Stoneheart: A Romance

"Why should you press so grave a matter at such a moment, Don Torribio?" was her answer "Are you not sure of me?"

Don Torribio Quiroga frowned. "Always the same reply," he said. "Child, you are playing with the lion! If I had not been your shield these ten days past, you would have been slain ere now. Do you fancy me ignorant of your petty machinations, or ensnared by your childish calculations? You are playing for life or death, silly one; you are caught yourself in the net you spread for me. You are in my power! It is for me to dictate my conditions. Tomorrow you will espouse me; the heads of your father and of Don Fernando shall answer for your compliance!" Seizing a crystal vase of water, he filled his glass, and emptied it at a draught; while Doña Hermosa gazed at him with a strange expression in her eyes. "In an hour," said he, dashing the glass to pieces on the table, "you will attend the ceremony. You shall be beside me. I will it so!"

"I will be there!" she said quietly.

"Farewell!" he exclaimed, in a husky voice; and, casting another glance at her, he left the room. The girl rose hastily, seized the vase, and emptied its contents, murmuring: "Don Torribio! Don Torribio! thou hast thyself told me, that between cup and lip stood death!"

"Now for the finishing stroke!" said Don Pedro

At a sign from his daughter, he went out upon the terrace, and placed two stands, filled with flowers, close to the balustrade. This appeared to be a signal; for they had hardly been moved a minute, when Manuela hastily entered the room, saying, "He is here!"

"Let him come!" said Don Pedro and his daughter.

Don Estevan made his appearance.

The hacendero, having charged Manuela to be on the watch, carefully closed the doors, seated himself close to the mayor domo, and said in a whisper, "What news have you brought, Estevan?"

The grand square of the pueblo presented an unusual spectacle that day; a large stage, covered with a crimson velvet carpet, had been erected in the centre. On the stage stood a mahogany butaca; another armchair, lower and less decorated, was placed on the right, and several forms were arranged in a semicircle behind the two seats.

At twelve o'clock precisely, when the sun at its zenith was pouring down its vertical rays, five shots, fired from a gun at regular intervals, thundered through the pueblo. Instantly the different Apache tribes, constituting the Tigercat's army, debouched by the several approaches to the square, headed by the principal sachems in their robes of ceremony.

These warriors were few in number, forming an effective force of fifteen hundred men; for, according to Indian custom, the booty, immediately after the fall of the presidio, had been sent under a strong escort to the villages, and the greater number of the redskins had dispersed, to return to their atepelts. Those who stayed behind were tried and faithful braves, devoted heart and soul to the Tigercat. The latter, after the total defeat of the Mexicans, deemed it useless to retain a larger force about him, particularly as the first signal would bring back the others to his standard.

As fast as the tribes reached the square, they ranged themselves in good order on three of its sides, leaving the fourth open, which was presently occupied by a body of two hundred vaqueros, who, like the redskins, halted motionless on the spot assigned to them – with this difference: that the Indians were on foot, and without arms, except the machetes at their girdles; while the vaqueros were mounted, and armed to the teeth.

A very few lookers-on, English, French, or Germans, who had remained in the town after its occupation, showed their pale and frightened faces at the windows of the houses in the square. Indian women, huddled together in disorder behind the warriors, stretched their heads inquisitively over the shoulders of the latter, in order to catch a glimpse of the proceedings. The centre of the square remained void.

In front of the stage, and at the foot of a rude altar, shaped like a table, with a deep groove in it, and surmounted by an image of the sun, stood the great amantzin of the Apaches, surrounded by five sorcerers of inferior grade. All had their arms crossed on their breasts, and their eyes cast on the ground.

When everyone had fallen into his place, five more guns were fired. Then a brilliant cavalcade came curveting into the square. At its head rode the Tigercat, with haughty air and fiery eye, holding in his hand the totem, and having on his right Don Torribio, who carried the sacred calumet. Behind followed Don Pedro, his daughter, and several of the principal townspeople.

The Tigercat dismounted, ascended the stage, and placed himself in front of the principal seat, but did not sit down. Don Torribio, having assisted Doña Hermosa from her horse, took his place before the second chair. The features of the former, usually so pale, were now inflamed, and his hollow eyes seemed red with incessant vigils. He ceaselessly wiped the moisture from his brow, and appeared a prey to agitating emotions, which would break forth in spite of his efforts to control them.

Doña Hermosa had placed herself behind her father, at a short distance from the stage. She, too, seemed to suffer from secret agitation. She was pale, her lips were contracted, and occasionally a nervous tremor made her limbs tremble, and a feverish flush passed over her face, which, however, soon resumed its former pallor. She kept her eyes resolutely fixed on Don Torribio.

The Apache sachems grouped themselves at the foot of the platform, which they surrounded completely.

A third time the cannon roared. Then the sorcerers stepped to one side, disclosing to the view a man firmly bound, who lay on the ground in the midst of them.

The amantzin addressed the multitude: "Listen to me, all you who hear me. You know why we are here assembled: our great father, the Sun, has smiled at our success. The Wacondah has fought on our side, according to the promise of our illustrious chief. This atepelt is now ours. The chief elected by ourselves to command and defend us is the Tigercat. In his name and our own we now offer to the Master of life the sacrifice most agreeable to him, in order that he may still continue his almighty protection. Sorcerers, bring hither the victim!"

The amantzins seized the unhappy wretch they guarded, and laid him upon the altar. He was a Mexican, taken prisoner at the capture of the old presidio. The pulquero, in whose house one of the first scenes of this story was laid, had, from avarice, refused to quit his miserable pulquería, and had fallen into the hands of the redskins.

In the meantime, Don Torribio felt his strength gradually deserting him. His eyes grew more bloodshot, his ears were stunned, his temples throbbed violently, and he was obliged to support himself by one of the arms of his seat.

"What ails you?" said Doña Hermosa.

"I know not," he replied; "the heat – agitation, perhaps: I am choking. But it is nothing."

The pulquero, extended on the altar, had been stripped of his garments. The wretch uttered shouts of terror. The amantzin approached him, brandishing his knife.

"It is horrible," cried Doña Hermosa, hiding her face in her hands.

"Silence!" said Don Torribio; "the sacrifice must be completed."

The sorcerer, heedless of the cries of the victim coolly examined him to find the right place for the blow; while the miserable prisoner, with eyes unnaturally distended, gazed at him with an expression of fear impossible to describe. Suddenly the amantzin raised the knife, and, thrusting it into the chest of his victim, laid it open the whole length of the ribs. The wretched man uttered a horrible cry. Then the sorcerer plunged his hand into the gaping breast of the victim, and tore out the palpitating heart; while his assistants carefully collected the blood that was flowing in torrents. The sufferer writhed in agony, still making superhuman efforts to break his bonds.

While this was doing, the sachems in a body ascended the stage, and seating the Tigercat on the butaca, raised him on their shoulders, shouting enthusiastically "Long live the conqueror of the palefaces, the great sachem of the Apaches!"

The sorcerers meanwhile sprinkled the crowd with the blood of the sacrifice; and the redskins, frenzied with excitement, rent the air with deafening clamour.

"At last," said the Tigercat proudly, "I have kept my promise: I have driven the palefaces from this country for ever."

"Not yet," exclaimed Don Pedro, in cutting tones; "look hither."

A sudden change had indeed come over the scene. The vaqueros, up to this time impassive spectators, suddenly charged, the unarmed Indians: Mexican troops fell upon them from all the entrances to the square: and all the windows were manned by whites armed with muskets, who poured down a pitiless fire on the redskins.

In the centre of the square were Don Fernando Carril, Luciano Pedralva, and Don Estevan, who mercilessly rode in upon the Indians, shouting: "Down with them! Down with them! Slay! Slay!"

"¡Caray!" exclaimed Don Torribio, waving the totem; "What horrible treachery is this?" He rushed forward to fly to the side of the redskins; but he tottered – a dark veil obstructed his sight – and he sank on his knees. "God!" cried he, "What has happened to me?"

"You are dying," whispered Don Estevan in his ear; "that is what is happening." And he seized him fiercely by the arm.

"You lie, dog!" said Don Torribio, trying to release himself. "I will go and help my brothers."

"Your brothers are slain, as you intended to have slain tomorrow Don Pedro, Doña Hermosa, Don Fernando, and myself. Die, wretch, with rage at seeing your treachery meet its reward! I have given you leche de palio4 to drink; you are poisoned."

"Ah!" said he despairingly, and dragging himself on his knees to the edge of the platform; "Woe to me; woe; God is just."

In the square the Mexicans were making a horrible carnage. "Remember Don José de Kalbris," they cried; "revenge Major Barnum!"

It was no battle; it was a fearful butchery. Several of the chiefs, flying before Don Fernando, Luciano, and Don Estevan, threw themselves upon the stage as a last place of refuge.

"Ha!" shouted Don Torribio, with a bound like a jaguar, seizing Don Fernando by the throat; "At least I shall not die unavenged." A moment of terrible anxiety ensued. "No," he continued, quitting his grasp on his foe, and falling backwards, "it would be the act of a coward. My life belongs to this man; he won it from me."

The bystanders could not repress a cry of admiration. Don Fernando coolly raised his rifle to his shoulder, and discharged its contents point-blank into the breast of the man stretched at his feet.

"Thus perish all traitors!" he cried.

"Great God!" freely exclaimed Don Torribio, by a supreme effort rising to his knees, and looking up to heaven with an expression of sublime hope irradiating his features, – "Great God, I thank Thee! Thou hast forgiven me!" One last smile of unutterable happiness glided over his face; he fell back and expired.

Meanwhile Doña Hermosa had disappeared. When the Tigercat, who had been fighting like a lion in the midst of the fray, perceived that all was lost, and nothing but flight could save him from the fate to which the Mexicans had doomed him, should he fall into their hands, he rallied around him a handful of his bravest warriors, seized Doña Hermosa, regardless of her cries and prayers, threw her across his saddle, spurred his horse into the thickest of the mêlée, cut his passage through, and, followed by his faithful braves, succeeded in getting out of the town and gaining the prairie.

It was too late for pursuit when the Mexicans became aware of his flight; the old freebooter was already beyond their reach, carrying his prey with him, like an eagle bearing a lamb in his talons.

CHAPTER XV.

ONE MONTH LATER

It was about four o'clock in the afternoon. The rays of the sun, falling more and more obliquely, were gradually lengthening the shadows of the trees; the birds were flying to their roosts, and nestling as they could under the foliage, with deafening cries and pipings. A few bands of prairie wolves were showing themselves here and there, snuffing the breeze, and preparing for their nocturnal chase among the tall grasses. At intervals, the lofty antlers of elks and antelopes were suddenly rising from amidst the herbage, the animals quickly throwing back their heads, and commencing a giddy flight into the distance. The sun, close on the verge of the horizon, looked like a globe of red fire behind the trunks of the stately trees. Everything announced the rapid approach of night.

In the virgin forest, about two hundred miles from the presidio of San Lucar, where the last terrible episodes of our story occurred, and in the centre of a vast clearing, two men, habited like the Mexican gambucinos, were sitting on buffalo skulls, beside a clear fire which gave forth no smoke. They were Don Estevan Diaz the mayor domo, and Luciano Pedralva the capataz. They held their rifles across their knees, ready for an emergency, and smoked their maize pajillos in silence. Several peones and arrieros were lying about a few paces off, and baggage mules were greedily munching the rations of Indian corn laid on mats before them. Eight or ten horses were tethered, to prevent their straying, close to a jacal (hut) of branches, the entrance to which was closed with a zarapé. A peon, standing motionless with cocked rifle on the borders of a little brook which meandered round the extremity of the clearing, watched over the common safety.

It was easy to perceive, from the fragments of all sorts which littered the ground, whence every vestige of grass had disappeared, and from the quarters of venison suspended from the boughs of a mahogany tree, that the encampment we have described was not one of those temporary resting places which the backwoodsmen choose for a night and quit at sunrise, but one of those more substantial camps which the hunters often establish as places of rendezvous for the trapping season.

The zarapé at the entrance to the jacal was lifted, and Don Pedro made his appearance on the scene. His features were pale, his expression was sad and pensive. He looked carefully around, went up to the two men seated by the fire, and spoke: "No news as yet?"

"None whatever," replied Don Estevan.

"This absence is incomprehensible; Don Fernando has never before stayed away from us so long."

"True," said the capataz; "it is more than thirty hours since he left us. Pray God, no misfortune may have happened."

"No," answered Don Estevan; "Don Fernando is too well acquainted with the desert to incur much danger."

"But think whereabouts we are," put in Don Pedro; "the country round about is infested by the most dangerous serpents; wild beasts swarm in every place."

"What does that matter, Don Pedro?" boldly answered Don Estevan; "You forget that Don Fernando and Stoneheart are one and the same; that in this region the greater part of his life was spent; that it is here, for long years, he was a bee-hunter, and gathered the cascarilla bark."

"But how do you explain his protracted absence?"

"You recollect, Don Pedro, with what disinterestedness our friend offered us his cooperation when, in despair at the sudden disappearance of Doña Hermosa, mad with grief, and impotent to act, we knew not what step to take to recover the lost one. We have been led from the presidio to this spot, following a trail invisible to all eyes save Don Fernando's, who, accustomed to reap the sublime lines of the wilderness, recognised it with singular ease and exactitude. The trail has suddenly vanished here – vanished in spite of the most minute and patient research. We have been eight days encamped in this place; and every morning, at sunrise, Don Fernando – whom obstacles seem to excite, rather than subdue – mounts and begins his search afresh. Hitherto his labour has been in vain. Yesterday he left us, as usual, at daybreak. Well, suppose the reason of his protracted absence, which makes you so restless, should be the finding, at some spot leagues away perchance, the signs we have sought for so long and unavailing?"

"God grant it, my good friend! Your idea glads my heart. But what traces could we find, after the painful exertions we have already made?"

"You forget, Don Pedro, that we have to deal with the Apaches, the most astute savages in the wilderness, the most acute of all the redskins in hiding their trail."

"Holloa!" exclaimed the capataz; "I hear the tread of a horse."

"Is it possible?" said Don Pedro joyfully.

"Yes," said Don Estevan; "I, too, hear a noise, but it is not the sound of one horse; there are two or three."

"Yet Don Fernando left the camp alone."

"He has probably encountered someone on the road," replied Don Estevan, laughing.

"You are wrong to joke with us in our circumstances; it is almost an insult to my sorrow."

"Heaven preserve me from such an intention, Don Pedro! The sound is coming nearer. We shall soon see what we have to do. I should not be at all surprised if Don Fernando has laid hands upon some Indian marauder, at the very moment when, concealed by the underwood, he was watching our camp, and spying out our movements."

"¡Canarios! It is he himself!" cried the capataz.

In fact, the clear and sonorous voice of Don Fernando replied to the challenge of the sentry, and two horsemen pushed through the thick underwood which surrounded the clearing and formed a kind of natural rampart.

Don Fernando brought with him a man whom he had firmly bound to a horse to prevent his escape. As to the prisoner, he seemed to bear his capture lightly. He swayed himself comfortably in his saddle, comported himself with an air of assurance, and looked altogether as impudent as possible. On reaching the fire, where our personages were assembled, he saluted them with a grimace, unabashed by the looks of the standers-by.

He was no other than our friend Tonillo el Zapote, whom we have presented to our readers on several occasions.

Don Fernando was very warmly and heartily greeted. His friends burnt with impatience to question him; and their curiosity was the more excited, as the frank and almost joyful expression of his features led them to suppose he was the bearer of good news. Don Fernando dismounted, embraced his friends, and unbuckled the girth which strapped the prisoner's legs under the belly of his horse, thus giving him the use of his limbs.

"Good," said the vaquero, "many thanks, Don Fernando. I have had quite enough of it. My legs are tingling as if a million of pins were stuck in them." He sprang to the ground; but he had spoken truly; his benumbed limbs could not support the weight of his body, and he fell heavily. The capataz hastened to raise him. "It is a mere nothing," said the vaquero, honouring him with a gracious smile; "yet I thank you, caballero. In five minutes the circulation will be restored, and no harm done. But if it is the same to you, Don Fernando, pray do not pull the buckle so tight another time."

"It will depend upon yourself, Zapote. Swear you will make no attempt at escape, and I will set you free."

"If that is all," cried the vaquero, gaily, "we shall soon strike a bargain. I swear, by all my hopes of Paradise, not to slip away."

"Enough! I will trust you."

"An honest man sticks to his word," answered El Zapote; "you will have no cause of complaint against me. I am the bond-slave of my word."

"It will be all the better for you if that is the truth. But I am doubtful about it, particularly after your late conduct towards me, in spite of the protestations and offers of service you made me."

The vaquero showed no signs of embarrassment at this straightforward thrust. "Men endowed with certain good qualities are sure to be misunderstood," he replied in a wheedling tone; "I never broke the promise I made you."

"Not when, after introducing Indians and other rascals of your own kind into the presidio, you laid an infamous snare for me, and led me into an ambuscade?"

"Yes, Señor Don Fernando; I was faithful even under the circumstances you mention."

"¡Rayo de Dios!" impatiently exclaimed the latter; "I should be glad to learn how you can prove your fidelity there."

"Good Heavens, señor! I was faithful after my own fashion."

This answer was so extraordinary and unexpected, that the bystanders could not refrain from laughing. El Zapote bowed gravely, with the proud humility common to men of doubtful talent, who in their inmost soul consider themselves unappreciated geniuses.

"After all," said Don Fernando, carelessly shrugging his shoulders, "we shall soon see. I know pretty well the extent of this elastic fidelity."

El Zapote returned no answer; he merely raised his eyes to heaven, as if to invoke it as a witness of the injustice done to him, and crossed his arms on his breast.

"Before telling you anything, let me have something to eat," said Don Fernando, "I am fainting from inanition; I have neither eaten or drank since I left the camp."

Don Estevan hastened to place provisions before him, to which he and his prisoner did great honour. However, the meal was short. Don Fernando's appetite was soon appeased; he gave a sigh of satisfaction, after slaking his thirst in the limpid brook, came and sat down beside the others, and, without putting their curiosity to further torture, began to explain the causes of his prolonged absence in all their details. Don Estevan had judged correctly; Don Fernando had really discovered the trail so long fruitlessly sought for. The trail took a south-west direction, towards the most unexplored regions of the Far West. He had followed it with a trapper's indomitable patience for several hours, in order to be well assured that it was the true trail, and not an Indian artifice to turn his steps astray.

The redskins, when they fear pursuit, and cannot hide their trail, entangle so skilfully the many tracks they purposely make, and throw them all into such hopeless confusion, that it is generally impossible to distinguish the right one. On this occasion they had used a similar artifice with such dexterity and success, that they would have managed to outwit and lead astray any hunter less adroit than Stoneheart. But he, accustomed from childhood to their wiles, did not suffer himself to be hoodwinked, particularly as he thought he had recognised some peculiar signs, which would have escaped the observation of a less experienced woodman. Don Fernando, delighted with his discovery, had rapidly commenced his return to the camp, without neglecting any of the prudential measures requisite in a country where every bush may conceal a foe, when it struck him that the grass in a certain spot was waving in a manner not wholly natural. He dropped quietly from his horse, and, without other arms than the knife he carried in an iron ring at his girdle, and a pistol, crept towards the suspected spot, crawling on hands and knees with the speed and silence of a snake gliding through grass.

After a quarter of an hour's work, he reached the place, and with difficulty repressed a cry of joy on seeing El Zapote comfortably seated on the ground, the bridle of his horse passed over his left arm, and finishing a copious meal.

Don Fernando drew a few paces nearer, in order to be sure of his man; then, having carefully measured the distance, with a spring like a jaguar he seized the vaquero by the throat, and had him bound beyond the possibility of resistance before El Zapote had recovered from his astonishment. "Aha!" said he, seating himself beside his prisoner, "what a singular chance! How are you, Zapote?"

"You are very kind, caballero; I cough a little." And he put his hand to his threat.

"Poor fellow! I hope it is of no consequence."

"I hope, too, that no evil consequences may ensue, señor; nevertheless, I am not quite easy about it."