THE AMBUSCADE.
The Jaguar's measures were so well taken, and the traitor to whom the guidance of the conducta was entrusted had manoeuvred so cleverly, that the Mexicans fell literally into a wasp's nest, from which it was very difficult, if not impossible, for them to escape.
Although demoralized for a moment by the fall of their Chief, whose horse was killed at the beginning of the action, they still obeyed the Captain's voice, who, by a supreme effort, rose again almost simultaneously, and they collected round the string of mules laden with the treasure. They boldly formed a square, and prepared to defend courageously the precious depôt they had under their guard.
The escort commanded by Captain Melendez, though not large, was composed of old tried soldiers, long habituated to bush-fighting, and for whom the critical position in which their unlucky star had brought them, possessed nothing very extraordinary.
The dragoons had dismounted, and throwing away their long lances, useless in a fight like the one that was preparing, seized their carbines, and with their eyes fixed on the bushes, calmly awaited the order to begin firing.
Captain Melendez studied the terrain with a hurried glance, and it was far from being favourable. On the right and left steep slopes, crowned by enemies; in the rear, a large party of border rifles ambushed behind a barricade of trees, which, as if by enchantment, suddenly interrupted the road, and prevented a retreat; lastly, in front, a precipice about twenty yards in width, and of incalculable depth.
All hope, therefore, of getting safe and sound out of the position in which they were beset seemed taken from the Mexicans, not only through the considerable number of enemies that surrounded them, but also through the nature of the battle-field; still, after carefully examining it, a flash burst from the Captain's eye, and a gloomy smile passed over his face.
The dragoons had known their commander a long time, they placed faith in him; they perceived this fugitive smile, and their courage was heightened.
As the Captain had smiled, he must have hopes.
It is true that not a man in the whole escort could have said in what that hope consisted.
After the first discharge, the bandits appeared on the heights, but remained there motionless, satisfying themselves with attentively watching the movements of the Mexicans.
The Captain profited by this respite which the enemy so generously offered him, to take a few defensive measures, and amend his plan of battle.
The mules were unloaded, and the precious boxes placed right away at the rear, as far as possible from the enemy; then the horses and mules, led to the front, were arranged so that their bodies should serve as a rampart for the soldiers, who, kneeling and stooping behind this living breastwork, found themselves comparatively sheltered from the enemy's bullets.
When these measures were taken, and the Captain had assured himself by a final glance that his orders were punctually executed, he bent down to the ear of no Bautista, the chief arriero, and whispered a few words.
The arriero gave a quick start of surprise on hearing the Captain's words, but recovered himself immediately, and bowed his head in assent.
"You will obey?" Don Juan asked, as he looked at him fixedly.
"On my honour, Captain," the arriero answered.
"Very good," the young man said gaily; "we shall have some fun, I promise you."
The arriero fell back, and the Captain placed himself in front of the soldiers. He had scarce taken up his fighting position, when a man appeared at the top of the right hand bank; he held in his hand a long lance, from the end of which fluttered a piece of white rag.
"Oh, oh," the Captain murmured, "what is the meaning of this! Are they beginning to fear lest their prey may escape them? Hilloh," he shouted, "what do you want?"
"To parley," the man with the flag answered laconically.
"Parley," the Captain answered, "what good will that do? Besides, I have the honour of being a Captain in the Mexican army, and do not treat with bandits."
"Take care, Captain, misplaced courage is frequently braggadocio; your position is desperate."
"Do you think so?" the young man said in an ironical voice.
"You are surrounded on all sides."
"Bar one."
"Yes, but there is an impassable abyss there."
"Who knows?" the Captain said, still mockingly.
"In a word, will you listen to me?" the other said, who was beginning to grow impatient at this conversation.
"Well," the officer said, "let me hear your propositions, after which I will let you know my conditions."
"What conditions?" the bandit asked in amazement.
"Those I intend to impose on you, by Jove."
A Homeric laugh from the border rifles greeted these haughty words. The Captain remained cold and impassive.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"The Chief of the men who hold you imprisoned."
"Prisoners? I do not believe it; however, we shall see. Ah! you must be the Jaguar, whose name is held in execration on this border?"
"I am the Jaguar," the latter answered simply.
"Very good. What do you want with me? Speak, and before all be brief," the Captain said, as he leaned the point of his sword on the end of his boot.
"I wish to avoid bloodshed," the Jaguar said.
"That is very kind of you, but I fancy it is rather late to form so laudable a resolve," the officer said in his sarcastic voice.
"Listen, Captain, you are a brave officer, and I should be in despair if any misfortune happened to you; do not obstinately carry on an impossible struggle, surrounded as you are by an imposing force; any attempt at resistance would be an unpardonable act of madness, which could only result in a general massacre of the men you command, while you would not have the slightest hope of saving the conducta under your escort. Surrender, I repeat, for you have only that way of safety left open to you."
"Caballero," the Captain said, and this time seriously, "I thank you for the words you have spoken; I am a connoisseur in men, and see that you are speaking honourably at this moment."
"I am," said the Jaguar.
"Unfortunately," the Captain continued, "I am forced to repeat to you that I have the honour to be an officer, and would never consent to deliver my sword to the leader of banditti, for whose head a price is offered. If I have been mad and idiotic enough to let myself be drawn into a trap, all the worse for me—I must accept the consequences."
The two speakers had by this time come together, and were conversing side by side.
"I can understand, Captain, that your military honour must, under certain circumstances, compel you to fight, even under unfavourable conditions; but here the case is different—all the chances are against you, and your honour will in no way suffer by a capitulation which will save the lives of your brave soldiers."
"And deliver to you without a blow the rich prey you covet."
"Whatever you may do, that prey cannot escape me."
The Captain shrugged his shoulders.
"You are mistaken," he said; "like all men accustomed to prairie warfare, you have been too clever, and your adroitness has carried you past your object."
"What do you mean?"
"Learn to know me, Caballero; I am a cristiano viejo; I am descended from the old Conquistadors, and the Spanish blood flows pure in my veins. All my men are devoted to me, and at my order they will let themselves be killed to the last without hesitation; but whatever may be the advantages of the situation you occupy, and the number of your companions, you will require a certain time to kill fifty men reduced to desperation, and who are resolved not to ask quarter."
"Yes," the Jaguar said in a hollow voice; "but in the end they are killed."
"Of course," the Captain replied calmly; "but while you are murdering us, the arrieros have my positive orders to cast the money chests to the bottom of the abyss, to the brink of which you have forced us."
"Oh," the Jaguar said with an ill-restrained look of menace, "you will not do that."
"Why shall I not, if you please?" the officer said coldly. "Yes, I will do it, I pledge you my honour."
"Oh!"
"What will happen, then? You will have brutally murdered fifty men, with no other result than that of wallowing in the blood of your countrymen."
"Rayo de Dios! This is madness."
"Not at all; it is simply the logical consequence of the threat you make me; we shall be dead, but as men of honour, and have fulfilled our duty, as the money will be saved."
"All my efforts, then, to bring about a peaceful settlement are sterile."
"There is one way."
"What is it?"
"To let us pass, after pledging your word of honour not to molest our retreat."
"Never! That money is indispensable to me, and I must have it."
"Come and take it, then,"
"That is what I am going to do."
"Very good."
"The blood I wished to spare will fall on your head."
"Or on yours."
They separated.
The Captain turned to his soldiers, who had been near enough to follow the discussion through all its turnings.
"What will you do, lads?" he asked them.
"Die!" they answered in a loud and firm voice.
"Be it so—we will die together;" and brandishing his sabre over his head, he shouted, "Dios y libertad Viva México!"
"Viva México!" the dragoons repeated, enthusiastically.
While this had been going on, the sun had disappeared below the horizon, and darkness covered the earth, like a sombre winding-sheet.
The Jaguar, with rage in his heart at the ill success of his tentatives, had rejoined his comrades.
"Well," John Davis asked him, who was anxiously watching for his return, "what have you obtained?"
"Nothing. That man is a fanatic."
"As I warned you, he is a demon; fortunately he cannot escape us, whatever he may do."
"Then you are mistaken," the Jaguar replied, stamping his foot passionately; "whether he live or die the money is lost to us."
"How so?"
The Jaguar told his confidant in a few words what had passed between him and the Captain.
"Confusion!" the American exclaimed; "In that case let us make haste."
"To increase our misfortunes, it is as dark as in an oven."
"By heavens! Let us make an illumination. Perhaps it will cause those demons incarnate to reflect, who are croaking there like frogs calling for rain."
"You are right. Torches here!"
"Better still. Let us fire the forest."
"Ah, ah," the Jaguar said, with a laugh, "bravo! Let us smoke them out like musk-rats."
This diabolical idea was immediately carried out, and ere long a brilliant belt of flame ran all around the gorge, where the Mexicans were stoically awaiting the attack.
They had not long to wait; a sharp fusillade began, mingled with the cries and yells of the assailants.
"It is time!" the Captain shouted.
The sound of a chest falling down the precipice was immediately heard.
Owing to the fire, it was as bright as day, and not a movement of the Mexicans escaped their adversaries.
The latter uttered a yell of fury on seeing the chests disappear one after the other in the abyss.
They rushed at the soldiers; but the latter received them at the bayonet's point, not giving ground an inch.
A point-blank discharge from the Mexicans, who had reserved their fire, laid many of the enemy low, and spread disorder through the ranks of the assailants, who began falling back involuntarily.
"Forward!" the Jaguar howled.
The bandits returned to the charge more eagerly than before.
"Keep firm, we must die," the Captain said.
"We will," the soldiers repeated unanimously.
The fight then began, body to body, foot to foot, chest against chest; the assailants and assailed were mixed up and fought more like wild beasts than men.
The arrieros, though decimated by the bullets fired at them, did not the less eagerly continue their task; the crowbar scarce fell from the hand of one shot down, ere another seized the heavy iron mass, and the chests of money toppled uninterruptedly over the precipice, in spite of the yells of fury, and gigantic efforts of the enemy, who exhausted themselves in vain to breach the human wall that barred their passage.
'Twas a fearfully grand sight, this obstinate struggle, this implacable combat which these men carried on, by the brilliant light of a burning forest.
The cries had ceased, the butchery went on silently and terribly, and at times the Captain could be heard sharply repeating—
"Close up there, close up!"
And the ranks closed, and the men fell without a murmur, having sacrificed their lives, and only fighting now to gain the few moments indispensable to prevent their sacrifice being sterile.
In vain did the border rifles, excited by the desire of gain, try to crush this energetic resistance offered them by a handful of men; the heroic soldiers, supporting one another, with their feet pressed against the corpses of those who had preceded them to death, seemed to multiply themselves in order to bar the gorge on all sides at once.
The fight, however, could not possibly last much longer; ten men only were left of the Captain's detachment; the others had fallen, but every man with his face to the foe.
All the arrieros were dead; two chests still remained on the edge of the precipice; the Captain looked hurriedly around.
"One more effort, lads!" he shouted, "We only want five minutes to finish our task."
"Dios y libertad!" the soldiers shouted; and, although exhausted with fatigue, they threw themselves resolutely into the thickest part of the crowd that surrounded them.
For a few minutes, these men accomplished prodigies; but at length numbers gained the mastery: they all fell!
The Captain alone was still alive.
He had taken advantage of the devotion of his soldiers to seize a crowbar, and hurl one chest over the precipice; the second, raised with great difficulty, only required a final effort to disappear in its turn, when suddenly a terrible hurrah caused the officer to raise his head.
The border rifles were rushing up, terrible, and panting like tigers thirsting for carnage.
"Ah!" Gregorio Felpa, the traitor-guide, shouted gladly, as he rushed forward; "at any rate we shall have this one."
"You lie, villain!" the Captain answered.
And raising with both hands the terrible bar of iron, he cleft the skull of the soldier, who fell like a stunned ox, not uttering a cry, or giving vent to a sigh.
"Whose turn is it next?" the Captain said as he raised the crowbar.
A yell of horror burst from the crowd, which hesitated for a moment.
The Captain quickly lowered his crowbar, and the chest hung over the brink of the abyss.
This movement restored the borderers all their rage and fury.
"Down with him, down with him!" they shouted, as they rushed on the officer.
"Halt!" the Jaguar said as he bounded forward, and overthrew all in his way; "Not one of you must stir; this man belongs to me."
On hearing this well-known voice, all the men stopped.
The Captain threw away his crowbar, for the last chest had fallen in its turn over the precipice.
"Surrender, Captain Melendez," the Jaguar said, as he advanced toward the officer.
The latter had taken up his sabre again.
"It is not worth while now," he replied, "I prefer to die."
"Defend yourself then."
The two men crossed swords, and for some minutes a furious clashing of steel could be heard. All at once, the Captain, by a sharp movement, made his adversary's weapon fly ten paces off, and ere the latter recovered from his surprise, the officer rushed on him and writhed round him like a serpent.
The two men rolled on the ground.
Two yards behind them was the precipice.
All the Captain's efforts were intended to drag the Jaguar to the verge of the abyss; the latter, on the contrary, strove to free himself from his opponent's terrible grasp, for he had doubtless guessed his desperate resolve.
At last, after a struggle of some minutes, the arms that held the Jaguar round the body gradually loosed their hold, the officer's clenched hands opened, and the young man, by the outlay of his whole strength, succeeded in throwing off his enemy and rising.
But he was hardly on his feet, ere the Captain, who appeared exhausted and almost fainting, bounded like a tiger, seized his adversary round the body, and gave him a fearful shock.
The Jaguar, still confused by the struggle he had gone through, and not suspecting this sudden attack, tottered, and lost his balance with a loud cry.
"At length!" the Captain shouted with ferocious joy.
The borderers uttered an exclamation of horror and despair.
The two enemies had disappeared in the abyss.
[What became of them will be found fully recorded in the next volume of this series, called "THE FREE-BOOTERS.">[