Wood Rangers Part 41

Before long, however, a confused noise of voices and horses' feet indicated the return of the adventurers who had started in pursuit of the Indians, and by the doubtful light of the half extinct fires, they entered the camp.

The same man who had been recently inspecting the dead, went out to meet them. While some of them were dismounting to open a pa.s.sage through the barricades, Pedro Diaz advanced towards him, a stream of blood flowing from a wound in his forehead.

"Senor Don Estevan," said he, "we have not been lucky in our pursuit.

We have but wounded one or two of the Indians, and have lost one of our own men. However I bring you a prisoner; do you wish to interrogate him?"

So saying, Diaz detached his la.s.so from the saddle-bow, and pointed to a ma.s.s held in its noose. It was an Indian, who, pitilessly dragged along over the sand and stones, had left behind at every step pieces of flesh, and now scarcely retained any vestige of humanity.

"He was alive when I took him, however," cried Diaz, "but it is just like these dogs of Indians, he must have died in order not to tell anything."

Without replying to this ferocious jest, Don Estevan signed to Diaz to accompany him to a place where they might converse without being overheard. When the new-comers had lain down and silence reigned anew, Don Estevan began:

"Diaz," said he, "we are close on the end of our expedition: to-morrow, as I told you, we shall encamp at the foot of those mountains; but in order that success may crown our efforts, treason must not throw obstacles in our way. It is on this subject that I wish to consult you to-night. You have known Cuchillo long, but not so long as I have; and certainly, not as thoroughly. From his earliest youth he has always betrayed those to whom he appeared most devoted. I know not which of all the vices with which he is endowed has the ascendant; but in a word, the sinister look of his face is but a feeble reflection of the blackness of his soul. It was he who sold to me the secret of the rich and mysterious placer to which I am leading you--and of this secret he had made himself the sole master by murdering the friend who had freely confided it to him, and who thought to find him a faithful companion in his dangers.

"I have ever, therefore, kept a watchful eye over him. His disappearance for the last two days alarmed me, but it might have been the result of an accident common in these deserts. The attack, however, from which we have so narrowly escaped has confirmed my suspicions. He has advanced under our protection, until we have reached the place where he would, be able to seize a part of these immense treasures. He had need of auxiliaries in order to murder our sixty men, and the Indians who have attacked us were but his instruments."

"Indeed," replied Diaz, "his report seemed to me suspicious. But the simplest method will be to hold a court-martial, interrogate him, and if he be convicted of treason, let us shoot him at once."

"At the commencement of the attack, I a.s.signed him a post near me, in order to watch him more easily. I saw him totter and then fall apparently mortally wounded, and I was glad to be rid of a traitor and a coward. But I have just turned over and examined all the dead, and Cuchillo is not amongst them. It is therefore urgent that without loss of time we should follow him; he cannot be far off. You are accustomed to this sort of expedition; we must, without delay, set off in pursuit of him, and execute prompt justice on a villain whose life must pay for his treachery."

Diaz appeared to reflect for a moment, and then said, "To trace him can neither be tedious nor difficult. Cuchillo must have gone towards the Golden Valley--therefore in that direction we must seek him."

"Go rest for an hour, for you must be worn out," said the chief. "Ah!

Diaz, if all these men were like you, how easy our path would be--gold in one hand, and the sword in the other."

"I have only done my duty," said Diaz, simply.

"Say to our men that it is necessary for us to reconnoitre the environs of the camp, and tell the sentinels to keep strict watch until our return, and then we shall proceed towards the valley."

"Cuchillo must certainly be there, and we shall catch him either going or returning."

"We shall find him in the valley," said Don Estevan. "When you have seen it, you will find it a place that a man like Cuchillo could not make up his mind to leave."

Diaz departed to execute his orders, and Don Estevan caused his tent to be pitched again, that even in his absence his starry banner might float over the camp as a sign of his protective authority. This done, he threw himself on his couch, and slept the sleep of a soldier after a day of fighting and fatigue.

Little more than an hour after, Diaz stood before him, "Senor Don Estevan," said he, "all is prepared for starting."

The chief rose and found his horse awaiting him ready saddled.

"Diaz," said he, "ask the sentinels if Gayferos has returned."

Diaz questioned one of the men, who replied, "The poor fellow will probably never return. The Indians must have surprised and killed him before attacking us, and that probably was the cause of the firing that we heard in the afternoon."

"I fear it is but too certain that he has been murdered," replied Diaz; "but as for the firing that we heard, I believe that had a different origin."

Don Estevan now mounted his horse, and the two set off in, the direction of the mountains.

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE.

THE ISLET.

While the Indians, united in council, were deliberating on the means of attacking the camp of the gold-seekers, let us see how the three men on the island were occupied.

It was about four o'clock, and the fog was beginning to rise slowly from the water. Willows and aspens grew on the sh.o.r.es of the river Gila, within rifle-range of the little island, and so near the water that their roots were in the river. The s.p.a.ces between the trees were filled up by vigorous osier and other shoots; but just in front of the island was a large open s.p.a.ce. This had been made by the troops of wild horses and buffaloes, that came down to drink at the river; and through this opening any one on the island could see clearly over the plain.

The little island had been formed originally by trees that had taken root in the bed of the river; other trees, some green and others without branches or foliage, had rested against these, and their roots had become interlaced. Since then, many summers and winters must have pa.s.sed; and gra.s.ses and sedges, detached from the banks by the water, had filled up the interstices. Then the dust, brought there by the wind, had covered these with a crust of earth, and formed a kind of solid ground for the floating island. Plants had grown along the banks; the trunks of the willows had sent forth vigorous shoots, and, with the reeds, had surrounded the island with a fringe of verdure. The island was only a few feet in diameter; but a man lying, or even kneeling upon it, was completely hidden by the willow-shoots.

The sun was going down, and a little shade was thrown by the leaves and trees; in this shade was stretched the form of Fabian asleep. Bois-Rose seemed to be watching over his sleep, hastily taken after the fatigues of a long march, while Pepe refreshed himself by plunging in the water.

While Fabian slumbers, we shall raise the veil by which the young Count hid from the eyes of his two friends his most secret and dearest thoughts.

After his fall into the torrent, Pepe had forgotten that the enemy on whom he had sworn vengeance was escaping, and both he and Bois-Rose had thought only of rendering prompt a.s.sistance to Fabian. On returning to consciousness, Fabian's first thought was to resume his interrupted pursuit. The acquisition of the Golden Valley, and even the remembrance of Dona Rosarita, were forgotten by the ardent wish of revenging his mother.

Pepe, on his side, was not the man to draw back from his vow; and as for Bois-Rose, his whole affections were centred in his two companions, and he would have followed them to the end of the world. Their first failure, far from discouraging them, did but excite their ardour; in hatred as in love, obstacles are always a powerful stimulant to vigorous minds. The pursuit had gradually presented a double object to Fabian; it brought him near to the Golden Valley in the desert; and he nourished a vague hope that the place pointed out to him was not the same as that which the expedition led by Antonio de Mediana proposed to conquer.

Fabian said to himself, that the daughter of Don Augustin doubtless only yielded obedience to the ambitious views of her father, and that it might yet be easy for him, n.o.ble and rich, to win the day against such a rival as Tragaduros.

Still, discouragement often seized upon Fabian; he loved the daughter of the haciendado with his whole soul; and the thought of owing her love only to the treasures that he might possess, distressed him. Moreover, he felt that the ardent and jealous affection of the Canadian, had founded on him the sole aim of his life, and that, like the eagle who carries away his young one and places it in an eyrie, inaccessible to the hand of man, Bois-Rose, who had forever quitted civilised life, wished to make of him his inseparable companion in the desert; and that, to disappoint the old man would be to throw a shadow over his whole future life. As yet, no confidence as to their future had been exchanged between them; but in face of a love that he believed hopeless, and of the ardent, though secret wishes of the man who now acted as a father to him, and who would half break his heart at a separation, Fabian had generously and silently sacrificed his tastes and hopes that would not die. He who had but to hold out his hand to seize the things that the whole world desires--riches, t.i.tles, and honours--was like one whose life tortured by an unhappy love, disclaiming the future, seeks within the cloister forgetfulness of the past. For Fabian de Mediana, the desert was the cloister; and his mother once revenged, it only remained to him to bury himself in it forever. Sad and inefficacious, as a remedy, would be solitude, with its mysterious voice, and the ardent contemplations that it awakens, for a pa.s.sion so fondly awakened in the young heart of Fabian.

One single hope remained to him--that amidst the ever-renewed dangers of an adventurous life, the day was not far distant when his life would be cut short in some contest with the Indians, or in one of those desperate attempts that he meditated against the murderer of his mother. He had carefully hidden from the Canadian the love that he buried in the depths of his heart; and it was in the silence of the night that he dared to look into his own bosom. Then, like the light which shines in the horizon above great cities, and which the traveller contemplates with joy, a radiant and cherished image rose before his eyes in the desert, standing on that breach in the wall of the hacienda, where his last souvenirs carried him. But during the day, the heroic young man tried to hide under an apparent calm, the melancholy that devoured him. He smiled, with sad resignation, at those plans for the future which the Canadian sometimes enlarged on before him--he so happy in having found him, and who trembled to lose again his beloved Fabian, whose hand he hoped would one day close his eyes. The blind tenderness of Bois-Rose did not divine the abyss under the calm surface of the lake, but Pepe was rather more clear-sighted.

"Well," said Pepe, after a long silence, "the inhabitants of Madrid would pay dearly for such a stream of water in the Manzanares; but we have not the less lost a day which might have brought us nearer to the Golden Valley, and from which we cannot now be far distant."

"I allow that," replied Bois-Rose, "but the child," for so he called the vigorous young man before them, "is not so accustomed as we are to long marches, and though sixty leagues in twelve days is not very much for us, it begins to tell on him. But before he has been a year with us, he will be able to walk as far as ourselves."

Pepe could not help smiling at this answer, but the Canadian did not perceive it.

"See," said the Spaniard, pointing to Fabian, "how the poor lad has changed in a few days. For my part, at his age, I should have preferred the glance of a damsel and the Puerta del Sol at Madrid to all the magnificence of the desert. Fatigue alone has not produced this change in him. There is some secret which he does not tell us, but I will penetrate it one of these days," added Pepe mentally.

At these words the Canadian turned his head quickly towards his beloved child, but a smile of joy from Fabian chased away the sudden cloud from the brow of his adoptive father. Fabian indeed smiled; he was dreaming that he was on his knees before Rosarita, listening to the sweet voice of the young girl, who was recounting her anguish during his long absence, and that Bois-Rose stood behind them leaning on his rifle and blessing them both. Ah! it was only a dream.

The two hunters looked for a moment silently at the sleeper.

"There lies the last descendant of the Medianas," said Pepe, with a sigh.

"What care I for the Medianas and their powerful race?" replied the Canadian. "I know but Fabian. When I saved him, and attached myself to him as though he had been my own, did I ask about his ancestors?"

"You will wake him if you talk so loud," said Pepe; "your voice roars like a cataract."

"Why are you always recalling to me things that I do not wish to know, or rather wish to forget. I know that some years in the desert will accustom him--"

"You deceive yourself strangely, Bois-Rose, if you imagine that with the prospects that await him in Spain, and the rights that he can claim, this young man will consent to pa.s.s his whole life in the desert. It is good for us, but not for him."

"What! is not the desert preferable to cities?" cried the old sailor, who vainly tried to conceal from himself that Pepe was right. "I undertake to make him prefer a wandering life to a settled one. Is it not for movement, for fighting, and for the powerful emotions of the desert that man is born?"

"Certainly," said Pepe, gravely, "and that is just why the towns are deserted and the deserts peopled!"