Chapter Twenty Nine.
The Fight ’twixt Winter and Spring—A Never-to-be-Forgotten Evening—Attacked by Northern indians—The Fire.
Would Springtime never come again?
We had expected it weeks ago. The birds and beasts in the forest had expected it too. The former had commenced to sing, the latter had grown unusually active; guanacos had been in search of tender herbage, pumas had been in search of the guanacos. Hungry, lank, dismal-eyed foxes had come down to stare at the toldos when the dogs were eating; and even the armadillos had unrolled themselves from cosy caves and corners, and crawled at night towards the encampment.
Then the new snowstorm had come on all so suddenly too.
The denizens of the woods had taken shelter under the trees; in some of these the branches, snow-laden, had dropped groundward, forming quite a series of tents in the forest. In these the Indians had found whole colonies of great gawky-looking ostriches, and had made a harvest in feathers.
Lawlor, wading through the snow one day, and peeping in under the trees, came face to face with a puma. It would have gone hard with him had not Ritchie, rifle in hand, been close alongside and shot the huge beast while it was in the very act of springing.
But the dreary season came to an end at last, and the snow began to melt and to fly away. Then winter and spring seemed to fight together for the mastery. Winter riding on the wings of a fierce west wind that roared harshly through the woods and bent the trees before it. Winter driving before him battalions of threatening clouds, white, grey, and black, and trying to blot out the sun. Frost, with his crystal cohorts, struggling for every inch of ground, fighting for the lake of the plains, which had succumbed to the last terrible storm and was hardened over; fighting for the streams, the rapids, the cataracts.
The sun, in all his beauty and splendour, shooting out every now and then into the rifts of blue, and sending his darts groundwards at every unprotected spot, each ray a ray of hope for the long-enslaved earth. Sunshine glittering on the leaves of evergreen shrubs, shining on the needles of pines, and adorning every budding twig with radiant dew-drops, that erst were crystals of ice.
Spring victorious on the higher grounds, and sending down torrents and floods to assist its triumph in the lowlands and plains.
Winter at last vanquished and gone, and forced to fly even from under the trees and every shady nook.
Now comes a warm soft breeze from the north and the east, and all the land responds to it. Torrents still pour from the hills, but the woods grow green in little over a week, and wild flowers carpet every knoll and bank.
We are all active now in the estancia and in the camp. We are preparing for the long march back over the Pampa to Santa Cruz, where Castizo says he doubts not his little yacht is already lying safely at anchor, and his daughter anxiously waiting his appearance.
Horses are now better fed and tended, and regularly exercised day after day. Saddles are repaired, and stirrups and bridles seen to. The women are busier than ever with their needles. Boys and girls are twining sinews for the strings of bolas and for lassoes. The dogs seem wild with delight. They all appear to know we will soon be on the march once more, and they dearly love their life on the plains.
Our stores are nearly exhausted—I mean our coffee, tea, maté and sugar. Flesh is still abundant, and always is. So no one will be sorry to leave this lovely forest nook, albeit we have spent many a happy day in it.
“In three days more,” said Castizo one evening, as we all sat round the blazing logs, “we will be ready to start.”
“I feel a little sorry in leaving this place,” said Jill.
“There is nothing but leave-takings in this world,” said Castizo; “and the happier one is the quicker the time flies, and the sooner seems to come this leave-taking.”
“Never mind,” said Peter; “if our good cacique would only say he would take me, I should be right glad to return with him another day.”
“You will come back, I dare say, sir?” said Ritchie.
“If spared, yes. I may not spend another winter here though, for the simple reason that I will not have such pleasant company. I am fond of loneliness, still I shall ever look back to this winter as to some of the happiest months ever I spent in all my chequered career.”
“So shall we all,” I made bold to say.
“Hear, hear,” said Peter and Jill.
“You’ve been happy, Pedro?”
“Ah! señor, multo, multo.”
“Peter, your pipe.”
“Is that a command,” said Peter.
“Certainly. Am I not still your cacique?”
Peter got his pipe and commenced to play, and presently, after a gentle knock at the door, in came the giant Jeeka and his wife Nadi. They stood at some little distance till invited to draw nearer the fire. Then they squatted on a guanaco skin, Jeeka holding his wife’s hand in his lap, and both looking so pleased and happy.
I shall never forget their faces. I have but to place my hand over my eyes at this moment, and I see them once again.
Alas! little did they know what was before them. And little did any one there expect what happened before the sun of another day crimsoned the peaks of the lofty mountains.
Peter, Jill, and I sat long that night in our little room before turning in, talking of home. But Peter had something else to speak about. Need it be said that Dulzura—as he still delighted to call her—formed his chief subject for discourse to-night.
“Oh,” he said, “I only wonder you fellows did not hear my heart going pit-a-pat, when Castizo told us his daughter was coming round in the yacht.”
“My dear Peter,” Jill said, “I do believe you are actually in love.”
“Is it the first time you’ve discovered it, my honest Greenie? Haven’t I cause to be? Was there ever such a lovely or fascinating creature in the world as Dulzura! And I’m a man now, remember. Twenty-one, boys, or I will be in a month.”
He stroked an incipient moustache as he spoke, and appeared savage because Jill and I laughed at him.
“Suppose Dulzura is already engaged?” said Jill, somewhat provokingly.
“Jill, you’re a Job’s comforter,” replied Peter. “Of course, if she is engaged, there’s an end to the matter. I’d enter a convent and turn a father.”
“A pretty father you’d make,” cried Jill, laughing again.
“All right,” said Peter, “Wait till you’re in love, Greenie, and won’t I serve you out just!”
“Well, boys,” I put in, “a happy thought has just occurred to me.”
“Let’s have it.”
“Suppose we cease talking and all go to bed.”
“Right,” cried Peter, jumping up and beginning to undress.
In a few minutes more “good-nights” were said, and we were composing ourselves to sleep. Sleep in this region is deep and heavy, and I may surely add healthy, for one awakens in the morning feeling as fresh as the daisies or the proverbial lark.
I did not seem to have been asleep a quarter of an hour when Peter shook me by the shoulder.
“Jack, Jack,” he was saying, “there is something up.”
Peter was already dressed, and accustomed as I had been to scenes of danger I was soon following his example, though hardly knowing where I was or what I was doing.
“Don’t you hear?” said Peter.
I listened now. In a moment I was as wide awake as ever I have been in my life.
I remember everything that happened that morning as though ’twere but yesterday. It was morning too. Our windows faced the east, and there was a faint glimmering of the dawn already in the sky.
From the direction of the Indian camp, came first a subdued hum of angry voices. These were soon mingled with shouts of men and screams of women and children, and presently there were added the clash of weapons and the ring of revolver shots.
“They are fighting down at the toldos,” said Peter. “Hurry up with your dressing.”
“Whom are they fighting with?”
“I cannot say. It may be mutiny. Either that, or the Northern Indians are on us.”
“Heaven forbid.”
“Here, Greenie!” cried Peter.
“Jill, Jill!” I shouted, “Get up, brother. They are fighting.”
Jill sat up and listened for a moment, then threw himself doggedly back again on his pillow.
“Jill!” I roared, shaking him viciously, “get up, you silly sleepy boy. The Indians are on us.”
Jill appeared fairly roused now. He sprang up and began to hurry on his dress.
We, that is Peter and I, got our revolvers and stuck them in our belts—they were always kept loaded; then we took our swords and sallied out.
“Follow quick, Jill,” were my last words to my brother. “Look out for me and get to my side. We may have to do a bit more back to back work.”
We saw at a glance that it was Northern Indians with whom we had to deal, and quite a large party.
The fight was raging fiercely. Peter and I overtook Ritchie and Lawlor hurrying into the fray, and joined them. Castizo was already there. We could hear his stern words of command, and we noticed too that his revolver emptied many a saddle. Our people were fighting on foot, but fighting well and bravely. The women and children had already fled to the forest.
We came up at the right time, evidently, and the volleys we poured in created the greatest confusion in the ranks of the enemy. They seemed staggered for a little while, and made as if to retreat, but were rallied and came on once more to the charge.
How long we fought I could not say; it might have been ten minutes, or it might have been half an hour.
Suddenly there was a momentary lull, and I looked about me for Jill. He was nowhere to be seen. I shouted to Peter. He had not seen him. I extricated myself from the mêlée as best I could, and hurried back to the log-house. The poor foolish fellow must have gone to sleep again. As it happened, this is precisely what he had done. But, to my horror, I found the log-house surrounded by smoke. It was on fire.
And my brother was there, in its midst.
How I reached the door I never knew. At first I seemed dazed, nor am I certain that at any period of that dreadful night I regained the equilibrium of my senses.
I rushed in through smoke and flames. I could just distinguish my brother’s form lying half-dressed on his couch, but was speedily obliged to retreat.
Then I remember feeling angry with the fire, mad almost. Why should the flames take my brother from me, the being I loved as my own soul? No, no! Save him I must, save him I should! I looked upon the fire as a living thing, as a cruel, remorseless, merciless wild beast. I fought the fire. I defied it. I was calm, though; that is, I was calm as regards the rational sequence of my actions, but in reality I was a maniac for the time being. Do men, I wonder, who do marvellous deeds of daring in the field or lead forlorn hopes, feel and fight as I then did?
With a strength that did not appear to be my own, I tore down the blazing door-posts and door that barred my entrance. Then once more I was in the room. Groping around now, stumbling too, for I could see nothing in the smoke. Ah! here at last I have him; I have him at last now!
Out now I struggle and stagger, and fall choking in the morning air.