The Adventurers

"Oh, that is frightful!" cried Doña Rosario.

"Why so? as he had married her, morality was satisfied, in the eyes of the world. This woman was pure, and could thenceforward move with head erect before the crowd which had hailed her fall with laughter and contempt. But everything passes away in this world, and most quickly of all, the love of the most passionate man. Only a year after marriage this woman, alone in the most retired room of her dwelling, wept over the remembrance of the happiness which had left her for ever. Her husband had deserted her! A child born of this union, a little fair girl, a rosy-lipped cherub, whose eyes reflected the azure of the heavens, was the sole consolation which in her misfortunes was left to the poor abandoned mother. One night, when she was plunged in sleep, her husband stole like a thief into her house, seized the child, in spite of the cries of the desolate mother, who threw herself in tears at his feet, and implored him by all he held sacred in the world. After roughly repulsing the despairing mother, who sank dying on the cold slabs of the floor, this heartless and pitiless man disappeared with the child."

"And the mother?" Doña Rosario anxiously asked, much affected by the story which the Linda told, entirely to her own advantage.

"The mother," she continued, in a low, broken voice, "the mother was doomed never to see her child again. She never has seen her! Prayers, threats, everything in turn, have been employed without success. And now, this mother, who adores her child, and would sacrifice her life for her, – this mother has vowed a hatred against this man, whom she so fondly loved, and who showed no pity to her, which no vengeance can satisfy! Now, then, young girl, do you know the name of this mother? Say, do you know it? No, you do not? Well, then, I am this mother! and the man who ravished from her all her happiness – the man whom she hates as she does the demon whose heart he bears, is Don Tadeo de Leon!"

"Don Tadeo!" Rosario cried, starting back with surprise.

"Yes!" the Linda said, furiously; "yes, Don Tadeo, your lover!"

The maiden sprang towards Doña Maria, and seizing her arm violently, and placing her face, inflamed with anger, close to that of the courtezan, who was stupefied at the energy she could not have expected from this delicate creature, cried indignantly, —

"What have you dared to say, madam? Don Tadeo my lover! It is false, madam!"

"Can this be true?" the Linda asked, eagerly. "Can I have been so grossly mistaken? But then," she added, mistrustfully, "who are you? and by what title does he keep you always with him?"

"I will tell you who I am, madam!" Rosario replied, proudly.

All at once the hasty gallop of several horses was heard from without, mingled with cries and oaths.

"What can the matter be?" said Doña Maria, turning pale.

"Oh!" said Doña Rosario, clasping her hands fervently; "oh, my God! are you sending me liberators?"

"You are not free yet," the Linda said, with a bitter smile.

The tumult increased greatly; the door, violently pushed from without, flew open, and several men rushed into the room.

CHAPTER XXXV

THE REVOLT

The multiplicity of the scenes we have to describe, and the exigencies of our story, compel us to abandon Doña Rosario and the Linda, and return to Valdivia, where the revolt had assumed the gigantic proportions of a revolution. Electrified by the heroic conduct of the King of Darkness, the patriots fought with the greatest obstinacy. The Dark-Hearts appeared to have the gift of ubiquity; their numbers increased, they were everywhere at the head of the insurgents, exciting them by gesture and voice; but, above all, by their example. The city was completely cut up by barricades, against which the few troops who remained faithful to General Bustamente struggled in vain. Beaten back by the enemies who on all sides rose up against them to the thousand times repeated cries of "Our country!" "Chili Liberty!" the soldiers retreated, step by step, abandoning, one after another, the different posts of which they had been in possession at the commencement of the action, and rallied upon the Plaza Mayor, the outlets of which they had barricaded in their turn.

The city was in the power of the insurgents; for as the battle from this moment was concentrated at one point, it was not difficult to foresee with which party the victory would remain; for the soldiers, discouraged by the ill success of their coup de main, and sensible of being the champions of a lost cause, only fought to obtain honourable conditions. General Bustamente's officers, and the senators whom he had brought with him as partizans, trembled when thinking of the fate that awaited them if they fell into the hands of their enemies. Success justifies everything: from the moment they failed to succeed they became traitors to their country, and, as such, had no right to a capitulation. They therefore excited their soldiers to fight valiantly, promising them speedy assistance, and trying to revive their courage by telling them that their adversaries were merely citizens, whom they could easily overcome if they made a bold attempt, or even resisted for an hour longer.

The general who commanded the garrison, and whom we saw upon the steps of the cabildo read with so much arrogance the decree which changed the form of government, bit his lips with rage and performed prodigies of valour, to give Bustamente time to arrive. As soon as he saw the turn things had taken, he sent off an express for the General with the utmost promptitude. This express was Diego, the old soldier who was so devoted to General Bustamente.

"Lieutenant," he said, in conclusion, "you see in what a position we are; you must reach the General at all risks."

"I will reach him, General; be at ease on that head!" Diego replied, intrepidly.

"And I will endeavour to hold out till your return."

Don Diego, before he finished speaking, had ridden desperately at the ranks of the insurgents, spurring on his horse, and waving his sword with menacing rapidity round his head. The Dark-Hearts, astonished by such an attack on the part of a single man, at the first moment unconsciously opened their ranks before him as to a canister shot, incapable of resisting the impetuous shock of this apparently invulnerable demon, who mowed down all that came in his way. Diego skilfully took advantage of the disorder produced on the enemy by his furious assault; he kept pushing on, and, after incredible efforts, succeeded in getting out of the city. As soon as he was in safety, the overexcitement which till that time had sustained him, suddenly sank, and at a few paces from the gates he was forced to stop to take breath, and restore his confused ideas to a little order. The old soldier washed the sides and nostrils of his horse with a little brandy and water; and as soon as this duty was performed, aware that the fate of his companions depended upon his speed, he sprang into his saddle and set off with the fleetness of an arrow.

The General did not delay his return to Valdivia a minute, for he felt that success would be an immense advantage to him; and a check, if he were beaten, irreparable. As a conqueror, his march to Santiago would be nothing but a triumphant march; the authorities of the cities he passed through would rival each other in ranging themselves beneath his standard; whereas, if he were forced to abandon Valdivia as a fugitive, he would be tracked like a wild beast, and obliged to seek safety in a prompt flight, either in Bolivia or Buenos Aires, and the projects he had nourished so long, and of which he believed he had beforehand assured the success, would be deferred, or perhaps destroyed for ever. Thus the General was a prey to one of those cold furies, which are so much more terrible, because they cannot be exhibited outwardly.

The horsemen advanced amidst a cloud of dust raised by their precipitate course, rushing along the road like a whirlwind, and with a noise like thunder. Two lances' length in advance of the soldiers, Don Pancho, bending over the neck of his horse, with pale brow and clenched teeth, galloped at full speed, keeping his eyes fixed upon the lofty steeples of Valdivia, whose dark shadows became more enlarged on the horizon every minute. Within half a mile of the city he halted his squadron. The sharp pattering of musketry resounded strongly, mingled at intervals with the dismal, rolling bass of cannon; the battle, therefore, must still be going on. The General hastened to make his last preparations before attempting an attack he hoped would prove decisive. The foot soldiers dismounted, and formed in platoons, and firearms of all kinds were loaded.

The troops brought up by the General were not numerous from the European point of view, according to which we are accustomed to see great masses in conflict; they, at most, did not exceed eight hundred men. In Europe it is customary to say that victory is most likely to attend large battalions: in America, where the largest armies are frequently of not more than three thousand men, this idea becomes naturally modified, and it is generally the most skilful or the most brave man who remains master of the field of battle.

Don Pancho was a rough soldier, accustomed to the struggles of civil wars, which, for the most part, consist of audacious coups de main. Endowed with courage bordering on rashness, and devoured by ambition, he prepared, with the greatest coolness, to re-establish his compromised affairs by an irresistible attack. The country in the neighbourhood of Valdivia is a real English garden, interspersed with thickets, apple orchards, copses, and slender streams of water rippling away to the river. It was very easy for the General to conceal his arrival. Two soldiers were detached as scouts, in order to learn the state of things. At the expiration of a few minutes they returned. The outskirts of the city were deserted, the insurgents had driven the troops back into the centre, and, according to the scouts, with the imprudence of citizens metamorphosed suddenly into soldiers, they had left no reserve, or even placed sentinels, to secure their rear against a surprise.

This information, instead of restoring confidence to the General, made him knit his brows; he thought it must be a manoeuvre, and whilst his officers were laughing with all their might at the able tactics of the insurgents, he judged it necessary to redouble his precautions. The troops were divided into two bodies, which, in case of need, were to support each other; and, as they were attacking a city entirely barricaded, the lancers were ordered to dismount, and reinforce the infantry. Only one squadron of a hundred horsemen remained in the saddle, concealed about a quarter of a mile from the place, in order to support a retreat, or to put the fugitives to the sword, if the surprise succeeded. These arrangements made, the General made an earnest address to his soldiers, to whom he promised, in the event of success, the pillage of the city. He then placed himself at the head of the first detachment, and gave the order, "March! Forward!"

The troops advanced in the Indian fashion, taking advantage of every inequality in the ground, and of every tree to conceal themselves, and arrived thus, without giving alarm, to within pistol shot of the city. The dead silence which continued to prevail around him, contrasted in a dismal manner with the musketry and cannon which became more audible as they advanced, and greatly increased the General's anxiety. A dark presentiment warned him that he was threatened by some great danger, which he knew not how to avoid, from being ignorant of what kind it might be. The least hesitation at this critical minute might bring on irreparable misfortunes. The General grasped the hilt of his sword firmly in his clenched hand, and turning towards his soldiers, shouted in a loud, clear voice, "Forward!"

The detachment, which only awaited this order, rushed forward shouting, and, at double-quick time, cleared the space between them and the city. Windows, doors, all were closed; and had it not been for the distant report of musketry, the city might have been thought deserted. The first detachment, finding no obstacles before them, continued their march; and the second detachment also entered. But then, all at once, behind, before, and on the flanks of the troops, a loud cry burst forth; and at every window appeared men with muskets in their hands. Don Pancho Bustamente was surrounded, he had allowed himself to be taken – pardon us the triviality of the comparison – like a rat in a trap. The soldiers, astonished for a second, soon recovered themselves; they faced front and rear, and attacked the double barrier that enclosed them: but though they desperately rushed against it, they could not force it. They then plainly perceived they were lost, that they could expect no quarter, and prepared to die like brave men.

The General cast fierce and desperate glances around him, looking, but unsuccessfully, for a point of issue from the menacing forest of bayonets crossed before him, and which enclosed him as in a steel network. Some authors have amused themselves at the expense of the wars and battles of the Americans, in which they say the two armies always take care to place themselves out of reach of cannon shot, so as never to have a single man killed. This pleasantry, which is in very bad taste, has assumed the proportions of a calumny it is but just to refute, for it attacks the honour of the Americans of the South, who, I unhesitatingly assert, are endowed with intrepid courage – a courage that was brilliantly displayed during the wars of independence against the Spaniards. Unhappily, at present this courage is employed in fratricidal struggles, without any understood object. Thrice the soldiers rushed upon the insurgents, and thrice were they repulsed with enormous loss. The battle was horrible, without mercy on either side; they fought hand to hand, foot to foot, breast to breast, to the last breath, only falling to die. The troops, decimated by this frightful carnage, gradually gave ground; the space they occupied became narrower and narrower, and the moment did not appear distant when they would disappear under the popular flood which continued to ascend, and threatened to engulf them under its irresistible mass. The General collected about fifty men resolved to die or open a passage, and he made a desperate attempt. It was a collision of giants. For a few minutes, the two masses launched one against the other remained almost motionless, from the force of the blow with which they met; Don Pancho, flourishing his sword around him, and standing in his stirrups, struck down all who opposed his passage.

Suddenly a man placed himself before him, like a rock which rises from the depths of the sea. At the sight of him the General paused, in spite of himself, with a stifled cry of surprise and rage. This man was Don Tadeo de Leon, his mortal enemy; whom he had once condemned to death, and who had, in a miraculous manner, survived his execution. But, now! God seemed to place him fatally before him, to be the instrument of his vengeance, and the cause of his ruin and his shame.

CHAPTER XXXVI

THE LION AT BAY

"My God!" said the General, "am I the dupe of an hallucination?"

"Ah! ah!" the King of Darkness exclaimed, with an ironical smile, "you recognize me then, General?"

"Don Tadeo de Leon!" Don Pancho cried, in horror. "Do the dead then arise from the tomb? Oh! I hoped that what I heard was false. It is you!"

"Yes," Don Tadeo replied, in a stern voice, "you are not mistaken, Don Pancho; I am Don Tadeo de Leon, whom you caused to be shot upon the Plaza Mayor of Santiago. Your spies have informed you correctly."

"Man or demon," the General shouted, half choking with rage, "I will not yield to you! I will fight you as a man, and send you back again to the hell from which you have escaped!"

His enemy smiled disdainfully.

"Your hour has arrived, Don Pancho," he said; "you are due to the justice of the Dark-Hearts."

"You do not hold me yet, wretched traitor! If I cannot conquer, I can die, weapon in hand, like a soldier."

"No, your hour has struck, I tell you; you are ours, you shall die, but not the death of a soldier; you shall be executed by our justice!"

"If that be the case," the General yelled, brandishing his sword, "come and take me!"

Don Tadeo did not deign a reply; he gave a signal, and a lasso whizzed through the air, launched by an invisible hand, and fell round the General's shoulders. Astonished by this unexpected attack, before he could make the least possible resistance, he received a terrific shock, lost his stirrups, was pulled from his horse, and dragged amongst the insurgents. The astounded General, half mad with rage and shame, exhausted himself in vain efforts; nearly strangled by the lasso which flayed his neck, his face assumed a purple tint; his eyes, injected with blood, seemed starting from their sockets, and a white foam flowed from the corners of his discoloured lips. Don Tadeo contemplated him for a moment with a mixture of pity and triumph.

"Free him from that slipknot," he said. "Secure his person, but treat him with respect."

The soldiers, terrified at this prompt capture, which they had not at all expected, stood downcast and silent; in their stupor forgetting even the use of their arms. Don Tadeo turned towards them:

"Surrender," he shouted, "surrender! the man who misled you is in our power; your lives shall be spared."

The soldiers consulted each other for an instant with their eyes; and then, as if by a spontaneous movement, they threw down their muskets, crying aloud:

"Chili! Chili! liberty! liberty!"

"That is well!" said Don Tadeo; "leave the city, encamp at the distance of a mile, and await the orders which shall soon be transmitted to you."

The conquered soldiers, with downcast looks, followed the road they had traversed an hour before; they passed through the silent ranks of the insurgents, which opened to give them passage. Without loss of time, Don Tadeo, followed by a crowd of his partisans, directed his course towards the Plaza Mayor, where the battle still raged. The soldiers, solidly intrenched in the Plaza, and masters of the cabildo, fought valiantly, hoping still for the assistance of General Bustamente, of whose fate they were ignorant. Although reduced to a small number, these troops occupied a formidable position, in which it was almost impossible to force them, without resolving to suffer great loss. Persuaded that they only required to gain time, the soldiers fought with the energy of despair, defending inch by inch the barricade behind which they were sheltered.

But the day was passing away, their ammunition was growing exhausted, a great number of their comrades were stretched dead at their feet, and nothing could support them but the hope that the succour so impatiently expected was at hand. In the heat of their own contest they had not heard the noise of the battle fought by Don Pancho at the city gates, in which but few shots had been fired, as it had been principally decided by cold steel. Discouragement, however, began to affect the bravest, the general who commanded even felt his energy diminish, and he looked around him with great anxiety.

Dejected, and with downcast eyes, the senator, who had been the bearer of the fatal proclamation, trembled in all his limbs; he regretted, but too late, having thrown himself into this hornet's nest; and he offered up the most magnificent vows to the innumerable saints of the golden Spanish legend, if they would bring him safe and sound through the perils which surrounded him. The worthy man had not any warlike instincts; and we can safely affirm, without fear of contradiction, that if he had had the slightest suspicion that things would have taken the turn they did, he would have remained quiet in his charming quinta of Corro-Azul, in the environs of Santiago, where his life glided away so softly, so happily, and, above all, so free from care. Unfortunately, as it sometimes happens in this nether world, where, whatever Candide may say, everything is not for the best, in the best of worlds, Don Ramón Sandias – so the worthy senator was named – had not been able duly to appreciate the charms of that calm life; ambition had gnawed at his heart, though he had nothing to wish for; and he had, as we have seen, plunged up to the neck in a hornet's nest, from which he did not know how to emerge.

At every shot he heard, the poor senator jumped like a Guanaco, with startled eyes; and when, now and then, in spite of the precautions he had taken, the sinister hissing of a bullet resounded in his ear, he threw himself flat on his face, murmuring all the prayers that his troubled memory could recall.

At first, the contortions and cries of Don Ramón had very much amused the officers and soldiers among whom accident had placed him; they had even taken delight in augmenting his terrors; but, at length, as happens more frequently in such cases than people fancy, the pleasantries had ceased; Don Ramón's terrors had communicated themselves to the laughers, who saw, with fright, that their position was becoming every minute more desperate.

"The devil take the poltroon!" the General at length cried, angrily; "cannot you keep your trembling limbs still? Caspita! console yourself, they won't kill you more than once."

"Ah! that is very easy for you to say," the senator replied, in a broken voice; "I am no soldier; it is your trade to be killed, it is all one to you."

"Hum!" said the General, "not quite so much so as you may think; but comfort yourself; if this goes on a little longer, we shall all go together."

"What is that you say?" the poor man muttered, with redoubled fear.

"Caramba! it is clear as day, if Don Pancho does not make haste and come, all of us here will die."

"But I do not wish to die!" said the senator, bursting into tears; "I am no soldier. Oh! I implore you, my good, my inestimable Don Tiburcio Cornejo, let me go away!"

The General shrugged his shoulders.

"What consequence can it be to you?" the senator continued, in a supplicating tone; "do save my life! show me which way I can get out of this cursed confusion."

"Eh! how the devil do I know?"' the General said, impatiently.

"Well, now, look here," said the senator; "you owe me two thousand piastres, which I won of you at Monte, do you not?"

"What then?" the General, vexed at this ill-timed remark, said, sharply.

"Get me away from here, and I will cry quits."

"You are a fool, Don Ramón; do you think if I could get safely away from here, that I would remain?"

"I see what you are," said the senator, despondingly; "you are but a false friend, you desire my death, you thirst for my blood."

In short, the poor man was almost mad; he knew not what he said, terror had deprived him of the little sense he ever possessed. But, in reality, the position became every instant more critical; the carnage was horrible, the soldiers fell one after another beneath the bullets of the insurgents, who were sheltered by every corner of the plaza. Two or three sorties attempted by the troops had been vigorously repulsed; and hence, decimated as they were, all they could possibly do now was to prevent their intrenchments from being carried.

All at once the senator bounded forward like a chamois; he made directly to the General, and seized his arm.

"We are saved!" he cried; "thanks be to God! we are saved!"

"Hilloh! what's the matter now, Don Ramón? What bee has stung you? are you really mad?"

"I have not been stung," the senator replied, as fast as he could speak, "nor am I mad; we are saved; I tell you, we are saved!"

"Well, how? what is it? Is Don Pancho coming at last?"

"Don Pancho, indeed! I wish he were at the devil!" "Well, what is it, then?"

"Why, do you not see, yonder? look, behind the barricade which blocks the entrance of the Calle de la Merced."

"What is there to see?"

"Why, a flag of truce! a white flag!"

"Ah!" said the General, eagerly, "let us look! let us look!"

And he did look.

"True!" he said, at the expiration of a minute. "Success to all cowards, say I, for having good eyes; I did not see it."

"Ay, but I did," said Don Ramón, rubbing his hands, quite revived, and marching off with great glee. But, at that moment, a nearly spent ball came ricocheting and whizzing close to his ear.