THE SACK OF SANTIAGO.
Leon's first care on reaching Santiago had been to inquire after the residence of Don Henriquez de Castago, and to inform him of the visit which General Soto-Mayor intended to pay him. At the same time he told him of the purpose of his own journey. Don Henriquez eagerly placed his house at the smuggler's disposal, and told him of the perilous mission which was being attempted at that very moment by General Don Pedro, and his cousin, Colonel Don Juan, in going to the toqui of the Araucanos to make him proposals of peace. It was then that Leon, after quartering his men, set out in all haste for the camp, in order to obtain news of Inez, and at the same time help the two officers if they were in danger. We know what occurred in consequence of this exploit.
Two days after these events, General Don Juan de Soto-Mayor and his daughter Maria arrived at the capital of Chili. Thanks to the numerous precautions which the surgeon had taken, the old gentleman had suffered but little through the journey, and the state of his health was more satisfactory than might have been supposed. So soon as he reached the house of senator Don Castago, he was put to bed, and Leon took upon himself to inform him of the release of Inez, the outrages of which the poor girl had been the victim, and the madness which had resulted from them. The general begged her to be brought to him, and when she was in his presence he embraced her, and covered her with tears.
Inez could not at all understand her father's grief, whom she did not at all recognise; but struck by the old man's suffering appearance, she at once installed herself by his bedside, and would not quit it again. Her madness was gentle and melancholy; she spent long hours without breathing a syllable, or sang to strange tunes snatches of songs which she had formerly known.
On her side, Maria, attentive and devoted even to self-denial, lavished on Don Juan the most affectionate care, and the old man discovered at each moment in his daughter the germs of the noblest qualities of the heart. Leon's name was never pronounced by the general without arousing in her thoughts of joy and happiness; but, understanding what kindness and gentleness her father had displayed in not spurning the smuggler's love for her, she silently awaited the moment when she would be able to yield entirely to the happiness of belonging to the man whom her heart had selected.
The general, as we may suppose, had been beyond all expression surprised on hearing the community of feeling between the captain and Maria; but penetrated with gratitude for the eminent services which the young man had rendered him, he heartily desired that an opportunity might offer itself to fill up the distance that separated Leon's rank from his. But it was no easy matter.
In the meanwhile, the position of the Chilians shut up in Santiago was beginning to grow serious. The Indian lines were being gradually drawn closer round the town, intercepting the communications with the exterior, and preventing news from being received. The provisions would soon run short; want was already being felt in the poorer districts, and wretched people, with worn and haggard faces, might be seen wandering about the streets and loudly demanding bread.
General Sallazar had succeeded, it is true, in crossing the Masincho after a glorious battle with the Indians, and entered Santiago; but it was far more difficult to drive away the besiegers who surrounded the city. Situated in the heart of the Chilian republic, the capital is at a great distance from the frontier; and as it had no reason to apprehend foreign attacks, owing to the impassable deserts that separate the states, it had not been fortified.
Attempts had been made hastily to throw up a few breastworks, but workmen were wanting. Discouragement seized on the population, and the inhabitants, terrified at the sight of the Indians, filled the churches with their lamentations, and offered up vows and novenas, instead of combating their enemies energetically, and dying courageously in defence of their homes.
Eight days passed thus, and during this period Leon distinguished himself greatly by making daring sorties at the head of his men, in which he captured herds of cattle or flocks of sheep, which revictualled the town and restored a little courage to the population. One evening, after carefully visiting all the posts with Don Juan, General Sallazar, Leon was preparing to take a few hours of indispensable rest after a fatiguing day, when suddenly the bells of all the churches began pealing, shrieks were heard, and soldiers galloped through the town, shouting, "To arms! to arms!"
The Indians were beginning the assault by attacking the town on all sides simultaneously. The danger was imminent, and there was no time for hesitation. The salvation of the whole population was at stake. The three gentlemen shook hands silently, and rushed in different directions.
The night was dark and rainy; the west wind howled furiously in the hills near the town, and from time to time a dazzling flash rent the horizon, and preluded the rolling of the thunder which was blended with the sharp sinister crash of the musketry fire. The drums beat, and bugles brayed; the churches were crowded with women and children, who, piously kneeling on the slabs, prayed God, the Virgin, and the saints to come to their assistance.
The tumult was frightful. The cries of the wounded, the hurrahs of the combatants, and above all, the war yells of the Indians, who bounded like panthers upon the last defenders of the town. All this formed a din rendered more horrible still by the sight of the fire which was beginning to tinge the sky with a red and ill-omened glare.
Tahi-Mari, naked to the waist, his hair in disorder, and his features contrasted by the thirst for carnage and destruction, held an axe in one hand and a torch in the other. He was seen rushing at the head of a band of veteran redskins into the thickest of the Spanish battalions, cleaving a bloody track for himself—felling and pitilessly massacring all those who dared to oppose his fury. Santiago was one immense crater—the fire embraced the whole city; its devouring flames had dissipated the darkness, and spread around a light which allowed the dark outlines of the combatants to be seen as they struggled with the sublime energy of despair.
A countless swarm of Indians had invaded the town, and fighting was going on on all sides. The Spaniards disputed the ground inch by inch, and the streets, the squares, and the houses were the scene of a horrible massacre. Tahi-Mari, ever in the first rank of the Indians, excited his soldiers by his shouts and example. All was lost, and the Chilian capital had at length fallen into the power of the Araucanos. The burning buildings fell in with a crash, burying beneath their ruins assailants and assailed. The churches were given up to pillage, while the women and girls, torn half naked from their houses or from the foot of the altar, endured the last violence which their cruel victors inflicted upon them.
All hope of flight or rescue seemed annihilated; the redskins, drunk with carnage and spirits, rushed furiously upon the relics of the despairing population. It was at this moment that the President of the Republic, followed by a few devoted soldiers, formed a hollow square on the Plaza de la Merced, in the centre of which he placed all the aged persons, women, and children, who had escaped the fury of the Indians.
Suddenly loud shouts were heard, and three heavy bodies of men, commanded by Don Juan, General Pedro Sallazar, and Leon Delbès, debouched from three different streets. In the centre of the one commanded by Leon, was old Don Juan carried on a litter, with Maria and Inez by her side. Leon placed the persons whom he had saved in the centre of the square formed by the President, and called on Don Juan and Don Pedro's detachments.
"Now," he cried to the President of the Republic, "fall back, while we support you."
"Do so," he answered.
And the square fell back with all those whom it contained. "Forward!" Leon shouted, "kill! kill!"
And the three bands, facing the startled Indians, threw themselves upon them and commenced a frightful butchery. The square De la Merced was literally encumbered with combatants. The Moluchos, incessantly pushed forward by their comrades, who arrived to their help, fell impassively beneath the lances and sabres of the Spaniards, who protected the flight of the President as he retired and took in his charge all those persons incapable of bearing, arms. The fugitives soon reached the city gates.
The contest had lasted more than an hour. A countless number of corpses covered the ground and formed a rampart for the Spaniards, who redoubled their energy. At this moment Tahi-Mari appeared in the square. At a glance he judged the position, and rushed upon the Spaniards. The shock was terrible. Don Pedro and Don Juan recognised their common enemy, and cutting their way through the dead and wounded, both attacked him at once.
"Ah!" Diego shouted, "we meet at last, then."
"Yes," Don Pedro retorted, as he aimed a sabre cut at him, "and for the last time, I hope."
"You have told the truth," said Diego, as he parried with the handle of his axe the blow aimed at him; "die, then!"
And he cleft his head open. The unfortunate Don Pedro stretched out his arms, rolled his eyes wildly, and fell from his horse, murmuring the name of Inez. The Spaniards uttered a cry of grief, to which the Indians responded by a shout of triumph.
"It is now our turn," Tahi-Mari exclaimed, as he dashed towards Don Juan.
"Yes," the young man replied, "our long standing quarrel will be at length decided."
The two enemies rushed upon each other with clenched lips and bloodshot eyes, fighting furiously, caring little about dying, provided that one killed the other. But at each instant a crowd of Indians or Spaniards, drawn by the moving incidents of the fight, came between them and separated them. When this happened they made extraordinary efforts to come together again, overthrowing the obstacles that were in their way, and constantly seeking each other, only one thought occupied them—that of satiating their vengeance; every other consideration was effaced from their minds, and forgetting the sacred interests which they had to defend, they only thought of their personal hatred. Ere long those who separated them fell back, and they found themselves once more face to face.
"Defend yourself, Tahi-Mari," Don Juan shouted, as he dashed at the Indian chief.
"Here I am," the latter shouted, "and you are about to die."
Suddenly leaping from his horse, he cut the sinews of the colonel's horse with a blow of his axe. But Don Juan probably expected this attack, for when his horse fell uttering a long snort of pain, he was standing with his feet freed from the stirrups. Then began, between these two men, a combat impossible to describe, in which rage and fury took the place of skill. Tahi-Mari wielded his terrible axe with unparalleled dexterity; Don Juan had his sabre welded to his wrist, and followed the slightest movements of the other.
Each observed the other, and calculated the value of his blows. Eye on eye, chest against chest, panting, with foreheads streaming with perspiration, and their features violently contracted by hatred, they watched for the decisive moment. Don Juan was bleeding from two deep wounds; he felt his strength becoming exhausted, and felt as if he could no longer hold his sword. Tahi-Mari had also received several wounds, not dangerous, it is true, but which were, for all that, visible on his face and movements.
All at once, the half-breed, profiting by the fact that his enemy, who had constantly been on guard, left himself uncovered, aimed a blow at him with his axe. Don Juan raised his sword, but only parried imperfectly, and the axe was buried deeply in his shoulder. Collecting all his strength, he had to keep his feet; but tottering involuntarily, he fell to the ground, heaving a deep sigh. Diego burst into a yell of triumph, and rushed upon the young man.
"At last," he said.
At the same moment he received a violent blow, and he fell back blaspheming. He rose with lightning speed, and saw Leon Delbès before him, who had rolled him in the dust by dashing his horse's chest at him.
"Oh!" the Indian exclaimed, as he let his axe fall, "always he between this family and me!"
"Yes, I! Tahi-Mari—I, whom you must kill before you can reach your enemies—I, who have sworn to tear your victims from you: attack me. What are you waiting for?"
A combat seemed to be going on in Diego's mind, and then he remarked, as if speaking to himself:—
"No, no; not he, not he! the only man who ever loved me on this earth. Now, for the other," he added, as he looked furiously around him, "he can never have enough of Spanish blood."
And slipping on one side, he rushed back into the thick of the fight.
"What!" cried Wilhelm, who had just stationed himself by Leon's side, "will you let that hyena escape, captain?"
"Yes!" Leon answered, as he shook his head sadly, "my hands shall not be dyed with that man's blood; his life is sacred to me."
"That is possible," the German grunted, "but it is not so to me! And then, again, the opportunity is too fine, and it is doing a service to humanity."
And before Leon could prevent his design, he raised his rifle to his shoulder, and fired. Diego made an enormous leap, turned half round, stretched out his arms, and fell with his face on the ground. The captain rushed towards him and had to raise him; the Indian looked at him for a moment, his eyes were fixed on his with an expression of ineffable tenderness, and pressing his hand forcibly, he said in a low voice—
"Thanks, thanks, brother, but it is useless; I feel that I am going to die."
Suddenly, by a supreme effort of will, and aided by the smuggler, he succeeded in gaining his feet again. Then, his black eyes flashed with pride and triumph.
"Look!" he exclaimed, "they are flying, those cowardly Spaniards are flying! I die; but I am the victor, and almost avenged."
And he found sufficient strength within him to utter his terrible war cry. Suddenly, a jet of black blood rose to his lips; his body stiffened with a horrible convulsion, and he fell dead. Still, his eyes were open, and his lips, curled by a smile of bitter irony, seemed to defy his conquered foes, even after he had drawn his last breath.
"Back, der Teufel! back, or we are lost!" Wilhelm exclaimed, as he seized the bridle of Leon's horse and pulled it back.
"Oh!" the smuggler said, as he wiped away a tear, "that man was made of iron."
"Stuff, why pity him?" Wilhelm said, carelessly; "he died like a soldier."
The fall of Tahi-Mari, which was not known to the Indians for some minutes, did not at once check the order of the battle. Leon's band, which had advanced too far, had extraordinary difficulties in effecting a retreat, and joining the debris of the army marching on Valparaíso.
The Moluchos, deprived of the man of genius, who had conceived the plan of this daring campaign, and who was alone capable of bringing it to a satisfactory conclusion, henceforth were a body without a soul. Dissensions broke out among them, each chief claiming to succeed the great Tahi-Mari, and they could not come to any understanding. The league of the twelve nations was; broken; the Ulmens no longer acted harmoniously, and soon undertook isolated expeditions, which had disastrous results.
The Indians were for nine days masters of Santiago; at the end of that time, the Spaniards, who had vigorously assumed the offensive, expelled them from the capital, and pursued them even beyond their frontier line. Of the 200,000 men who had invaded the Chilian territory, 40,000 at the most succeeded in regaining the inaccessible llanos which serve as their retreat. The others found death in the land which they had for a moment hoped to conquer. Such was, through the imbecility of the chiefs, the result of this enterprise, which, if better conducted, might have changed the fate of South America.
Six months after these events Leon Delbès was married at the church of La Merced to Doña Maria de Soto-Mayor. The old general and his son, Don Juan, who had both recovered from their wounds, were present at the ceremony, offering up vows for the happiness of the young couple. Inez lived for a year without regaining her reason, but her madness had become a sort of gloomy and taciturn melancholy, which nothing in the world could remove. She expired one day without pain, for her death-agony was a pallid smile, in the midst of which her soul fled away.
As for the secondary characters of the story, we will mention their fate in a few words. The band of smugglers was broken so soon as Leon left to go and live with the general. Wilhelm, for his splendid conduct on the night of the capture of Santiago, was given a commission as lieutenant in the Chilian army. The worthy abbess of the Convent of the Purísima Concepción continued to sell her aqua milagrosa at the fairest price. And one fine day, Master Crevel, tired of the annoyance the police inflicted on him, placed the ocean between them and him by returning to France.