THE SURPRISE.
Employing our privilege as romancers, we will go back a little way, and return to Don Cornelio, whom Valentine looked after with such astonishment when he saw him leave the camp in such an unusual manner.
In the first place we will say a few words about Don Cornelio, that joyous and careless gentleman whom, in the first part of this history, we saw so impassioned for music generally, and the romance del Rey Rodrigo in particular. At the present time he was greatly changed: he no longer sang—the chords of his jarana no longer vibrated under his agile fingers; a deep wrinkle crossed his brow; his cheeks had grown pale; and he frowned incessantly under the pressure of gloomy thoughts. What could have happened? What powerful cause had thus changed the Spaniard's character?
This cause might be easily guessed. Don Cornelio loved Doña Angela. He loved her with all his strength—we will not say with a true and sincere love, for it was not love at all that he felt for her: another sentiment, less noble, but perhaps more lively, had craftily entered the gentleman's heart by the side of love.
This sentiment was avarice. We previously stated that Don Cornelio was under the influence of a fixed idea. This idea had led the Spaniard to America. The hidalgo wished to make his fortune by a marriage with a lady young, rich, and fair, but, before all, rich. A fixed idea is more than a passion, more than a monomania: it is the first stage of madness. Many times had Don Cornelio been deceived in his attempts on rich American women, whom he sought to dazzle, not by his luxury (for he was poor as Job, of lamentable memory), but by his personal advantages; that is to say, his beauty and wit. His meeting with Doña Angela decided his fate. Persuaded that the young lady loved him, he began to love her, for his part, with the frenzy of the drowning man, for whom such a love was the only chance of salvation.
When he perceived his error it was too late. We will do him the justice of conceding that the poor gentleman had struggled valiantly to tear from his heart this insensate passion. Unfortunately all his efforts were futile, and, as ever happens under such circumstances, forgetting all he owed to Don Louis, who had saved him not only from misery, but also from death, he felt for the count an intense hatred, the more tenacious because it was dumb and concentrated; and, by a natural feeling, he turned one half of that hatred on Doña Angela, although the young lady and the count had only been the instruments, throughout the affair, of that fatality which was so bitter against him.
Thus, with extreme patience and unexampled hypocrisy, Don Cornelio prepared his vengeance against these two beings, who had never done him aught but kindness, and watched with the perfidy of a wild beast the opportunity to destroy them. This opportunity would not be difficult to find in a country where treachery is the order of the day, and forms the basis of all combinations and transactions, of whatever nature they may be.
Don Cornelio had entered into relations with the enemies of the count, and surrendered to them the secrets the latter allowed to let slip in his presence. He had so arranged as to make his two foes fall into a trap from which they could not escape, and in wreathing round them a net from which extrication would be impossible. And now that we have explained Don Cornelio's feelings to the reader we will proceed with our narrative.
The Spaniard had succeeded in drawing over to his side Doña Angela's waiting maid. Thus Violanta betrayed her mistress to the profit of Don Cornelio, by whom she believed herself beloved, and who, had led her to fancy that he would marry her some day. From the camarista, who had remained on the listen, the Spaniard learned all that was said in the jacal between Father Seraphin, the count, and the young lady: the order he afterwards received to go to La Magdalena and purchase the gowns dissipated all his doubts, and he resolved to act without loss of time.
It was by his advice that the Mexicans were to attempt to attack the camp that very night: hence he knew where to find them. Taking advantage, therefore, of a moment when everybody was too busy with his own affairs to think about what others were doing, he glided silently out of the camp, like a man taking a morning's walk, gained a clump of trees behind which a horse was hidden, and rode off at full speed across country, after taking a scrutinising glance around to assure himself that he was not watched.
He galloped thus for several hours, not seeming to follow any regular road, dashing straight on, and paying no attention to obstacles, or not checking the speed of his horse. Still, gradually his thoughts, at first gloomy and sad, assumed a different direction: he attached the bridle to his saddle-bow, and for the first time for many a day his fingers began straying mechanically over the resonant strings of his jarana, which he always wore in a sling, and brought with him; then, yielding unconsciously to the influence of the surrounding scenery, he began singing in a loud voice that couplet of the romance which bore a certain degree of reference to his present position:—
"Amada enemiga mia,
De España segunda Elena,
O ¡si yo naciera ciego!
O ¡tú sin beldad nacieras!
Maldito sea el punto y hora
Que al mundo me dio mi estrella:
Pechos que me dieron leche
Mejor sepulcro me dieran
Pagará——"[1]
"Deuce take the owl singing at this hour!" a rough voice said, harshly interrupting the virtuoso. "Who ever heard such an infernal row?"
Don Cornelio looked around. The darkness was profound. A tall man with crafty air, and mustachios turned up, was examining him impudently while tapping the hilt of a long rapier.
"Eh, eh!" the Spaniard said with great composure, "Is that you, captain? What are you doing here?"
"Waiting for you, Cristo."
"Well, here I am."
"That is fortunate. When do we start?"
"All is changed."
"Eh?"
"Lead me first to your encampment, where I will explain it all to you."
"Come."
Don Cornelio followed him. This captain, whom the reader has doubtless recognised, was the old soldier of the war of independence whom we had the honour of presenting to him under the name of Don Isidro Vargas, the confidential tool of General Guerrero, to whom he was attached like the blade to the hilt.
The Spaniard, drawing his horse after him by the bridle, entered a large clearing lighted up by a dozen fires, round which were crouched a hundred men with sinister faces and irregular accoutrements, but all armed to the teeth. These bandits, whose ferocious appearance would have delighted a painter, illumined as they were by the fantastic flames of the braseros, were gambling, drinking, and quarrelling, and did not seem to notice Don Cornelio's arrival. The latter made a gesture of disgust on seeing them, but hobbled his horse near theirs, and rejoined the captain, who had already seated himself by a fire evidently made specially for him, as not one of the worthy people he had the honour of commanding came near it.
"Now I will hear you," the captain said so soon as he saw his comrade stretched out comfortably at his side.
"What I have to say will not take long."
"Let me hear it, at any rate."
"In two words, this is the matter: our expedition of this evening is useless—the bird has flown."
The captain, according to his habit in any moment of nervous excitement, rapped out a frightful oath.
"Patience!" the Spaniard went on. "This is what has happened."
And he described the way in which Father Seraphin had left the camp, accompanied by the young lady. On hearing it the worthy captain's face brightened.
"Come," he said, "all is for the best. What will you do?"
"Give me El Buitre and ten resolute men. The priest must pass through the Quebrada del Coyote: on arriving there I promise to strip him."
"And what shall I do during that time?"
"Whatever you like."
"Mil rayos! since I am here, I will remain; but I shall quit this encampment at daybreak, and after leaving a party to beat up the country, I will join the general at Ures."
"Then he is at Ures at this moment?"
"Yes, temporarily."
"Very good; then you will see me there with my prisoners."
"Agreed."
"And now make haste; I must start at once."
The captain rose, and while Don Cornelio was drawing his horse's girths tighter, he gave orders to ten of his men to prepare for an expedition. Within five minutes the little party left the clearing under the orders of the Spaniard, and took up the missionary's trail. The reader knows already what took place in the pass, which was not more than two leagues from the spot where the bandits lay in ambush. We will, therefore, leave Don Cornelio, and confine our attention to Captain Vargas.
"On my word," the captain said to himself when the Spaniard had left him, "I prefer that matters should end thus. There are only blows to be gained from those confounded Frenchmen, deuce take them! Now we shall be quiet for the whole night, so we will go to sleep."
The captain was not so safe as he imagined, though, and the night was not destined to be so quiet as far as he was concerned. On leaving the camp Valentine explained to his comrades the nature of the expedition they were going on, and recommended them to play Indian; that is to say, employ craft. On entering the forest in which Captain Vargas was hidden, the Frenchmen had heard the sound of horses, and seen the bandits under the Spaniard's command flash past in the darkness like a baud of black shadows. Not wishing to defer the execution of his plans, and possibly surrender the substance for the shadow, the hunter contented himself with sending an intelligent man after the party, in order to know what became of it; and the Frenchmen, after dismounting, crept into the forests like reptiles.
Nothing was more easy than to surprise the Mexicans. The latter believed themselves so safe that they had not even taken the precaution to post sentries round their bivouac, who might warn them in case of danger. Huddled pell-mell round the fires, the greater part were asleep, or already, plunged in that seeming lethargy which precedes sleep. As for the captain, he was wrapped up carefully in his cloak, and, with his feet to the fire and his head on a saddle, was fast asleep.
The adventurers reached the centre of the clearing without the slightest sound betraying their approach. Then, in accordance with the orders they had received, they seized the firelocks and sabres placed near each of the sleepers, formed a pile of them, and then cut the picket ropes of the horses, which they drove off with blows of the chicote. At the terrible noise produced by the headlong course of the horses, which spread in every direction, snorting and neighing, the Mexicans awoke. They remained for an instant as if petrified at the sight of the adventurers, who surrounded them on all sides with levelled muskets. By an instinctive movement they felt for their arms, but they had been removed.
"Con mil rayos y mil demonios!" the captain shouted, as he stamped his foot furiously, "we are taken like rats in a trap."
"Hilloh!" Valentine said with an ironical laugh, "you are no longer majordomo, then, Señor Don Isidro Vargas?"
"And you," he answered with a grin of rage, "as it seems, are no longer a dealer in novillos, Señor Don Valentine?"
"What would you?" he said cunningly. "Trade is so very bad."
"Hum! not very bad with you, it seems."
"Hang it! you know men do what they can;" and turning to de Laville, he said, "My dear captain, all these caballeros have reatas: be good enough to employ them in binding them tightly."
"Eh, Señor Don Valentine?" the ex-majordomo shouted. "You are not merciful to us."
"I! What an error, Don Isidro! Still, as you know, war has certain necessities. I am taking my precautions—that is all."
"What do you intend to do with us?"
"You shall see, for I do not wish to deprive you of the pleasure of a surprise; and, by the way, how do you find what I have just done to you? It is as good as what you were preparing for us, I think?"
Captain Vargas could find no reply: he contented himself with gnawing his fingernails, after assuring himself, by a glance all around, that flight was as impossible as resistance. At this moment the man whom Valentine sent off to watch the scouting party returned, and whispered a few words in his ear. The hunter turned pale: he looked at the Mexican captain in a way that made him shudder, and then addressed his party.
"Tell off ten men to mount at once," he said sharply. "Captain de Laville, you will answer to me on your head for these bandits, whom I leave in your hands. Return to the camp quietly. I will join you, probably, on the road. The first who attempts to escape, blow out his brains pitilessly. You understand me?"
"You may be at ease: it shall be done. But what has happened?"
"The bandits we saw going off on our arrival intend to attack Father Seraphin."
"Death and the devil! you must make haste."
"I intend to do so. Good-by! Woe to you scoundrels! If a hair falls from the missionary's head you shall be all shot," he added, turning to his terrified prisoners.
And with this fearful promise he went off, followed by the few adventurers chosen to accompany him. On entering the pass the hunter met the fugitives, on whom he rushed. Unfortunately the latter had seen them first; and they succeeded in escaping by abandoning their horses, and clambering like cats up the almost perpendicular sides of the mountain. Valentine, without losing time in a futile pursuit, hastened to join the missionary.
"Ah!" the latter exclaimed on seeing him, "my friend, my dear Valentine, had it not been for Curumilla, we were lost."
"And Doña Angela?"
"Thanks be to Heaven, she is saved."
"Yes," she said, "thanks to Heaven and to these caballeros, who arrived just in time to protect us."
One of the strangers approached.
"Pardon me, sir," he said in excellent French, "but you are the French hunter of whom so much is said—Valentine Guillois, I think?"
"Yes, sir," Valentine answered with surprise.
"My name, sir, is Belhumeur."
"I know you, sir: my foster brother has often mentioned you as his best friend."
"I am delighted that he has kept me in such pleasant memory. Allow me to present to you Don Rafaël Garillas de Saavedra."
The two men bowed and shook hands.
"We have formed acquaintance like men of honour," Valentine remarked.
"Is not that the best form of introduction?"
"We cannot remain any longer here," Father Seraphin observed.
"I will myself return with you, señor padre," Don Rafaël said. "I intended to proceed to the count's camp; but I have found a better way of seeing him and securing his friendship."
"And what is that way?"
"By offering a shelter to Doña Angela at the Hacienda del Milagro, which belongs to me."
"Yes," the missionary said; "pardon me, Don Rafaël, for not having thought of that: it is the refuge best suited for this lady."
"I accept gratefully," the young lady murmured; and bending down to the hunter's ear, she whispered, smiling and blushing at the same time, "Don Valentine, will you undertake to say one word for me to Don Louis?"
"One!" he said. "What is it?"
"For ever!"
"Come, I will not recall my word," he said with a good-humoured laugh. "You are an angel: I shall end by loving you madly."
"Let us go!" she exclaimed.
"Will you not join our party, Belhumeur?" Valentine asked.
"Certainly; for I wish to speak with Don Louis."
"That is it," Don Rafaël observed. "I will escort the padre with Black Elk and Eagle-head. Señor Don Valentine, Belhumeur will serve as your guide to the Hacienda del Milagro."
"By Jove!" Valentine said with a laugh, "you will probably see me before you expect."
"Come whenever you please: you will ever be welcome."
After exchanging affectionate farewells the two parties turned their back on each other, and left the gorge by opposite roads.
[1] Enemy whom I adore, of Spain the second Helen, oh that I were born blind, or you born without beauty! Accursed be the day and hour when my star caused me to be born! Breasts that nourished me, better to have given me death. You will pay——