GENERAL BUSTAMENTE.
Don Tadeo was right, when, on seeing General Bustamente pass, he said he
was on his way to visit his mistress. It was, in fact, to the residence
of the Linda the General was going. On arriving at the gate, one of his
men dismounted, and knocked. But no one answered; and at a sign from
the General, the soldier knocked louder. But still all remained silent;
there was no movement within. He began to feel uneasy. This silence was
the more extraordinary from the General's visit having been announced,
and he was, consequently, expected. "Oh! oh!" he said, "What is going on
here? Knock again, Diego, and knock in a way to make yourself heard!"
The soldier knocked with all his strength, but still uselessly. Don
Pancho's brow contracted; he began to fancy some misfortune must have
occurred.
"Break open the door!" he cried.
The order was instantly obeyed; and the General, followed by his escort,
entered the house. In the Patio all dismounted.
"Be prudent," said the General in a low voice to the corporal who
commanded the escort; "place sentinels everywhere, and keep a sharp
look-out whilst I search the house."
After giving these orders, the General took his pistols from his
holsters, and, followed by some of his lancers, entered the house;
but everywhere the silence of death prevailed. After passing through
several apartments, he arrived at a door, which, being a little ajar,
allowed a stream of light to pass. From the other side of this door
proceeded something like stifled groans. With a kick of his foot, one
of the lancers dashed open the door; the General entered, and a strange
spectacle presented itself to his astonished eyes! Doña Maria, tightly
bound, and gagged, was fastened to the foot of a damask bed, saturated
with blood. The furniture was broken and disordered, whilst two dead
bodies, lying in a pool of blood, made it evident that the room had been
the scene of a desperate conflict.
The general ordered the dead bodies to be removed, and then desired to
be left alone with the lady. As soon as the lancers had departed he shut
the door, and approaching the Linda, he hastened to release her from her
bonds. She was senseless.
On turning round to place the pistols he had retained in his hands on
the table, he drew back with astonishment, and almost with terror, as
he perceived the dagger standing erect in the middle of it. But this
instinctive feeling lasted only a moment. He went quickly up to the
table, seized the dagger, which he carefully drew out, and eagerly took
up the paper it had pinned down.
"_The tyrant Don Pancho Bustamente is cited at the expiration of
ninety-three days!
_"THE DARK-HEARTS."_
he read in a loud, harsh tone, and then crushed the paper violently in
his hand. "Sangre de Dios! Will these demons always make a mock of me?
Oh! they know that I show no mercy, and that those who fall into my
hands----"
"Escape!" said a hollow voice, which made him start involuntarily.
He turned sharply round, and beheld the Linda, with her vicious eye
fixed upon him with a demoniacal expression. He sprang towards her.
"Thank God!" he cried warmly, "you are again restored to your senses.
Are you sufficiently recovered to explain the scene that has taken place
here?"
"A terrible scene, Don Pancho!" she replied, in a tremulous voice; "a
scene, the bare remembrance of which still freezes me with terror."
"Are you strong enough to describe it to me?"
"I hope so," she replied. "Listen to me attentively, Don Pancho, for
what I have to tell concerns you, perhaps, more than me."
"You mean this insolent summons, I suppose?" he remarked, showing it.
She glanced over it, and replied--
"I did not even know that such a paper had been addressed to you. But
listen to me attentively."
"In the first place, have the goodness to explain to me what you just
now said."
"Everything in its turn, General; I will not fail to explain everything,
for the vengeance I thirst for must be complete."
"Oh!" he said, a flash of hatred gleaming from his eye, "set your heart
at ease on that head,--whilst avenging myself, I will avenge you."
The Linda related to the General what had passed between her and Don
Tadeo in the fullest details--how the Dark-Hearts had snatched him from
her hands, and the threats they had addressed to her on leaving her.
But, with that talent which all women possess, of making themselves
appear innocent in everything, she represented as a miraculous piece of
awkwardness on the part of the soldiers charged to shoot him, the fact
of Don Tadeo being alive after his execution. She said that, attracted
by the hope of avenging himself upon her, whom he suspected of being no
stranger to his condemnation, he had introduced himself unseen into her
house, where by a strange chance she happened to be alone, having that
evening permitted her servants to be present at a _romeria_ (a fête),
from which they were not to return before three o'clock.
The General had not for an instant the idea of doubting the veracity of
his mistress. The situation in which he had found her,--the incredible
news of the resurrection of his most implacable enemy, altogether so
confused his thoughts, that suspicion had no time to enter his mind.
He strode about the room with hasty steps, revolving in his head the
most extravagant projects for seizing Don Tadeo, and, above all, for
annihilating the Dark-Hearts,--those never-to-be-caught Proteuses, who
so incessantly crossed his path, thwarted all his plans, and always
escaped him. He plainly saw what additional strength the escape of Don
Tadeo would give to the patriots, and how much it would complicate his
political embarrassments, by placing at their head a resolute man who
could have no longer any considerations to preserve, but would wage war
to the knife with him. His perplexity was extreme; he instinctively
felt that the ground beneath him was mined, that he was walking over
a volcano, but he had no power to denounce to public opprobrium the
enemies who conspired his ruin. The recital made by his mistress had
produced the effect of a thunderclap upon him; he knew not what measures
to employ in order to counteract the numerous plots in action against
him on all sides, and simultaneously. The Linda did not take her eyes
off him for a moment, but watched upon his countenance the various
feelings aroused by what she told him.
We will, in a few words, introduce to the reader this personage, who
will play so important a part in the course of the following history.[1]
General Don Pancho Bustamente, who has left in Chili a reputation for
cruelty so terrible that he is generally called _El Verdugo_, or the
executioner, was a man of from thirty-five to thirty-six years of age,
although he looked near fifty, a little above the middle height, well
made, and of good carriage, announcing altogether great corporeal
strength. His features were tolerably regular, but his prominent
forehead, his grey eyes deeply set beneath the brows, and close to his
hook nose, his large mouth and high cheek bones, gave him something of
a resemblance to a bird of prey. His chin was square, an indication
of obstinacy; his hair and moustache, beginning to be streaked with
grey, were trained and cut in military fashion. He wore the magnificent
uniform, covered at every seam with gold embroidery, of a general
officer.
Don Bustamente was the son of his own works, which was in his favour.
At first a simple soldier, he had, by exemplary conduct and more than
common talents, raised himself, step by step, to the highest rank of the
army, and had in the last instance been named minister-at-war. Then the
jealousy which had been silent whilst he was confounded with the crowd,
was unchained against him. The General, instead of despising calumnies
which might have died out of themselves, gave them some degree of
foundation, by inaugurating a system of severity and cruelty. Devoured
by an ambition which nothing could satisfy, all means were deemed good
by him for the attainment of an object he secretly aimed at, which was
the overthrow of the republic and government of Chili, and the formation
of Bolivia and Araucania into one state, of which he would cause
himself to be proclaimed Protector--an object which, besides the almost
insurmountable difficulties it presented, ever appeared--owing to the
universal hatred which the General had aroused against himself--to slip
further from his grasp each time he thought he was about grasping it.
At the moment we bring him on the scene, he found himself in one of the
most critical circumstances of his political career. He had in vain
shot the patriots _en masse_--conspiracies, as always happens in such
cases, succeeded each other without interruption, and the system of
terror which he had inaugurated, far from intimidating the population,
appeared, on the contrary, to urge them on to revolt. Secret societies
were formed; and one of these, the most powerful and the most terrible,
that of the Dark-Hearts, enveloped him in invisible nets in which he
struggled in vain. He foresaw that if he did not hasten on the _coup
d'état_ he meditated, he should be lost beyond redemption. After a
rather long silence, the General placed himself by the side of the Linda.
"We will be avenged!" he said, in a deep tone; "be but patient."
"Oh!" she replied, bitterly, "my vengeance has commenced!"
"What do you mean by that?"
"I have caused Doña Rosario del Valle, the woman Don Tadeo de Leon loves
so passionately, to be carried off."
"You have _done_ that?" said the General.
"Yes, and in ten minutes she will be here."
"Oh! oh!" he exclaimed; "and do you mean to keep her with you?"
"With me!" she cried; "No, I thank you, General. I hear that the
Pehuenches are very fond of white women; I will make them a present of
her."
"Oh!" Don Pancho muttered, "women will be always our masters! they alone
know how to revenge themselves! But," he added aloud, "have you no fear
lest the man to whom you have confided this mission should betray you?"
She smiled with terrible irony,
"No," she said; "that man hates Don Tadeo more than I do, if that be
possible; he is working out his own vengeance."
At the same instant steps were heard in the chamber preceding the room.
"You will see, General--here is my emissary. Come in!" the Linda cried.
A man appeared; his face was pale and haggard; and his clothes, torn and
disordered, were stained in various places with blood.
"Well!" she exclaimed, in a tone of intense anxiety.
"All has failed," answered the man, breathless with haste and terror.
"What!" the Linda shouted, with a cry like that of a wild beast.
"There were five of us," the man continued, quite unmoved, "and we
carried off the _señorita_. All went on well till within a short
distance from this house, when we were attacked by four demons, who came
I know not whence."
"And you did not defend yourselves, miserable cowards!" interrupted the
General violently.
The bandit gave him a cold look, and continued impassively--
"Three of our number are dead, and the leader and myself wounded."
"And the girl?" the Linda asked passionately.
"The girl was recaptured by our opponents. The Englishman has sent me to
you to learn if you still wish him to carry off Doña Rosario?"
"Would he attempt it again?"
"Yes. And this time, he says, he is certain to succeed if the conditions
are the same."
A smile of contempt played round the lips of the courtezan.
"Repeat to him this," she replied; "not only shall he receive the
hundred ounces if he succeeds, but, still further, he shall have a
hundred more; and that he may be in no doubt of my promise," she added,
rising and taking from a drawer a rather heavy bag which she handed to
the bandit, "give him this; there is the half of the sum, but bid him
despatch!"
The man bowed.
"As to you, Juanito," she continued, "as soon as you have acquitted
yourself of this mission, return, for I shall, perhaps, want you here.
Begone!"
The bandit disappeared instantly.
"Who is that man?" the General asked.
"A poor devil whom I saved some years ago from certain death. He is
devoted to me, body and soul."
"Hum!" said the general, "he has rather too cunning an eye not to be a
rogue."
The Linda shrugged her shoulders.
"You are mistrustful of everybody," she said.
"That is the way not to be deceived."
"Or to be deceived the more easily."
"Perhaps so. Well, you see this abduction, so admirably planned, and the
success of which was certain, has failed."
"I can only repeat what you yourself said to me just now."
"What is that?"
"Patience! But, pray, what are your present plans?" The General rose.
"Whilst you are carrying on against our enemies," he said, in a low,
stern tone, "a guerilla warfare of ambuscades and treacheries, I, on my
part, will wage an open war against them--a war in the face of the sun,
but as merciless as yours. Their blood shall flow in streams over all
the territories of the Republic. The Dark-Hearts have summoned me in
ninety-three days. Well, I take up the gauntlet they have thrown to me."
"That is well!" the Linda replied. "And now let us so arrange our plans
that they may not fail like their predecessors. We must come to an end
with these miserable plotters, and in doing so, take a revenge that will
make an impression on others."
"It shall be a vengeance! I will stake my head on the game. Oh," he
added, "I hold them! I have found the means I sought to make them all
fall into my hands; let them sleep for a while in deceitful security,
but their awakening shall be terrible!"
And, having saluted the Linda with the greatest courtesy, the General
retired.
"I leave you a few soldiers to watch over your safety till the return of
your servants," he said, as he went out.
"Thank you, thank you!" she replied, with a bland smile.
The Linda, when left alone, instead of seeking the repose so necessary
after the excitement of the night, remained plunged in deep thought.
At sunrise she was still in the same place, in the same position. She
was still reflecting, but her features became animated; a sinister
smile curled her pale lips; and her eyes, though apparently fixed upon
vacancy, emitted portentous flashes. Suddenly she sprang up, and passing
her hand rapidly over her brow, as if to efface its wrinkles, she cried,
in a tone of triumph--
"And I, too, will succeed!"
[1] Reasons of the highest consideration oblige us to change the names
and the portraits of the personages of this history, as the majority
still exist. But we vouch for the correctness of the facts we relate.