Wandering now on this side, now on that, deceived by the mirage, dazzled by the burning sunbeams, they were a prey to a hideous despair. Some laughed with a silly air; and these were the happiest, for they no longer felt their sufferings: they were mad. Others brandished their weapons furiously, raising their fists, with menaces and curses to heaven, which, like an immense plate of red-hot iron, seemed the implacable dome of their sandy tomb. Some, rendered raging by suffering, blew out their brains, while mocking their comrades who were too weak-minded to follow their example.
The French are, perhaps, the bravest nation in existence; but, on the other hand, the easiest to demoralise. If their impulse is irresistible in the onward march; it is the same when they give way. Nothing will stop them—neither reasoning nor coercive measures. Extreme in everything, the Frenchman is more than a man, or less than a child.
The Count de Lhorailles, gloomy and heart-broken, surveyed the ruin of all his hopes. Ever the first to march the last to rest, not eating a mouthful till he was certain that all his comrades had their share, he watched with unexampled tenderness and care over these poor soldiers, who, strangely enough, in the misery in which they were plunged, never dreamed of addressing a reproach to him.
Of Blas Vasquez' peons the majority were dead. The rest had sought safety in flight; that is, they had gone a little further on to seek a hidden tomb. All those who remained faithful to the captain were Europeans, principally Frenchmen, brave Dauph'yeers, utterly ignorant of the way to combat and conquer the implacable enemy against whom they struggled—the desert! Of the two hundred and forty-five men of which the squadron was composed on its entering the Del Norte, one hundred and thirty-three still survived, if we allow that these haggard, fleshless spectres were men.
The most atrocious pain which a man can suffer in the desert is the frightful malady called calentura by the Mexicans. The calentura! That temporary madness, which makes you see, during its intermittent attacks, the most dainty and delicious dishes, the most limpid water, the most exquisite wines; which satiates and enervates you; and, when it leaves you, renders you more desponding, more broken, than before, for you retain the remembrance of all you possessed during your dream.
One day, at length, the wretched men, crushed by misery and torture of every description, refused to go further, and resolved to die where accident had led them. They lay down in the torrid sand, beneath the shadow of a few ahuehuelts, with the firm will of remaining motionless until death, which they had summoned so loudly, came at length to deliver them from their woes. The sun set in a mist of purple and gold, to the sound of the curses and imprecations of these wretched men who, expecting nothing more, hoping nothing more, had only retained the cruel instincts of the wild beast.
Still the night succeeded to day—gradually calmness took the place of disorder. Sleep, that great consoler, weighed down the heavy eyelids of the men, who, if they did not sleep, fell into state of somnolency, which brought a truce to their fearful tortures, if only for a few moments. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, a formidable sound aroused them—a fiery whirlwind passed over them—the thunder burst forth in terrific peals. The sky was black as ink—not a star, not a moonbeam—nothing but dense gloom, which hid the nearest objects from sight.
The poor fellows rose in great terror; they dragged themselves on as well as they could one after the other, crouching together like a flock of sheep surprised by a storm, wishing, with that inborn egotism of man, to die together.
"A temporal, a temporal!" all shouted with an expression of voice impossible to render.
It was in reality the temporal, that fearful scourge, which was unloosing all its fury, and passing over the desert to subvert its surface. The wind howled with extraordinary force, raising clouds of dust, which whirled round with extreme velocity, and formed enormous spouts, that, ran along and suddenly burst with a frightful crash. Men and animals caught in the tornado were whisked away into a space like straws.