A BACKWARD GLANCE.
We will now take up our narrative at the point where we left it at the
conclusion of the "Pirates of the Prairies." During the six months which
had elapsed since the mournful death of Doña Clara, certain events have
taken place, which it is indispensable for the reader to know, in order
properly to understand the following story.
He will probably remember that White Gazelle was picked up in a fainting
condition by Bloodson, while at the side of the old pirate, Sandoval. He
threw the girl across his horse's neck, and started at full speed in the
direction of the teocali, which served him as a refuge and fortress. We
will follow these two important persons, whom we reproach ourselves with
having too long neglected.
Bloodson's mad course was frightful to look on. In the shadow of the
night the horse bounded forward, trampling beneath its nervous hoofs
everything they met, while its outstretched head cleft the air. Its ears
were thrown back, and from its widely opened nostrils issued jets of
steam which traced long white furrows in the gloom. It dashed forward,
uttering snorts of pain, and biting between its clenched teeth the
_bozal_ which it covered with foam, while its flanks, torn by the spurs
of its impatient rider, dripped with blood and perspiration. But the
faster it went, the more did Bloodson torment it, and seek to increase
its speed.
The trees and rocks disappeared with marvellous rapidity on either side
the road, and White Gazelle was presently restored to life by the
violent shocks the movements of the horse gave to her body. Her long
hair trailed in the dust, her eyes, raised to Heaven, were bathed in
tears of despair, grief, and impotence. At the risking of fracturing her
skull against the stones, she made useless efforts to escape from the
arms of her ravisher, but the latter fixed on her a glance whose passion
revealed a ferocious joy, and did not appear to notice the terror he
caused the girl, or rather seemed to derive from it an unspeakable
pleasure. His compressed lips remained silent, only allowing passage at
intervals to a shrill whistle intended to increase the ardour of his
horse, which, exasperated by the pressure of its rider, seemed no longer
to touch the ground, and devoured the space like the fantastic steed in
the ballad of Lenore.
The girl uttered a cry, but it was lost in the gloomy echoes, drowned in
the sound of this mad chase. And the horse still galloped on. Suddenly
White Gazelle collected all her strength, and bounded forward with such
vivacity, that her feet already touched the ground; but Bloodson was on
his guard, and ere she had regained her balance, he stooped down without
checking his steed, and seizing the girl by her long tresses, lifted her
up, and placed her again before him. A sob burst from the Gazelle's
chest, and she fainted once again.
"Ah, you shall not escape me," Bloodson yelled; "no one in the world can
tear you from my grasp."
In the meanwhile darkness had been succeeded by day; the sun rose in
all its splendour. Myriads of birds saluted the return of light by their
joyous strains; nature had awakened gaily, and the sky, of a diaphanous
azure, promised one of those lovely days, which the blessed climate of
these countries has alone the privilege of offering.
A fertile landscape, exquisitely diversified, stretched out on either
side the road, and blended with the distant horizon. The girl's body
hung down the side of the horse, following unresistingly all the
movements imparted to it; with her face covered with a livid paleness,
half opened lips, clenched teeth, uncovered bosom and panting chest, she
palpitated under Bloodson's hand, which pressed heavily upon her.
At length, they reached a cavern, where were encamped some forty
Indians, armed for war; these were Bloodson's companions. He made them a
sign, and a horse was brought to him; it was high time, for the one he
rode had scarce stopped ere it fell, pouring forth black blood from its
nostrils, mouth, and ears. Bloodson mounted, took the girl before him,
and started again.
"To the hacienda Quemada (the burnt farm)," he shouted.
The Indians, who doubtless were only awaiting their chief's arrival,
followed his example, and soon the whole band, with the stranger at
their head, galloped along, hidden by the dense cloud of dust they
raised. After five hours' ride, whose speed surpasses all description,
the Indians saw the tall steeples of a town standing out in the azure of
the horizon, beneath a mass of smoke and vapour. Bloodson and his band
had left the Far West.
The Indians turned slightly to the left, galloping across fields, and
trampling under their horses' hoofs, with wicked fury, the rich crops
that covered them. At the expiration of about half an hour, they reached
the base of a lofty hill, which rose solitary in the plain.
"Wait for me here," said Bloodson, as he checked his horse; "whatever
happens, do not stir till my return."
The Indians bowed in obedience, and Bloodson, burying his spurs in his
horse's flanks, started again at full speed. But this ride was not long.
When Bloodson had disappeared from his comrades' sight, he stopped his
horse and dismounted. After removing the bridle, to let the animal
browze freely on the thick and tall grass of the plain, the stranger
raised in his arms the girl whom he had laid on the ground, where she
remained senseless, and began slowly scaling the hillside.
It was the hour when the birds salute with their parting strains the
sun, whose disc, already beneath the horizon, shed around only oblique
and torpid beams. The shadow was rapidly invading the sky; the wind was
rising with momentarily increasing violence, the heat was oppressive,
large blackish clouds, fringed with grey and borne by the breeze, chased
heavily athwart the sky, drawing nearer and nearer to the earth. In a
word, all foreboded one of those hurricanes such as are only seen in
these countries, and which make the most intrepid men turn pale with
terror.
Bloodson still ascended, bearing the girl in his arms, whose lifeless
head hung over his shoulder. Drops of lukewarm rain, large as dollars,
had begun to fall at intervals, and spotted the earth, which immediately
drank them up; a sharp and penetrating odour exhaled from the ground and
impregnated the atmosphere.
But Bloodson still went up with the same firm step, his head drooping
and eyebrows contracted. At length he reached the top of the hill, when
he stopped and bent a searching glance around. At this moment, a
dazzling flash shot athwart the sky, illuminating the landscape with a
bluish tint, and the thunder burst forth furiously.
"Oh!" Bloodson muttered with a sinister accent, and as if answering
aloud an internal thought, "nature is harmonising with the scene about
to take place here; but the storm of the Heavens is not so terrible as
the one growling in my heart. Come, come! I only needed this fearful
melody. I am the avenger, and am about to accomplish the demoniacal task
which I imposed on myself; during a night of delirium."
After uttering these ill-omened words, he continued his progress,
proceeding toward a pile of half-calcined stones, whose black points
stood out of the tall grass a short distance off. The top of the hill
where Bloodson was, offered a scene of inexpressible savageness. Through
the tufts of grass might be noticed ruins blackened by fire, pieces of
wall, and vaults half broken in. Here and there were fruit trees,
dahlias, cedars, and a _noria_ or well, whose long pole still bore at
one end the remains of the leathern bucket once employed to draw water.
In the centre of the ruins stood a large wooden cross, marking the site
of a tomb; at the foot of this cross were piled up, with ghastly
symmetry, some twenty grinning skulls, to which the rain, wind, and sun
had given the lustre and yellowish tinge of ivory. Round the tomb,
snakes and lizards, those guests of sepulchres, silently glided through
the grass, watching with their round and startled eyes the stranger who
dared to disturb their solitude. Not far from the tomb, a species of
shed, made of interlaced reeds, was falling to ruin, but still offered a
scanty shelter to travellers surprised by a storm. It was toward this
shed that Bloodson proceeded.
In a few minutes he reached it, and was thus sheltered from the rain,
which at this moment fell in torrents. The storm had reached the height
of its fury--the flashes succeeded each other uninterruptedly; the
thunder rolled furiously, and the wind violently lashed the trees. It
was, in a word, one of those awful nights on which deeds without a name,
which the sun will not illumine with its brilliant beams, are
accomplished.
Bloodson laid the girl on a pile of dry leaves in one of the corners of
the shed, and after gazing on her attentively for some seconds, he
folded his arms on his chest, frowned, and began walking up and down,
muttering unconnected sentences. Each time he passed before the maiden,
he stopped, bent on her a glance of undefinable meaning, and resumed his
walk with a shake of his head.
"Come," he said hoarsely, "I must finish it! What! That girl, so strong
and robust, lies there, pale, worn out, half dead. Why is it not Red
Cedar that I hold thus beneath my heel?--but patience, his turn will
come, and then!"
A sardonic smile played round his lips, and he bent over the girl. He
gently raised her head, and was about to make her smell a bottle he had
taken from her girdle, when he suddenly let her fall on her bed of
leaves, and rushed away, uttering a cry of terror.
"No," he said, "it is not possible: I am mistaken, it is an illusion, a
dream."
After a moments' hesitation, he returned to the girl, and bent over her
again. But this time his manner had completely changed: though he had
been rough and brutal previously, he was now full of attention to her.
During the various events to which White Gazelle had been the victim,
some of the diamond buttons which fastened her vest had been torn off,
and exposed her bosom. Bloodson had noticed a black velvet scapulary, on
which two interlaced letters were embroidered in silver, suspended round
her neck by a thin gold chain. It was the sight of this mysterious
cypher which caused Bloodson the violent emotion from which he was now
suffering.
He seized the scapulary with a hand trembling with impatience, broke the
chain, and waited till a flash enabled him to see the cypher a second
time, and assure himself that he was not deceived. He had not long to
wait: within a few seconds a dazzling flash illumined the hill. Bloodson
looked, and was convinced: the cypher was really the one he fancied he
had seen. He fell to the ground, buried his head in his hands, and
reflected profoundly. Half an hour passed ere this man emerged from his
statue-like immobility; when he raised his head, tears were coursing
down his bronzed cheeks.
"Oh! this doubt is frightful!" he exclaimed; "at all risks I will remove
it: I must know what I have to hope."
And drawing himself up haughtily to his full height, he walked with a
firm and steady step toward the girl, who still lay motionless. Then,
as we saw him once before with Shaw, he employed the same method which
had been so successful with the young man, in order to recall White
Gazelle to life. But the poor girl had been subjected to such rude
trials during the last two days, that she was quite exhausted. In spite
of Bloodson's eager care, she still retained her terrible corpse-like
rigidity: all remedies were powerless. The stranger was in despair at
the unsatisfactory results of his attempts to recall the girl to life.
"Oh!" he exclaimed at each instant, "She cannot be dead: Heaven will not
permit it."
And he began again employing the measures whose futility had been proved
to him. All at once he smote his forehead violently.
"I must be mad," he exclaimed.
And searching in his pocket, he drew from it a crystal flask, filled
with a blood-red liquor; he opened with his dagger the girl's teeth, and
let two drops of the fluid fall into her mouth. The effect was
instantaneous: White Gazelle's features relaxed, a pinky hue covered her
face; she faintly opened her eyes, and murmured in a weak voice--
"Good Heaven! Where am I?"
"She is saved!" Bloodson exclaimed with a sigh of joy, as he wiped away
the perspiration that ran down his forehead. In the meanwhile the storm
had attained its utmost fury; the wind furiously shook the wretched
shed, the rain fell in torrents, and the thunder burst forth with a
terrible din.
"A fine night for a recognition!" Bloodson muttered.