THE CASA GRANDE OF MOCTECUHZOMA.
At the remote period when the Aztecs, guided by the finger of God,
marched forth, without knowing it, to conquer the plateau of Ahanuac, of
which they eventually made the powerful kingdom of Mexico, although
their eyes were constantly turned toward this unknown land, the
permanent object of their greed, they frequently stopped their during
migration, as if fatigue had suddenly overpowered them, and the hope of
ever arriving had failed them.
In such cases, instead of simply camping on the spot where this
hesitation had affected them, they installed themselves as if they never
intended to go further, and built towns. After so many centuries have
passed away, when their founders have eternally disappeared from the
surface of the globe, the imposing ruins of these cities, scattered over
a space of more than a thousand leagues, still excite the admiration, of
travellers bold enough to confront countless dangers in order to
contemplate them.
The most singular of these ruins is indubitably that known by the name
of the Casa Grande of Moctecuhzoma, which rises about two miles from the
muddy banks of the Rio Gila, in an uncultivated and uninhabited plain,
on the skirt of the terrible sand desert known as the Del Norte. The
site on which this house is built is flat on all sides. The ruins which
once formed a city extend for more than three miles in a southern
direction: and also in the other directions all the ground is covered
with potsherds of every description. Many of these fragments are painted
of various colours--white or blue, red or yellow--which, by the by, is
an evident sign not only that this was an important city, but also that
it was inhabited by Indians differing from those now prowling about this
country, as the latter are completely ignorant of the art of making this
pottery.
The house is a perfect square, turned to the four cardinal points. All
around are walls, indicating an enceinte inclosing not only a house, but
other buildings, traces of which are perfectly distinct; for a little to
the rear is a building having a floor above, and divided into several
parts. The edifice is built of earth, and, as far as can be seen, with
mud walls; it had the stories above the ground, but the internal
carpentry has long ago disappeared. The rooms, five in number on each
floor, were only lighted, so far as we can judge from the remains, by
the doors, and round holes made in the walls facing to the north and
south. Through these openings the man Amer (_el hombre Amargo_, as the
Indians call the Aztec sovereign) looked at the sun, on its rising and
setting, to salute it.
A canal, now nearly dry, ran from the river and served to supply the
city with water.
At the present day these ruins are gloomy and desolate: they are slowly
crumbling away beneath the incessant efforts of the sun, whose burning
rays calcine them, and they serve as a refuge to the hideous vultures
and the urubus which have selected it as their domicile. The Indians
carefully avoid these sinister stations, from which a superstitious
terror, for which they cannot account, keeps them aloof.
Thus the Comanche, Sioux, Apache, or Pawnee warrior, whom the accidents
of the chase, or any other fortuitous cause, had brought to the vicinity
of this dangerous ruin on the night of the fourth or fifth day of the
cherry moon--_champasciasoni_--that is to say, about a month after the
events we described in the last chapter--would have fled at the top
speed of his horse, a prey to the wildest terror, at the strange
spectacle which would have presented itself to his awe-stricken gaze.
The old palace of the Aztec kings threw out its gigantic outline on the
azure sky, studded with a brilliant belt of stars. From all the
openings--round or square--formed by human agency or by time in its
dilapidated walls poured floods of reddish light; while songs, shouts,
and laughter incessantly rose from the ruined apartments, and troubled
in their dens the wild beasts, surprised by these sounds, which
disturbed in so unusual a manner the silence of the desert. In the
ruins, beneath the pallid rays of the moon, might be distinguished the
shadows of men and horses grouped round enormous braseros, while a dozen
horsemen, well armed, and leaning on spears, stood motionless as bronze
equestrian statues at the entrance of the house.
If within the ruins all was noise and light, outside all was shadow and
silence.
The night slipped away: the moon had already traversed two thirds of her
course; the badly tended braseros went out one after another; the old
mansion alone continued to gleam through the darkness like an ill-omened
lighthouse.
At this moment the sharp and regular sound of a horse trotting on the
sand re-echoed in the distance. The sentinels stationed at the entrance
of the house with difficulty raised their heads, oppressed by sleep and
the vivid cold of the first morning hours, and looked in the direction
whence the noise of footsteps was audible.
A horseman appeared at the corner of the road leading to the ruins. The
stranger, paying but little heed to what he saw, continued to advance
boldly toward the house. He passed the ruined wall, and on arriving
within ten paces of the sentries, dismounted, threw the bridle on his
horse's neck, and walked with a firm step toward the sentries, who
awaited him silent and motionless. But when he was about two swords'
lengths from the party all the lances were suddenly levelled at his
breast, a hoarse voice shouted, "Halt!"
The stranger stopped without a remark.
"Who are you? What do you want?" asked a horseman.
"I am a _costeño_. I have taken a long journey to see your captain, with
whom I wish to speak," the stranger said.
By the pale and flickering rays of the moon the sentry tried in vain to
distinguish the stranger's features; but that was impossible, so
carefully was he wrapped up in his cloak.
"What is your name?" he asked, in an ill-tempered tone, when he saw that
all his efforts were useless.
"What need of that? Your chief does not know me, and my name will tell
him nothing."
"Possibly so, but that concerns yourself. Keep your incognito if you
think proper; still, you must not be angry with me if I do not let you
disturb the captain. He is at this moment supping with his officers, and
certainly would not put himself out in the middle of the night to speak
with a stranger."
The man could not conceal a sharp movement of annoyance.
"Possibly so, I will say in my turn," he remarked an instant later.
"Listen. You are an old soldier, I think?"
"I am one still," the trooper said, drawing himself up proudly.
"Although you speak Spanish magnificently, I believe I can recognise the
Frenchman in you."
"I have that honour."
The stranger chuckled inwardly. He had caught his man: he had found out
his weak point.
"I am alone," he went on. "You have I know not how many comrades. Allow
me to speak with your captain. What do you fear?"
"Nothing; but my orders are strict--I dare not break through them."
"We are in the heart of the desert, more than a hundred leagues
from every civilised abode," the stranger said, pressingly. "You can
understand that very powerful reasons were requisite to make me brave
the numberless dangers of the long journey I have made to speak for a
few moments with the Count de Lhorailles. Would you shipwreck me in
sight of port, when it only requires a little kindness on your part for
me to obtain what I want?"
The trooper hesitated; the reasons urged by the stranger had half
convinced him. Still, after a few minutes' reflection, he said with a
toss of his head,--
"No, it is impossible; the captain is stern, and I do not care to lose
my corporal's stripes. All I can do for you is to allow you to bivouac
here with our men in the open air. Tomorrow it will be day; the captain
will come out; you will speak to him, and arrange matters as you please,
for it will not affect me."
"Hem!" the stranger said thoughtfully, "it is a long time to wait."
"Bah!" said the soldier gaily, "a night is soon passed. Besides, it is
your own fault; you are so confoundedly mysterious. A man needn't be
ashamed of his name."
"But I repeat that your captain never heard mine."
"What matter if he hasn't? A name is always a name."
"Ah!" the stranger suddenly said, "I believe I have found a way to
settle everything."
"Let's hear it: if it is good I will avail myself of it."
"'Tis excellent."
"All the better. I am listening."
"Go and tell the captain that the man who fired a pistol at him a month
back at the Rancho of Guaymas is here, and wishes to speak to him."
"Eh?"
"Do you not understand me?"
"Oh, perfectly."
"Well, in that case--"
"Between ourselves, the recommendation seems to me rather scurvy."
"You think so?"
"Parbleu! He was all but assassinated by you. What, was it you?"
"Yes, I and another."
"I compliment you on it."
"Thanks. Well, are you not going?"
"I confess to a certain amount of hesitation."
"You are wrong. The Count de Lhorailles is a brave man; no one doubts
his courage. He must have retained our chance meeting in pleasant
memory."
"After all, that's possible; and, besides you are a stranger. I cannot
bear the thought of refusing you so slight a service. I will go. Wait
here, and do not be impatient, for I do not promise you success."
"I am certain of it."
The old soldier dismounted with a shrug of his shoulders, and entered
the house. The stranger did not appear to doubt the success of the
corporal's embassy; for, as soon as he had disappeared, he walked up to
the door. In a few moments the corporal returned.
"Well," the stranger asked, "what answer did the captain give you?"
"He began laughing and ordered me to bring you in."
"You see I was right."
"That's true; but, for all that, an attempted assassination is a droll
recommendation."
"A meeting," the stranger remarked.
"I don't know if you call it by that name here; but in France we call it
waylaying. Come on."
The stranger made no reply; he merely shrugged his shoulders, and
followed the worthy trooper.
In an immense hall, whose dilapidated walls threatened to collapse, and
to which the star-spangled sky served as roof, four men of stern
features and flashing eyes were seated round a table, served with the
most delicate luxury and the most sensual idea of comfort. They were the
count and the officers forming his staff, namely, Lieutenants Diégo Léon
and Martin Leroux, and Don Sylva's old capataz, Blas Vasquez.
The count had been encamped with his free company for the last five days
in the Casa Grande of Moctecuhzoma. After the attack on the colony by
the Apaches, the count, in the hope of finding again his betrothed, who
had disappeared in so mysterious a way during the action, and most
probably had been carried off by the Indians, immediately formed the
resolution of executing the orders government had given him long
previously, and which he had hitherto delayed obeying, with pretexts
more or less plausible; but in reality because he did not care, brave as
he was, to have a fight with the redskins, who were so resolute and
difficult to overcome, especially when attacked on their own territory.
The count drew one hundred and twenty Frenchmen from the colony, to whom
the capataz, who burned to recover and deliver his master and young
mistress, added thirty resolute peons, so that the strength of the
little troop amounted to one hundred and fifty well-armed and
experienced horsemen.
The count had asked the hunters, whose help had also been so precious to
him, to accompany him. He would have been happy to have not only
companions so intrepid, but also guides so sure as they to lead him on the
trail of the Indians, whom he was determined to follow up and
exterminate. But Count Louis and his two friends, without giving any
further excuse than the necessity of continuing their journey at once,
took leave of Lhorailles, peremptorily refusing the brilliant offers he
made them.
The count was compelled to put up with the capataz and his peons.
Unfortunately these men were _costeños_ or inhabitants of the seaboard,
perfectly well acquainted with the coast, but entirely ignorant of all
relating to the _tierra adentro_ or interior countries. It was,
therefore, under this inexperienced guidance that the count left Guetzalli
and marched into Apacheria.
The expedition began under favourable auspices: twice were the redskins
surprised by the French at an interval of a few days, and mercilessly
massacred. The count wished to make no prisoners, in the hope of
imprinting terror on the hearts of these barbarous savages. All the
Indians who fell alive into the hands of the French were shot, and then
hung on the trees, head downwards.
Still, after these two encounters, so disastrous for them, the Indians
appeared to have taken the hint; and, in spite of all the count's
efforts, he found it impossible to catch them again. The summary justice
exercised by the count appeared not only to have attained, but even
outstripped the object he designed; for the Indians suddenly became
invisible. For about three weeks the count sought their trail, but was
unable to discover it. At length, on the eve of the day on which we take
up our story again, some seven or eight hundred horses, apparently free
(for according to the Indian custom, their riders lying on their flanks,
were nearly invisible), entered the ruins about midday, and rushed on
the Casa Grande at a frightful pace.
A discharge of musketry from behind the hastily erected barricades
hurled disorder in their ranks, though it did not check the impetus of
their attack, and they fell like lightning on the French. The Apaches
had plucked up a spirit. Half naked, with their heads laden with plumes,
their long buffalo robes fluttering in the wind, steering their horses
with their knees, the Indian warriors had a warlike aspect capable of
inspiring the most resolute men with terror. The French received them
boldly, however, although deafened by the horrible yells their enemies
uttered, and blinded by the long barbed arrows which rained around them
like hail.
But the Apaches, as much as the French, wished for no mere skirmish. By
a common accord they rushed on each other in a hand-to-hand fight. In
the midst of the Indian warriors, the Black Bear could be easily
recognised by his long plume and the eagle feathers planted in his
war-tuft. The chief urged his men on to avenge their preceding defeats by
seizing the Casa Grande. Then one of those fearful frontier actions
began, in which no prisoners are made, and which render any description
impossible through the ferocity both parties display, and the cruelties
of which they are guilty. The _bolas perdidas_, bayonet, and lance were
the only weapons employed. This fight, during which the Indians were
incessantly reinforced, lasted more than two hours, and the defenders of
the barricades allowed themselves to be killed sooner than yield an inch
of ground.
Beginning to hope that the Indians must be wearied by so long a struggle
and such an obstinate defence, the French redoubled their efforts, when
suddenly the cry of "Treason! Treason!" was heard in their rear. The
count and the capataz, who fought in the first ranks of the volunteers
and peons, turned round. The position was critical. The French were
really caught between two fires. The Little Panther, at the head of the
fifty warriors, had turned the position, and taken the barricades in
reverse. The Indians, mad with joy at such perfect success, cut down all
they came across, uttering the wild yells of triumph.
The count took a long glance at the battlefield, and his determination
was at once formed. He said a couple of words to the capataz, who
returned to the head of his combatants, warned them what to do, and
watched for the favourable moment to carry out his chiefs instructions.
For his part the count had lost no time. Seizing a barrel of powder, he
put into it a piece of lighted candle, and hurled it into the densest
ranks of the Indians, where it burst almost immediately, causing
irreparable injury. The terrified Apaches fell into disorder, and fled
in every direction to avoid being struck by the fragments of this novel
shell. Profiting cleverly by the respite produced by the barrel among
the assailants, the adventurers led by the capataz turned and rushed on
the Little Panther's band, which was only a few paces off by this time.
The spot was not favourable for the Indians, who, collected in a narrow
entry, could not manoeuvre their horses. The Little Panther and the
Apaches rushed forward with yells. The French, as brave and as skillful
as their adversaries, boldly awaited with levelled bayonets the shock of
the tremendous avalanche, which fell upon them with blinding speed. The
redskins were driven back. The rout commenced, and the Apaches began
flying in every direction. The count sent several peons after them, who
returned toward nightfall, stating that the Apaches, after reforming, had
entered the desert.
The count, although satisfied with the victory he had gained (for the
enemy's loss was tremendous), did not consider it decisive, as the Black
Bear had escaped, and he had been unable to recover the person he had
sworn to save. He gave orders to his _cuadrilla_ to prepare for a
forward march in the desert, and on the next day the French would
definitely leave the Casa Grande.
The count fêted with his officers the victory gained on the previous
day, and urged them to drink to the success of the expedition they were
going to attempt on the morrow. Flushed by the numerous potations he had
made, by the repeated toasts he had drunk, as well as by the hope of
complete success ere long, the count was in the best possible temper to
hear the singular message the old corporal delivered so much against the
grain.
"And what sort of fellow is he?" he asked, when the other had performed
his task.
"On my word, captain," the corporal answered, "so far as I could see, he
is stout, well-built young fellow, and gifted with a sufficient stock of
assurance, not to speak more strongly."
The count reflected for a moment.
"Shall I have him shot?" the soldier asked, taking this silence for a
condemnation.
"Plague take it, what a hurry you are in, Boiland!" the count said
laughing and looking up. "No, no; this scamp's arrival is a piece of
good luck for us. On the contrary, bring him here with the utmost
politeness."
The soldier bowed and retired.
"Gentlemen," the count continued, "you remember the trap to which I
almost fell a victim: a certain amount of mystery, which I have never
been able to fathom, has since surrounded this affair. The man who asks
speech of me has come, I feel a presentiment, in order to give me the
key to many things which have hitherto been incomprehensible."
"Señor conde," the capataz observed, "pray take care. You do not yet
know the character of our people; this man may come to draw you into a
snare."
"For what purpose?"
"_¿Quién sabe_?" Blas Vasquez answered, employing that phrase which in
Spanish is so meaning, and which it is difficult to translate into our
tongue.
"Bah, bah!" the count said. "Trust in me, Don Blas, to unmask this
scamp, if he be a spy, as I do not suppose."
The capataz contented himself with an almost imperceptible shrug of his
shoulders. The count was one of those men whose lofty and arrogant mind
rendered any discussion impossible. The Europeans, and, before all, the
French in America, display towards the natives--white, half-breed, or
redskins--a contempt which breaks out in their language and actions,
persuaded they stand intellectually far above the inhabitants of the
country in which they happen to be, they display towards them an
insulting pity, and amuse themselves with continually turning them into
ridicule, by mocking either their habits or their belief, and in their
hearts grant them an amount of instinct not greatly superior to that of
the brute.
This opinion is not only unjust, but it is also entirely false. The
American Hispanos, it is true, are very far behindhand as regards
civilisation, trade, mechanical arts, &c.: progress with them is slow,
because perpetually impeded by the superstitions that form the basis of
their faith; but we ought not to make these people responsible for a
state of things from which they are eager to emerge, and for which the
Spaniards are alone culpable, owing to the system of brutalising
oppression and crushing abjectness in which they kept them. The grinding
tyranny which for several centuries weighed Indians down, by rendering
them the utter slaves of haughty and implacable masters, has given them
the characteristics of slaves--cunning and cowardice.
With a few honourable exceptions, the mass of the Indian population
especially--for the whites have advanced with giant steps in the path of
progress during the past few years--is scampish, cunning, cowardly, and
depraved. Thus it ever happens that when a European and a half-breed
come into collision, the white man, instead of the intelligence he
boasts, is duped by the Indian. It is so well recognised as an article
of faith in Spanish America, that the half-breeds and Indians are poor
irrational creatures, gifted at the most with enough intelligence to
live from hand to mouth that the whites proudly call themselves _gente
de razón._
We are bound to add that, after a few years' residence in America, the
opinions of the Europeans with regard to the half-breeds are greatly
modified, because a little acquaintance with the country enables them to
take a more healthy view of the people with whom they are mixed up. But
the Count de Lhorailles had not reached that stage: he only saw in the
Indian or half-breed a being all but lacking reason, and dealt with
him on that erroneous principle. This belief was destined, at a later
date, to bear most terrible consequences.
The count had noticed the shrug of the shoulders the capataz gave, and
was about to reply to him, when the corporal reappeared, followed by the
stranger, on whom all eyes were at once fixed. The stranger bore without
flinching the cross fire of glances, and, while remaining completely
wrapped up in the folds of his large cloak, saluted the company with
unparalleled ease. The appearance of this man in the banqueting hall
infected the guests with a feeling of uneasiness they would have been
unable to explain, but which suddenly rendered them dumb.