The Queen of the Savannah: A Story of the Mexican War

His father's implacable hatred of the white men, which was comprehensible in the medium in which the chief lived, was not so for his son; it was only at intervals, when he witnessed an insult dealt to a man of colour, that his Indian blood was revealed in him, and his hatred was re-kindled. Sotavento was vexed at this indifference; he tried to overcome it by all means, and when he was among his own people, his protestations were made in good faith, for he then believed what he said, so much did he desire in his heart that it should be true. Unfortunately for him, he had scarce returned to the hacienda, ere his ideas completely changed, his resolutions evaporated, and he felt himself beneath a far more powerful influence, an influence whose strength was gradually revealed in him, and eventually overpowered whatever efforts he might attempt to escape from it.

Under the pressure of the new feeling which mastered him, the Indian felt all the ferocious instincts of the race to which he belonged aroused in him; from this moment, forgetting all other interests, he had but one thought – it was to employ, in carrying out successfully the daring plan he had formed, the confidence he enjoyed among the chiefs and the forces of which he could dispose at a given moment. The hour which the Indian had selected for the realization of his project and the execution of his bold plans had arrived, and he audaciously set to work, without hesitation or without scruple, caring little about marching over corpses, provided that these corpses were so many steps of a ladder enabling him to attain the extraordinary result he desired.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE SNARE

Running Water and White Crow placed themselves at the head of their warriors, who marched in Indian file, and forded the river. The redskins who remained in the valley watched them cross and disappear in the windings of the track they were following. The Stag remained for nearly an hour at the spot where his band had halted, and it was not until the sun had begun to descend on the horizon that he gave orders to mount. The warriors at once quitted the protecting shade which had sheltered them for several hours, and in a twinkling were ready to start.

Among the warriors who accompanied the Stag were six with whom he was very intimate; they several times entered the Mexican territory under different disguises, and had even got as far as the Hacienda del Barrio, where the majordomo received and sheltered them without exciting the slightest suspicion, so cleverly did they play the part of Indios mansos. Of these six warriors four had been employed for several months as vaqueros to guard the ganado.

The Stag had stipulated that this should be so, because, as he remarked at the council, a day might come when it would be well for him to have men ready at hand who were sufficiently acquainted with the customs of the redskins, to aid the tribe in carrying out the revenge which had so long been preparing. The council assented to the proposition, and the majordomo neglected nothing that his friends might make rapid progress in their knowledge of Mexican customs.

Sotavento had an object, but it was very different from the one which he suggested to the Comanches. Success had not only crowned the Indian's efforts, but exceeded all his expectations, and his six warriors assumed in a very short time the manners of Mexican peons. Everybody knows the aptitude of redskins for doing or imitating what they please when they suppose they can derive any eventual profit by it, so what we state here will not arouse any surprise.

After recommencing his march, the Stag called up to him these six warriors, and began giving them confidential instructions in so low a voice that they had a difficulty in catching and understanding his remarks. It appeared as if the revelations he made to these men were serious, for, in spite of the mask of stoicism with which Indians habitually cover their face, their features suddenly displayed a surprise which soon assumed a distinct character of horror. But the Stag did not give way; on the contrary, he redoubled his efforts, heaped promise on promise, flattery on flattery; in short, he managed so cleverly, that he ended by convincing them, or at least it seemed so, for, after a lengthened hesitation, they gave a nod of assent. The chief shook his head.

"Wah!" he said in a louder voice. "My brothers are men of loyal hearts and iron arms. I believe in their word, but they have not sworn by the sacred totem of the tribe, and as they have not promised by word of mouth, it is possible that the Wacondah may not remember their promise."

The warriors began laughing.

"The opossum is very crafty," one of the Indians said, "but the Stag joins to the cunning of the opossum that of the guanaco."

"Wah!" said another, "The palefaces have taught the Stag all the cleverness of the Yoris."

"Well," he answered laughingly, "that of the Comanches is greater still; for is not the Comanche nation the Queen of the Prairies? Who would dare, without leave, to traverse our hunting grounds. Will my brothers swear by the totem?"

"We will," said the one who spoke first, "because we love our brother, and know that his intentions are good."

"Yes, that is true; we believe in you, chief."

At these words the seven men stopped, and let their comrades pass them. When the latter had disappeared in the windings of the track, and were so far that they could neither see nor hear what was taking place, the Stag made a sign, and the six warriors formed a circle round him. Then the chief drew his scalping knife from his belt, opened his hunting shirt, and placing the point of the blade against his heart, on which was drawn in red the totem, or emblem of his tribe, that is to say, a buffalo, he raised his right hand to the setting sun, and uttered the words of the oath, the only one, perhaps, sacred to the Indians, as there is no instance known of it having been broken.

"I, a great man of the Comanche nation, a son of the Red Buffalo tribe, swear, in the presence of the sun, the visible representative of the invisible Wacondah, the powerful master of life, to accomplish without hesitation everything which my master, the Stag, may demand of me, consenting that the blade of my hunting knife, the point of which is at this moment resting on the image of the totem of my tribe, may be buried to the hilt in my heart, were I to break my oath which I now voluntarily take. I also consent to submit to the most terrible punishment the powerful Wacondah, the master of life, may deign to inflict on me. Hence, may the Wacondah remember my oath, in order to reward or punish me, according to my conduct."

The six warriors, following their chief's example, drew their scalping knives, put the point on their heart, and repeated after him in a solemn voice, and an accent of conviction, the words he pronounced.

"I thank my brothers," he said, "they are truly great braves; the tails of red wolves which hang from their heels do not speak falsehood."

The Indians bowed, and he continued —

"My brothers will leave me here, and go straight to the Elk's cavern; they have just time to get there, and prepare to carry out my orders: have my brothers thoroughly understood?"

"We have understood," they answered.

"In that case, my brothers will make their mustangs feel the whip; the sun is rapidly descending, it is nearly level with the grass, and it will soon be night."

The warriors took leave of their chief, and turning to the right, vigorously lashed their horses, and disappeared in a whirlwind of dust. The Stag looked after them pensively; when he lost them out of sight, he whistled to his horse, and rejoined at a gallop his warriors, who, during the scene we have just described had continued their march, and were some considerable distance ahead.

We will leave the Comanche warriors for a while, and let them glide like snakes through the prairie grass, and cross the Río Grande del Norte to enter Mexican territory. We will take up our narrative again a few hours later, at the moment when Doña Emilia, her daughter, and Don Melchior, attracted by the firing of Running Water's warriors, rushed into the canyon, and by their mere presence caused the Indians that inconceivable panic which made them fly in every direction, and abandon their coveted prey when they were on the point of grasping it. After pursuing for some time the fugitives, to whom terror seemed to give wings, Doña Emilia prepared to return to the count and his comrades, when all at once she fancied she heard desperate cries in a wood a little distance off, which she had passed unnoticed in the heat of the pursuit.

"What is the meaning of that?" Doña Emilia asked, as she checked her steed. "Can there be any unhappy white men engaged with these demons on this side?"

At the same moment the wind bore down to them the sound of several shots.

"It appears like a serious action," Don Melchior answered. "Still I cannot understand the cause, for, with the exception of the count, there are not, to my knowledge, any white men travelling at present on this border."

"You must be mistaken, my friend, and hark, the noise is increasing; forward, forward; who knows whether we may not have the good fortune to save the life of some poor wretch. Those red demons fled so rapidly that we could not catch up a single one."

"Mother," Doña Diana timidly observed, "would it not be better, before venturing again among the savages, to make certain with whom we have to deal, and the number of foes we may have to confront?"

"What good will that do, daughter?" Doña Emilia answered drily; "Those men are savages, I think that we do not require to know more."

"Permit me to insist, mother; I know not why, but for some days past, sad forebodings involuntarily pursue me; I fear that we have traitors about us, and that they are watching us. I am afraid! Alas! Is it fitting for women," she murmured feebly, "to wage war thus?"

Doña Emilia gave the maiden an angry glance. "Pigeon heart," she said with feverish energy, "who keeps you here? return to the hacienda; I will be sufficient."

"I fear a snare, mother."

"A snare? Do you forget the terror with which my presence inspires these Pagans? You have long had a proof of it," she continued with a contemptuous smile; "but come, daughter, accompany me this time, and I swear that I will not again force you to serve my hatred."

The young lady let her head drop but said nothing, and the three riders started at full gallop in the direction of the shots, which became more frequent the nearer they approached. They were soon close enough to distinguish all the details of the drama which was being performed but a few paces from them. At the top of a small mound, several Europeans, who could be easily recognized by their dress, ambuscaded behind their horses, whose throats they had cut to form them into a barricade, were defending themselves like lions against twenty Indian warriors, who surrounded and tried to capture them.

"Well?" Doña Emilia asked her daughter, as she pointed to this fight, whose incidents were growing more and more striking, "Is that a snare?"

"I am wrong, mother, I see," the young lady murmured; "and yet, I repeat, I am afraid."

"Forward!" Doña Emilia cried.

The three riders passed like a hurricane through the midst of the redskins, throwing down and trampling on all who tried to oppose their passage. But then a strange and terrible thing took place. Several shots, doubtless badly aimed and fired from the top of the mound where the Europeans were entrenched, struck in the head the horses of Doña Emilia and her daughter, who rolled on the ground unable to rise; at the same moment an Indian warrior dashed at Don Melchior, brandishing his lasso over his head. All at once the young man felt a frightful shock, was lifted from the saddle by an irresistible force, and dragged along the ground. Don Melchior had been lassoed. In spite of the horrible suffering he endured, though half strangled by the slip knot which squeezed his throat, though wounded by roots and stones over which his pitiless conqueror dragged him, the young man did not lose his presence of mind; by an extraordinary and superhuman effort, which only the certainty of a horrible death would give him the courage to attempt, Don Melchior clutched the fatal lasso with one hand, and with the other seizing the sharp knife which every Mexican carries in his boot, as a last resource, he succeeded in drawing it out, and, after two fruitless attempts, collecting all his strength for a final effort, he managed to cut the lasso; then, without calculating the consequences of his deed, but preferring to run the chances of an immediate death, however terrible it might be, to falling alive into the hands of his ferocious enemies, he recommended his soul to heaven in a mental prayer, and rolled down the incline of a precipice which yawned a couple of yards from him.

At the moment when the energetic and courageous young man, who risked this desperate chance, probably in the hopes of escaping to save his companions, disappeared down the abyss, the Indian warrior who had dragged him from his horse, perceiving that he had contrived to cut the lasso, galloped up at full speed in order to prevent his flight. The Indian, who was no other than the Stag, fell into an indescribable passion on seeing his foe escape him. He bent over the abyss, trying to sound the darkness, and listening to the noises which rose from the bottom of the precipice; then, after a moment's hesitation, he resolutely dismounted, abandoned his horse, and clinging with feet and hands to branches and roots, he descended the quebrada in his turn.

The Stag understood of what importance the capture of Don Melchior was to him. The consequences of his flight might be immense, and make him lose the fruits of the bold stroke he had attempted; hence, without reflecting further, he rushed in pursuit of him. After a considerable loss of time and unheard of efforts, he at length reached the bottom of the precipice. He then began seeking for his enemy with the tenacity and skill of a wild beast, not leaving a single bush uninspected.

But all was in vain; he found no trace of Don Melchior. The Indian had one hope; it was that the Mexican, dragged down by the rapidity of his descent, had rolled into the deep, though narrow stream, which ran through the bottom of the quebrada, and had been drowned, ere he sufficiently regained his senses and strength to avoid this mortal fall. But if nothing contradicted this hope, nothing, on the other hand, corroborated it, and the Comanche chief was constrained to quit the spot, suffering from a doubt a thousand times more terrible than the most frightful certainty. After exploring the canyon for some time with that wild beast's instinct which redskins possess so thoroughly, the chief succeeded in discovering a narrow path made by antelopes, which wound round the sides of the precipice. He hastily ascended it, feeling anxious about what had occurred among his warriors during his absence.

Let us now return to Doña Emilia and her daughter, whom we left in an extremely critical situation. The two ladies had been hurled to the ground in such a way that it was impossible for them to rise without assistance. Their horses had been scarce shot ere the fight, which appeared so obstinate between the white men and redskins, suddenly ceased as if by enchantment, and friends and foes on the best possible terms approached the two prisoners, for they may be regarded as such. The first Indians who arrived near enough to Doña Emilia to recognize her features, stopped in horror and fell back a few paces, saying to their comrades, "The Queen of the Savannah! It is the Queen of the Savannah!"

A very decided retrograde movement then began among the Indians; they stopped and formed a wide circle about twenty yards from the two ladies; it was probable that not one of them was anxious to venture within reach of a woman whom all regarded as the evil genius of their nation. The white men, or at least those who wore that dress, were alone bold enough to approach her, which they did not do, however, without very marked hesitation.

At last, after exchanging a few words in a low voice, two of the bravest of them ventured to assist the unhappy ladies, while the others, who stopped a few yards off, kept their finger on the trigger, ready to fire at the slightest suspicious movement on the part of the prisoners. But they had nothing to fear from them; their fall had crushed them; they were nearly fainting, and could scarce keep up.

"If you are Christians," Doña Emilia murmured, in a faint voice, "help my daughter, my poor child; she is dying."

They made no reply, but after raising the two ladies with a species of sorrowful pity, they transported them to the top of the hill, and laid them on furs near a fire, which the Indians had lit while they were being brought up. Doña Diana then noticed that the horses lying on the ground, behind which the defenders of the mound had sheltered themselves, were not killed, as her mother had supposed, but merely bound so that they could not stir.

"Oh, my presentiments!" she murmured feebly, as she raised her eyes to heaven.

And she fainted, succumbing as much to the grief that filled her heart, as to the physical suffering she experienced.

CHAPTER XXIV.

OLIVER CLARY

As we have seen, Running Water and his comrades attacked Count de Melgosa after White Crow had summoned him to surrender. The unexpected arrival of Doña Emilia had not only foiled the plans of the Comanche chiefs, but also caused such a panic among their warriors that, in spite of the efforts of the sachems to rally them, they were even really themselves carried off and constrained to seek safety in a hurried flight. In a retreat so precipitate as that effected by the redskins, the feeling of terror so rules over all other feelings, that the voice of the chiefs are despised, their orders are unlistened to, and each man running off at a venture, seeks his own safety without troubling himself about the rest. After a mad ride through bush and briar, and not following any settled direction, Running Water, who was involuntarily affected by the general terror, stopped, quite out of breath, and fell at the foot of a Peru tree, which rose alone in the centre of a spacious plain.

The night was still dark and a leaden silence brooded over the desert. The chief, far as his eye could see, did not notice one of his comrades; he was alone, and, as he conjectured from the perfect tranquillity and calmness that reigned around him, in safety for the present. Then he began reflecting; his thoughts were sad, for nothing settled at the council had been carried out; the count had escaped, and the warriors were dispersed, so that it was useless to attempt to rally them in order to give the young chief, his son, the support which the latter had asked for. The sachem was greatly embarrassed, not through the position in which he found himself – alone, without support, and almost unarmed – a position which to any other than an Indian accustomed to desert life would have appeared extremely precarious, the more so because the sachem had ridden far into the Mexican territory, and was consequently a long way from his village; but Running Water did not think of that. What tortured his mind was the insult offered to his indomitable pride in the disgraceful flight of his comrades at the mere sight of a woman, and the honour of himself and the tribe compromised in an expedition which had cost the lives of several men without producing any advantage.

The sachem had been plunged in these gloomy thoughts for a long time, when he fancied that he could hear a slight sound near him. The Indian raised his head, stifled a cry of surprise, and with one bound was on his feet, knife in hand – this was the only weapon he had retained. While he had been yielding to his bitter thoughts, several Spanish lanceros, taking advantage of the darkness, had dismounted and completely surrounded him; this surprise had been executed with such skill and so silently, that the Indian did not perceive the presence of his enemies till it was not possible for him to avoid them. Upon the movement he made, the barrels of nearly fifty carbines were pointed at the sachem.

"Come, surrender, demon!" a rough voice said to him, "Unless you prefer being killed like the accursed dog you are."

Without replying, the sachem looked at the Spaniards who surrounded him; perceiving that any resistance would be useless, he let his knife drop at his feet, folded his arms on his chest, and waited.

"Bind him securely, but do not injure him," the voice already heard said. "Put him on a horse, and let us start."

This order was carried out in less time than it has taken us to write it. When the sachem was brought up, the Spanish officer examined him attentively.

"Why!" he said, "Heaven pardon me my mistake, I believed that I had only to do with a marauder; but the capture is more important than I fancied. This dog is no less than an Indian brave, and a chief into the bargain, as is clearly indicated by the feather he wears so proudly over his right ear. Would these demons dare to cross our border?"

We must do the Spanish government the justice of stating that, at the period of its domination, the Indian border was thoroughly guarded by posts established at regular distances, by presidios with strong garrisons composed of veteran troops, and by patrols which traversed the country day and night, watching over the common safety, and vigorously repulsing any attempt at plunder on the part of the Indians. Hence those incursions and invasions of the redskins which now devastate this unhappy country did not occur at that time. The Indians instead of attacking, had quite enough to do in defending themselves, for the Spanish policy tended continually to drive them back further into their impenetrable deserts.

At the present day all this has changed. The Indians have become conquerors in their turn, and, profiting by the intestine wars which constantly rend the old Spanish colonies, they have leapt over the border marked out for them, and have advanced so far into the interior of the civilized country, that they are encamped before towns and villages which were formerly prosperous but are now in ruins. Mines worked long ago by the Spaniards have again become the property of the Indians, and they have carried so far their contempt of the Mexicans, whose cowardice, by the by, is proverbial among them, that the Comanches and Apaches disdaining to take unnecessary precautions in invading the territory of their foes, have fallen into the habit of making their incursions at a regular period of the year, which they call the "Mexican moon." Even more incredible than the impudent boldness with which these expeditions are carried out, is the stupid patience and cowardly resignation of the white men, whose houses are burnt, crops destroyed, and cattle carried off annually, but who, so soon as the Indians have retired, begin building and sowing again just as if nothing had occurred, although they are perfectly well aware that their labour will be lost, and that the Indians will return to destroy it all at a given day and hour. It was one of the patrols to which we have referred that surprised and seized the sachem.

"Who are you?" the officer asked. "To what tribe do you belong?"

Running Water gave him an ironical glance, shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, but made no answer.

"Very well, as you please, my fine fellow," the officer, an old soldier accustomed to Indian warfare, answered mockingly. "We know how to loosen the tongues of men like you. Come, my men, mount, and let us be off."

The patrol resumed its march, and shortly before sunrise reached Leona Vicario. The sachem was immediately taken to prison, the general putting off his interrogation till after the festivities, which at this moment interrupted the course of justice. Accident, a few hours later, led the brave Canadian hunter to the same dungeon, as we have seen. We have described what took place between them above. After the flight of his comrade, the adventurer coolly remained in prison, to the great amazement of his keepers, who could not understand how a man could remain a prisoner of his own choice, when he had a chance of escaping.

The adventurer, without seeming to notice the sarcasms the Spaniards levelled at him, settled as comfortably as he could in a corner of his cell, and, placing his weapons within reach, in the event of any attempt to do him an ill turn during his sleep, as he had heard say sometimes occurred, slept as calmly as if reposing in the middle of the desert. The Canadian's apprehensions were entirely unfounded, for he was safe under the protection of Castilian honour; but he judged the Spaniards with his American prejudices, and from the calumnies he had heard repeated by the Yankees, who thus sought to revenge their exclusion from the Spanish colonies. In the morning, when he awoke, the Canadian was at first surprised to find himself in prison, but he soon remembered, and waited immediately till some decision was arrived at about him. It was long, however, before the gaoler appeared, bringing his breakfast.