The Tiger Hunter Part 21

The silence continued. Not a cry awoke the solitude--not the flash of a fusil lit up the darkness of the twilight. The sleep of death seemed to be upon everything.

As already stated, Don Rafael had not visited the hacienda of Del Valle since he left it when only a child: he therefore knew nothing of the way that led to it beyond the directions he had received from his late host.

He was beginning to think he had gone astray, when a long wide avenue opened before him. This was bordered on each side by a row of tall trees, of the species _taxodium disticha_--the cypress of America. He had been told of this avenue, and that at its extremity stood the hacienda he was in search of. The description was minute: he could not be mistaken.

Heading his steed into the avenue, he spurred forward beneath the sombre shadow of the trees. In a rapid gallop he traversed the level road, and had arrived nearly at its further extremity, when all at once the walls of the hacienda came in view directly in front of him--a dark ma.s.s of building, that filled up the whole s.p.a.ce between the two rows of trees.

The main entrance in the centre appeared to be only half closed, one wing of the ma.s.sive gate standing slightly ajar. But no one came forth to welcome him! Not a sound issued from the building. All was silent as the tomb!

Still pressing forward, he advanced towards the entrance--determined to ride in through the open gateway; but, just at that moment, his steed made a violent bound, and shied to one side.

In the obscurity of the twilight, or rather from the confusion of his senses, Don Rafael had not observed the object which had frightened his horse. It was a dead body lying upon the ground in front of the gateway. More horrible still, it was a body wanting the head!

At this frightful spectacle a cry broke from the lips of the officer--a cry of fearful import. Rage, despair, all the furious pa.s.sions that may wring the heart of man, were expressed in that cry--to which echo was the only answer. He had arrived too late. All was over. The body was that of his father!

He needed not to alight and examine it, in order to be convinced of this terrible fact. On a level with his horse's head an object appeared hanging against one of the leaves of the great door. It was a head--the head that had belonged to the corpse. It was hanging from the latch, suspended by the hair.

Despite the repugnance of his horse to advance, Don Rafael drove the spur into his flank; and forced him forward until he was himself near enough to examine the fearful object. With flashing eyes and swelling veins, he gazed upon the gory face. The features were not so much disfigured, as to hinder him from identifying them. They were the features of his father!

The truth was clear. The Spaniard had been the victim of the insurgents, who had respected neither his liberal political sentiments, nor his inoffensive old age. The authors of the crime had even boasted of it. On the gate below were written two names, _Arroyo_--_Antonio Valdez_.

The officer read them aloud, but with a choking utterance.

For a moment his head fell pensively forward upon his breast. Then on a sudden he raised it again--as if in obedience to a secret resolve-- saying as he did so, in a voice husky with emotion--

"Where shall I find the fiends? Where? No matter!--find them I shall.

Night or day, no rest for me--no rest for them, till I have hung both their heads in the place of this one!"

"How now," he continued after a pause, "how can I combat in a cause like this? Can a son fight under the same flag with the a.s.sa.s.sins of his father? Never!"

"For Spain, then!" he cried out, after another short moment of silence.

"For Spain shall my sword be drawn!" And raising his voice into a louder tone, he p.r.o.nounced with furious emphasis--

"_Viva Espana! Mueran a los bandidos_!" (Spain for ever! Death to the brigands!)

Saying this, the dragoon dismounted from his horse, and knelt reverentially in front of that ghastly image.

"Head of my venerable and beloved father!" said he, "I swear by your grey hairs, crimsoned with your own blood, to use every effort in my power, by sword and by fire, to nip in the bud this accursed insurrection--one of whose first acts has been to rob you of your innocent life. May G.o.d give me strength to fulfil my vow!"

At that moment a voice from within seemed to whisper in his ear, repeating the words of his mistress:--

"_May all those who raise an arm in favour of Spain be branded with infamy and disgrace! May they find neither a roof to shelter them, nor a woman to smile upon them! May the contempt of those they love be the reward of every traitor to his country_!"

Almost the instant after, another voice replied--"_Do your duty, no matter what may be the result_." In presence of the mutilated remains of his father, the son hearkened only to the latter.

The moon had been long up before Don Rafael finished the melancholy task of digging a grave. In this he respectfully placed the headless corpse, and laid the head beside it in its proper position. Then, drawing from his bosom the long plait of Gertrudis' hair, and taking from his shoulders the embroidered sun-scarf, with like respectful manner, he deposited these two love-tokens alongside the honoured remains of his father.

Convulsed with grief, he threw in the earth, burying in one grave the dearest _souvenirs_ of his life.

It was not without difficulty that he could withdraw himself from a spot thus doubly consecrated by filial piety and love; and for a long while he stood sorrowing over the grave.

In fine, new thoughts coursing through his bosom aroused him to action; and, leaping into his saddle, he spurred his steed into a gallop, taking the road that conducted to the capital of Oajaca.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

THE ILl.u.s.tRIOUS MORELOS.

Little more than twelve months after its first breaking out--that is, about the close of the year 1811--the Mexican revolution might have been compared to one of those great fires of the American prairies, whose destructive range has been checked by the hand of man. In vain the flames jet out on all sides, seeking fresh element. A wide s.p.a.ce has been cleared around them. Soon the crackling of the large trees, and the hiss of the burning gra.s.s, cease to be heard; and the whole plain becomes enveloped under a cloud of smoke rising upward from the blackened ashes.

Such was the fate of the insurrection stirred up by the priest Hidalgo.

From the little hamlet of Delores it had spread like fire over all the vice-kingdom of New Spain; but very soon the leaders were almost to a man made captives and shot--the venerable Hidalgo himself undergoing the same sad fate. A remnant of the insurgents, pressed on all sides by the royalist troops under General Calleja, had taken refuge in the little town of Zitacuaro, where they were commanded by the Mexican general, Don Ignacio Rayon. There they had established a _junta_, independent of the government; and continued to launch forth their proclamations, powerless as the glow of the prairie fire after its flames have been extinguished.

When such a fire, however, has been the work of men--when kindled by man's will and for man's purpose--and not the result of accident or spontaneity, then, indeed, the flames may be expected to burst forth anew at some other point of the prairie or the forest.

Just so was it with the Mexican revolution. Another champion of independence, of origin even more obscure than his predecessors--if that were possible--soon appeared upon the arena which they had quitted, and with an _eclat_ likely to eclipse any of those who had preceded him.

This was the curate of Caracuaro, he whom historians designate as "_El insigne Morelos_" (the ill.u.s.trious Morelos). The Mexican writers do not state in what year Morelos was born. Judging from the portraits I have seen of him, and comparing the different dates that have been a.s.signed to his birth, he should have been about thirty-eight or forty years old, at the commencement of his career as a revolutionary leader. His native place was Talmejo, a small hamlet near the town of Apatzingam, in the state of Valladolid--now called _Morelia_, after the most ill.u.s.trious of its sons. The only patrimony of the future heir of the Mexican independence was a small _recua_ of pack-mules, left him by his father, who was a muleteer.

For a long time the son himself followed this humble and laborious calling; when, for some reason or other, the idea came into his head to enter holy orders. History does not say what was his motive for this resolution; but certain it is that Morelos proceeded to carry it out with that determined perseverance which was an essential trait in his character.

Having sold off his mules, be consecrated his whole time to acquire those branches of education, rigorously indispensable to the attainment of his purpose--that is to say, the study of Latin and theology. The college of Valladolid was the scene of his student life.

Having gone through the required course, orders were conferred upon him; but Valladolid offering to him no prospect of advancement, he retired to the little _pueblo_ of Uruapam, where for a time he subsisted upon the scanty means supplied by giving lessons in Latin.

About this time the curacy of Caracuaro became vacant. Caracuaro is a village as unhealthy as poor, where no one could be supposed to reside from choice; and yet Morelos, lacking powerful friends, had great difficulty in getting appointed to the living.

In this miserable place had he resided in a state of obscure poverty, up to that hour, when, accidentally introduced to the reader, at the hacienda Las Palmas. Under the pretence of visiting the Bishop of Oajaca, but in reality for the purpose of fomenting the insurrection, Morelos had travelled through the province of that name; and at the time of his visit to Las Palmas, he was on his way to offer his services to Hidalgo, as chaplain of the insurgent army. The result of that application was, that instead of a chaplaincy to his army, Hidalgo bestowed upon the _cura_ of Caracuaro, a commission to capture the fortified seaport of Acapulco. It was in reality rather as a jest, and to disembarra.s.s himself of the importunities of Morelos, that Hidalgo bestowed this singular and important commission. How much Morelos merited the honour will appear in the sequel.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

A COURSE OF STUDY INTERRUPTED.

In the early part of January, 1812--about fifteen months after the scenes detailed as occurring near the hacienda Las Palmas--two men might have been seen face to face--one seated behind a rude deal table covered with charts and letters--the other standing in front, hat in hand.

This tableau was within a tent--the least ragged and largest, among a number of others that formed an encampment on the banks of the river Sabana, at a short distance from the port of Acapulco.

The person seated wore upon his head a checked cotton kerchief while his shoulders were covered with a _jaqueta_ of white linen. It would have been difficult for any one not knowing him, to recognise in this plainly-dressed individual the commander-in-chief of the insurgent army encamped around, and still more difficult perhaps to have believed that he was the _ci-devant_ "cura" of Caracuaro, Don Jose Maria Morelos y Pavon. And yet it was he.

Yes, the humble curate had raised the standard of independence in the southern provinces; had long been carrying it with success; and at this moment he was commander-in-chief of the insurgent forces besieging Acapulco--that very town he had been ironically empowered to take.

But notwithstanding the eccentric changes which civil war produces in the situations of men, the reader cannot be otherwise than greatly astonished when told, that the gentleman who stood in front of Morelos, encased in the somewhat elegant uniform of a lieutenant of cavalry, was the _ci-devant_ student of theology--Don Cornelio Lantejas.

By what magical interference had the timid student of theology been transformed into an officer of dragoons--in the army of the insurgents, too, towards whose cause he had shown himself but indifferently affected?