White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1932-02-04
CHAPTER TX
The Spirit of the Dead

who had gone so blithaly to the in
yestment of the tow1i of Maracay,
scarce four hundred remained; starve-
lings trapped IN strip Of jungle that
lies between the Valencia range and
the sea; blocked on the north by the
sea itself, On the south by an army
patrolljng the road that followed the
crest OF the range, and menaced in
the rear by an ever approaching t3dy
of well-accoutered and well-fed Span
ish troops. Adolfo de Fuentes him
self led them, and it must have af
forded him deal of joy.
eff we had Bolivar" Monahan
ventured.
Doctor Lindsay laughed. "Does our
Irish Venezuelan rs,iriot, who comes
from Killarney, and who, therefore,
must believe in fairies, imagine that
General BOLIVIA, might free us from
this impasse?"
"Sure," gaid the Irishman; TAT
word from 3imon Bolivar men will
spring, fGii-armed, like spirits out of
the earth. But we haven't the spirit
of Bolivar with us now; instead, we
have spineless jellyfsh who sits and
broods over his blunders, knowing that
we face starvation or capture by the
Puerto Cabello garrison when the
army behind us shall have pushed US
westward to the mouth of this funnel
OF Jungle that holds us helpless"
len days before this vastly SUI
pe,aor force had pushed us out Of
Meracay. Fighting every foot of the
wy we had been beaten back, ever
buck. Eastward and northward we
had gone, contending desperately,
hopelessly, yet never giving up; each
night finding US farther into the Span
ish srea, weaker, less able to endure,
with a morale that gave way with
the slow passage of time.
Between Colonel PM and myself an
armed truce existed. Whether, by
some miraculous turn of. good fortune,
we won free, or whether the malevo-
lent jungle or the Spaniards claimed
us, the result to nae would be the
same; for the friendship of a few
trusted aides Of Bolivar might never
save me in court, because I was
guilty and could not offer defense.
Yet no apprehension of what PM
might do to me could prevail against
my happiness, because had seen the
Senorita again, had caught the tender
cadences of her voice, had won for
giveness.
AS the days went by the shoulders
of our soldiers dropped, the light went
out of their eyes, and the flesh went
off their bodies, for food we had al
most none; and the desperate heat of
the overwhelming jungle sickened
them and the gloom and silence of
this dread desolation entered their
souls, yet thu. vital spark still burned
within them.
We came, one day, to a great rent
in the close-racked trees and the in
terlacing vines of our forest prison.
Tt was such a path as some monster
dragon of the deep, emerging from the
sea, might have made in it's passage
no dragon Of the deep existed, knew
that no anirnal might have laid these
mighty trees flat and pushed others
out of it's path.
recalled the day of the storm, and
the wreck of the Santa Lucrecia, and
the dark bulk that had passed in the
gloom as 1 fought for my life with
the waves.
I remembered that the tremendous
thrust Of the wind had lifted the ocean
into the maze of woods, and had de-
posted me in a tree The Santa Luz
crecia, then, had freed herself from
the clutches of the reef and, riding
the elevated waters of the tidal wave
had driven over the fiat floor of the
jungle-which lay only few feet
above the level of the sea-and had
found at last grave in the forest
whence it had come. And the Santa
Lucrecia, l remembered, had a cargo
of arms and ammunition and food!
"Colonel PM" said l, in the long
| silence that had held us, may not
| mis- sinai! ARMY VI OuTS-SlVeu LOOu
and arms and powder and BALDWIN
through the lines of Spain? If fill
them with food, and put weapons and
ammunition into their hands,"
"Are you mad?" he cried.
eff do these things, my colonel,
may | ask that this court will be for.
got, that my wounded arm and the
broken door at Maracay-and the
Senorita-?"
Lindsay and Captain Monahan may
Witness" said PM, and he smiled, my
promise to forget Maracay If you OBJ
tain the mama for these starving sol.
diers."
Il will tell you, then, my colonel,
that this path marks the first and last
land passage Of the Santa Lucrecia,
and If we only follow it we will come
apon a store sufficient for an army"
|
For three days we ate and rested
and caroused, nnmindful of the forces