THE AGONY OF A TOWN.
About two in the morning, at the moment when the blue jay struck up its first song, faint as a sigh, Nocobotha, completely armed for war, left his toldo, and proceeded to the centre of the camp. Here the Ulmens, Apo-Ulmens, and caraskens, were squatting on their heels round an immense fire, and smoking in silence. All rose on the arrival of the supreme Toqui, but at a signal from the master they resumed their seats. Nocobotha then turned to the matchi, who was walking gravely by his side, and to whom he had dictated his orders beforehand.
"Will Gualichu," he asked him, "be neutral, adverse, or favourable in the war of his Indian sons against the pale faces?"
The sorcerer went up to the fire, and walked round it thrice from left to right, while muttering unintelligible words. At the third round he filled a calabash with sacred water contained in closely plaited reeds, sprinkled the assembly, and threw the rest toward the east. Then, with body half bent and head advanced, he stretched out his arms, and appeared listening to sounds perceptible to himself alone.
On his right hand the blue jay poured forth its plaintive note twice in succession. Suddenly the matchi's face was disfigured by horrible grimaces; his blood-suffused eyes swelled; he turned pale and trembled as if suffering from an ague fit.
"The spirit is coming! The spirit is coming!" the Indians said.
"Silence!" Nocobotha commanded; "The sage, is about to speak."
In fact, obeying this indirect order, he whistled guttural sounds between his teeth, among which the broken words could be detected—
"The spirit is marching!" he exclaimed; "He has unfastened his long hair, which floats in the wind; his breath spreads death around. The sky is red with blood! Gualichu, the prince of evil will not want for victims. The flesh of the palefaces serves as a sheath for the knives of the Patagonians. Do you hear the urubús and vultures in the distance? What a splendid meal they will have!—Utter the war yell! Courage, warriors, Gualichu guides you death is nothing; glory everything."
The sorcerer still continued to stammer, and rolled on the ground, suffering from a fit of epilepsy. Then the Indians pitilessly turned away from him, for the man who is so rash as to touch the matchi when the spirit is torturing him would be struck by a sudden death. Such is the Indian belief.
Nocobotha addressed the audience in his turn. "Chiefs of the great Patagonian nations, as you see, the God of our fathers is with us, and He wishes our land to become free again. The sun, when it sets, must not see a Spanish flag waving in Patagonia. Courage, brothers! The Incas, my ancestors, who hunt on the blessed prairies of the Eskennam, will joyfully receive among them those who may fall in battle. Each will proceed to his post! The cry of the urubú, repeated thrice at equal intervals, will be the signal for the assault."
The chiefs bowed and withdrew.
The night, studded with stars, was calm and imposing. The moon coloured with a pale silver the dark blue of the firmament. There was not a breath in the air, not a cloud in the sky; the atmosphere was serene and limpid; nothing disturbed the silence of this splendid night, except the dull, vague murmur which seems on the desert to be the breathing of sleeping nature.
A thousand varied feelings were confounded in the mind of Nocobotha, who thought of the approaching deliverance of his country, and his love for Doña Concha. Then raising his eyes to the star-studded vault of Heaven, the Indian fervently implored Him who is omnipotent, and who tries the loins and hearts to fight on his side. If he had been compelled to choose between his love and the cause he defended, he assuredly would not have hesitated; for the happiness of an individual is as nothing when compared with the liberty of an entire nation.
While the Toqui was plunged in these reflections a hand was laid heavily on his shoulder. It was the matchi who looked at him with his tiger cat eyes.
"What do you want?" he asked him drily.
"Is my father satisfied with me? Did Gualichu speak well?"
"Yes," the chief said, repressing a start of disgust. "Withdraw."
"My father is great and generous."
Nocobotha contemptuously threw one of his rich necklaces to the wretched sorcerer, who made a grimace to show his joy.
"Begone!" he said to him.
The matchi, satisfied with his reward, went away. The trade of an Indian sorcerer is a famous one.
"I have the time," Nocobotha muttered, after calculating the hours by the position of the stars.
He hastily bent his steps toward Doña Concha's toldo.
"She is there," he said to himself, "she is sleeping, lulled by her childish dreams; her lips are opened like a flower to inhale the perfumed breath of night. She is slumbering with her hand upon her heart to defend it. And I love her! Grant, O Heaven, that I may render her happy! Help my arm, which wishes to save a people!"
He went up to a warrior, standing at the entrance to the toldo.
"Lucaney," he said, in a voice that was powerfully affected, "I have twice saved you from death."
"I remember it."
"All I love is in that toldo: I intrust it to you."
"This toldo is sacred, my father."
"Thanks!" Nocobotha said, affectionately pressing the hand of the Ulmen, who kissed the hem of his robe.
The Ulmens, after the council was over, had drawn up their tribes in readiness for the assault; the warriors, lying down flat on the ground, began one of those astounding marches which Indians alone are capable of undertaking. Gliding and crawling like lizards through the lofty grass, they succeeded, within an hour, in placing themselves unnoticed at the very foot of the Argentine intrenchments. This movement had been executed with the refined prudence the Indians display on the war trail. The silence of the prairie had not been disturbed, and the town seemed buried in sleep.
Some minutes, however, before the Ulmens received Nocobotha's final orders, a man, dressed in the costume of the Aucas, had left the camp before them all, and made his way to Carmen on his hands and knees. On reaching the first barricades, he held out his hands to an invisible hand, which hoisted him over the wall.
"Well, Pedrito?"
"We shall be attacked, major, within an hour."
"Is it an assault?"
"Yes; the Indians are afraid of being poisoned like rats, and hence wish to come to an end."
"What is to be done?"
"We must die."
"By Jupiter! That's fine advice."
"We may still try—"
"What?"
"Give me twenty faithful gauchos."
"Take them, and what then?"
"Leave me to act, major. I do not answer for success, as these red demons are as numerous as flies; but I shall certainly kill some of them."
"And the women and children?"
"I have shut them up in the Estancia of San Julian."
"Heaven be praised!"
"But, by the way, they will attack the estancia if they take Carmen."
"You're a humbug, Pedrito," the major said, with a smile. "You forget Doña Concha."
"That is true," the bombero remarked gaily; "I did not think of the señorita. I also forgot this—the signal for the attack will be an urubú cry, repeated at three equal intervals."
"Good! I will go and prepare, for I do not expect they will wait for sunrise."
The major on one side, and the bombero on the other, proceeded from post to post to awake the defenders of the town, and warn them to be on their guard.
On that very evening, Major Bloomfield had convened all the inhabitants; and in a short and energetic harangue depicted to them their desperate situation.
"The boats tied up under the guns of the fort," he said, in conclusion, "are ready to receive the women, children, and any frightened men. They will be removed during the night to the Estancia of San Julian."
The inhabitants stationed themselves behind the barricades with eye and ear on the watch, and musket in hand. An hour was spent in watching for the Patagonians, when suddenly the hoarse, ill-omened cry of the urubú broke the silence. A second cry followed the first closely, and the last note of the third was still vibrating, when a frightful clamour burst forth on all sides simultaneously, and the Indians dashed forward tumultuously to scale the outer entrenchments. They broke against the living wall that rose at the barriers. Astounded by this unexpected resistance, the Patagonians fell back, and were decimated by the canister, which spread desolation and death among their ranks.
Pedrito, profiting by the panic of the Redskins, dashed, after them at the head of his gauchos, and cut them down vigorously.
After two hours of terrific fighting, the sun, disdainful of human contests, majestically rose in the horizon, and spread the splendour of its beams over the field of carnage. The Indians saluted its apparition with shouts of joy, and rushed with much rage at the intrenchments—their shock was irresistible.
The colonists fled, pursued by the savages. But a formidable explosion upheaved the ground beneath their feet, and the hapless Indians hurled into the air fell dead all around. It was a mine the Argentines had fired.
The Indians, wild with terror, and deaf to the voice of their Ulmens, fled, and refused to begin the engagement again.
Nocobotha, mounted on a splendid charger, black as night, dashed forward, almost alone, and waved the sacred totem of the United Nations, shouting in a voice heard above the din of battle—
"Cowards who refuse to conquer, at least see me die!"
This cry sounded in the ears of the Indians as a shameful reproach, and they ran after their chief.
Nocobotha appeared invulnerable. He made his horse curvet, rushed into the thickest of the fight, parried every blow with the staff of the totem, which he raised above his head and shouted to his men—
"Courage, follow me!"
"Nocobotha, the last of the Indians! Let us die for the Child of the Sun!" the Patagonians shouted, electrified by the rash boldness of their Toqui.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, enthusiastically pointing to the planet of day, "See! My radiant father smiles on our valour. Forward, forward!"
"Forward!" the warriors repeated, and redoubled their fury.
All the town was already invaded, and the fighting went on from house to house. The Aucas formed in close columns, and, led by Nocobotha, dashed up the eastern steep street that runs to Old Carmen and the citadel. They advanced fearlessly, in spite of the incessant fire from the guns of the fort. Nocobotha, respected by death, and ever in front, brandished his totem, and made his black horse rear.
"Well," Major Bloomfield said, mournfully to Pedrito, "the hour has arrived."
"Do you wish it, major?"
"I insist on it."
"That is enough," the bombero added. "Good-bye, major, till we meet again in another world."
The two men shook hands: it was a final leave-taking, for, unless a miracle occurred, they were about to die. After this farewell, Pedrito collected fifty horsemen, formed them into a close squadron, and between two discharges from the battery, they dashed at full speed upon the ascending Indians. The Redskins opened right and left before this avalanche that rushed down the mountain; and they had scarce recovered from their stupor, ere they perceived the Spanish horsemen in three boats, pulling out to sea with all their might.
Taking advantage of this bold diversion, all the colonists, by Major Bloomfield's directions, shut themselves up in the fort.
Nocobotha made the Aucas a sign to halt, and advanced alone up to the walls of the citadel.
"Major," he shouted in a firm voice, "surrender; you and your men will be allowed to live."
"You are a traitor and a dog," the major, who at once appeared, answered.
"You are warned, you and your men."
"I will not surrender."
Twenty bullets whistled from the top of the wall, but Nocobotha had returned to his warriors with the rapidity of an arrow.
"Back! Back!" he shouted to them.
A detonation, loud as a hundred peals of thunder, rent the air. The major had blown up the powder in the fortress. The stony giant oscillated for two or three seconds on its base like an intoxicated mastodon; then, suddenly torn from the ground, it rose in the air, and burst like an overripe pomegranate, amid expiring cries of "Long live our country!"
A shower of stones and horridly mutilated corpses fell on the terrified Indians.
All was over. Nocobotha was master of the ruins of Carmen. Weeping with rage on seeing this disastrous victory, he planted his totem on a piece of tottering wall, which was the only relic of the fort and its defenders.