THE AVENGER.
In order fully to comprehend the ensuing facts, we are constrained to
relate here an event which occurred about twenty years before our story
commences.
At that remote period Texas belonged, if not _de facto_, still _de
jure_, to Mexico. Marvellously situated on the Mexican Gulf, endowed
with a temperate climate and a fertile soil, which, if tickled with a
spade, laughs with a harvest, Texas is assuredly one of the richest
countries in the New World. Hence, the Government, foreseeing the future
of this province, did all in its power to populate it.
Unfortunately, it effected very little, incapable as it was of
populating even Mexico. Still, a considerable number of Mexicans went
across and settled in Texas.
Among the men who let themselves be tempted by the magic promises of
this virgin soil were two brothers, Don Stefano and Don Pacheco de
Irala, of the best families in the province of Nuevo-León. The active
part they played in the war of independence had ruined them, and not
obtaining from the liberals, after the triumph of their cause, the
reward they had a right to expect for the services they had
rendered--Don Gregorio, their father, having even paid with his life for
his attachment to the party--they had no other resource but settling in
Texas, a new country, in which they had hopes of speedily
re-establishing their fortunes.
Owing to their thorough knowledge of agriculture, and their
intelligence, they soon gave a considerable extension to their
settlement, which they had the pleasure of seeing daily grow more
prosperous, in defiance of Indians, buffaloes, tempests, and illness.
The Hacienda del Papagallo (Parrot farm), inhabited by the two brothers,
was, like all the houses in this country, which are continually exposed
to the inrods of the savages, a species of fortress built of carved
stone and surrounded by a thick and embrasured wall, with a gun at each
corner: it stood on the top of a rather lofty hill, and commanded the
plain for a considerable distance.
Don Pacheco, the elder of the two brothers, was married and had two
daughters, little creatures scarce three years of age, whose joyous
cries and ravishing smiles filled the interior of the hacienda with
gaiety. Hardly three leagues from the farm was another, occupied by
Northern Americans, adventurers of more than dubious conduct, who had
come to the country no one knew how, and who, since they inhabited it,
led a mysteriously problematical existence, which gave birth to the
strangest and most contradictory reports about them.
It was whispered that, under the guise of peaceful farmers, these men
maintained relations with the bandits who flocked into the country from
every side, and that they were the secret chiefs of a dangerous
association of malefactors, who had ravaged the country for several
years past with impunity. On several occasions the two brothers had
disputes with these unpleasant neighbours about cattle that had
disappeared and other pecadillos of the same nature. In a word, they
lived with them on the footing of an armed peace.
A few days previous to the period to which this chapter refers, Don
Pacheco had a sharp altercation with one of these Americans of the name
of Wilkes, about several slaves the fellow tried to seduce from
hacienda, and the result was, that Don Pacheco, naturally hot-tempered,
gave him a tremendous horsewhipping. The other swallowed the insult
without making any attempt to revenge himself; but he had withdrawn,
muttering the most terrible threats against Don Pacheco.
Still, as we have said, the affair had no further consequences. Nearly a
month had passed, and the brothers had heard nothing from their
neighbours. On the evening of the day which we take up our narrative, Don
Stefano, mounted on a mustang, was preparing to leave the hacienda, to
ride to Nacogdoches, where important business called him.
"Then, you are really going?" Don Pacheco said.
"At once: you know that I put off the journey as long as I could."
"How long do you expect to be absent?"
"Four days, at the most."
"Good: we shall not expect you, then, before."
"Oh, it is very possible I may return sooner."
"Why so?"
"Shall I tell you? Well, I do not feel easy in mind."
"What do you mean?"
"I am anxious, I know not why. Many times I have left you, brother, for
longer journeys than this--"
"Well!" Don Pacheco interrupted him.
"I never felt before as I do at this moment."
"You startle me, brother. What is the matter with you?"
"I could not explain it to you. I have a foreboding of evil. In spite of
myself, my heart is contracted on leaving you."
"That is strange," Don Pacheco muttered, suddenly becoming thoughtful.
"I do not dare confess it to you, brother; but I have just the same
feeling as yourself, and am afraid I know not why."
"Brother," Don Stefano replied in a gloomy voice, "you know how we love
each other. Since our father's death, we have constantly shared
everything--joy and sorrow, fortune or reverses. Brother, this
foreboding is sent us from Heaven. A great danger threatens us."
"Perhaps so," Don Pacheco said sadly.
"Listen, brother," Don Stefano remarked, resolutely. "I will not go."
And he made a movement to dismount, but his brother checked him.
"No," he said, "we are men. We must not, then, let ourselves be
conquered by foolish thoughts, which are only chimeras produced by a
diseased imagination."
"No. I prefer to remain here a few days longer."
"You told me yourself that your interests claim your presence at
Nacogdoches. Go, but return as soon as possible."
There was a silence, during which the brothers reflected deeply. The
moon rose pallid and mournful on the horizon.
"That Wilkes is a villain," Don Stefano went on; "who knows whether he
is not waiting my departure to attempt on the hacienda one of those
terrible expeditions of which he is accused by the public voice?"
Don Pacheco began laughing, and, stretching out his hand in the
direction of the farm, whose white walls stood out clearly on the dark
blue sky, he said:--
"The Papagallo has too hard sides for those bandits. Go in peace,
brother, they will not venture it."
"May Heaven grant it!" Don Stefano murmured.
"Oh, those men are cowards, and I inflicted a well-merited punishment on
the scoundrel."
"Agreed."
"Well?"
"It's precisely because those men are cowards that I fear them.
Canarios! I know as well as you that they will not dare openly to attack
you."
"What have I to fear, then?" Don Pacheco interrupted him.
"Treachery, brother."
"Why, have I not five hundred devoted peons on the hacienda? Go without
fear, I tell you."
"You wish it?"
"I insist on it."
"Good-bye, then," Don Stefano said, stifling a sigh. "Good-bye, brother,
till we meet again."
Don Stefano dug his spurs into his horse's flanks and started at full
speed. For a long time his brother followed the rider's outline on the
sandy road, till he turned a corner, and Don Pacheco re-entered the
hacienda with an anxious heart.
Don Stefano, stimulated by the vague alarm that oppressed him, only
stopped the absolutely necessary period at Nacogdoches to finish his
business, and hurried back scarce two days after his departure.
Strangely enough, the nearer he drew to the farm, the greater his
anxiety grew, though it was impossible for him to explain the causes of
the feeling.
Around home all was tranquil--the sky, studded with an infinite number
of glistening stars, spread over his head its dome of azure; at
intervals, the howling of the coyote was mingled with the hoarse lowing
of the buffaloes, or the roars of the jaguars in quest of prey.
Don Stefano still advanced, bowed over his horse's neck, with pale
forehead and heaving chest, listening to the numerous sounds of the
solitude, and trying to pierce with vivid glance the darkness that hid
from him the point to which he was hurrying with the speed of a tornado.
After a ride of six hours, the Mexican suddenly uttered a yell of agony,
as he violently pulled up his panting steed. Before him the Hacienda del
Papagallo appeared, surrounded by a belt of flames. The magnificent
building was now only a shapeless pile of smoking ruins, reflecting its
ruddy flames on the sky for a considerable distance.
"My brother! My brother!" Don Stefano shrieked in his despair.
And he rushed into the furnace.
A mournful silence brooded over the hacienda. At every step the Mexican
stumbled over corpses half-consumed by the flames and horribly
mutilated. Mad with grief and rage, with his hair and clothes burned by
the flames that enveloped him, Don Stefano continued his researches.
What was he seeking in this accursed charnel house? He did not himself
know, but still he sought. Not a shriek, not a sigh! On all sides the
silence of death!--that terrible silence which makes the heart leap, and
ices the bravest man with fear!
What had taken place during Don Stefano's absence?--What enemy had
produced these ruins in a few short hours?
The first beams of dawn were beginning to tinge the horizon with their
fugitive opaline tints, and the sky gradually assumed that ruddy hue
which announces sunrise. Don Stefano had passed the whole night in vain
and sterile researches, and though he had constantly interrogated the
ruins, they remained dumb.
The Mexican, overcome by grief, and compelled to acknowledge his own
impotence, gave Heaven a glance of reproach and despair, and throwing
himself on the calcined ground, he hid his face in his hands, and wept!
The sight of this young, handsome, brave man weeping silently over the
ruins whose secret he had been unable to discover must have been
heartrending.
Suddenly, Don Stefano started up, with flashing eye, and a face on which
indomitable energy was imprinted.
"Oh!" he shouted, in a voice that resembled the howl of a wild beast,
"vengeance! Vengeance!"
A voice that seemed to issue from the tomb answered his, and Don Stefano
turned round with a shudder. Two yards from him, his brother, pale,
mutilated, and bleeding, was leaning against a fallen wall, like a
spectre.
"Ah!" the Mexican exclaimed, as he rushed toward him.
"You come too late, brother," the wounded man murmured, in a voice
choking with the death rattle.
"Oh! I will save you, brother," Don Stefano said, desperately.
"No," Don Pacheco replied sadly, shaking his head, "I am dying, brother;
your foreboding did not deceive you."
"Hope!"
And, raising his brother in his powerful arms, he prepared to pay him
that attention which his condition seemed to demand.
"I am dying, I tell you--all is useless," Don Pacheco continued, in a
voice that momentarily grew weaker. "Listen to me."
"Speak!"
"Say that you will avenge me, brother?" the dying man asked, his eye
emitting a fierce flash.
"I will avenge you," Don Stefano answered; "I swear it by our Saviour!"
"Good! I have been assassinated by men dressed as Apache Indians, but
among them I fancied I recognised--"
"Whom?"
"Wilkes the squatter, and Samuel, his accomplice."
"Enough! Where is your wife?"
"Dead! My daughters, save them!" Don Pacheco murmured.
"Where are they?"
"Carried off by the bandits."
"Oh! I will discover them, even if hidden in the bowels of the earth!
Did you not recognise anyone else?"
"Yes, yes, one more," the dying man said, in an almost unintelligible
voice.
Don Stefano bent over his brother in order to hear more distinctly.
"Who? Tell me--brother, speak in Heaven's name!"
The wounded man made a supreme effort.
"There was another man, formerly a peon of ours."
"His name?" Don Stefano asked eagerly.
Don Pacheco was growing weaker, his face had assumed an earthy hue, and
his eyes could no longer distinguish objects.
"I cannot remember," he sighed rather than said.
"One word, only one, brother."
"Yes, listen--it is Sand--ah!"
He suddenly fell back, uttering a terrible cry, and clutching at his
brother's arm; he writhed in a final convulsion, and all was over.
Don Stefano knelt by his brother's corpse, embraced it tenderly, piously
closed its eyes, and then got up. He dug a grave with his machete among
the smoking ruins of the hacienda, in which he laid his brother's body.
When this sacred duty was performed, he addressed an ardent prayer to
the Deity in behalf of the sinful man who was about to appear before His
judgment seat, and then, stretching out his arms over the grave, he said
in a loud, distinct voice--
"Sleep in peace, brother, sleep in peace. I promise you a glorious
revenge."
Don Stefano slowly descended the hill, found his horse, which had spent
the night in nibbling the young tree shoots, and started at a gallop,
after giving a parting glance to these ruins, under which all his
happiness lay buried.
No one ever heard of Don Stefano again in Texas: was he dead too,
without taking that vengeance which he had sworn to achieve? No one
could say. The Americans had also disappeared since that awful night and
left no sign. In these primitive countries things are soon forgotten:
life passes away there so rapidly, and is so full of strange incidents,
that the events of the morrow obliterate the remembrances of those of
the eve. Ere long the population of Texas had completely forgotten this
terrible catastrophe.
Every year, however, a man appeared on the hill where the hacienda once
stood, whose ruins the luxuriant vegetation of the country had long ago
overgrown; this man seated himself on the silent ruins, and passed the
whole night with his face buried in his hands.
"What did he there?"
"Whence did he come?"
"Who was he?"
These three questions ever remained unanswered, for at daybreak the
stranger rode off again, not to return till the following year on the
anniversary of the frightful tragedy. One strange fact was proved
however, after every visit paid by this man--one, two, or even sometimes
three horribly mutilated human heads were found lying on the hill.
What demoniac task was this incomprehensible being performing? Was it
Don Stefano pursuing his vengeance?
We shall probably see presently.