CHAPTER III.
A SAD MISTAKE.
Several days elapsed ere the two friends resumed their interruptedconversation.
They had continued their journey toward San Francisco without anyincident worth noticing, owing to the skill of Valentine and Curumilla.Although this was the first time they had advanced so far from theregions they were accustomed to traverse, their sagacity made up so wellfor their want of knowledge that they avoided, with extreme goodfortune, the dangers that menaced the success of their journey, andforesaw obstacles still remote, but which their knowledge of the desertcaused them to guess, as it were, intuitively.
The two old friends observed, we may say studied, each other. After solong a separation they required to restore a community of ideas. Thatcommunion of thoughts and feelings which had existed so long betweenthem might be eternally broken through the different media into whichthey had been thrown, and the circumstances that had modified theircharacters. Each of them rendered greater by events--having acquired theconsciousness of his personal value and his intellectual power--hadpossibly the right no longer to admit, without previous discussion,certain theories which were formerly recognised without a contest.
Still the friendship between the two men was so lively, the confidenceso entire, and the devotion so true, that, after a fortnight'stravelling side by side--a fortnight during which they touched on themost varying subjects without once introducing the one they had so muchinterest in thoroughly discussing--they convinced themselves that theystood to each other precisely in the same position as before theirseparation.
Either through lassitude or deference, or perhaps the tacit recognitionof his foster brother's superiority over him, during this fortnight, DonLouis, happy, perhaps, at having found once more the man who had beenwont to think and act for him, had not once attempted to assume anindependent position, but insensibly fell back under that moralguardianship which Valentine had so long exercised over him.
The two other persons lived on a perfectly good understanding--DonCornelio through carelessness, perhaps, Curumilla through pride.
The Spaniard--a dear lover of liberty, happy at living in the open airwithout troubles or annoyances of any description--goaded his novillos,strummed his jarana, and sang the interminable _Romancero del ReyRodrigo,_ which he began again imperturbably so soon as he had finished,in spite of Valentine's repeated remarks about the silence that must bemaintained in the desert, in order to avoid the ambuscades which theIndians constantly place like so many spiders' webs in the path ofincautious travellers. The Spaniard listened docilely, and with acontrite air, to the hunter's remonstrances; but, so soon as they wereended, he twanged a tune, and recommenced his romancero--a philosophywhich the trail-seeker, while blaming, could not refrain from admiring.
Curumilla was always the man we have seen him--prudent, foresighted, andsilent--but with a double dose of each quality. With eyes ever openedand ears alert, the Araucanian chief rode from one end of the file tothe other, watching so carefully over its safety that no accidentoccurred up to the day when we resume our narrative.
They thus descended the woody slopes of the Sierra Nevada, and enteredthe naked and sandy plains that stretch down to the sea, and on which,with the exception of San Jose and Monterey (two towns in the lastthroes of existence), the traveller only sees stunted trees and thornyshrubs scattered at a great distance apart.
Three days before reaching San Jose--a miserable _pueblo_, which servesas a gathering place for hunters and arrieros who frequent these parts;but where the population, decimated by fevers and misery, can do butlittle for the _forasteros_ (strangers)--the caravan encamped on thebanks of a stream, beneath the shelter of a few trees that had grownthere by accident, and which the sea breeze shook incessantly, andcovered with that fine sand which enters the eyes, nose, ears, andnothing can keep out.
The sun was plunging into the sea under the form of a huge fire-ball;there was a fresh breeze; in the distance appeared a few white sails,which, like light kingfishers fearing a tempest, were hastening toreach San Francisco; the coyotes were beginning to bark furiously onthe plain; and the few birds nestled on the branches tucked their headsunder their wings, and prepared to go to sleep.
The fires were lighted, the animals penned, and after supper eachhastened to repair, by a few hours' sleep, the fatigue of a long day'sjourney beneath a burning sky.
"Sleep!" Louis said. "I will keep the first watch--the idler's watch,"he added with a smile.
"I will take the second, then," Valentine said.
"No, I will take that," Curumilla objected. "An Indian's eyes seeclearly in the night."
"Hum!" the hunter remarked; "and yet I fancy my eyes are not so badeither."
Curumilla, without further reply, placed his finger on his lips.
"Good!" the hunter said; "as you wish it, keep watch in my place, chief.When you are tired, however, be sure and wake me."
The Indian bowed. The three men wrapped themselves in their zarapes, andlay on the ground, Don Louis alone remaining awake.
It was a magnificent night: the sky, of a deep azure, was studded withan infinity of stars that sparkled like diamonds; the moon poured forthits tremulous and pallid beams; the atmosphere, wondrously pure andtransparent, allowed the country to be surveyed for an enormousdistance; the evening breeze had risen, and deliciously refreshed theair; the earth exhaled acrid and balmy perfumes; the waves died awayamorously, and with mysterious murmurs, on the beach; and in thedistance might be indistinctly traced the outlines of the coyotes whichprowled about, howling mournfully, for they scented the novillos.
Louis, seduced by this splendid evening, and yielding to that prairielanguor which conquers the strongest minds, was indulging in a gentlereverie. He had attained that stage of mental somnolency which is notwaking, and yet not sleeping. He was enjoying the magic pictures hisfancy conjured up, when he was suddenly roused from this charmingsensation by a hand pressing heavily on his shoulder, while a voicemuttered in his ear the single word,--
"Prudence."
Louis, suddenly recalled to a consciousness of the present, opened hishalf-closed eyes, and turned sharply round. Curumilla was leaning overhim, and repeated his warning, with a sign of terrible meaning. Thecount seized his rifle, which rested near him.
"What is the matter?" he asked in a low voice.
"Come, but keep in the shade," Curumilla replied in the same tone.
Louis obeyed the hint, whose importance he recognised. Lying down on theground, he glided gently in the direction indicated by the Indian.
He soon found himself sheltered behind a thicket, where he saw DonCornelio and Valentine in ambush, with their bodies bent forward, andlooking anxiously into the darkness.
"Good heavens, friends!" the count said, "what is the meaning of this?The profoundest silence prevails around us. All appears tranquil. Whythis alarm?"
"Curumilla noticed this evening, before our halt, traces of YaquiIndians. You know, brother, that these demons are the most daringrobbers in the world. It is plain that they are after our beasts."
"But what makes you suppose that? These traces, whose existence I do notdeny, may belong to travellers as well as to vagabonds. Nothing up tothe present makes us suppose that these fellows intend attacking us, andwe have not even seen them."
A sinister smile contracted the chief's thin lips, and, touching thecount's arm with his finger, while at the same time lifting his ownrobe, he showed him a bleeding scalp hanging from his belt.
"Oh, oh!" Don Louis said, "have those demons ventured so near us, then?"
"Yes; and had it not been for Curumilla, whose eye is never closed, andmind ever on the watch, our animals would probably have been carried offmore than an hour ago."
"Thanks for his vigilance, then," the count said with an expression ofannoyance, which he could not entirely conceal; "but you know theIndians, comrades: so soon as they find they are detected, they are nolonger to be feared. I believe that, after the lesson the
y havereceived, we are now in safety, and we need not trouble ourselves aboutthem more."
"No, brother, you are mistaken. Look at your novillos; they arerestless. At each instant they raise their heads, and do not eat theirfood in comfort. God has given animals an instinct of self-preservationwhich never deceives them. Believe me, they fear a danger, and scentenemies not far from them."
"It is possible, indeed. Let us watch, then."
The four men remained thus silent and attentive. An hour almost passedaway, and nothing happened to confirm their suspicions. Still the bullspressed more closely together. They had left off eating, and theirrestlessness increased instead of diminishing.
Suddenly Curumilla stretched out his arm in a north-eastern direction,and after laconically whispering, "Do not stir," he gave Valentine hisrifle to hold, and before his friends had time to guess the direction hehad taken, he disappeared in the gloom. The three hunters exchanged asilent glance, and cocked their rifles, so as to be ready for any event.
There cannot be a more painful position than that of the brave man who,in a strange country and on a dark night, is obliged to stand on guardagainst a danger whose extent he cannot calculate. Affected by thesilent majesty of solitude, he creates phantasms a hundredfold moreterrible than the actual danger, and feels his courage fly awaypiecemeal beneath the harsh pressure of waiting for something unseen.
Such was the situation in which our three friends now were; and yet theywere three lion hearts, accustomed for many years to Indian warfare, andwhom no peril, however great it might have been, would have been ableto affect beneath the warm beams of the sun; but, during the darkness,imagination creates such horrible phantoms, that, if we may be allowedto employ a trivial comparison, we might say that people are not so muchafraid of the danger itself as of the fear of that danger.
The three men had remained in this awkward situation for some time; whensuddenly a fearful yell rose in the air, followed by the fall of a bodyto the ground, and the flight of several men, whose black outlines stoodout on the horizon. The adventurers fired at random, and rushed rapidlyin the direction where they heard the struggle, which seemed still goingon.
At the moment they arrived, Curumilla, whom they recognised, had hisright knee pressed into the chest of a man he held down under him, whilehis left hand compressed his throat, and reduced him to the most perfectstate of powerlessness.
"Wah!" the Araucanian said, turning to his comrades with a look ofinexpressible ferocity, "a chief!"
"Good prize," Valentine said. "Thrust your knife into the scoundrel'schest, and there's an end of him."
Curumilla raised his knife, whose blade sent forth a bluish flash.
"A moment," Don Louis exclaimed. "Let us see first who he is; we shallstill be able to kill him if we think fit."
Valentine shrugged his shoulders.
"Let the chief settle that business," he said; "he understands itbetter than we do. When you have one of those vipers under your heel youmust crush him, lest he may sting you presently."
"No," the count remarked resolutely, "I will never consent to see a manmurdered before me. That poor wretch has acted in accordance with hisnature; let us act in accordance with ours, then. Curumilla, I imploreyou, allow your prisoner to rise, but watch him, so that he cannotescape."
"You are wrong, brother," the implacable hunter replied; "you do notknow these demons so well as I do. Still act as you please; but you willeventually see that you have committed a folly."
The count made no reply, but only gave Curumilla another sign to do ashe ordered. The Araucanian obeyed with repugnance. Still he helped hishalf-strangled prisoner to rise, and while carefully watching him, ledhim to the fire, where the hunters had already preceded him.
The count took a rapid glance at the Indian. He was a man of Herculeanstature, powerfully built, and still young, with haughty, gloomy, andcruel features; in a word, though he was a handsome rather than an uglyman in appearance, there was an expression of roguery, baseness, andferocity about him, which in no way pleaded in his favour. He wore aspecies of hunting shirt, without sleeves, of striped calico, drawn inround the waist by a large girdle of untanned deer hide; breeches of thesame stuff as the shirt hung down to his knees; and the lower part ofhis legs was protected from stings by leather gaiters fastened to theknee and ankle. He wore on his feet moccasins artistically worked, andadorned behind by several wolf tails--a mark of distinction only allowedto renowned warriors. His plaited hair was raised on either side hishead, while behind it fell to his waist, and was decorated with plumesof every possible colour. Round his neck hung several medals, amongwhich was one rather larger than the rest, representing General Jackson,ex-President of the American Union. His face was painted with fourdifferent colours--blue, black, white, and red.
So soon as he found himself in the presence of the hunters seated roundthe fire, he crossed his arms on his chest, raised his head haughtily,and waited stoically till they thought proper to address him.
"Who are you?" Don Louis asked him in Spanish.
"Mixcoatzin (the Serpent of the Cloud)."
"Hum!" Valentine muttered to himself, "the scoundrel is well named. Inever saw such a hangdog face as his before."
"What did Mixcoatzin want in my camp?"
"Does not the _Yori_ know?" the Indian said imperturbably. "Mixcoatzinis a chief among the Yaquis."
"You wished to steal my cattle, I suppose?"
"The Yaquis are not robbers; all that is on their land belongs to them.The palefaces need only return to their home on the other side of thegreat salt lake."
"If I condemn you to death what will you say?"
"Nothing; it is the law of war. The paleface will see how a Yaqui chiefendures pain."
"You allow, then, that you deserve death?"
"No; the paleface is the stronger--he is the master."
"If I let you go what will you think?"
The Indian shrugged his shoulders.
"The paleface is not a fool," he said.
"But suppose I do act in that way?"
"I shall say that the paleface is afraid."
"Afraid of what?"
"Of the vengeance of the warriors of my nation."
It was Don Louis' turn to shrug his shoulders.
"Then," he proceeded, "if I restored you your liberty you would feel nogratitude?"
"Why should I be grateful? A warrior should kill his enemy when he holdshim. If he does not do so he is a coward."
The hunters could not refrain from a start of surprise at theenunciation of this singular theory. Don Louis rose.
"Listen," he said. "I do not fear you, and I will give you a proof ofit."
And, with a movement quick as thought, he seized the long tail that hungdown the chiefs back, and cut it off with his knife.
"Now," he added, buffeting him with the tress he had cut off, "be off,villain: you are free. I despise you too much to inflict on you anyother punishment than that you have undergone. Return to your tribe,and tell your friends how the whites avenge themselves on enemies socontemptible as yourself, and those that resemble you."
At the deadly insult he received the Indian's face became hideous; hesuffered a momentary stupor caused by shame and anger; but by asupernatural effort he suddenly overcame his feelings, seized Don Louis'arm, and thrusting his face into the Frenchman's,--
"Mixcoatzin is a powerful chief," he hissed. "Let the Yori remember hisname, for he will meet him again."
And, bounding like a tiger, he dashed into the plain, where he at oncedisappeared.
"Stop!" Don Louis shouted to his friends, who were rushing in pursuit;"Let him escape. What do I care for such a wretch's hatred? He can donothing to me."
The hunters reluctantly took their seats again by the fire.
"Hum!" Louis added, "I have perhaps committed a folly."
Valentine looked at him.
"Worse than a folly, brother," he said; "a sad mistake. Take care ofthat man: one day or other he will re
venge himself on you."
"Possibly," the count said carelessly; "but when did you begin to fearthe Indians so greatly, brother?"
"From the day I first learned to know them," the hunter said coldly."You have offered that man an insult which demands blood; be assuredthat he will make you repent of it."
"I care little."
After these few words the hunters resumed their interrupted sleep, andthe rest of the night passed without any fresh incident.
At sunrise the adventurers continued their journey; and by night, aftera day of incredible fatigue through the burning sands of the savannah,they at length reached the _pueblo_ or _lugar_ of San Jose, where theinhabitants received them with shouts of joy, persuaded as they werethat the strangers would not leave without supplying them with a few ofthose objects of primary necessity which they have themselves no meansof procuring.
San Jose is the last caravan halt before reaching San Francisco. Thetravellers had made a journey of more than one hundred and eightyleagues in less than three weeks, through difficulties and dangerswithout end--a speed hitherto unexampled.