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Cornugaya Directory 09
Page 06
Benedicto was certainly very plucky that day. All of a sudden he dashed
inside the tree and proceeded to climb up. We heard wild screams for some
minutes; evidently the bees were protecting their home well. While
Filippe and I were seated outside, smiling faintly at poor Benedicto's
plight, he reappeared. We hardly recognized him when he emerged from the
tree, so badly stung and swollen was his face, notwithstanding the
protection he had over it. All he brought back was a small piece of the
honeycomb about as large as a florin. What little honey there was inside
was quite putrid, but we divided it into three equal parts and devoured
it ravenously, bees and all. A moment later all three of us were seized
with vomiting, so that the meagre meal was worse than nothing to us.
On September 10th--that was the seventh day of our involuntary fast--we
had another dreary march, again without a morsel of food. My men were so
downhearted that I really thought they would not last much longer. Hunger
was playing on them in a curious way. They said that they could hear
voices all round them and people firing rifles. I could hear nothing at
all. I well knew that their minds were beginning to go, and that it was a
pure hallucination. Benedicto and Filippe, who originally were both
atheists of an advanced type, had now become extremely religious, and
were muttering fervent prayers all the time. They made a vow that if we
escaped alive they would each give L5 sterling out of their pay to have a
big mass celebrated in the first church they saw.
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