It may be naturally surmised that Sir Francis and Lady Vane and their
children, who had never before witnessed a South American Indian
“Ceremony of Welcome,” were not a little startled on beholding Aniwee
and her warriors charging to meet them in apparently so warlike a
fashion. But to Harry and Topsie, it was neither an unusual nor a
terrifying sight, accustomed as they had been during their sojourn
amongst the Patagonians to scenes and occurrences of a like nature.
Knowing, however, the punctilious etiquette of both Patagonians and
Araucanians, in the matter of going religiously through the whole
ceremony, our two young friends drew rein, and with a few reassuring
words to their uncle, aunt, and cousins, awaited the Araucanian charge.
“It’s all right, Uncle Francis,” volunteered the young midshipman (for
Harry had long overstepped the important boundary which separates the
naval cadet from the midshipman); “they are not going to hurt us. But I
say, watch them closely and all they do; for directly they form up quiet
into line, we must go through exactly the same form of antics as they.
Oh, Topsie! do look,” he continued somewhat eagerly; “there’s Aniwee,
dear little Aniwee, as I live.”
“Little indeed,” laughed his sister slyly as she criticised the tall,
graceful figure of the young Amazon on the rapidly approaching white
horse. “If I’m not very much mistaken, Harry, old boy, she’s bigger than
you. My word, she has grown since we saw her last!”
Ere Harry could reply, Aniwee and her warriors were upon them. Halting
suddenly when within fifty paces of the new-comers, the warriors formed
rapidly into columns of three abreast, and began galloping madly around
the small party, firing off their guns and revolvers, shouting and
yelling, and waving their bolas around their heads. This having been
continued for several minutes, ranks were suddenly opened, and each man
charged forward shouting, “Koue,” and thrusting at an imaginary foe. The
supposed enemy having been dislodged, a halt was sounded, the Indians
formed quickly into several long lines, and remained motionless as
statues, conspicuous at their head being Aniwee, Inacayal, and other
Caciques and Caciquillos.
“Now, aunt, now, uncle, come on, Freddy, Willie, and Mary, it’s our
turn,” cried Topsie, as she brought her horse alongside her brother’s,
and beckoned to Willie to fall in on the other side of her. The
Araucanian escort, which had been sent forward by Aniwee to meet them,
quickly formed into threes, and in another moment the little party were
galloping as madly as the others had done, around the long lines of
solemn Araucanians. Joining in the scrimmage, with loud barks of glee,
was Topsie’s dog Shag, our dear old friend Shag of Castaway renown.
The shouting, firing, and galloping having come to an end, Harry and
Topsie at once rode up to Aniwee with loud cries of welcome. It is not
easy to describe the joy of the Indian girl at seeing her old friends
again; for the Indian character is phlegmatic, and by no means
demonstrative in its affections; and although Aniwee was an exception to
this rule, she had a part to play before her warriors, and was bound to
look dignified, as befitted a great Cacique.
But Harry and Topsie could see tears in her great dark eyes as she
clasped their hands, and bade them welcome to Araucanian soil. They had
heard all about the deaths of Cuastral and Piñone, and therefore avoided
touching on delicate and painful ground by alluding to them.
“How big you have grown, Aniwee!” exclaimed Topsie, after the first
greetings were over, and the Queen, with her guests, was riding along
the valley towards the tolderias, followed by her warriors. “We left you
a child, but you look like a woman now.”
“Aniwee is a woman,” answered the Indian girl with all the dignity of
sixteen and a half summers. “Aniwee is no longer a child.”
They were conversing in Spanish, a language which, by the way, Harry had
“got up” sufficiently to make himself understood in view of the visit to
Aniwee. “He wasn’t going to be made a fool of again, and look like one,
as had been the case in Patagonia,” he had declared, “when all the
speaking and interpreting had been done by Topsie, and he had had to sit
by and act the part of audience.” Of course, now that he had become a
Spanish scholar, this was no longer necessary, and he rejoiced thereat
exceedingly.
“Of course you are not a child now, Aniwee,” he answered in a somewhat
important tone. “We are all three grown up. Let me see, you are sixteen
and a half, and I and my sister celebrated our seventeenth birthday a
few days ago. We are all of a great age.” Harry possessed the knack of
saying funny things with a face grave as an owl. His remark tickled
Topsie immensely, but was received by Aniwee with dignified
complaisance.
“How old are your cousins?” she inquired, looking at Freddy, Willie, and
Mary Vane, who were riding close alongside them.
“Well, that one there is a man,” observed Harry, indicating Freddy with
his finger. “He is sixteen, and a great warrior. The other two are
children still. The boy is fourteen, the girl thirteen,—just about the
age you were, Aniwee, when we first met you. The boy, like myself, is a
sailor, and the girl would like to be one too, if only the laws of our
country would permit it.”
“Then women, too, are slaves in the great white land, the same as my
father’s people are?” inquired the Indian girl, with a bitter smile.
“Oh no, Aniwee!” answered Topsie quickly; “not slaves. For you see,
Aniwee, unlike the Patagonian women, they don’t do the whole work of the
nation. The men have to work, too, and not simply feast, hunt, and make
war as your father’s men do. All the same, women in our country can’t be
warriors, or be sailors on ships, or attend Parliament. That is what my
brother means.”
“And don’t they want to be warriors, and sea Caciques, and attend
Parliamentos?” again inquired the young Queen.
“Some do, Aniwee,” replied Topsie. “I, for instance, and my cousin Mary,
would like to be sea Caciques. But we must alter the laws before we can
become so. Great changes often come quickly, however. If, four years
ago, the Araucanians had been told that a woman would reign over them,
they would have laughed to scorn the very idea. Yet, behold your little
girl is head Cacique of the great Warrior tribe, and you are the
Queen-Regent. Would this great people have acted thus if they had not
recognised in you a fearless ruler and an undaunted warrior?”
The Indian girl’s cheeks flushed, as she listened to Topsie’s words.
“It is true!” she murmured; “and yet it was Piñone, my beloved Piñone,
who made his people love me. He always called Aniwee their Warrior
Queen, and it was he who gave her her first lessons in war. Piñone, love
of Aniwee’s heart, where art thou?”
A plaintive, far-away look shone in the dark eyes of the young Warrior
Queen as the memory of her beloved shot across her. Topsie was just
meditating some cheerful remark, to drive away, if possible, sad
thoughts from the girl’s mind, when shouts and yells were suddenly borne
up the valley on the soft evening breeze. They came from the direction
of the Indian camp. A look of horror overspread the features of Aniwee.
Full well she knew the meaning of those cries. Reining up her horse, she
turned suddenly round, and faced her warriors.
“Inacayal!” she called out in a commanding voice; “where art thou,
cousin?”
In a moment the Cacique was by her side.
“Heard you not the war cry, Inacayal, or did Aniwee dream?” she inquired
anxiously.
“The Queen did not dream,” he answered, with flashing eyes. “Hark! there
it is again. Bid Inacayal speed quickly to the tolderias with two
hundred of these warriors, and do thou, O Queen, remain here with the
great white Caciques, in the care of the remaining hundred.”
A gleam of anger flashed in the girl’s eyes as she fixed them on the
scheming chief.
“What!” she exclaimed proudly, “I, the Warrior Queen, skulk, hiding like
a poltroon, behind my men? Inacayal, you are a strange counsellor. Know,
however, that I will it otherwise. I will lead the two hundred to the
rescue, and do you, with the remaining hundred, guard my guests. Do you
hear, Inacayal! It is my command.”
A vicious, disappointed look came over the Cacique’s face, but he had no
alternative than to obey. In quick, rapid tones Aniwee issued her
orders, and then hurriedly explained the situation to Harry and Topsie,
imploring them to remain where they were with their uncle, aunt, and
cousins, “for,” she added significantly, “when the Indian’s blood is up,
he might not distinguish you from the Cristianos, and then your fates
would be death. Farewell for the moment. Aniwee goes to restore peace
and defend her child.”
As she spoke she struck her silver spurs into her horse’s side, and with
a loud cry sped along the valley, followed by the two hundred
Araucanians whom she had bidden attend her.
“Well, Harry and Topsie, you have led us into a warrior land indeed,”
exclaimed Lady Vane, laughing. “Hardly has your Queen welcomed us than
she dashes away into strife and turmoil. What can it all mean?”
“I can’t make out, aunt,” answered Harry, just a shade anxiously. “Those
cries we hear are war cries. You, who understand Spanish, heard what she
said to us. Really, I think we had better obey her. I know Aniwee well,
and can trust her. But what a scowling-looking chap the Cacique is, in
whose care she has left us. I don’t half like his looks, do you, Uncle
Francis?”
“I can’t say I am impressed by them, my boy,” answered Sir Francis
quietly. “I’m a bit of a character reader, and it strikes me he
entertains no good feeling to the young Queen. His expression was savage
and sullen when she addressed him just now.”
Again shouts and cries came floating up the valley. The face of Inacayal
wore a triumphant expression. Suddenly he turned to the warriors who
surrounded him. “There is a fight down yonder,” he exclaimed. “Shall we
stand idle while a woman bears the brunt of war? Say, brothers, shall we
not charge?”
An approving shout greeted his suggestion, and before Sir Francis and
Lady Vane, Harry, Topsie, and their cousins had fathomed what was going
to happen, they felt themselves borne forward in the midst of a hundred
or more stalwart warriors, all shouting and yelling like so many demons.
Madly excited, Shag brought up the rear.
“We’re in for it, Topsie, and no mistake,” gasped Harry, as he got his
horse tight by the head, and tried to check his headlong career. He had
quite forgotten that this was a signal to go faster, so that the animal
merely redoubled its efforts. In a few minutes they had dashed into the
Indian camp.
What a sight they beheld! A scene of fierce turmoil indeed. Some hundred
white men, surrounded by Aniwee and her braves, fighting desperately for
their lives. They had sought to catch the Warrior Queen in a trap, and
had been caught themselves, and now they saw no chance of escape from
the furious Araucanians who pressed upon them.
A weird scene indeed! The sun had sunk, the gloom of night was already
upon everything, throughout the camp huge fires gleamed and sparkled,
lighting up the faces of the combatants, and giving them a strange,
fantastic appearance. As Inacayal swept upon the scene with his bevy of
warriors, he took it all in at a glance. His plan had failed.
Yet must he save the Cristianos whom his vile intrigues had lured to the
spot. His had been the intention to rob the Queen-Regent of her baby
child, during her brief absence and when all the warriors were withdrawn
from the camp. For this purpose he had put himself in communication with
the Cristianos, who, at war with the Araucanians, had willingly agreed
to secure the little Guardia, in hopes of forcing her great tribe to
accept disadvantageous and degrading terms of peace. As we have seen,
Inacayal’s plan had failed.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]