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.
"The soldiers! The soldiers from Ures!" screamed the Yaquis in the
hollow. "Look out for yourselves! The lancers are coming!"
On seeing them in confusion, and shrinking back from all sides so as
to form a serried mass under the walls of the hacienda, don Benito and
don Jorge, each at the head of a troop, dashed out of the corral at the
main portal and the secret one, and executed a dreadful double charge
to the cry of "Down with the rebels!"
The shock of the pretended lancers and the hacendero's followers on
opposite sides of the insurgents' agitated ranks, occasioned a combat;
but when the horsemen, with spear or cutlass, were intermingled with
the footmen, it became slaughter. Neither side craved for mercy, and
they fought as only men can fight who were either masters who feared to
lose the upper hand of subjects, or slaves who were seeking reprisals
for wrongs inflicted on anterior generations.
Whenever the swaying of the mob brought a mass near the hacienda or its
stockade, all the defenders within, to whom were added the women, armed
with obsolete firearms, musketry, and blunderbusses, fired upon them,
and added not inconsiderably to the dismay and butchery.
In the interval, on the summit of the hill, where the smoke still
lingered from the explosions, the salteadores had sought to punish the
rocket dischargers, whom they had perceived in the rocks and under the
pine stumps. It is true that the Englishman had most imprudently stood
up in order to see what really was the extent of the damage done. The
Apaches, at a word from Iron Shirt, had descended the hill towards the
hacienda, rallying their own comrades preparatory to a prudent drawing
off with all the livestock which might be added to their previously
collected droves. They considered the battle lost to them on seeing
the immovable Yaquis struck with panic, an emotion which extended
with marvellous rapidity even to those on the other side of the farm,
entirely unaffected by actual danger.
Stunned by the cannon report, a noise too great of its kind to have
ever come within their experience, the banditti's horses were found to
be unmanageable, and they had alighted, all but their maimed leader,
whose steed was less incapable of guidance, to punish the authors of
the disaster which had turned the tide.
Three times they made a rush at the natural bulwarks in full belief
that they could hurl the paltry opposition over, a-down the ravine; but
each time their retreat was marked by a line of corpses. So near a mark
was fatal to the heavy thirty-eight calibre repeaters.
"This is the second time you are running agen this snag," taunted the
hunter, with that bitter loquacity common to him and Indians in the
fever of combat, "but come on agen! Bless you, that's on'y an appetiser
to the pie to foller! Thar's roast ribs the next dish! Come and sweep
the platter--only two tender chickens left, and plenty of gravy! Do
come now, while the offer is open! Did any gentleman say, 'Mercy!'
Well, I'm not sparing white skunks today! P'raps you're only drawing
our fire--loafing round tell we haven't a cartridge left! Yes, do walk
up for a grapple and a hug--we are only the worst kickers you ever
seen, that's all."
All this sarcasm was echoed by Pedrillo; his fury was indescribable, to
say nothing of the effects of the native brandy which had been given
him as a remedy after his prostration under the fear of death. When
he recognised the Englishman, all the pent up rage of fifteen years
inspired him, and his _absent leg_ ached again as lively as when it
had been torn off by the shark. The _gringo_, who had sunk his ship,
after having run away with his bride and his cruiser; who had taken the
treasure which the law of robbers assigned to the captain in good part;
this impudent spoilsport again had marred the consummation of vengeance
upon his fellow foe, don Benito. He cast all prudence aside; he himself
advanced with his surviving men prominently.
"We'll bury them in the dry _arroyo_!" he yelled, foaming at the
mouth, and his wooden leg beating the horse's shoulder in his feverish
convulsions. "Down with them."
What was their surprise to see the two men leap disdainfully over their
breastwork, and stride towards the eight or ten Mexicans with revolver
and knife in hand, spurning the dead and wounded due to the same
well-plied weapons.
The bandits slackened their pace, but the mounted leader, still
continuing, advanced beyond them. They resumed their charge. But
already that separation had resolved Gladsden. Forgetting that he
had been enjoined to keep side by side with the American as long as
they faced the Rustlers, and, when the chance-medley came, to stand
back to back with him, he sprang quickly onward. The now frightened
Pedrillo aimed at him a terrible sweeping blow of a long sword, such
another as the hapless _guitarero_ had employed in the tavern. And,
though Gladsden parried it partially with his knife, the glancing blade
cleft his left shoulder. Stung by the pain, the Englishman dropped the
knife out of the hand, already benumbed by the cut, and seizing the
protruding wooden leg of the luckless Terror of the Border, applied
himself with such extraordinary vigour to tearing the wretch out of the
saddle, that leg, man or saddle, was bound to come. It was the leg gave
way at its straps, while Pedrillo was howling with agony and clinging
to the saddlebow, leaning with all his might contrariwise to the tug.
On the unexpected release, the captain fell heavily over the horse and
lay senseless on the ground, which he had reached headfirst. Gladsden
caught the flying reins, and bounded upon the steed; as it flew forward
in fright, two of the salteadores were shouldered aside, and the
captain trodden upon by the hinder hoof; but he made no move, never
so much as groaned, he had died as much from fright as anguish. This
magnificent feat of _arms_, if the seizure of the nether limb could be
so denominated, completely demoralised the robbers.
But some of the most courageous Yaquis, and an Apache who had lost a
kinsman in the explosion as well as a war pony, which he more or less
greatly prized, saw the white men victorious and the Rustlers about to
fly, with a deeper chagrin and enmity. They collected, by a common
impulse, and hemmed in the pair. At their first shot, Gladsden was
unhorsed, the animal falling dead under him; had it not reared at the
smart of an arrow, the succeeding missiles, which entered its breast,
must have riddled the rider. He and the American once more stood
together with only that warm carcase as their buckler to some thirty
foes.
Neither hugged any delusion as to the future. It was materially
impossible that with their cartridges all spent, they could
successfully resist so many inveterate foes, who, too, would, at any
moment, be reinforced without stint from the Yaquis on the hill.
Indeed, thereupon commenced, with the rush of the Indians, one of those
unequal contests which are common on the border, and which, when a
worthy poet shall arise, will show posterity at what a waste of gallant
hearts civilisation has executed its conquests.
Mute, sombre, back to back so closely that the penetrating lance would
have spitted the pair, never recoiling so much as a hand's breadth,
plying the hunting knife for the one, and the sword of Pedrillo in his
victor's grasp for the other, the unflinching couple, like a Janus
animated, held out against the ever-onsetting foe.
Any other enemies must have been impressed with admiration.
Their bared arms were hacked and slit; the left of Gladsden hung
disabled; but, on that side, Oliver's formidable right hand was
performing miracles of valour and dexterity enough for both. They
streamed with blood, which matted their locks and soaked their clothes,
dangling in tatters through which their fair skin momently gleamed in
glaring contrast with that of their dusky foes until dyed ruddy like
the rest.
"How goes it, pard.?" queried Oliver, in a kind of lull in the rain
of cuts, and blows, and thrusts which nothing but the very frenzy of
the Indians, each to deal the stroke, prevented being fatal a hundred
times. "I'm gitting my second wind myself and can go on carving till
morning!"
There was no response to the jest; but the Oregonian felt the firm body
that had been ever so long a rock of support, slowly weighing upon him.
Then, alarmed for the very first time, or rather instantly inspired
with sympathy and wild indignation at the injustice of so brave a man
succumbing under the blows of such ignoble creatures, he lifted his
voice as an appeal to the rectifier of such abuses, in his restricted
mind:
"Cuss ye, for a heap of dirty niggers!" he vociferated. "Six at a time
we'd have butchered you up harnsum! Whoop-ho! Will no one of the colour
of a white man let us have ten minutes to recruit; when we'll thrash
them all agen, honest Injin!"
A deep, hoarse laugh at the speech, not at all understood, was the
reply.
But a cry of terror was elsewhere audible.
"Something's coming, my _cahooter_ (partner)," said Oliver, redoubling
his gigantic sweeps of the buffalo-butchering knife. "And never more
was a friend welcome! Don't you lose your grip yet!"
Indeed, without being able to discern the features of the knot of
combatants on the hill, under the blue canopy of floating smoke, all
silent since the two whites had exhausted their ammunition, and the
close ring of their assailants forbade their employing firearms, don
Benito and his son, with a score of best riders, had taken the cow path
and somehow climbed the incline. Coming upon the crest at a little
distance from the barranca, they formed column, four abreast, and raced
to the spot of the hand-to-hand struggle.
"Viva Mexico!" was their continuous war cry, with the ancient "Rally
around Spain!"
"Oh, _viva_ anything in the way of a 'Co,'" muttered Oliver, receiving
his spent and insensible friend on his arm, and depositing him behind
the horse's body at his feet. "You're like the sogers, you've come when
the Injins took the scalps."
Happily the attackers turned at this fresh incident.
Opening out so as to allow the hind ranks to rush forward and form a
line with the rest, the cavalry fell upon the Indians, and sabred them
in the first dash past. As soon as they could wheel, which was done on
the edge of the barranca by sharp reining in and spinning round whilst
the horse's fore hoofs were in air, they returned at full speed. But,
already, the Yaquis had renounced their wish to finish with the two
whites and fled, flinging away their weapons not to encumber their
flight.
Alone, wounded, but stubborn, the Apache kneeling, took aim with his
envenomed hatchet at the head of Oregon Oliver, intending to cast
it ere he should be trampled under the Mexicans. The hunter could
do nothing, his brain swam, his eyes closed with their last vision
comprising the exultant visage of the malicious red man; his knife
slipped out of his gore-smeared and stiffening hand; he reeled, and
then, like a giant pine uprooted by a "norther," fell upon the body of
his comrade as if to be his shield to the very last. There was just a
moan, like a puma's that had defended its cub to the death.
At the same instant, the tomahawk whizzed forward and would have
infallibly fleshed itself in him ere he finally rested; but Benito
had buried his spurs in his steed, which took a prodigious leap. The
hatchet gashed the Mexican's leg, even as he stooped forward and drove
his reeking blade to the cross hilt in the bosom of the redskin.
Don Jorge dismounted, and hastened to lift up the two white men, one
after the other, and force some brandy down their throats. Meanwhile
two of their friends had ridden after his father, who was seen to have
lost control of his steed.
A silence fell on the hill, broken only by moans of the wounded and
calls for water.
All at once there rose a loud cheering at the farmhouse; on its roof
the ladies had collected and were waving scarves and veils. And, as
an explanation, there was shortly wafted over the valley the music
of a cavalry band, strong in brass and kettledrum, playing a lively
_Arragonese jota_. The gay notes grated on the nerves of the Mexicans
on the hill, collected round the sad group of the two whites and don
Benito, whom they had assisted off his horse.
"The dragoons from the town," observed one of the party. "That crowns
the day. In an hour there will not be one Yaqui within view of a
telescope."
In fact, the valley was already strewn with plunder, and the dead and
the wounded not capable of flight, but of living Indians hardly a
hundred. The revolt was over. Then the field was again animated after
this transient desertion, for Father Serafino, with peons carrying
handbarrows, came forth to attend to the wounded. Upon improvised
litters of lances, the European, Oliver, and Benito, all mute and quiet
for want of strength, were tenderly transported down the hill and up
into the hacienda hall.
The little hero of the Angelito was displaced from his throne, the
decorations removed, and the room became a hospital. The ladies had
assumed a simple dress befitting their suddenly imposed duty, and were
obeying the orders of the father, who had a knowledge of surgery, like
all missionaries.