In the central parts of America, white men as well as Indians execute
this law with cruel severity against each other. Civilised communities
adopt it in a mitigated form as applied to capital punishment, but the
untutored inhabitants of the desert continue to practise it with the
same rigour which belonged to the first ages of mankind.
And may we not here make the remark, that the similitude of feeling on
this point, between the white man and the savages, casts a stain upon
the former which for his own honour he should endeavour to wipe out?
Society has provided laws for the protection of all men. The man who
amongst us should assume the right of judgment, and take the law into
his own hands, would thus violate it, and fall under the jurisdiction of
those whom society has appointed to try, and to condemn.
We are not without a hope that at some future time, as civilisation
advances, men will allow that they who deprive a culprit of that life
which none can recall, commit an act of sacrilege in defiance of those
divine laws which govern the universe and take precedence of all human
decrees.
A time will come, we would fain believe, when our laws may spare the
life of a guilty man, and suffer him to atone for his errors or his
crimes by repentance. Such a law would respect the life which can never
be restored; and while another exists which casts an irretrievable stain
upon our honour, there would be a law of restoration capable of raising
the man sanctified by repentance to the dignity which punishment would
have prevented his attaining.
"There is more joy in heaven," says the gospel, "over a sinner who
repents, than a righteous man made perfect." Why then are not human
laws a counterpart of these divine decrees?
Now, however, liberty is the only boon which society confers upon him
whose misfortunes or whose crimes have deprived him of it.
Misfortunes did we not say? Is there not in truth a law which
assimilates the criminal with the upright though insolvent debtor, and
compels him to the same fate in prison?
So much for this subject. Let us now return to the lynch law of the
desert. It was before a tribunal without appeal, and in the presence of
self-constituted judges, that Don Antonio de Mediana was about to
appear. A court assembled in a city, with all its imposing adjuncts,
could not have surpassed in solemnity the assizes which at this moment
were convoked in the desert, where three men represented human justice
armed with all its terrors!
We have described the singular and fantastic aspect presented by the
spot, in which this scene was to be enacted. In truth, the sombre
mountains, veiled in mist, the mysterious subterranean sounds, the long
tufts of human hair agitated by every breath of wind, the skeleton of
the Indian horse exposed to view, all combined to endue the place with a
strange unearthly appearance in the eyes of the prisoner, so that he
almost believed himself under the influence of some horrible dream.
One might have imagined himself suddenly transported into the middle
ages, in the midst of some secret society, where previous to the
admission of the candidate, were displayed all the terrors of the earth,
as a means of proving his courage.
All this however was here a fearful reality.
Fabian pointed out to the Duke de Armada, one of the flat stones,
resembling tombstones, which were strewed over the plain, and seated
himself upon another so as to form with the Canadian and his companion a
triangle, in which he occupied the most prominent position.
"It is not becoming for the criminal to sit in the presence of the
judges," said the Spanish noble, with a bitter smile, "I shall therefore
remain standing."
Fabian made no reply.
He waited until Diaz, the only disinterested witness in this court of
justice, had chosen a convenient place.
The adventurer remained at some distance from the actors in the scene,
yet sufficiently near to see and hear all that passed.
Fabian began:
"You are about to be told," said he, "of what crime you are accused.
You are to look upon me as the judge who presides at your trial, and who
will either condemn or acquit you."
Having thus spoken he paused to consider.
"It will first be necessary to establish the identity of the criminal.
Are you in truth," he continued, "that Don Antonio, whom men here call
the Count de Mediana?"
"No," replied the Spaniard in a firm voice.
"Who are you then?" continued Fabian, in a mingled tone of astonishment
and regret, for he repudiated the idea that a Mediana would have
recourse to a cowardly subterfuge.
"I _was_ the Count de Mediana," replied the prisoner, with a haughty
smile, "until by my sword I acquired other titles. At present I am
known in Spain as the Duke de Armada. It is the name I shall transmit
to the descendant of my line, whom I may choose as my adopted son."
The latter phrase, incidentally spoken by the prisoner, proved in the
sequel his sole means of defence.
"Right," said Fabian, "the Duke de Armada shall hear of what crime Don
Antonio de Mediana is accused. Speak Bois-Rose! tell us what you know,
and nothing more."
The rough and energetic countenance of the gigantic descendant of the
Norman race, as he stood motionless beside them, his carbine supported
on his broad shoulder, was expressive of such calm integrity, that his
appearance alone banished all idea of perjury. Bois-Rose drew himself
up, slowly removed his fur cap, and in doing so discovered his fine open
brow to the gaze of all.
"I will only speak of what I know," said he.
"On a foggy night, in the month of November, 1808, I was a sailor on
board a French smuggling-vessel called the Albatros.
"We had landed according to a plan formed with the captain of the
carabiniers of Elanchovi, on the coast of the Bay of Biscay. I will not
relate to you," and here Pepe could not repress a smile, "how we were
fired upon, and repulsed from the shore where we had landed as friends.
It is sufficient for you to know that when we again reached our vessel,
I was attracted by the screams of a child, which seemed to come from the
depths of the ocean.
"These cries proceeded from a boat which had been abandoned.
"I pushed out towards it at the risk of my own life, since a brisk fire
was opened upon our ship.
"In this boat I found a lady murdered, and lying in her blood. She was
quite dead, and close to her was a little child who appeared to be
dying.
"I picked up the child--that child is now the man before us; his name is
Fabian.
"I took the child with me, and left the murdered lady in the boat. I do
not know who committed the crime, and have nothing further to say."
As he finished speaking, Bois-Rose again covered his head, and seated
himself in silence.
A mournful silence followed this declaration.
Fabian lowered his flashing eyes for an instant to the ground, then
raised them, calm and cold, to the face of the ex-carabinier, whose turn
had now come to speak.
Fabian was prepared to act his terrible part, and the countenance as
well as the attitude of the young man, though clothed in rags, expressed
the nobility which characterised an ancient race, as well as the
collected coolness of a judge. He cast an authoritative glance towards
Pepe, and the half savage trapper was compelled to submit to it in
silence.
Pepe at length rose, and advanced a few paces, by his manner showing a
determination only to utter that which his conscience approved.
"I understand you, Count Mediana," said he, addressing himself to
Fabian, who alone in his eyes had the right to assume this title. "I
will try to forget that the man here present is the same who caused me
to spend so many long years among the refuse of mankind at Ceuta. When
I appear before God He may require of me the words I have spoken, but I
should again repeat them, nor regret that they had ever been uttered."
Fabian made a gesture of approbation.
"One night in the month of November, 1808," said he, "when I belonged to
the Royal Carabiniers in the service of Spain, I was on duty upon the
coast of Elanchovi, where three men disembarked from the open sea upon
the beach.
"Our captain had sold to one of them the right of landing in a forbidden
spot.
"I reproach myself with having been this man's accomplice, and receiving
from him the price of culpable neglect of my duty.
"The following day it was discovered that the Countess Mediana and her
young son had left the castle during the night.
"The Countess was murdered--the young Count was never seen again.
"A short time after, his uncle appeared at Elanchovi and claimed his
nephew's fortune and titles. All was given up to him, and I, who
believed that I had only sold my services to favour an intrigue or an
affair of smuggling, found that I had been the accomplice of a murderer.
"I upbraided the present Count Mediana before witnesses, and accused him
of this crime. Five years' imprisonment at Ceuta was the reward of my
presumption.
"Here before another and more righteous tribunal, and in the presence of
God who is my witness, I again accuse the man before me. I declare him
to be the murderer of the Countess, and the usurper of her son's titles.
He was one of the three men, who, during the night entered by escalade
the chateau which Don Fabian's mother never again beheld.
"Let the murderer refute the charge. I have done."
"You hear him?" said Fabian, "what have you to say in your defence?"
A violent struggle between his conscience and his pride took place in
Mediana's breast.
Pride however triumphed.
"Nothing," replied Don Antonio.
"Nothing!" answered Fabian, "but you do not perhaps know what a terrible
duty I have to fulfil?"
"I can imagine it."
"And I," cried Fabian passionately, "shall not flinch in accomplishing
it. Yet, though my mother's blood cries out for vengeance, should you
refute the charge, I would bless you still. Swear to me then, in the
name of Mediana, which we bear in common, by your honour and the
salvation of your soul, that you are innocent, and I shall be too happy
to believe you."
Then, oppressed with an intolerable anguish, Fabian awaited his reply.
But, gloomy and inflexible as the fallen archangel, Mediana was silent.
At this moment Diaz advanced towards the judges and the prisoner.
"I have listened," said he, "with the utmost attention to your
accusation again Don Estevan de Arechiza, whom I also know to be the
Duke de Armada; may I express my thoughts freely?"
"Speak!" said Fabian.
"One point seems to me doubtful. I do not know whether the crime you
attribute to this noble cavalier was committed by him; but, admitting
that to be the case, have you any right to condemn him? In accordance
with the laws of our frontier, where no court may be held, it is only
the nearest relatives of the victim who are entitled to claim the blood
of the murderer.
"Don Tiburcio's youth was passed in this country. I knew him as the
adopted son of Marcos Arellanos.
"Who can prove that Tiburcio Arellanos is the son of the murdered lady?
"How, after so many years, can it be possible for this hunter, formerly
a sailor, to recognise in the midst of these solitudes, the young man,
whom as a child he beheld only for an instant on a foggy night?"
"Answer, Bois-Rose," said Fabian, coldly.
The Canadian again rose.
"I ought, in the first place, to state," said the old hunter, "that it
was not only for a few moments on a foggy night that I saw the child in
question. During the space of two years, after having saved him from
certain death, I kept him on board the vessel in which I was a sailor.
"The features of his son could not be more deeply impressed upon the
memory of a father than those of that child were on mine.
"How then can you affirm that it is impossible I should recognise him?
"When you are travelling in the desert, where there is no beaten track,
are you not guided by the course of streams, by the character of the
trees, by the conformation of their trunks, by the growth of the moss
which clothes them, and by the stars of heaven? and when at another
season, or even twenty years afterwards, should the rains have swelled
the streams, or the sun have dried them up, should the once naked trees
be clothed with leaves, should their trunks have expanded, and moss
covered their roots, even should the north star have changed its
position in the heavens, and you again beheld it, would you not
recognise both star and stream?"
"Doubtless," replied Diaz, "the man who has experience in the desert, is
seldom deceived."
"When you meet a stranger in the forest, who answers you with the cry of
a bird or the voice of an animal, which is to serve as a rallying signal
to you or your friends, do you not immediately say, `This man is one of
us'?"
"Assuredly."
"Well, then; I recognise the child in the grown man, just as you
recognise the small shrub in the tall tree; or the stream that once
murmured softly in the roaring and swollen torrent of to-day. I know
this child again by a mode of speech, which twenty years have scarcely
altered."
"Is not this meeting a somewhat strange coincidence?" interrupted Diaz,
now almost convinced of the Canadian's veracity.
"God," cried Bois-Rose, solemnly, "who commands the breeze to waft
across the desert the fertilising seeds of the male palm to the female
date-tree--God, who confides to the wind which destroys, to the
devastating torrent, or to the bird of passage, the grain which is to be
deposited a thousand miles from the plant that produced it--is he not
also able to send upon the same path two human beings made in his
image?"
Diaz was silent a moment; then having nothing more to advance in
contradiction to the Canadian's truthful words whose honest manner of
speech carried with it an irresistible conviction, he turned towards
Pepe:
"Did you," said he, "also recognise in Arellanos' adopted child, the
Countess de Mediana's son!"
"It would be impossible for any one who ever saw his mother long to
mistake him. Enough! let the Duke de Armada contradict me."
Don Antonio, too proud to utter a falsehood, could not deny the truth
without degrading himself in the eyes of his accusers, unless he
destroyed the only means of defence to which his pride and the secret
wish of his heart allowed him to have recourse.
"It is true," said he, "that this man is of my own blood. I cannot deny
it without polluting my lips with a lie, and an untruth is the offspring
of cowardice."
Diaz inclined his head, regained his seat, and was silent.
"You have heard," said Fabian, "that I am indeed the son of the woman,
whom this man murdered; therefore I claim the right of avenging her.
What then do the laws of the desert decree?"
"Eye for eye," said Bois-Rose.
"Tooth for tooth," added Pepe.
"Blood for blood," continued Fabian; "a death for a death!"
Then he rose, and addressing Don Antonio in measured accents, said: "You
have shed blood and committed murder. It shall therefore be done to you
as you have done to others. God commanded it to be so."
Fabian drew his poignard from its sheath. The sun was shedding his
first rays upon the scene, and every object cast a long shadow upon the
ground.
A bright flash shot from the naked blade which the younger Mediana held
in his hand.
Fabian buried its point in the sand.
The shadow of the poignard far exceeded its length.
"The sun," he said, "shall determine how many moments you have to live.
When the shadow disappears you shall appear before God, and my mother
will be avenged."
A deathlike silence succeeded Fabian's last words, who, overcome with
long suppressed emotions, fell, rather than seated himself upon the
stone.
Bois-Rose and Pepe both retained their seats. The judges and the
criminal were alike motionless.
Diaz perceived that all was over, but he did not wish, to take any part
in the execution of the sentence.
He approached the Duke de Armada, knelt down before him, took his hand
and raised it to his lips.
"I will pray for the salvation of your soul," said he in a low tone.
"Do you release me from my oath?"
"Yes," replied Don Antonio, in a firm voice; "go, and may God bless you
for your fidelity!"
The noble adventurer retired in silence.
His horse had remained at some short distance.
Diaz soon reached it, and holding the bridle in his hands, walked slowly
towards the spot where the river forked.
In the mean time the sun followed its eternal course--the shadows
gradually contracted--the black vultures flew in circles above the heads
of the four actors in the terrible drama the last scene of which was now
drawing near. From the depths of the Misty Mountains, shrouded in
vapour, might be heard, at intervals, dull rumbling sounds, like
thunder, followed by distant explosions.
Pale, but resigned, the unfortunate Count de Mediana remained standing.
Buried in deep reverie, he did not appear to notice the continually
decreasing shadow.
All exterior objects vanished from his sight. His thoughts were divided
between the past which no longer concerned him, and the future he was
about to enter.
However, pride still struggled within him, and he maintained an
obstinate silence.
"My Lord Count," said Fabian, who was willing to try a last chance, "in
five minutes the poignard will have ceased to cast a shadow."
"I have nothing to say of the past," replied Don Antonio. "I must now
think only of the future of my race. Do not, therefore, misjudge the
sense of the words I am about to speak. Whatever may be the form in
which it may come, death has no power to terrify me."
"I am listening," said Fabian gently.
"You are very young, Fabian," continued Mediana, "and the thought of the
blood that has been shed will therefore be so much the longer a burthen
to you."
Fabian's countenance revealed the anguish of his feelings.
"Why then so soon pollute a life which is scarcely begun? Why refuse to
follow a course which the unlooked-for favour of Providence opens to
you? Here you are poor, and without connections. God restores you to
your family, and, at the same moment, confers wealth upon you. The
inheritance of your race has not been squandered by me. I have for
twenty years borne the name of Mediana, at the head of the Spanish
nobles, and I am ready to restore it to you with all the honours I have
conferred upon it. Accept then a fortune which I joyfully restore to
you, for the isolation of my life is burthensome to me; but do not
purchase it by a crime, for which an imaginary act of justice cannot
absolve you, and which you will repent to your last hour."
Fabian replied, "A judge who presides at his tribunal must not listen to
the voice of nature. Supported by his conscience, and the service he
renders to society, he may pity the criminal, though his duty requires
that he shall condemn him. In this solitude, these two men and myself
represent human justice. Refute the crime attributed to you, Don
Antonio, and I shall be the happiest of us two; for though I shudder to
accuse you, I cannot escape the fatal mission which heaven has imposed
upon me."
"Consider well, Fabian, and remember that it not pardon, but oblivion,
for which I sue. Thanks to that oblivion, it rests with you to become,
in my adopted son, the princely heir of the house of Mediana. After my
death my title will expire."
As he listened to these words the young man became deadly pale; but
spurning in his heart the temptation held out to him, Fabian closed his
ears to that voice which offered him so large a share of the riches of
this world, as though he had but heard the light whispers of the breeze
amid the foliage of the trees.
"Oh, Count Mediana, why did you kill my mother?" cried Fabian, covering
his face with his hands; then, glancing towards the poignard planted in
the sand, "My lord of Armada," he added, solemnly, "the poignard is
without a shadow!"
Don Antonio trembled in spite of himself, as he then recalled the
prophetic threat, which twenty years before the Countess de Mediana had
compelled him to hear.
"Perhaps," she had said, "the God whom you blaspheme will ordain, that
in the heart of a desert, untrodden by the foot of man, you shall find
an accuser, a witness, a judge, and an executioner."
Accuser, witness, and judge were all before him, but who was to be the
executioner? However, nothing was wanting for the accomplishment of the
dreadful prophecy.
A noise of branches, suddenly torn apart, was heard at this moment.
The moment after, a man emerged from the brushwood, his habiliments
dripping with water and soiled with mud. It was Cuchillo.
The bandit advanced with an air of imperturbable coolness, though he
appeared to limp slightly.
Not one of the four men, so deeply absorbed in their own terrible
reflections, showed any astonishment at his presence.
"Carramba! you expected me then?" he cried; "and yet I persisted in
prolonging the most disagreeable bath I have ever taken, for fear of
causing you all a surprise, for which my self-love might have suffered,"
(Cuchillo did not allude to his excursion in the mountains); "but the
water of this lake is so icy that rather than perish with cold, I would
have run a greater risk than meeting with old friends."
"Added to this I felt a wound in my leg reopen. It was received some
time since, in fact, long ago, in my youth.
"Senor Don Estevan, Don Tiburcio, I am your very humble servant."
A profound silence succeeded these words. Cuchillo began to feel that
he was acting the part of the hare, who takes refuge in the teeth of the
hounds; but he endeavoured by a great show of assurance to make the best
of a position which was more than precarious.
The old hunter alone glanced towards Fabian, as though to ask what
motive this man, with his impudent and sinister manner, and his beard
covered with greenish mud, could offer for thus intruding himself upon
them.
"It is Cuchillo," said Fabian, answering Bois-Rose's look.
"Cuchillo, your unworthy servant," continued the bandit, "who has been a
witness to your prowess, most worthy hunter of tigers. Decidedly,"
thought Cuchillo, "my presence, is not so obnoxious to them as I should
have supposed."
Then feeling his assurance redoubled at the reception he had met with,
which though cold and silent as that with which every new-comer is
received in the house of death, still gave him courage to say, observing
the severe expression on every face:
"Pardon me, gentlemen! I observe you have business in hand, and I am
perhaps intruding; I will retire. There are moments when one does not
like to be disturbed: I know it by experience."
Saying these words, Cuchillo showed his intention of crossing a second
time the green inclosure of the valley of gold, when Bois-Rose's rough
voice arrested him.
"Stay here, as you value the salvation of your soul, master Cuchillo,"
said the hunter.
"The giant may have heard of my intellectual resources," thought
Cuchillo. "They have need of me. After all, I would rather go shares
with them than get nothing; but without doubt this Golden Valley is
bewitched. You allow, master hunter," he continued, addressing the
Canadian, and feigning a surprise he did not feel at the aspect of his
chief, "I have a--"
An imperious gesture from Fabian cut short Cuchillo's demand.
"Silence!" he said, "do not distract the last thought of a Christian who
is about to die."
We have said that a poignard planted in the ground no longer cast a
shadow.
"My lord of Mediana," added Fabian, "I ask you once again, by the name
we bear, by your honour, and the salvation of your soul, are you
innocent of my mother's murder?"
To this lofty interrogation, Don Antonio replied without relaxing his
haughty demeanour--
"I have nothing to say, to my peers alone I allow the right of judgment.
Let my fate and yours be accomplished."
"God sees and hears me," said Fabian. Then taking Cuchillo aside: "A
solemn sentence has been passed upon this man," said he to him. "We, as
the instruments of human justice in this desert, command you to be his
executioner. The treasures contained in this valley will remunerate you
for undertaking this terrible duty. May you never commit a more
iniquitous act!"
"One cannot live through forty years without having a few little
peccadilloes on one's conscience, Don Tiburcio. However, I shall not
the less object to being an executioner; and I am proud to know that my
talents are estimated at their real value. You promise, then, that all
the gold of this valley shall be mine?"
"All--without excepting the smallest particle."
"Carramba! notwithstanding my well-known scruples, it is a good price,
therefore I shall not hesitate; and if at the same time there is any
other little favour you require of me, do not distress yourself--it
shall be done cheaply."
That which has been previously said explains Cuchillo's unexpected
appearance.
The outlaw, concealed upon the borders of the neighbouring lake, had
escaped through the prologue which preceded the fearful drama in which
he was about to perform a part. Taking all things into consideration,
he saw that matters were turning out better than he had expected.
However he could not disguise from himself the fact that there was a
certain amount of danger in his becoming the executioner of a man who
was aware of all his crimes, and who could, by a single word, surrender
him him to the implacable justice enforced in these solitudes.
He was aware that to gain the promised recompense, and to prevent Don
Antonio from speaking, it would be necessary first to deceive him, and
he found means to whisper in the ear of the prisoner--
"Fear nothing--I am on your side."
The spectators of this terrible scene maintained a profound silence,
under a feeling of awe experienced by each of them.
A deep dejection of spirit had, in Don Fabian's case, succeeded the
energetic exercise of his will, and his face, bowed towards the earth,
was as pale and as livid as that of the man upon whom he had pronounced
sentence of death.
Bois-Rose--whom the frequent dangers which belonged to the life of a
sailor and a hunter, had rendered callous to the physical horror with
which one man looks upon the destruction of his fellow--appeared
completely absorbed in the contemplations of this young man, whom he
loved as a son, and whose dejected attitude showed the depth of his
grief.
Pepe, on his side, endeavoured to conceal under an impenetrable mask the
tumultuous feeling resulting from his now satisfied vengeance. He, as
well as his two companions, remained silent.
Cuchillo alone--whose sanguinary and vindictive nature would have led
him to accept gratuitously the odious office of executor--could scarcely
conceal his delight at the thoughts of the enormous sum he was to
receive for the wicked service.
But in this case, for once in his life, Cuchillo was to assist in an
apparently legal proceeding.
"Carramba!" he ejaculated, taking Pepe's carbine from him, and at the
same time making a sign to Don Antonio; "this is an affair for which
even the judge of Arispe himself would be sorry to grant me absolution."
He advanced towards Don Antonio.
Pale, but with flashing eyes; uncertain whether in Cuchillo he beheld a
saviour or an executioner, Don Estevan did not stir.
"It was foretold that I should die in a desert; I am, what you are
pleased to call, convicted and condemned. God has reserved forme the
infinite disgrace of dying by the hand of this man. I forgive you,
Fabian; but may not this bandit prove as fatal to your life, as he will
be to that of your father's brother, as he was--"
A cry from Cuchillo--a cry of alarm, here interrupted the Duke de
Armada.
"To arms! To arms! yonder come the Indians!" cried he.
Fabian, Bois-Rose, and Pepe rushed to seize their rifles.
Cuchillo took advantage of this short instant, and sprang towards Don
Antonio. The latter with his neck stretched forward, was also examining
the wide extent of the plain, when Cuchillo twice plunged the poignard
into his throat.
The unfortunate Mediana fell to the ground, vomiting forth torrents of
blood.
A smile relaxed Cuchillo's lips: Don Antonio had carried out of the
world the secret which he dreaded.