Last of the Incas: A Romance of the Pampas

"Unluckily," Don Valentine interrupted, in order to prevent Don Sylvio answering, "Señor d'Arenal will be unable to accept your kind invitation, for immediately after his marriage he intends to travel with his wife, since that is the fashion nowadays."

"His marriage!" Don Torribio said, with perfectly well-played astonishment.

"Were you ignorant of it?"

"Yes."

"What a careless fellow I am! My happiness makes me lose my head. I am like these two children, but pray excuse me."

"Sir!"

"Certainly; for are you not one of our best friends? we have no secrets from you. Don Sylvio d'Arenal is about to marry my daughter; the match has been arranged for a very long time."

Don Torribio turned pale; a mist passed before his eyes, he felt a deadly agony in his heart, and thought he was going to die. Doña Concha curiously followed his secret thoughts upon his face; but, feeling that all eyes were fixed upon him, the young man made a superhuman effort, and said to the young lady in a soft voice, and without any apparent emotion —

"May you be as happy, señorita, as I wish you. The first wish, people say, is efficacious, so accept mine."

"I thank you, sir," Doña Concha answered, deceived by Don Torribio's accent.

"As for you, Señor d'Arenal, your happiness will make many men jealous; for you are taking away the most precious pearl in the rich casket of the Argentine republic."

"I will strive, señor, to be worthy of her; for I love her so dearly."

"They love one another so dearly," the father said with cruel simplicity.

The young lovers exchanged a glance full of hope and happiness. Neither Don Valentine's last remark, nor the look of the betrothed couple, was left unnoticed by Don Torribio, who though not letting anything be seen, received this double dagger thrust, and concealed his grief beneath a smile.

"By Jove, neighbour," the father continued, "you will be present at the festival of betrothal, and give up your evening to us."

"Impossible, señor; important business calls me to my estancia, and, to my great regret, I must leave you."

"Still, if my daughter joined with me – "

"If I," Don Sylvio said, "dared – "

"You quite confound me; but, on my honour, I must be gone. The sacrifice I make at this moment is the more painful to me," he added, with a sardonic smile, "because happiness generally flies so fast that it is impossible to catch it up, and it is folly to neglect the opportunity."

"I fear no misfortune now," said Doña Concha, looking at Don Sylvio.

Carvajal gave her a look full of indefinable meaning, and replied with a shake of the head.

"I trust you are saying the truth, señorita, but there is a French proverb."

"What is it?"

"'Twixt cup and the lip there's many a slip.'"

"Oh, the ugly proverb!" Conchita exclaimed, in some embarrassment, "but I am not a French woman, and hence have nothing to fear."

"That is true."

And Don Torribio, without adding a word, bowed, and left the room.

"Well, my friend," the estanciero said, "what do you think of that man?"

"He has a look deep as an abyss, and his words are bitter; I know not why, but I feel sure he hates me."

"I hate him too," said Concha, with a shudder.

"Perhaps he loved you, Conchita, for is it possible to see and not love you?"

"Who assures you that he is not meditating a crime?"

"This time, señorita, you are going too far; he is a gentleman."

"¿Quién sabe?" she replied, remembering Don Torribio's words, which had already caused her a shudder.

CHAPTER X.

THE VIRGIN FOREST

On leaving the estancia of San Julian, Don Torribio Carvajal was a prey to one of those cold, concentrated passions, which slowly collect in the mind, and at length burst out with terrible force. His spurs lacerated the sides of his horse, which snorted with pain, and doubled its furious speed.

Where was Don Torribio Carvajal going in this way? He did not know himself. He saw nothing, heard nothing. He revolved sinister plans in his brain, and leaped torrents and ravines without troubling himself about his horse. The feeling of hatred was alone at work within him. Nothing refreshed his burning forehead, his temples beat as if about to burst, and a nervous tremor agitated his whole body. This state of over-excitement lasted some hours, during which his horse devoured space. At length the noble steed, utterly exhausted, stopped on its trembling knees, and fell on the sand.

Don Torribio rose and looked wildly around him. He had required this rude shock to restore a little order to his ideas, and recall him to reality. An hour more of such agony and he would have become a raving lunatic, or have died of an apoplectic fit.

Night had set in, thick darkness covered the landscape, and a mournful silence prevailed in the desert where chance had carried him.

"Where am I?" he said, as he tried to discover his whereabouts.

But the moon, concealed by clouds, shed no light; the wind blew violently; the branches of the trees clashed together, and in the depths of the desert the howling of the wild beasts began to mingle the deep notes of their voices with the hoarse mewlings of the wild cats.

Don Torribio's eyes sought in vain to pierce the obscurity. He went up to his horse, which was lying on the ground and panting heavily; moved with pity for the companion of his adventurous journeys, he bent over it, placed in his waist belt the pistols that were in the holsters, and unfastening a gourd of rum hanging from his saddlebow, began washing the eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouth of the poor beast, whose sides quivered, and which this seemed to restore to life. Half an hour passed in this way; the horse, somewhat refreshed, had got on its legs, and with the instinct that distinguishes the race had discovered a spring close by where it quenched its thirst.

"All is not lost yet," Don Torribio muttered, "and perhaps I shall soon succeed in getting out of this place, for my friends are waiting for me, and I must join them."

But a deep roar broke forth a short distance away, repeated almost immediately from four different quarters. The horse's hair stood on end with terror. Even Don Torribio trembled.

"Malediction!" he exclaimed, "I am at a watering place of the cougars."

At this moment he saw, about ten paces from him, two eyes that shone like live coals, and looked at him with strange fixedness.

Don Torribio was a man of tried courage, audacious, and even rash on occasions; but alone in the gloomy solitude in the midst of the black night, surrounded by ferocious beasts, he felt fear assail himself against his will; he breathed with difficulty; his teeth were clenched, an icy perspiration poured down his whole person, and he was on the point of abandoning himself to his fate. This sudden discouragement disappeared before a powerful will, and Don Torribio, sustained by the instinct of self-preservation, and that hope which springs eternal in the human breast, prepared for an unequal struggle.

The horse burst into a snort of terror, and ran off.

"All the better," its rider thought, "perhaps it will escape."

A frightful concert of howls and roars broke out on all sides at the sound of the horse's flight and huge shadows bounded along past Don Torribio. A violent blast swept the sky, and the moon lit up the desert with its mournful, sickly rays.

Not far off the Rio Negro ran between two scarped banks, and Don Torribio saw all round him the compact masses of a virgin forest, an inextricable chaos of rocks piled up pell-mell, and of fissures out of which clumps of trees grew. Here and there creepers were intertwined describing the wildest curves, and only stopped their ramifications at the river. The soil, composed of sand and that detritus which abounds in American forests, gave way beneath the foot.

Don Torribio now discovered where he was He was more than fifteen leagues from any habitation, on the outskirts of an immense forest, the only one in Patagonia which no ranger had as yet been bold enough to explore, such horror and mystery did its gloomy depths appear to reveal. Near the forest a limpid stream burst through the rocks, whose banks were trampled by numerous traces of the claws of wild beasts. This stream served them, in fact, as a watering place, when they left their dens after sunset, and went in search of food and drink. As a living testimony of this supposition, two magnificent cougars, male and female, were standing on the bank, and watching with anxious eyes the sporting of their cubs.

"Hum," said Don Torribio, "these are dangerous neighbours."

And he mechanically turned his eyes away. A panther, stretched out on a rock in the position of a watchful cat, fixed its inflamed eyes upon him. Torribio, who was well armed according to the American fashion, had a rifle of wondrous accuracy, which he had leant against a rock close to him.

"Good," he said, "it will be a tough fight at any rate."

He raised his gun, but at the moment when he was about to fire, a plaintive mewling made him raise his head. A dozen pajiros and subaracayas (wild cats of great size), perched on branches of trees, were looking down at him, while several red wolves were crouching in front of him.

A number of vultures, urubús, and caracaras, with half-closed eyes, were seated on the surrounding rocks, and apparently awaiting the hour for their meal.

Don Torribio jumped up on a rock, and then, by the help of his hands and knees, gained, after extraordinary difficulties, a sort of natural terrace situated about twenty feet above the ground. The frightful concert formed by the denizens of the forest, whom the subtlety of their scent attracted one after the other, increased more and more, and overpowered the very sound of the wind which raged in the ravines and forest clearings. The moon was once more hidden behind clouds, and Don Torribio found himself again in darkness; but if he could not distinguish the wild beasts near him, he guessed and almost smelt their presence; he saw their eyeballs flashing in the gloom, and heard their roars constantly coming nearer.

He set his feet firmly on the ground, and cocked his revolver. Four shots were followed by four howls of pain, and the noise produced by branch after branch in the fall of the wounded wild cats. This attack aroused a sinister uproar. The red wolves rushed with yells on the victims, for which they contended with the urubús and vultures. A rustling in the leaves reached the ear of the brave hunter, and a mass it was impossible clearly to distinguish cleft the space, and lodged with a roar on the platform. With the butt of his rifle he struck out in the darkness, and the panther, with a broken skull, rolled to the base of the rock. He heard a monstrous battle, which the cougars and wild cats waged with the wounded panther, and intoxicated by his triumph, and even by his danger, he fired two shots into the crowd of obstinate enemies snarling below him. Suddenly all these animals, ceasing their contest as if by common consent, united against the man, their common foe, and their rage was turned against the rock, from the top of which Don Torribio appeared to defy them all. They climbed up the projections. The wild cats were the first to arrive, and fast as Torribio felled them others leaped upon him. He felt his strength and energy gradually diminishing.

This struggle of a single man against a multitude of ferocious brutes had something grand and poignant about it. Don Torribio, as if suffering from a nightmare, struggled in vain against the swarms of assailants that were constantly reinforced. He felt on his face the warm, fetid breath of the wild cats and red wolves, while the roars of the cougars and the mocking miauling of the panthers filled his ears with a frightful melody that gave him a vertigo. Hundreds of eyes sparkled in the shade, and at times the heavy wings of the vultures and urubús lashed his forehead, which was bathed in a cold perspiration.

In him every feeling of self had died out: he no longer thought; his life, so to speak, had become entirely physical; his movements were mechanical, and his arms rose and fell to strike with the rigid regularity of a pendulum.

Already several claws had been buried deep in his flesh. Wild cats had seized him by the throat, and he had been compelled to struggle with them to make them loose their hold; his blood was flowing from twenty wounds, not mortal it is true, but the hour was approaching beyond which human strength cannot go; Don Torribio would have fallen from his rock and perished under the teeth of the wild beasts.

At this solemn moment, when all seemed to desert him, a loud cry burst from his bosom – a cry of agony and despair of undefinable expression, which was echoed far and wide by the rocks. It was the last protest of the strong man who confesses himself vanquished, and who, before falling, calls his fellow man to his aid, or implores the help of Heaven.

He cried, and a cry responded to his!

Don Torribio amazed, and not daring to count on a miracle in a desert which no human being had ever yet penetrated, believed himself under the impression of a dream or an hallucination; still, collecting all his strength, and feeling hope rekindled in his soul, he uttered a second cry, louder and more ear-piercing than the first.

"Courage!"

This time it was not echo that answered him. Courage! That one word reached him on the wings of the wind, though faint as a sigh. Like the giant Antaeus, Don Torribio, drawing himself up, seemed to regain his strength and recover that life which was already slipping from him. He redoubled his blows at his innumerable enemies.

Several horses were galloping in the distance; shots lit up the darkness with their transient gleams, and men, or rather demons, dashed suddenly into the thick of the wild beasts, and produced a fearful carnage.

Suddenly Don Torribio, attacked by two tiger cats, rolled on the platform, struggling with them.

The wild beasts had fled before the newcomers, who hastened to light fires to keep them at bay during the rest of the night. Two of these men, holding lighted torches, began seeking the hunter, whose cries of distress had besought their help. He was lying senseless on the platform, surrounded by ten or a dozen dead wild cats, and holding in his stiffened fingers the neck of a strangled pajiro.

"Well, Pepe," a voice said, "have you found him?"

"Yes," was the reply; "but he appears to be dead."

"Caray! That would be a pity," Pedrito continued, "for he is a fine fellow. Where is he?

"On this rock."

"Can you bring him down with the help of Lopez?"

"Nothing easier."

"Make haste, in Heaven's name!" Pedrito said. "Each minute's delay is, perhaps, a year's life slipping from him."

Lopez and Pepe raised Don Torribio by the head and feet, and with infinite precautions transported him from the improvised fortress where he had so long fought, and laid him on a bed of leaves Juan had got ready near one of the fires.

"Canario!" Pedrito exclaimed, on seeing the gory man's miserable appearance; "Poor devil! How they have served him out! It was high time to help him."

"Do you think he will recover?" Lopez asked eagerly.

"There is always hope," Pedrito answered sententiously, "where life is not extinct. Let us have a look at him."

He bent over Don Torribio's body, drew his glistening knife, and placed the blade between his lips.

"Not the slightest breath," Pedrito said, shaking his head.

"Are his wounds serious?" Lopez asked.

"I do not think so. He has been worn out by fatigue and emotion, but he will soon open his eyes again, and in a quarter of an hour, if he think proper, he can get into the saddle again. It is surely he," Pedrito added, in a low voice.

"Whence comes your thoughtful air, brother?"

"It is because this man, in spite of his European dress and thorough appearance of a white, resembles – "

"Whom?"

"The Indian chief, with whom we fought at the tree of Gualichu, and to whom we owe Mercedes' safety."

"You must be mistaken."

"Not the least in the world, brothers," the eldest replied authoritatively. "When hidden in the trunk of the sacred tree, I had leisure to study his features, which have remained graven on my mind. Besides, I recognize him by this gash which I made on his face with my sabre."

"That is true," the others said in surprise.

"What is to be done?"

"What is the meaning of this disguise?"

"Heaven alone knows," Pedrito answered, "but he must be saved."

The bomberos, like all wood rangers living far from the colony, are obliged to cure their own wounds, and hence acquire a certain practical knowledge of medicine through employing the remedies and simples in use among the Indians.

Pedrito, assisted by Pepe and Juan, washed Don Torribio's wounds with rum and water, moistened his temples, and puffed tobacco smoke up his nostrils. The young man gave an almost insensible sigh, stirred slightly, and opened his eyes, which wandered round vacantly.

"He is saved!" said Pedrito; "Now leave Nature to act, for she is the best physician I know."

Don Torribio raised himself on an elbow, passed his hand over his forehead, as if to regain his memory and thought, and said, in a weak voice —

"Who are you?"

"Friends, sir – fear nothing."

"I feel as if every bone in my body were broken."

"There is no danger, sir; with the exception of the fatigue, you are well as we are."

"I hope so, my worthy friends; but by what miracle did you arrive in time to save me?"

"Your horse performed this miracle; had it not, you were lost."

"How so?" Torribio asked, his voice growing gradually stronger, and already able to rise.

"This is how it was – we are bomberos – " The young man gave a sort of nervous start, which he suddenly checked.

"We are bomberos, and watch the Indians, especially at night. Accident brought us to these parts. Your horse was flying with a pack of red wolves at its heels; we freed it from these brutes; then, as it seemed to us probable that a ready saddled horse could not be without an owner in this forest, where no one ventures, we set out in search of the rider. Your cry guided us."

"How can I pay my debt to you?" Torribio asked, offering his hand to Pedrito.

"You owe us nothing, sir."

"Why?"

"Here is your horse, caballero."

"But I should like to see you again," he said, before starting.

"It is unnecessary; you owe us nothing, I tell you," said Pedrito, who held the horse by the bridle.

"What do you mean?" Don Torribio insisted.

"The bombero," Pedrito replied, "has paid today the debt contracted yesterday with Nocobotha the Ulmen of the Aucas."

Don Torribio's face was covered with a deadly pallor.

"We are quits, chief," Pedrito continued, as he let go the bridle.

When the rider had disappeared in the darkness, Pedrito turned to his brothers —

"I know not why it is," he said, with a sigh of relief, "but I feel happy at owing nothing to that man."

CHAPTER XI.

THE CHASE OF THE ÑANDUS

At the Estancia of San Julian, the hours passed away pleasantly, in talking and dreams of happiness, and Don Valentine shared the joy of his two children. Don Torribio, since the official announcement of Doña Concha's marriage, had not been seen again either at San Julian or Carmen, to the great amazement of everybody. Mercedes, gentle and simple, had become the friend, almost the sister of Concha. The frank and pealing laugh of the girls cheered the echoes of the house, and caused the capataz to grow pensive, for, at the sight of the bomberos' sister, he had felt his heart turn towards her, like the heliotrope to the sun. Don Blas, resembling a soul in purgatory, prowled round Mercedes at a distance, to look at her unperceived. Everybody at the estancia had observed the worthy man's distress, and he alone, in spite of his heavy sighs, did not know what it all meant. They ventured to ridicule him, though without wounding his feelings, and laugh at his singular ways.

One fresh November morning, shortly after sunrise, there was a great commotion at the estancia of San Julian. Several horses, held by black slaves, were stamping impatiently at the foot of the steps; servants were running backwards and forwards; and Don Blas, dressed in his best clothes, was awaiting his master's arrival.

At length Don Valentine and Don Sylvio appeared, accompanied by the two ladies. At the sight of Mercedes, the capataz felt fire rise from his heart to his face; he drew himself up, curled his moustache cordially, and gave his well-beloved a tender and respectful glance.

"Good day, Blas, my friend," Don Valentine said to him cordially. "I fancy we shall have a fine day's sport."

"I think so too, Excellency; the weather is superb."

"Have you chosen quiet horses for my daughter and her companion?"

"Oh, Excellency," the capataz answered; "I lassoed them myself on the corral. I answer for them, or my head. They are real ladies' horses – lambs."

"We are easy in mind," said Doña Concha, "for we know that Don Blas spoils us."

"Come, to horse, and let us start."

"Yes, it is a long ride from here to the plain of the Ñandus (a species of the ostrich)," said Blas, with an affectionate glance at Mercedes.

The little party, composed of twenty well-armed men, proceeded to the battery, where Patito lowered the drawbridge.

"You must double your vigilance," the capataz said to the gaucho.

"Don't be alarmed, Señor Blas. Good luck to you and the honourable company," Patito added, waving his hat in the air.

"Raise the drawbridge, Patito."

"Anyone who gets into the estancia, capataz, will be sharper than you and I."

In Patagonia, at a short distance from the rivers, all the plains are alike; sand, ever sand, and here and there some stunted bushes. Such was the road to the plain of the Ñandus.

Don Valentine had invited his future son-in-law to an ostrich hunt, and, as may be supposed, Conchita wished to be of the party.

Ostrich hunting is one of the great amusements of the Spaniards in Patagonia and the Argentine Republic, where those birds are found in great numbers.

The ostriches usually live in small families of eight or ten, scattered along the edges of marches, pools, and lakes; and they feed on fresh grass. Faithful to the native nook, they never leave the vicinity of the water, and, in the month of November, they lay their eggs, which are frequently fifty to sixty in number, in the wildest part of the desert, and only sit on them at night. When incubation is over, the bird breaks with its beak the addled eggs, which are at once covered with flies and insects, that serve as food for the young.

A characteristic feature of the manners of the ostriches is their extreme curiosity. At the estancias, where they live in a domestic state, it is not uncommon to see them stalking about among the groups and looking at people who are conversing together. On the plains their curiosity is often fatal to them, for they come up without hesitation to investigate everything that appears to them strange. Here is a rather good Indian story referring to this. The cougars lie down on the ground, raise their tail in the air, and wave it in all directions. The ostriches, attracted by the sight of this strange object, come up in their simplicity; the rest can be guessed – they become victims to the tricks of the cougars.

The hunters, after a rather quick ride for nearly two hours, reached the plain of the Ñandus. The ladies dismounted on the bank of a stream and four men, with their rifles on their hips, remained with them. The hunters exchanged their horses for others black slaves had led by the bridle for them, and then divided into two equal bands. The first, commanded by Don Valentine, entered the plain, forming a semicircle, so as to drive the game into a ravine, situated between two sand ridges. The second band, having at its head the hero of the day, Don Sylvio, formed a long line, which constituted the other moiety of the circle. This circle was gradually contracted by the advance of the horsemen, when a dozen ostriches showed themselves; but the male bird, that stood as sentry, warned the family of its danger, by a cry sharp as a boatswain's whistle. The ostriches fled rapidly, in a straight line, and without looking back.