Kitabı oku: «The Queen of the Savannah: A Story of the Mexican War», sayfa 3
Strange to say, the murderers had designed on the victim's forehead a buffalo with their scalping knives. Don Aníbal knew that the buffalo was the totem, or emblem of the Indian tribe which he had so brutally expelled from his domain a year previously, hence his anxiety was great, for it was evident to him that the Red Buffaloes were the authors of the death of the unfortunate Colonel de Melgosa, and of the rape of his nephew.
He completed his preparations in all haste, said good-bye to Doña Emilia, whom, in spite of her entreaties, he would not consent to take with him, and started. Nine days later he reached his hacienda, where bad news was awaiting him; all was in disorder. This was substantially what he learned:
Most of his cattle had been carried off, as well as his manadas of horses; several peons had been killed in trying to prevent the robbery of his animals; his fields had been fired and his vines uprooted, indeed the destruction was immense; and in order that the hacendero might be thoroughly aware who the culprits were, a long pole was found planted in the middle of a field, from which was suspended a half-tanned elk skin, on which a buffalo was drawn. This time there could be no mistake; it was really the totem of the hacendero's enemies, for the buffalo was red.
The hacendero burst into a frightful passion, and swore to take exemplary vengeance for this insult. He immediately wrote letters to several neighbouring hacenderos exposed like himself to the depredations of the marauders, and sent off couriers in all directions. The hacenderos, who were as desirous as he was to be freed from these demons, whose audacity, heightened by impunity, no longer knew any limits, and threatened, if they were left alone, to ruin the entire province, did not hesitate about joining Don Aníbal de Saldibar, and a veritable manhunt was organized against the redskins.
The Count de Melgosa, burning to avenge his brother's death, and, moreover, hoping to recover his son, placed two squadrons of dragoons at the service of the confederates, whose numbers were thus considerably augmented, and Don Aníbal, who took the command in chief by general acclamation, found himself at the head of a real army.
The hostilities commenced immediately. The confederates divided into three bodies and set out in search of the Indians. The preparations for the expedition had been made with such secrecy, that the redskins, who were far from suspecting what was going on, were surprised only a few leagues from the Hacienda del Barrio, in a valley on the banks of the Río del Norte, where they had established their camp.
Although suddenly attacked by an enemy superior in strength, the redskins did not the less try to defend themselves, and bravely opposed the white men. The combat was terrible, and lasted a whole day; the Indians fought with that energy of desperation which doubles the strength and equalizes chances; they knew they had no quarter to expect, and hence preferred death to falling alive into the hands of their implacable foes. The massacre was terrible, and nearly all the redskins succumbed; some, but they were a small number, succeeded in escaping by leaping into the Río del Norte. The Mexicans took no prisoners; men, women, and children were pitilessly sacrificed.
After the battle, Sotavento, who had truly done his duty by his master's side, brought him a boy of about five or six years of age, who was crying bitterly, and who had been delivered to him during the massacre by a Canadian wood ranger. He declared that he had not the courage to kill the child, the more so because his pale skin might lead to the supposition that he was the son of a European. The hacendero shook his head angrily at the sight of the boy; still, not daring to prove himself more cruel than his majordomo, he consented to the poor little wretch being spared, and even carried his clemency so far as to allow him to be taken to the hacienda.
This battle ended the campaign. The confederates separated, satisfied with having exterminated their enemies and taken such a prompt revenge for their outrages. The redskins, at least for a lengthened period, would be unable to take their revenge, and the lesson had been perfect.
CHAPTER IV.
THE CASCABEL
The French Revolution not only shook the old European thrones, which it made quiver to their foundations, but the terrible blow it dealt the world was so violent, that the counterstroke was felt even in the indolent and voluptuous Spanish colonies.
In response to the echoing footsteps of those generals of the young French Republic who marched from prodigy to prodigy, improvising soldiers and organizing victory, a lengthened electric current ran along all the coasts of the New World, and revealed to the inhabitants that, like their brethren in North America, they too might someday become free.
Like a deafening thunderclap, leaping across the Atlantic Ocean, the echo of the battles of giants of that Sublime epic power called the Empire, caused the hearts of Americans to beat, and inflamed them with a noble ardour which the Spanish Viceroys were powerless to extinguish.
The occupation of the Peninsula by French armies, by forcing Spain to defend her own territory, which had almost entirely fallen into the enemy's power, obliged her to concentrate all her strength in order to sustain the extraordinary struggle that was preparing, and compelled her to abandon her possessions beyond the seas to their own resources, while she could only form sterile vows that they might not slip from her grasp.
The colonies, which had long been worn out by the yoke the mother country implacably made them wear, considered the moment favourable; generous hearts were affected, and in an instant Peru, Mexico, Chili, Buenos Aires formed secret societies, whose common branches, passing through all classes of society, ended by enveloping the colonial governments in an inextricable net.
Then, when all preparations had been made, when the chiefs had been elected, soldiers enrolled, and the headquarters of revolt chosen, a long cry for liberty was raised to heaven on twenty sides simultaneously; the insurgents rose, calling their brethren to arms, and the systematic opposition of the conspirators was all at once followed by an obstinate war without truce or mercy, of the conquered against the conquerors, of the oppressed against the oppressors, whose watchword was Liberty or Death!
A holy war, an extraordinary struggle, in which the Americans, inexperienced, and having no acquaintance with arms, had but one insatiable desire, to shake off the yoke, an energy which no reverse could crush; and an unflinching resolution to oppose the old Spanish bands, hardened by long fighting, and whom the habit of warfare rendered almost invincible in the sight of these men, in whom they inspired a species of instinctive and supernatural terror.
We will not describe here the history of this war, which was so grand, so noble, and so full of heroic devotion, affecting incidents, and traits of bravery, self-denial, and disinterestedness, worthy the most glorious days of antiquity; our task is more modest, and certainly more easy, for we will limit ourselves to penciling a few private details of this grand drama, which have been neglected by the disdainful muse of history, but which we believe will serve to complete the magnificent tableau of the struggle of progress against barbarism in the first years of the 19th century.
The Mexican revolution had this strange thing about it, that the clergy gave the first signal of revolt. In the provinces the Curas preached insurrection to their parishioners, and seizing a sword in one hand, a cross in the other, led them to the field.
Don Aníbal de Saldibar, although a cristiano viejo, that is to say, belonging to a family originally Spanish, and of which not a member had become allied with the Indians during several ages, did not consider himself obliged to join his fellow countrymen, but, on the contrary, attached himself to the insurrectionary movement.
Father Sandoval, chaplain at the Hacienda del Barrio, was to a great extent the cause of this determination. In Mexico, where the towns are far distant from each other, each hacienda has a chapel served by a priest, whose duty it is to baptize, marry, confess, and guide the Indians, but, before all, keep them in order by the fear of future punishment. Father Sandoval, about whom we shall have a good deal to say during the course of this story, was a simple-hearted, kind, intelligent man, gifted, with great energy of character, and his education had not been so neglected as that of the majority of the priests at this period.
In a word, he was an honest man and true priest before God; the Indians adored him, and would have gone through fire and water for him. Still young, belonging to a rich and respected family, possessing that severe and calm beauty which attracts confidence and excites sympathy, this man who, had he liked, could have attained the highest dignities of the church, preferred this obscure position through his devotion to that persecuted class which Las Casas loved so deeply, and for which he himself felt immense pity.
As friend and fellow student of the Curé Hidalgo, who was destined to become so celebrated, he professed liberal principles and hatred of the Spanish yoke. Don Aníbal, like all weak-minded men, unconsciously yielded to the influence of this chosen vessel, and had for him a friendship mingled with respect and veneration. Protector of the Indians, Father Sandoval defended them under all circumstances, and had often succeeded, by the mere force of his eloquence, in saving them from the severe punishments to which Don Aníbal had condemned them in a moment of passion. He easily proved to the hacendero that it was to his interest to embrace the revolutionary cause. The latter, dissatisfied with the Spanish government, against which he had long been carrying on a lawsuit, raised no serious objections; and as certain natures only require a lash to make them go faster than is necessary, and pass the goal for which they are started, so soon as Don Aníbal had consented to what Father Sandoval asked of him, he wished to force the latter to place himself by his side at the head of the hacienda peons capable of bearing arms, and proceed to join the Curé Hidalgo, who had just raised the standard of revolt, and was preparing, at the head of his parishioners, armed with bows, arrows, and slings, to face the army of the Viceroy.
As this project was excessively imprudent, the chaplain combated it; but the hacendero, one of whose slightest faults was obstinacy, declared that he must give a pledge to the revolution, and the best way was to range himself beneath the insurrectionist banners. Still, by force of reasoning, supported by the entreaties of Doña Emilia, whom the fear of a separation and the prospect of remaining alone and unprotected at the hacienda with her child, which was scarce fifteen months old, filled with terror, Father Sandoval succeeded in modifying Don Aníbal's resolution, if he did not completely alter it. He made him understand that his hacienda, situated on the Indian border, close to several important presidios, ought to serve as headquarters for the insurgents of this portion of Mexico, who would rally round him and hold the Spanish garrisons in check, so as to prevent them joining the troops General Callega and Count de la Cadena were raising to offer battle to the rebels commanded by Hidalgo, Allende, etc., and who were preceded by the Virgen de Los Remedios, attired as a generalísimo. In a country like Mexico, where religion is all in all, and at the head of an army most of whose generals and officers were priests and monks, this banner was not inappropriate.
Don Aníbal yielded with great difficulty to Father Sandoval's objections; but, feeling flattered by the part he would be called on to play, he at length consented to follow the advice given him by a man who was wiser and more prudent than himself. The Hacienda del Barrio was therefore converted into a fortress; Don Aníbal incited the Indians to revolt, and organized on this frontier a partizan war against the neighbouring garrisons, after having sent to join Hidalgo a body of two hundred well-armed and mounted horsemen under the orders of his majordomo. We see that Don Aníbal thus frankly threw away the mask and boldly burnt his vessels.
The war soon assumed much larger proportions than had been thought possible. The government had remained attached to the King of Spain, and most of the rich landowners followed this example; so that the insurrection, which was at first formidable, became to some extent isolated, and reduced to act on the defensive. Don Aníbal was too greatly compromised to hope for a pardon, which, indeed, he was not at all inclined to solicit. On the contrary, he suddenly dashed from his eagle's nest on the Spaniards who scoured the country, and though not always the victor, he did them sufficient mischief to prevent them going too far from the presidios or leaving the province. The governor, at length wearied by the incessant attacks of his unseizable foe, resolved to finish with him, and besiege him in his lurking place.
Don Aníbal, warned by his spies of what was preparing against him, resolved on a vigorous resistance; but as he really loved his wife, and did not wish to expose her to the hazards of a storm, and the sight of those atrocities which are the inevitable consequence of it, he arranged with Father Sandoval that he should remove her from the hacienda as soon as possible, and place her and her child in safety. When these arrangements were made, the two gentlemen proceeded in search of the señora, to tell her of the plan they had formed.
Doña Emilia spent a very dull life at the Hacienda del Barrio. Her husband, who was elsewhere engaged, often left her for days, only seeing her for a moment at meals, and addressing a few unmeaning words to her during the quarter of an hour they were together. Fortunately for the poor lady, the hacienda possessed a magnificent garden. She spent nearly the entire day in it under an arbour of orange and lemon trees, reading pious books and watching her child, who was nursed by a quadroon to whom Doña Emilia was sincerely attached, and had married to a peon of the hacienda.
On the day to which we allude, at about two in the afternoon, the warmest hour of the day, Doña Emilia, according to her wont, was indulging in a siesta in a hammock suspended from two enormous orange trees, whose tufted crests almost entirely overshadowed the entire nook. A few paces from her, Rita, the quadroon, was carelessly rocking in a butaca, and giving the breast to the child.
As we have said, the heat was stifling. The burning sunbeams made the sand on the garden walks sparkle like diamonds; there was not a breath of air; the atmosphere, impregnated with the sweet exhalations of the flowers and fragrant woods, was intoxicating, and conduced to slumber. The birds, hidden under the leaves, had ceased their song, and were waiting till the evening breeze refreshed the soil; a solemn silence brooded over nature, and the fall of a leaf would have been heard, so profound was the calm. Rita, involuntarily yielding to the narcotic influences that surrounded her, had fallen asleep with the child still clinging to her breast.
All at once a strange, terrible, frightful thing occurred – a horrible scene, which we feel a hesitation to describe, although we had the fact from a credible witness.1 The branches of a dahlia bush were gently and noiselessly parted, and in the space thus left free appeared the hideous and distorted face of Running Water. This man had, at the moment, something fatal and satanic in his physiognomy, which would have filled with terror anyone who saw it. After remaining motionless for an instant, which he employed in looking around, through fear of being surprised, he laughed cunningly in the Indian fashion, and began crawling softly till his entire body had emerged from the bush. Then he rose, carefully repaired the disorder his passage had caused in the bush, advanced two paces, placed on the ground a rather large bag he held in his right hand, folded his arms and gazed at Doña Emilia, who was sleeping calmly and peacefully in her hammock, with a strange fixedness, and an expression of hatred and joy impossible to describe.
How had this man contrived to penetrate into the hacienda, which was so strongly guarded, and whose walls were almost insurmountable? Why had he entered alone the garden of a man whom he knew to be his most implacable foe? He doubtless meditated vengeance, but of what nature was it? Running Water, whom the hacendero had strove so hard to injure, and to whom he had done such hurt, was not the man to content himself with ordinary revenge. The redskins have refinements of cruelty and barbarity of which they alone possess the secret. What did he intend doing? What was his object? The Indian chief alone could have answered these questions; for the redskins are well acquainted with the proverb, that "revenge is eaten cold."
I know not what gloomy thoughts agitated this man while he gazed at the sleeping lady, but his countenance altered every second, and seemed to grow more and more ferocious. He made a move as if about to seize the bag on the ground in front of him, but suddenly reflected.
"No," he muttered to himself, "not that; he alone would suffer; the hearts of both of them must bleed. Yes, yes, my first idea is the best."
Then, after taking a parting glance at the lovely, sleeping lady, he stooped with a terrible smile, picked up the bag, which he placed under his left arm, and went away with a step light and stealthy as that of a tiger preparing to leap on its prey. Still, he only went a few paces. Turning suddenly to his right, he found himself in front of the nurse. The latter was still sleeping, intoxicated by the smell of the flowers which appeared to bend over her, as if to shed sleep more easily upon her. Rita was sleeping like a child, without dreams or fears. Rita was young and lovely; anyone but a ferocious Indian, like the man who gazed at her at this moment, and devoured her with his eyes, would have felt affected by such confiding innocence.
With the upper part of her body indolently thrown back, with her eyes half closed and veiled by her long black lashes, and her rosy lips slightly parted so as to display her pearly teeth, the young quadroon with her slightly coppery complexion was delicious. We repeat that anyone but Running Water would have felt subdued and vanquished by the sight of her. Her two hands, folded over the little girl, held her against her bosom, and seemed trying to protect her even in sleep. The infant was neither asleep nor awake. She was in that state of lethargic somnolency which seizes on these frail creatures when they have sucked for a long time. Clinging to the breast, on which she had laid her two small, snow-white hands, the child, with her eyes already closed to sleep, was imbibing a drop of milk at lengthened intervals.
The Indian regarded this group with a tiger's glance, and for some two or three minutes, involuntarily fascinated by this picture, whose innocence and candour no artist would be able to depict, he stood gloomy and thoughtful, perhaps hesitating in the accomplishment of the infernal work he had meditated so long, and to execute which he had treacherously entered the hacienda. But Satan, conquered for a second, regained his ascendancy in the redskin's heart.
"It is well," he muttered in a hollow voice. "The babe will die. The death of the child kills doubly father and mother."
And he smiled once again that terrible and silent laugh which would have caused anyone who saw it to shudder, and which was habitual to him. He fell back a step, and with a look around him he explored the neighbourhood in its most hidden corners. Assured at length that no one could see him he fell back till he reached the hole in one of the orange trees from which the hammock was hung, and which was exactly opposite the nurse; then he carefully concealed himself behind a tree, and laid his bag on the ground. This bag was of tapir hide, and fastened up with the greatest care.
The Indian stood motionless for a second, then drawing his dagger he did not take the trouble to cut the leather thongs that closed the bag; on the contrary, throwing himself back as if afraid of the consequences of the deed he was about to do, he ripped up the bag its entire length, and at once disappeared behind the trunk of a tree. The body of a cascabel, or rattlesnake; appeared in the gaping orifice of the bag. Indian manners brand as infamous any man who, excepting in Combat, strikes and kills a child at the breast. Hatred is intelligent, and Running Water had found the means to satisfy his upon the poor little creature without breaking the rules of his tribe. He had gone in search of a snake, which was not difficult to find. He enclosed it in a bag of tapir hide so that it could not escape, and kept it for several days without food so as to restore to the animal, which he had surprised while digesting a gorge, all its original ferocity. When the redskin supposed that the snake was in proper condition, he entered the garden as we have seen.
The snake, suddenly liberated from the dark and narrow prison in which it had been so long confined, began unrolling on the ground its monstrous coils. At first half asleep and dazed by the bright light of day it remained for a moment in a state of stupor, balancing itself to the right and left hesitatingly on its enormous tail, throwing its head back and opening its hideous mouth till it displayed its awful fangs. But gradually its eye grew brighter, and breathing a strangled hiss it rushed with undulating bounds towards poor Rita.
The Indian, with his body bent forward, heaving chest, and eyes enormously dilated, looked after it eagerly; at length he held his vengeance in his grasp, and no human power could take it from him. But a strange thing happened, which filled the Indian himself with horror. Upon reaching the nurse the snake, after a moment's hesitation, gave a soft melodious hiss, apparently indicating pleasure; and rising on its tail with a movement full of grace and suppleness, enwrithed the nurse's body in its huge folds, gently pushed the sleeping babe aside without doing it the slightest injury, and seizing the nipple the little creature had let go, glued its hideous mouth to it.
Running Water uttered a cry of rage, and stamped his foot in desperation. He had forgotten the frenzied passion snakes have for milk, especially that of women. This time again the Indian's calculations were thrown out, and his vengeance slipped from him. What should he do? To try and tear the snake from the prey it had seized would be incurring certain death; and then, fascinated by the horrible spectacle he had before him, the redskin felt incapable of collecting his ideas. He looked on, suffering from a frightful nightmare, and awaiting with the most lively anxiety the conclusion of this frightful scene. Rita still slept on, and the child even had not noticed its changed position, so gentle and measured had the snake's movements been, and was still slumbering. The cascabel, however, drank with such ardour the quadroon's milk that the blood poured down her breast, and she was aroused by the pain from her deep sleep. She opened her eyes, and perceived the horrible animal.
Rita endured a second of indescribable agony and despair, for she felt that she was hopelessly lost. Then, wondrous to relate, this half-sleeping woman, seeing herself through a mist of blood in the power of the monster, suddenly formed an heroic resolution. She recognized with remarkable lucidity her fearful situation, and completely forgetting herself had but one thought, that of saving the child.2 A woman is a mother before all. God has placed in her heart a flame Which nothing can extinguish.
With her features distorted by terror, her temples inundated with cold perspiration, and her hair standing on end, she had the immense courage not to tremble or stir, and held back in her parched throat the cry of horror ready to burst from it: in a word, she remained in the same position as if she were still asleep.
The Indian himself, struck with admiration at this sublime emotion, felt his iron heart melt, and he almost regretted being the cause of this fearful catastrophe. The snake still enjoyed its horrible repast, and gorged itself with the milk mingled with blood which it drew from the breast of its hapless victim. At length its coils relaxed, its eye gradually lost its fascinating lustre, and with an almost insensible undulation it left the prey to which it was clinging. Completely gorged with milk, it rolled off to the ground, and crawled away in the direction of the shrubs. The mulatto then seized the child in her clenched hands, sat up straight as a statue, and uttered a fearful cry.
"Mother, mother!" she said with a sob that lacerated her throat, "Take your child."
Doña Emilia, aroused by this cry, bounded like a lioness from her hammock, and seized her babe. Rita then fell back, with her breast bleeding, and her features distorted by pain, and writhed in frightful convulsions. Doña Emilia leant over her.
"What is the matter, in Heaven's name?" she asked her in horror.
"The snake, see the snake, mother!" the quadroon exclaimed, as she raised herself with a last, effort and pointed to the reptile which was quietly gliding along the sand; then she uttered a fearful groan, and fell back – dead. Don Aníbal and the priest, attracted by the cries, rushed into the arbour, and at once comprehended the frightful accident which must have occurred. The hacendero ran up to his wife, while Father Sandoval bravely attacked the snake and killed it. The Indian chief had disappeared with the bound of a wild beast, after exchanging with Doña Emilia a glance of awful purport.
The lady, with calm brow and a smile on her lip, nursed her babe, which was now awake, while singing one of those touching American tunes with which these innocent creatures are lulled to sleep. She was mad!
Don Aníbal, crushed by this terrible catastrophe, tottered for a moment like a drunken man, then raising his hands to his face with a cry of despair, he fell unconscious on the ground. His rebellious nature had at last been vanquished by grief.
"It is the finger of God!" the priest murmured, as he raised his tear-laden eyes to heaven.
And kneeling by the body of the poor quadroon he prayed fervently. Doña Emilia was still singing and lulling her child to sleep.
Two days later the hacienda was invested by the Spaniards. Don Aníbal defended himself for a long time with heroic courage, but the Spaniards at last stormed the fortress, and made a horrible massacre of its defenders. Don Aníbal, bearing his wife across his horse's neck, and the priest carrying in his arms the baby and the boy saved a short time previously upon the defeat of the Indians, succeeded in escaping, through the courage of some twenty peons who resolutely collected round them and made a rampart of their bodies.
Hotly pursued by the tamarindos, the fugitives wandered for a long time haphazard in the forests, tracked like wild beasts by their implacable victors; but at last, after extraordinary privations and innumerable dangers, they succeeded in reaching Santa Rosa, where the miners offered them a shelter. The revolt having thus been drowned in blood in this province by the Spaniards, they had a lengthened breathing time; for the patriots were dead or so utterly demoralized that a fresh insurrection need not be apprehended.
