A SAD MISTAKE.
Several days elapsed ere the two friends resumed their interrupted conversation.
They had continued their journey toward San Francisco without any incident worth noticing, owing to the skill of Valentine and Curumilla. Although this was the first time they had advanced so far from the regions they were accustomed to traverse, their sagacity made up so well for their want of knowledge that they avoided, with extreme good fortune, the dangers that menaced the success of their journey, and foresaw obstacles still remote, but which their knowledge of the desert caused them to guess, as it were, intuitively.
The two old friends observed, we may say studied, each other. After so long a separation they required to restore a community of ideas. That communion of thoughts and feelings which had existed so long between them might be eternally broken through the different media into which they had been thrown, and the circumstances that had modified their characters. Each of them rendered greater by events—having acquired the consciousness of his personal value and his intellectual power—had possibly the right no longer to admit, without previous discussion, certain theories which were formerly recognised without a contest.
Still the friendship between the two men was so lively, the confidence so entire, and the devotion so true, that, after a fortnight's travelling side by side—a fortnight during which they touched on the most varying subjects without once introducing the one they had so much interest in thoroughly discussing—they convinced themselves that they stood to each other precisely in the same position as before their separation.
Either through lassitude or deference, or perhaps the tacit recognition of his foster brother's superiority over him, during this fortnight, Don Louis, happy, perhaps, at having found once more the man who had been wont to think and act for him, had not once attempted to assume an independent position, but insensibly fell back under that moral guardianship which Valentine had so long exercised over him.
The two other persons lived on a perfectly good understanding—Don Cornelio through carelessness, perhaps, Curumilla through pride.
The Spaniard—a dear lover of liberty, happy at living in the open air without troubles or annoyances of any description—goaded his novillos, strummed his jarana, and sang the interminable Romancero del Rey Rodrigo, which he began again imperturbably so soon as he had finished, in spite of Valentine's repeated remarks about the silence that must be maintained in the desert, in order to avoid the ambuscades which the Indians constantly place like so many spiders' webs in the path of incautious travellers. The Spaniard listened docilely, and with a contrite air, to the hunter's remonstrances; but, so soon as they were ended, he twanged a tune, and recommenced his romancero—a philosophy which the trail-seeker, while blaming, could not refrain from admiring.
Curumilla was always the man we have seen him—prudent, foresighted, and silent—but with a double dose of each quality. With eyes ever opened and ears alert, the Araucanian chief rode from one end of the file to the other, watching so carefully over its safety that no accident occurred up to the day when we resume our narrative.
They thus descended the woody slopes of the Sierra Nevada, and entered the naked and sandy plains that stretch down to the sea, and on which, with the exception of San José and Monterey (two towns in the last throes of existence), the traveller only sees stunted trees and thorny shrubs scattered at a great distance apart.
Three days before reaching San José—a miserable pueblo, which serves as a gathering place for hunters and arrieros who frequent these parts; but where the population, decimated by fevers and misery, can do but little for the forasteros (strangers)—the caravan encamped on the banks of a stream, beneath the shelter of a few trees that had grown there by accident, and which the sea breeze shook incessantly, and covered with that fine sand which enters the eyes, nose, ears, and nothing can keep out.
The sun was plunging into the sea under the form of a huge fire-ball; there was a fresh breeze; in the distance appeared a few white sails, which, like light kingfishers fearing a tempest, were hastening to reach San Francisco; the coyotes were beginning to bark furiously on the plain; and the few birds nestled on the branches tucked their heads under their wings, and prepared to go to sleep.
The fires were lighted, the animals penned, and after supper each hastened to repair, by a few hours' sleep, the fatigue of a long day's journey beneath a burning sky.
"Sleep!" Louis said. "I will keep the first watch—the idler's watch," he added with a smile.
"I will take the second, then," Valentine said.
"No, I will take that," Curumilla objected. "An Indian's eyes see clearly in the night."
"Hum!" the hunter remarked; "and yet I fancy my eyes are not so bad either."
Curumilla, without further reply, placed his finger on his lips.
"Good!" the hunter said; "as you wish it, keep watch in my place, chief. When you are tired, however, be sure and wake me."
The Indian bowed. The three men wrapped themselves in their zarapés, and lay on the ground, Don Louis alone remaining awake.
It was a magnificent night: the sky, of a deep azure, was studded with an infinity of stars that sparkled like diamonds; the moon poured forth its tremulous and pallid beams; the atmosphere, wondrously pure and transparent, allowed the country to be surveyed for an enormous distance; the evening breeze had risen, and deliciously refreshed the air; the earth exhaled acrid and balmy perfumes; the waves died away amorously, and with mysterious murmurs, on the beach; and in the distance might be indistinctly traced the outlines of the coyotes which prowled about, howling mournfully, for they scented the novillos.
Louis, seduced by this splendid evening, and yielding to that prairie languor which conquers the strongest minds, was indulging in a gentle reverie. He had attained that stage of mental somnolency which is not waking, and yet not sleeping. He was enjoying the magic pictures his fancy conjured up, when he was suddenly roused from this charming sensation by a hand pressing heavily on his shoulder, while a voice muttered in his ear the single word,—
"Prudence."
Louis, suddenly recalled to a consciousness of the present, opened his half-closed eyes, and turned sharply round. Curumilla was leaning over him, and repeated his warning, with a sign of terrible meaning. The count seized his rifle, which rested near him.
"What is the matter?" he asked in a low voice.
"Come, but keep in the shade," Curumilla replied in the same tone.
Louis obeyed the hint, whose importance he recognised. Lying down on the ground, he glided gently in the direction indicated by the Indian.
He soon found himself sheltered behind a thicket, where he saw Don Cornelio and Valentine in ambush, with their bodies bent forward, and looking anxiously into the darkness.
"Good heavens, friends!" the count said, "what is the meaning of this? The profoundest silence prevails around us. All appears tranquil. Why this alarm?"
"Curumilla noticed this evening, before our halt, traces of Yaqui Indians. You know, brother, that these demons are the most daring robbers in the world. It is plain that they are after our beasts."
"But what makes you suppose that? These traces, whose existence I do not deny, may belong to travellers as well as to vagabonds. Nothing up to the present makes us suppose that these fellows intend attacking us, and we have not even seen them."
A sinister smile contracted the chief's thin lips, and, touching the count's arm with his finger, while at the same time lifting his own robe, he showed him a bleeding scalp hanging from his belt.
"Oh, oh!" Don Louis said, "have those demons ventured so near us, then?"
"Yes; and had it not been for Curumilla, whose eye is never closed, and mind ever on the watch, our animals would probably have been carried off more than an hour ago."
"Thanks for his vigilance, then," the count said with an expression of annoyance, which he could not entirely conceal; "but you know the Indians, comrades: so soon as they find they are detected, they are no longer to be feared. I believe that, after the lesson they have received, we are now in safety, and we need not trouble ourselves about them more."
"No, brother, you are mistaken. Look at your novillos; they are restless. At each instant they raise their heads, and do not eat their food in comfort. God has given animals an instinct of self-preservation which never deceives them. Believe me, they fear a danger, and scent enemies not far from them."
"It is possible, indeed. Let us watch, then."
The four men remained thus silent and attentive. An hour almost passed away, and nothing happened to confirm their suspicions. Still the bulls pressed more closely together. They had left off eating, and their restlessness increased instead of diminishing.
Suddenly Curumilla stretched out his arm in a north-eastern direction, and after laconically whispering, "Do not stir," he gave Valentine his rifle to hold, and before his friends had time to guess the direction he had taken, he disappeared in the gloom. The three hunters exchanged a silent glance, and cocked their rifles, so as to be ready for any event.
There cannot be a more painful position than that of the brave man who, in a strange country and on a dark night, is obliged to stand on guard against a danger whose extent he cannot calculate. Affected by the silent majesty of solitude, he creates phantasms a hundredfold more terrible than the actual danger, and feels his courage fly away piecemeal beneath the harsh pressure of waiting for something unseen.
Such was the situation in which our three friends now were; and yet they were three lion hearts, accustomed for many years to Indian warfare, and whom no peril, however great it might have been, would have been able to affect beneath the warm beams of the sun; but, during the darkness, imagination creates such horrible phantoms, that, if we may be allowed to employ a trivial comparison, we might say that people are not so much afraid of the danger itself as of the fear of that danger.
The three men had remained in this awkward situation for some time; when suddenly a fearful yell rose in the air, followed by the fall of a body to the ground, and the flight of several men, whose black outlines stood out on the horizon. The adventurers fired at random, and rushed rapidly in the direction where they heard the struggle, which seemed still going on.
At the moment they arrived, Curumilla, whom they recognised, had his right knee pressed into the chest of a man he held down under him, while his left hand compressed his throat, and reduced him to the most perfect state of powerlessness.
"Wah!" the Araucanian said, turning to his comrades with a look of inexpressible ferocity, "a chief!"
"Good prize," Valentine said. "Thrust your knife into the scoundrel's chest, and there's an end of him."
Curumilla raised his knife, whose blade sent forth a bluish flash.
"A moment," Don Louis exclaimed. "Let us see first who he is; we shall still be able to kill him if we think fit."
Valentine shrugged his shoulders.
"Let the chief settle that business," he said; "he understands it better than we do. When you have one of those vipers under your heel you must crush him, lest he may sting you presently."
"No," the count remarked resolutely, "I will never consent to see a man murdered before me. That poor wretch has acted in accordance with his nature; let us act in accordance with ours, then. Curumilla, I implore you, allow your prisoner to rise, but watch him, so that he cannot escape."
"You are wrong, brother," the implacable hunter replied; "you do not know these demons so well as I do. Still act as you please; but you will eventually see that you have committed a folly."
The count made no reply, but only gave Curumilla another sign to do as he ordered. The Araucanian obeyed with repugnance. Still he helped his half-strangled prisoner to rise, and while carefully watching him, led him to the fire, where the hunters had already preceded him.
The count took a rapid glance at the Indian. He was a man of Herculean stature, powerfully built, and still young, with haughty, gloomy, and cruel features; in a word, though he was a handsome rather than an ugly man in appearance, there was an expression of roguery, baseness, and ferocity about him, which in no way pleaded in his favour. He wore a species of hunting shirt, without sleeves, of striped calico, drawn in round the waist by a large girdle of untanned deer hide; breeches of the same stuff as the shirt hung down to his knees; and the lower part of his legs was protected from stings by leather gaiters fastened to the knee and ankle. He wore on his feet moccasins artistically worked, and adorned behind by several wolf tails—a mark of distinction only allowed to renowned warriors. His plaited hair was raised on either side his head, while behind it fell to his waist, and was decorated with plumes of every possible colour. Round his neck hung several medals, among which was one rather larger than the rest, representing General Jackson, ex-President of the American Union. His face was painted with four different colours—blue, black, white, and red.
So soon as he found himself in the presence of the hunters seated round the fire, he crossed his arms on his chest, raised his head haughtily, and waited stoically till they thought proper to address him.
"Who are you?" Don Louis asked him in Spanish.
"Mixcoatzin (the Serpent of the Cloud)."
"Hum!" Valentine muttered to himself, "the scoundrel is well named. I never saw such a hangdog face as his before."
"What did Mixcoatzin want in my camp?"
"Does not the Yori know?" the Indian said imperturbably. "Mixcoatzin is a chief among the Yaquis."
"You wished to steal my cattle, I suppose?"
"The Yaquis are not robbers; all that is on their land belongs to them. The palefaces need only return to their home on the other side of the great salt lake."
"If I condemn you to death what will you say?"
"Nothing; it is the law of war. The paleface will see how a Yaqui chief endures pain."
"You allow, then, that you deserve death?"
"No; the paleface is the stronger—he is the master."
"If I let you go what will you think?"
The Indian shrugged his shoulders.
"The paleface is not a fool," he said.
"But suppose I do act in that way?"
"I shall say that the paleface is afraid."
"Afraid of what?"
"Of the vengeance of the warriors of my nation."
It was Don Louis' turn to shrug his shoulders.
"Then," he proceeded, "if I restored you your liberty you would feel no gratitude?"
"Why should I be grateful? A warrior should kill his enemy when he holds him. If he does not do so he is a coward."
The hunters could not refrain from a start of surprise at the enunciation of this singular theory. Don Louis rose.
"Listen," he said. "I do not fear you, and I will give you a proof of it."
And, with a movement quick as thought, he seized the long tail that hung down the chiefs back, and cut it off with his knife.
"Now," he added, buffeting him with the tress he had cut off, "be off, villain: you are free. I despise you too much to inflict on you any other punishment than that you have undergone. Return to your tribe, and tell your friends how the whites avenge themselves on enemies so contemptible as yourself, and those that resemble you."
At the deadly insult he received the Indian's face became hideous; he suffered a momentary stupor caused by shame and anger; but by a supernatural effort he suddenly overcame his feelings, seized Don Louis' arm, and thrusting his face into the Frenchman's,—
"Mixcoatzin is a powerful chief," he hissed. "Let the Yori remember his name, for he will meet him again."
And, bounding like a tiger, he dashed into the plain, where he at once disappeared.
"Stop!" Don Louis shouted to his friends, who were rushing in pursuit; "Let him escape. What do I care for such a wretch's hatred? He can do nothing to me."
The hunters reluctantly took their seats again by the fire.
"Hum!" Louis added, "I have perhaps committed a folly."
Valentine looked at him.
"Worse than a folly, brother," he said; "a sad mistake. Take care of that man: one day or other he will revenge himself on you."
"Possibly," the count said carelessly; "but when did you begin to fear the Indians so greatly, brother?"
"From the day I first learned to know them," the hunter said coldly. "You have offered that man an insult which demands blood; be assured that he will make you repent of it."
"I care little."
After these few words the hunters resumed their interrupted sleep, and the rest of the night passed without any fresh incident.
At sunrise the adventurers continued their journey; and by night, after a day of incredible fatigue through the burning sands of the savannah, they at length reached the pueblo or lugar of San José, where the inhabitants received them with shouts of joy, persuaded as they were that the strangers would not leave without supplying them with a few of those objects of primary necessity which they have themselves no means of procuring.
San José is the last caravan halt before reaching San Francisco. The travellers had made a journey of more than one hundred and eighty leagues in less than three weeks, through difficulties and dangers without end—a speed hitherto unexampled.