CHAPTER XVI.
THE PARUMO DE SAN JUAN BAUTISTA.
The Cordilleras of the Andes are strange mountains, with which noothers in the world could be compared, and they form, so to speak, thebackbone of the New World, the entire length of which they traverse.It is in Chili, whose natural frontier they form, that they assumethe sternest and most gloomy proportions; raising to the clouds theirsnow-covered heads, it seems as if it were under the pressure of anomnipotent will, as Ervilla, the poet of Araucania, says, that theyallow at certain periods daring travellers to enter their dark gorgesand cross their denuded peaks.
The Cordilleras cannot at any season be everywhere crossed, and it isonly during four months at the most that at certain spots caravans areenabled to make their way through the snow, escalade the crests ofthese inhospitable mountains, and descend the opposite sides.
These spots, called passages, are very few in number: they are onlythree in Chili, and they are quebradas, or gaps, the dried beds oftorrents, or streams, through which men, horses, and mules pass withgreat difficulty, at the expense of extraordinary cost and privations.
The most frequented of these passages is the Parumo of San JuanBautista, a narrow gorge between two lofty mountains, which can only bereached by a track a yard in width, bordered on the right by a forest,which rises in an amphitheatrical shape, and on the left by a precipiceof immense depth, at the bottom of which an invisible stream may beheard murmuring.
This was the road which the caravan was following.
About four in the evening, at the moment when night was beginning tobrood over these elevated regions, the travellers came out on a plateauof about forty yards in circumference; before them, nearly at theirfeet, and half bathed in the early mist of night, were vaguely designedthe plains to which they would descend on the morrow, while around themwere dark, inextricable forests, which seemed to enfold them.
Wilhelm, in obedience to the orders which he had received from hiscaptain, commanded a halt, and all preparations to be made for thenight encampment, as going any further would have been committinggreat imprudence, especially during the darkness. No one raised anyobjection, but all dismounted, and began actively unloading the mulesand pitching the tent set apart for the Soto-Mayor family.
While some were piling up the bales, and others unsaddling the horsesand draught animals, several adventurers, selected by the leader,entered the forest, in order to seek for dry wood necessary to keep upthe watch fires.
The duties were thus allotted, in order that they might be completedas speedily as possible, when suddenly a terrible yell was heard,and a band of Indians burst forth from the forest, and rushed at thetravellers with brandished weapons.
There was a moment of disorder which it is impossible to describe.The travellers, so suddenly surprised, and for the most part unarmed,offered but a feeble resistance to their assailants; but, speedilyobeying the voice of Wilhelm, and excited by the shouts of GeneralSoto-Mayor, and of Don Pedro Sallazar, they collected round the tentin which the three ladies had sought shelter, and arming themselveswith any weapon they came across, they bravely resisted the Indians;not hoping, it is true, to emerge as victors from the contest they weresustaining, but resolved to sell their lives dearly, and only yield todeath.
The combat then assumed gigantic proportions; the white men knew thatthey had no quarter to expect from their ferocious enemies, whilethe latter, whose great number heightened their boldness, and whocounted on an easy victory, exasperated by the resistance offeredthem, redoubled their efforts to finish with the white men, whom theyexecrated.
The fight became with each instant more terrible; Chilians and Indianswere engaged in a hand-to-hand fight, rending each other like wildbeasts, and howling like tigers when a combatant fell on either side.
The issue of this frightful butchery was impossible to foresee, whensuddenly several shots were fired, and a band of horsemen rusheddesperately into the thickest of the fight. They were Leon, and hisadventurers, who, after a futile search, when returning to join theirfriends, heard the sound of the battle, and hurried up to take theirpart in the danger, and claim the right of dying with their comrades.
It was time that this succour arrived, for the Chilians who, crushedby numbers, did not feel their courage give way, but the momentapproaching when they would fall not to rise again in front of the tentwhich they had undertaken to defend with the last drop of their blood.Hence the unforeseen and almost providential arrival of the captainchanged the aspect of the fight.
The Indians, astonished at this unforeseen attack, and not knowingwhat enemy they had to combat, hesitated for an instant, which Leontook advantage of to redouble his blows. A ray of hope animated theSpaniards, who regained their courage, and their resistance threatenedto become fatal to the Indians; but this triumph, alas! was of shortduration.
All at once a Redskin of colossal height rushed to meet the smugglercaptain, with the evident intention of fighting him. When the twoadversaries faced, they looked at each other with attention, each inhis heart doing justice to the elegant form and muscular appearance ofhis opponent.
As frequently happens under such circumstances, Indians and Spaniardssuspended the blows they were dealing one another, in order to bespectators of the combat in which Leon was about to engage with theIndian, who appeared to be one of the chiefs of the band. On the issueof this struggle the fate of the combatants on either side mightdepend. By a common agreement, the Redskin threw his axe on the groundand Leon his gun. Then after drawing their machetes, the two men lookedat each other attentively, and suddenly making a bound forward, seizedeach other round the body, but neither could make use of his knife, aseach had seized his enemy's right arm with his left hand. Activity andskill could alone triumph.
For some minutes they could be seen intertwined like serpents, withfrowning brows, haggard eyes, and set teeth; they writhed in a hundredways, and tried, to throw each other, but in vain. The panting breathof both combatants could be heard escaping from their heaving chestslike a whistle. The perspiration poured down their faces, and a whitishfoam gathered at the corners of their mouths.
At length the Indian chief uttered a savage yell, and, collecting allhis strength in a supreme effort, threw Leon, who dragged him down withhim. Both rolled on the hardened snow. A long cry of joy burst from theIndians, and a cry of despair from the Spaniards; and, as if they hadonly expected this denouement to renew the combat, they rushed uponeach other with fresh strength.
In the midst of this dark forest, which was plunged into a sort ofdemi-obscurity, these scenes had something awful and sinister. Thegroans of the ladies, and the cries of agony from the men, who fellbefore the bullets and the blade, echoed mournfully far and wide; addto these lugubrious sounds the plaintive howling raised by the animalsat 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 aredrawing.
In the meanwhile the Indian who had thrown Leon had set his knee on hischest with ferocious delight, and was brandishing his knife; but allwas not yet over for Leon; by a movement rapid as thought he hurledaway his foe, who fell, letting his knife slip from his grasp. It wasnow the Indian's turn to tremble. Leon seized him by the throat, andthrottled him by the pressure of his left hand, while in his right heraised his machete to kill him.
"Die, scoundrel!" he shouted.
He had not finished the sentence when a blow from the butt end of a gunfell on his head, and the smuggler captain fell senseless, while hisenemy was dragged away by the man who had thus saved him from a certaindeath.
When Leon recovered his senses, the Indians had disappeared; of histwenty-five companions, ten still lived, while the others, scalpedand horribly mutilated, were stretched out on the ground. Don PedroSallazar was stanching, as well as he could, a wound which he hadreceived in the chest; while General Soto-Mayor was on his knees, andholding in his arms the body of his wife, who had been killed by abullet through the temples.
; The old man looked at the wound with a lacklustre eye, and seemed to beno longer conscious of what was going on around him; still the heavytears that coursed down his pallid cheeks fell one by one on the faceof the dead woman.
"And the young ladies?" Leon anxiously asked, as he rose with greatdifficulty; "I do not see them."
"They have been carried off by the Indians," Don Pedro replied, in ahollow, sullen voice.
"Oh!" said Leon, mad with despair, "I am accursed!"
And, overcome by grief, he fell as if stunned to the ground. At thismoment a horseman entered the clearing; it was Major Don Juan, the sonof General Soto-Mayor.