A THUNDERCLAP.
The Araucanos, spread about the camp, saw with surprise these two
persons, both in apparent agitation, pass them. Doña Maria rushed into
the toldo, followed by Don Tadeo. Doña Rosario was fast asleep upon
a bed of dry leaves, covered with sheepskins. She had the appearance
of a dead person. Don Tadeo, deceived by this, sprang towards her,
exclaiming in a tone of despair--
"She is dead! oh, heavens, she is dead!"
"No, no," said the Linda, "she is asleep."
"Still," he exclaimed, "this sleep cannot be natural, for our coming in
should have awakened her."
"Well! perhaps it is not natural."
Don Tadeo cast an inquiring glance at her.
"Oh," she said, ironically, "she is alive; only it was necessary to
send her to sleep for awhile."
Don Tadeo was mute with confused astonishment.
"You do not understand me," she resumed. "Well, I will explain; this
girl whom you love so much--"
"Oh, yes, I love her!" he interrupted.
"It was I who took her from you," said the Linda, with a bitter smile.
"Wretch, miserable wretch!"
"Why, I hated you, and I avenged myself; I knew the deep love you bear
this creature. To take her from you was aiming a blow at your heart."
"Miserable!" Don Tadeo cried.
"Ah, yes," the Linda replied, smiling, "that revenge was miserable; it
did not at all amount to what I intended; but chance offered me what
could alone satisfy me, by breaking your very heart."
"What frightful infamy can this monster have imagined?" Don Tadeo
murmured.
"Antinahuel, the enemy of your race, your enemy, became enamoured of
this woman."
"What!" he exclaimed, in a tone of horror.
"Yes, after his fashion, he loved her," she continued, coolly; "so I
resolved to sell her to him, and I did so; but when the chief wished to
avail himself of the rights I had given him, she resisted, and arming
herself suddenly with a dagger, threatened to plunge it into her own
heart."
"Noble girl!" he exclaimed, deeply affected.
"Is she not?" said the Linda, with her malign vacant smile; "so I
took pity on her, and as I had no particular wish for her death, but
a very anxious one for her dishonour, I this evening gave her some
opium, which will place her, without means of defence, in the power of
Antinahuel. Have I attained my object this time?"
Don Tadeo made no reply, this utter depravity in a woman absolutely
terrified him.
"Well," she continued, in a mocking tone, "have you nothing to say?"
"Mad woman, mad woman!" he cried, in a loud voice, "you have avenged
yourself, you say? Mad woman! Could you a mother, pretending to adore
your daughter, coolly, unhesitatingly, conceive such crimes? I say, do
you know what you have done?"
"My daughter, you named my daughter! Restore her to me! Tell me where
she is, and I will save this woman. Oh! if I could but see her!"
"Your daughter, wretch? You serpent bursting with venom! Is it possible
you think of her?"
"Oh, if I found her again, I would love her so."
"Do you fancy that possible?" said Don Tadeo.
"Oh, yes, a daughter cannot hate her mother."
"Ask herself, then!" he cried, in a voice of thunder.
"What! what! what!" she shrieked. In a tone of thrilling agony, and
springing up as if electrified; "What did you say? What did you say,
Don Tadeo?"
"I say, miserable wretch! that the innocent creature whom you have
pursued with the inveteracy of a hungry hyena, is your daughter!--do
you hear me? your daughter! She whom you pretend to love so dearly, and
whom, a few minutes ago, you demanded of me so earnestly."
The Linda remained for an instant motionless, as if thunderstruck; and
then exclaimed, with a loud, demoniac laugh--
"Well played, Don Tadeo! well played, by Heaven! For a moment I
believed you were telling the truth."
"Oh!" Don Tadeo murmured, "this wretched being cannot recognise her own
child."
"No, I do not believe it! It is not possible! Nature would have warned
me that it was my child!"
"God renders those blind whom He would destroy, miserable woman! An
exemplary punishment was due to His insulted justice!"
The Linda turned about in the toldo like a wild beast in a cage,
uttering inarticulate cries, incessantly repeating in a broken voice--
"No, no! she cannot be my daughter!"
Don Tadeo experienced a feeling of deadly hatred, in spite of his
better nature, at beholding this profound grief; he also wished to
avenge himself.
"Senseless woman," he said, "had the child I stole from you no sign, no
mark whatever, by which it would be possible for you to recognise her?"
"Yes, yes," she cried, roused from her stupor; "wait! wait!"
And she threw herself down upon her knees, leant over the sleeping
Rosario, and tore the covering from her neck and shoulder.
"My child!" she exclaimed; "it is she! it is my child!"
She had perceived three small moles upon the young girl's right
shoulder. Suddenly her body became agitated by convulsive movements,
her face was horribly distorted, her glaring eyes seemed staring from
their sockets; she, clasped her hands tightly to her breast, uttered
a deep rattle, more like a roar than a sound from a human mouth, and
rolled upon the ground, crying with an accent impossible to describe--
"My daughter! my daughter! Oh, I will save her!"
She crawled, with the action of a wild beast, to the feet of the poor
girl.
"Rosario, my daughter!" she cried, in a voice broken by sobs; "it is I,
it is your mother! Know me, dear!"
"It is you who have killed her," Don Tadeo said, implacably; "unnatural
mother, who coolly planned the dishonour of your own child."
"Oh, do not speak so!" she cried, clasping her hands; "She shall not
die! I will not let her die! She must live! I will save her, I tell
you!"
"It is too late."
"I tell you I will save her," she repeated, in a deep tone.
At this moment the steps of horses resounded.
"Here is Antinahuel!" said Don Tadeo.
"Yes," she replied, with a short, determined accent, "of what
consequence is his arrival? Woe be to him if he touch my child!"
The curtain of the toldo was lifted by a firm hand, and an Indian
appeared: it was Antinahuel. A warrior followed with a torch.
"Eh, eh!" said the chief, with an ironical smile.
"Yes," Linda replied smiling; "my brother arrives opportunely."
"Has my sister had a satisfactory conversation with her husband?"
"Yes," she replied.
"Good! the Great Eagle of the Whites is an intrepid warrior; the Aucas
warriors will soon put his courage to the test."
This brutal allusion to the fate that was reserved for him was
perfectly understood by Don Tadeo.
"Men of my temperament do not allow themselves to be frightened by vain
threats," he retorted.
The Linda drew the chief aside.
"Antinahuel is my brother," she said, in a low voice; "we were brought
up together."
"Has my sister anything to ask for?"
"Yes, and for his own sake my brother would do well to grant it me."
Antinahuel looked at her earnestly.
"Speak," he said, coolly.
"Everything my brother has desired I have done."
The chief bowed his head affirmatively.
"This woman, who resisted him," she continued, "I have given up to him
without defence."
"Good!"
"My brother knows that the palefaces have secrets which they alone
possess?"
"I know they have."
"If my brother pleases it shall not be a woman cold, motionless, and
buried in sleep, that I surrender to him."
The eye of the Indian kindled with a strange light.
"I do not understand my sister," he said.
"I am able," the Linda replied, earnestly, "in three days so completely
to change this woman's feelings for my brother, that she will be
towards him loving and devoted."
"Can my sister do that?" he asked, doubtingly.
"I can do it," she replied, resolutely.
Antinahuel reflected for a few minutes.
"Why did my sister wait so long to do this?"
"Because I did not think it would be necessary."
"Ooch!" said the Indian, thoughtfully.
"Besides," she added, carelessly, "if I say anything about it now, it
is only from friendship for my brother."
Whilst pronouncing these words, an internal shudder agitated her whole
frame.
"And will it require three days to effect this change?"
"Three days."
"Antinahuel is a wise chief--he will wait."
The Linda experienced great inward joy; if the chief had refused, her
resolution was formed--she would have stabbed him to the heart.
"Good!" she said; "my brother may depend upon my promise."
"Yes," the Toqui replied; "the girl is sick; it would be better she
should be cured."
The Linda smiled with an undefinable expression.
"The Eagle will follow me," said Antinahuel; "unless he prefers giving
me his word."
"No!" Don Tadeo answered.
The two men left the toldo together. Antinahuel commanded his warriors
to guard the prisoner strictly.
At sunrise the camp was struck, and the Aucas marched during the whole
day into the mountains without any determinate object.
"Has my sister commenced?" asked the chief of Linda.
"I have commenced," she replied.
The truth was she had passed the whole day in vainly endeavouring to
induce the maiden to speak to her; the latter had constantly refused,
but the Linda was not a woman to be easily repulsed. As soon as the
chief had left her, she went to Doña Rosario, and stooping to her ear,
said in a low, melancholy voice--
"Pardon me all the ill I have done you--I did not know who you were; in
the name of Heaven, have pity on me--I am your mother!"
At this avowal, the young girl staggered as if she were thunderstruck.
The Linda sprang towards her, but Doña Rosario repulsed her with a cry
of horror, and fled into her toldo.
"Oh!" the Linda cried, with tears in her eyes, "I will love her so that
she must pardon me."