Chapter Fifty.
A Midnight Promenader.
Rising from their knees, and resuming their seats upon the ledge, they return to the subject of discourse, interrupted by their devotional interlude; Caspar declaring it his fixed intention to disguise himself as an Indian, and so seek entrance into the town. No matter what the danger, he is ready to risk it.
The others consenting, the next question that comes before them is, how the disguise is to be got up. About this there seems a difficulty to Ludwig, and also to Cypriano; though recalling the transformation of the latter into a soldier-crane, so quickly done by the deft hands of the gaucho, they doubt not that he will also find the ways and means for transforming himself into a redskin.
“If we only had a Tovas Indian here,” he says, “as I had that sleepy Guaycuru, I’d not be long in changing clothes with him. Well, as we can’t borrow a dress, I must see what can be done to make one. Good luck, there’s no great quantity of cloth in a Tovas suit, and the stitching isn’t much. All that’s needed is a bit of breech-clout, which I can make out of the tail of my shirt; then the poncho over my shoulders, that will cover everything.”
“But the colour of your skin, Gaspar! Wouldn’t that betray you?”
Ludwig thus interrogates, not thinking how easily the dexterous gaucho can alter his complexion, nor recalling what he has said about his having done so to disguise himself as a Guaycuru.
“It might,” returns Gaspar; “and no doubt would, if I left it as it is; which I don’t intend doing. True, my face is not so fair as to need much darkening, beyond what the sun has done for it. I’ve seen some Tovas Indians with cheeks nigh as white as my own, and so have you, señoritos. As for my arms, legs, and body, they’ll require a little browning, but as it so happens I’ve got the stuff to give it them. After the service rendered me by a coat of that colour, you may trust this gaucho never to go on any expedition over the pampas without a cake of brown paint stowed away in some corner of his alparejas. For the poncho, it won’t be out of place. As you know, there are many of the common kind among the Tovas Indians, worn and woven by them; with some of better sort, snatched, no doubt, from the shoulders of some poor gaucho, found straying too far from the settlements.”
“But, Gaspar,” says Ludwig, still doubting the possibility of the scheme; “surely such a disguise as you speak of will never do? In the daylight they’d see through it.”
“Ah! in the daylight, yes, they might. But I don’t intend giving them that chance. If I enter their town at all, and I see no other way for it, that entry must be made in the darkness. I propose making it to-morrow evening, after the sun’s gone down, and when it’s got to be late twilight. Then they’ll all be off guard, engaged in driving their animals into the corrales, and less likely to notice any one strolling about the streets.”
“But supposing you get safe into the place, and can go about without attracting attention, what will you do?” questions Ludwig.
“What can you?” is the form in which Cypriano puts it.
“Well, señoritos, that will depend on circumstances, and a good deal on the sort of luck in store for us. Still you mustn’t suppose I’m trusting all to chance. Gaspar Mendez isn’t the man to thrust his hand into a hornet’s nest, without a likelihood—nay, a certainty, of drawing some honey out of it.”
“Then you have such certainty now?” interrogates Cypriano, a gleam of hope irradiating his countenance. For the figurative words lead him to believe that the gaucho has not yet revealed the whole of his scheme.
“Of course I have,” is Gaspar’s rejoinder. “If I hadn’t we might as well give everything up, and take the back-track home again. We won’t do that, while there’s a chance left for taking the muchachita along with us.”
“Never!” exclaims Cypriano, with determined emphasis. “If I have to go into their town myself, and die in it, I’ll do that rather than return without my cousin.”
“Be calm, hijo mio!” counsels Gaspar in a soothing tone, intended to curb the excitement of the fiery youth; “I don’t think there will be any need for you either to enter the town, or lay down your life in it. Certainly neither, unless my plan get spoiled by the ill luck that’s been so long hanging about us. It isn’t much of a plan after all; only to find one of the Indians, to whom I did a service when they were living at their old place. I cured the man of a complaint, which, but for the medicine I administered, would have carried him off to the happy hunting grounds—where just then he didn’t wish to go. That medicine wasn’t mine either. I had it from the dueño. But the sick man gave me credit for it all the same, and swore if I ever stood in need of his services, I could count upon receiving them, sure. From what I saw of him afterwards, and we came to know one another pretty well, I think I can. If ever there was a redskin to be trusted it’s he. Besides, he’s one of some authority in the tribe—a sort of sub-chief.”
“I know another,” breaks in Ludwig, as if suddenly recollecting; “one who’d help us too—if we could only have a word with him. That’s Nacena’s brother, Kaolin.”
Cypriano casts at his cousin a glance of peculiar meaning—something like surprise. Not because the latter has made mention of an Indian girl and her brother, both known to himself; but his giving the girl’s name first, as though she were uppermost in his thoughts. And she is; though that is a secret the young naturalist has hitherto kept close locked within his own breast.
Without noticing the glance of scrutiny bent upon him, he proceeds to explain himself.
“You may remember, Kaolin and I were the best of friends. He often went fishing with me, or rather I went with him. And I’m sure he’d stand by me now, in spite of Aguara.”
“So much the better,” rejoins Caspar. “If my man fail me, we can fall back upon yours. What I propose doing, then, is this. We must keep quiet, and of course concealed, all day to-morrow till after sunset. We can employ ourselves in the preparation of my masquerading costume. When it comes on twilight, or a little later, I can slip down among those toldos, and go sauntering about, like any other redskin, till I find my old patient. He being a big fellow, there shouldn’t be much difficulty in doing that. When found I’ll make appeal to him, to help us in getting the niña out of—” he has it on his tongue to say “Aguara’s clutches,” but thinking of the effect of such a phrase falling upon Cypriano’s ears, he concludes with the words, “whatever place they’re keeping her in.”
Caspar’s scheme thus at length declared, seeming feasible enough—and indeed the only one which any of them can think of as at all practicable—the other two signify assent to it; and its execution, or the attempt, is finally determined upon.
Going on to discuss the steps next best to be taken, they are interrupted by the sound of footsteps—some one ascending from below! The footfall is a light one, but distinct enough for them to tell, that whoever makes it is continuing on towards them, though yet unseen. As already said, the causeway is in part overshadowed by the cliff, and within this shadow keeps the person approaching. For all, on the footsteps drawing near, there is light enough for them to make out a figure; the better from its being clad in a drapery of white, loose and flowing, as though the wearer were a woman.
And so is she, or, to speak more correctly, a girl; her sex and age revealed to them, as at a certain point she steps to the off side of the path, and the moonlight falling upon her, exposes to their view a face beautiful as youthful.
Gaspar and Cypriano both recognise the face, but say nothing. Different Ludwig, who at the first glance got of it, unable to restrain himself, mechanically mutters the name—
“Nacena!”