Chapter Twenty Four.
Caught in a Dust-Storm.
At the crisis described, the Indian party is no longer travelling upon the Pilcomayo’s bank, nor near it. They have parted from it at a point where the river makes one of its grand curves, and are now crossing the neck of the peninsula embraced within its windings. This isthmus is in width at least twenty miles, and of a character altogether different from the land lying along the river’s edge. In short, a sterile, treeless expanse, or “travesia”—for such there are in the Chaco—not barren because of infertility in the soil, but from the want of water to fertilise it. Withal, it is inundated at certain periods of the year by the river’s overflow, but in the dry season parched by the rays of a tropical sun. Its surface is then covered with a white efflorescence, which resembles a heavy hoar frost; this, called salitré, being a sort of impure saltpetre, left after the evaporation and subsidence of the floods.
They have entered this cheerless waste, and are about midway across it, when the cry of alarm is heard; he who gave utterance to it being older than the others, and credited with greater knowledge of things. That which had caught his attention, eliciting the cry, is but a phenomenon of Nature, though not one of an ordinary kind; still, not so rare in the region of the Chaco; since all of them have more than once witnessed it. But the thing itself is not yet apparent save to him who has shouted, and this only by the slightest sign giving portent of its approach. For it is, in truth, a storm.
Even after the alarmist has given out his warning note, and stands on his horse’s hips, gazing off in a certain direction, the others, looking the same way, can perceive nothing to account for his strange behaviour. Neither upon the earth, nor in the heavens, does there appear anything that should not be there. The sun is coursing through a cloudless sky, and the plain, far as eye can reach, is without animate object upon it; neither bird nor beast having its home in the salitré. Nothing observable on that wide, cheerless waste, save the shadows of themselves and their horses, cast in dark silhouette across the hoary expanse, and greatly elongated; for it is late in the afternoon, and the sun almost down to the horizon.
“What is it?” asks Aguara, the first to speak, addressing himself to the Indian who gave out the cry. “You appear to apprehend danger?”
“And danger there is, chief,” returns the other. “Look yonder!” He points to the level line between earth and sky, in the direction towards which they are travelling. “Do you not see something?”
“No, nothing.”
“Not that brown-coloured stripe just showing along the sky’s edge, low, as if it rested on the ground?”
“Ah, yes; I see that. Only a little mist over the river, I should say.”
“Not that, chief. It’s a cloud, and one of a sort to be dreaded. See! it’s rising higher, and, it I’m not mistaken, will ere long cover the whole sky.”
“But what do you make of it? To me it looks like smoke.”
“No; it isn’t that either. There’s nothing out that way to make fire—neither grass nor trees; therefore, it can’t be smoke.”
“What, then? You appear to know!”
“I do. ’Tis dust.”
“Dust! A drove of wild horses? Or may they be mounted? Ah! you think it’s a party of Guaycurus?”
“No, indeed. But something we may dread as much—ay, more—than them. If my eyes don’t deceive me, that’s a tormenta.”
“Ha!” exclaims the young cacique, at length comprehending. “A tormenta, you think it is?”
The others of the band mechanically mutter the same word, in like tones of apprehension. For although slow to perceive the sign, even yet but slightly perceptible, all of them have had experience of the danger.
“I do, chief,” answers he interrogated. “Am now sure of it.”
While they are still speaking it—the cloud—mounts higher against the blue background of sky, as also becomes more extended along the line of the horizon. Its colour, too, has sensibly changed, now presenting a dun yellowish appearance, like that mixture of smoke and mist known as a “London fog.” But it is somewhat brighter, as though it hung over, half-concealing and smothering, the flames of some grand conflagration.
And as they continue regarding it, red corruscations begin to shoot through its opaque mass, which they can tell to be flashes of lightning. Yet all this while, upon the spot where they have pulled up the sun is shining serenely, and the air still and tranquil as if gale or breeze had never disturbed it!
But it is a stillness abnormal, unnatural, accompanied by a scorching heat, with an atmosphere so close as to threaten suffocation.
This, however, lasts but a short while. For in less than ten minutes after the cloud was first descried, a wind reaches them blowing directly from it at first, in puffs and gusts, but cold as though laden with sleet, and so strong as to sweep several of them from the backs of their horses. Soon after all is darkness above and around them. Darkness as of night; for the dust has drifted over the sun, and its disc is no longer visible—having disappeared as in a total eclipse, but far more suddenly.
It is too late for them to retreat to any place of shelter, were one ever so near, which there is not. And well know they the danger of being caught in that exposed spot; so well that the scene now exhibited in their ranks is one of fright and confusion.
Terrified exclamations are sent up on all sides, but only one voice of warning, this from him who had first descried the cloud.
“From your horses!” he calls out, “take shelter behind them, and cover your faces with your jergas! If you don’t you’ll be blinded outright.”
His counsel acts as a command; though it is not needed, all of them, as himself, sensible of the approaching peril. In a trice they have dropped to the ground, and plucking the pieces of skins which serve them as saddles, from the backs of their horses, muffle up their faces as admonished. Then each clutching the halter of his own, and holding it so as to prevent the animal changing position, they await the onslaught of the storm.
Meanwhile, Aguara has not been inactive. Instead of having seized the pony’s bridle-rein, he has passed round to the rear of the troop, leading his captive along with him; for the wind strikes them in front. There in the lee of all, better sheltered, he dismounts, flings his arms around the unresisting girl, and sets her afoot upon the ground. He does all this gently, as though he were a friend or brother! For he has not lost hope he may yet win her heart.
“Star of my life,” he says to her, speaking in the Tovas tongue, which she slightly understands. “As you see we’re in some danger, but it will soon pass. Meanwhile, we must take steps to guard against it. So, please to lie down, and this will protect you.”
While speaking, he takes the plumed cloak from his shoulders and spreads it over those of the captive, at the same time covering her head with it, as if it were a hood. Then he gently urges her to lie on the ground.
To all she submits mechanically, and without offering opposition; though she little cares about the dust-storm—whether it blind or altogether destroy her.
Soon after it is on and over them in all its fury, causing their horses to cower and kick, many screaming in affright or from the pain they have to endure. For not only does the tormenta carry dust with it, but sand, sticks, and stones, some of the latter so large and sharp as often to inflict severe wounds. Something besides in that now assailing them; which sweeping across the salitral has lifted the sulphureous efflorescence, that beats into their eyes bitter and blinding as the smoke of tobacco. But for having muffled up their faces, more than one of the party would leave that spot sightless, if not smothered outright.
For nearly an hour the tempest continues, the wind roaring in their ears, and the dust and gravel clouting against their naked skins, now and then a sharp angled pebble lacerating them. At times the blast is so strong they have difficulty in keeping their places; still more in holding their horses to windward. And all the while there is lightning and thunder, the last loud and rolling continuously. At length the wind, still keenly cold, is accompanied by a sleety rain, which pours upon them in torrents, chill as if coming direct from the snowy slopes of the Cordilleras—as in all likelihood it does.
They know that this is a sign of the tormenta approaching its end, which soon after arrives; terminating almost as abruptly as it had begun. The dust disappears from the sky, that which has settled on the ground now covering its surface with a thick coating of mud—converted into this by the rain—while the sun again shines forth in all its glory, in a sky bright and serene as if cloud had never crossed it!
The tormenta is over, or has passed on to another part of the great Chaco plain.
And now the Tovas youths, their naked skins well washed by the shower, and glistening like bronze fresh from the furnace—some of them, however, bleeding from the scratches they have received—spring upon their feet, re-adjust the jergas on the backs of their horses, and once more remount.
Then their young chief, by the side of the captive girl, having returned to his place at their head, they forsake that spot of painful experience, and continue their journey so unexpectedly interrupted.