The Tiger-Slayer: A Tale of the Indian Desert

by Gustave Aimard

The door of the mesón was only leaned to, so that the travellers might start whenever they pleased without disturbing anybody. The count lit his cigar, leaped into the saddle, and started on a trot along the road leading to the Rancho. Nothing is so agreeable as night travelling in Mexico. The earth, refreshed by the night breeze, and bedewed by the copious dew, exhaled acrid and perfumed scents, whose beneficent emanations restore the body all its vigour, and the mind its lucidity. The moon, just on the point of disappearing, profusely scattered its oblique rays, which lengthened immoderately the shadow of the trees growing at intervals along the road, and made them in the obscurity resemble a legion of fleshless spectres. The sky, of a deep azure, was studded with an infinite number of glistening stars, in the midst of which flashed the dazzling southern cross, to which the Indians have given the name of Poron Chayké. The wind breathed gently through the branches, in which the blue jay uttered at intervals the melodious notes of its melancholy song, with which were mingled at times, in the profundities of the desert, the howling of the cougar, the sharp miauw of the panther or the ounce, and the hoarse bark of the coyotes in search of prey.

The count, on leaving Guaymas, had hurried on his horse; but subjugated, in spite of himself, by the irresistible attractions of this autumn night he gradually checked the pace of his steed, and yielded to the flood of thoughts which mounted incessantly to his brain, and plunged him into a gentle reverie. The descendant of an ancient and haughty Frank race, alone in this desert, he mentally surveyed the splendour of his name so long eclipsed, and his heart expanded with joy and pride on reflecting that the task was reserved for him perhaps to rehabilitate those from whom he descended, and restore, this time eternally, the fortunes of his family, of which he had hitherto proved such a bad guardian.

This land, which he trampled underfoot, would restore him what he had lost and madly squandered a hundred fold. The moment had at length arrived when, free from all hobbles, he was about to realise those plans for the future so long engraved on his brain. He went on thus, travelling in the country of chimeras, and so absorbed in his thoughts, that he no longer troubled himself with what went on around him.

The stars were beginning to turn pale in the heavens, and be extinguished in turn. The dawn was tracing a white line, which gradually assumed a reddish tint on the distant obscurity of the horizon. On the approach of day the air became fresher; then the count, aroused—if we may employ the term—by the icy impression produced on him by the bountiful desert dew, pulled the folds of his zarapé over the shoulders with a shudder, and started at a gallop, directing a glance to the sky, and muttering,—

"I will succeed, no matter the odds."

A haughty defiance, to which the heavens seemed prepared to respond immediately.

The day was on the brink of dawning, and, in consequence of that, the night, owing to its struggle with the twilight, had become more gloomy, as always happens during the few moments preceding the apparition of the sun. The first houses of the Rancho were standing out from the fog, a short distance before him, when the count heard, or fancied he heard, the sound of several horses' hoofs re-echoing on the pebbles behind him.

In America, by night, and on a solitary road, the presence of man announces always or nearly always, a peril.

The count stopped and listened. The sound was rapidly approaching. The Frenchman was brave, and had proved it in many circumstances; still he did not at all desire to be assassinated in the corner of the road, and perish miserably through an ambuscade. He looked around, in order to study the chances of safety offered him in the probable event that the arrivals were enemies.

The plain was bare and flat: not a tree, not a ditch, nor any elevation behind which he could intrench himself. Two hundred yards in front, as we have said, were the first houses of the Rancho.