borrowed from his cousin, "to be at the Tandil this day fortnight,
with a sharp knife and a blunderbuss charged with a handful of powder
and not fewer than twenty-three slugs."
Terribly in earnest was Polycarp of the South! He was there at the
appointed time, slugs and all; but the smooth-cheeked, mysterious,
child-devil came not; nor stranger still, did the scared-looking de
la Rosa come clattering in to look for his lost Torcuata. At the end
of the fifteenth day de la Rosa was at Langueyü, seventy-five miles
from the Tandil, alone in his new rancho, which had just been rebuilt
with the aid of a few neighbours. Through all that night he sat
alone by the fire, pondering many things. If he could only recover
his lost wife, then he would bid a long farewell to that wild
frontier and take her across the great sea, and to that old
tree-shaded stone farm-house in Andalusia, which he had left a boy,
and where his aged parents still lived, thinking no more to see their
wandering son. His resolution was taken; he would sell all he
possessed, all except a portion of land in the Langueyü with the
house he had just rebuilt; and to the Niño Diablo, the deliverer, he
would say, "Friend, though you despise the things that others value,
take this land and poor house for the sake of the girl Magdalen you
love; for then perhaps her parents will no longer deny her to you."
He was still thinking of these things when a dozen or twenty military
starlings--that cheerful scarlet-breasted songster of the lonely
pampas--alighted on the thatch outside, and warbling their gay,
careless winter-music told him that it was day. And all day long, on
foot and on horseback, his thoughts were of his lost Torcuata; and
when evening once more drew near his heart was sick with suspense and
longing; and climbing the ladder placed against the gable of his
rancho he stood on the roof gazing westward into the blue distance.
The sun, crimson and large, sunk into the great green sea of grass,
and from all the plain rose the tender fluting notes of the
tinamou-partridges, bird answering bird. "Oh, that I could pierce
the haze, with my vision," he murmured, "that I could see across a
hundred leagues of level plain, and look this moment on your sweet
face, Torcuata!"
And Torcuata was in truth a hundred leagues distant from him at that
moment; and if the miraculous sight he wished for had been given,
this was what he would have seen. A wide barren plain scantily
clothed with yellow tufts of grass and thorny shrubs, and at its
southern extremity, shutting out the view of that side, a low range
of dune-like hills. Over this level ground, toward the range, moves
a vast herd of cattle and horses--fifteen or twenty thousand
head--followed by a scattered horde of savages armed with their long
lances. In a small compact body in the centre ride the captives,
women and children. Just as the red orb touches the horizon the
hills are passed, and lo! a wide grassy valley beyond, with flocks
and herds pasturing, and scattered trees, and the blue gleam of water
from a chain of small lakes! There full in sight is the Indian
settlement, the smoke rising peacefully up from the clustered huts.
At the sight of home the savages burst into loud cries of joy and
triumph, answered, as they drew near, with piercing screams of
welcome from the village population, chiefly composed of women,
children and old men.
It is past midnight; the young moon has set; the last fires are dying
down; the shouts and loud noise of excited talk and laughter have
ceased, and the weary warriors, after feasting on sweet mare's flesh
to repletion, have fallen asleep in their huts, or lying out-of-doors
on the ground. Only the dogs are excited still and keep up an
incessant barking. Even the captive women, huddled together in one
hut in the middle of the settlement, fatigued with their long rough
journey, have cried themselves to sleep at last.
At length one of the sad sleepers wakes, or half wakes, dreaming that
someone has called her name. How could such a thing be? Yet her own
name still seems ringing in her brain, and at length, fully awake,
she finds herself intently listening. Again it
sounded--"Torcuata"--a voice fine as the pipe of a mosquito, yet so
sharp and distinct that it tingled in her ear. She sat up and
listened again, and once more it sounded "Torcuata!" "Who speaks?"
she returned in a fearful whisper. The voice, still fine and small,
replied: "Come out from among the others until you touch the wall."
Trembling she obeyed, creeping out from among the sleepers until she
came into contact with the side of the hut. Then the voice sounded
again, "Creep round the wall until you come to a small crack of light
on the other side." Again she obeyed, and when she reached the line
of faint light it widened quickly to an aperture, through which a
shadowy arm was passed round her waist; and in a moment she was
lifted up and saw the stars above her, and at her feet dark forms of
men wrapped in their ponchos lying asleep. But no one woke, no alarm
was given; and in a very few minutes she was mounted, man-fashion, on
a barebacked horse, speeding swiftly over the dim plains, with the
shadowy form of her mysterious deliverer some yards in advance,
driving before him a score or so of horses. He had only spoken
half-a-dozen words to her since their escape from the hut but she
knew by those words that he was taking her to Langueyü.
END