The Virgin of the Sun

ed news of my coming to spread far and wide throughout the land from one tribe to another, which it would do with great swiftness, flying, as he put it, like a bird. Meanwhile, every day I s

me, and birds, burning them with fire. Both those that I had

ther in the moonshine before we slept, I turned on him suddenly, h

Kari? For, know, I

elieved this from the first hour that my eyes opened on it after our swoon, for I knew the trees and the flowers and the smell of the earth, and saw that the stars in the heavens stood where I used to see them. When I went ashore and mingled with the natives, I discovered that this belief was right, since I could understand something of their talk and they could understand something of mine

llous," I said. "Bu

le will make him their king and give him wives and all that he desires, and so

re I would not g

s no great journey, though rough. Then the coast of that sea must be followed southward, for I know not how far, but, as I think, for months or years of journeying, till at length the country of my people is reached. Moreover, that journeying is hard and terrible, sinc

at he meant to do if I took this c

nd established in his rule. Then I shall start on that journey alone, hoping tha

e were to make this journey and perchance live t

acrifice this god that his strength and beauty may enter into them. As for me, some of them will try to kill me and others will cling to me. Who will

-eyed natives, that you say would make me a king, as you tell me you were when you left your country. Whether we shall ever find that country I canno

n his body. "Knowing all, he has made his choice, and whatever happens, being what it is, he will not blame me. Yet because the Master has thus

time to talk of it when we do reach your land," I s

ool of the morning and in the evening, not going out of sight of the wreck. I went armed and carrying my big bow, but saw no one, since the natives had been warned that I should w

me of the purring of a cat, I looked up and saw a great beast of the tiger sort lying on the bough of the tree and watching me. Then I drew the bo

if I had not seen it, would have leapt on me as I passed under the tree. Also he sent natives to skin it who when they saw that it was pierced through

up in bundles wrapped in sailcloth, each bundle weighing from thirty to forty pounds, to serve as presents to natives or to trade away with them. When I asked who would carry them, Kari answered that I should see. This I did at dawn on the following morning when there arrived upon the shore a great number of

otect me on my further wanderings, and if I died, to receive my soul. This done I left the ship and while the natives bowed themselves about me, entered my li

houlders, while others carried the bundles upon their heads. Our road ran through fores

ea over which we had travelled. Yonder broken hulk was the last link which bound me to my distant home thousands of miles across the o

g savages in a country of which I did not even know the name, where everything was new and different. And there the ship with her rich cargo, after bearing us so bravely through weeks of tempest, must lie until she rotted in the sun and rain and never again would my eyes behol

erchant of London town who might have lived to become its mayor and magistrate and win nobility, wa

were troubled with heat and insects that hummed and bit, for to these as yet I was n

of a lake. So it went on until on the third evening from high land we saw the sea beneath us, a different sea from that which we had left, for it

h this I had nothing to do who did not greatly care which way he turned. Nor did he speak to me of the matter, except to say that his god and

natives of whose talk those with us could understand enough to tell them our story. Indeed the rumour that a white god had appeared in the land out of the sea

Still their going did not make a great difference to us, since the new tribe was much as the old one, though if anything, rather less clothed and more dirty. Also

e all these people, that not once did we meet with any who tried to harm us or to steal our goods, or who refused us the best of what they had. Our adventures, it is true, were

first of these cannibal people, being moved with fury, I killed a man whom I found about to murder a child and eat her, sweeping off his head with my sword. For this deed

continuously, especially at night, keeping the brutes off by means of fires. Sometimes we were forced to wade great rivers, or worse still, to walk over them on swaying bridges made of cables of twisted reeds that until I grew accustomed to them cause

and pressing it to death. These snakes, it was said, would take men in this fashion, though I never saw one of them do so. At any rate, they were terribl

, the beast was sixty feet or more in length; its head was of the bigness of a barrel, and its skin was of all the colours o

sick, as I think because of the herb which Kari carried in his bag, that I found was named Coca, whereof we obtained more as we went and ate from time to time. Nor did we ever really suffer from starvation, since when we were hungry we took more of this herb which

s said stretched southwards for a hundred leagues and more and was without water. Moreover, to the east of this desert rose a chain of mountains bordered by precipices up which no man could climb. Here, therefore, it see

so tired of travelling upon an endless quest that I should have been glad to stay among that tribe, a very gentle and friendly people, who like all the rest believed me to be

land, since they were great fishermen and went out upon it in rude boats or rafts made of a wooden frame to which were lashed blown-up skins and bundles of dried reeds. Upon these boats, frail as they seemed, such as further south were called balsas, they made considerable journeys to dis

he waves. When I inquired why through Kari, the answer given was because the fishing season was over, since that wind from the north would blow for a long time without changing and tho

outh, there is a way of

n the following day asked me suddenl

on land and I weary of journeying through endless swamps and

dried fish, corn and water in earthenware jars as it would carry together with ourselves, and such of our remaining goods as we wished

e embarked upon that balsa while the simple savages made obeisance with wonder in their eyes, hoisted

d in time vanished also, and there remained nothing but the great wilderness upon our left and the vast sea around. Steering clear of the land so as to avoid sunken rocks, we sailed on all that day and all the night that followed, and when the lig

hat we had travelled as far along the coast as we had done in six months when we journeyed over land, at which I rejoiced. Kari rejoiced also, because he

th grew steadily stronger, till at length it rose to a gale. Soon our little rag of canv

t set out towards the ocean against which it was impossible to urge our clumsy craft. Therefore we must content ourse

there burst upon us a great thunder-storm with torren

of the waves broke upon us. Indeed, it was marvellous that this frail craft should hang together at all, but owing to the lightness of the reeds and the blown-up skins that were tied in them, still she floated and, whi

ow-capped mountains far away upon the coast, also of Kari clinging to the reeds of the balsa at my side, and from time to

ods are still w

nd soon we shall be w

ould have been for nothing, since it would have been better to die at the beginning than now at the end, after so much misery. Then the glare of the lightning shone upon the handle of the swor

ts Wave-Fl

l live and i

o'er wide s

e lands shall

conquered

y shall sle

with water. Also, I had conquered nothing who myself was conquered by Fate. In short, the thing could be read two ways,

eakers, and beyond them what looked like a dark mass of land. Now we were in them, for the first of those hungry, curling waves got a hold of the balsa and tossed it up dizzily, then flung it dow

huge breaker as though it were a horse

me shone the sun in a sky of deepest blue; before me was the sea almost calm, while around were rocks and sand, among which crawled great reptiles that I knew for turtles, as I had seen many of them in our wanderings. Moreover, kneeling at my side, with the sword that he had taken from the b

here is your faith, O White Man! Look! They have

about faith? Why did he address me as "White Man" instead of "Master"? Was it because h

wling turtles. "And is this the rich and wondrous land where gold and

jest, and answ

r, yonder i

aw many leagues way across the water two s

nt on; "without doubt they are

all the hope we have of passing that g

ht over those rocks on to the shore. Look-there is the balsa

balsa it was and nothing else, and tied in its tangled mass still remained those things whi

l, but will never be

yonder I would set its fragments in a case of gold a

, and having washed it, filled ourselves. After this we limped to the crest of the land behind and perceived that we were on a little island, perhaps two hundred English acres in extent, whereon nothing

," I said, "though in the dry

lesh. As it was, we had plenty with this meat and that of birds and their eggs, also of fish that we caught in the pools when the tide was down. From the shells of the turtles, by the help of stones, we built us a kind of hut to keep off the sun and the rain, which in that hot place was sufficient shelter; also, when the s

ness and despair, for no help came near us. There were the mountains of the mainland far away, but betwee

til we die!" at last I

ods are still with us and wi

they did in a