THE FLIGHT AND THE CHASE.
The very last thing I had seen that cool Argentine commander do, was to
light a fresh cigarette with the stump of the old one. The next time I saw
him, he was standing by his wounded horse, in the moonlight, with a spear
wound in his brow, but smoking still.
The onslaught of the savages had been for a while a terrible one, but the
soldiers came in time, and the camp was saved.
Hardly knowing what I did--not knowing till this day how I did it--I had
put my good steed at the breastwork, and, tired though he was, he fairly
cleared it. Next I remember hewing my way, sword in hand, through a crowd
of spear-armed savages, finding myself close to the ladies' caravan, and
next minute inside it.
A single glance showed me all were safe. Aileen lay pale and motionless on
the sofa. Near her, revolver in hand, stood my brave aunt, and by the
stove was old Jenny herself.
'Oh, bless you, dear boy!' cried auntie. 'How glad we are to see you!'
"Deed are we, laddie!' chimed old Jenny; 'but--' and she grinned as she
spoke, 'they rievin' Philistines will be fools if they come this road
again. I've gi'en some o' them het [hot] hurdies. Ha, ha! I'm makin' a
drap mair for them in case they come again.'
'Poor thing!' I think; 'she has gone demented.'
There was no time now, however, to ask for explanation; for although the
Indians had really been driven off, the chase, and, woe is me, the
slaughter, had commenced.
And I shudder even yet when I think of that night's awful work on the
moonlit pampas. Still, the sacrifice of so many redskins was calculated to
insure our safety. Moreover, had our camp fallen into the hands of those
terrible Indians, what a blood-blotted page would have been added to the
history of the Silver West!
It is but just and fair to Moncrieff, however, to say that he did all in
his power to stay the pursuit; but in vain. The soldiers were just
returning, tired and breathless, from a fruitless chase after the now
panic-stricken enemy, when a wild shout was heard, and our Gauchos were
seen riding up from the woods, brandishing the very spears they had
captured from the Indians, and each one leading a spare horse.
The _soldados_ welcomed them with a shout. Next minute each was mounted
and galloping across the pampas in one long extended line.
They were going to treat the Indians to a taste of their own tactics, for
between each horse a lasso rope was fastened.
All our men who were safe and unwounded now clambered into the waggon to
witness the pursuit. Nothing could exceed the mad grandeur of that
charge--nothing could withstand that wild rash. The Indians were mowed
down by the lasso lines, then all we could see was a dark commingled mass
of rearing horses, of waving swords and spears, and struggling, writhing
men.
Yells and screams died away at last, and no sound was now heard on the
pampas except the thunder of the horses' hoofs, as our people returned to
the camp, and occasionally the trumpet-like notes of the startled
flamingoes.
As soon as daylight began to appear in the east the ramparts were razed,
and soon after we were once more on the move, glad to leave the scene of
battle and carnage.
From higher ground, at some distance, I turned and looked back. Already
the air was darkened by flocks of pampas kites, among them many
slow-winged vultures, and I knew the awful feast that ever follows
slaughter had already commenced.
We had several Gauchos killed and one of our own countrymen, but many more
were wounded, some severely enough, so that our victory had cost us dear,
and yet we had reason to be thankful, and my only surprise to this day is
that we escaped utter annihilation.
It would be anything but fair to pass on to other scenes without
mentioning the part poor old Jenny played in the defence of the caravan.
Jenny was not demented--not she. Neither the fatigue of the journey, the
many wonders she had witnessed, including the shower of golochs, nor the
raid upon the camp had deprived Moncrieff's wonderful mither of her wits.
I have said there was a stove burning in the caravan. As soon, then, as
Jenny found out that they were fortifying or entrenching the camp, and
that the Philistines, as she called them, might be expected at any moment,
she awoke to a true sense of the situation. The first thing she did was to
replenish the fire, then she put the biggest saucepan on top of the stove,
and as soon as it commenced to boil she began 'mealing in,' as she called
it.
'Oatmeal would have been best,' she told my aunt; 'but, after a',' she
added, 'Indian meal, though it be but feckless stuff, is the kind o' kail
they blackamoors are maist used to.'
Aunt wondered what she meant, but was silent, and, indeed, she had other
things to think about than Jenny and her strange doings, for Aileen
required all her attention.
[Illustration: 'Ye can Claw the Pat']
When, however, the fight had reached its very fiercest, when the camp
itself was enveloped in smoke, and the constant cracking of revolvers, the
shrieks of the wounded men and clashing of weapons would have daunted a
less bold heart than Jenny's--the old lady took her saucepan from the
stove and stationed herself by the front door of the caravan. She had not
long to wait. Three of the fiercest of the Indian warriors had sprung to
the _coupe_ and were half up,
'But little kenned they Jenny's mettle,
Or dreamt what lay in Jenny's kettle.'
With eyes that seemed to flash living fire, her grey hair streaming over
her shoulders, she must have looked a perfect fury as she rushed out and
deluged the up-turned faces and shoulders of the savages with the boiling
mess. They dropped yelling to the ground, and Jenny at once turned her
attention to the back door of the van, where already one of the leading
Gaucho malos--aunt's beautiful blackguards of the day before--had gained
footing. This villain she fairly bonneted with the saucepan.
'Your brithers have gotten the big half o' the kail,' she cried, 'and ye
can claw the pat.'
It was not till next evening that aunt told Moncrieff the brave part old
Jenny had played. He smiled in his quiet way as he patted his mother's
hand.
'Just as I told ye, Miss M'Crimman,' he said; 'mither's a ma_rrr_vel!'
But where had the bold Bombazo been during the conflict? Sword and
revolver in hand, in the foremost ranks, and wherever the battle raged the
fiercest? Nay, reader, nay. The stern truth remains to be told. During all
the terrible tulzie Bombazo had never once been either seen or heard. Nor
could he be anywhere found after the fight, nor even after the camp was
struck, though search was made for him high and low.
Some one suggested that he might have been overcome by fear, and might
have hidden himself. Moncrieff looked incredulous. What! the bold Bombazo
be afraid--the hero of a hundred fights, the slayer of lions, the terror
of the redskins, the brave hunter of pampas and prairie? Captain Rodrigo
de Bombazo hide himself? Yet where could he be? Among the slain? No. Taken
prisoner? Alas! for the noble redman. Those who had escaped would hardly
have thought of taking prisoners. Bombazo's name was shouted, the wood was
searched, the waggons overhauled, not a stone was left unturned,
figuratively speaking, yet all in vain.
But, wonderful to relate, what _men_ failed to do a _dog_ accomplished. An
honest collie found Bombazo--actually scraped him up out of the sand,
where he lay buried, with his head in a tussock of grass. It would be
unfair to judge him too harshly, wrong not to listen to his vouchsafed
explanation; yet, sooth to say, to this very day I believe the little man
had hidden himself after the manner of the armadillos.
'Where is my sword?' he shouted, staggering to his feet. 'Where is the
foe?'
The Scotchmen and even the Gauchos laughed in his face. He turned from
them scornfully on his heel and addressed Moncrieff.
'Dey tried to keel me,' he cried. 'Dey stunned me and covered me up wit'
sand. But here I am, and now I seek revenge. Ha! ha! I will seek
revenge!'
Old Jenny could stand it no longer.
'Oh, ye shameless sinner!' she roared. 'Oh, ye feckless fusionless winner!
Let me at him. _I'll_ gie him revenge.'
There was no restraining Jenny. With a yell like the war cry of a clucking
hen, she waved her umbrella aloft, and went straight for the hero.
The blow intended for his head alighted lower down. Bombazo turned and
fled, pursued by the remorseless Jenny; and not even once did she miss her
aim till the terror of the redskins, to save his own skin, had taken
refuge beneath the caravan.
* * * * *
As at sea, so in travelling. Day after day, amid scenes that are for ever
new, the constantly recurring adventure and incident suffice to banish
even thoughts of the dead themselves. But neither seafarers nor travellers
need be ashamed of this; it is only natural. God never condemns His
creatures to constant sorrow. The brave fellows, the honest Scot and the
Gauchos, that we had laid side by side in one grave in the little
burying-place at the frontier fort, were gone beyond recall. No amount of
sorrowing could bring them back. We but hoped they were happier now than
even we were, and so we spoke of them no more; and in a week's time
everything about our caravan and camp resumed its wonted appearance, and
we no longer feared the Indians.
One Gaucho, however, had escaped, and there was still the probability he
might seek for revenge some other day.
We have left the bleak pampas land, although now and then we come to bare
prairie land but scantily furnished with even bushes, and destitute of
grass; houses and _estancias_ become more frequent, and _fondas_ too, but
nothing like that fearful _fonda_ in the prairie--the scene of the
massacre.
We have passed through San Lui--too wretched a place to say much about;
and even La Paz and Santa Rosa; and on taking her usual seat one forenoon
in front of the caravan, old Jenny's eyes grew bright and sparkling with
very delight.
'Saw anybody ever the like o' that?' she cried, as she raised both her
hands and eyes cloudwards. But it was not the clouds old Jenny was
marvelling at--for here we were in the Province of Mendoza, and a
measurable distance from the beautiful city itself; and instead of the
barren lands we had recently emerged from, beheld a scene of such natural
loveliness and fertility, that we seemed to have suddenly dropped into a
new world.
The sky was blue and almost cloudless; winter though it was, the fields
were clad in emerald green; the trees, the vineyards, the verandahed
houses, the comfortable dwellings, the cattle, the sheep, and flocks of
poultry--all testified to the fact that in summer this must indeed be a
paradise.
'What do you think of all this, mither?' said Moncrieff, with a happy
smile. He was riding close to the caravan _coupe_.
'Think o' it, laddie! Loshie me, laddie! it beats the braes o' Foudlan'!
It is surely the garden o' Eden we're coming to at last.'
It was shortly after this that Moncrieff went galloping on ahead. We could
see him miles and miles away, for the road was as straight as one of the
avenues in some English lord's domains. Suddenly he disappeared. Had the
earth swallowed him up? Not quite. He had merely struck into a side path,
and here we too turned with our whole cavalcade; and our road now lay away
across a still fertile but far more open country. After keeping to this
road for miles, we turned off once more and headed for the distant
mountains, whose snow-clad, rugged tops formed so grand a horizon to the
landscape.
On we journey for many a long hour, and the sun goes down and down in the
west, and sinks at last behind the hills; and oh, with what ineffably
sweet tints and shades of pink and blue and purple his farewell rays paint
the summits!
Twilight is beginning to fall, and great bats are flitting about. We come
within sight of a wide and well-watered valley; and in the very centre
thereof, and near a broad lagoon which reminds us somewhat of dear old
Coila, stands a handsome _estancia_ and farmyard. There are rows and rows
of gigantic poplar-trees everywhere in this glen, and the house
itself--mansion, I might almost say--lies in the midst of a cloud of trees
the names of which we cannot even guess. There was altogether such a
home-like look about the valley, that I knew at once our long, long
journey was over, and our weary wanderings finished for a time. There was
not a very great deal of romance in honest Moncrieff's nature, but as he
pointed with outstretched arm to the beautiful _estancia_ by the lake, and
said, briefly, 'Mither, there's your hame!' I felt sure and certain those
blue eyes of his were moist with tears, and that there was the slightest
perceptible waver in his manly voice.
But, behold! they have seen us already at the _estancia_.
There is a hurrying and scurrying to and fro, and out and in. We notice
this, although the figures we see look no larger than ants, so clear and
transparent is even the gloaming air in this wonderful new land of ours.
By and by we see these same figures on horseback, coming away from the
farm, and hurrying down the road towards us. One, two, three, six! Why,
there must be well-nigh a score of them altogether. Nearer and nearer they
come, and now we see their arms wave. Nearer still, and we hear them
shout; and now at length they are on us, with us, and around us, waving
their caps, laughing, talking, and shaking hands over and over again--as
often as not twice or thrice with the same person. Verily they are half
delirious with joy and wholly hysterical.
What volleys of questions have to be asked and answered! What volumes of
news to get and to give! What hurrying here and there and up and down to
admire the new horses and mules, the new waggons and caravan--to admire
everything! while the half-frightened looks those sturdy, sun-browned,
bearded men cast at auntie and Aileen were positively comical to witness!
Then, when the first wave of joyous excitement had partially expended
itself--
'Stand back, boys!' shouted Moncrieff's partner, a bold-faced little
Welshman, with hair and beard just on the turn; 'stand back, my lads, and
give them one more little cheer.'
But was it a little cheer? Nay, but a mighty rattling cheer--a cheer that
could have issued only from brave British throats; a cheer that I almost
expected to hear re-echoed back from the distant mountains.
Ah! but it _was_ echoed back. Echoed by us, the new-comers, and with
interest too, our faithful Gauchos swelling the chorus with their shrill
but not unmusical voices.
But look! more people are coming down the road. The welcome home is not
half over yet. Yonder are the lads and lasses, English, Irish, Castilian
and Scotch, who have no horses to ride. Foremost among them is a
Highlander in tartan trews and bagpipes. And if the welcome these give us
is not altogether so boisterous it is none the less sincere.
In another hour we are all safe at home. All and everything appears to us
very strange at first, but we soon settle down, and if we marvelled at the
outside of Moncrieff's mansion, the interior of it excites our wonder to
even a greater degree. Who could have credited the brawny Scot with so
much refinement of taste? The rooms were large, the windows were bowers,
and bowers of beauty too, around which climbed and trailed--winter though
it was--flowers of such strange shapes and lovely colours that the best of
our floral favourites in this country would look tame beside them. None of
the walls were papered, but all were painted, and many had pictures in
light, airy and elegant frames. The furniture too was all light and
elegant, and quite Oriental in appearance. Oriental did I say? Nay, but
even better; it was Occidental. One room in particular took my aunt's
fancy. This was to be the boudoir, and everything in it was the work of
Indian hands. It opened on to a charming trellised verandah, and thence
was a beautiful garden which to-night was lit up with coloured lanterns,
and on the whole looked like a scene in some Eastern fairy tale.
'And would you believe it, Aileen,' said Moncrieff, when he was done
showing us round the rooms; 'would you believe it, auntie, when I came
here first my good partner and I had no place to live in for years but a
reed shanty, a butt and a ben, mither mine, with never a stick of
furniture in it, and neither a chair nor stool nor table worth the
name?'
'That is so, Miss M'Crimman,' said the partner, Mr. Jones. 'And I think my
dear friend Moncrieff will let the ladies see the sort of place we lived
in.'
'This way, then, ladies,' said the big Scot. He seized a huge naphtha lamp
as he spoke, and strode before them through the garden. Arrived at the end
of it they came to a strange little hut built apparently of mud and
straw.
With little ceremony he kicked open the rickety door, and made them enter.
Both aunt and Aileen did so, marvelling much to find themselves in a room
not ten feet wide, and neither round nor square. The roof was blackened
rafters and straw, the floor was hardened clay. A bed--a very rude
one--stood in one corner. It was supported by horses' bones; the table in
the centre was but a barrel lid raised on crossed bones.
'Won't you sit down, ladies?' said Moncrieff, smiling.
He pointed to a seat as he spoke. It was formed of horses' skulls.
Aunt smiled too, but immediately after looked suddenly serious, gathered
her dress round her with a little shudder, and backed towards the door.
'Come away,' she said; 'I've seen enough.'
What she had seen more particularly was an awful-looking crimson and grey
spider as big as a soft-shell crab. He was squatting on a bone in one
corner, glaring at her with his little evil eyes, and moving his
horizontal mandibles as if he would dearly like to eat her.