CHAPTER I.

THE FREEBOOTERS.

A Story of the Texan War.

BY

GUSTAVE AIMARD,

AUTHOR OF "BORDER RIFLES," "THE INDIAN SCOUT," ETC.

LONDON:

WARD AND LOCK,

158, FLEET STREET.

MDCCCLXI.

PREFACE.

Apart from the thrilling interest of Aimard's new story, which I

herewith offer to English readers, I think it will be accepted with

greater satisfaction, as being an historical record of the last great

contest in which the North Americans were engaged. As at the present

moment everything is eagerly devoured that may tend to throw light on

the impending struggle between North and South, I believe that the story

of "THE FREEBOOTERS," which is rigorously true in its details, will

enable my readers to form a correct opinion of the character of the

Southerners.

The series, of which this volume forms a second link, will be completed

in a third volume, to be called "THE WHITE SCALPER," which contains an

elaborate account of the liberation of Texas, and the memorable battle

of San Jacinto, together with personal adventures of the most

extraordinary character.

L.W.

7, DRAYTON TERRACE,

WEST BROMPTON.

CONTENTS.

I. FRAY ANTONIO

II. INDIAN DIPLOMACY

III. DOWN THE PRECIPICE

IV. TWO ENEMIES

V. GENERAL RUBIO

VI. THE HUNTER'S COUNCIL

VII. AN OLD FRIEND

VIII. QUONIAM'S RETURN

IX. HOSPITALITY

X. THE LARCH-TREE HACIENDA

XI. A METAMORPHOSIS

XII. THE SUMMONS

XIII. THE SIEGE

XIV. THE PROPOSAL

XV. A THUNDERBOLT

XVI. THE CONSPIRATORS

XVII. THE SPY

XVIII. THE PULQUERIA

XIX. AT SEA

XX. THE PRIZE

XXI. A STRANGE LEGEND

XXII. THE SURPRISE

XXIII. EL SALTO DEL FRAYLE

XXIV. THE LANDING

XXV. FORWARD!

CHAPTER I.

FRAY ANTONIO.

All the wood rangers have noticed, with reference to the immense virgin

forests which still cover a considerable extent of the soil of the New

World, that, to the man who attempts to penetrate into one of these

mysterious retreats which the hand of man has not yet deformed, and

which preserve intact the sublime stamp which Deity has imprinted on

them, the first steps offer almost insurmountable difficulties, which

are gradually smoothed down more and more, and after a little while

almost entirely disappear. It is as if Nature had desired to defend by a

belt of thorns and spikes the mysterious shades of these aged forests,

in which her most secret arcana are carried out.

Many times, during our wanderings in America, we were in a position to

appreciate the correctness of the remark we have just made: this

singular arrangement of the forests, surrounded, as it were, by a

rampart of parasitic plants entangled one in the other, and thrusting in

every direction their shoots full of incredible sap, seemed a problem

which offered a certain degree of interest from various points of view,

and especially from that of science.

It is evident to us that the circulation of the air favours the

development of vegetation. The air which circulates freely round a large

extent of ground covered with lofty trees, and is driven by the various

breezes that agitate the atmosphere, penetrates to a certain depth into

the clumps of trees it surrounds, and consequently supplies nourishment

to all the parasitical shrubs vegetation presents to it. But, on

reaching a certain depth under the covert, the air, less frequently

renewed, no longer supplies carbonic acid to all the vegetation that

covers the soil, and which, through the absence of that aliment, pines

away and dies.

This is so true, that those accidents of soil which permit the air a

more active circulation in certain spots, such as the bed of a torrent

or a gorge between two eminences, the entrance of which is open to the

prevailing wind, favour the development of a more luxuriant vegetation

than in flat places.

It is more than probable that Fray Antonio[1] made none of the

reflections with which we begin this chapter, while he stepped silently

and quietly through the trees, leaving the man who had helped him, and

probably saved his life, to struggle as he could with the crowd of

Redskins who attacked him, and against whom he would indubitably have

great difficulty in defending him.

Fray Antonio was no coward; far from it: in several critical

circumstances he had displayed true bravery; but he was a man to whom

the existence he led offered enormous advantages and incalculable

delights. Life seemed to him good, and he did all in his power to spend

it jolly and free from care. Hence, through respect for himself, he was

extremely prudent, only facing danger when it was absolutely necessary;

but at such times, like all men driven into a corner, he became terrible

and really dangerous to those who, in one way or the other, had provoked

in him this explosion of passion.

In Mexico, and generally throughout Spanish America, as the clergy are

only recruited from the poorest class of the population, their ranks

contain men of gross ignorance, and for the most part of more than

doubtful morality. The religious orders, which form nearly one-third of

the population, living nearly independent of all subjection and control,

receive among them people of all sorts, for whom the religious dress

they don is a cloak behind which they give way with perfect liberty to

their vices, of which the most venial are indubitably indolence, luxury,

and intoxication.

Enjoying a great credit with the civilized Indian population, and

greatly respected by them, the monks impudently abuse that halo of

sanctity which surrounds them, in order to shamefully plunder these poor

people under the slightest excuses.

Indeed, blackguardism and demoralisation have attained such a pitch in

these unhappy countries, which are old and decrepit without ever having

been young, that the conduct of the monks, offensive it may seem in the

sight of Europeans, has nothing at all extraordinary for those among

whom they live.

Far from us the thought of leading it to be supposed that among the

Mexican clergy, and even the monks we have so decried, there are not men

worthy of the gown they wear, and convinced of the sanctity of their

mission; we have, indeed, known many of that character; but

unfortunately they form so insignificant a minority, that they must be

regarded as the exception.

Fray Antonio was assuredly no better or worse than the other monks whose

gown he wore; but, unluckily for him, for some time past fatality

appeared to have vented its spite on him, and mixed him up, despite his

firm will, in events, not only opposed to his character but to his

habits, which led him into a multitude of tribulations each more

disagreeable than the other, and which were beginning to make him

consider that life extremely bitter, which he had hitherto found so

pleasant.

The atrocious mystification of which John Davis had rendered the poor

monk a victim, had especially spread a gloomy haze over his hitherto so

gay mind; a sad despondency had seized upon him; and it was with a heavy

and uncertain step that he fled through the forest, although, excited by

the sounds of combat that still reached his ear, he made haste to get

off, through fear of falling into the hands of the Redskins, if they

proved the victors.

Night surprised poor Fray Antonio ere he had reached the skirt of this

forest, which seemed to him interminable. Naturally anything but

hard-working, and not at all used to desert life, the monk found himself

greatly embarrassed when he saw the sun disappear on the horizon in a

mist of purple and gold, and the darkness almost instantaneously cover

the earth. Unarmed, without means of lighting a fire, half-dead with

hunger and alarm, the monk took a long glance of despair around him, and

fell to the ground, giving vent to a dull groan: he literally did not

know to what saint he should appeal.

Still, after a few moments, the instinct of self-preservation gained the

mastery over discouragement, and the monk, whose teeth chattered with

terror on hearing re-echoed through the forest the lugubrious roaring of

the wild beasts, which were beginning to awaken, and greeted in their

fashion the longed-for return of gloom--rose with a feverish energy,

and suffering from that feverish over-excitement which fear raised to a

certain pitch produces, resolved to profit by the fugitive rays that

still crossed the glade, to secure himself a shelter for the night.

Opposite to him grew a majestic mahogany tree, whose interlaced branches

and dense foliage seemed to offer him a secure retreat against the

probable attack of the gloomy denizens of the forest.

Assuredly, under any other circumstances than those in which he found

himself, the bare idea of escalading this immense forest would have

appeared to the monk the height of folly and mental aberration, owing

first to his paunch, and next to his awkwardness, of which he felt

intimately convinced.

But it was a critical point: at each instant the situation grew more

dangerous; the howling came nearer in a most alarming manner; there was

no time to hesitate; and Fray Antonio did not do so. After walking once

or twice round the tree, in order to discover the spot which offered him

the greatest facility for his ascent, he gave vent to a sigh, embraced

the enormous and rugged trunk with his arms and knees, and painfully

commenced his attempted climb.

But it was no easy matter, especially for a plump monk, to mount the

tree, and Fray Antonio soon perceived this fact at his own expense; for

each time that, after extraordinary efforts, he managed to raise himself

a few inches from the ground, his strength suddenly failed him, and he

fell back on the ground with lacerated hands and torn clothes.

Ten times already had he renewed his efforts, with the desperation

produced by despair, without seeing them crowned with success; the

perspiration poured down his face; his chest panted; he was in a state

to produce pity even in his most obstinate enemy.

"I shall never succeed in mounting it," he muttered sadly; "and if I

remain here, I am a lost man, for within an hour I shall be infallibly

devoured by some tiger in search of its supper."

This final reflection, which was incontestably true, restored a fresh

ardour to the monk, who resolved to make a new and supreme attempt But

this time he wished to take all his precautions; consequently, he began

collecting the dead wood round him and piling it at the foot of the

tree, so as to form a scaffolding high enough for him to reach, without

any great difficulty, a branch sufficiently low for him, while careful

to remain awake, to hope to spend the night without fear of being

devoured--an alternative for which the worthy monk did not feel the

slightest inclination.

Soon, thanks to the vivacity of his movements, Fray Antonio had a

considerable heap of wood piled up around him. A smile of satisfaction

lit up his wide face, and he breathed again, while wiping away the

perspiration that poured down his face.

"This time," he muttered, calculating with a glance the space he had to

cover, "if I do not succeed, I shall be preciously clumsy."

In the meanwhile the last gleams of twilight, so useful to the monk, had

entirely disappeared; the absence of the stars, which had not yet shown

themselves, left a profound obscurity in the sky, which was even more

obscure under the covert; all was beginning to be blotted out, only

allowing here and there a few clumps of trees to be distinguished, as

they designed their gloomy masses in the night, or a few patches of

water, the result of the last storm, which studded the forest with paler

spots. The evening breeze had risen, and could be heard soughing through

the foliage with a sad and melancholy plaintiveness.

The dangerous denizens of the forest had quitted their lurking places,

and crushed the dead wood, as they eagerly came on, amid a deafening

current of catlike howls. The monk had not an instant to lose, if he did

not wish to be attacked on all sides at once by the wild beasts, whom a

lengthened fast rendered more terrible still.

After taking a searching glance around him in order to assure himself

that no pressing danger threatened him, the monk devotedly crossed

himself, fervently recommended himself to Heaven with a sincerity he had

probably never evinced before, and then, suddenly making up his mind,

began resolutely climbing up the pile of wood. After several

unsuccessful attempts, he at last reached the top of this fictitious

mount.

He then stopped for a minute to draw breath; indeed, thanks to his

ingenious ideas, Fray Antonio was now nearly ten feet from the ground.

It is true that any animal could easily have overthrown this obstacle;

but for all that, this beginning of success revived the monk's courage,

the more so because, on raising his eyes he saw a few paces above him,

the blessed branch toward which he had so long extended his arms in

vain.

"Come!" he said, hopefully.

He embraced the tree once more, and recommenced his fatiguing

clambering. Either through skill or accident Fray Antonio at length

managed to seize the branch with both hands, and clung to it with all

his strength. The rest was as nothing. The monk assembled by a supreme

effort all the vigour his previous attempts had left him, and raising

himself by his arms, tried to get astride on the branch. Owing to his

energetic perseverances, he had raised his head and shoulders above the

branch, when all at once he felt a hand or a claw fasten round his right

leg, and squeeze it as in a vice. A shudder of terror ran over the

monk's body: his blood stood still in his veins; an icy perspiration

beaded on his temples, and his teeth chattered fit to break.

"Mercy!" he exclaimed in a choking voice, "I am dead. Holy virgin, have

pity on me."

His strength, paralyzed by terror, deserted him, his hands let loose the

protecting branch, and he fell in a lump at the foot of the tree.

Fortunately for Fray Antonio, the care he had taken in piling up the

dead wood to a considerable extent broke his fall, otherwise it would

probably have been mortal: but the shock he experienced was so great

that he completely lost his senses. The monk's fainting fit was long:

when he returned to life and opened his eyes again, he took a frightened

glance around, and fancied he must be suffering from a horrible

nightmare.

He had not stirred from the spot, so to speak: he still found himself

by the tree, which he had tried so long to climb up in vain, but he was

lying close to an enormous fire, over which half a deer was roasting,

and around him were some twenty Indians, crouching on their heels,

silently smoking their pipes, while their horses, picketed a few yards

off, and ready to mount, were eating their provender.

Fray Antonio had seen Indians several times before, and had stood on

such intimate terms, indeed, with them, as to be able to recognize them.

His new friends were clothed in their war garb, and from their hair

drawn off their foreheads, and their long barbed lances, it was easy to

recognize them as Apaches.

The monk's blood ran cold, for the Apaches are notorious for their

cruelty and roguery. Poor Fray Antonio had fallen from Charybdis into

Scylla; he had only escaped from the jaws of the wild beasts in order to

be in all probability martyred by the Redskins. It was a sad prospect

which furnished the unlucky monk with ample material for thoughts, each

more gloomy than the other, for he had often listened with a shudder to

the hunters' stories about the atrocious tortures the Apaches take a

delight in inflicting on their prisoners with unexampled barbarity.

Still, the Indians went on smoking silently, and did not appear to

perceive that their captive had regained his senses. For his part, the

monk hermetically closed his eyes, and anxiously preserved the most

perfect tranquillity, in order to leave his dangerous companions, so

long as he could, in ignorance of the state in which he was.

At length the Indians left off smoking, and after shaking the ash out of

their calumets, passed them again through their girdle; a Redskin

removed from the fire the half deer which was perfectly roasted, laid it

in abanijo leaves in front of his comrades, and each drawing his

scalping knife, prepared for a vigorous attack on the venison, which

exhaled an appetizing odour, especially for the nostrils of a man who,

during the whole past day, had been condemned to an absolute fast.

At this moment the monk felt a heavy hand laid on his chest, while a

voice said to him with a guttural accent, which, however, had nothing

menacing about it.

"The father of prayer can open his eyes now, for the venison is smoking,

and his share is cut off."

The monk, perceiving that his stratagem was discovered, and excited by

the smell of the meat, having made up his mind, opened his eyes, and sat

up.

"Och!" the man who had before spoken said, "My father can eat; he must

be hungry, and has slept enough."

The monk attempted to smile, but only made a frightful grimace, so

alarmed did he feel. As however, he was really hungry as a wolf, he

followed the example offered him by the Indians, who had already

commenced their meal, and set to work eating the lump of venison which

they had the politeness to set before him. The meal did not take long;

still it lasted long enough to restore a little courage to the monk, and

make him regard his position from a less gloomy side than he had

hitherto done.

In truth, the behaviour of the Apaches toward him had nothing hostile

about it; on the contrary, they were most attentive in serving him with

what he needed, giving him more food so soon as they perceived that he

had nothing before him: they had even carried their politeness so far

as to give him a few mouthfuls of spirit, an extremely precious liquid,

of which they are most greedy, even for their own use, owing to the

difficulty they experience in obtaining it.

When he had ended his meal, the monk, who was almost fully reassured as

to the amicable temper of his new friends, on seeing them light their

pipes, took from his pocket tobacco and an Indian corn leaf, and after

rolling a _pajillo_ with the skill which the men of Spanish race

possess, he conscientiously enjoyed the bluish smoke of his excellent

Havana tobacco, _costa abajo_.

A considerable space of time elapsed thus, and not a syllable was

exchanged among them. By degrees the ranks of the Redskins thinned: one

after the other, at short intervals, rolled themselves in their

blankets, lay down with their feet to the fire, and went to sleep almost

immediately. Fray Antonio, crushed by the poignant emotions of the day,

and the enormous fatigue he had experienced, would gladly have imitated

the Indians, had he dared, for he felt his eyes close involuntarily, and

found immense difficulty in contending against the sleep that

overpowered him. At last the Indian who hitherto had alone spoken,

perceiving his state of somnolency, took pity on him. He rose, fetched a

horsecloth, and brought it to the monk.

"My father will wrap himself in this fressada,[2]" he said, employing

the bad Spanish in which he had hitherto spoken; "the nights are cold,

and my father needs sleep greatly, he will, therefore, feel warmed with

this. Tomorrow, a Chief will smoke the calumet with my father in

council. Blue-fox desires to have a serious conversation with the father

of prayer of the Palefaces."

Fray Antonio gratefully accepted the horsecloth so graciously offered by

the Chief, and without attempting to prolong the conversation, he

wrapped himself up carefully, and lay down by the fire so as to absorb

the largest amount of caloric possible. Still the Indian's words did not

fail to cause the monk a certain degree of anxiety.

"Hum!" he muttered to himself, "That is the reverse of the medal. What

can this Pagan have to say to me? He does not mean to ask me to christen

him, I suppose? especially as his name appears to be Blue-fox, a nice

savage name, that. Well, heaven will not abandon me, and it will be day

tomorrow. So now for a snooze."

And with this consolatory reflection the monk closed his eyes: two

minutes later he slept as if never going to wake again.

Blue-fox, for it was really into the hands of that Chief the monk had so

unexpectedly fallen, remained crouched over the fire the whole night,

plunged in gloomy thought, and watching, alone of his comrades, over the

common safety: at times, his eyes were fixed with a strange expression

on the monk who was fast asleep, and far from suspecting that the Apache

Chief was so obstinately engaged with him.

At sunrise Blue-fox was still awake: he had remained the whole night

without once changing his position, and sleep had not once weighed down

his eyelids.

[1] See "Border Rifles," same publishers.

[2] "frazada."