The Indian Scout: A Story of the Aztec City

by Gustave Aimard

Brighteye watched his comrades pass, without making a movement to reveal his presence. It was evident that he wished them to remain ignorant of the fact that he had turned back, and that the motives which impelled him to act must remain a secret between him and Heaven. It was in vain that he looked for Flying Eagle and Eglantine among the Gambusinos: the two Redskins had separated from the band. This absence appeared greatly to vex the hunter. Still, after a minute, his face resumed its serenity, and he shrugged his shoulders with that careless air which indicates that a man has put up with an annoyance against which he cannot contend. When the Gambusinos had disappeared, the hunter emerged from his hiding place: he listened for a moment to the sound of the horses' hoofs, which grew every moment weaker, and soon died out in the distance. Brighteye drew himself up. "Good!" he muttered, with an air of satisfaction; "I can now act as I please, without fear of being disturbed, unless Flying Eagle and his squaw have remained prowling about the place. Bah! we shall soon see; besides, that is not probable, for the Chief is too anxious to rejoin his tribe, to amuse himself by losing his time here. I will go on, at any rate."

With this, he threw his rifle on his shoulder, and set out again with a light and deliberate step, though not neglecting the precautions usual in the desert on any march; for, by night, the wood rangers know that they are ever watched by invisible foes, be they men or beasts. Brighteye thus reached the skirt of the clearing, in which the dramatic events we have described took place, and in which there only remained at this moment a man buried alive, face to face with his crimes, with no hope of possible help, and abandoned by all nature, if not by Heaven. The hunter stopped, lay down on the ground, and looked. A funeral silence, the silence of the tomb, brooded over the clearing. Don Estevan, with eyes dilated by fear, his chest oppressed by the earth, which collected round his body, with a slow and continuous movement, felt the breath gradually departing from his lungs, his temples beat ready to burst, the blood boiled in his veins, drops of icy perspiration beaded at the roots of his hair, a bloodstained veil was stretched over his eyes, and he felt himself dying.

At this supreme moment, when all deserted him at once, the wretched man uttered a hoarse and piercing cry; tears burst from his proud eyes; his hand, as we have stated, nervously clutched the butt of the pistol left to abridge his punishment, and he raised the barrel to his temples, muttering, with an accent of indescribable despair—"Heaven! Heaven! pardon me!"

He pulled the trigger. Suddenly a hand was laid on his arm, the bullet whizzed into the air, and a severe yet gentle voice replied—"God has heard you. He pardons you!"

The wretch turned his head wildly, looked, with an air of terror, at the man who spoke thus, and, too weak to resist the terrible emotion that agitated him, he uttered a cry resembling a sob, and fainted.

As the reader will doubtlessly have guessed, the man who arrived so opportunely for Don Estevan was Brighteye. "Hum!" he said, with a shake of his head, "it was time for me to interfere."

Then, without losing a moment, the worthy fellow busied himself with drawing from his tomb the man he wished to save. It was a rude task, especially as he lacked the necessary tools. The Gambusinos had laboured conscientiously, and filled up the hole in such a way that the man they were burying was solidly blocked in.

Brighteye was compelled to dig with his knife, while using the utmost precautions not to wound Don Estevan. At times the hunter stopped, wiped his perspiring brow, and looked at the pale face of the Mexican, who was still in a faint; then, after a few moments of this silent contemplation, he shook his head two or three times, and set to work again with redoubled ardour.

These two men in the desert, surrounded by dense gloom, offered a strange spectacle. Certainly, had a wayfarer been able to see what was taking place in this unknown clearing, in the heart of the virgin forest, peopled by wild beasts, whose hoarse roars rose at intervals in the darkness, as if protesting against this invasion of their domain—he would have fancied himself witness of some diabolical incantation, and have fled at full speed, a prey to the wildest terror. Still Brighteye went on digging. His task progressed but slowly, because, in proportion as he went deeper, his difficulties grew greater.

For a moment the hunter stopped, in despair of succeeding in saving the condemned man; but this moment of discouragement lasted a very short time. The Canadian, ashamed of the thought, began digging again with that feverish energy which the reaction of a powerful will upon a passing weakness imparts to a man of resolution. At length, after extraordinary difficulties, the task, twenty times interrupted and twenty times recommenced, was completed. The hunter uttered a shout of triumph and pleasure; he then seized Don Estevan under the armpits, drew him vigorously towards him, and, with some trouble, succeeded in laying him on the ground. His first task was to cut asunder the bonds that formed an inextricable network round the wretch's body; he opened his clothes, to give his lungs the necessary freedom to inhale the external air, then half filled a calabash of water from his gourd, and threw the contents over Don Estevan's face. The fainting fit had been produced by the emotion he felt on seeing a saviour arrive at the moment when he believed that he had nought left but to die. The sudden shock of the cold water effected a favourable reaction; he gave out a sigh, and opened his eyes.