Our Home in the Silver West Part 40

Almost immediately after we were at our quarters again.

I was stationed near our own villa. Leaning over a parapet, I could not help, as I gazed around me, being struck with the exceeding beauty of the night. Not far off the lake shone in the moon's rays like a silver mirror, but over the distant hills and among the trees and hedges was spread a thin blue gauzy mist that toned and softened the whole landscape.

As I gazed, and was falling into a reverie, a puff of white smoke and a flash not fifty yards away, and the ping of a bullet close to my ear, warned me that the attack had commenced.

There had been no living thing visible just before then, but the field on one side of our villa was now one moving ma.s.s of armed Indians, rushing on towards the ditch and breastwork.

At the same moment all along our lines ran the rattle of rifle-firing.

That savage crowd, kept at bay by the spikework, made a target for our men that could hardly be missed. The war-cry, which they had expected to change in less than a minute to the savage shout of victory, was mingled now with groans and yells of anger and pain.

But this, after all, was not the main attack. From a red signal-light far along the lines I soon discovered that Moncrieff was concentrating his strength there, and I hastened in that direction with five of my best men.

The Indians were under the charge of a _cacique_ on horseback, whose shrill voice sounded high over the din of battle and shrieks of the wounded. He literally hurled his men like seas against the gates and ramparts here.

But all in vain. Our fellows stood; and the _cacique_ at length withdrew his men, firing a volley or two as they disappeared behind the hedges.

There was comparative silence for a s.p.a.ce now. It was soon broken, however, by the thunder of Indian cavalry. The savages were going to change their tactics.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE LAST a.s.sAULT.

Never before, perhaps, in all the annals of Indian warfare had a more determined attack been made upon a settler's _estancia_. The _cacique_ or _caciques_ who led the enemy seemed determined to purchase victory at any cost or hazard. Nor did the princ.i.p.al _cacique_ hesitate to expose himself to danger. During the whole of the first onset he moved about on horseback close in the rear of his men, and appeared to bear a charmed life. The bullets must have been whizzing past him as thick as flies. Moncrieff himself tried more than once to bring him down, but all in vain.

During the final a.s.sault he was equally conspicuous; he was here, there, and everywhere, and his voice and appearance, even for a moment, among them never failed to cause his men to redouble their efforts.

It was not, however, until far on into the night that this last and awful charge was made.

The savage foe advanced with a wild shout all along the line of rampart that connected the Moncrieff main _estancia_ with our villa. This was really our weakest part.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Indians advanced with a Wild Shout]

The a.s.sault was made on horseback. We heard them coming thundering on some time before we saw them and could fire. They seemed mad, furious; their tall feather-bedecked spears were waved high in air; they sat like huge baboons on their high saddles, and their very horses had been imbued with the recklessness of their riders, and came on bounding and flying over our frail field of spikes. It was to be all spear work till they came to close quarters; then they would use their deadly knives.

Hardly had the first sound of the horses' hoofs reached our ears ere one, two, three rockets left Coila Villa; and scarcely had they exploded in the air and cast their golden showers of sparks abroad, before the roar of an explosion was heard high up on the braeland that shook the houses to their very foundations--and then--there is the awful rush of foaming, seething water.

Nothing could withstand that unexpected flood; men and horses were floated and washed away, struggling and helpless, before it.

Just at the time when the last a.s.sault was nearly at its grim close I felt my arm pulled, and looking quickly round found Yambo at my side. He still clutched me by the arm, but he was waving his blood-stained sword in the direction of Moncrieff's house, and I could see by the motions of his mouth and face he wished me to come with him.

Something had occurred, something dreadful surely, and despite the excitement of battle a momentary cold wave of fear seemed to rush over my frame.

Sandie Donaldson was near me. This bold big fellow had been everywhere conspicuous to-night for his bravery. He had fought all through with extraordinary intrepidity.

Wherever I had glanced that night I had seen Sandie, the moon shining down on the white shirt and trousers he wore, and which made him altogether so conspicuous a figure, as he took aim with rifle or revolver, or dashed into a crowd of spear-armed Indians, his claymore hardly visible, so swiftly was it moved to and fro. I grasped his shoulder, pointed in the direction indicated by Yambo, and on we flew.

As soon as we had rounded the wing of an outbuilding and reached Moncrieff's terraced lawn, the din of the fight we had just left became more indistinct, but we now heard sounds that, while they thrilled us with terror and anger, made us rush on across the gra.s.s with the speed of the panther.

They were the voices of shrieking women, the crashing of gla.s.s and furniture, and the savage and exultant yell of the Indians.

Looking back now to this episode of the night, I can hardly realize that so many terrible events could have occurred in so brief a time, for, from the moment we charged up across the lawn not six minutes could have elapsed ere all was over. It is like a dream, but a dream every turn of which has been burned into my memory, to remain while life shall last.

Yonder is a tall _cacique_ hurrying out into the bright moonlight from under the verandah. He bears in his arms the inanimate form of my dear sister Flora. Is it really _I_ myself who rush up to meet him? Have _I_ fired that shot that causes the savage to reel and fall? Is it I who lift poor Flora and lay her in the shade of a mimosa-tree? It must be I, yet every action seems governed by instinct; I am for the time being a strange psychological study. It is as if my soul had left the body, but still commanded it, standing aside, ruling every motion, directing every blow from first to last, and being implicitly obeyed by the other _ego_, the _ego_-incorporate. There is a crowd, nay, a cloud even it seems, around me; but see, I have cut my way through them at last: they have fallen before me, fallen at my side--fallen or fled. I step over bodies, I enter the room, I stumble over other bodies. Now a light is struck and a lamp is lit, and standing beside the table, calm, but very pale, I see my aunt dimly through the smoke. My mother is near her--my own brave mother. Both have revolvers in their hands; and I know now why bodies are stretched on the floor. One glance shows me Aileen, lying like a dead thing in a chair, and beside her, smoothing her brow, chafing her hands, Moncrieff's marvellous mother.

But in this life the humorous is ever mixed up with the tragic or sad, for lo! as I hurry away to join the fight that is still going on near the verandah I almost stumble across something else. Not a body this time--not quite--only Bombazo's ankles sticking out from under the sofa. I could swear to those striped silk socks anywhere, and the boots are the boots of Bombazo. I administer a kick to those shins, and they speedily disappear.

I am out on the moonlit lawn now, and what do I see? First, good brave Yambo, down on one knee, being borne backwards, fierce hands at his throat, a short knife at his chest. The would-be a.s.sa.s.sin falls; Yambo rises intact, and together we rush on further down to where, on a terrace, Donaldson has just been overpowered. But see, a new combatant has come upon the scene; several revolver shots are fired in quick succession. A tall dark figure in semi-clerical garb is cutting right and left with a good broadsword. And now--why, now it is all over, and Townley stands beside us panting.

Well might he pant--he had done brave work. But he had come all too late to save Sandie. He lies there quietly enough on the gra.s.s. His shirt is stained with blood, and it is his own blood this time.

Townley bends over and quietly feels his arm. No pulse there. Then he breathes a half audible prayer and reverently closes the eyes.

I am hurrying back now to the room with Flora.

'All is safe, mother, now. Flora is safe. See, she is smiling: she knows us all. Oh, Heaven be praised, she is safe!'

We leave Townley there, and hurry back to the ramparts.

The stillness alone would have told us that the fight was finished and the victory won.

A few minutes after this, standing high up on the rampart there, Moncrieff is mustering his people. One name after another is called. Alas!

there are many who do not answer, many who will never answer more, for our victory has been dearly bought.

Four of our Scottish settlers were found dead in the trench; over a dozen Gauchos had been killed. Moncrieff and his partner were both wounded, though neither severely. Archie and Dugald were also badly cut, and answered but faintly and feebly to the roll-call. Sandie we know is dead, and Bombazo is--under the sofa. So I thought; but listen.

'Captain Rodrigo de Bombazo!'

'Here, general, here,' says a bold voice close behind me, and Bombazo himself presses further to the front.

I can hardly believe my eyes and ears. Could those have been Bombazo's boots? Had I really kicked the shins of Bombazo? Surely the events of the night had turned my brain. Bombazo's boots indeed! Bombazo skulk and hide beneath a sofa! Impossible. Look at him now. His hair is dishevelled; there is blood on his brow. He is dressed only in shirt and trousers, and these are marked with blood; so is his right arm, which is bared over the elbow, and the sword he carries in his hand. Bold Bombazo! How I have wronged him! But the silk striped socks? No; I cannot get over that.

Barely a month before the events just narrated took place at the _estancias_ of Moncrieff there landed from a sailing ship at the port of Buenos Ayres a man whose age might have been represented by any number of years 'twixt thirty and forty. There were grey hairs on his temples, but these count for nothing in a man whose life has been a struggle with Fortune and Fate. The individual in question, whom his shipmates called Dalston, was tall and tough and wiry. He had shown what he was and what he could do in less than a week from the time of his joining. At first he had been a pa.s.senger, and had lived away aft somewhere, no one could tell exactly where, for he did not dine in the saloon with the other pa.s.sengers, and he looked above messing with the stewards. As the mate and he were much together it was supposed that Dalston made use of the first officer's cabin. The ship had encountered dirty weather from the very outset; head winds and choppy seas all the way down Channel, so that she was still 'kicking about off the coast'--this is how the seamen phrased it--when she ought to have been crossing the Bay or stretching away out into the broad Atlantic. She fared worse by far when she reached the Bay, having met with a gale of wind that blew most of her cloth to ribbons, carried away her bowsprit, and made hurdles of her bulwarks both forward and amidships. Worse than all, two men were blown from aloft while trying to reef a sail during a squall of more than hurricane violence. I say blown from aloft, and I say so advisedly, for the squall came on after they had gone up, a squall that even the men on deck could not stand against, a squall that levelled the very waves, and made the sea away to leeward--no one could see to windward--look like boiling milk.

The storm began to go down immediately after the squall, and next day the weather was fine enough to make sail, and mend sail. But the ship was short-handed, for the skipper had made no provision against loss by accident. He was glad then when the mate informed him that the 'gentleman'

Dalston was as good as any two men on board.

'Send him to me,' said the skipper.

'Good morning. Ahem, I hear, sir, you would be willing to a.s.sist in the working of the ship. May I ask on what terms?'

'Certainly,' said Dalston. 'I'm going out to the Argentine, to buy a bit of land; well, naturally, money is some object to me. You see?'

'I understand.'

'Well, my terms are the return of my pa.s.sage money and civility.'