DOWN THE PRECIPICE.
The romancer has an incontestable advantage over the historian. Not
being obliged to restrict himself to historical documents, he bases his
work chiefly on tradition, and revels in those incidents of private life
disdained by cold and severe history, which is constrained to describe
only great events, and is not permitted to descend to the frequently
trivial causes which not only prepared, but actually brought them about.
Frequently, after a long journey, the traveller, fatigued by the vast
horizons incessantly unrolled before him, and rendered giddy by the
sharp air of the elevations along which he has been riding, looks down
on the plain, and his eye rests with indescribable pleasure on those
modest points in the landscape which at the outset he despised. In the
same way the romancer halts at the familiar episodes of the great poem,
and listens to the simple stories told him by those who were actors in
the scenes merely indicated by history. Such stories complete the dry
and stern narrative of great wars, but historians dare not transcribe
them.
It is true that in these stories ignorance is nearly always perceptible,
and prejudice very frequently; but life is found in them, for if the
narrators tell inexactly what happened, they at any rate say frankly how
they felt, what they heard and saw themselves, and the errors they
sometimes involuntarily make are not falsehoods, but relative truths,
which it is the duty of the romancer to classify and put in their proper
place.
We have several times visited the narrow defile where the Border Rifles
and the Mexicans fought the action we described in a previous volume.[1]
Bending over the precipice, with our eyes fixed on the yawning abyss
beneath us, we heard the narrative of the strange incidents of that
battle of giants, and if we had not been certain of the veracity of the
narrator, we should certainly have not only doubted but completely
denied the possibility of certain facts which are, however, rigorously
true, and which we are now about to impart to the reader.
The Border Rifles saw with a shriek of horror the two men, intertwined
like serpents, roll together over the precipice; the flashes of the
fire, which was beginning to die out for want of nourishment, after
devastating the crests of the hills, threw at intervals a lurid light
over this scene, and gave it a striking aspect.
The first moment of stupor past, John Davis, mastering with difficulty
the emotion that agitated him, sought to restore courage, if not hope,
to all these men who were crushed by the terrible catastrophe. John
Davis enjoyed, and justly so, a great reputation among the Borderers.
All know the close friendship which attached the Americans to their
chief: in several serious affairs he had displayed a coolness and
intelligence which gained him the respect and admiration of these men:
hence they immediately responded to his appeal, by grouping silently
round him, for they understood intuitively that there was only one man
among them worthy of succeeding the Jaguar, and that he was the North
American.
John Davis had guessed the feelings that agitated them, but did not
allow it to be seen: his face was pale, his appearance sad: he bent a
thoughtful glance on the rude, determined men who, leaning on their
rifles, gazed at him mournfully, and seemed already tacitly to recognize
the authority with which he was, probably, about to invest himself.
Their expectations were deceived, at least, temporarily. Davis, at this
moment, had no intention of making the Borderers elect him as their
chief: the fate of his friend entirely absorbed him, and all other
considerations disappeared in the presence of the one idea.
"Caballeros," he said, in a melancholy tone, "a terrible misfortune has
struck us. Under such circumstances, we must summon up all our courage
and resignation, for women weep, but men revenge themselves. The death
of the Jaguar is not only an immense loss for ourselves, but also for
the cause we have sworn to defend, and to which he has already given
such great proof of devotion. But, before bewailing our chief, so worthy
in every respect of the sorrow which we shall feel for him, we have one
duty to accomplish--a duty which, if we neglect it, will cause us
piercing remorse at a later date."
"Speak, speak, John Davis, we are ready to do anything you order us,"
the Borderers exclaimed unanimously.
"I thank you," the American continued, "for the enthusiasm with which
you have replied to me: I cannot believe that an intellect so vast, a
heart so noble, as that of our beloved Chief can be thus destroyed. God,
I feel convinced, would not thus have broken a cause for which we have
so long been struggling with such devotion and self-denial. Heaven will
have performed a miracle in favour of our Chief, and we shall see him
reappear among us safe and sound! But whatsoever may happen, should this
last hope be denied us, at any rate, we must not abandon like cowards,
without attempting to save him, the man who twenty times braved death
for each of us. For my part, I swear by all that is most sacred in the
world, that I will not leave this spot till I have assured myself
whether the Jaguar be dead or alive."
At these words a buzz of assent ran along his hearers, and John Davis
continued, "Who knows whether our unhappy Chief is not lying crushed,
but still breathing, at the foot of this accursed abyss, and reproaching
us for our cowardly desertion of him?"
The Border Rifles declared, with the most energetic oaths, that they
would find their Chief again, dead or alive.
"Good, my friends," the American exclaimed; "if he be unhappily dead, we
will place his body in the ground and protect his remains, so dear to us
on many accounts, from the insults of wild beasts: but, I repeat to you,
one of those presentiments which never deceive, because they come from
God, tells me that he is still alive."
"May Heaven hear you, John Davis," the Borderers shouted, "and restore
us our Chief."
"I am going to descend the precipice," the American said; "I will
inspect its most secret recesses, and before sunrise we shall know what
we have to hope or fear."
This proposal of John Davis' was greeted as it deserved, by enthusiastic
shouts. When the excitement of the hearers had slightly calmed, the
American prepared to carry out his design.
"Permit me a remark," said an old wood ranger.
"Speak, Ruperto, what is it?" Davis answered.
"I have known the spot where we now are for a long time, and have often
hunted deer and antelopes here."
"Come to facts, my friend."
"You can act as you please, John Davis, on the information I am about to
give you; by turning to the right, after marching for about three miles,
you get round the hills, and what appears to us from here a precipice,
is, in fact, only a plain, very enclosed, I allow, but easy to traverse
on horseback."
"Ah, ah," John said thoughtfully, "and what do you conclude from that,
Ruperto?"
"That it would be, perhaps, better to mount and skirt the hills."
"Yes, yes, that is a good idea, and we will take advantage of it; take
twenty men with you, Ruperto, and proceed at full speed to the plain you
allude to, for we must not throw away any chance; the rest of the band
will remain here to watch the environs, while I effect the descent of
the barranca."
"You still adhere to your idea, then?"
"More than ever."
"As you please, John Davis, as you please, though you risk your bones on
such a black night as this."
"I trust in Heaven, and I hope it will protect me."
"I hope so too for your sake; but I must be off--here's luck."
"Thanks, the same to you."
Red Ruperto then went off, followed by twenty borderers, who
spontaneously offered to accompany him, and soon disappeared in the
darkness. The descent John Davis was preparing to make, was anything but
easy. The American was too experienced a wood ranger not to know, and
hence took all proper precautions. He placed in his belt next his knife
a wide and strong axe, and fastened round his waist a rope formed of
several _reatas_. Three men seized the end of the rope, which they
turned round the stem of a tree, so as to let it out without a shock,
whenever the American desired it. As a final precaution, he lit a branch
of ocote wood, which was to serve as his guide during his perilous
descent, for the sky was perfectly black, which rendered the gloom so
thick that it was impossible to see anything two paces away. His last
measures taken with the coolness that distinguishes men of his race, the
North American pressed the hands held out to him, tried once again to
restore hope to his comrades by a few hearty words, and kneeling on the
brink of the abyss, began slowly descending.
John Davis was a man of tried courage, his life had been one continued
struggle, in which he had only triumphed through his strength of will
and energy; still, when he began descending into the barranca, he felt
chilled to the heart, and could not repress a slight start of terror,
which ran over all his limbs like an electric flash. Still, he fought
against this emotion, which is nothing but that instinct of
self-preservation which duty has placed in the heart of every man, the
bravest as the most cowardly, and continued his descent.
Although he was fastened round the waist, it was no easy task to go down
this almost perpendicular wall, to which he was compelled to cling like
a reptile, clutching at every tuft of grass or shrub he came across, or
else he had been carried away by the wind, which blew furiously, and
would have crushed him like a nutshell against the sides of the abyss.
The first minutes were the most terrible to the bold adventurer; the
feet and hands must grow accustomed to the rude task imposed on them,
and they only gradually learn to find, as it were instinctively, their
resting places; and this remark, which may appear erroneous to certain
persons, who, fortunately for themselves, have never been obliged to try
the experiment, will be recognized as rigorously true by all travellers
who have been compelled to ascend or descend mountains. After a few
minutes, when the mind remains at liberty, the body assumes of its own
accord the necessary equilibrium, the feet find secure resting places,
and the hands settle unhesitatingly on the grass or roots which offer
them the indispensable degree of resistance.
John Davis had hardly gone ten yards down, ere he found himself on a
wide ledge covered with thick shrubs; hitherto the descent had been
extremely rapid. Lighting himself by the torch, the American traversed
in every direction this species of esplanade, which was about a dozen
paces in circumference; and, on carefully examining the thick shrubs
which covered it, the adventurer perceived that the tops had been broken
as if they had received a tremendous blow.
Davis looked around him. He soon concluded that this enormous gap could
only have been made by the fall of two bodies: this remark gave him good
hope, for at so slight a distance from the mouth of the abyss, the two
enemies must have been full of life; the rapidity of their fall must
have naturally been arrested by the shrubs; they might have met at
various distances similar obstacles, and consequently have undergone
several comparatively harmless falls. This hypothesis, erroneous though
it was, still might be true.
John Davis continued his descent; the slope became constantly less
abrupt, and the adventurer met within his passage, not merely shrubs,
but clumps of trees, grouped here and there. Still, as John Davis found
no further traces, a fear fell upon him, and painfully contracted his
heart; he was afraid lest the shrubs, through their elasticity, might
have hurled the two unhappy men into space, instead of letting them
follow the slope of the precipice. This thought so powerfully occupied
the American's mind, that a deep discouragement seized upon him, and for
some moments he remained without strength or will, crouching sadly on
the ground.
But Davis was a man of too stern a character, and endowed with such an
energetic will, to give way for any length of time to despair: he soon
raised his head, and looked boldly around him.
"I must go on," he said in a firm voice. But, at the moment when he
prepared to continue his descent, he suddenly gave a start of surprise,
and uttered a cry as he rushed quickly toward a black mass, to which he
had hitherto paid but slight attention.
We once again ask our readers' pardon for the improbability of the
following detail; but we repeat that we are not explaining, but
narrating, confining ourselves to telling the truth, without pretending
to discuss the greater or less possibility of facts, which, however
extraordinary they may appear, are exactly true.
The white-headed eagle, the most powerful and the best provided of the
birds, ordinarily builds its nest on the sides of barrancas, at the top
of the loftiest trees, and chiefly those denuded of branches to a
considerable height, but they are never found on rocks. This nest,
strongly built, is composed of sticks from three to five feet in length,
fastened together and covered with Spanish braid, a species of
cryptogamic plant of the lichen family, wild grass, and large patches of
turf. When the nest is completed, it ordinarily measures from six to
seven feet in diameter, and at times the accumulation of materials there
is so considerable--for the same nest is frequently occupied for a
number of years, and receives augmentations each season--that its depth
equals its diameter. As the nest of the white-headed eagle is very
heavy, it is generally placed in the centre of a fork formed by the
fortuitous meeting of several large branches.
John Davis, by the help of his torch, had just discovered a few yards
from him, and almost on a level with the spot where he was standing, an
eagle's nest, built on the top of an immense tree, whose trunk descended
for a considerable depth in the precipice.
Two human bodies were lying stretched across this nest, and the American
only required one glance to assure himself that they were those of the
Jaguar and the Mexican Captain. They were perfectly motionless, and
still fast locked in each other's arms.
It was not at all an easy undertaking to reach this nest, which was
nearly ten yards from the sides of the precipice; but John Davis did not
give in on that account; now that he had found the body of his Chief
again, he was determined to learn, at all risks, whether he were alive
or dead. But what means was he to employ to acquire this certainty? How
reach the tree, which oscillated violently with every gust? After ripe
reflection, the American recognized the fact that he could never climb
the tree alone; he therefore placed his hands funnel-wise to his month,
and gave the shout agreed on with his comrades. The latter drew up the
reata, and after half an hour of unheard of fatigue, Davis found himself
again among his comrades.
The Border Rifles crowded round him eagerly to ask the details of his
expedition, which he hastened to give them, and which were received with
shouts of joy by all. Then happened a thing which proves how great was
the affection all these men bore their Chief; without exchanging a word,
or coming to any agreement, all procured torches, and, as if obeying the
same impulse, began descending the abyss.
Through the multiplicity of torches, which spread abroad sufficient
light, and, before all, the skill of these men, accustomed since
childhood to run about the forests, and clamber up rocks and precipices
in sport, this descent was effected without any further misfortunes to
deplore, and the whole band was soon assembled at the spot whence the
American had first discovered the nest of the white-headed eagle.
All was in the same state as Davis left it: the two bodies were still
motionless, and still intertwined. Were they dead, or only in a faint?
Such was the question all persons asked themselves, and no one could
answer it. All at once a loud noise was heard, and the bottom of the
barranca was illumined by a number of torches. Ruperto's party had
arrived. Guided by the flashes they saw running along the sides of the
precipice, the latter soon discovered the nest, and the truth was
revealed to them.
The arrival of Ruperto and his comrades was a great comfort to the
Americans, for now nothing would be more easy than to reach the nest.
Four powerful adventurers, armed with axes, glided along the side of the
precipice to the foot of the tree, which they began felling with hurried
strokes, while John Davis, and the men with him, threw their reatas
round the top branches of the tree, and gradually drew it towards them.
The tree began gracefully bending, and at length lay on the side of the
barranca, without receiving any very serious shock.
John Davis immediately entered the nest, and drawing his knife from his
belt, bent over the body of the Jaguar, and put the blade to the young
man's lips. There was a moment of profound anxiety for these men; their
silence was so complete, that the beating of their hearts might be
heard. They stood with their eyes obstinately fixed on the American,
daring scarcely to breathe, and, as it were, hanging on his lips. At
length John rose, and placed the knife near a torch; the blade was
slightly tarnished.
"He lives, brothers, he lives!" he shouted.
At these news the Border Rifles broke out into such a howl of joy and
happiness, that the nightbirds, startled in their gloomy hiding places,
rose on all sides, and began flying heavily backwards and forwards,
while uttering discordant and deafening cries. But this was not all: the
next point was to get the Jaguar out of the precipice, and let him down
into the gorge. We have said that the two bodies were closely
intertwined. The adventurers felt but slender sympathy for Captain
Melendez, the primary cause of the catastrophe, which had so nearly
proved fatal to the Jaguar; hence they were not at all eager to assure
themselves whether he were dead or alive; and when the moment arrived to
find means for conveying the body of their Chief into the barranca, a
very serious and stormy discussion arose on the subject of the Mexican
officer. The majority of the adventurers were of opinion that the
easiest way of separating the two bodies was by cutting off the
Captain's arms, and throwing his body into the abyss, to serve as food
for wild beasts. Those who were more excited talked about stabbing him
at once, so as to make quite sure that he did not recover. Some even had
seized their knives and machetes to carry out this resolution, but John
Davis suddenly interfered.
"Stop!" he shouted, eagerly, "the Jaguar lives; he is still your Chief,
so leave him to treat this man as he thinks proper. Who knows whether
the life of this officer may not be more valuable to us than his death?"
The adventurers were not easily induced to spare the Captain, and
adhered for a while to their proposal of stabbing him, after cutting off
his arms. Still, owing to the influence he enjoyed with the band, Davis
succeeded in making them listen to reason, and they began arranging how
to get the bodies down.
[1] See Border Rifles, same Publishers.