The New World Read Free

our Island and into the Bay of Mexico, how it had swept us north in the final part of its rampage, how this meant we must be—where in America, exactly? I remembered Mr. Clarke again. I saw the map he had shown us. I saw the Bay of Mexico like a gigantic mouth, and on the northern shore the long spit of Florida, Louisiana with its marvelous big river, the desert of Texas.
    Then I looked up. “We are in Texas!” I said, like a conjuror producing a bird from his hat.
    Was there ever a stranger geography lesson? We were guessing at territories, knowing we might be killed any minute.
    “Which means…” I went on, “it will be easier for us to get home.”
    “Why on earth?” Natty asked.
    “Because the English are in America.”
    “The English are everywhere,” Natty said, as if our countrymen made no difference to anything. But I did not want to hear this. I felt so encouraged to know where I stood on the earth, I turned back to the Indians and lit up a smile.
    It was well meant but not well done; it made them decide they had waited and watched long enough, and now should begin strutting forward—which they did while bunching closer together, and bulging their eyes, and wrinkling their foreheads, and sticking out their tongues. I thought the cliff behind them had come to life and its demons had leaped down to hurt us.
    Natty was more sensible. Letting go of my hand, she picked up two stones from the beach and weighed them to show she was wondering which might be the better to throw.
    This at least made the men stop still and give up their eye-rolling and tongue-waggling. Instead they began a strange chant: a very ugly sound, like wild dogs yowling for food.
    “Natty.” I put one hand on her arm. “We must show them we’re friends.”
    “But how, Jim?” Her calmness had all disappeared and she sounded faint with fear.
    “By doing nothing,” I said, but she never heard me because the chant had reached its climax, which was a loud explosion of yelps, with the Indians shaking their bows above their heads.
    Natty threw down her own weapons at once—her poor stones—and when they saw this the Indians finished making their noise and looked at us carefully for the first time, as though they were only now noticing the different colors of our skin, and our ragged clothes, and our bare feet, and our bedraggled hair and our bruises.
    I thought they had taken pity on us and began hobbling forward, but this only made them lose patience. A moment ago we had been fellow creatures sucked from the ocean by the storm; now we were intruders and they felt free to hate us.
    Two of the men stayed as they were, gripping their spears straight up at their sides like guards, while the other ten hurtled toward us screaming at the tops of their voices; the insides of their mouths were stained black as ink.
    Natty and I raised our fists—ready for them, but in truth very pathetic. No matter, though; instead of knocking us down the men tore straight past; to my amazement they did not even glance at us; we might not have existed.
    Were they like cats, deciding to murder us slowly? That was my thought, but when I turned to look—when I cringed and looked, I should say—I saw the men were still sprinting toward the sea, still ignoring us, and only pausing when they reached the water’s edge. Here they made a huddle again, chattering urgently before breaking apart and scampering along the shoreline, one of them stopping every few yards until they stood at regular intervals around the whole crescent of the bay.
    Was it the wreck they wanted to loot, was that all? And if so, were we free to leave? I glanced back at the two men left to guard us, but they were scowling and gripping their spears more tightly than ever. Daring us to run, I thought, so they could skewer us, then hack us to pieces.
    The idea was so frightening we stayed perfectly still.
    A minute passed and none of us moved, or took our eyes from each other.
    Another