The Headless Horseman Part 6

"And you, sir?" inquired the planter, with a show of interest in the man who was making such exertions to secure them against some yet unascertained danger. "What of yourself?"

"Don't waste a moment upon me. I know what's coming. It isn't the first time I have encountered it. In--in, I entreat you! You haven't a second to spare. Listen to that shriek! Quick, or the dust-cloud will be around us!"

The planter and his son sprang together to the ground; and retreated into the travelling carriage.

Calhoun, refusing to dismount, remained stiffly seated in his saddle.

Why should _he_ skulk from a visionary danger, that did not deter a man in Mexican garb?

The latter turned away; as he did so, directing the overseer to get inside the nearest waggon--a direction which was obeyed with alacrity-- and, for the first time, the stranger was left free to take care of himself.

Quickly unfolding his _serape_--hitherto strapped across the cantle of his saddle--he flung it over the head of his horse. Then, drawing the edges back, he fastened it, bag-fashion, around the animal's neck. With equal alertness he undid his scarf of China c.r.a.pe; and stretched it around his sombrero--fixing it in such a way, that one edge was held under the bullion band, while the other dropped down over the brim--thus forming a silken visor for his face.

Before finally closing it, he turned once more towards the carriole; and, to his surprise, saw Calhoun still in the saddle. Humanity triumphed over a feeling of incipient aversion.

"Once again, sir, I adjure you to get inside! If you do not you'll have cause to repent it. Within ten minutes' time, you may be a dead man!"

The positive emphasis with which the caution was delivered produced its effect. In the presence of mortal foeman, Ca.s.sius Calhoun was no coward. But there was an enemy approaching that was not mortal--not in any way understood. It was already making itself manifest, in tones that resembled thunder--in shadows that mocked the darkness of midnight.

Who would not have felt fear at the approach of a destroyer so declaring itself?

The ex-officer was unable to resist the united warnings of earth and heaven; and, slipping out of his saddle with a show of reluctance-- intended to save appearances--he clambered into the carriage, and ensconced himself behind the closely-drawn curtains.

To describe what followed is beyond the power of the pen. No eye beheld the spectacle: for none dared look upon it. Even had this been possible, nothing could have been seen. In five minutes after the m.u.f.fling of the mules, the train was enveloped in worse than Cimmerian darkness.

The opening scene can alone be depicted: for that only was observed by the travellers. One of the sable columns, moving in the advance, broke as it came in collision with the waggon-tilts. Down came a shower of black dust, as if the sky had commenced raining gunpowder! It was a foretaste of what was to follow.

There was a short interval of open atmosphere--hot as the inside of an oven. Then succeeded puffs, and whirling gusts, of wind--cold as if projected from caves of ice, and accompanied by a noise as though all the trumpets of Aeolus were announcing the advent of the Storm-King!

In another instant the _norther_ was around them; and the waggon train, halted on a subtropical plain, was enveloped in an atmosphere, akin to that which congeals the icebergs of the Arctic Ocean!

Nothing more was seen--nothing heard, save the whistling of the wind, or its hoa.r.s.e roaring, as it thundered against the tilts of the waggons.

The mules having instinctively turned stern towards it, stood silent in their traces; and the voices of the travellers, in solemn converse inside, could not be distinguished amid the howling of the hurricane.

Every aperture had been closed: for it was soon discovered, that to show a face from under the sheltering canvas was to court suffocation. The air was surcharged with ashes, lifted aloft from the burnt plain, and reduced, by the whirling of the wind, to an impalpable but poisonous powder.

For over an hour did the atmosphere carry this cinereous cloud; during which period lasted the imprisonment of the travellers.

At length a voice, speaking close by the curtains of the carriole, announced their release.

"You can come forth!" said the stranger, the c.r.a.pe scarf thrown back above the brim of his hat. "You will still have the storm to contend against. It will last to the end of your journey; and, perhaps, for three days longer. But you have nothing further to fear. The ashes are all swept off. They've gone before you; and you're not likely to overtake them this side the Rio Grande."

"Sir!" said the planter, hastily descending the steps of the carriage, "we have to thank you for--for--"

"Our lives, father!" cried Henry, supplying the proper words. "I hope, sir, you will favour us with your name?"

"_Maurice Gerald_!" returned the stranger; "though, at the Fort, you will find me better known as _Maurice the mustanger_."

"A mustanger!" scornfully muttered Calhoun, but only loud enough to be heard by Louise.

"Only a mustanger!" reflected the aristocratic Poindexter, the fervour of his grat.i.tude becoming sensibly chilled.

"For guide, you will no longer need either myself, or my lazo," said the hunter of wild horses. "The cypress is in sight: keep straight towards it. After crossing, you will see the flag over the Fort. You may yet reach your journey's end before night. I have no time to tarry; and must say adieu."

Satan himself, astride a Tartarean steed, could not have looked more like the devil than did Maurice the Mustanger, as he separated for the second time from the planter and his party. But neither his ashy envelope, nor the announcement of his humble calling, did aught to damage him in the estimation of one, whose thoughts were already predisposed in his favour--Louise Poindexter.

On hearing him declare his name--by presumption already known to her-- she but more tenderly cherished the bit of cardboard, chafing against her snow-white bosom; at the same time muttering in soft pensive soliloquy, heard only by herself:--

"Maurice the mustanger! despite your sooty covering--despite your modest pretence--you have touched the heart of a Creole maiden. _Mon Dieu_--_mon Dieu! He is too like Lucifer for me to despise him_!"

CHAPTER FIVE.

THE HOME OF THE HORSE-HUNTER.

Where the _Rio de Nueces_ (River of Nuts) collects its waters from a hundred tributary streams--lining the map like the limbs of a grand genealogical tree--you may look upon a land of surpa.s.sing fairness. Its surface is "rolling prairie," interspersed with clumps of post-oak and pecan, here and there along the banks of the watercourses uniting into continuous groves.

In some places these timbered tracts a.s.sume the aspect of the true _chapparal_--a thicket, rather than a forest--its princ.i.p.al growth being various kinds of acacia, a.s.sociated with copaiva and creosote trees, with wild aloes, with eccentric shapes of cereus, cactus, and arborescent yucca.

These spinous forms of vegetation, though repulsive to the eye of the agriculturist--as proving the utter sterility of the soil--present an attractive aspect to the botanist, or the lover of Nature; especially when the cereus unfolds its huge wax-like blossoms, or the _Fouquiera splendens_ overtops the surrounding shrubbery with its spike of resplendent flowers, like a red flag hanging unfolded along its staff.

The whole region, however, is not of this character. There are stretches of greater fertility; where a black calcareous earth gives nourishment to trees of taller growth, and more luxuriant foliage. The "wild China"--a true _sapindal_--the pecan, the elm, the hackberry, and the oak of several species--with here and there a cypress or Cottonwood--form the components of many a sylvan scene, which, from the blending of their leaves of various shades of green, and the ever changing contour of their clumps, deserves to be denominated fair.

The streams of this region are of crystal purity--their waters tinted only by the reflection of sapphire skies. Its sun, moon, and stars are scarcely ever concealed behind a cloud. The demon of disease has not found his way into this salubrious spot: no epidemic can dwell within its borders.

Despite these advantages, civilised man has not yet made it his home.

Its paths are trodden only by the red-skinned rovers of the prairie-- Lipano or Comanche--and these only when mounted, and upon the _maraud_ towards the settlements of the Lower Nueces, or Leona.

It may be on this account--though it would almost seem as if they were actuated by a love of the beautiful and picturesque--that the true children of Nature, the wild animals, have selected this spot as their favourite habitat and home. In no part of Texas does the stag bound up so often before you; and nowhere is the timid antelope so frequently seen. The rabbit, and his gigantic cousin, the mule-rabbit, are scarcely ever out of sight; while the polecat, the opossum, and the curious peccary, are encountered at frequent intervals.

Birds, too, of beautiful forms and colours, enliven the landscape. The quail whirrs up from the path; the king vulture wheels in the ambient air; the wild turkey, of gigantic stature, suns his resplendent gorget by the side of the pecan copse, and the singular tailor-bird--known among the rude Rangers as the "bird of paradise"--flouts his long scissors-like tail among the feathery fronds of the acacia.

Beautiful b.u.t.terflies spread their wide wings in flapping flight; or, perched upon some gay corolla, look as if they formed part of the flower. Huge bees (_Meliponae_), clad in velvet liveries, buzz amid the blossoming bushes, disputing possession with hawkmoths and humming-birds not much larger than themselves.

They are not all innocent, the denizens of this lovely land. Here the rattlesnake attains to larger dimensions than in any other part of North America, and shares the covert with the more dangerous _moccasin_.

Here, too, the tarantula inflicts its venomous sting; the scorpion poisons with its bite; and the centipede, by simply crawling over the skin, causes a fever that may prove fatal!

Along the wooded banks of the streams may be encountered the spotted ocelot, the puma, and their more powerful congener, the jaguar; the last of these _felidae_ being here upon the northern limit of its geographical range.

Along the edges of the chapparal skulks the gaunt Texan wolf--solitarily and in silence; while a kindred and more cowardly species, the _coyote_, may be observed, far out upon the open plain, hunting in packs.

Sharing the same range with these, the most truculent of quadrupeds, may be seen the n.o.blest and most beautiful of animals--perhaps n.o.bler and more beautiful than man--certainly the most distinguished of man's companions--the horse!

Here--independent of man's caprice, his jaw unchecked by bit or curb, his back unscathed by pack or saddle--he roams unrestrained; giving way to all the wildness of his nature.

But even in this, his favourite haunt, he is not always left alone. Man presumes to be his pursuer and tamer: for here was he sought, captured, and conquered, by _Maurice the Mustanger_.

On the banks of the _Alamo_--one of the most sparkling streamlets that pay tribute to the Nueces--stood a dwelling, unpretentious as any to be found within the limits of Texas, and certainly as picturesque.

Its walls were composed of split trunk of the arborescent yucca, set stockade-fashion in the ground; while its roof was a thatch furnished by the long bayonet-shaped loaves of the same gigantic lily.