Kitabı oku: «The Tiger Hunter», sayfa 28

Chapter Seventy Four.
An Aerial Couch

After escaping from the company of Arroyo and his bandits, Don Cornelio mechanically followed the guidance of Costal – who was now aiming to reach the lake of Ostuta as soon as possible, in order that he might commence his incantations before the rising of the moon.

Don Cornelio knew that it would be breath thrown away to attempt persuading the Indian to abandon his absurd and superstitious design; and to propose accompanying him, and becoming either actor or spectator in the pagan ceremony, would be equally against the wishes of Costal.

After they had ridden for some distance towards the lake, the Captain admonished his companions of his intention to stay behind and wait for their return, after they should have accomplished their purpose, and had their interview with Tlaloc and his wife Matlacuezc. Costal was only too glad to agree to this proposition; and promised to find a proper halting-place for Don Cornelio at some distance from the shores of the lake. There was no house of any kind in the vicinity, not even the meanest hut. This, Costal, from his perfect knowledge of the locality, was aware of; but the night was a pleasant one, and a few hours might be passed in the open air without any great inconvenience.

Shortly after, the cool freshness of the breeze proclaimed that the lake was not far off; and a pleasant grove of shady palm-trees offered an inviting shelter to Don Cornelio. It was the spot which Costal had designed for his halting-place; and here, parting from the two acolytes, the Captain dismounted, and prepared to make himself as comfortable as possible during their absence. Meanwhile Costal and Clara kept on towards the lake, and were soon lost to view under the shadows of the forest.

Don Cornelio had not been long left to himself, ere he began to rue the disposition thus made of him. It now occurred to him, and not without reason, that the comrades of Gaspacho might fancy to avenge the brigand’s death, and for that purpose follow him and his two attendants through the forest. Arroyo would now be absent from the hacienda; Don Cornelio had heard him proclaim his intention of going in search of its mistress; and his subalterns might pay less respect to the emissary of Morelos than their chief.

These considerations influencing the spirit of Don Cornelio, produced within him a certain degree of uneasiness – sufficient to make him discontented with the position he had chosen.

Determined to get nearer to Costal – whom he looked upon almost as his natural protector – he remounted his horse, and continued along the path that had been taken by the other two.

After riding a few hundred yards, he discerned rising up before his face a high hill crowned with mist; and shortly after, the woods becoming more open, he was enabled to perceive that this hill was surrounded by a large lake of dark, sombre aspect. Though he now looked upon both the lake and mountain for the first time, he had no difficulty in identifying them as the Lake Ostuta and the sacred mountain of Monopostiac.

A belt of forest still lay between him and the lake, extending around its southern end. Entering into the timber, he rode nearly across it, until the reedy shore of the lake came in view through the openings between the trees. Here he again halted, and after a moment’s reflection, dismounted.

Although the change of locality might make it more difficult for the brigands of Arroyo to discover his retreat, he was still not so certain of being free from danger. To render his situation more secure, he determined upon climbing into a tree, and concealing himself among the branches.

He had another motive for freeing himself. At a short distance from the spot he saw the horses of Costal and Clara, standing tied to some bushes; and he knew that their owners could not be far off. No doubt it was there they intended to go through their absurd rites; and all at once Don Cornelio had become inspired with a curiosity to witness them. His Christian conscience slightly reproached him, for thus assisting, as it were, at a pagan ceremony; but he ended by persuading himself that there would be something meritorious in his being a witness to the confusion of the infidel.

A tree near at hand offered him a favourable point of observation. From its higher branches he could command a full view of the lake and its shores to a considerable distance on each side of him, and also the sacred mountain in its midst.

Securing his horse below, he ascended the tree, and seated himself among its topmost branches. He had taken the precaution to carry up his carbine along with him, which was hanging from his shoulders upon its sling.

He had just fixed himself commodiously upon his perch, when the full moon appeared, at once lighting up the waters of the lake with her most brilliant beams.

He looked to discover the whereabouts of Costal and the negro; but for some time he could see nothing of either. The enchanted hill, glistening with a vitreous translucence under the white moonbeams, presented a wild, weird aspect; and, from time to time, strange unearthly sounds appeared to proceed from it, as also from the woods around.

The nerves of the ex-student were at no time of the strongest; and he had not long occupied his elevated post before he began to rue his rashness, in having trusted himself alone in a place which seemed to be the abode of the supernatural.

All at once a sound reached him, proceeding from the margin of the lake; and, turning his eyes in that direction, he beheld the figure of a naked man moving among the reeds. It was the same apparition that had caused such alarm among the domestics of Don Mariano, who, although unseen by the Captain, were at that moment only fifty paces distant, screened behind the bushes that grew around the glade in which they had encamped.

The apparition, although it at first startled Don Cornelio, did not frighten him so much as it had the domestics; for, by the light of the moon, he was enabled to recognise the figure as that of his attendant, Costal. The Captain, moreover, saw – what, from their position, was invisible to the people in Don Mariano’s camp – another human figure, naked like the first, but differing from it in the colour of the skin, which was black as ebony.

Both having passed through the reeds, plunged at once into the open water of the lake; and, swimming off towards the enchanted mountain, were soon lost to the eyes of Don Cornelio, as well as to those of the affrighted attendants of Don Mariano.

While the latter remained under the full conviction that they had seen the Indian who, for five hundred years, had been vainly searching for his heart, Don Cornelio knew that the two adventurers were his own followers, Costal and Clara.

From the direction they had taken through the water, he divined that it was their object to reach the mountain island, there, no doubt, to practise their superstitious ceremonial.

Although somewhat disappointed at being deprived of a spectacle he had felt curious to witness, he still remained on his perch upon the tree. His apprehension of being pursued by the bandits of Arroyo had not yet forsaken him; and in such a contingency, he believed that he would be safer among the branches than upon the ground. He could watch for Costal and Clara coming back through the water, and then rejoin them as they returned to take possession of their horses, which were still visible to him upon his elevated post.

For a short time he remained in his position without hearing any noise in particular, or seeing anything calculated to alarm him. Then a sound reached his ears that came from a direction opposite to that in which lay the lake. It was a booming sound, like the report of a cannon – shortly after followed by another and another of precisely similar intonation.

Don Cornelio had no suspicion that at that very moment the hacienda of San Carlos was being attacked by the garrison of Del Valle, and that the noise he heard was the report of the howitzer battering in the gates of the building.

Although at first rendered uneasy by these inexplicable sounds, as they soon after ceased to be repeated, Don Cornelio no longer troubled himself to explain them. He had heard so many others, as mysterious as they, that he despaired of finding an explanation. As time passed, however, and neither Costal nor Clara showed themselves, the Captain began to feel a strong desire to sleep, and his eyelids every moment grew heavier, until at length he felt that he could no longer resist the desire. Like Colonel Tres-Villas, on the preceding night, he took the precaution, before committing himself to slumber, of making secure against a fall; and for this purpose he attached himself with his sash to one of the branches. In another minute he was in the land of dreams, unconscious of the singularity of the couch on which he was reclining.

Chapter Seventy Five.
The Goddess of the Waters

For the first hour the sleep of Don Cornelio was undisturbed, even by dreams. With the second it was very different; for, scarcely had he entered upon it, when a noise sounded in his ears, singular as it was terrible. He awoke with a start, on hearing what appeared to be the loud clanging of a bell rung at no great distance off.

At first he fancied he was dreaming, and that what he heard in his dreams was the bell of his native village; but a moment’s reflection sufficed to convince him that he was awake, and couched in the fork of a tall tree.

The sounds that had ceased for a while, now recommenced; and Don Cornelio was able to count twelve strokes, clear and distinctly measured, as if some large clock was tolling the hour of midnight!

It was, in fact, just about that hour – as Don Cornelio could tell by the moon; but the observation did not hinder him from shuddering afresh at the mysterious sounds. From his elevated position he could see afar over both land and water; but no spire of village church or hacienda was visible – nothing but the sombre surface of the lake, the spray of the far-stretching forest, and the desert plains in the distance.

The tolling again vibrated upon the air; and Don Cornelio was now convinced that it was from the lake itself, or the enchanted mountain in its midst, that the sounds proceeded. It seemed as if it was a signal, to awaken the Indian divinities from their sleep of ages!

The moon was still rising higher in the heavens, and her brilliant beams broadly illumined the lake, even penetrating through the thickly-set stems of the reeds that bordered it.

Certain vague noises that had from time to time fallen upon the ear of Don Cornelio, while half slumbering, now that he was awake, were heard more distinctly; and after a little while these sounds became converted into prolonged and dismal howlings, such as he had never before heard in his life.

Upon just such another night he had been sorely frightened by the howling of jaguars; but all the tigers in the world could not have produced such a frightful noise as that with which his ears were now assailed. It was a chorus of voices entirely new to him, and that seemed to proceed from the powerful lungs of some gigantic creature hitherto unknown.

As thoughts of the supernatural came into his mind, the Captain shivered through his whole frame; and had he not been tied to its branches, he would certainly have fallen from the tree.

His horse, standing below, appeared fully to partake of his terror; for after dancing about, and causing the branches to crackle, the animal at length broke away from its fastenings, and, galloping off, joined company with the horses of Costal and Clara that stood nearer the edge of the water.

The terrible howlings, combined with the mysterious tolling of the bell, produced upon the mind of Don Cornelio other impressions besides those of mere dread. He began to believe in a supernatural presence; and that the sounds he heard were the voices of those pagan divinities whom Costal had the boldness to invoke.

Captain Lantejas was not the only person whom these strange noises had inspired with fear. At little more than gunshot distance from him, and hidden behind the trees, could be seen a number of men closely grouped together, and whispering their fears to one another. It need scarcely be said that they were the domestics of Don Mariano, who had counted with equal terror and astonishment the twelve strokes of the mysterious midnight bell.

Their master, too, had heard the tolling, and was vainly endeavouring to account for the singular phenomenon.

Just then the frightful howlings came pealing from the woods behind, awaking Gertrudis, and causing her to raise her head with a cry of terror. The seven sleepers themselves would have been awakened by such a terrible fracas of noises.

At this moment one of the domestics – Castrillo – appeared by the litera, his face blanched with affright.

“What misfortune have you to announce?” inquired Don Mariano, struck with the expression upon the servant’s countenance.

“Not any, Señor Don Mariano,” replied the domestic, “unless to say that we are here in some accursed place, and the sooner we get out of it the better.”

“Get your arms ready,” rejoined Don Mariano, “it must be the jaguars that are howling near us.”

“Ah! Señor master,” replied the domestic, with a shake of his head, “never did jaguar howl after that fashion; and all our weapons will be useless where the spirit of darkness is against us. Listen, there – again!”

Once more a series of prolonged vociferations came echoing through the forest, which certainly had but little resemblance to the voices either of jaguars or any other known animals.

“There have been many strange things during this night,” gravely continued Castrillo. “Everything in nature seems to be turned upside down. Dead men have been seen by us wandering about; bells have been heard tolling where there is neither church nor dwelling, and now the devil himself is howling in the depths of the forest. Oh, master, let us fly from this place while we may!”

“But where to? where can we go?” rejoined Don Mariano, casting an anxious glance towards the litera. “My poor child – she can scarce endure the fatigues of the journey.”

“Oh, father,” said Gertrudis, “do not think of me. I shall be able to go on; and I would rather go afoot, than remain longer in this frightful place.”

“Señor Don Mariano,” continued the domestic, “if you will pray God to protect us from the danger that threatens, I and the others will go after the mules, and we shall get ready for marching. Above all, we must leave this place at once; for if you stay I could not hinder the rest from running away.”

“Very well, then,” said Don Mariano, “be it as you wish. Harness the animals and let us start at once. We shall endeavour to reach San Carlos.”

That which Don Mariano and his people were about to make – a movement from the place apparently haunted – the Captain Lantejas would not have attempted for all the gold in Mexico. Glued by fear to the summit of his tree, and cursing the evil fortune that had conducted him thither – regretting, moreover, his foolish curiosity – he continued to listen, though almost mechanically, to what he believed to be a dialogue between some Indian divinity and his fearless worshipper, Costal.

All at once the noises came to a termination; and a profound silence succeeded, which was equally fearful to endure.

This was of short duration, however; for in a few moments the stillness of the night was once more interrupted by other and different noises, that resembled human voices uttered at a considerable distance from the spot.

Gradually the voices were heard approaching nearer, and Don Cornelio was under the impression that it was Costal and Clara returning to where they had left their horses. He was mistaken about this, however, and soon perceived his error. The voices proceeded from the direction he had himself followed in approaching the lake. Costal and Clara could not be coming that way. Moreover, he now saw lights that appeared to be torches carried by those who were talking; and from the rapidity with which the lights flitted from point to point, they could only be borne by men on horseback. The Indian and negro could not be mounted, since their horses were still standing tied where they had left them, along with his own steed, that had just taken refuge by their side. It could not be Costal and Clara who carried the torches.

“Who then?” mentally demanded Don Cornelio; “might it be Arroyo and his bandits?”

He had scarce given thought to the conjecture, when a troop of horsemen rode out upon the open ground near the edge of the lake; and two of them at the head of the others were instantly recognised by Don Cornelio. They were, in truth, Arroyo and his associate, Bocardo.

The horsemen carrying the torches were seen riding from one point to another, quartering the ground by numerous crossings, and exploring the thickets on every side, as if in search of some person that had escaped them.

On approaching the border of the lake, the horsemen turned off along the margin of reeds, without having perceived the three horses that stood under the trees.

The torches were now thrown away; and, riding off under the pale moonlight, the horsemen disappeared from the eyes of Don Cornelio.

He was not without uneasiness as to the peril in which his two companions would be placed, should they chance to fall once more into the hands of the bandits; and he would gladly have warned them of their danger, had he known how. But ignorant of the locality in which Costal and Clara were at that exact moment, he could do nothing more than hope that they might perceive the horsemen first, and conceal themselves while the latter were passing. From Costal’s habitual wariness, Don Cornelio felt confident, that the ex-tiger-hunter would be able to keep himself clear of this new danger.

The captain followed with anxious eyes the forms of the retreating horsemen; and his heart beat more tranquilly when he saw them turn round an angle of the lake, and disappear altogether from his sight.

The moon at this moment shining more brilliantly, enabled him to command a better view of the waters of the lake, and the selvage of reeds growing around it. Once more silence was reigning over the scene, when all at once Don Cornelio fancied he saw a movement among the sedge, as if some one was making his way through it. In another instant a form, at first shadowy and indistinct, appeared before his eyes. Presently it assumed the outlines of a human form, and what astonished Don Cornelio still more, it was the form of a woman! This he saw distinctly; and perceived also that the woman was dressed in a sort of white garment, with long dark hair hanging in disordered tresses over her shoulders.

A cold perspiration broke out upon the brow of Don Cornelio, as the female form was recognised; and his eyes became fixed upon it, without his having the power to take them off. He doubted not that he saw before him the companion of Tlaloc, the terrible Matlacuezc, who had just risen from her watery palace in the Lake Ostuta, whence she had been summoned by the invocations of Costal, the descendant of the ancient rulers of Tehuantepec!

Chapter Seventy Six.
Tolling the Summons

We return to Costal. We have seen the Zapoteque making his way through the sedge, and boldly launching himself into the muddy waters of the lake – his blind fatalism rendering him regardless of the voracious alligators of the Ostuta, as he had already shown himself of the sharks of the Pacific. Could the eye of Don Cornelio have followed him under the gloomy shadow which the enchanted hill projected over the lake, it would have seen him emerge from the water upon the shore of the sacred Cerro itself, his black-skinned associate closely following at his heels.

The mountain Monopostiac is neither more nor less than a gigantic rock of obsidian, of a dark greenish hue, having its flanks irregularly furrowed by vertical fissures and ridges. This peculiar kind of rock, under the sun, or in a very bright moonlight, gives forth a sort of dull translucence, resembling the reflection of glass. The vitreous glistening of its sides, taken in conjunction with the mass of thick white fog which usually robes the summit of the mountain, offers to the eye an aspect at once fantastic and melancholy.

At certain places, of which Costal had a perfect knowledge, are huge boulders of obsidian, resting along the declivities of the Cerro, and which, when struck by a hard substance, gives forth a sonorous ring, having some resemblance to the sound of a bell.

After climbing some way up the steep declivity of the mountain, Costal and his neophyte halted by one of these boulders. Now apparently absorbed in profound meditation, now muttering in a low tone, and in the language of his fathers, certain prayers, the Zapoteque awaited that hour when the moon should reach its meridian, in order to come to the grand crisis of his invocation.

It would be a tedious detail were we to describe the many absurd ceremonials practised by Costal to induce the genius of the waters to appear before him, and make known the means by which he might restore the ancient splendours of his race. Certainly, if perseverance and courage could have any influence with the Indian divinities, Costal deserved all the favours they could lavish upon him.

Although up to this moment neither Tlaloc nor Matlacuezc had given the least sign of having heard his prayers, his countenance exhibited such hopeful confidence, that Clara, gazing upon it, felt fully convinced that upon this occasion there was not the slightest chance of a failure.

Up to the time of the moon reaching her meridian – the moment so eagerly expected – more than an hour was spent in every sort of preparation for the grand crisis. Up to that moment, moreover, Costal had preserved a grave and profound silence, enjoining the same upon Clara. This silence related only to conversation between them. Otherwise Costal had from time to time, as already stated, given utterance to prayers, spoken, however, in a low muttered voice.

The moment had now arrived when the dialogue of the two acolytes was to be resumed.

“Clara,” said the Zapoteque, speaking in a grave tone, “when the gods of my ancestors, invoked by a descendant of the ancient Caciques of Tehuantepec, who has seen fifty seasons of rains – when they hear the sounds which I am now about to make, and for which they have listened in vain for more than three centuries, some one of them will appear beyond any doubt.”

“I hope so,” responded Clara.

“Certain they will appear,” said Costal; “but which of them it may be, I know not; whether Tlaloc or his companion Matlacuezc.”

“I suppose it makes no difference,” suggested the negro.

“Matlacuezc,” continued Costal, “would be easily known. She is a goddess; and, of course, a female. She always appears in a white robe – pure and white as the blossom of the floripondio. When her hair is not wound around her head, it floats loosely over her shoulders, like the mantilla of a señora of high degree. Her eyes shine like two stars, and her voice is sweeter than that of the mocking-bird. For all that, her glance is terrifying to a mortal, and there are few who could bear it.”

“Oh, I can bear it,” said the negro; “no fear of that.”

“Tlaloc,” continued Costal, “is tall as a giant. His head is encircled with a chaplet of living serpents, that, entwined among his hair, keep up a constant hissing. His eye is full of fire, like that of the jaguar; and his voice resembles the roaring of an angry bull. Reflect, then, while it is yet time, whether you can bear such a sight as that.”

“I have told you,” replied Clara, in a resolute tone, “that I wish for gold; and it matters little to me whether Tlaloc or his wife shows me the placer where it is to be found. By all the gods, Christian and pagan! I have not come thus far to be frightened back without better reason than that. No!”

“You are firmly resolved, comrade? I see you are. Now, then – I shall proceed to invoke my gods.”

On saying these words, the Indian took up a large stone, and advancing to the boulder of obsidian, struck the stone against one of its angles with all his might. The collision produced a sound resembling that of a brazen instrument; in fact, like the stroke of a bell.

Twelve times did Costal repeat the stroke, each time with equal force. The sounds echoed over the waters of the lake, and through the aisles of the forest on its shores; but their distant murmurings had scarce died upon the air, when a response came from the woods. This was given in a series of the most frightful howlings – the same which had terrified Captain Lantejas upon his tree, and which Don Mariano had found himself unable to explain.

Clara partook of a terror almost equal to that of Don Cornelio, but it arose from a different cause. He had no other belief, but that the howling thus heard was the response vouchsafed by the pagan gods to the invocation of his companion. After a moment his confidence became restored, and he signed to Costal to continue.

“Sound again!” said he, in a low but firm voice, “it is Tlaloc who has responded. Sound again!”

The Indian cast a glance upon his companion, to assure himself that he was in earnest. The moon showed his face of a greyish tint; but the expression of his features told that he spoke seriously.

“Bah!” exclaimed Costal, with a sneer, “are you so little skilled in the ways of the woods, as to mistake the voice of a vile animal for that of the gods of the Zapoteque?”

“What an animal to make a noise like that?” interrogated Clara, in a tone of surprise.

“Of course it is an animal,” rejoined Costal, “that howls so. Sufficiently frightful, I admit – to those who do not know what sort of creature it is; but to those who do, it is nothing.”

“What kind of animal is it?” demanded Clara.

“Why, an ape; what else? A poor devil of a monkey, that you could knock over with a bit of a stick; as easily as you could kill an opossum. Ah, hombre! the voice of the great Tlaloc is more terrible than that. But see! what have we yonder?”

As Costal spoke, he pointed to the shore of the lake whence they had come, and near the point where they had left their horses. It was in this direction, moreover, the howlings of the ape had been heard.

Clara followed the pointing of his companion, and both now saw what gave a sudden turn to their thoughts – a party of horsemen carrying torches, and scouring the selvage of the woods, as if in search of something they had lost.

The two worshippers watched until the torches were put out, and the horsemen passing round the shore disappeared under the shadows of a strip of forest.

Costal was about to resume his invocations; when, with his eyes still turned towards the point where the horsemen had left the shore of the lake, he beheld an apparition that caused even his intrepid heart to tremble. By the thicket of reeds, and close to the water’s edge, a white form appeared suddenly, as if it had risen out of the lake. It was the same which had been seen by Don Cornelio from his perch upon the tree.

It was not fear that caused the Zapoteque to tremble. It was an emotion of exulting triumph.

“The time is come at last!” cried he, seizing the arm of his companion. “The glory of the Caciques of Tehuantepec is now to be restored. Look yonder!”

And as he spoke he pointed to the form, which, in the clear moonlight, could be distinguished as that of a woman, dressed in a robe as white as the floripondio, with long dark tresses floating over her shoulders like the mantilla of some grand señora.

“It is Matlacuezc,” muttered the negro, in a low, anxious tone, and scarce able to conceal the terror with which the apparition had inspired him.

“Beyond doubt,” hurriedly replied Costal, gliding down towards the water, followed by the negro.

On arriving at the beach, both plunged into the lake, and commenced swimming back towards the shore. Although the white form was no longer visible to them from their low position in the water, Don Cornelio could still see it glancing through the green stems of the reeds, but no longer in motion.

Costal had taken the bearings of the place before committing himself to the water; and, swimming with vigorous stroke, he soon reached the shore several lengths in advance of his companion.

Don Cornelio could see both of the adventurers as they swam back, and perceived, moreover, that the white form had been seen by them, and it was towards this object that Costal was steering his course. He saw the Indian approach close to it; and was filled with surprise at beholding him stretch forth his arms, as if to grasp the goddess of the waters, when all at once a loud voice sounded in his ears, crying out the words —

“Death to the murderer of Gaspacho!”

Along with the voice a light suddenly flashed up among the bushes, and the report of a carbine reverberated along the shores of the lake.

Costal and Clara were both seen to dive at the shot; and for a time Don Cornelio could not see either of them.

The white form had also sunk out of sight, but near the spot which it had occupied, the long reeds were seen to shake in a confused manner, as if some one was struggling in their midst.

Don Cornelio could hear their stems crackle with the motion; and he fancied that a low cry of agony proceeded from the spot; but the moment after all was silent; and the lake lay glistening under the pale silvery moonbeam, with nothing visible in its waters, or upon its shores, to break the tranquil stillness of its repose.