Chapter Thirty Six.The Alarm.That evening, as usual, Don Estevan watched in his tent, while his people reposed. By the light of a smoky candle, the Spaniard, in spite of the modest appearance of his lodgings and of his dust-covered clothes, seemed to have lost nothing of the dignity of his appearance or of his grand air. His complexion, more sunburnt than usual, gave his countenance a still more energetic character. He appeared pensive, but his thoughts were no longer so uneasy as they had been; on the eve, after so many dangers, of realising his vast designs, Don Estevan had, for the time at least, shaken off gloomy thoughts, and fixed his mind on the hope of a success which he believed infallible.He had raised the canvas, which served as a door, in order to glance upon the men who reposed around, and seemed to wish to compare his means of action with the aim he was pursuing.“Nearly twenty years ago,” thought he, “I commanded a party of sailors, nearly equal in number, and as determined as these. I was then only an obscure younger son, and they aided me to recover my inheritance—yes, it was mine. But I was then in the flower of my age, and had an aim in the future to pursue. I have attained this aim—I have even surpassed it; and now that I have nothing more to desire, I find myself, in my mature age, scouring the desert as I formerly scoured the sea. Why?”The conscience of Mediana cried to him, that it was in order to forget one day of his life, but at that moment he wished to remain deaf to its voice. The moon shone upon the firearms piled in the centre of the camp, and cast its light upon sixty men inured to peril and fatigue, and who laughed at heat and thirst. In the distance a luminous vapour rested upon the mountains beyond which lay the Golden Valley.“Why?” repeated Don Estevan; “because there remains to me still an immense treasure and a vast kingdom to conquer.”The eyes of Mediana sparkled with pride; then this expression passed away, and he fixed on the horizon a melancholy look.“And yet,” continued he, “what of this treasure shall I keep for myself? Nothing. The crown will be placed on the head of another, and I shall not even have a son or any descendant bearing the name of Mediana, who one day might bow before my portrait and say, ‘This man could be tempted neither by gold nor by a throne.’ But they will say it of me now, and is not that enough?”At this moment Pedro Diaz raised the door of the tent, and said, “You sent for me, Señor Don Estevan?”“I wish to speak to you of important things, which I could not do yesterday, and ought to do to-day; I have some questions to ask; and although this is the hour for repose, they must not be adjourned. If I do not deceive myself, Diaz, you are one of those men who repose only when they have nothing better to do. The ambitious are such,” added Don Estevan, with a smile.“I am not ambitious, Señor,” replied the adventurer quietly.“You are so without knowing it, Diaz; and I will prove it to you, presently. But first tell me what you think of this distant firing?”“Men meet on the sea whose surface is incomparably more extensive than that of this desert; it is not astonishing that they should meet here. Travellers and Indians have encountered one another, and are fighting.”“That is what I think. One more question and then we will return to the first subject which I have at heart. Has Cuchillo returned?”“No, Señor, and I much fear that we have lost the guide who has conducted us till now.”“And to what do you attribute this strange absence?” asked Don Estevan, with an anxious look.“Probably he has gone too far upon the track of the Apaches, and has been surprised by them. In that ease his absence may prove eternal, in spite of the fires which we have lighted for two days to show him our encampment.”“Is that really your idea?” said the chief, looking fixedly at Diaz.“It is; although, to say the truth, Cuchillo is one of those people whom one is rarely wrong in accusing of perfidy; but I do not see what object he could have in betraying us.”Don Estevan pointed to the fog which hid the tops of the mountains in the horizon. “The neighbourhood of those mountains,” said he, “might explain the absence of Cuchillo.” Then, with a changed tone, “Are our men still of the same mind.”“Yes, Señor, and have more confidence than ever, in the chief who watches while they sleep, and fights like the humblest of them.”“I have battled in many parts of the world,” said Don Estevan, sensible to praise, the sincerity of which he believed in, “and I have rarely commanded men more determined than these. Would they were five hundred instead of sixty, for then on the return of this expedition my projects would be easy of accomplishment.”“I am ignorant what these projects are, of which you now speak to me for the first time,” said Diaz in a reserved tone. “But perhaps Don Estevan thinks me ambitious, only because he does me the honour to judge me by himself.”“It is possible, friend Diaz,” replied Don Estevan, smiling; “the first time that I saw you I thought that your mind was of the same stamp as my own. We are made to understand each other, I am sure.”The Mexican had all the vivacious intelligence of his country; he had judged Don Estevan, but he waited for him to take the initiative. He therefore bowed and kept silence.The Spaniard pushed open the curtains of the tent, and, pointing one more to the horizon, “Another day’s march,” said he; “and we shall encamp at the foot of those mountains.”“Yes, we are scarcely six leagues distant.”“And do you know what is below that mass of fog which crowns their top?”“No,” replied the Mexican.Don Estevan cast upon Diaz a look which seemed as if meant to penetrate his soul, at the moment of revealing a secret until then so carefully kept. The Spaniard wished to assure himself that the confidant he was about to choose was worthy of his confidence. The honest look of Diaz—on whose countenance could be traced none of that cupidity which spurred on his companions—reassured him, and he went on:“Well, it is towards those mountains that we have been marching. I shall now tell you why I have directed the expedition to this place, as the pilot conducts the ship to some point in the ocean known only to himself; this evening you shall read my mind clearly. That mass of fog, which the sun itself will not wholly disperse, serves as a veil to treasures which have been amassing perhaps from the beginning of the world. For centuries the rains have been washing them into the plains: the whites only suspected, and the Indians spared them; to-morrow they shall be ours! This has been my aim. Well, Diaz! do you not fall on your knees to thank God for being one of those called to share in these treasures?”“No,” replied Diaz, simply; “cupidity would not have made me brave the dangers that a wish for revenge has done. I would have sought from the work of my arms what others seek by easier, if by less sure, methods. But the Indians have ravaged my fields, pillaged my flocks, and murdered my father and brothers. Of my people I alone escaped. Since that time I have made fierce war upon the savages, have slain many, have sold their sons by dozens, and it is still the hope of vengeance which brings me here—neither ambition nor cupidity. But I love my country and all that I should care for riches would be to enable me to make a last effort against that distant congress which tyrannises over but cannot protect us.”“Good! friend Diaz!” cried the Spaniard, holding out his hand to the adventurer, and then added with vehemence:“Strong by the aid of this gold, I will confide my plans to those sixty men now buried in sleep. On our return our numbers will swell like the stream which widens as it flows, and we shall shake off the yoke of a capital—which is capable only of constantly changing its men and its principles.”Don Estevan had already noticed, in former conversations with Diaz, his great hatred of the federal system, but wishing to be sure whether or not it was founded on personal motives, he continued—“The congress is far from you, and the government of Mexico has neither troops nor money to protect provinces so distant as yours. Is that the only reproach you have to make of it!”“The only reproach! No. Independence is for us but an empty name, and we have to bear only the burden of a distant government.”Don Estevan now unveiled to Diaz the project which he had discussed with the Senator. Then passing from principles to persons, he named the King, Don Carlos, as him whom they were to introduce.“A king! King Charles! so be it,” replied Diaz, “but we shall have many obstacles to overcome.”“Less than you imagine, Diaz. Gold will level all obstacles, and to-morrow we shall gather it by handfuls. We will pave the way to the new kingdom with gold, and pay largely the founders and guardians of a throne which will want only its king.”Thus, as he had promised his master, the bold partisan laid, even in the desert, the foundation of a future dynasty. What the influence of the Senator was to effect in the congress, that of a man renowned by his exploits was to obtain from his equals.After this conversation Diaz retired to seek repose from his fatigues, and Don Estevan accompanied him out of the tent. The latter threw around him a glance of tranquil pride; all obstacles were surmounted, the incessant vigilance of the Indians had been eluded, thanks to Diaz, and an immense treasure, untouched since the commencement of the world, awaited only the hands which were about to be extended to seize it.“See!” said he, “from those will rise the elements of a new kingdom, and our names will belong to history. Now I have but one fear—that is, treachery on the part of Cuchillo—and you will share this fear with me when you hear that it is he who sold me the secret of this golden deposit.”Diaz was looking earnestly at the plain.“There!” cried he, “I see a man approaching at full gallop: it is Gayferos or Cuchillo?”“Pray God it be the latter,” said Don Estevan. “I prefer having him near rather than far from my sight.”“I think I recognise his grey horse.”In a minute, indeed, they recognised Cuchillo himself.“To arms! to arms!” cried the guide, “here are the Indians,” and he rushed precipitately through the opening made for him by the sentinels.“Cuchillo! the Indians! both names of bad augury,” said Don Estevan, as he turned towards his companion.
That evening, as usual, Don Estevan watched in his tent, while his people reposed. By the light of a smoky candle, the Spaniard, in spite of the modest appearance of his lodgings and of his dust-covered clothes, seemed to have lost nothing of the dignity of his appearance or of his grand air. His complexion, more sunburnt than usual, gave his countenance a still more energetic character. He appeared pensive, but his thoughts were no longer so uneasy as they had been; on the eve, after so many dangers, of realising his vast designs, Don Estevan had, for the time at least, shaken off gloomy thoughts, and fixed his mind on the hope of a success which he believed infallible.
He had raised the canvas, which served as a door, in order to glance upon the men who reposed around, and seemed to wish to compare his means of action with the aim he was pursuing.
“Nearly twenty years ago,” thought he, “I commanded a party of sailors, nearly equal in number, and as determined as these. I was then only an obscure younger son, and they aided me to recover my inheritance—yes, it was mine. But I was then in the flower of my age, and had an aim in the future to pursue. I have attained this aim—I have even surpassed it; and now that I have nothing more to desire, I find myself, in my mature age, scouring the desert as I formerly scoured the sea. Why?”
The conscience of Mediana cried to him, that it was in order to forget one day of his life, but at that moment he wished to remain deaf to its voice. The moon shone upon the firearms piled in the centre of the camp, and cast its light upon sixty men inured to peril and fatigue, and who laughed at heat and thirst. In the distance a luminous vapour rested upon the mountains beyond which lay the Golden Valley.
“Why?” repeated Don Estevan; “because there remains to me still an immense treasure and a vast kingdom to conquer.”
The eyes of Mediana sparkled with pride; then this expression passed away, and he fixed on the horizon a melancholy look.
“And yet,” continued he, “what of this treasure shall I keep for myself? Nothing. The crown will be placed on the head of another, and I shall not even have a son or any descendant bearing the name of Mediana, who one day might bow before my portrait and say, ‘This man could be tempted neither by gold nor by a throne.’ But they will say it of me now, and is not that enough?”
At this moment Pedro Diaz raised the door of the tent, and said, “You sent for me, Señor Don Estevan?”
“I wish to speak to you of important things, which I could not do yesterday, and ought to do to-day; I have some questions to ask; and although this is the hour for repose, they must not be adjourned. If I do not deceive myself, Diaz, you are one of those men who repose only when they have nothing better to do. The ambitious are such,” added Don Estevan, with a smile.
“I am not ambitious, Señor,” replied the adventurer quietly.
“You are so without knowing it, Diaz; and I will prove it to you, presently. But first tell me what you think of this distant firing?”
“Men meet on the sea whose surface is incomparably more extensive than that of this desert; it is not astonishing that they should meet here. Travellers and Indians have encountered one another, and are fighting.”
“That is what I think. One more question and then we will return to the first subject which I have at heart. Has Cuchillo returned?”
“No, Señor, and I much fear that we have lost the guide who has conducted us till now.”
“And to what do you attribute this strange absence?” asked Don Estevan, with an anxious look.
“Probably he has gone too far upon the track of the Apaches, and has been surprised by them. In that ease his absence may prove eternal, in spite of the fires which we have lighted for two days to show him our encampment.”
“Is that really your idea?” said the chief, looking fixedly at Diaz.
“It is; although, to say the truth, Cuchillo is one of those people whom one is rarely wrong in accusing of perfidy; but I do not see what object he could have in betraying us.”
Don Estevan pointed to the fog which hid the tops of the mountains in the horizon. “The neighbourhood of those mountains,” said he, “might explain the absence of Cuchillo.” Then, with a changed tone, “Are our men still of the same mind.”
“Yes, Señor, and have more confidence than ever, in the chief who watches while they sleep, and fights like the humblest of them.”
“I have battled in many parts of the world,” said Don Estevan, sensible to praise, the sincerity of which he believed in, “and I have rarely commanded men more determined than these. Would they were five hundred instead of sixty, for then on the return of this expedition my projects would be easy of accomplishment.”
“I am ignorant what these projects are, of which you now speak to me for the first time,” said Diaz in a reserved tone. “But perhaps Don Estevan thinks me ambitious, only because he does me the honour to judge me by himself.”
“It is possible, friend Diaz,” replied Don Estevan, smiling; “the first time that I saw you I thought that your mind was of the same stamp as my own. We are made to understand each other, I am sure.”
The Mexican had all the vivacious intelligence of his country; he had judged Don Estevan, but he waited for him to take the initiative. He therefore bowed and kept silence.
The Spaniard pushed open the curtains of the tent, and, pointing one more to the horizon, “Another day’s march,” said he; “and we shall encamp at the foot of those mountains.”
“Yes, we are scarcely six leagues distant.”
“And do you know what is below that mass of fog which crowns their top?”
“No,” replied the Mexican.
Don Estevan cast upon Diaz a look which seemed as if meant to penetrate his soul, at the moment of revealing a secret until then so carefully kept. The Spaniard wished to assure himself that the confidant he was about to choose was worthy of his confidence. The honest look of Diaz—on whose countenance could be traced none of that cupidity which spurred on his companions—reassured him, and he went on:
“Well, it is towards those mountains that we have been marching. I shall now tell you why I have directed the expedition to this place, as the pilot conducts the ship to some point in the ocean known only to himself; this evening you shall read my mind clearly. That mass of fog, which the sun itself will not wholly disperse, serves as a veil to treasures which have been amassing perhaps from the beginning of the world. For centuries the rains have been washing them into the plains: the whites only suspected, and the Indians spared them; to-morrow they shall be ours! This has been my aim. Well, Diaz! do you not fall on your knees to thank God for being one of those called to share in these treasures?”
“No,” replied Diaz, simply; “cupidity would not have made me brave the dangers that a wish for revenge has done. I would have sought from the work of my arms what others seek by easier, if by less sure, methods. But the Indians have ravaged my fields, pillaged my flocks, and murdered my father and brothers. Of my people I alone escaped. Since that time I have made fierce war upon the savages, have slain many, have sold their sons by dozens, and it is still the hope of vengeance which brings me here—neither ambition nor cupidity. But I love my country and all that I should care for riches would be to enable me to make a last effort against that distant congress which tyrannises over but cannot protect us.”
“Good! friend Diaz!” cried the Spaniard, holding out his hand to the adventurer, and then added with vehemence:
“Strong by the aid of this gold, I will confide my plans to those sixty men now buried in sleep. On our return our numbers will swell like the stream which widens as it flows, and we shall shake off the yoke of a capital—which is capable only of constantly changing its men and its principles.”
Don Estevan had already noticed, in former conversations with Diaz, his great hatred of the federal system, but wishing to be sure whether or not it was founded on personal motives, he continued—
“The congress is far from you, and the government of Mexico has neither troops nor money to protect provinces so distant as yours. Is that the only reproach you have to make of it!”
“The only reproach! No. Independence is for us but an empty name, and we have to bear only the burden of a distant government.”
Don Estevan now unveiled to Diaz the project which he had discussed with the Senator. Then passing from principles to persons, he named the King, Don Carlos, as him whom they were to introduce.
“A king! King Charles! so be it,” replied Diaz, “but we shall have many obstacles to overcome.”
“Less than you imagine, Diaz. Gold will level all obstacles, and to-morrow we shall gather it by handfuls. We will pave the way to the new kingdom with gold, and pay largely the founders and guardians of a throne which will want only its king.”
Thus, as he had promised his master, the bold partisan laid, even in the desert, the foundation of a future dynasty. What the influence of the Senator was to effect in the congress, that of a man renowned by his exploits was to obtain from his equals.
After this conversation Diaz retired to seek repose from his fatigues, and Don Estevan accompanied him out of the tent. The latter threw around him a glance of tranquil pride; all obstacles were surmounted, the incessant vigilance of the Indians had been eluded, thanks to Diaz, and an immense treasure, untouched since the commencement of the world, awaited only the hands which were about to be extended to seize it.
“See!” said he, “from those will rise the elements of a new kingdom, and our names will belong to history. Now I have but one fear—that is, treachery on the part of Cuchillo—and you will share this fear with me when you hear that it is he who sold me the secret of this golden deposit.”
Diaz was looking earnestly at the plain.
“There!” cried he, “I see a man approaching at full gallop: it is Gayferos or Cuchillo?”
“Pray God it be the latter,” said Don Estevan. “I prefer having him near rather than far from my sight.”
“I think I recognise his grey horse.”
In a minute, indeed, they recognised Cuchillo himself.
“To arms! to arms!” cried the guide, “here are the Indians,” and he rushed precipitately through the opening made for him by the sentinels.
“Cuchillo! the Indians! both names of bad augury,” said Don Estevan, as he turned towards his companion.
Chapter Thirty Seven.The Attack.At the cry of Cuchillo, which resounded throughout the camp, the Spaniard and Diaz exchanged looks of intelligence.“It is strange that the Indians should have found our trail again?” said Don Estevan, interrogatively.“Very strange,” replied Diaz, and without saying another word, both descended from the eminence, on which they stood.The camp was already in motion, and confusion reigned everywhere; there was a general movement among these intrepid men, who were accustomed to such surprises, and who had already more than once measured their strength with their implacable enemies. Each armed hastily, but soon the tumult subsided, and all stationed themselves at the posts assigned to them in case of attack. The first who interrogated Cuchillo were the shepherd and Baraja.“Unless you drew the Indians on to our track, how could they have discovered us?” said the former, with a suspicious look.“Certainly it was I,” replied Cuchillo, impudently. “I should have liked to have seen you pursued by a hundred, of these demons, and whether you would not, like me, have galloped to the camp to seek an asylum!”“In such a case,” replied Benito, severely, “a man to save his companions, does not fly, but gives up his life sooner than betray them. I should have done so.”“Every one in his own way,” replied Cuchillo, “but I have an account to render only to the chief, and not to his servants.”“Yes,” murmured the other, “a coward and a traitor can but commit baseness and perfidies.”“Are the Indians numerous?” asked Baraja.“I had not time to count them; all that I know is that they must be near.”And crossing the camp he proceeded to where Don Estevan—after having attended to the most important precautions—stood at the door of his tent waiting for him. As Cuchillo went on without replying to any of the questions with which he was assailed, a man advanced with a lighted torch in his hand to set fire to the fagots piled in various places, but Don Estevan cried—“Not yet; it is, perhaps, a false alarm, and until we have the certainty of attack we must not light up the camp to betray ourselves.”At the words “false alarm,” a smile played over Cuchillo’s features.“However,” added Don Estevan, “let every one saddle his horse and be prepared.” Then he returned to his tent, making a sign to Diaz to accompany him.“That means, friend Baraja,” said Benito, “that if the orders are given to light the fires, we are sure to be attacked—at night too; it is terrible.”“Who knows that better than I?” said Baraja, “have you ever been present at such a thing?”“Never; that is why I dread it so much.”“Well, if you had, you would dread it more.”Cuchillo, as he drew near the tent, arranged his countenance and threw back his long hair—as though the wind had blown it about in his rapid flight—and then entered the tent like a man out of breath and pretending to wipe the perspiration from his forehead. Oroche had glided in with Diaz.Cuchillo’s story was brief: in reconnoitring the places towards which the expedition should advance, he had gone further than was prudent.Diaz interrupted him.“I had taken such precautions to deceive the Indians by false tracks,” said he, “I had so misled them, that you must have quitted the line of march and gone from right to left.”“Yes,” replied the outlaw, “I lost my way, deceived by the monotony of these endless plains where each hillock resembles the other.”“What!” cried Diaz, ironically. “Had a dweller in cities been so deceived it might be believed; but you—fear must have thrown a mist before your eyes!”“Fear!” replied Cuchillo; “I know it no more than you do.”“Then you must be growing shortsighted, Señor Cuchillo.”“However it happened, I lost myself; and, but for the column of smoke, I should not have regained my way so quickly. I was, however, forced to make a circuit on perceiving a party of Indians, and only owe the start I have got upon them to the speed of my good horse.”As he spoke, Don Estevan frowned more than once. Oroche left the tent, but immediately re-entering, said—“The Indians are there! Look at those black shadows on the plain over which the moon throws a distant light; those are men sent to reconnoitre our encampment.”Over the sand of the desert they could indeed see men on horseback advancing, and then disappearing in the shadows of the sand heaps.Pedro Diaz consulted an instant with Don Estevan, and then cried loudly—“Light the fires everywhere! we must count our enemies.”A few minutes after, a red light, almost as bright as the sun, lit up the whole camp, and showed the adventurers at their post, rifles in hand; while the horses stood saddled and bridled, only waiting for their riders in case of a sortie being necessary. At the same time Don Estevan’s tent was struck, and a calm succeeded to the tumult.The desert was silent also; the moon no longer shone on the Indians, who had all disappeared like a bad dream chased away by the return of morning. It was a dead silence—the precursor of the storm—and there seemed in this silence something fearful. It did not announce one of those surprises in which an enemy inferior in number disguises his weakness under the impetuosity of his attack, and ready to run if he is resisted: it was the respite before the combat, granted by pitiless enemies, preparing for a deadly struggle.“Yes, trust to me,” said old Benito to Baraja, “in a quarter of an hour you will hear the howlings of these red devils sound in your ears like the trumpets of the last judgment!”“Carramba! you are the most skilled man about tigers and Indians that I ever met with, but you might be more consoling. I wish to God I could doubt the truth of your words!”“There are some things always easy to foresee,” continued the old man. “One may predict to the traveller who goes to sleep in a bed of a torrent that he will be carried away by the waters; and that Indians who have discovered their enemies will draw off a little, and count their men before making an attack. One may also predict that several of them will utter their death-cry, as many among us will have to say their last prayer; but who those will be no one can say. Do you know any prayers for the dying, Señor Baraja?”“No,” replied the latter, dolefully.“I am sorry for that; those are little services that friends may render each other, and if I had the grief, as is very possible, of seeing you first scalped then murdered—”Further conversation was interrupted by outcries which seemed drawing near to the camp. In spite of the terrifying words of the old shepherd, hissang froidin the greatest perils and his resolution full of consoling fatalism, sustained the more wavering courage of Baraja.As he shuddered at the horrible sounds—which must be heard to be appreciated—he cast upon Benito a glance in order to catch from him a little of his philosophy. For the first time a cloud of sadness appeared on the ex-herdsman’s brow, and his eyes looked as though tears stood in them. Baraja was struck by the change, and laid his head upon the old man’s arm. Benito raised his head.“I understand you,” said he, “but man has his moments of weakness. I am like him who is called from his hearth by the sound of the trumpet at a time he least thought to quit it. Amidst those howls I hear from above the sound of the last trumpet calling me, and although I am old, it grieves me to go. I leave neither wife nor children to regret, nor those who would weep for me; but there is an old companion of my solitary life from whom I cannot separate without grief. It is at least a consolation for the Indian warrior to know that his war-horse will share his tomb, and to believe that he shall find him again in the land of spirits. How many times have we scoured the woods and the plains together. How often have we borne together heat, hunger, and thirst! This old and faithful friend is my horse, as you may have guessed. I give him to you, friend Baraja. Treat him kindly—love him as I love him, and he will love you as he loves me. His companion was killed by a tiger, and he will now be left alone.”So saying, the old man pointed to a noble courser, champing his bit proudly, among the other horses. He then went towards him, caressed him, and, this moment of weakness over, his countenance recovered its habitual serenity. As he recovered his calmness, he renewed his predictions, careless of the terror he excited in others.“Listen!” said he to Baraja; “to recompense you for the care you will take of my old friend, I shall teach you, while there is still time, a verse of the psalm for the dying, that may serve you as—”“Well!” said Baraja, as he did not go on, “what more terrifying things have you to say?”Benito did not reply, but his companion felt him press his arm convulsively, and then the sight which struck Baraja was more terrible than any answer. The old man’s eyes were rolling wildly, and he was vainly trying to stanch the blood which flowed from a wound made by an arrow that had just pierced his throat.He fell, crying: “What is ordained must happen. No,” added he, repulsing the assistance that Baraja was endeavouring to render him, “my hour is come—remember—my old friend—” and the flowing blood cut short his speech.At that moment the best mounted among the Indians showed themselves in the moonlight. Travellers who have met only with civilised Indians can with difficulty form any idea of the savage tribes. Nothing less resembled those degenerate Indians than these unconquered sons of the desert; who—like the birds of prey, wheeling in the air before pouncing on their victims—rode howling around the camp. Their figures hideously marked with paint, were visible from time to time; their long hair streaming in the wind, their cloaks of skins floating in their rapid course, and their piercing cries of defiance and bravado, giving them the appearance of demons, to whom they have justly been compared.There were few among the Mexicans who had not some revenge to take on these indefatigable spoilers, but none of them were animated by such deadly hatred as Pedro Diaz. The sight of his enemies produced on him the effect that scarlet does on a bull, and he could scarcely refrain from indulging in one of those exploits which had rendered his name formidable to their tribes. But it was necessary to set an example of discipline, and he curbed his impatience. Besides, the moment of attack could not be far off, and the superior position of the gold-seekers compensated for the inequality of their numbers.After having assigned to each his post behind the intrenchments, Don Estevan placed on the rising ground, where his tent had stood, those of his men whose rifles carried farthest, or whose sight was the best, and the fires gave light enough for their aim. As for himself, his post was everywhere.The piercing eyes of the Indians, and the reports of those who had preceded them had doubtless instructed them as to the position of the whites. For a moment an indecision seemed to reign among them, but the truce did not last long. After a short interval of silence, a hundred voices at once shrieked out the war-cry; the earth trembled under an avalanche of galloping horses; and amidst a shower of balls, stones, and arrows, the camp was surrounded on three sides by a disorderly multitude. But a well-sustained fire proceeded from the top of the hill.Under this murderous discharge riderless horses were seen galloping over the plain, and riders disengaging themselves from their wounded steeds. Before long, however, the combat became one of hand to hand; the Mexicans behind their carts, the Indians trying to scale them.Oroche, Baraja, and Pedro Diaz pressed one against the other, sometimes retiring to avoid the long lances of their enemies—sometimes advancing and striking in their turn—encouraging each other, and never pausing but to glance at their chief. As already stated, the report had vaguely spread that he knew the secret of the immense riches, and cupidity supplied to Oroche and Baraja the place of enthusiasm.“Carramba!” cried Baraja, “a man possessing such a secret should be invulnerable.”“Immortal!” said Oroche, “or only die after—”A blow from a hatchet on his head cut short his words. He fell to the ground, and but for the solidity of his hat, and the thickness of his hair, all had been over with him. His adversary, carried away by the violence of his own blow, placed his hand for support on the shafts of the cart which separated them. Diaz immediately seized the Indian’s arm, and leaning on the nave of the wheel, dragged him towards him with such force that he fell off his horse into camp; and, almost before he touched the ground, the Mexican’s sword severed his head from his body.Useless now on their elevated position—for themêléewas so thick that their shots might have been as fatal to friends as foes—the sharpshooters had come down and mingled with the other combatants.In the corner of the intrenchments where they stood, Don Estevan and Cuchillo had to sustain an attack not less furious. The first, while he defended himself, yet cast an eye over the whole of the intrenchments; but it was with the greatest difficulty that amidst the tumult he could make heard his orders and advice. More than once his double-barrelled rifle of English make—and which he loaded and discharged with wonderful rapidity—stayed the knife or axe which was menacing one of his men—a feat which was greeted each time with loud hurrahs. He was, in a word, what the adventurers had seen him from the beginning of this dangerous campaign, the chief who thought of all, and the chief who feared nothing.Accompanied by his horse, which followed his movements with the intelligence of a spaniel, Cuchillo stood behind the chief—as much out of the way as possible—with more prudence than bravery. He seemed to be following with an anxious eye the chances of attack and defence: when all at once he tottered as though struck by a mortal wound, and fell heavily behind the carts. This incident passed almost unperceived amidst the confusion—every one being in so much danger as to be able to think only of himself.“There is a coward the less,” said Don Estevan, coldly, while Cuchillo’s horse drew near him with a terrified air.For some minutes Cuchillo remained motionless; then, little by little, he raised his head and cast around him a glance which seemed undimmed by the approach of death. A few minutes after, he rose on his feet, like a man to whom death lends some strength at the last, and apparently, mortally hurt, his hand on his breast, as though endeavouring to retain the spark of life ready to escape, tottered backwards, and then fell again some way off. His horse followed him once more; and then, if every one had not been too much occupied, they might have seen the outlaw rolling over and over towards an open place in the intrenchments. He then stopped again; and finally glided under the cart wheels out of the camp.There he rose upon his legs as firm as ever, while a smile of joy played over his lips. The darkness and the tumult favoured his manoeuvre. He silently unfastened the iron chains of two carts, and opened a passage. He whistled and his horse glided after him; in a second he was in the saddle, almost without touching the stirrup; when after a moment’s thought, he spurred on the animal, who set off like the wind, and horse and rider soon disappeared in the darkness!On both sides of the intrenchment corpses covered the ground; half burnt-out piles of wood cast their red light upon the bloody scenes of this struggle; the shouts of enemies, the repeated discharge of firearms, and the whistling of bullets followed each other uninterruptedly. The hideous figures of the Indians looked more hideous still in the strange light.One point in the intrenchment had given way before the incessant attacks; and here, dead or wounded, its defenders had yielded to enemies who seemed to swarm from the ground. At this point there was an instant of horrible confusion. Apêle mêleof bodies interlaced, over which appeared the plumes of the Indian warriors. Soon, however, the line of the adventurers, broken for an instant, reformed before a group of Indians who were rushing like wild beasts into the middle of the camp.Oroche and Baraja left the point which they were still defending, and found themselves face to face with their enemies, this time with nothing to separate them. Amidst the group of Indians, whose lances and hatchets fell indiscriminately upon horses, mules and men, the chief was recognisable by his vast height, the painting of his face and his great strength.It was the second time that he had faced the whites since the commencement of the campaign, and his name was known to them.“Here, Diaz,” cried Baraja, “here is theSpotted Cat!”At the name of Diaz, which had already reached him, the Indian chief looked round for him who bore it, with eyes which seemed to dart flames, and raised his lance to strike Diaz, when a blow from Oroche’s knife wounded his horse. The Indian thrown to the ground, let fall his lance. Diaz seized it, and while the chief raised himself on one knee and endeavoured to draw his sword, the lance which he had dropped, pierced his naked breast, and came out between his shoulders. Although mortally wounded, the Indian uttered no cry, his eyes never lost their haughty menace, and his face expressed only rage.“The Spotted Cat dies not so easily,” said he, and with a vigorous hand he seized the wood of the lance still held by Diaz. A fierce struggle ensued, but at every effort of the Indian to draw Diaz towards him, and envelop him in a last deadly clasp, the murdering, lance pierced farther and farther. Soon his strength failed, and violently torn from his body the bloody weapon remained in the hands of Diaz. The Indian fell back, gave one glance of defiance, and then lay motionless upon the earth.Their chief fallen, the others soon shared the same fate, while their companions vainly tried to force the line a second time. Victims of their temerity, the Indians, without asking for a mercy which they never showed, fell like their chief facing the enemy, and surrounded by the corpses of those who had preceded them in their journey to the land of spirits.Of all the savages in the camp but one remained. He looked round him for a minute with eyes fierce as those of the hunted tiger; then, instead of seeking to hide his presence, he uttered anew his war-cry, but it was confounded with those from without—and profiting by a moment of confusion, during which the adventurers, attacked from without, left the breach almost clear—he caused his horse to leap over, and found himself once more among his own people.Pedro Diaz alone saw him, and regretted his prey, but the implacable enemy of the Indians never indulged in sterile regrets. He was mounted on the war-horse presented to him by Don Augustin Peña. From his left hand hung by the sword-knot a long Toledo rapier, with the Spanish device:Do not draw me without cause,Or sheathe me without honour.The blade was red with blood. Diaz shaded his eyes with his right hand, and tried to pierce the distant obscurity. All at once he perceived at the end of the luminous zone projected by the fires, the man he was seeking. He was making furious evolutions on his horse, and uttering shouts of defiance. Diaz remembered the speech of the haciendado about the horse he had given him—“The Indian whom you pursue must be mounted on the wings of the wind if you do not catch him,” and he resolved to make the attempt. The noble animal, excited by the spur, leaped over the intrenchments overthrown by the Indians, and the two were soon side by side. The Indian brandished his hatchet, Diaz his sword, and for some seconds there was a trial of agility, courage, and address. Each sustained his country’s reputation, but the Indian’s hatchet broke to pieces the sword of the Mexican. The two combatants then seized one another round the body and tried to drag each other from their horses, but like centaurs, each seemed to form a part of the animal he bestrode.At last Diaz disengaged himself from his adversary’s clasp, and backed his horse, still facing the Indian. Then, when he was a little way off, he caused his horse to rear so furiously that the animal seemed for a moment to be raised over the Indian. At the same moment Diaz lifted his right leg, and with a blow from the large heavy iron-bound stirrup, broke his adversary’s skull, whom his horse carried away dead from the spot.This last magnificent exploit seemed to end the battle; some arrows flew harmlessly around Diaz, who was welcomed back with shouts of triumph by his companions.“Poor Benito!” cried Baraja; “may God rest his soul, I regret even his terrific histories.”“What is still more to be regretted,” interrupted Oroche, “is the death of the illustrious Cuchillo, the guide of the expedition.”“Your ideas are still confused from the blow you received on your head,” said Diaz, as he tried the flexibility of a new sword. “But for the illustrious Cuchillo, as you call him, we should not have lost to-night at least twenty brave comrades. Cuchillo unluckily died a day too late, and I cannot say ‘God resthissoul.’”Meanwhile the Indians were deliberating. The last exploit of Diaz, the death that so many of their party had met with in the camp, and those killed by the filing, had thinned their ranks.The Indian never persists in a hopeless struggle: a singular mixture of prudence and contempt of life characterises this singular race, and prudence counselled them to retreat; they did so precipitately as they had attacked.But the tactics of the white men were different; they were anxious to profit by a victory the fame of which would penetrate to the furthest end of the desert, and render their future more secure. Therefore an order to pursue the fugitives given by Don Estevan was received with acclamations. Twenty cavaliers instantly rushed forward, Pedro Diaz among the foremost. Sword in one hand, and lasso and bridle in the other, he was soon out of sight.Those who remained behind, though nearly all more or less wounded, occupied themselves first with reconstructing the intrenchment in case of any new attack; then, overwhelmed with fatigue, hunger, and thirst, after clearing the camp of the dead bodies which encumbered it, they lay down on the earth, still wet with blood, to seek for repose.
At the cry of Cuchillo, which resounded throughout the camp, the Spaniard and Diaz exchanged looks of intelligence.
“It is strange that the Indians should have found our trail again?” said Don Estevan, interrogatively.
“Very strange,” replied Diaz, and without saying another word, both descended from the eminence, on which they stood.
The camp was already in motion, and confusion reigned everywhere; there was a general movement among these intrepid men, who were accustomed to such surprises, and who had already more than once measured their strength with their implacable enemies. Each armed hastily, but soon the tumult subsided, and all stationed themselves at the posts assigned to them in case of attack. The first who interrogated Cuchillo were the shepherd and Baraja.
“Unless you drew the Indians on to our track, how could they have discovered us?” said the former, with a suspicious look.
“Certainly it was I,” replied Cuchillo, impudently. “I should have liked to have seen you pursued by a hundred, of these demons, and whether you would not, like me, have galloped to the camp to seek an asylum!”
“In such a case,” replied Benito, severely, “a man to save his companions, does not fly, but gives up his life sooner than betray them. I should have done so.”
“Every one in his own way,” replied Cuchillo, “but I have an account to render only to the chief, and not to his servants.”
“Yes,” murmured the other, “a coward and a traitor can but commit baseness and perfidies.”
“Are the Indians numerous?” asked Baraja.
“I had not time to count them; all that I know is that they must be near.”
And crossing the camp he proceeded to where Don Estevan—after having attended to the most important precautions—stood at the door of his tent waiting for him. As Cuchillo went on without replying to any of the questions with which he was assailed, a man advanced with a lighted torch in his hand to set fire to the fagots piled in various places, but Don Estevan cried—
“Not yet; it is, perhaps, a false alarm, and until we have the certainty of attack we must not light up the camp to betray ourselves.”
At the words “false alarm,” a smile played over Cuchillo’s features.
“However,” added Don Estevan, “let every one saddle his horse and be prepared.” Then he returned to his tent, making a sign to Diaz to accompany him.
“That means, friend Baraja,” said Benito, “that if the orders are given to light the fires, we are sure to be attacked—at night too; it is terrible.”
“Who knows that better than I?” said Baraja, “have you ever been present at such a thing?”
“Never; that is why I dread it so much.”
“Well, if you had, you would dread it more.”
Cuchillo, as he drew near the tent, arranged his countenance and threw back his long hair—as though the wind had blown it about in his rapid flight—and then entered the tent like a man out of breath and pretending to wipe the perspiration from his forehead. Oroche had glided in with Diaz.
Cuchillo’s story was brief: in reconnoitring the places towards which the expedition should advance, he had gone further than was prudent.
Diaz interrupted him.
“I had taken such precautions to deceive the Indians by false tracks,” said he, “I had so misled them, that you must have quitted the line of march and gone from right to left.”
“Yes,” replied the outlaw, “I lost my way, deceived by the monotony of these endless plains where each hillock resembles the other.”
“What!” cried Diaz, ironically. “Had a dweller in cities been so deceived it might be believed; but you—fear must have thrown a mist before your eyes!”
“Fear!” replied Cuchillo; “I know it no more than you do.”
“Then you must be growing shortsighted, Señor Cuchillo.”
“However it happened, I lost myself; and, but for the column of smoke, I should not have regained my way so quickly. I was, however, forced to make a circuit on perceiving a party of Indians, and only owe the start I have got upon them to the speed of my good horse.”
As he spoke, Don Estevan frowned more than once. Oroche left the tent, but immediately re-entering, said—
“The Indians are there! Look at those black shadows on the plain over which the moon throws a distant light; those are men sent to reconnoitre our encampment.”
Over the sand of the desert they could indeed see men on horseback advancing, and then disappearing in the shadows of the sand heaps.
Pedro Diaz consulted an instant with Don Estevan, and then cried loudly—
“Light the fires everywhere! we must count our enemies.”
A few minutes after, a red light, almost as bright as the sun, lit up the whole camp, and showed the adventurers at their post, rifles in hand; while the horses stood saddled and bridled, only waiting for their riders in case of a sortie being necessary. At the same time Don Estevan’s tent was struck, and a calm succeeded to the tumult.
The desert was silent also; the moon no longer shone on the Indians, who had all disappeared like a bad dream chased away by the return of morning. It was a dead silence—the precursor of the storm—and there seemed in this silence something fearful. It did not announce one of those surprises in which an enemy inferior in number disguises his weakness under the impetuosity of his attack, and ready to run if he is resisted: it was the respite before the combat, granted by pitiless enemies, preparing for a deadly struggle.
“Yes, trust to me,” said old Benito to Baraja, “in a quarter of an hour you will hear the howlings of these red devils sound in your ears like the trumpets of the last judgment!”
“Carramba! you are the most skilled man about tigers and Indians that I ever met with, but you might be more consoling. I wish to God I could doubt the truth of your words!”
“There are some things always easy to foresee,” continued the old man. “One may predict to the traveller who goes to sleep in a bed of a torrent that he will be carried away by the waters; and that Indians who have discovered their enemies will draw off a little, and count their men before making an attack. One may also predict that several of them will utter their death-cry, as many among us will have to say their last prayer; but who those will be no one can say. Do you know any prayers for the dying, Señor Baraja?”
“No,” replied the latter, dolefully.
“I am sorry for that; those are little services that friends may render each other, and if I had the grief, as is very possible, of seeing you first scalped then murdered—”
Further conversation was interrupted by outcries which seemed drawing near to the camp. In spite of the terrifying words of the old shepherd, hissang froidin the greatest perils and his resolution full of consoling fatalism, sustained the more wavering courage of Baraja.
As he shuddered at the horrible sounds—which must be heard to be appreciated—he cast upon Benito a glance in order to catch from him a little of his philosophy. For the first time a cloud of sadness appeared on the ex-herdsman’s brow, and his eyes looked as though tears stood in them. Baraja was struck by the change, and laid his head upon the old man’s arm. Benito raised his head.
“I understand you,” said he, “but man has his moments of weakness. I am like him who is called from his hearth by the sound of the trumpet at a time he least thought to quit it. Amidst those howls I hear from above the sound of the last trumpet calling me, and although I am old, it grieves me to go. I leave neither wife nor children to regret, nor those who would weep for me; but there is an old companion of my solitary life from whom I cannot separate without grief. It is at least a consolation for the Indian warrior to know that his war-horse will share his tomb, and to believe that he shall find him again in the land of spirits. How many times have we scoured the woods and the plains together. How often have we borne together heat, hunger, and thirst! This old and faithful friend is my horse, as you may have guessed. I give him to you, friend Baraja. Treat him kindly—love him as I love him, and he will love you as he loves me. His companion was killed by a tiger, and he will now be left alone.”
So saying, the old man pointed to a noble courser, champing his bit proudly, among the other horses. He then went towards him, caressed him, and, this moment of weakness over, his countenance recovered its habitual serenity. As he recovered his calmness, he renewed his predictions, careless of the terror he excited in others.
“Listen!” said he to Baraja; “to recompense you for the care you will take of my old friend, I shall teach you, while there is still time, a verse of the psalm for the dying, that may serve you as—”
“Well!” said Baraja, as he did not go on, “what more terrifying things have you to say?”
Benito did not reply, but his companion felt him press his arm convulsively, and then the sight which struck Baraja was more terrible than any answer. The old man’s eyes were rolling wildly, and he was vainly trying to stanch the blood which flowed from a wound made by an arrow that had just pierced his throat.
He fell, crying: “What is ordained must happen. No,” added he, repulsing the assistance that Baraja was endeavouring to render him, “my hour is come—remember—my old friend—” and the flowing blood cut short his speech.
At that moment the best mounted among the Indians showed themselves in the moonlight. Travellers who have met only with civilised Indians can with difficulty form any idea of the savage tribes. Nothing less resembled those degenerate Indians than these unconquered sons of the desert; who—like the birds of prey, wheeling in the air before pouncing on their victims—rode howling around the camp. Their figures hideously marked with paint, were visible from time to time; their long hair streaming in the wind, their cloaks of skins floating in their rapid course, and their piercing cries of defiance and bravado, giving them the appearance of demons, to whom they have justly been compared.
There were few among the Mexicans who had not some revenge to take on these indefatigable spoilers, but none of them were animated by such deadly hatred as Pedro Diaz. The sight of his enemies produced on him the effect that scarlet does on a bull, and he could scarcely refrain from indulging in one of those exploits which had rendered his name formidable to their tribes. But it was necessary to set an example of discipline, and he curbed his impatience. Besides, the moment of attack could not be far off, and the superior position of the gold-seekers compensated for the inequality of their numbers.
After having assigned to each his post behind the intrenchments, Don Estevan placed on the rising ground, where his tent had stood, those of his men whose rifles carried farthest, or whose sight was the best, and the fires gave light enough for their aim. As for himself, his post was everywhere.
The piercing eyes of the Indians, and the reports of those who had preceded them had doubtless instructed them as to the position of the whites. For a moment an indecision seemed to reign among them, but the truce did not last long. After a short interval of silence, a hundred voices at once shrieked out the war-cry; the earth trembled under an avalanche of galloping horses; and amidst a shower of balls, stones, and arrows, the camp was surrounded on three sides by a disorderly multitude. But a well-sustained fire proceeded from the top of the hill.
Under this murderous discharge riderless horses were seen galloping over the plain, and riders disengaging themselves from their wounded steeds. Before long, however, the combat became one of hand to hand; the Mexicans behind their carts, the Indians trying to scale them.
Oroche, Baraja, and Pedro Diaz pressed one against the other, sometimes retiring to avoid the long lances of their enemies—sometimes advancing and striking in their turn—encouraging each other, and never pausing but to glance at their chief. As already stated, the report had vaguely spread that he knew the secret of the immense riches, and cupidity supplied to Oroche and Baraja the place of enthusiasm.
“Carramba!” cried Baraja, “a man possessing such a secret should be invulnerable.”
“Immortal!” said Oroche, “or only die after—”
A blow from a hatchet on his head cut short his words. He fell to the ground, and but for the solidity of his hat, and the thickness of his hair, all had been over with him. His adversary, carried away by the violence of his own blow, placed his hand for support on the shafts of the cart which separated them. Diaz immediately seized the Indian’s arm, and leaning on the nave of the wheel, dragged him towards him with such force that he fell off his horse into camp; and, almost before he touched the ground, the Mexican’s sword severed his head from his body.
Useless now on their elevated position—for themêléewas so thick that their shots might have been as fatal to friends as foes—the sharpshooters had come down and mingled with the other combatants.
In the corner of the intrenchments where they stood, Don Estevan and Cuchillo had to sustain an attack not less furious. The first, while he defended himself, yet cast an eye over the whole of the intrenchments; but it was with the greatest difficulty that amidst the tumult he could make heard his orders and advice. More than once his double-barrelled rifle of English make—and which he loaded and discharged with wonderful rapidity—stayed the knife or axe which was menacing one of his men—a feat which was greeted each time with loud hurrahs. He was, in a word, what the adventurers had seen him from the beginning of this dangerous campaign, the chief who thought of all, and the chief who feared nothing.
Accompanied by his horse, which followed his movements with the intelligence of a spaniel, Cuchillo stood behind the chief—as much out of the way as possible—with more prudence than bravery. He seemed to be following with an anxious eye the chances of attack and defence: when all at once he tottered as though struck by a mortal wound, and fell heavily behind the carts. This incident passed almost unperceived amidst the confusion—every one being in so much danger as to be able to think only of himself.
“There is a coward the less,” said Don Estevan, coldly, while Cuchillo’s horse drew near him with a terrified air.
For some minutes Cuchillo remained motionless; then, little by little, he raised his head and cast around him a glance which seemed undimmed by the approach of death. A few minutes after, he rose on his feet, like a man to whom death lends some strength at the last, and apparently, mortally hurt, his hand on his breast, as though endeavouring to retain the spark of life ready to escape, tottered backwards, and then fell again some way off. His horse followed him once more; and then, if every one had not been too much occupied, they might have seen the outlaw rolling over and over towards an open place in the intrenchments. He then stopped again; and finally glided under the cart wheels out of the camp.
There he rose upon his legs as firm as ever, while a smile of joy played over his lips. The darkness and the tumult favoured his manoeuvre. He silently unfastened the iron chains of two carts, and opened a passage. He whistled and his horse glided after him; in a second he was in the saddle, almost without touching the stirrup; when after a moment’s thought, he spurred on the animal, who set off like the wind, and horse and rider soon disappeared in the darkness!
On both sides of the intrenchment corpses covered the ground; half burnt-out piles of wood cast their red light upon the bloody scenes of this struggle; the shouts of enemies, the repeated discharge of firearms, and the whistling of bullets followed each other uninterruptedly. The hideous figures of the Indians looked more hideous still in the strange light.
One point in the intrenchment had given way before the incessant attacks; and here, dead or wounded, its defenders had yielded to enemies who seemed to swarm from the ground. At this point there was an instant of horrible confusion. Apêle mêleof bodies interlaced, over which appeared the plumes of the Indian warriors. Soon, however, the line of the adventurers, broken for an instant, reformed before a group of Indians who were rushing like wild beasts into the middle of the camp.
Oroche and Baraja left the point which they were still defending, and found themselves face to face with their enemies, this time with nothing to separate them. Amidst the group of Indians, whose lances and hatchets fell indiscriminately upon horses, mules and men, the chief was recognisable by his vast height, the painting of his face and his great strength.
It was the second time that he had faced the whites since the commencement of the campaign, and his name was known to them.
“Here, Diaz,” cried Baraja, “here is theSpotted Cat!”
At the name of Diaz, which had already reached him, the Indian chief looked round for him who bore it, with eyes which seemed to dart flames, and raised his lance to strike Diaz, when a blow from Oroche’s knife wounded his horse. The Indian thrown to the ground, let fall his lance. Diaz seized it, and while the chief raised himself on one knee and endeavoured to draw his sword, the lance which he had dropped, pierced his naked breast, and came out between his shoulders. Although mortally wounded, the Indian uttered no cry, his eyes never lost their haughty menace, and his face expressed only rage.
“The Spotted Cat dies not so easily,” said he, and with a vigorous hand he seized the wood of the lance still held by Diaz. A fierce struggle ensued, but at every effort of the Indian to draw Diaz towards him, and envelop him in a last deadly clasp, the murdering, lance pierced farther and farther. Soon his strength failed, and violently torn from his body the bloody weapon remained in the hands of Diaz. The Indian fell back, gave one glance of defiance, and then lay motionless upon the earth.
Their chief fallen, the others soon shared the same fate, while their companions vainly tried to force the line a second time. Victims of their temerity, the Indians, without asking for a mercy which they never showed, fell like their chief facing the enemy, and surrounded by the corpses of those who had preceded them in their journey to the land of spirits.
Of all the savages in the camp but one remained. He looked round him for a minute with eyes fierce as those of the hunted tiger; then, instead of seeking to hide his presence, he uttered anew his war-cry, but it was confounded with those from without—and profiting by a moment of confusion, during which the adventurers, attacked from without, left the breach almost clear—he caused his horse to leap over, and found himself once more among his own people.
Pedro Diaz alone saw him, and regretted his prey, but the implacable enemy of the Indians never indulged in sterile regrets. He was mounted on the war-horse presented to him by Don Augustin Peña. From his left hand hung by the sword-knot a long Toledo rapier, with the Spanish device:
Do not draw me without cause,Or sheathe me without honour.
Do not draw me without cause,Or sheathe me without honour.
The blade was red with blood. Diaz shaded his eyes with his right hand, and tried to pierce the distant obscurity. All at once he perceived at the end of the luminous zone projected by the fires, the man he was seeking. He was making furious evolutions on his horse, and uttering shouts of defiance. Diaz remembered the speech of the haciendado about the horse he had given him—“The Indian whom you pursue must be mounted on the wings of the wind if you do not catch him,” and he resolved to make the attempt. The noble animal, excited by the spur, leaped over the intrenchments overthrown by the Indians, and the two were soon side by side. The Indian brandished his hatchet, Diaz his sword, and for some seconds there was a trial of agility, courage, and address. Each sustained his country’s reputation, but the Indian’s hatchet broke to pieces the sword of the Mexican. The two combatants then seized one another round the body and tried to drag each other from their horses, but like centaurs, each seemed to form a part of the animal he bestrode.
At last Diaz disengaged himself from his adversary’s clasp, and backed his horse, still facing the Indian. Then, when he was a little way off, he caused his horse to rear so furiously that the animal seemed for a moment to be raised over the Indian. At the same moment Diaz lifted his right leg, and with a blow from the large heavy iron-bound stirrup, broke his adversary’s skull, whom his horse carried away dead from the spot.
This last magnificent exploit seemed to end the battle; some arrows flew harmlessly around Diaz, who was welcomed back with shouts of triumph by his companions.
“Poor Benito!” cried Baraja; “may God rest his soul, I regret even his terrific histories.”
“What is still more to be regretted,” interrupted Oroche, “is the death of the illustrious Cuchillo, the guide of the expedition.”
“Your ideas are still confused from the blow you received on your head,” said Diaz, as he tried the flexibility of a new sword. “But for the illustrious Cuchillo, as you call him, we should not have lost to-night at least twenty brave comrades. Cuchillo unluckily died a day too late, and I cannot say ‘God resthissoul.’”
Meanwhile the Indians were deliberating. The last exploit of Diaz, the death that so many of their party had met with in the camp, and those killed by the filing, had thinned their ranks.
The Indian never persists in a hopeless struggle: a singular mixture of prudence and contempt of life characterises this singular race, and prudence counselled them to retreat; they did so precipitately as they had attacked.
But the tactics of the white men were different; they were anxious to profit by a victory the fame of which would penetrate to the furthest end of the desert, and render their future more secure. Therefore an order to pursue the fugitives given by Don Estevan was received with acclamations. Twenty cavaliers instantly rushed forward, Pedro Diaz among the foremost. Sword in one hand, and lasso and bridle in the other, he was soon out of sight.
Those who remained behind, though nearly all more or less wounded, occupied themselves first with reconstructing the intrenchment in case of any new attack; then, overwhelmed with fatigue, hunger, and thirst, after clearing the camp of the dead bodies which encumbered it, they lay down on the earth, still wet with blood, to seek for repose.
Chapter Thirty Eight.After the Fight.In the calm which succeeded to the noise of the combat, a single man rose slowly up, and by the light of a torch which he held, examined all the corpses lying at his feet, as if seeking to identify the livid or bloody faces of the dead. Sometimes the light fell on the strange paint of an Indian face, and the pale one of a white man, lying side by side in an eternal sleep; occasionally a deep groan proceeded from some one who was wounded, but the seeker did not appear to find what he sought.All at once, amidst the silence, a weak voice attracted his attention, and he tried in the half-light to discover whence the sound proceeded. The feeble movement of a hand guided him, and he approached the dying man—in whom he immediately recognised Benito.“Ah! it is you, my poor Benito?” said he, with a look of profound pity.“Yes,” replied the old shepherd, “it is old Benito, dying in the desert where he has nearly always lived. As for me—I know not who you are; my eyes are dim. Is Baraja living?”“I trust so; he is now pursuing the Indians, and will return in time, I hope, to bid you a last adieu.”“I doubt it,” replied Benito; “I wished to teach him a verse of the hymn for the dying. I can no longer remember it now. Do you not know something?”“Not a word.”“Ah! I must do without it,” said Benito, whose accustomed stoicism did not forsake him even at that moment. Then, in a still more feeble voice, he added, “I have bequeathed to Baraja an old companion—an old friend; whoever you may be, recommend him to observe my last request, to love him as I did.”“A brother doubtless.”“Better than that; my horse.”“I shall remind him—do not fear.”“Thank you,” said the old man. “As for myself, I have finished my travels. The Indians did not kill me when they took me prisoner in my youth—now they have killed me in my old age without taking me prisoner. That—” he stopped, and then added some words in so low a tone that they did not reach the ear of the listener. He spoke no more; those were his last words, for death had abruptly ended his speech.“He was a brave man—peace be with him!” said the speaker, who then continued his search, until at last, fatigued by its uselessness, he returned with an anxious look to his place, and after he had gone the silence of death seemed to pervade the camp.Before long, however, a confused noise of voices and horses’ feet indicated the return of the adventurers who had started in pursuit of the Indians, and by the doubtful light of the half extinct fires, they entered the camp.The same man who had been recently inspecting the dead, went out to meet them. While some of them were dismounting to open a passage through the barricades, Pedro Diaz advanced towards him, a stream of blood flowing from a wound in his forehead.“Señor Don Estevan,” said he, “we have not been lucky in our pursuit. We have but wounded one or two of the Indians, and have lost one of our own men. However I bring you a prisoner; do you wish to interrogate him?”So saying, Diaz detached his lasso from the saddle-bow, and pointed to a mass held in its noose. It was an Indian, who, pitilessly dragged along over the sand and stones, had left behind at every step pieces of flesh, and now scarcely retained any vestige of humanity.“He was alive when I took him, however,” cried Diaz, “but it is just like these dogs of Indians, he must have died in order not to tell anything.”Without replying to this ferocious jest, Don Estevan signed to Diaz to accompany him to a place where they might converse without being overheard. When the new-comers had lain down and silence reigned anew, Don Estevan began:“Diaz,” said he, “we are close on the end of our expedition: to-morrow, as I told you, we shall encamp at the foot of those mountains; but in order that success may crown our efforts, treason must not throw obstacles in our way. It is on this subject that I wish to consult you to-night. You have known Cuchillo long, but not so long as I have; and certainly, not as thoroughly. From his earliest youth he has always betrayed those to whom he appeared most devoted. I know not which of all the vices with which he is endowed has the ascendant; but in a word, the sinister look of his face is but a feeble reflection of the blackness of his soul. It was he who sold to me the secret of the rich and mysterious placer to which I am leading you—and of this secret he had made himself the sole master by murdering the friend who had freely confided it to him, and who thought to find him a faithful companion in his dangers.“I have ever, therefore, kept a watchful eye over him. His disappearance for the last two days alarmed me, but it might have been the result of an accident common in these deserts. The attack, however, from which we have so narrowly escaped has confirmed my suspicions. He has advanced under our protection, until we have reached the place where he would, be able to seize a part of these immense treasures. He had need of auxiliaries in order to murder our sixty men, and the Indians who have attacked us were but his instruments.”“Indeed,” replied Diaz, “his report seemed to me suspicious. But the simplest method will be to hold a court-martial, interrogate him, and if he be convicted of treason, let us shoot him at once.”“At the commencement of the attack, I assigned him a post near me, in order to watch him more easily. I saw him totter and then fall apparently mortally wounded, and I was glad to be rid of a traitor and a coward. But I have just turned over and examined all the dead, and Cuchillo is not amongst them. It is therefore urgent that without loss of time we should follow him; he cannot be far off. You are accustomed to this sort of expedition; we must, without delay, set off in pursuit of him, and execute prompt justice on a villain whose life must pay for his treachery.”Diaz appeared to reflect for a moment, and then said, “To trace him can neither be tedious nor difficult. Cuchillo must have gone towards the Golden Valley—therefore in that direction we must seek him.”“Go rest for an hour, for you must be worn out,” said the chief. “Ah! Diaz, if all these men were like you, how easy our path would be—gold in one hand, and the sword in the other.”“I have only done my duty,” said Diaz, simply.“Say to our men that it is necessary for us to reconnoitre the environs of the camp, and tell the sentinels to keep strict watch until our return, and then we shall proceed towards the valley.”“Cuchillo must certainly be there, and we shall catch him either going or returning.”“We shall find him in the valley,” said Don Estevan. “When you have seen it, you will find it a place that a man like Cuchillo could not make up his mind to leave.”Diaz departed to execute his orders, and Don Estevan caused his tent to be pitched again, that even in his absence his starry banner might float over the camp as a sign of his protective authority. This done, he threw himself on his couch, and slept the sleep of a soldier after a day of fighting and fatigue.Little more than an hour after, Diaz stood before him, “Señor Don Estevan,” said he, “all is prepared for starting.”The chief rose and found his horse awaiting him ready saddled.“Diaz,” said he, “ask the sentinels if Gayferos has returned.”Diaz questioned one of the men, who replied, “The poor fellow will probably never return. The Indians must have surprised and killed him before attacking us, and that probably was the cause of the firing that we heard in the afternoon.”“I fear it is but too certain that he has been murdered,” replied Diaz; “but as for the firing that we heard, I believe that had a different origin.”Don Estevan now mounted his horse, and the two set off in, the direction of the mountains.
In the calm which succeeded to the noise of the combat, a single man rose slowly up, and by the light of a torch which he held, examined all the corpses lying at his feet, as if seeking to identify the livid or bloody faces of the dead. Sometimes the light fell on the strange paint of an Indian face, and the pale one of a white man, lying side by side in an eternal sleep; occasionally a deep groan proceeded from some one who was wounded, but the seeker did not appear to find what he sought.
All at once, amidst the silence, a weak voice attracted his attention, and he tried in the half-light to discover whence the sound proceeded. The feeble movement of a hand guided him, and he approached the dying man—in whom he immediately recognised Benito.
“Ah! it is you, my poor Benito?” said he, with a look of profound pity.
“Yes,” replied the old shepherd, “it is old Benito, dying in the desert where he has nearly always lived. As for me—I know not who you are; my eyes are dim. Is Baraja living?”
“I trust so; he is now pursuing the Indians, and will return in time, I hope, to bid you a last adieu.”
“I doubt it,” replied Benito; “I wished to teach him a verse of the hymn for the dying. I can no longer remember it now. Do you not know something?”
“Not a word.”
“Ah! I must do without it,” said Benito, whose accustomed stoicism did not forsake him even at that moment. Then, in a still more feeble voice, he added, “I have bequeathed to Baraja an old companion—an old friend; whoever you may be, recommend him to observe my last request, to love him as I did.”
“A brother doubtless.”
“Better than that; my horse.”
“I shall remind him—do not fear.”
“Thank you,” said the old man. “As for myself, I have finished my travels. The Indians did not kill me when they took me prisoner in my youth—now they have killed me in my old age without taking me prisoner. That—” he stopped, and then added some words in so low a tone that they did not reach the ear of the listener. He spoke no more; those were his last words, for death had abruptly ended his speech.
“He was a brave man—peace be with him!” said the speaker, who then continued his search, until at last, fatigued by its uselessness, he returned with an anxious look to his place, and after he had gone the silence of death seemed to pervade the camp.
Before long, however, a confused noise of voices and horses’ feet indicated the return of the adventurers who had started in pursuit of the Indians, and by the doubtful light of the half extinct fires, they entered the camp.
The same man who had been recently inspecting the dead, went out to meet them. While some of them were dismounting to open a passage through the barricades, Pedro Diaz advanced towards him, a stream of blood flowing from a wound in his forehead.
“Señor Don Estevan,” said he, “we have not been lucky in our pursuit. We have but wounded one or two of the Indians, and have lost one of our own men. However I bring you a prisoner; do you wish to interrogate him?”
So saying, Diaz detached his lasso from the saddle-bow, and pointed to a mass held in its noose. It was an Indian, who, pitilessly dragged along over the sand and stones, had left behind at every step pieces of flesh, and now scarcely retained any vestige of humanity.
“He was alive when I took him, however,” cried Diaz, “but it is just like these dogs of Indians, he must have died in order not to tell anything.”
Without replying to this ferocious jest, Don Estevan signed to Diaz to accompany him to a place where they might converse without being overheard. When the new-comers had lain down and silence reigned anew, Don Estevan began:
“Diaz,” said he, “we are close on the end of our expedition: to-morrow, as I told you, we shall encamp at the foot of those mountains; but in order that success may crown our efforts, treason must not throw obstacles in our way. It is on this subject that I wish to consult you to-night. You have known Cuchillo long, but not so long as I have; and certainly, not as thoroughly. From his earliest youth he has always betrayed those to whom he appeared most devoted. I know not which of all the vices with which he is endowed has the ascendant; but in a word, the sinister look of his face is but a feeble reflection of the blackness of his soul. It was he who sold to me the secret of the rich and mysterious placer to which I am leading you—and of this secret he had made himself the sole master by murdering the friend who had freely confided it to him, and who thought to find him a faithful companion in his dangers.
“I have ever, therefore, kept a watchful eye over him. His disappearance for the last two days alarmed me, but it might have been the result of an accident common in these deserts. The attack, however, from which we have so narrowly escaped has confirmed my suspicions. He has advanced under our protection, until we have reached the place where he would, be able to seize a part of these immense treasures. He had need of auxiliaries in order to murder our sixty men, and the Indians who have attacked us were but his instruments.”
“Indeed,” replied Diaz, “his report seemed to me suspicious. But the simplest method will be to hold a court-martial, interrogate him, and if he be convicted of treason, let us shoot him at once.”
“At the commencement of the attack, I assigned him a post near me, in order to watch him more easily. I saw him totter and then fall apparently mortally wounded, and I was glad to be rid of a traitor and a coward. But I have just turned over and examined all the dead, and Cuchillo is not amongst them. It is therefore urgent that without loss of time we should follow him; he cannot be far off. You are accustomed to this sort of expedition; we must, without delay, set off in pursuit of him, and execute prompt justice on a villain whose life must pay for his treachery.”
Diaz appeared to reflect for a moment, and then said, “To trace him can neither be tedious nor difficult. Cuchillo must have gone towards the Golden Valley—therefore in that direction we must seek him.”
“Go rest for an hour, for you must be worn out,” said the chief. “Ah! Diaz, if all these men were like you, how easy our path would be—gold in one hand, and the sword in the other.”
“I have only done my duty,” said Diaz, simply.
“Say to our men that it is necessary for us to reconnoitre the environs of the camp, and tell the sentinels to keep strict watch until our return, and then we shall proceed towards the valley.”
“Cuchillo must certainly be there, and we shall catch him either going or returning.”
“We shall find him in the valley,” said Don Estevan. “When you have seen it, you will find it a place that a man like Cuchillo could not make up his mind to leave.”
Diaz departed to execute his orders, and Don Estevan caused his tent to be pitched again, that even in his absence his starry banner might float over the camp as a sign of his protective authority. This done, he threw himself on his couch, and slept the sleep of a soldier after a day of fighting and fatigue.
Little more than an hour after, Diaz stood before him, “Señor Don Estevan,” said he, “all is prepared for starting.”
The chief rose and found his horse awaiting him ready saddled.
“Diaz,” said he, “ask the sentinels if Gayferos has returned.”
Diaz questioned one of the men, who replied, “The poor fellow will probably never return. The Indians must have surprised and killed him before attacking us, and that probably was the cause of the firing that we heard in the afternoon.”
“I fear it is but too certain that he has been murdered,” replied Diaz; “but as for the firing that we heard, I believe that had a different origin.”
Don Estevan now mounted his horse, and the two set off in, the direction of the mountains.
Chapter Thirty Nine.The Islet.While the Indians, united in council, were deliberating on the means of attacking the camp of the gold-seekers, let us see how the three men on the island were occupied.It was about four o’clock, and the fog was beginning to rise slowly from the water. Willows and aspens grew on the shores of the river Gila, within rifle-range of the little island, and so near the water that their roots were in the river. The spaces between the trees were filled up by vigorous osier and other shoots; but just in front of the island was a large open space. This had been made by the troops of wild horses and buffaloes, that came down to drink at the river; and through this opening any one on the island could see clearly over the plain.The little island had been formed originally by trees that had taken root in the bed of the river; other trees, some green and others without branches or foliage, had rested against these, and their roots had become interlaced. Since then, many summers and winters must have passed; and grasses and sedges, detached from the banks by the water, had filled up the interstices. Then the dust, brought there by the wind, had covered these with a crust of earth, and formed a kind of solid ground for the floating island. Plants had grown along the banks; the trunks of the willows had sent forth vigorous shoots, and, with the reeds, had surrounded the island with a fringe of verdure. The island was only a few feet in diameter; but a man lying, or even kneeling upon it, was completely hidden by the willow-shoots.The sun was going down, and a little shade was thrown by the leaves and trees; in this shade was stretched the form of Fabian asleep. Bois-Rose seemed to be watching over his sleep, hastily taken after the fatigues of a long march, while Pepé refreshed himself by plunging in the water. While Fabian slumbers, we shall raise the veil by which the young Count hid from the eyes of his two friends his most secret and dearest thoughts.After his fall into the torrent, Pepé had forgotten that the enemy on whom he had sworn vengeance was escaping, and both he and Bois-Rose had thought only of rendering prompt assistance to Fabian. On returning to consciousness, Fabian’s first thought was to resume his interrupted pursuit. The acquisition of the Golden Valley, and even the remembrance of Doña Rosarita, were forgotten by the ardent wish of revenging his mother.Pepé, on his side, was not the man to draw back from his vow; and as for Bois-Rose, his whole affections were centred in his two companions, and he would have followed them to the end of the world. Their first failure, far from discouraging them, did but excite their ardour; in hatred as in love, obstacles are always a powerful stimulant to vigorous minds. The pursuit had gradually presented a double object to Fabian; it brought him near to the Golden Valley in the desert; and he nourished a vague hope that the place pointed out to him was not the same as that which the expedition led by Antonio de Mediana proposed to conquer.Fabian said to himself, that the daughter of Don Augustin doubtless only yielded obedience to the ambitious views of her father, and that it might yet be easy for him, noble and rich, to win the day against such a rival as Tragaduros.Still, discouragement often seized upon Fabian; he loved the daughter of the haciendado with his whole soul; and the thought of owing her love only to the treasures that he might possess, distressed him. Moreover, he felt that the ardent and jealous affection of the Canadian, had founded on him the sole aim of his life, and that, like the eagle who carries away his young one and places it in an eyrie, inaccessible to the hand of man, Bois-Rose, who had forever quitted civilised life, wished to make of him his inseparable companion in the desert; and that, to disappoint the old man would be to throw a shadow over his whole future life. As yet, no confidence as to their future had been exchanged between them; but in face of a love that he believed hopeless, and of the ardent, though secret wishes of the man who now acted as a father to him, and who would half break his heart at a separation, Fabian had generously and silently sacrificed his tastes and hopes that would not die. He who had but to hold out his hand to seize the things that the whole world desires—riches, titles, and honours—was like one whose life tortured by an unhappy love, disclaiming the future, seeks within the cloister forgetfulness of the past. For Fabian de Mediana, the desert was the cloister; and his mother once revenged, it only remained to him to bury himself in it forever. Sad and inefficacious, as a remedy, would be solitude, with its mysterious voice, and the ardent contemplations that it awakens, for a passion so fondly awakened in the young heart of Fabian.One single hope remained to him—that amidst the ever-renewed dangers of an adventurous life, the day was not far distant when his life would be cut short in some contest with the Indians, or in one of those desperate attempts that he meditated against the murderer of his mother. He had carefully hidden from the Canadian the love that he buried in the depths of his heart; and it was in the silence of the night that he dared to look into his own bosom. Then, like the light which shines in the horizon above great cities, and which the traveller contemplates with joy, a radiant and cherished image rose before his eyes in the desert, standing on that breach in the wall of the hacienda, where his last souvenirs carried him. But during the day, the heroic young man tried to hide under an apparent calm, the melancholy that devoured him. He smiled, with sad resignation, at those plans for the future which the Canadian sometimes enlarged on before him—he so happy in having found him, and who trembled to lose again his beloved Fabian, whose hand he hoped would one day close his eyes. The blind tenderness of Bois-Rose did not divine the abyss under the calm surface of the lake, but Pepé was rather more clear-sighted.“Well,” said Pepé, after a long silence, “the inhabitants of Madrid would pay dearly for such a stream of water in the Manzanares; but we have not the less lost a day which might have brought us nearer to the Golden Valley, and from which we cannot now be far distant.”“I allow that,” replied Bois-Rose, “but the child,” for so he called the vigorous young man before them, “is not so accustomed as we are to long marches, and though sixty leagues in twelve days is not very much for us, it begins to tell on him. But before he has been a year with us, he will be able to walk as far as ourselves.”Pepé could not help smiling at this answer, but the Canadian did not perceive it.“See,” said the Spaniard, pointing to Fabian, “how the poor lad has changed in a few days. For my part, at his age, I should have preferred the glance of a damsel and the Puerta del Sol at Madrid to all the magnificence of the desert. Fatigue alone has not produced this change in him. There is some secret which he does not tell us, but I will penetrate it one of these days,” added Pepé mentally.At these words the Canadian turned his head quickly towards his beloved child, but a smile of joy from Fabian chased away the sudden cloud from the brow of his adoptive father. Fabian indeed smiled; he was dreaming that he was on his knees before Rosarita, listening to the sweet voice of the young girl, who was recounting her anguish during his long absence, and that Bois-Rose stood behind them leaning on his rifle and blessing them both. Ah! it was only a dream.The two hunters looked for a moment silently at the sleeper.“There lies the last descendant of the Medianas,” said Pepé, with a sigh.“What care I for the Medianas and their powerful race?” replied the Canadian. “I know but Fabian. When I saved him, and attached myself to him as though he had been my own, did I ask about his ancestors?”“You will wake him if you talk so loud,” said Pepé; “your voice roars like a cataract.”“Why are you always recalling to me things that I do not wish to know, or rather wish to forget. I know that some years in the desert will accustom him—”“You deceive yourself strangely, Bois-Rose, if you imagine that with the prospects that await him in Spain, and the rights that he can claim, this young man will consent to pass his whole life in the desert. It is good for us, but not for him.”“What! is not the desert preferable to cities?” cried the old sailor, who vainly tried to conceal from himself that Pepé was right. “I undertake to make him prefer a wandering life to a settled one. Is it not for movement, for fighting, and for the powerful emotions of the desert that man is born?”“Certainly,” said Pepé, gravely, “and that is just why the towns are deserted and the deserts peopled!”“Do not jest, Pepé; I am speaking of serious things. While I leave Fabian free to follow his own inclinations, I shall make him love this captivating life. Is not this short sleep, snatched hastily between two dangers, preferable to what one tastes after a day of idle security in the towns. You yourself, Pepé—wouldyouwish to return to your own country, since you have known the charms of a wandering life?”“There is between the heir of the Medianas,” replied Pepé, “and the old coast-guard man a great difference. To him will come a fine property, a great name, and a beautiful Gothic castle with towers like the cathedral at Burgos; while I should be sent to fish for mackerel at Ceuta—which is the most execrable life I know of and which I should have but one chance of escaping from—that of waking some fine morning, at Tunis or Tetuan, as a slave to our neighbours the Moors. I have here, it is true, the daily chance of being scalped or burnt alive by the Indians. Still the town is worse for me—but for Don Fabian—”“Fabian has always lived in solitude, and will, I trust, prefer the calm of the desert to the tumult of cities. How solemn and silent is all around us! See here!” and he pointed to Fabian, “how the child sleeps, softly lulled by the murmur of the waters, and by the breeze in the willows. Look there, in the horizon at those fogs just coloured by the sun, and that boundless space where man wanders in his primitive liberty, like the birds in the air!”The Spaniard shook his head doubtfully, although he partook the ideas of the Canadian, and like him felt the charm of this wandering life.“Look,” continued the old hunter, “at that troop of wild horses coming down to drink before going for the night to their distant pasturage. See how they approach in all the proud beauty that God gives to free animals—ardent eyes, open nostrils, and floating manes! Ah! I should almost like to awake Fabian in order that he might see and admire them.”“Let him sleep, Bois-Rose; perhaps his dreams show him more graceful forms than those horses of the desert—forms such as abound in our Spanish towns, in balconies or behind barred windows.”Bois-Rose sighed, as he added—“Yet this is fine sight—how these noble beasts bound with joy at their liberty!”“Yes, until they are chased by the Indians, and then they bound with terror!”“There! now they are gone like the cloud driven by the wind!” continued the Canadian. “Now the scene changes. Look at that stag, who shows from time to time his shining eyes and black nose through the trees; he snuffs the wind, he listens. Ah! now he also approaches to drink. He has heard a noise, he raises his head; do not the drops that fall from his mouth look like liquid gold? I will wake the lad!”“Let him sleep, I tell you; perhaps his dream now shows him black eyes and rosy lips, or some nymph sleeping on the banks of a clear stream.”The old Canadian sighed again.“Is not the stag the emblem of independence?” said he.“Yes, until the time when the wolves assemble to pursue and tear him to pieces. Perhaps he would have more chance of life in our royal parks. Everything to its time, Bois-Rose; old age loves silence, youth noise.”Bois-Rose still fought against the truth. It was the drop of gall that is found at the bottom of every cup of happiness; it is not permitted that there should be perfect felicity, for it would then be too painful to die; neither is unmixed misery allowed to mortals, or it would be painful to live. The Canadian hung his head and looked sad as he glanced at the sleeping youth, while Pepé put on his buffalo-skin buskins.“Well! what did I tell you?” said he, presently; “do you not hear from afar those howlings—I mean those barkings, for the wolves have voices like dogs when they hunt the stags. Poor stag! he is, as you said, the emblem of life in the desert.”“Shall I wake Fabian now?” said Bois-Rose.“Yes, certainly; for after a love dream a stag hunt is the thing most worthy of a nobleman like him, and he will rarely see such a one as this.”“He will see nothing like it in the towns,” cried the Canadian, enchanted; “such scenes must make him love the desert.”And he shook the young man gently.With head thrown back, to inhale more freely the air necessary to his lungs, the stag flew like an arrow along the plain. Behind him a hungry pack of wolves, a few white, but the greater number black, pursued him at full speed. The stag had an immense start, but on the sand heaps, almost lost in the horizon, the piercing eye of the hunter might distinguish other wolves watching. The noble animal either did not see, or else disdained them, for he flew straight towards them. As he neared them he halted a moment. Indeed, he found himself shut in by a circle of enemies, who constantly advanced upon him as he stopped to take breath. All at once he turned round, faced the other wolves, and tried one last effort to escape. But he could not now clear the solid masses that had formed around him, and he fell in the midst of them. Some rolled under his feet, and two or three were tossed in the air. Then, with a wolf hanging to his flanks, bleeding and with tongue protruding, the poor animal advanced to the edge of the water, in front of the three spectators of the strange chase.“It is magnificent!” cried Fabian clapping his hands, and carried away by the hunter’s enthusiasm, which for the time silences humanity in the heart of men.“Is it not fine?” cried Bois-Rose, doubly pleased, happy at Fabian’s pleasure, and at his own. “And we shall witness many such fine sights, my Fabian! here you see only the worst side of these American solitudes, but when you go with Pepé and me to the great rivers, and the great lakes of the north—”“The animal has got rid of his enemy,” interrupted Fabian, “he is about to spring into the river!”The water bubbled after the leap of the stag, then a dozen times more as the wolves followed; then amidst the foam were visible the head of the stag, and those of the wolves who were pursuing him, howling with hunger, while the more timid ones ran along the banks uttering their lamentable howls. The stag had neared the island, when the wolves on the bank suddenly ceased their cries and fled precipitately away.“What is that?” cried Pepé; “what causes this sudden panic?” but no sooner had he spoken than he cried again, “Hide yourselves, in God’s name! the Indians are in chase also.”Other and more formidable hunters now appeared in their turn upon the arena. A dozen of the wild horses, which they had seen before, were now seen galloping wildly over the plain, while some Indians, mounted bareback on their horses (having taken their saddles off for greater speed), with their knees almost up to their chins, were pursuing the terrified animals. At first there were but three Indians visible; but one by one about twenty appeared, some armed with lances, and others brandishing their lassoes of plaited leather—all uttering those cries by which they express their joy or anger.Pepé glanced at the Canadian as though to ask whether he had calculated these terrible chances when he wished to make Fabian share their adventurous career. For the first time, at such a crisis, the intrepid hunter looked deadly pale. An eloquent but sad glance was his reply to the Spaniard’s mute interrogation.“A too great affection in the heart of the bravest man,” thought Pepé, “makes him tremble for him who he loves more than life; and adventurers like us should have no ties. There is Bois-Rose trembling like a woman!”However, they felt almost certain that even the practiced eyes of the Indians could not discover them in their retreat; and the three men, after their first alarm had passed over, watched coolly the manoeuvres of the Indians. These continued to pursue the flying horses; the numberless obstacles so thickly strewn over the plain—the ravines, the hillocks, and the sharp-pointed cacti—could not stop them. Without slackening the impetuosity of their pace or turning aside from any obstacle, these horsemen cleared them with wonderful address. Bold rider as he was himself, Fabian looked with enthusiasm on the astonishing agility of these wild hunters, but the precautions which they were forced to take, in order to conceal themselves, made the three friends lose a part of this imposing spectacle.The vast savannahs, late so deserted, were suddenly changed into a scene of tumult and confusion. The stag, returning to the bank, continued to fly, with the wolves still after him. The wild horses galloped before the Indians—whose howlings equalled that of the wolves—and described great circles to avoid the lance or the lasso, while numerous echoes repeated these various sounds.The sight of Fabian, who followed with an ardent eye all these tumultuous evolutions, not appearing to disquiet himself about a danger which he now braved for the first time, deprived Bois-Rose of that confidence in himself which had brought him safe and sound out of perils apparently greater than this.“Ah!” muttered he, “these are scenes which the inhabitants of cities can never see, it is only in the desert one can meet with them.”But his voice trembled in spite of himself; and he stopped, for he felt that he would have given a year of his life that Fabian had not been present. At this moment a new subject of apprehension added to his anguish.The scene became more solemn; for a new actor, whoserôlewas to be short though terrible, now appeared upon it. It was a man, whom by his dress the three recognised with terror as a white man like themselves. The unlucky man suddenly discovered in one of the evolutions of the chase, had become in his turn the exclusive object of pursuit. Wild horses, wolves, the stag, had all disappeared in the distant fog. There remained only the twenty Indians scattered over a circle, of which the white man occupied the centre. For an instant the friends could see him cast around him a glance of despair and anguish. But, excepting on the river-side, the Indians were everywhere. It was, therefore, in this direction that he must fly; and he turned his horse towards the opening opposite to the island. But his single moment of indecision had sufficed for the Indians to get near him.“The unhappy man is lost, and no help for it,” said Bois-Rose; “he is too late now to cross the river.”“But,” said Fabian, “if we can save a Christian, shall we let him be murdered before our eyes?”Pepé looked at Bois-Rose.“I answer for your life before God,” said the Canadian, solemnly, “if we are discovered we are but three against twenty. The life of three men—yours especially, Fabian—is more precious than that of one; we must let this unhappy man meet his fate.”“But intrenched as we are?” persisted Fabian.“Intrenched! Do you call this frail rampart of osiers and reeds an intrenchment? Do you think these leaves are ball proof? And these Indians are but twenty now; but let one of our shots be fired at them, and you will soon see one hundred instead of twenty. May God pardon me if I am unfeeling, but it is necessary.”Fabian said no more; this last reason seemed conclusive, for, like his companions, he was ignorant that the rest of the Indians were at the camp of Don Estevan.Meanwhile the white fled like a man the speed of whose horse is his last resource. Already they could see the terror depicted on his face, but just as he was about twenty feet from the river, the lasso of an Indian caught him, and the unlucky wretch, thrown violently from his saddle fell upon the sand.
While the Indians, united in council, were deliberating on the means of attacking the camp of the gold-seekers, let us see how the three men on the island were occupied.
It was about four o’clock, and the fog was beginning to rise slowly from the water. Willows and aspens grew on the shores of the river Gila, within rifle-range of the little island, and so near the water that their roots were in the river. The spaces between the trees were filled up by vigorous osier and other shoots; but just in front of the island was a large open space. This had been made by the troops of wild horses and buffaloes, that came down to drink at the river; and through this opening any one on the island could see clearly over the plain.
The little island had been formed originally by trees that had taken root in the bed of the river; other trees, some green and others without branches or foliage, had rested against these, and their roots had become interlaced. Since then, many summers and winters must have passed; and grasses and sedges, detached from the banks by the water, had filled up the interstices. Then the dust, brought there by the wind, had covered these with a crust of earth, and formed a kind of solid ground for the floating island. Plants had grown along the banks; the trunks of the willows had sent forth vigorous shoots, and, with the reeds, had surrounded the island with a fringe of verdure. The island was only a few feet in diameter; but a man lying, or even kneeling upon it, was completely hidden by the willow-shoots.
The sun was going down, and a little shade was thrown by the leaves and trees; in this shade was stretched the form of Fabian asleep. Bois-Rose seemed to be watching over his sleep, hastily taken after the fatigues of a long march, while Pepé refreshed himself by plunging in the water. While Fabian slumbers, we shall raise the veil by which the young Count hid from the eyes of his two friends his most secret and dearest thoughts.
After his fall into the torrent, Pepé had forgotten that the enemy on whom he had sworn vengeance was escaping, and both he and Bois-Rose had thought only of rendering prompt assistance to Fabian. On returning to consciousness, Fabian’s first thought was to resume his interrupted pursuit. The acquisition of the Golden Valley, and even the remembrance of Doña Rosarita, were forgotten by the ardent wish of revenging his mother.
Pepé, on his side, was not the man to draw back from his vow; and as for Bois-Rose, his whole affections were centred in his two companions, and he would have followed them to the end of the world. Their first failure, far from discouraging them, did but excite their ardour; in hatred as in love, obstacles are always a powerful stimulant to vigorous minds. The pursuit had gradually presented a double object to Fabian; it brought him near to the Golden Valley in the desert; and he nourished a vague hope that the place pointed out to him was not the same as that which the expedition led by Antonio de Mediana proposed to conquer.
Fabian said to himself, that the daughter of Don Augustin doubtless only yielded obedience to the ambitious views of her father, and that it might yet be easy for him, noble and rich, to win the day against such a rival as Tragaduros.
Still, discouragement often seized upon Fabian; he loved the daughter of the haciendado with his whole soul; and the thought of owing her love only to the treasures that he might possess, distressed him. Moreover, he felt that the ardent and jealous affection of the Canadian, had founded on him the sole aim of his life, and that, like the eagle who carries away his young one and places it in an eyrie, inaccessible to the hand of man, Bois-Rose, who had forever quitted civilised life, wished to make of him his inseparable companion in the desert; and that, to disappoint the old man would be to throw a shadow over his whole future life. As yet, no confidence as to their future had been exchanged between them; but in face of a love that he believed hopeless, and of the ardent, though secret wishes of the man who now acted as a father to him, and who would half break his heart at a separation, Fabian had generously and silently sacrificed his tastes and hopes that would not die. He who had but to hold out his hand to seize the things that the whole world desires—riches, titles, and honours—was like one whose life tortured by an unhappy love, disclaiming the future, seeks within the cloister forgetfulness of the past. For Fabian de Mediana, the desert was the cloister; and his mother once revenged, it only remained to him to bury himself in it forever. Sad and inefficacious, as a remedy, would be solitude, with its mysterious voice, and the ardent contemplations that it awakens, for a passion so fondly awakened in the young heart of Fabian.
One single hope remained to him—that amidst the ever-renewed dangers of an adventurous life, the day was not far distant when his life would be cut short in some contest with the Indians, or in one of those desperate attempts that he meditated against the murderer of his mother. He had carefully hidden from the Canadian the love that he buried in the depths of his heart; and it was in the silence of the night that he dared to look into his own bosom. Then, like the light which shines in the horizon above great cities, and which the traveller contemplates with joy, a radiant and cherished image rose before his eyes in the desert, standing on that breach in the wall of the hacienda, where his last souvenirs carried him. But during the day, the heroic young man tried to hide under an apparent calm, the melancholy that devoured him. He smiled, with sad resignation, at those plans for the future which the Canadian sometimes enlarged on before him—he so happy in having found him, and who trembled to lose again his beloved Fabian, whose hand he hoped would one day close his eyes. The blind tenderness of Bois-Rose did not divine the abyss under the calm surface of the lake, but Pepé was rather more clear-sighted.
“Well,” said Pepé, after a long silence, “the inhabitants of Madrid would pay dearly for such a stream of water in the Manzanares; but we have not the less lost a day which might have brought us nearer to the Golden Valley, and from which we cannot now be far distant.”
“I allow that,” replied Bois-Rose, “but the child,” for so he called the vigorous young man before them, “is not so accustomed as we are to long marches, and though sixty leagues in twelve days is not very much for us, it begins to tell on him. But before he has been a year with us, he will be able to walk as far as ourselves.”
Pepé could not help smiling at this answer, but the Canadian did not perceive it.
“See,” said the Spaniard, pointing to Fabian, “how the poor lad has changed in a few days. For my part, at his age, I should have preferred the glance of a damsel and the Puerta del Sol at Madrid to all the magnificence of the desert. Fatigue alone has not produced this change in him. There is some secret which he does not tell us, but I will penetrate it one of these days,” added Pepé mentally.
At these words the Canadian turned his head quickly towards his beloved child, but a smile of joy from Fabian chased away the sudden cloud from the brow of his adoptive father. Fabian indeed smiled; he was dreaming that he was on his knees before Rosarita, listening to the sweet voice of the young girl, who was recounting her anguish during his long absence, and that Bois-Rose stood behind them leaning on his rifle and blessing them both. Ah! it was only a dream.
The two hunters looked for a moment silently at the sleeper.
“There lies the last descendant of the Medianas,” said Pepé, with a sigh.
“What care I for the Medianas and their powerful race?” replied the Canadian. “I know but Fabian. When I saved him, and attached myself to him as though he had been my own, did I ask about his ancestors?”
“You will wake him if you talk so loud,” said Pepé; “your voice roars like a cataract.”
“Why are you always recalling to me things that I do not wish to know, or rather wish to forget. I know that some years in the desert will accustom him—”
“You deceive yourself strangely, Bois-Rose, if you imagine that with the prospects that await him in Spain, and the rights that he can claim, this young man will consent to pass his whole life in the desert. It is good for us, but not for him.”
“What! is not the desert preferable to cities?” cried the old sailor, who vainly tried to conceal from himself that Pepé was right. “I undertake to make him prefer a wandering life to a settled one. Is it not for movement, for fighting, and for the powerful emotions of the desert that man is born?”
“Certainly,” said Pepé, gravely, “and that is just why the towns are deserted and the deserts peopled!”
“Do not jest, Pepé; I am speaking of serious things. While I leave Fabian free to follow his own inclinations, I shall make him love this captivating life. Is not this short sleep, snatched hastily between two dangers, preferable to what one tastes after a day of idle security in the towns. You yourself, Pepé—wouldyouwish to return to your own country, since you have known the charms of a wandering life?”
“There is between the heir of the Medianas,” replied Pepé, “and the old coast-guard man a great difference. To him will come a fine property, a great name, and a beautiful Gothic castle with towers like the cathedral at Burgos; while I should be sent to fish for mackerel at Ceuta—which is the most execrable life I know of and which I should have but one chance of escaping from—that of waking some fine morning, at Tunis or Tetuan, as a slave to our neighbours the Moors. I have here, it is true, the daily chance of being scalped or burnt alive by the Indians. Still the town is worse for me—but for Don Fabian—”
“Fabian has always lived in solitude, and will, I trust, prefer the calm of the desert to the tumult of cities. How solemn and silent is all around us! See here!” and he pointed to Fabian, “how the child sleeps, softly lulled by the murmur of the waters, and by the breeze in the willows. Look there, in the horizon at those fogs just coloured by the sun, and that boundless space where man wanders in his primitive liberty, like the birds in the air!”
The Spaniard shook his head doubtfully, although he partook the ideas of the Canadian, and like him felt the charm of this wandering life.
“Look,” continued the old hunter, “at that troop of wild horses coming down to drink before going for the night to their distant pasturage. See how they approach in all the proud beauty that God gives to free animals—ardent eyes, open nostrils, and floating manes! Ah! I should almost like to awake Fabian in order that he might see and admire them.”
“Let him sleep, Bois-Rose; perhaps his dreams show him more graceful forms than those horses of the desert—forms such as abound in our Spanish towns, in balconies or behind barred windows.”
Bois-Rose sighed, as he added—
“Yet this is fine sight—how these noble beasts bound with joy at their liberty!”
“Yes, until they are chased by the Indians, and then they bound with terror!”
“There! now they are gone like the cloud driven by the wind!” continued the Canadian. “Now the scene changes. Look at that stag, who shows from time to time his shining eyes and black nose through the trees; he snuffs the wind, he listens. Ah! now he also approaches to drink. He has heard a noise, he raises his head; do not the drops that fall from his mouth look like liquid gold? I will wake the lad!”
“Let him sleep, I tell you; perhaps his dream now shows him black eyes and rosy lips, or some nymph sleeping on the banks of a clear stream.”
The old Canadian sighed again.
“Is not the stag the emblem of independence?” said he.
“Yes, until the time when the wolves assemble to pursue and tear him to pieces. Perhaps he would have more chance of life in our royal parks. Everything to its time, Bois-Rose; old age loves silence, youth noise.”
Bois-Rose still fought against the truth. It was the drop of gall that is found at the bottom of every cup of happiness; it is not permitted that there should be perfect felicity, for it would then be too painful to die; neither is unmixed misery allowed to mortals, or it would be painful to live. The Canadian hung his head and looked sad as he glanced at the sleeping youth, while Pepé put on his buffalo-skin buskins.
“Well! what did I tell you?” said he, presently; “do you not hear from afar those howlings—I mean those barkings, for the wolves have voices like dogs when they hunt the stags. Poor stag! he is, as you said, the emblem of life in the desert.”
“Shall I wake Fabian now?” said Bois-Rose.
“Yes, certainly; for after a love dream a stag hunt is the thing most worthy of a nobleman like him, and he will rarely see such a one as this.”
“He will see nothing like it in the towns,” cried the Canadian, enchanted; “such scenes must make him love the desert.”
And he shook the young man gently.
With head thrown back, to inhale more freely the air necessary to his lungs, the stag flew like an arrow along the plain. Behind him a hungry pack of wolves, a few white, but the greater number black, pursued him at full speed. The stag had an immense start, but on the sand heaps, almost lost in the horizon, the piercing eye of the hunter might distinguish other wolves watching. The noble animal either did not see, or else disdained them, for he flew straight towards them. As he neared them he halted a moment. Indeed, he found himself shut in by a circle of enemies, who constantly advanced upon him as he stopped to take breath. All at once he turned round, faced the other wolves, and tried one last effort to escape. But he could not now clear the solid masses that had formed around him, and he fell in the midst of them. Some rolled under his feet, and two or three were tossed in the air. Then, with a wolf hanging to his flanks, bleeding and with tongue protruding, the poor animal advanced to the edge of the water, in front of the three spectators of the strange chase.
“It is magnificent!” cried Fabian clapping his hands, and carried away by the hunter’s enthusiasm, which for the time silences humanity in the heart of men.
“Is it not fine?” cried Bois-Rose, doubly pleased, happy at Fabian’s pleasure, and at his own. “And we shall witness many such fine sights, my Fabian! here you see only the worst side of these American solitudes, but when you go with Pepé and me to the great rivers, and the great lakes of the north—”
“The animal has got rid of his enemy,” interrupted Fabian, “he is about to spring into the river!”
The water bubbled after the leap of the stag, then a dozen times more as the wolves followed; then amidst the foam were visible the head of the stag, and those of the wolves who were pursuing him, howling with hunger, while the more timid ones ran along the banks uttering their lamentable howls. The stag had neared the island, when the wolves on the bank suddenly ceased their cries and fled precipitately away.
“What is that?” cried Pepé; “what causes this sudden panic?” but no sooner had he spoken than he cried again, “Hide yourselves, in God’s name! the Indians are in chase also.”
Other and more formidable hunters now appeared in their turn upon the arena. A dozen of the wild horses, which they had seen before, were now seen galloping wildly over the plain, while some Indians, mounted bareback on their horses (having taken their saddles off for greater speed), with their knees almost up to their chins, were pursuing the terrified animals. At first there were but three Indians visible; but one by one about twenty appeared, some armed with lances, and others brandishing their lassoes of plaited leather—all uttering those cries by which they express their joy or anger.
Pepé glanced at the Canadian as though to ask whether he had calculated these terrible chances when he wished to make Fabian share their adventurous career. For the first time, at such a crisis, the intrepid hunter looked deadly pale. An eloquent but sad glance was his reply to the Spaniard’s mute interrogation.
“A too great affection in the heart of the bravest man,” thought Pepé, “makes him tremble for him who he loves more than life; and adventurers like us should have no ties. There is Bois-Rose trembling like a woman!”
However, they felt almost certain that even the practiced eyes of the Indians could not discover them in their retreat; and the three men, after their first alarm had passed over, watched coolly the manoeuvres of the Indians. These continued to pursue the flying horses; the numberless obstacles so thickly strewn over the plain—the ravines, the hillocks, and the sharp-pointed cacti—could not stop them. Without slackening the impetuosity of their pace or turning aside from any obstacle, these horsemen cleared them with wonderful address. Bold rider as he was himself, Fabian looked with enthusiasm on the astonishing agility of these wild hunters, but the precautions which they were forced to take, in order to conceal themselves, made the three friends lose a part of this imposing spectacle.
The vast savannahs, late so deserted, were suddenly changed into a scene of tumult and confusion. The stag, returning to the bank, continued to fly, with the wolves still after him. The wild horses galloped before the Indians—whose howlings equalled that of the wolves—and described great circles to avoid the lance or the lasso, while numerous echoes repeated these various sounds.
The sight of Fabian, who followed with an ardent eye all these tumultuous evolutions, not appearing to disquiet himself about a danger which he now braved for the first time, deprived Bois-Rose of that confidence in himself which had brought him safe and sound out of perils apparently greater than this.
“Ah!” muttered he, “these are scenes which the inhabitants of cities can never see, it is only in the desert one can meet with them.”
But his voice trembled in spite of himself; and he stopped, for he felt that he would have given a year of his life that Fabian had not been present. At this moment a new subject of apprehension added to his anguish.
The scene became more solemn; for a new actor, whoserôlewas to be short though terrible, now appeared upon it. It was a man, whom by his dress the three recognised with terror as a white man like themselves. The unlucky man suddenly discovered in one of the evolutions of the chase, had become in his turn the exclusive object of pursuit. Wild horses, wolves, the stag, had all disappeared in the distant fog. There remained only the twenty Indians scattered over a circle, of which the white man occupied the centre. For an instant the friends could see him cast around him a glance of despair and anguish. But, excepting on the river-side, the Indians were everywhere. It was, therefore, in this direction that he must fly; and he turned his horse towards the opening opposite to the island. But his single moment of indecision had sufficed for the Indians to get near him.
“The unhappy man is lost, and no help for it,” said Bois-Rose; “he is too late now to cross the river.”
“But,” said Fabian, “if we can save a Christian, shall we let him be murdered before our eyes?”
Pepé looked at Bois-Rose.
“I answer for your life before God,” said the Canadian, solemnly, “if we are discovered we are but three against twenty. The life of three men—yours especially, Fabian—is more precious than that of one; we must let this unhappy man meet his fate.”
“But intrenched as we are?” persisted Fabian.
“Intrenched! Do you call this frail rampart of osiers and reeds an intrenchment? Do you think these leaves are ball proof? And these Indians are but twenty now; but let one of our shots be fired at them, and you will soon see one hundred instead of twenty. May God pardon me if I am unfeeling, but it is necessary.”
Fabian said no more; this last reason seemed conclusive, for, like his companions, he was ignorant that the rest of the Indians were at the camp of Don Estevan.
Meanwhile the white fled like a man the speed of whose horse is his last resource. Already they could see the terror depicted on his face, but just as he was about twenty feet from the river, the lasso of an Indian caught him, and the unlucky wretch, thrown violently from his saddle fell upon the sand.