LITERATURE.

Patea Mail, Volume IX, Issue 1125, 14 December 1883, Page 4

LITERATURE.

A FIGHT FOE LIFE

When I first came out to Brazil, I got a situation as clerk in the countingr house of Diaz, Brown and Company, the extensive merchants at ; Rip Janeiro. The" only other white clerk in : their place of business was one Lopez de Pereira, a Portuguese by descent and birth, but-educated in England; Of course iwe - became companions ; and although he was eccentric to absurdity, ■I fonnd him‘a very agreeable fellow on the whole, Ins'-whims being often irresistibly 5 'ridiculous, while he was not at all annoyed at any laughter, but would laugh himself with bis whole heart, while

"he still persisted in the proceedings that - caused it. - These were often, while very odd, both hurtful to hinself and painful to bis friends. One day, when we had been about a year together, the day being a holiday we resolved npon an expedition to the top of Corcovado. Accordingly; hiring horses, we rode up, till the horses crinld go no farther. As we rode, I '’began to laugh and question; with regard to; his singular weakness. My thoughts were directed to this subject by seeing him turn round on the horse’s back, and,ride with his face to the tail ; and this though the animal was very; spirited, .and the path was so narrow that one : horse only had room to go upon it, with; the stone wall of the; aqueduct on one side-and a succession of wooded precipices on the other. Gn my inquiring the cause of ■■this remarkable manoeuvre, ho replied, laughing loudly himself, that he thought it was a good idea, as he could talk to me better

face to face; for I was riding in the rear. But I remarked that we coni cl converse qnito well without seeing each other, and reminded him of the misers, who talked in the dark to save candles. Upon this he staled that, as all the view lay behind ns, and nothing in front but woods, this was the most rational way of riding for an admirer of the picturesque. I bantered him out of this argument also, when he plainly confessed that he rode in that way from ' an internal impulse, no more to be resisted or controlled by him than the decrees of fate that there was a devil within him who prompted him to make himself ridiciilons, and that he conld no more gainsay this masterly spirit than fly in the air. For the rest of the ride he continued to practice this uncavnlierlike style of horsemanship, to the vast entertainment of sundry blackies we encountered working at small repairs on the aqueduct, or bringing down loads of sticks from the woods.

At length we. arrived at the last collection of. houses on the ascent, and here we left our horses, mounting the last steeps on foot. As soon ns we stool npon the rocky ball, and locked around us, overwhelmed by the grandeur and danger of the scene, I was full of exclamations. From the brim of the rock we stood on, the sight leaped down direct to fields and lagoons two or three thousand feet beneath us; and the precipices, from what I could see of them, made my blood cold. The vastness of the horizon, with the distance and'diversity of the parts filling it up—the silence, the solitude, the apparently eternal nature of the mighty rocks—even of the forests'—all these ideas, combined with the precarious nature of onr position on this airy and often cloud-covered pinnacle,' and the certain dreadful fate that awaited one who should topple from such a stupendous height (for on three sides were precipices of from one to two thousand feet), raised my mind to a very high state of excitement.- Bnt when I looked at Pereira, expecting to see in him an equal enjoyment, I observed his dark Portugese features pale with that tawny colour which constitutes the pallor of Southern Europeans ; his bloodless lips quivered, and there was a sort of convulsive starting of different muscles of his body. ‘ What,’ said I, ‘ you surely are .not afraid of falling ? Come near to the centre, and your head will not swim so much,’

Afraid !’ he replied vaguely and incoherently. ‘No •! y*s —afraid—for yon j save yourself, D—— ! for God’s sake, save yourself!’

‘Why, man, there is no fear; get you down first; [j you are nearest the path.

*No 1’ we shall never go down' that path—the demon, D——, the demon in my heart prompts me to throw you from this pinnacle sheer to destruction, and he will not but be obeyed ! O Mother of Deity ! Queen of Heaven ! look on me in mercy !’ As -he spoke," my heart smote my side violently, and I felt for a moment

sick to death ; for the recollection of his character and strange edcen tricities arose before my mind. 1 Gracious Heavens! said I, * yon cannot mean, what yon say V As I stood horrorstricken, he clasped his bands,..and . wringing them Slowly, but . with his 1 whole; strength, raised them above his head, looking upward at tho same time , with eyes sparkling from nhnatnral fitand grinding his teeth, as •‘j’ anguish, a moment, and * . , 11 ! howlof despair that m* , ' Vlth ' * mld c a vulture, he % ' a S hk® cr y °* mercy it wr -vmg a P on me 1 A warnin'*' u8 that he B ave me that: ! I was prepared so far, that onset - drove me back but one step; another step would have been death to m(» 1 He grasped me with his whole strength, and with the convulsive gripe of mortal fear. I closed upon him ; and thus, in dead embrace, we stood straining with the whole power of every sinew. It could not be called struggling; it was the slow and steady application of every'force and every art of two athletic young men striving, the one in the frenzy of madness, the other in the dread of immediate dissolution. Now be would bend me a little, now I him ! Oh what an agony that minute was to £1 r iSfdngtb, 1 in about two minutes, I knew that his strength was giving way we- were) equally matched in strength ; but I had the full chest and long wind,

produced by Imrd exercise through nil my* youth in a far northern cl mate ; he was narrow-chested, and soon began „to pant. Perceiving this I compressed his ribs with my Whole strength, and, berid r ing indiis bacltf, gradnally ;brought him" down v oh the rook. But the moment he was down' he commenced struggling violently,.and .rolled us both over towards the awful brink. I thought I was gone, clutched the rough rock with my fingers till the noils were torn from them. Providentially my hand came against one of the rusted iron supports that had of old upheld the chain, and I-grasped it with that clutch commonly called the death-gripe. Holding on by this, and''getting my legs about it so ns to have a good purchase, while he still struggled ceaselessly with: hand and teeth to dislodge me, I caught hold of the hair of his temples, and dashed hisi head violently against the rock. The blow affected his brain ; the eyes which, had just been glaring upon! mo in maniacal fury, now rolled obliquely in their sockets, and his motions were: no longer directed against me. With; both hands X repeated the.blow, and he. remained motionless; still I was not; sore of him, for I had read and heard that the.Xnsane are very cunning, and adopt many schemes to accomplish their ends; so,' putting one hand to his heart, able to , perceive only a very faint and scarcely discernable beating, I got up arid drew him to the middle of the rock. Then resting for a moment to breathe, and to thank Heaven that 1 had been saved aliVe from this fearful encounter, I began to descend the rock, dragging him after me till I got on a secure path, which I shouldered him, and carried him to where wo had left our horses. Hero I got some blacks to carry him down to the city of Rio Janeiro, and conveyed 'him'to the house of onr mutual employer, Mr Brown. As we were quite by ourselves, I might have accounted for his injuries by a supposed fall among the rocks, but I preferred telling the truth ns it is written here. An enquiry was made according to the law of Brazil, and I was declared free of all blame; whilst Pereira, who was then recovering his bodily health, .was condemned to restraint in a mad-bouse for life. I never afterwards could lookup to the pinnacles of Corcovado without feelings of horror being called up in my mind; and so painful was this to me, that I was ultimately led to transport myself and my fortunes to Monte Video.