witnessed this inhuman hunt with more curiosity than sympathy; but when
the dragoons began to cut and slash among the defenceless Indians, the
scene evidently became painful to him; his eyes flashed, his cheeks
glowed, his features expressed the utmost indignation and anger.
The Indians were caught as in a trap; precipices on the one side, an
implacable and bloodthirsty enemy on the other. Each moment dragoons made
their appearance out of the wood by ones and twos, driving more fugitives
before them. At last, when the latter found themselves pressed together in
one dense body, they made a desperate effort to break through their
enemies and gain the entrance of the barranca. But the dragoons saw their
object, and hastened to frustrate it. Strengthening their ranks on that
side, they completely surrounded the Indians, and commenced an
indiscriminate and barbarous slaughter. The more the victims sought to
escape their persecutors, the more dense became their mass, and the more
fatal the blows of the Spaniards. There were between five and six hundred
of the patriots. On a sudden, and as if by a general impulse, the
unfortunate wretches threw themselves upon their knees, raised their
clasped hands, and, in heart-rending tones, sued for mercy.
"_Cuartel! par el amor de Dios, cuartel!_"
"_Buen viage a los infiernos!_" was the savage reply of the dragoons, and
heads and hands fell in all directions.
"Infernal villains!" exclaimed Don Manuel, overcome by his indignation at
the barbarity of the soldiery. And hardly were the words spoken, when, by
an incontrollable impulse, he raised the pistols he still held in his
hands, and fired them at the dragoons; then hurrying to one of the mules,
he snatched another brace from the holsters attached to the saddle.
"_Por el amor de Dios! Por la santissima madre!_ Think of your mother,
think of the count, of Elvira!" implored Alonzo, throwing his arms round
his young master.
"Stand off!" shouted the youth fiercely; "or by the living God I shoot you
on the spot, sooner than let this inhuman butchery continue."
Pushing the servant violently from him, he sprang forward and discharged
his two other pistols. Two dragoons fell from their saddles.
"Holy virgin!" exclaimed the old serving man, "he will be the ruin of
himself, of his family, of all of us. But it is too late to back out. Take
good aim, Pedro, Cosmo." And the three men fired their carbines, while
Jago and the muleteers, hastily following their example with their
trabucos, half a dozen of the Spaniards bit the dust.
A short pause ensued. The shots from the thicket had come like a
thunderbolt upon the inhuman dragoons and their victims. The latter stared
for a few seconds wildly around them, as if uncertain whence came the
unexpected succour. Their indecision was put an end to by Jago.
"_Abajo con ellos!_" shouted he in a voice of thunder. "Down with the
dogs!"
And at the word, the Indians, rousing from their apathy, threw themselves
upon the dead and wounded Spaniards, wrested their weapons from them in
spite of the murderous blows of the other dragoons, and in their turn
assumed the offensive. Don Manuel's blood was now thoroughly heated with
the fight. Every shot that was fired at this elevation of ten thousand
feet above the sea, rolled and rattled its echoes round the hills in
long-continued thunder, and added to the din and excitement of the scene.
"Are you loaded?" cried the young nobleman, as he shot down the first man
of a detachment which was advancing to attack the new foe in his ambush.
Servants and muleteers followed his example, five more saddles were
emptied, and immediately the Indians threw themselves upon the fallen,
regardless of wounds, and seized their sabres and carbines. The fight grew
more furious in proportion as the sides became more equal.
"Thanks be to God and to your Senoria, our time is come!" murmured Jago.
And with the cry of "Death to the Gachupins!" he sprang from his cover,
and fell with a tiger's leap upon the dragoons. The latter began to lose
ground; for while twenty patriots, now well armed, found them occupation
in front, hundreds of others attacked them on the flanks and in rear,
climbing upon the cruppers of the horses, clasping the riders round the
body, and dragging them from the saddle. Even the wounded twined their
bleeding and mutilated limbs round the horses' legs, and made their sharp
teeth meet in the very muscle of the brutes, till the groans of pain of
the latter were heard mingling with the cries of the combatants. It was a
frightful group; the Indians were become incarnate fiends. The dragoons
had no room to use their weapons; they could scarcely move; men and horses
were intertwined with Indians, who clung to them like so many anacondas.
Hardly ten minutes had elapsed, and there were not thirty men left on
their horses.
Don Manuel had beheld with horror this outbreak of Indian fury. Springing
forward he shouted to the patriots, in a loud voice, to desist.
"Death to the traitor!" cried the Spanish commandant, who was still
fighting desperately at the head of the remnant of his squadron.
"_Muera!_" repeated he, as he fired off his last pistol at Manuel. He
missed him, and had just raised his sabre to repair the badness of his
aim, when a blow from a club brought horse and rider to the ground.
"Hold your hands!" cried the young nobleman. "Hold, and give quarter!"
"_El tiempo de la mansedumbre se ha pasado!_" muttered Jago and his
Indians. "The day of mercy is long gone by."
"By the eternal God, I will split the skull of the first who strikes
another blow!" shouted Manuel.
But his endeavours to suspend the slaughter were fruitless. His voice was
drowned amid the furious yells of the Indians. At that very moment the
vesper bells from Cholula came sounding up the mountain, and those of the
various villages of the plain chimed in with an indescribably peaceful and
soothing harmony.
"Ave Maria!" exclaimed a hundred Indian voices. "Ave Maria!" repeated
Metises and Zambos; and all, friends and foes, let their blood-dripping
hands sink, and bending their wild, excited gaze upon the earth, clasped
and kissed the medals of the Virgin of Guadalupe which were hung round
their necks, and in tones of musical monotony began to pray--"Ave Maria,
audi nos peccadores!" All heads were bowed, all hands folded; and,
kneeling upon the corpses of the slain, these raging foes implored, in
humble formula, forgiveness for themselves and their erring
fellow-creatures.
The shades of evening had spread themselves over valley and plain; in the
barranca it was already darkest night; but the mountains of the Sierra
Madre still glowed in the red rays of the setting sun, their snow-capped
summits flaming aloft like gigantic beacons. At the same time multitudes
of eagles and vultures rose upon the wing, mingling their screams with the
groans of the dying and the agonized cries of the wounded. Every
circumstance seemed to unite to render the scene in the highest degree
sublime and horrible.
The bells ceased ringing, and scarcely had the echoes of their last chime
died away, when the Indians arose from their devotional posture, gazed at
each other for a moment with lowering and significant glances, and then,
without uttering a word, sprang upon the few remaining dragoons with an
eager rage and greed of blood, that scarcely seemed human. In a few
seconds not one of the Spaniards was left alive. To a man they had been
stabbed and strangled by their inveterate and unappeasable foes.
* * * * *
The principal incident of the preceding chapter is, we apprehend, of
peculiar dramatic merit and boldness of conception. A young nobleman,
whose predilections and prejudices are strongly enlisted on the side of
the oppressors, has the better feelings of his nature roused into action
by the cruelties he sees inflicted on the oppressed, and, forgetful of
selfish interests, strikes boldly in on the weaker side. The moment of
excitement over, a reaction takes place, the stronger, perhaps, on account
of the cruel reprisals exercised by the uncivilized Indians, and still
more ferocious half-castes; and while the patriots are rifling the dead
bodies of the dragoons, and their chief is reading some papers he has
found in the pocket of the Spanish commandant, Don Manuel bitterly
deplores the act of precipitation that has blasted all the hopes of his
love and ambition.
While the various actors in the scene are thus employed, Jago's practised
ear detects a faint murmur and rattle in the barranca, occasioned by the
approach of another squadron of cavalry under command of the Conde Carlos.
The dragoons, alarmed by the firing, have left their horses below and
slung their heavy boots over their shoulders, in order to arrive more
speedily to the assistance of their comrades. By a skilful disposition of
his Indians, the patriot captain surrounds the Spaniards before they
emerge from the difficult road up the barranca, and while they are panting
and exhausted with the steep ascent. This is effected in spite of a
desperate attempt of Don Manuel to warn them of their danger. At the
moment, however, that they are, to all appearance, about to be
exterminated by a volley from the patriots, Jago cries out to hold and
give quarter, for that they are Creoles and friends. Count Carlos, with a
cry of "Viva el Rey!" rushes forward to charge the foe, but his men hang
back, and resist all his efforts to make them advance. Jago gives him
proofs of the destruction of the other squadron, and offers him and his
men their lives, and honourable treatment as prisoners of war. These
conditions the Conde is compelled to accept; but, previously to doing so,
he demands whose word is plighted to him for their due fulfilment. Jago
descends the rocky path, and whispers a few words in his ear, the effect
of which is to make Carlos start back and salute the patriot captain with
far more respect than a young aristocrat could have been expected to show
to a mule-driver.
Considering that neither Spain nor Mexico are very safe countries for Don
Manuel after what has occurred, Jago offers to have him put safely on
board an English or American vessel; but the young man is too much
agitated to decide upon any thing. Preparations are now made to leave the
scene of the recent conflict, previously to which, however, many of the
dragoons join the ranks of the patriots. To this Count Carlos objects, as
contrary to the conditions.
"It is the men's own wish," replied Jago in a jesting tone. "We fight for
liberty, Conde, and it were hard measure to refuse it to our new allies."
And smiling significantly, he lifted up his voice and sang--
"Amigos, la libertad
Nos llama a la lid,
Juremos por ella
Morir como el Cid!"
"Good God!" exclaimed the count, "that voice! Pedrillo!"
Before Carlos has recovered from his surprise at recognising the voice of
the masked cavalier who played so important a part in the earlier scenes
of the book, the patriots divide into three parties, and set off in as
many different directions, singing in chorus the song which their leader
had commenced. Carlos and Manuel find themselves separated alike from each
other, and from the mysterious and Protean patriot captain. We shall
attach ourselves to the fortunes of Don Manuel, and extract the chapter
which records his night march, and terminates this episode.
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD.
"Away, away, my steed and I,
Upon the pinions of the wind,
All human dwellings left behind;
We sped like meteors through the sky,
When with its crackling sound the night
Is chequer'd with the northern light."
_Mazeppa._
In the same wild and abrupt manner in which the song had commenced, did it
suddenly cease as the party entered the forest, the intricacies and
ravines of which it required all their attention to thread with safety. No
more torches were left alight than were absolutely necessary to find the
way over and along the dangerous fissures and precipices which met them at
every turn. Here and there were still to be seen traces of the paths hewn
in the rock by the unspeakable labour of Cortes' infatuated allies--paths
by which that daring adventurer had brought his handful of men, his horses
and guns, over the Sierra, and which had recently conducted the Spanish
major and his squadron to their less successful coup-de-main. Hours were
consumed in clambering up and down this rough and dangerous ground, and
not a word was uttered by the patriots until they arrived in a valley at a
considerable distance below the platform they had left. A shrill whistle
was then heard, followed by a wild howl resembling that of the caguar,
whereupon the party halted a short time, and then again started off at a
rapid pace. Their path now led through lofty woods and tangled thickets,
overgrown with a mantle of creeping plants, so closely entwined and
intricate, that they might well have deterred the most daring hunter from
attempting to force a passage. The stunted oaks and pines had been
replaced by palm and tamarind trees, the sharp cold had given way to a
moderate degree of warmth. Over the adjacent ravines, billows of mist were
floating, and from time to time were wafted towards the wanderers by a
puff of the night breeze, rendering the darkness that surrounded them yet
more intense. Now and then Indians emerged, with rapid but silent step,
from the clefts and passes of the mountain, and joined the party; others
left it and disappeared with the same noiseless dispatch. No voice was
heard, no command given; there was every appearance of the blindest
obedience, without any visible chief.
Hitherto our young Don had given no sign of his existence. He had followed
mechanically wherever he had been led, over mountain and valley, through
ravine and forest, until, on a sudden, the brilliant spectacle of fifty
torches, flaring along a rocky ridge, and illuminating the depths of a
fearful precipice, roused him into life and consciousness. Before he had
time to enquire where he was, or whither they were taking him, a whistle
was heard, and at the same moment he was seized by a pair of powerful
arms, and placed upon the shoulders of a gigantic Indian, who tucked the
young man's legs under his arms, and trotted away with his burden as
though it had been a feather.
"_Vigilancia!_" suddenly exclaimed a voice, and the party paused for an
instant: in the silence the roar of a mountain torrent was heard,
ascending, as it seemed, from the very bowels of the earth. The climate,
which had been alternately cold and temperate, as the march had lain over
high ground, or through ravines and hollows, had now suddenly become of a
tropical heat.
"Where are we?" enquired Don Manuel of his bearer, as the latter at last
sat him down upon his feet.
"_Callad!_ Silence!" replied the Indian, pointing down into the depth
below, from which a shout was heard, scarcely audible in the noise of the
torrent. "_Callad!_" he repeated, as he fixed his lasso dexterously under
Don Manuel's arms, and, lifting him over a rock, lowered him to a depth of
thirty feet. Himself following by the like means, he perched the young man
upon his shoulders in the same unceremonious manner as before, and began a
rapid descent into the frightful barranca.
"_Vigilancia!_" cried a voice. "Half a foot's breadth and no more; the
Virgin help those who require a whole one."
"_Silencio!_" commanded a second speaker. "Caballitos for the Creoles; a
good journey to the Gachupins."
The warning and the command had alike reference to an unhewn tree-trunk
thrown across the gulf that was now to be traversed. The order had hardly
been given, when Manuel found himself transferred to the shoulders of a
fresh Indian, who, without looking to the right or left, trotted, rather
than walked over the perilous bridge. In the awful chasm beneath them, the
water chafed and roared, concealed from view by the most luxuriant foliage
and creeping plants. On the further side of the bridge, several Indians
were already standing.
"_Eres Criollo?_ Are you a Creole?" said a rough voice in rear of Don
Manuel, and then the shaking of the tree-trunk gave notice that a second
caballito, with a man upon his back, was accomplishing the dangerous
passage. Again the question was put, but this time the answer was scarcely
out of the mouth of the unfortunate Spaniard, when the exclamation of
"_Maldito, Gachupin!_" and an agonized cry of "_Jesus Maria y Jose!_" were
accompanied by a heavy fall and rattle amongst the branches. Manuel, who
was now in safety on the farther side of the barranca, gazed shudderingly
after the unhappy wretch, whose death scream rose shrill and wild from the
depths of the abyss. Before he had time to utter a word, he was again
seized and carried along as rapidly and unceremoniously as if he had been
a child of two years' old. A few more single shrieks were heard, each more
faint and distant, until at last they ceased altogether.
The heat of the _terra caliente_, which the party had recently entered,
began to change rapidly into the cold of the _tierra fria_, while a wreath
of white fog round the summit of a neighbouring mountain indicated the
approach of dawn. In the barrancas it was still dark night. Here and there
appeared heaps of snow, which became more numerous as the climbers
ascended, until at last the whole mountain was one field of ice. As the
daylight increased, a mass of snow-covered mountain appeared upon the
left, spreading out like a huge winding-sheet, while to the right a still
loftier peak caught the first beams of the morning sun. But the beams were
pale, and the tints grey; all around was mist and icy cold.
"_Por Dios!_" exclaimed Don Manuel; "Where is the Conde Carlos? Where are
Alonzo, Cosmo?"
"Forward!" commanded a voice.
"I ask where is the Conde Carlos?" repeated the young nobleman, who
remarked, to his horror, that the party, which had set out more than four
hundred strong, now consisted only of seventy Indians and twenty or thirty
dragoons. He had been unconscious, owing to the darkness and to his
agitation of mind, of the separation that had taken place upon the
plateau. No answer was vouchsafed to his question. They had arrived at the
edge of a deep precipice, which stopped their further progress.
"Lassos!" cried the same voice as before.
One of the Indians fastened the end of his lasso round his own body, gave
the ring at the other extremity to a comrade, and was lowered over the
precipice. A second lasso was made fast to the ring of the first, a third,
a fourth, a fifth were added in like manner, until the Indian had
disappeared in the fog, and it was only known by his shout when he had
found a footing. Another Indian, and another, followed in the same way,
with as much safety and speed as if they had been so many cotton bales let
down from the top floor of a warehouse.
"_Vuestra Senoria_," said one of the patriots to Don Manuel, pointing to
this new kind of ladder, and making a sign to an Indian. The next moment
the young nobleman also had vanished in the mist. Man followed man, and
the last who went down gave each of the five guides a cigar, laid his
finger on his lips, and hastened after his companions.
The descent thus strangely commenced, was continued for some time without
incident, and the sun was just rising above the mountains, when the
patriot detachment came in sight of a moderately deep barranca, along the
side of which stood a _rancho_, or Indian village, composed of doorless
and windowless huts, built of tree trunks, and thatched with palm leaves.
Each of the humble dwellings was surrounded by its cactus hedge, enclosing
an infinite variety of gorgeous tropical flowers, which offered a striking
contrast with the adjacent poverty and filth. From the elevation on which
the patriots stood, a chapel with snow-white walls, buried amidst
centenary cypresses, was visible, as also some other buildings of various
sizes, apparently belonging to an _hacienda_ or plantation.
The party descended rapidly but cautiously towards the village, headed by
a young Creole, who now, for the first time during their march, attracted
Don Manuel's attention, and under whose unbuttoned frock-coat were visible
the blue uniform and white facings of the patriots, and the insignia of a
field-officer. The morning mass was just over, and the village alive with
Indians--men, women, and children--who crowded round the detachment with
joyous welcome and vociferous greetings.
In the midst of the bustle, the sound of voices was suddenly heard
approaching the village from the opposite side, and presently the advanced
guard of a corps of patriots came in sight. These were followed by several
officers of distinguished appearance, clothed in rich staff uniforms, and
amongst them the Conde Carlos. Then came the main body, numbering about
five hundred men, all well armed and equipped. They were for the most part
Indians, Metises, and Zambos from the southern provinces, powerful
well-built fellows, who, in spite of their long march, came on with a
light step and a proud glance. From time to time there was a shout of
"_Viva Vicente Guerero! Viva nuestro general!_"
Oddly enough, as it struck Don Manuel, our old acquaintance, Captain Jago,
was walking among the brilliant train of staff-officers, still attired in
his shabby _manga_, although he had found means to renew the covering of
his feet.
"Ah! Don Manuel!" cried he with a somewhat malicious smile, and fixing his
eyes on the now tattered shoes and garb of the young cavalier, "You were
doubtless not over well-pleased with your last night's march; but we could
not help it, and your friend the Count Carlos has fared no better. I
trust, however, that my commands were obeyed, and that Major Galeana took
all possible care of you?"
"Major Galeana take care of me!" repeated the youth indignantly, his blood
again getting up at the remembrance of the rough handling he had
experienced.
"My orders have been obeyed, I hope," resumed Jago.
"Thy orders obeyed, knave!" interupted Don Manuel bitterly, without
letting Jago finish his phrase.
"Mexico calls me Vicente Guerero," was the dry but dignified reply of the
ex-arriero; "and henceforward I must beg of your young senoria to address
me by that name."
And with these words, the former muleteer, now suddenly transformed into
one of Mexico's most distinguished generals, turned his back upon the
astonished Don Manuel, amidst the loud laughter of the bystanders.
"Let the men get their breakfast at once," continued Guerero to Major
Galeana, "so that they may have at least three hours' siesta. Be kind
enough to give me a cigar," he added to another of his officers. "Ha!
there are _tortillas_," laughed he, stepping up to a group of Indian
women, who were busied baking the much-esteemed maize cakes, and had
crept towards him in order to kiss the hem of his garment. "They are good,
Matta," said he, with a smile, to one of the girls, taking a tortilla from
the pan, stretching out his hand for the Chili pepper, and sprinkling the
cake with the pungent condiment. "One more, Matta. So--try them,
gentlemen, you will find them excellent."
The aides-de-camp and generals hastened to follow the example of their
chief.
"Apropos, Major Galeana," resumed the latter; "two Spaniards were caught
trying to escape. Let them be strung up. Senor Conde," he continued,
turning to his prisoner Carlos, "you are our guest, I hope, and your
friend also, if he will so far condescend. But where is he? Where is Don
Manuel?"
Common and reckless as Guerero's manner undoubtedly was, there was,
nevertheless, a something about him highly attractive; the more so, as the
most superficial observer could easily discern that his abruptness was the
result, not of a consciousness of great power, but of a wish to make
himself popular with his followers. During the last of the pauses
occasioned in his desultory discourse by his attacks upon the maize cakes,
an officer came up and made a report, which seemed strongly to interest
the general.
"The devil!" cried he. "The Leperos on the heights of Ajotla, say you? Let
us have a look at them."