The Treasure of Pearls: A Romance of Adventures in California

"You await? Here?" cried the robber, astounded, "You never mean to say you are not going to accompany me now that you see the way is unimpeded?"

"Here we await," replied the Apache, firmly, "till we hear the war cry of the Foe-to-all-Men. When the Legless Man sends up the whoop for reinforcements, the Apaches will dash in and succour him."

"But, chief – "

"The chief has spoken, and his tongue is tired of talk."

"Well, if it is no avail remonstrating with the great warrior," replied Pedrillo, grumbling to himself, "hang him for an obstinate red devil! On, come on," he added, to his own five men and their corporal, as reluctant as himself, on seeing the Apaches leave them to their own valour, and he pushed them before him roughly with his horse's shoulder.

The Mexicans had all dismounted, not having his reason for keeping in the saddle, and noiselessly stole in at the opening after the redskinned pilot.

The little party was within the corral.

"To mark the place of this gate," said the salteador, "two of you remain here."

"Good," said Diego, who pushed the gate shut, whereupon so neatly was it contrived that, particularly in such absence of light, the joining place of the edges was not perceptible.

"Deuce take you – what's that for?" cried the robber, suspiciously.

"Not to arouse observations if a keen eye follows the line of the fences," replied the Mayo. "Your men plainly denote the spot, if we must retreat."

"That is true," rejoined the valiant captain, but not in a tone of assurance, whilst his men looked downhearted at one another, and enviously at the couple left behind.

However, with the Apaches at hand, a retreat without striking a blow would probably have caused a dispute which would have imperilled their unholy alliance; and had as the prospect was, at least the Mexicans might show a fellow countryman quarter, while the Indians would surely not spare the turncoat whites.

After all, so far the smoothness of the entry promised fairly, and to have to do with twenty gentlewomen was no formidable matter.

"On!" said he, impatiently, twitching up his wooden leg so that it seemed to point the way.

They crossed the enclosure, and reached the second wall without a challenge, over a ground eight inches deep in water, in the depressions caused by horses' hoofs, and rude cartwheels.

Diego scrambled up the pickets like a cat. He almost instantly dropped down, and said, in an ordinary tone —

"Not a head along the wall far or near."

"They have drawn in their sentries," said Zagal, a quick-eyed, nimble half-breed, "or they have fallen back under the verandah for protection. It's quite right of them. I would not put a dog out this weather."

"Bah," returned the captain, eager to believe the coast was clear of sharpshooters, and well defended by his waterproof, "war dogs should disregard the rain. As I cannot leap my horse over those pikes, suppose you find the gate."

The Mayo had already groped along the corral, and unexpectedly the gate was opened by him. With a few strokes of his knife he had cut the rawhide thongs that served as fastenings and were relaxed by the wet.

"Let two of you stay here," said Pedrillo, before following the others through.

Then he pushed his horse between the main post and the gate held half open by Diego.

He and his three trusty rogues were before the house, which loomed up large at the end of the long, wide enclosure.

The thunder was dying away, and the swishing of the rain in the puddles and against the palisades seemed lessening in intensity. Certainly, the sentries were removed, and the building was silent as a mausoleum.

Nevertheless, they durst not directly cross the open spaces, but skirted the stockade until they could move forward in the cover of outbuildings which favoured a zigzag advance.

In this manner they attained a brick wall, where Diego halted them with his uplifted hand.

"The garden," he whispered.

By all these movements an hour and a half had elapsed. They were so close to the house that the windows were seen to be outlined here and there by the glow around the edges of the sashes and, through insect protectors of gauze, from subdued lights within.

All seemed asleep.

"We might have taken the hacienda," observed Captain Pedrillo, vexedly. "But those poltroon redskins hung back."

"Nay," replied the Mayo, shaking his head. "They are on their guard within, never fear. There is only one weak point, and that I am showing to your honour."

With his knife, the Indian's tool of all work, he severed the wooden bolt of a door in the wall, and burst it open from a hasp within by a steady pressure of the shoulder. He drew on one side, after pushing it open, in respect. The glimpse within was purely of a black den where wet vines and nodding plants glistened dully of the pouring shower.

"Thank you," said the captain, "for myself and band. But just you go in and scout about first. So far we have done a deed of daring; to run our heads into the wolf's very jaws smacks of rashness."

Diego plunged into the doorway in a cautious manner.

"What do you think of all this, Zagal?" inquired the Mexican chief quickly.

"That we ought to have carried fifty pounds of that blasting powder each man, and we could have blown the hacienda into mud pies! What a chance to miss!"

"Very true," said the captain, pretending to see the venture in the same way. "I wish we had the affair to begin all over again: I should act in a very different way."

In the next instant the Indian reappeared.

"The garden is deserted. Not so much as a horned owl drowned out of its nest," he said.

"Ah!" sighed Pedrillo, like a martyr; "Let us go on. Only one of you remain at this post, his foot in the doorway, holding the door close, but not letting it shut, on his life."

The horseman, the Indian, and the two other Mexicans then invaded the garden. Pedrillo shook with eager heroism so that his steed participated in the tremor. It was a night, and the garden a place to inspire terror, even in the breast least timid, one must grant.

The garden was a maze designed after some labyrinth in a Spanish palace grounds, and rendered more bewildering by the luxuriant growth of the plants and shrubbery chosen to form the intervolutions.

It angered El Manco very much that Zagal would not regard the affair with his own eyes, but persisted in cherishing the plan.

"What a splendid spot for an ambush," said he. "The keenest eye cannot perceive any of us, even your Excellency on the horse's back."

"So be it," answered the captain testily. "Take your nestling places, then, at least till after this clearing-off shower. What a swamping! 'Sdeath of my life! I do not blame the men of don Benito for keeping indoors."

Diego pointed out a species of alcove of verdure into which he backed his horse, equally grateful for shelter in the worst torrent of all that had fallen.

Diego, grinning and showing shark teeth, stood at the mouth of this bay, lashed by the swinging vines and lianas, eyeing the sky and listening attentively to all sounds, quiet as a statue.

After that waterspout, the tempest fled with haste, sweeping away all the gloomy clouds.

Out of the sky of deep blue suddenly sparkled a myriad of stars. The moon, too, presented a pale face in a watery vapour, which gave an effect of mirage as if it had a misty partner and the two were slowly dancing.

The atmosphere became of singular limpidity, and the smallest leaves and the flower cups so tiny that only the hummingbirds' bills could pierce their hollow, were discernible at a distance. Thousands of gnats and mosquitoes swarmed out of their retreats and played in the moonlight like motes in the solar beams. The earth began to smoke with vapour, and the flowers exhaled oppressive wealth of perfumes.

The captain, galvanised by the fresh morning breeze, for it must have been about three o'clock, was about to call his men for a consultation, when on each side of him he felt a figure rise, and in each of his leather cheeks was pressed the muzzle of a pistol. At the same time, his arms were grasped and pressed down by his sides. Another pair of hands seized each leg, real and fictitious, and lifting him up, he was held in the air like a puppet, whilst the traitorous Diego drew the horse out from under him. Then his unknown seizers lowered him to the ground, in the softness of which his stump was deeply embedded, and a low but firm voice muttered in his ear:

"No nonsense, or you are a dead man before being justly hanged!"

Some stifled oaths and cries, at the same time as a scuffle, betokened that his followers were being mastered in the like manner. Only the horrid grating of a knife along a bone, and a deep groan or two proved that Zagal or another had offered such a manful resistance as their captain well heeded not to attempt.

Two men took the salteador between them, bending like a sack of grain, and carried him, heels first, in that ignominious attitude, through the maze, which was no puzzle to them, into the house over the porch and in at a window from the verandah. The room into which he was transported was that where Mr. Gladsden had been entertained. Don Benito, his son, and another gentleman, chiefs of the defensive operations, were there seated. Two lamps, burning low, were quickly turned up on the arrival of the prisoner, evidently expected. His carriers were two Mexicans of strong build, armed to the teeth, who set him in an armchair, confronting their master, and stood, one each side of him, pistols still in hand.

For a moment don Benito and his captive looked at one another. Hatred and anguish at having been thus placed before his old enemy gave the former don Aníbal the impudence not to quail.

"My so-called captain," said the hacendero, "you are my prisoner."

"By the cursedest treachery," returned Pedrillo, bitterly and really burning with indignation.

"Which trick has only prevented you attempting a more shameful deed against women and children of your own race – a race that repudiates such as you, though."

"I am a volunteer frontier guard," rejoined the freelance, still more impudently. "If it were not for my band doing soldierly duty along the border, your houses, your sheep, your cattle, your families would not be safe."

"Trash!" returned don Benito. "You are an ally of the redskin murderers, not their repressor."

"This is the first time I have ever been hand in hand with them," went on Pedrillo, pleading direct to the third Mexican whom he knew to be a rich proprietor. "They have forced me to act with them. When one is among wolves, he must howl with them."

"A wolf howls with wolves, but a dog dies battling with them," retorted señor Bustamente.

Diego entered the room at this juncture.

"Well?" demanded the hacendero.

"One dead with his own knife in his heart; one wounded with a pistol shot which went off in the folds of his blanket, the other safe and sound," reported the false guide.

"This Indian will bear me out that I entered on the mad enterprise reluctantly," began the bandolero in a less firm voice.

"This Indian Diego knows you of old, and I advise you not to require a character from him. In the time when you resumed your old craft of piracy and attacked me in the Gulf, this Indian and his father scuttled your steamer, effectually executing that diversion which prevented your crew from overwhelming my brave friend."

Captain Pedrillo rewarded the Mayo with a malignant look. If he had only have suspected this before when he had him in his camp. Whilst he ground his teeth and jerked his stump nervously, his judge pursued:

"I have had you decoyed out of your forces that the savages may not have the benefit of your cultured cunning. You deserve death a hundredfold for warring against Mexico, and that death should be the traitor's – that by the ignoble rope. But I have no hangman's noose here; you are going to be honoured with the soldier's fate – you shall only be shot!"

"Beware!" said Pedrillo, stoutly, though his heart sank; "This house is surrounded by a multitude like the waves of a sea. When the assault is made for which the signal is the crushing shot of an enormous cannon being levelled hereon under cover of the stormy darkness, you will be inundated by the sands of a desert storm. My murder will be avenged on each of you, your wives, your daughters and your sons and servants, over and over again!"

"Thanks for the caution, but we mean to sell our lives and our dear ones' honour most dearly. Meanwhile, you will be shot. Take the carrion hence to the room where Father Serafino will try to soften his hard heart, and then lead him out to execution."

The cold, stern sentence annihilated the salteador's insolence. His hands dropped and hung each side of the armchair, whilst he murmured in deep terror.

"You have robbed me before of my ship, of my bravest men, and now would have my blood! It is of evil omen to you!"

He trembled, and his eyes seemed to be moistened; clearly his ferocious soul was weakening, and fear had stricken him to the heart. The two peons bore him away between them, like an automatic figure, of which the limbs of flesh and bone were no more vivified than that of wood. In this supine, hopeless state, the priest could in no way prevail on him. Half an hour was entirely wasted in unavailing pleading. Then came the guard to carry out the prostrated miscreant to meet his doom at the dawn of that day when he anticipated he should have the farm at his mercy.

Without resistance, ceasing to tremble but still a weakling, the once dreaded bandit allowed himself to be propped up against the palisade. By the morn's early light his figure, firmly set by his wooden leg being fixed in the wet ground, his back against the wood, his head on one shoulder, his eyes closed, his white lips muttering nothing intelligible, could all be seen by the Indians and his followers upon the other eminence. Thence, too, could be discerned the firing party of peons, five in number, ranged at a few paces, before don Benito, who was to give the word. The miserable aspect of the lame man, like a buzzard with a broken and trailing wing, pitiable despite its loathsomeness, made the Mexican see that he was judicious in not hanging the robber; the sight of the single leg twitching in the death struggle in air would have appealed to humanity, and Pedrillo el Manco would become an exalted legend among the reprobates of the province.

All was ready.

A gleam of sunlight irradiated the corral, and glistened on the wet pickets, and yellowed the waxen face of the wretch condemned to death.

Don Benito looked at the five gun barrels just catching the sunbeam, and was about to give the order for them to fire, when a totally unforeshadowed interposition occurred.

When, during the night, the Apaches at the secret gate had heard the scuffle within the enclosure, which denoted how the Mexicans had fallen on the unfortunate companions of Pedrillo, they were off at full speed without delay, clearing the moat at a tremendous bound. Two of the robbers succeeded in passing through the postern, but were overtaken and cut down on the brink of the ditch. After that, during the trial of Captain Pedrillo, the environs of the hacienda had not been disturbed. At the present moment all eyes within the corral were directed on the culprit so soon to expiate his crimes. Nevertheless, the sentries would not have permitted a numerous body of enemies to have approached unchallenged. But it was another matter as regarded a solitary Apache, who, now hanging by the side of his war pony, now leading it, now crawling on alone before, and whistling softly for it to join him, came up to the palisade totally unseen and unexpected. In fact, how could the two hundred peons and Mexicans in the farm enclosure fear anything from a solitary red man?

Thus had Iron Shirt, for it was the chief who devoted himself to a desperate enterprise, reached the outside of the stockade just where the bullets, sure to perforate the wood around the death-awaiting bandolero, would salute the unsuspected bystander painfully. The woodwork rose some fourteen feet high, effectually masking him and his equally as steadily moving steed. He stopped the latter, vaulted on his back like a circus rider, stood up, and all of a sudden the startled Mexicans beheld the plumed head, the black painted face, and the long arm of the Apache above the pointed posts, just over the cowering bandit's form.

"Fire!" cried don Benito.

But even as he spoke the red arm was extended downwards, the steellike fingers clutched the shoulder of Captain Pedrillo, and he was lifted up with what was a prodigious expenditure of force, albeit he was the lighter by a limb than most men, clear of the low aim of the peons. Then, caught in both arms of the savage, standing on his horse, the Mexican was transferred to the farther side of the barricade.

It was the deed of an instant, this snatching aloof of the victim.

Fifty eager men, shaking off their stupefaction, sprang to the stockade, and leaping upon shelves, placed there for the purpose, fired on the disappearing pony, burdened with the double charge, but gallantly bounding away.

At the same time, to draw off a second volley from their gallant chief, a number of Apaches, and the rebels who ran up the incline as far as the verge of the ditch, shot arrows and bullets into the corral. The Mexicans were compelled to drop down and retire.

True to the chivalric creed that a chief's scalp is to be rescued at any cost, Iron Shirt had saved his brother commander.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE HARVEST OF THE KNIFE

With similar fortitude, the American and his associate had resisted the rain in the best shelter the rocks afforded. At least, the relentless downpour had prevented any completion of the mounting of the piece, and it was not till full day, after the Apache chief had triumphantly brought the Mexican back to the encampment, amid the vivas of the rebels, that Garcia's cannoneers had obtained the fitting elevation.

This done, the robber lieutenant applied his cigar, after having puffed it into active incandescence, to the piece of slow match stuck in the rusty touchhole, and embedded there with ample powder to ensure the ignition.

Gladsden gave the hunter an appealing look, but the latter's face was immobile as a statue's. He had, therefore, to control his throbbing heart as best he might, whilst the match spluttered and hissed like a serpent, and lessened in length. All eyes were fastened upon the farmhouse, and the unutterably deep silence which pervaded the thousands of enemies to the beset handful was most impressive.

Hardly had a few seconds, which seemed minutes to all concerned, fled away, than the spark reached the powder; there was a faint flash, then a much brighter and broader one, and with a gush of flame, as at the opening of an iron furnace door, the old gun awoke from its centuries' repose, with the roar of a menagerie lion that was at last released from captivity.

Through the rolling smoke the huge round stone, which had been chosen for bullet, sped noisily in an arc of trajectory which gave señor Stefano much credit, and crashed into the farmhouse a little below the roof edge, knocking three little bits of windows into one broad gap.

An immense shout of savage joy hailed this result, and even the bystanders, injured by the splinters of the logs, smashed by the recoil of the gun, forgot their hurts in the success.

Gladsden had leaned forward out of the covert, and seemed on the verge of seeking to avenge this hurling of death in amid the Mexican's home; but the American placed both hands on his shoulders, and dragged him back and downwards.

"Wait!" said he, grimly. "Before they fire a second ball, our turn to play comes in. They will leave powder round loose, will they? I'll show 'em! You jes' hold your hosses – I'll show 'em to shoot at women and children."

Indeed, there was plenty of time for the planning and execution of a countermeasure, for the remounting of the forty pounder, though cheerfully, even merrily, performed, was a lengthy labour.

Mr. Gladsden, chafing at his impotence, fixed his eyes on the farmhouse, where the great hole seemed to reproach him for this inaction. There did appear at its edges what seemed men at that distance, but the Yaquis immediately showered stones and darts on these repairers, who shortly retired.

The unfortunate victims of the bombardment would have no choice but to put the women in the cellars and perish in the ruins, or sally out at a disadvantage when the cannon rendered the place quite untenable.

In the meantime, Oliver, calculating with much exactitude the time required by the Mexicans and their assistants to replace the gun on its rests, was splitting a length of old pine in halves; this done, he hollowed out the centre with his knife, and soon had a pair of troughs which served very fairly as rocket tubes. As soon as he had finished, his jogging the elbow of the Englishman for him to look, set the latter to comprehend in part the hunter's intention.

He aided him eagerly to lay the rockets in the hollow of the wood, itself supported firmly between the stones, the mouth directed with all the care he would have given a shot on which life depended at the powder canisters.

It is true that several horses and men came between the mark and the two projectiles, but their iron heads would make light of such obstacles, perhaps.

Enthusiastic at the great result of the first discharge, many of the Yaquis swarmed up the slope to see the second discharge more closely, and, spite of orders from the guard of the robber captain, they clustered so as to almost impede the smiling cannoneer in his second essay.

Three of the Apaches on their horses on one side, and half a dozen Mexicans charged them slowly to bear them back. An opening was made thereby, a vista from the two watchers, even to the cannon and its ammunition pile.

"It is the time! Touch off!" whispered Oliver.

The Englishman gave him a fusee out of his cigar lights box, and kindled one himself simultaneously. The two, with one and the same movement, clapped them to the rocket matches, which they had pinched off short, and blew at the flames to accelerate the burning.

Engrossed in the application of the fire to the cannon, none of the enemy heard this slight crepitation, or saw the thin sparks on the barranca's crest.

Almost immediately the match was blazing within each case, and, covering the two whites with a shower of sparks, the rockets, slowly at first, but soon far distancing the initial velocity, traversed the intervening space, and deflecting towards the ground, rushed noisily through the little group of robbers, Apaches, Yaquis and leaders, into the very heap of powder. The explosion occurred, but, not in the least pausing, the rockets continued an erratic flight, ploughing up the ground, ricocheting, separating, crossing and joining, diffusing silver and ruddy golden fireballs, and thus careering among the amazed multitude till the cases fell as blackened coals.

Meanwhile, the powder which was loose had flared up and frightened the horses; then the open tins burst and showered the ground with flaring rain. The full tins went off like bombs, and one of them, dislocating the arrangement of timber under the gun, upset the whole pile. The cannon, of which the match had been uninterruptedly burning, went off whilst thus overturned, and the stone ball, perforating a herd of the Yaquis, split in three pieces, which fell upon the upturned, curious faces of their fellows beneath the hill.

"I'm inclined to b'lieve," remarked Oliver, drawing his revolver, "that the folks on the farm hev' seen our rockets go off at last."

Whilst the smoke was enshrouding the hill top, and the ground still quaking, the mounted men who had not been unsaddled, using both hands to restrain their terrified steeds, and the unhurt savages flying to and fro and against one another in great consternation, the rockets had been truly taken for their signal of action by both the Mexican parties, however far divided.

Out of the wood debouched the mounted Mexicans, shaking their banneretted lances as if they were reeds, and shouting "Mexico forever!" As they came on, well thinned out, their swiftness gave them the appearance of a much more numerous column.