The Border Rifles Part 50

"Well?" Loyal Heart went on.

"I will do everything to save it."

"Thanks!" then, turning to Tranquil, who stood motionless by his side, he said--

"Take your place again, brother, and breakfast with this caballero, I answer for him body for body; if in two months from this day he does not give you a satisfactory explanation of his conduct, I, who am bound by no oath, will reveal to you this mystery, which appears, and really is, inexplicable for you."

The Jaguar started, and gave Loyal Heart a searching glance, which produced no effect, however, on the hunter's indifferently placid face.

The Canadian hesitated for a few moments, but at length took his place again by the fire, muttering--.

"In two months, be it so;" and he added in an aside, "but till then I will watch him."

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE EXPRESS.

Captain Melendez was anxious to pa.s.s through the dangerous defile near which the conducta had bivouacked; he knew how great was the responsibility he had taken on himself in accepting the command of the escort, and did not wish, in the event of any misfortune happening, that a charge of carelessness or negligence could be brought against him.

The sum conveyed by the recua of mules was important. The Mexican government, ever forced to expedients to procure money, was impatiently expecting it; the Captain did not conceal from himself that the whole responsibility of an attack would be mercilessly thrown on him, and that he would have to endure all the consequences, whatever might be the results of an encounter with the border rifles.

Hence his anxiety and alarm increased with every moment; the evident treachery of Fray Antonio only heightened his apprehensions, by making him suspect a probable trap. Though it was impossible for him to guess from what quarter the danger would come, he felt it, as it were, approaching him inch by inch, and besetting him on all sides, and he expected a terrible explosion at any moment.

This secret intuition, this providential foreboding, which told him to be on his guard, placed him in a state of excitement impossible to describe, and threw him into an intolerable situation, from which he resolved to escape at all hazards, preferring to run the danger and confront it, to remaining longer with bayonets pointed at unseen foes.

Hence he doubled his vigilance, himself inspecting the vicinity of the camp, and watching the loading of the mules, which, fastened to each other, would, in the event of an attack, be placed in the centre of the most devoted and resolute men of the escort.

Long before sunrise, the Captain, whose sleep had been an uninterrupted series of continued starts, quitted the hard bed of skins and horsecloths on which he had vainly sought a few hours of rest, which his nervous condition rendered impossible, and began walking sharply up and down the narrow s.p.a.ce that composed the interior of the camp, involuntarily envying the careless and calm slumbers of the troopers, who were lying here and there on the ground, wrapped up in their zarapes.

In the meanwhile day gradually broke. The owl, whose matin hoot announces the appearance of the sun, had already given its melancholy note. The Captain kicked the arriero Chief, who was lying by the fire, and aroused him.

The worthy man rubbed his eyes several times, and when the last clouds of sleep were dissipated, and order was beginning to be re-established in his ideas, he exclaimed, while stifling a last sigh--

"Caray, Captain, what fly has stung you that you awake me at so early an hour? Why, the sky has scarce turned white yet; let me sleep an hour longer. I was enjoying a most delicious dream, and will try to catch it up again, for sleep is a glorious thing."

The Captain could not refrain from smiling at this singular outburst; still, he did not consider himself justified in listening to the arriero's complaints, for circ.u.mstances were too serious to lose time in futile promises.

"Up, up! Cuerpo de Cristo!" he shouted; "Remember that we have not yet reached the Rio Seco, and that if we wish to cross this dangerous pa.s.sage before sunset, we must make haste."

"That is true," the arriero said, who was on his legs in a moment, as fresh and lively as if he had been awake for an hour; "forgive me, Captain, for I have quite as much interest as yourself in making no unpleasant encounter; according to the law, my fortune answers for the load I am conveying, and if an accident happened, I and my family would be reduced to beggary."

"That is true, I did not think of that clause in your contract."

"That does not surprise me, for it cannot at all interest you; but I cannot get it out of my head, and I declare to you, Captain, that since I undertook this unlucky journey, I have very often repented having accepted the conditions imposed on me; something tells me that we shall not arrive safe and sound on the other side of these confounded mountains."

"Nonsense, that is folly, no Bautista. You are in a capital condition, and well escorted; what cause can you have for fear?"

"None, I know, and yet I am convinced that I am not mistaken, and this journey will be fatal to me."

The same presentiments agitated the officer; still, he must not allow the arriero to perceive any of his internal disquietude; on the contrary, he must comfort him, and restore that courage which seemed on the point of abandoning him.

"You are mad, on my soul," he exclaimed; "to the deuce with the absurd notions you have got in your wool-gathering noddle."

The arriero shook his head gravely.

"You are at liberty, Don Juan Melendez," he answered, "to laugh at these ideas; you are an educated man, and naturally believe in nothing. But I, Caballero, am a poor ignorant Indian, and set faith in what my fathers believed before me; look you, Captain, we Indians, whether civilized or savage, have hard heads, and your new ideas cannot get through our thick skulls."

"Come, explain yourself," the Captain continued, desirous to break off the conversation without thwarting the arriero's prejudices; "what reason leads you to suppose that your journey will be unlucky? You are not the man to be frightened at your own shadow; I have been acquainted with you for a long while, and know that you possess incontestable bravery."

"I thank you, Captain, for the good opinion you are pleased to have of me; yes, I am courageous, and believe I have several times proved it, but it was when facing dangers which my intellect understood, and not before perils contrary to the natural laws that govern us."

The Captain twisted his moustache impatiently at the arriero's fatiguing prolixity: but, as he reminded him, he knew the worthy man, and was aware by experience that attempting to cut short what he had to say was a loss of time, and he must be allowed to do as he liked.

There are certain men with whom, like the spur with restiff horses, any attempt to urge them on is a sure means of making them go back.

The young man, therefore, mastered his impatience, and coldly said:--

"I presume, then, you saw some evil omen at the moment of your departure?"

"Indeed I did, Captain; and certainly, after what I saw, I would not have started, had I been a man easily frightened."

"What was the omen, then?"

"Do not laugh at me, Captain; several pa.s.sages of Scripture itself prove that G.o.d is often pleased to grant men salutary warnings, to which unhappily," he added with a sigh, "they are not wise enough to give credence."

"That is true," the Captain muttered in the style of an interjection.

"Well," the arriero continued, flattered by this approval from a man like the one he was talking with; "my mules were saddled, the recua was waiting for me in the corral, guarded by the peons, and I was on the point of starting. Still, as I did not like separating from my wife, for a long time probably, without saying a last good bye, I proceeded toward the house to give her a parting kiss, when, on reaching the threshold, I mechanically raised my eyes, and saw two owls sitting on the azotea, who fixed their eyes on me with infernal steadiness. At this unexpected apparition, I shuddered involuntarily and turned my eyes away. At this very moment, a dying man, carried by two soldiers on a litter, came down the street, escorted by a monk who was reciting the Penitential Psalms, and preparing him to die like an honest and worthy Christian; but the wounded man made no other answer than laughing ironically at the monk.

All at once this man half rose on the litter, his eyes grew brilliant, he turned to me, gave me a glance full of sarcasm, and fell back, muttering these two words evidently addressed to me:--

"_Hasta luego_ (we shall meet soon)."

"Hum!" the Captain said.

"The species of rendezvous this individual gave me, had nothing very flattering about it, I fancy!" the arriero continued. "I was deeply affected by the words, and I rushed toward him with the intention of reproaching him, as I thought was proper--but he was dead."

"Who was the man--did you learn?"

"Yes, he was a Salteador, who had been mortally wounded in a row with the citizens, and was being carried to the steps of the Cathedral, to die there."

"Is that all?" the Captain asked.

"Yes.'

"Well, my friend, I did well in insisting upon knowing the motives of your present uneasiness."