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Having received his instructions, he departed for Peru and arrived at Nombre de Dios, where he resided for some time for the purpose of suppressing a band of fugitive negroes, called Cimarrones who lived in the mountains, and robbed and pillaged the merchants and others on the road between Nombre de Dios and Panama.
And now all was bustle and activity; the boats were brought alongside the bank of the stream, and while their captors scrambled ashore and hastily resumed their clothing, armour, and weapons, the other contingent, assisted by the Cimarrones, carefully stowed their belongings in varying proportions in the several row-boats.
Lukabela, petty chieftain of the Cimarrones, was certainly a very fine and imposing figure of a man, as tall as George, with a body and limbs that might have been modelled by a Greek sculptor, and a rather small head.
As soon as it was light enough to see, the crew, refreshed by a whole night's rest, went to breakfast; immediately after which they turned to, under the supervision of Basset and the boatswain, to make every necessary preparation for the boat attack upon Nombre de Dios, while George and Dyer, armed to the teeth, were put ashore and went in quest of the Cimarrones.
All that now remained was to suitably reward the Cimarrones for their services, and this George did upon so lavish a scale that Lukabela there and then vowed to hold himself and his tribe henceforth at the service of any and every Englishman who might visit those waters.
And when, after a refreshing bath and a still more refreshing sleep, the Englishmen were awakened about two o'clock, behold! those faithful and indefatigable allies the Cimarrones had provided a delicious hot meal for their delectation, consisting of the choicest portions of two freshly-killed deer, which, having been first wrapped in clay, were afterwards baked in the embers of the fire, thus completely retaining all the natural juices of the meat and rendering it incomparably delicate, tender and tasty.
The evening of the second day witnessed the completion of the preparations for the Englishmen's daring descent upon Panama; and within an hour after sunrise on the following day the entire party, with fifty Cimarrones under Lukabela, and a train of twenty mules, also furnished by the Cimarrone chief, mustered on the beach of the little secret cove and made their final preparations for the march.
But after some twenty-five minutes of tense anxiety the little flotilla rounded a bend in the stream and the worst of the danger was past, while another twenty minutes brought them up abreast the bamboo clump where their comrades and the Cimarrones were anxiously awaiting them.
To men like themselves, seamen, accustomed day after day, for months at a time, to the sight of the open sky, the boundless sea, the invigorating breath of the salt wind, and the feeling of a heaving deck beneath their feet, it was a novelty to be trudging upon firm ground along a forest path, enveloped in the mystery of soft green twilight, with dense masses of foliage overhead shutting out all sight of the sky except at infrequent intervals, their horizon bounded by the leafy brake within arm's reach of them on either hand, and to breathe the hot, close atmosphere of the woods, pungent with many strange odours; to listen to the silence of the forest, accentuated rather than broken by the sounds of their passage, and the low singing hum of innumerable myriads of invisible insects; to start as a sudden whirr of wings directed their attention to some brilliant plumaged bird seen for an instant flashing athwart their ken like a living gem and then vanishing they scarcely knew whither; to behold the countless strange forms and curious colours of the flowers that sprang beneath their feet or hung in festoons from the lofty branches overhead; to hear the mysterious sounds that occasionally came to them from the forest on either hand; and to slake their thirst by devouring the strange but luscious fruits indicated by their friends the Cimarrones and partaken of at first doubtfully and with extremest caution.
Then, in single file, distant from each other about fifty yards, went five other Cimarrones in the track of the leader, their duty being to watch for and transmit to the main body any signals which the leader might make.
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