FIFTEEN YEARS' SEPARATION.
The reception offered the travellers by Don Cornelio was stamped with
that graceful kindness and careless ease which so eminently distinguish
the Spanish character. Although the adventurer's resources were
extremely limited, still he gave the little he possessed with such
complacency and so much good humour to his guests, that the latter knew
not how to thank him for the attentions he lavished upon them.
After supping as well as they could on _tasajo_ (jerked meat) and
_tortillas_ of maize, washed down with _pulque_ and _mezcal_, they
carefully wrapped themselves in their zarapés, lay down on the ground
with their feet to the fire, and soon appeared to be buried in a deep
sleep.
Don Cornelio took up his jarana, and leaning against a larch tree,
hummed one of those interminable Spanish romances he was so fond of, in
order to keep awake while awaiting his partner's return.
The bivouac where our friends now found themselves was certainly not
without a degree of the picturesque. The uncertain gleams of the fire
were reflected fantastically on the heads of some seven hundred and
fifty novillos, lying side by side, ruminating and sleeping, while the
horses were devouring their provender, stamping and neighing. The
Spaniard twanged his guitar, and the two hunters slept peacefully. This
scene, at once so simple and so singular, was worthy the pencil of
Callot.
Two hours thus passed away, and nothing occurred to disturb the repose
the encampment enjoyed, and the moon sank lower and lower on the
horizon. Don Cornelio's fingers stiffened; his eyes closed; and at
times, despite his efforts to keep awake, his head fell on his chest. In
despair, the Spaniard at last, beaten by fatigue, was about to yield to
the sleep that overpowered him, when a distant noise suddenly dispelled
his somnolency, and restored him the full use of his mind and other
faculties.
By degrees this noise, at first vague and indistinct, became louder; and
a horseman, armed with a long goad, entered the clearing, driving before
him a dozen novillos and half-savage bulls. After being helped by Don
Cornelio in stockading the straying animals he brought back, the
partner, who was no other than Count Louis de Prébois, dismounted and
sat down to the fire with that nonchalance and careless motion produced
in energetic natures, not so much by fatigue as by discouragement and
moral lassitude.
"Ah!" he said, looking at the two men stretched out at the fire, and
who, in spite of the noise caused by his arrival, still slept, or
appeared to do so, "we have visitors, I see."
"Yes," Don Cornelio made answer, "two hunters from the great prairies. I
thought I ought not to refuse them hospitality."
"You have done well, Don Cornelio: no one has a right in the desert to
refuse the stranger, who asks for them courteously, the heat of his fire
and a moiety of his _tasajo_."
"That was my idea."
"Now, my friend, lie down by our guests and rest yourself. This long
watch after the day's toil must have fatigued you beyond measure."
"But will you not sleep a few moments, Don Louis? Rest must be more
necessary to you than to myself."
"Permit me to watch," the count answered with a sad smile. "Rest was not
made for me."
Don Cornelio did not press him any further. Long accustomed to his
companion's character, he considered it useless to make any more
objections. A few moments later, wrapped in his zarapé, and with his
head on his jarana for a pillow, he slept soundly.
Don Louis threw a few handfuls of dry wood on the fire, which threatened
to expire, crossed his arms on his chest, and, leaning his back against
a tree, indulged in his thoughts, which were doubtlessly sorrowful and
very bitter; for the tears soon fell from his eyes, and ran down his
pallid cheeks, while stifled sighs exhaled from his bosom, and muttered
words escaped from his lips, crushed between his teeth by sorrow.
So soon as the count, after ordering Don Cornelio to take some repose,
fell down exhausted at the foot of a tree, the hunter, who appeared to
be sleeping so profoundly, suddenly opened his eyes, rose, and walked
gently toward him step by step.
Several hours passed away thus, Louis being still plunged in mournful
thoughts, Valentine standing behind him, leaning on his rifle, and
fixing on him a glance full of strange meaning.
The stars gradually expired in the depths of the sky, an opal-coloured
band began slowly to stripe the horizon, the birds awoke beneath the
foliage, sunrise was at hand. Don Louis let his head fall on his chest.
"Why struggle longer?" he said in a hoarse, deep voice. "What good to go
farther?"
"Those are very despairing words in the mouth of a man so strong as
Count Louis de Prébois," a low but firm voice whispered in his ear, with
a tone of gentle and sympathising reproach.
The count shuddered as if he had received an electric shock; a
convulsive tremor agitated all his limbs; and he bounded to his feet,
examining with haggard eye, pale brow, and disordered features, the man
who had so suddenly replied to the words pain had torn from him. The
hunter had not changed his position; his eye remained obstinately fixed
upon him, with an expression of melancholy, pity, and paternal kindness.
"Oh!" the count muttered in terror, as he passed his hand over his dank
forehead; "it is not he--it cannot be he! Valentine, my brother!--you
whom I never hoped to see again--answer, in Heaven's name, is it you?"
"'Tis I, brother," the hunter said gently, "whom Heaven brings a second
time across your path when all seems once again to fail you."
"Oh!" the count said with an expression impossible to render, "for a
long time I have been seeking you--for a long time I have called on
you."
"Here I am."
"Yes," he continued, shaking his head mournfully, "you are here,
Valentine; but now, alas! It is too late. All is dead in me
henceforth--faith, hope, courage: nothing is left to me--nothing but the
desire to lie in that tomb, where all my belief and all my departed
happiness are buried eternally!"
Valentine remained silent for a few moments, regarding his friend with a
glance at once gentle and stern. A flood of memories poured over the
hunter's heart; two glistening tears escaped from his eyes, and slowly
coursed down his bronzed cheeks; then, without any apparent effort, he
drew the count toward him, laid his head on his wide and loyal chest,
and kissed him paternally on the forehead.
"You have suffered, then, severely, my poor Louis," he said to him
tenderly. "Alas, alas! I was not there to sustain and protect you; but,"
he added, turning to heaven a glance of bitter sadness and sublime
resignation, "I too, Louis, I too, in the heart of the desert, where I
sought a refuge, have endured agonising grief. Many times I felt myself
strangled by despair; often and often my temples were crushed in by the
pressure of the furious madness that invaded my brain; my heart was
broken by the terrible anguish I endured; and yet, brother," he added in
a soft voice, filled with an ineffable melodiousness, "yet I live, I
struggle, and I hope," he said, so low that the count could hardly hear
him.
"Oh! Blessed be the chance that brings us together again when I
despaired of seeing you, Valentine."
"There is no such thing as chance, brother: it is God who prepares the
accomplishment of all events. I was seeking you."
"You were seeking me over here?"
"Why not? Did you not yourself come to Mexico to find me?"
"Yes; but how did you learn the fact?"
Valentine smiled.
"There is nothing extraordinary in it. If you wish it, I will prove to
you in a few words that I am much better informed than you suppose, and
that I know nearly all that has happened to you since our separation at
the hacienda of the Paloma."
"That is strange."
"Why so? About three months ago were you not at the Hacienda del
Milagro?"
"I was."
"You left it after spending some days there on your return from a
journey you had undertaken to the far west, in search of a rich
auriferous placer?"
"It is true."
"During that expedition, full of strange and terrible incidents, two men
accompanied you?"[1]
"Yes; a Canadian hunter and a Comanche chief."
"Very good. The hunter's name was Belhumeur, the chief's Eagle-head, I
think?"
"They were."
"Do you not remember revealing to Belhumeur (a worthy and honourable
hunter, by the way) the reason of the gloomy sorrow that devours you,
and for what motives, mere vague suspicions though they were, you had
come to Mexico in order to look for your dearest friend, from whom you
had been separated so many years?"
"Yes, I remember telling him all that."
"The rest is not difficult to comprehend. I have known Belhumeur many
years, and Heaven brought us together during a hunt on the Rio Colorado.
One night, while seated at the fire, where our supper was roasting,
after talking about a thousand indifferent things, Belhumeur, whom you
had left only a few days previously, began by degrees to talk about you.
At first, absorbed in my own thoughts, I paid but slight attention to
his recital; but when he described to me your meeting with Count de
Lhorailles in the desert, your name, uttered by Belhumeur
unintentionally, made me tremble. It was then my turn to cross-question
him. When I had learned everything, by making him tell the story twenty
times over, my resolution was immediately formed, and two days later I
set out on your track. For three months I have been following you, and
have at last come up with you--this time, I hope, never to part again,"
he added with a stifled sigh. "Still I do not know what has occurred to
you during the last three months. Tell me what you have been about. I am
listening."
"Yes, I will tell you all. My object, indeed, in seeking you was to
demand the fulfilment of a solemn promise."
The hunter's brow grew dark, and he frowned.
"Speak," he said; "I am listening. As for the promise to which you
allude, when the moment has arrived I shall know how to fulfil it."
"The sun is rising," Louis answered with a sad smile; "I must pay the
proper attention to my herd."
"I will help you. You are right; those poor brutes must not be
neglected."
At this moment the gloom was dispersed as if by enchantment; the sun
appeared radiant on the horizon; and thousands of birds of every
variety, hidden beneath the foliage, gaily celebrated its advent by
singing their matin hymn to it.
Don Cornelio and Curumilla shook off the torpor of sleep, and opened
their eyes. The Indian chief rose, and walked toward Valentine with that
slow and majestic step peculiar to him.
"Brother," the latter said, taking the Araucanian's hand in his own, "I
was not alone in my search for you. I had near me a friend whose heart
and arm never failed me, and whom I have ever found ready to help me in
weal and woe."
Don Louis gazed doubtfully at the man whom the hunter pointed out to
him, and who stood motionless and stoical before him. Gradually his
features were expanded, his memory returned, and he affectionately
offered his hand to the Indian, saying with deep emotion,--
"Curumilla, my brother!"
At this proof of memory and friendship, after the lapse of so many
years--this frank and true emotion on the part of a man to whom he had
already given so many marks of devotion--the crust of ice that
surrounded the Indian's heart suddenly melted, his face assumed an
earthy hue, and a convulsive tremor agitated all his limbs.
"Oh, my brother Louis!" he exclaimed with an accent impossible to
describe.
A sob resembling a roar burst from his chest; and, ashamed of having
thus betrayed his weakness, the chief turned quickly away, and hid his
face in the folds of his robe.
Like all primitive and energetic natures, this man, on whom adversity
had no effect, was moved like a weak child by the immense joy he
experienced at seeing once again Don Louis, the man whom Valentine loved
more than a brother, and whose absence he had so long lamented.
"Then you will not leave me again, brother?" Louis asked anxiously.
"No, nothing shall separate us henceforth."
"Thanks," the count answered.
"Come, come," Valentine gaily remarked, "let us attend to the cattle."
All were soon on the move in the bivouac. Don Cornelio understood
nothing of what he saw. These strangers, who had arrived but a few hours
ago, already so attached to his friend, talking with him like old
acquaintances, produced in him a series of notions each more extravagant
than the other; but Don Cornelio was a philosopher, and more than that,
remarkably curious. Certain that all would end sooner or, later in a
satisfactory explanation, he gaily made up his mind, and had no idea of
asking any information, especially as the two helps chance had sent him
could not fail to be extremely useful to him in guiding the
undisciplined animals which the count and himself had burdened
themselves with, and had yet so far to drive.
A person must have himself been a _vaquero_ in the great American
savannahs, in order to form an idea of the numberless difficulties met
with in guiding novillos and untamed bulls for hundreds of leagues
across virgin forests and arid plains, defending them against wild
beasts which follow their track, and snap them up under your very eyes
if you do not take care, and, like the roaring lion of the Gospel,
wander incessantly round the herd, seeking what they may devour. At
other times the animals must be defended against the raving madness, or
_estampida_, caused by the want of water and the refraction of the sun,
during which they rush in every direction, and gore those who try to
bring them back. A man must be desperate like Don Louis, or a careless
philosopher like Don Cornelio, not to recoil before the perils and
difficulties of so hazardous a trade; for, among the eventualities we
have enumerated, we have not mentioned the _temporales_, or tempests,
which in a few minutes overthrow the face of nature, hollow out lakes,
and throw up mountains; nor the _Indios bravos_, or nomadic Indians, who
watch the caravans, plunder the merchandise, and murder the drivers or
traders.
Valentine in vain racked his brains in order to discover why his friend,
whom he had known to be so effeminate and weak, could have resolved on
adopting such a mode of life. But his astonishment almost became
admiration when he saw him at work, and recognised the complete
metamorphosis that had been effected in him, both morally and
physically, and the cold, indomitable energy which had usurped the place
of the careless weakness and original irresolution of his character.
He studied him thus carefully during the whole time he was employed in
restoring order among the herd, and organising everything for the day's
march.
"Oh!" he said to himself, "this chosen organisation has been purified by
misfortune. There remain at the bottom of that half-broken heart a few
noble chords, which I will manage to set in motion when the time comes."
And for the first time since many days a feeling of hearty joy caused
the trail-seeker to quiver.
[1] See "The Tiger Slayer." Same publishers.