THE LAST ASSAULT.
Never before, perhaps, in all the annals of Indian warfare had a more determined attack been made upon a settler's estancia. The cacique or caciques who led the enemy seemed determined to purchase victory at any cost or hazard. Nor did the principal cacique hesitate to expose himself to danger. During the whole of the first onset he moved about on horseback close in the rear of his men, and appeared to bear a charmed life. The bullets must have been whizzing past him as thick as flies. Moncrieff himself tried more than once to bring him down, but all in vain.
During the final assault he was equally conspicuous; he was here, there, and everywhere, and his voice and appearance, even for a moment, among them never failed to cause his men to redouble their efforts.
It was not, however, until far on into the night that this last and awful charge was made.
The savage foe advanced with a wild shout all along the line of rampart that connected the Moncrieff main estancia with our villa. This was really our weakest part.
The assault was made on horseback. We heard them coming thundering on some time before we saw them and could fire. They seemed mad, furious; their tall feather-bedecked spears were waved high in air; they sat like huge baboons on their high saddles, and their very horses had been imbued with the recklessness of their riders, and came on bounding and flying over our frail field of spikes. It was to be all spear work till they came to close quarters; then they would use their deadly knives.
Hardly had the first sound of the horses' hoofs reached our ears ere one, two, three rockets left Coila Villa; and scarcely had they exploded in the air and cast their golden showers of sparks abroad, before the roar of an explosion was heard high up on the braeland that shook the houses to their very foundations—and then—there is the awful rush of foaming, seething water.
Nothing could withstand that unexpected flood; men and horses were floated and washed away, struggling and helpless, before it.
Just at the time when the last assault was nearly at its grim close I felt my arm pulled, and looking quickly round found Yambo at my side. He still clutched me by the arm, but he was waving his blood-stained sword in the direction of Moncrieff's house, and I could see by the motions of his mouth and face he wished me to come with him.
Something had occurred, something dreadful surely, and despite the excitement of battle a momentary cold wave of fear seemed to rush over my frame.
Sandie Donaldson was near me. This bold big fellow had been everywhere conspicuous to-night for his bravery. He had fought all through with extraordinary intrepidity.
Wherever I had glanced that night I had seen Sandie, the moon shining down on the white shirt and trousers he wore, and which made him altogether so conspicuous a figure, as he took aim with rifle or revolver, or dashed into a crowd of spear-armed Indians, his claymore hardly visible, so swiftly was it moved to and fro. I grasped his shoulder, pointed in the direction indicated by Yambo, and on we flew. 270
As soon as we had rounded the wing of an outbuilding and reached Moncrieff's terraced lawn, the din of the fight we had just left became more indistinct, but we now heard sounds that, while they thrilled us with terror and anger, made us rush on across the grass with the speed of the panther.
They were the voices of shrieking women, the crashing of glass and furniture, and the savage and exultant yell of the Indians.
Looking back now to this episode of the night, I can hardly realize that so many terrible events could have occurred in so brief a time, for, from the moment we charged up across the lawn not six minutes could have elapsed ere all was over. It is like a dream, but a dream every turn of which has been burned into my memory, to remain while life shall last. Yonder is a tall cacique hurrying out into the bright moonlight from under the verandah. He bears in his arms the inanimate form of my dear sister Flora. Is it really I myself who rush up to meet him? Have I fired that shot that causes the savage to reel and fall? Is it I who lift poor Flora and lay her in the shade of a mimosa-tree? It must be I, yet every action seems governed by instinct; I am for the time being a strange psychological study. It is as if my soul had left the body, but still commanded it, standing aside, ruling every motion, directing every blow from first to last, and being implicitly obeyed by the other ego, the ego-incorporate. There is a crowd, nay, a cloud even it seems, around me; but see, I have cut my way through them at last: they have fallen before me, fallen at my side—fallen or fled. I step over bodies, I enter the room, I stumble over other bodies. Now a light is struck and a lamp is lit, and standing beside the table, calm, but very pale, I see my aunt dimly through the smoke. My mother is near her—my own brave mother. Both have revolvers in their hands; and I know now why bodies are stretched on the floor. One glance shows me Aileen, lying like a dead thing in a 271 chair, and beside her, smoothing her brow, chafing her hands, Moncrieff's marvellous mother.
But in this life the humorous is ever mixed up with the tragic or sad, for lo! as I hurry away to join the fight that is still going on near the verandah I almost stumble across something else. Not a body this time—not quite—only Bombazo's ankles sticking out from under the sofa. I could swear to those striped silk socks anywhere, and the boots are the boots of Bombazo. I administer a kick to those shins, and they speedily disappear. I am out on the moonlit lawn now, and what do I see? First, good brave Yambo, down on one knee, being borne backwards, fierce hands at his throat, a short knife at his chest. The would-be assassin falls; Yambo rises intact, and together we rush on further down to where, on a terrace, Donaldson has just been overpowered. But see, a new combatant has come upon the scene; several revolver shots are fired in quick succession. A tall dark figure in semi-clerical garb is cutting right and left with a good broadsword. And now—why, now it is all over, and Townley stands beside us panting.
Well might he pant—he had done brave work. But he had come all too late to save Sandie. He lies there quietly enough on the grass. His shirt is stained with blood, and it is his own blood this time.
Townley bends over and quietly feels his arm. No pulse there. Then he breathes a half audible prayer and reverently closes the eyes.
I am hurrying back now to the room with Flora.
'All is safe, mother, now. Flora is safe. See, she is smiling: she knows us all. Oh, Heaven be praised, she is safe!'
We leave Townley there, and hurry back to the ramparts.
The stillness alone would have told us that the fight was finished and the victory won.
A few minutes after this, standing high up on the 272 rampart there, Moncrieff is mustering his people. One name after another is called. Alas! there are many who do not answer, many who will never answer more, for our victory has been dearly bought.
Four of our Scottish settlers were found dead in the trench; over a dozen Gauchos had been killed. Moncrieff and his partner were both wounded, though neither severely. Archie and Dugald were also badly cut, and answered but faintly and feebly to the roll-call. Sandie we know is dead, and Bombazo is—under the sofa. So I thought; but listen.
'Captain Rodrigo de Bombazo!'
'Here, general, here,' says a bold voice close behind me, and Bombazo himself presses further to the front.
I can hardly believe my eyes and ears. Could those have been Bombazo's boots? Had I really kicked the shins of Bombazo? Surely the events of the night had turned my brain. Bombazo's boots indeed! Bombazo skulk and hide beneath a sofa! Impossible. Look at him now. His hair is dishevelled; there is blood on his brow. He is dressed only in shirt and trousers, and these are marked with blood; so is his right arm, which is bared over the elbow, and the sword he carries in his hand. Bold Bombazo! How I have wronged him! But the silk striped socks? No; I cannot get over that.
Barely a month before the events just narrated took place at the estancias of Moncrieff there landed from a sailing ship at the port of Buenos Ayres a man whose age might have been represented by any number of years 'twixt thirty and forty. There were grey hairs on his temples, but these count for nothing in a man whose life has been a struggle with Fortune and Fate. The individual in question, whom his shipmates called Dalston, was tall and tough and wiry. He had shown what he was and what he could do in less than a week from the time of 273 his joining. At first he had been a passenger, and had lived away aft somewhere, no one could tell exactly where, for he did not dine in the saloon with the other passengers, and he looked above messing with the stewards. As the mate and he were much together it was supposed that Dalston made use of the first officer's cabin. The ship had encountered dirty weather from the very outset; head winds and choppy seas all the way down Channel, so that she was still 'kicking about off the coast'—this is how the seamen phrased it—when she ought to have been crossing the Bay or stretching away out into the broad Atlantic. She fared worse by far when she reached the Bay, having met with a gale of wind that blew most of her cloth to ribbons, carried away her bowsprit, and made hurdles of her bulwarks both forward and amidships. Worse than all, two men were blown from aloft while trying to reef a sail during a squall of more than hurricane violence. I say blown from aloft, and I say so advisedly, for the squall came on after they had gone up, a squall that even the men on deck could not stand against, a squall that levelled the very waves, and made the sea away to leeward—no one could see to windward—look like boiling milk.
The storm began to go down immediately after the squall, and next day the weather was fine enough to make sail, and mend sail. But the ship was short-handed, for the skipper had made no provision against loss by accident. He was glad then when the mate informed him that the 'gentleman' Dalston was as good as any two men on board.
'Send him to me,' said the skipper.
'Good morning. Ahem, I hear, sir, you would be willing to assist in the working of the ship. May I ask on what terms?'
'Certainly,' said Dalston. 'I'm going out to the Argentine, to buy a bit of land; well, naturally, money is some object to me. You see?'
'Well, my terms are the return of my passage money and civility.'
'Agreed; but why do you mention civility?'
'Because I've heard you using rather rough language to your men. Now, if you forgot yourself so far as to call me a bad name I'd——'
He paused, and there was a look in his eyes the captain hardly relished.
'Well! What would you do?'
'Why, I'd—retire to my cabin.'
'All right then, I think we understand each other.'
So Dalston was installed, and now dined forward. He became a favourite with his messmates. No one could tell a more thrilling and adventuresome yarn than Dalston, no one could sing a better song than himself or join more heartily in the chorus when another sang, and no one could work more cheerily on deck, or fly more quickly to tack a sheet.
Smyth had been the big man in the forecastle before Dalston's day. But Smyth was eclipsed now, and I dare say did not like his rival. One day, near the quarter-deck, Smyth called Dalston an ugly name. Dalston's answer was a blow which sent the fellow reeling to leeward, where he lay stunned.
'Have you killed him, Dalston?' said the captain.
'Not quite, sir; but I could have.'
'Well, Dalston, you are working for two men now; don't let us lose another hand, else you'll have to work for three.'
Dalston laughed.
Smyth gathered himself up and slunk away, but his look was one Dalston would have cause to remember.
This good ship—Sevenoaks she was called, after the captain's wife's birthplace—had a long and a rough passage all along. The owners were Dutchmen, so it did not matter a very great deal. There was plenty of time, and the ship was worked on the cheap. Perhaps the wonder is she 275 kept afloat at all, for at one period of the voyage she leaked so badly that the crew had to pump three hours out of every watch. Then she crossed a bank on the South American coast, and the men said she had sucked in a bit of seaweed, for she did not leak much after this.
The longest voyage has an end, however, and when the Sevenoaks arrived at Buenos Ayres, Dalston bade his messmates adieu, had his passage money duly returned, and went on shore, happy because he had many more golden sovereigns to rattle than he had expected.
Dalston went to a good hotel, found out all about the trains, and next day set out, in company with a waiter who had volunteered to be his escort, to purchase a proper outfit—only light clothes, a rifle, a good revolver, and a knife or two to wear in his belt, for he was going west to a rough country.
In the evening, after the waiter and he had dined well at another hotel:
'You go home now,' said Dalston; 'I'm going round to have a look at the town,'
'Take care of yourself,' the waiter said.
'No fear of me,' was the laughing reply.
But that very night he was borne back to his inn, cut, bruised, and faint.
And robbed of all his gold.
'Who has done this?' said the waiter, aghast at his friend's appearance.
'Smyth!' That was all the reply.
Dalston lay for weeks between life and death. Then he came round almost at once, and soon started away on his journey. The waiter—good-natured fellow—had lent him money to carry him to Mendoza.
But Dalston's adventures were not over yet.
He arrived at Villa Mercedes well and hopeful, and was lucky enough to secure a passage in the diligence about to start under mounted escort to Mendoza. After a jolting ride of days, the like of which he had never been used to 276 in the old country, the ancient-looking coach had completed three-quarters of the journey, and the rest of the road being considered safe the escort was allowed to go on its way to the frontier.
They had not departed two hours, however, before the travellers were attacked, the driver speared, and the horses captured. The only passenger who made the slightest resistance was Dalston. He was speedily overpowered, and would have been killed on the spot had not the cacique of the party whom Dalston had wounded interfered and spared his life.
Spared his life! But for what? He did not know. Some of the passengers were permitted to go free, the rest were killed. He alone was mounted on horseback, his legs tied with thongs and his horse led by an Indian.
All that night and all next day his captors journeyed on, taking, as far as Dalston could judge, a south-west course. His sufferings were extreme. His legs were swollen, cut, and bleeding; his naked shoulders—for they had stripped him almost naked—burned and blistered with the sun; and although his tongue was parched and his head drooping wearily on his breast, no one offered him a mouthful of water.
He begged them to kill him. Perhaps the cacique, who was almost a white man, understood his meaning, for he grinned in derision and pointed to his own bullet-wounded arm. The cacique knew well there were sufferings possible compared to which death itself would be as pleasure.
When the Indians at last went into camp—which they did but for a night—he was released, but guarded; a hunk of raw guanaco meat was thrown to him, which he tried to suck for the juices it contained.
Next day they went on and on again, over a wild pampa land now, with here and there a bush or tussock of grass or thistles, and here and there a giant ombu-tree. His ankles were more painful than ever, his shoulders were 277 raw, the horse he rode was often prodded with a spear, and he too was wounded at the same time. Once or twice the cacique, maddened by the pain of his wound, rushed at Dalston with uplifted knife, and the wretched prisoner begged that the blow might fall.
Towards evening they reached a kind of hill and forest land, where the flowering cacti rose high above the tallest spear. Then they came to a ruin. Indians here were in full force, horses dashed to and fro, and it was evident from the bustle and stir that they were on the war-path, and soon either to attack or be attacked.
The prisoner was now roughly unhorsed and cruelly lashed to a tree, and left unheeded by all. For a moment or two he felt grateful for the shade, but his position after a time became painful in the extreme. At night-fall all the Indians left, and soon after the sufferings of the poor wretch grew more dreadful than pen can describe. He was being slowly eaten alive by myriads of insects that crept and crawled or flew; horrid spiders with hairy legs and of enormous size ran over his neck and naked chest, loathsome centipedes wriggled over his shoulders and face and bit him, and ants covered him black from head to feet. Towards dusk a great jaguar went prowling past, looked at him with green fierce eyes, snarled low, and went on. Vultures alighted near him, but they too passed by; they could wait. Then it was night, and many of the insect pests grew luminous. They flitted and danced before his eyes till tortured nature could bear no more, and insensibility ended his sufferings for a time.
The Indians must have thought that, although their attack on our estancia had failed, we were too weak or too frightened to pursue them. They did not know Moncrieff. Wounded though he was, he had issued forth from behind the ramparts with thirty well-armed and splendidly-mounted men. They followed the enemy up for seven long hours, 278 and succeeded in teaching them such a lesson that they have never been seen in that district since.
Towards noon we were riding homewards, tired and weary enough now, when Donald suggested our visiting the old Jesuit ruin, and so we turned our horses' heads in that direction.
Donald had ridden on before, and as I drew near I heard him cry, 'Oh, Moncrieff, come quickly! Here is some poor fellow lashed to the ombu-tree!'