CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE HUMAN SACRIFICE.
The army commanded by General Fuentes was composed of two thousandfoot, eight hundred horse, and six pieces of cannon. It was an imposingforce for these countries, where the population is very small, andwhere infinite pains are often required to raise an army half asnumerous. As soon as the passage was effected, and the banks cleared ofthe fugitives, the general encamped his troops, resolved to give thema few hours' repose before resuming his march to form a junction withDon Tadeo de Leon. After giving these orders, as he was entering hismarquee, an Indian came towards him.
"What do you want, Joan?" asked he.
"The great chief no longer needs me; Joan wishes to return to him whosent him."
"You are at liberty to do as you please, my friend; but I think you hadbetter accompany the army."
The Indian shook his head.
"I promised my father to return immediately," he said.
"Go, then; I neither can nor wish to detain you; you can report whatyou have seen; a letter might compromise you in case of a surprise."
"I will do as the great chief commands."
"Well, good fortune attend you; but be particularly careful not to betaken in passing the enemy's lines."
"Joan will not be taken."
"Farewell! then, my friend," said the general, waving his hand as heentered his tent.
Joan took advantage of the permission granted and left the camp withoutdelay. The night was dark; the moon was concealed behind thick clouds.The Indian directed his course with difficulty in the obscurity.He was more than once forced to retrace his steps, and to go wideabout to avoid places which he thought dangerous. He proceeded thus,feeling his way as it were, till daybreak. At the first glimmeringof dawn he glided like a serpent through the high grass, raising hishead occasionally, and trembling in spite of himself, for he foundhe had, in the darkness, stumbled upon an Indian encampment. He had,inadvertently, got into the midst of the detachment commanded by BlackStag, who had succeeded in collecting the remains of his troops, andwho, at that moment, formed the rearguard of the Araucanian army, whosebivouac fires smoked on the horizon, within distance of two leagues atthe most.
But Joan was not a man to be easily disconcerted; he noticed thatthe sentinels had not yet perceived him, and he did not despair ofgetting out of the scrape he had blundered into. He did not, howeverdeceive himself or attempt to fancy his position not critical; but ashe confronted it coolly, he resolved to do all he could to extricatehimself, and took his measures accordingly. After reflecting for afew seconds, he crept in a direction opposite to that he had beforefollowed, stopping at intervals to listen. Everything went on well fora few minutes; nothing stirred. A profound silence seemed to hover overthe country; Joan was beginning to breathe freely; in a few minutes heshould be safe. Unfortunately, at that moment chance brought Black Stagdirectly before him; the vigilant chief had been making the round ofhis posts. The vice-Toqui turned his horse towards him.
"My brother must be tired; he has crept through the grass like a viperso long," he said, with an ironical smile; "he had better change hisposition."
"That is just what I am going to do," said Joan, without displaying theleast astonishment.
And bounding up like a panther, he leaped upon the horse behind thechief, and seized him round the body.
"Help!" Black Stag cried, in a loud voice.
"One word more and you are a dead man!" Joan whispered in a threateningtone.
But it was too late; the chief's cry of alarm had been heard, and acrowd of warriors hastened to his succour.
"Cowardly dog!" said Joan, who saw his chance was gone, but who did notyet despair; "die then!" He plunged his poisoned dagger between hisshoulders and cast him onto the ground, where the chief writhed in theagonies of death, and expired as if struck by thunderbolt. Joan liftedhis horse with his knees and dashed full speed against the Indians whobarred his passage. This attempt was a wild one. A warrior armed with agun took a steady aim, the horse rolled upon the ground, with its skullcrushed, and dragging its rider with it in the fall. Twenty warriorsrushed upon Joan, and bound him before he could make a movement todefend himself. But he had time to conceal the dagger, which theIndians did not even think of looking for, as they did not know whatweapon he had employed.
The death of Black Stag, one of the most respected warriors of thenation, threw the Araucanos into a state of consternation. An Ulmenimmediately took the command in his place, and Joan and a Chiliansoldier captured in the preceding combat, were sent together to thecamp of Antinahuel. The latter felt great regret at receiving the newsof the death of Black Stag; it was more than a friend he had lost, itwas a right arm!
Antinahuel, in order to reanimate the courage of his people, resolvedto make an example, and sacrifice the prisoners to Guecubu, the geniusof evil--a sacrifice which we must admit is becoming more and more rareamong the Aucas, but to which they have recourse sometimes when theywish to strike their enemies with terror, and to prove that they meanto carry on a war without mercy. Time pressed, the army must continueits march, therefore Antinahuel determined that the sacrifice shouldtake place at once.
At some distance beyond the camp the principal Ulmens and warriorsformed a circle, in the centre of which was planted the Toqui'shatchet. The prisoners were brought thither. They were not bound, butin derision were mounted upon a horse without ears and without a tail.Joan, as the more culpable, was to be sacrificed last, and witness thedeath of his companion as a foretaste. But if at that fatal momenteverything seemed to have abandoned the valiant Indian, he had notabandoned himself.
The Chilian prisoner was a rough soldier, well acquainted withAraucanian manners, who knew perfectly what fate awaited him. He wasplaced near the hatchet, with his face turned toward the Chilianfrontiers. They made him dismount from his horse, placed in his handsa bundle of small rods and a pointed stick, with which they obligedhim to dig a trench, in which to plant one after the other the littlewands, while pronouncing the names of the Araucano warriors he hadkilled in the course of his long career. To every name the soldierpronounced, he added some cutting speech addressed to his enemies whoreplied to him by horrible execrations. When all the wands were plantedAntinahuel approached.
"The Huinca is a brave warrior," said Antinahuel; "he will fill up thistrench with earth in order that the glory and valour of which he hasgiven proofs during his life may remain buried in this place."
"So be it!" said the soldier; "but you will soon see that the Chilianspossess more valiant soldiers."
And he carelessly threw the earth into the trench. This terminated,the Toqui made him a sign to place himself close to the hatchet; thesoldier obeyed. Antinahuel raised his club and crushed his skull.The poor wretch fell, but was not quite dead, and he struggledconvulsively. Two machis immediately sprang upon him, opened his breastand tore out his heart, which they presented, palpitating as it was, tothe Toqui. The latter sucked the blood, and then passed the heart tothe Ulmens, who followed his example.
In the meantime, the crowd of warriors seized upon the carcass, whichthey cut to pieces in a few minutes, reserving the bones to make warwhistles of. They then placed the head of the prisoner on a pike, anddanced round it to the sound of a frightful song, accompanied by thepipes made from the bones.
Joan's eye and ear were on the watch at the moment when this frightfulsaturnalia were at their apogee, he judged the time propitious, turnedhis horse, and fled as fast as he could. A few minutes confusionensued, of which Joan took full advantage; but the Araucanos hastenedto pursue him. He soon perceived that the distance between him and hisenemies rapidly diminished. He was passing by the side of a hill, whosesteep ascent could not be climbed by horses, and with the quickness ofconception peculiar to brave men he divined that this would be his onlychance of safety. He guided his horse so as, in a manner, to brush thehill, and get upright in his saddle. The Araucanos came up, utteringloud cries. All at once, seizing a strong branch of a tree
, he sprangfrom his saddle, and climbed up the branch with the velocity of a tigercat. The warriors shouted with rage and astonishment at beholding thisextraordinary feat.
Nevertheless, the Araucanos had by no means given up all hopes ofretaking their prisoner. They left their horses at the foot of themountain, and half a score of the most zealous and active set offupon Joan's track. But the latter had now some space in advance. Hecontinued to mount, clinging by feet and hands, and only stopping whennature commanded to take breath.
But he found that a longer struggle would be useless; that at length hewas really lost.
The Araucanos came up panting from their long run, brandishing theirlances and clubs with cries of triumph. They were not more than fiftypaces from him at the most. At this awful moment Joan heard a voicewhisper--
"Lower your head!"
He obeyed, without thinking of what was going on around him, or ofwhence this recommendation could come. The sound of four shots rattledsharply in his ears, and four Indian warriors rolled lifeless on theground before him. Restored to himself by this unhoped-for succour,Joan bounded forward and stabbed one of his adversaries, whilst fourfresh shots stretched four more upon the earth.
Joan was saved! He looked around him to ascertain to whom he owed hislife. Valentine, Louis, and the two Indian chiefs stood beside him.These were the four friends who, watching from a distance the camp ofthe Araucanos, had witnessed the desperate flight of Joan, and had comebravely to his aid.
"Well, Joan, old fellow!" said Valentine, laughing, "you have had anarrow escape!"
"Thanks!" said Joan, warmly; "I shall not forget."
"I think we should act wisely if we now placed ourselves in safety,"Louis observed.
"Don Louis is right." said Trangoil-Lanec.
The five men plunged into the woods of the mountain; but they had nooccasion to dread an attack. Antinahuel, upon hearing the reports whichthe warriors who had escaped the Frenchmen's rifles gave of the numberof enemies they had to combat, was persuaded that the position wasoccupied by a strong detachment of the Chilian army: consequently, hestruck his camp, and went away in one direction, whilst the adventurersescaped in another.