SHAW.
We have said that Doña Clara had disappeared.
At the moment when the struggle was most obstinate, Valentine, taking
Doña Clara in his arms, leaped from the top of the lodge on which he had
hitherto been fighting, intrusted the maiden to Shaw, and rushed back
into the fight at the head of the Comanches, who, recovering from the
terror caused by the unforeseen attack of their implacable foes the
Apaches, gradually assembled to the powerful war cry of their chief,
Pethonista.
"Watch over her," Valentine said to Red Cedar's son; "watch over her,
and, whatever may happen, save her."
Shaw took the maiden in his powerful arms, threw her over his shoulder,
and with flashing eye and quivering lip, he brandished his axe, that
fearful squatter's instrument he never laid aside, and rushed head
foremost among the Apaches, resolved to die or break the human barrier
that rose menacingly before him.
Like a boar at bay, he dashed madly forward, felling and trampling
mercilessly on all who attempted to bar his progress. A living catapult,
he advanced step by step over a pile of corpses, incessantly dropping
his axe, which he raised again dripping with blood. He had only one
thought left--to save Doña Clara or die!
In vain did the Apaches collect around him; like an implacable reaper,
he cut them down as ripe corn, while laughing that dry and hoarse grin,
a nervous contraction which affects a man who has reached the last
stage of rage or madness.
In fact, at this moment, Shaw was no longer a man, but a demon.
Trampling over the quivering bodies that fell beneath the terrible blows
of his axe, feeling the body of her for whose safety he fought trembling
on his shoulder, he struggled without stopping in his impossible task,
but resolved to cut a hole, at all risks, through the human wall
constantly arising before him.
Shaw was a man of tried courage, long habituated to fighting, and
pitiless to the redskins. But alone, on this night, only illumined by
the blood-red hue of the fire, and confined in a fatal circle, he felt a
great fear involuntarily coming over him; he breathed with difficulty,
his teeth were clenched, an icy perspiration ran down his body, and he
felt on the point of succumbing.
Falling would have been death. He would have immediately disappeared
under the avalanche of ferocious Indians yelling around him.
This discouragement did not last so long as a lightning flash. The young
man, sustained by that hope which springs eternal in the human breast,
as well as by his love for Doña Clara, prepared to continue the unequal
contest.
Bounding like a jaguar, he hurled himself into the thick of the fight.
This contest of a single man against a swarm of enemies had something
grand and startling about it. Shaw, as if under the influence of a
horrible nightmare, struggled in vain against the incessantly renewed
cloud of foemen; in him every feeling of self had vanished, he no longer
reflected, his life had become entirely physical, his movements were
automatic, his arms rose and fell with the rigid regularity of a
pendulum.
He had managed, without knowing how, to clear the fortifications of the
village; at a few paces from him the Gila flowed silently on, and
appeared to him in the moonlight like an immense silver ribbon. Could he
reach the river, he was saved; but there is a limit which human
strength, however great it may be, cannot go beyond, and Shaw felt that
he was reaching this limit.
He took an anxious glance around; Apaches hemmed him in on all sides! He
uttered a sigh, for he thought that he was about to die. At this solemn
moment, when all was about to fail him, a final shriek burst from his
chest. A cry of agony and despair, of terrifying meaning, and re-echoed
for a second far and wide, so that it drowned all the battle sounds; it
was the parting protest of a man who at length confesses himself
conquered by fatality, and who, before succumbing, summons his fellow
men to his aid, or implores the succour of Heaven.
A cry answered his! Shaw, astonished, unable to count on a miracle, as
his friends were too far off and themselves too busy to help him,
fancied himself the victim of a dream or hallucination; still,
collecting all his strength, feeling hope well up again in his heart, he
gave vent to a more startling shout than the former.
"Courage!"
This time, it was not echo that answered him.
Courage! This word alone was borne on the wings of the wind, weak as a
sigh, and, in spite of the horrible yells of the Apaches, was distinctly
heard by Shaw.
In moments of frenzy, or when a man is at bay, the senses acquire a
perfection for which it is impossible otherwise to account. Like the
giant Antæus, Shaw drew himself up, and seemed restored to that life
which was on the point of leaving him. He redoubled his blows on his
innumerable enemies, and at length succeeded in breaking through the
barrier they opposed to him.
Several horsemen appeared galloping over the plain; shots illumined the
darkness with their transient flash, and men, or rather demons, rushed
suddenly on the throng of the Apaches, and commenced a frightful
carnage. The redskins, surprised by their unexpected attack, rushed
toward the village, uttering yells of terror: their prey had escaped
them.
Shaw had fought bravely and firm as a rock up to the last moment; but
when his enemies disappeared, he sank to the ground in a state of
unconsciousness.
How long did he remain in this state? He could not say: but when he
recovered his senses it was night. He fancied at first, that only a few
hours had elapsed since the terrible struggle he had undergone, and he
looked inquiringly around him. He was lying by a fire in the centre of a
clearing; Doña Clara was a few paces from him, weak and pale as a
spectre.
Shaw uttered a cry of surprise and terror on recognising the men who
surrounded him, and who had probably saved him by answering his final
shout. They were his two brothers, Fray Ambrosio, Andrés Garote, and a
dozen Gambusinos.
By what strange accident had he rejoined his comrades at the moment when
he had so great interest in shunning them? What evil chance had brought
them across his path?
The young man let his head sink on his chest, and fell into a sad and
gloomy reverie. His comrades, lying like him by the fire, maintained the
most obstinate silence, and did not seem at all eager to cross-question
him.
We will take advantage of the momentary respite allowed Shaw, to explain
what had taken place on the island since we quitted it to follow Doña
Clara, Ellen, and the two Canadian hunters.
Until sunrise no one perceived the flight of the girls. At breakfast,
Nathan and Sutter, amazed at not seeing their sister appear, ventured on
entering the hut of branches that served as shelter to the two females,
and then all was explained. They went in a furious rage to Fray Ambrosio
to tell him what had happened, and the monk completed the news they gave
him by announcing in his turn the flight of Eagle-wing, Dick, and Harry.
The fury of the two brothers was unbounded, and they proposed to raise
the camp at once, and go in pursuit of, the fugitives. Fray Ambrosio and
his worthy friend Garote had infinite difficulty in making them
understand that this would lead to no result; that, moreover, they had
as guide an Indian thoroughly acquainted with the topography of the
country, and the hiding places, and that it would be folly to suppose
that the persons who had escaped had not so arranged their flight as to
foil all attempts made to seize them again.
Another and more powerful reason obliged them to remain on the island,
to which the squatter's sons were compelled to yield. Red Cedar, on
going away, ordered that under no pretext should they quit the post he
had selected; he had moreover promised to join his band again there, and
if they left it, it would be impossible for him to find them, as he
would not know in what direction they had gone.
The young men were forced to allow that Fray Ambrosio was right; but, in
order to satisfy their conscience, they placed themselves at the head of
a few resolute men, crossed the river, and beat up the neighbourhood. We
need scarcely say that they found nothing, for at about a league from
the Gila the traces were finally lost.
The young men were in despair; but Fray Ambrosio, on the other hand, was
delighted. He had only one desire, that of seeing the band quit of Doña
Clara, who, according to his views, impeded its progress and prevented
it marching with the speed circumstances required; and now, instead of
one woman, two had gone!
The worthy monk could scarce contain himself for joy; he, listened with,
a sympathising air and expressions of condolence to the advice and
complaints of his comrades at this extraordinary flight; but in his
heart he was delighted.
Still, as there was no perfect happiness in this world, and wormwood
must always be mixed with the honey of life, an unexpected incident
suddenly troubled the beatitude of Fray Ambrosio.
At starting, Red Cedar, while concealing the object of his journey, had
dropped hints to his comrades that he would bring them allies; moreover,
he informed them, that his excursion would not last more than three or
four days at the most. In the desert, especially in the Far West, there
is no regular road; travellers are compelled, for the greater part of
the time, to march axe in hand, and cut a path by force. The gambusinos
knew this by experience, and hence were not surprised, because Red Cedar
did not return at the period he had fixed.
They were patient, and as their provisions were beginning to give out,
they scattered on either side the river, and organised great hunting
expeditions to renew their stock. But days had slipped away, and Red
Cedar did not return: a month had already passed, and no news or sign
arrived to tell the gambusinos that he would come soon. Another
fortnight also passed, and produced no change in the position of the
gold-seekers.
By degrees the band began to grow discouraged, and soon, without anyone
knowing how, the most sinister news circulated at first in a whisper,
but then they acquired the almost certainty, that the squatter,
surprised in an ambuscade by the redskins, had been massacred, and that,
consequently, it was useless waiting for him any longer.
These rumours, to which Fray Ambrosio attached but slight importance at
the outset, became presently so strong that he grew anxious in his turn,
and tried to dissipate them; but this was difficult, not to say
impossible. Fray Ambrosio knew no more than the rest about Red Cedar's
movements; his fears were, at least, as great as those of his comrades;
and whatever he might do, he was compelled to allow that he had no valid
reason to offer them, and was completely ignorant of the fate of their
common chief.
One morning the gambusinos, instead of setting out to hunt as they did
daily, assembled tumultuously before the _jacal_, which served as
headquarters for the monk and the squatter's sons, and told them plainly
that they had waited long enough for Red Cedar: as he had given them no
news of his movements for upwards of two months, he must be dead: that
consequently the expedition was a failure; and as they had no
inclination to fall, some fine morning, into the power of their foes,
the redskins, they were going to return at once to Santa Fe.
Fray Ambrosio in vain told them that, even supposing Red Cedar was
dead--which was not proved--although it was a misfortune, it did not
cause the expedition to fail, as he alone held the secret of the placer,
and promised to lead them to it. The gambusinos, who placed no
confidence in his talents as guide, or in his courage as a partisan,
would not listen to anything; and, whatever he might do to check them,
they mounted their horses, and rode off from the island, where he
remained with the squatter's sons, Andrés Garote, and five or six other
men still faithful to him. Fray Ambrosio saw them land, and spur their
horses into the tall grass, where they speedily disappeared. The monk
fell to the ground in despair; he saw his plans for a fortune
irredeemably ruined; plans which he had fostered so long, and which were
crushed at the very moment when they seemed on the point of realisation.
Any other man than Fray Ambrosio, after such a disaster, would have
yielded to despair; but he was gifted with one of those energetic
natures which difficulties arouse instead of crushing; and, in lieu of
renouncing his schemes, he resolved, as Red Cedar did not return, to go
in search of him, and leave the island at once. An hour later, the
little party set out on its march.
By an extraordinary coincidence, they set out on the very day when the
Apaches started to attack the Comanche village; and as when accident
interposes it does not do things by halves, it led them to the vicinity
of the village at the moment when the desperate contest was going on
which we have described in a previous chapter.
Their predacious instincts invited them to draw nearer the village
under the protection of the darkness, in the hope of obtaining some
Indian scalps, which were very valuable to them. It was then that the
gambusinos heard Shaw's cry for help, to which they responded by
hurrying up at full speed.
They rushed boldly into the medley, and saved the young man and the
precious burthen he still held enclasped; then, after cutting the
throats of several Indians, whom they conscientiously scalped, as they
considered it imprudent to venture further, they started off again as
quickly as they had come, and reached a forest where they concealed
themselves, intending to ask Shaw, when he regained his senses, how he
happened to be at the entrance of this village, holding Doña Clara in
his arms, and fighting alone against a swarm of Indians.
The young man remained unconscious the whole day. Although the wounds he
had received were not dangerous, the great quantity of blood he had
lost, and the extraordinary efforts he had been obliged to make, plunged
him into such a state of prostration, that several hours still elapsed
after he had regained his senses before he seemed to have restored
sufficient order in his ideas to be able to give an account of the
events in which he had played so important a part.
It was, therefore, Fray Ambrosio's advice to grant time to recall his
thoughts before beginning to cross-question him, and hence the affected
indifference of the gambusinos toward him, an indifference which he
profited by, to seek in his mind the means to part company with them,
carrying off for the second time Doña Clara, who had so unhappily fallen
into their hands again.