Page:Anthology of Magazine Verse (1921).djvu/98
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And more, lest you doubt of my returning,
I shall leave, under your charge, all gold.
Remain faithful unto your post;
Remain faithful unto your leader;
Then, if in fifty days I be not come again,
Take as your own the two small brigantines
And depart, with duty done, wheresoever you list.
This I say but as a last precaution,
For,—shall I not return to you?
Trust me! forget not God! be true!"
Thus spoke to his soldiers Alonzo de Ojeda
Governor, in the King's name, of Neuva Andalusia,
Brave man, incompetent leader, ill-fated,
Thus spoke he from the parapet of San Sebastian
And with the coming of the night had sailed away,
Never, despite his promise, to return.
Pizarro, stalwart of body, steady of mind,
One who kept and kept it well his own counsel,
One cruel, severe, determined,
One who was obeyed yet shrunk from,
Commanded, as Ojeda had behested, in his stead.
No tyro's negligent office his!
Food, by hook or crook, must be obtained;
Dissatisfaction and mutiny quelled;
Attack by night and day to be repulsed.
Silence and heat, and hunger,
And all about the small stockade
The inward pressing of the circling jungle
Save where, a strip of blue, a strip of hope, the sea!
God! how they grew to fear that forest,
Heavy, and green, and menace haunted,
A dark impenetrable wall of vegetation,
Twisted trunks, twisted vines, and twisted shadows,
Wherein lurked horror and the horror of horror!
Arrows, furtive-winged and poison-pointed
Would rise as rise startled birds,
Curve up a moment in skyey flight,
Then, with long-drawn sibilant sighs,
Rush to claim the poor unwary, earthward.
I shall leave, under your charge, all gold.
Remain faithful unto your post;
Remain faithful unto your leader;
Then, if in fifty days I be not come again,
Take as your own the two small brigantines
And depart, with duty done, wheresoever you list.
This I say but as a last precaution,
For,—shall I not return to you?
Trust me! forget not God! be true!"
Thus spoke to his soldiers Alonzo de Ojeda
Governor, in the King's name, of Neuva Andalusia,
Brave man, incompetent leader, ill-fated,
Thus spoke he from the parapet of San Sebastian
And with the coming of the night had sailed away,
Never, despite his promise, to return.
Pizarro, stalwart of body, steady of mind,
One who kept and kept it well his own counsel,
One cruel, severe, determined,
One who was obeyed yet shrunk from,
Commanded, as Ojeda had behested, in his stead.
No tyro's negligent office his!
Food, by hook or crook, must be obtained;
Dissatisfaction and mutiny quelled;
Attack by night and day to be repulsed.
Silence and heat, and hunger,
And all about the small stockade
The inward pressing of the circling jungle
Save where, a strip of blue, a strip of hope, the sea!
God! how they grew to fear that forest,
Heavy, and green, and menace haunted,
A dark impenetrable wall of vegetation,
Twisted trunks, twisted vines, and twisted shadows,
Wherein lurked horror and the horror of horror!
Arrows, furtive-winged and poison-pointed
Would rise as rise startled birds,
Curve up a moment in skyey flight,
Then, with long-drawn sibilant sighs,
Rush to claim the poor unwary, earthward.
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