sucir a tered, "You wait here, mister." cheering effect, when I saw him In an instant he was gone, ride up. His jennet, though lame seemed more spirited than. my mule.

The guide led off without more ado. We went by short cuts and difficult passes. When the sun began to roast us he produced a bowl of cooling "chicha" and some puffed maize, soft and woolly.

I must say I enjoyed a 'much softer bed that night than I should have been able to make for myself out of capes, ponchos and the saddle, at a wayside inn.

I waited for him in. vain, my heart, sinking, my fingers on the butt of my revolver. I cried en couragement to my wavering mule, who, with ears twitching like weathercocks in the wind.. measured the danger and listened for death. A deep sound vibrat- ed on the mountain,, in the heights something had begun to roll.

.

Suddenly, fifty yards from me. a flock of condors slanted down- wards. And then, quite distinct- ly, for I had reached a bend in the road, I saw a dark mass go The next day was more event- clattering and bounding in a cloud ful. Though servile and humble as of dust down the neighbouring ever, my companion stopped un- mountain side. A man? A horse? necessarily often at the cottage. Perhaps a man and a horse, doors along the road as though splashing the sharp rocks with asking for news, in soft Queen their blood and finally staining speech.

the foaming river far below,

The Indian women who passed

Shaking with horror, I waited me the gourd of "chicha" looked while the mountains threw back attentively at me, and I thought and forth the echo of that mortal. I could detect an unexpected cataract. A cone of drab wings friendliness in their eyes, though swirled like a whirlpool above the one never knows for certain what bodies, these poor slaves are thinking.

Two or three times the guide Sliding forward with the furtive broke the silence to tell me, in step of a viscacha, the jennet his childish language, the sort of appeared, bearing my guide, who storics which would make a tra- taking my muto by the bridle, veller's flesh creep.

murmured. In a sorrowful voies, like a sigh,. "That was the cap- tain, mister."

·

Simple stories of travellers roll ing down the precipice because, a- rock had suddenly slipped from "The Captain?" My eyes open- the Andean mountainside, and ed wide with astonishment: The carried them with it to the bot Indian threw me an inscrutable tom of the gorge, where their look and explained, in reply to bones lie washed in the foaming, my flood of questions, that "somic- river.

times, mister, as a travoller stands on the edge of the precipice, the insolent condors graze his should-

O

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Against my will I began to be impressed. In the evening the Andos are like great grey tombs, and I shuddered in the mist that rises like a visible melancholy from the blue fáble-lands to the snow-capped peaks. The rond. nícked out of the rock above the perilous gorge, seemed to load us, as in some ancient sacred allo- gory, towards a sinister goal.

But the same Indian who had. trembled beneath the whip was now a fearless acrobat, swinging easily out of his saddle to take the bridle of my frightoned, shivay-

SPIRITS Depling mule, which slithered, on the

stones, and gazed fascinated into the abyss.

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***

me

Removing his wide felt hat, he crossed himself to prove to that he was speaking the truth. With the gesture of a conjurer he pointed to the great whirling. birds. already devouring their prey. ̈

I asked no more questions, for there are secrets in my country which the Indians cannot explain to white men: Perhaps there is a dark pact between them and the condors to be revenged, on us for our intrusión. But I learned from

this incomparable guide who left me at the gate of Huaraz, having kissed my hand and refused___all Payment, that it is sometimes im- prudent to affront with a pretty

whip the resignation of a quered people.

THE END

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