The Smuggler Chief: A Novel

by Gustave Aimard

The combat then assumed gigantic proportions; the white men knew that they had no quarter to expect from their ferocious enemies, while the latter, whose great number heightened their boldness, and who counted on an easy victory, exasperated by the resistance offered them, redoubled their efforts to finish with the white men, whom they execrated.

The fight became with each instant more terrible; Chilians and Indians were engaged in a hand-to-hand fight, rending each other like wild beasts, and howling like tigers when a combatant fell on either side.

The issue of this frightful butchery was impossible to foresee, when suddenly several shots were fired, and a band of horsemen rushed desperately into the thickest of the fight. They were Leon, and his adventurers, who, after a futile search, when returning to join their friends, heard the sound of the battle, and hurried up to take their part in the danger, and claim the right of dying with their comrades.

It was time that this succour arrived, for the Chilians who, crushed by numbers, did not feel their courage give way, but the moment approaching when they would fall not to rise again in front of the tent which they had undertaken to defend with the last drop of their blood. Hence the unforeseen and almost providential arrival of the captain changed the aspect of the fight.

The Indians, astonished at this unforeseen attack, and not knowing what enemy they had to combat, hesitated for an instant, which Leon took advantage of to redouble his blows. A ray of hope animated the Spaniards, who regained their courage, and their resistance threatened to become fatal to the Indians; but this triumph, alas! was of short duration.

All at once a Redskin of colossal height rushed to meet the smuggler captain, with the evident intention of fighting him. When the two adversaries faced, they looked at each other with attention, each in his heart doing justice to the elegant form and muscular appearance of his opponent.

As frequently happens under such circumstances, Indians and Spaniards suspended the blows they were dealing one another, in order to be spectators of the combat in which Leon was about to engage with the Indian, who appeared to be one of the chiefs of the band. On the issue of this struggle the fate of the combatants on either side might depend. By a common agreement, the Redskin threw his axe on the ground and Leon his gun. Then after drawing their machetes, the two men looked at each other attentively, and suddenly making a bound forward, seized each other round the body, but neither could make use of his knife, as each had seized his enemy's right arm with his left hand. Activity and skill could alone triumph.

For some minutes they could be seen intertwined like serpents, with frowning brows, haggard eyes, and set teeth; they writhed in a hundred ways, and tried, to throw each other, but in vain. The panting breath of both combatants could be heard escaping from their heaving chests like a whistle. The perspiration poured down their faces, and a whitish foam gathered at the corners of their mouths.

At length the Indian chief uttered a savage yell, and, collecting all his strength in a supreme effort, threw Leon, who dragged him down with him. Both rolled on the hardened snow. A long cry of joy burst from the Indians, and a cry of despair from the Spaniards; and, as if they had only expected this denouement to renew the combat, they rushed upon each other with fresh strength.

In the midst of this dark forest, which was plunged into a sort of demi-obscurity, these scenes had something awful and sinister. The groans of the ladies, and the cries of agony from the men, who fell before the bullets and the blade, echoed mournfully far and wide; add to these lugubrious sounds the plaintive howling raised by the animals at the sight of the fire which was devouring the rest of the baggage, and the reader will have an idea of the sad picture which we are drawing.