DELILAH.
It is rare for an extreme situation, when drawn to its utmost limits,
to remain long in a state of tension; hence it is not surprising that
Nocobotha, after advancing so far in his confiding love, should recoil
terrified at the progress he had made. Man is so constituted that
too much happiness embarrasses and alarms him, and it is, perhaps, a
foreboding that this happiness will be of short duration. The Indian
chief, whose heart overflowed like a brimming cup, felt a vague
doubt mingle with his joy and obscure it with a cloud. Still, it is
pleasant to flatter one's self, and the young man yielded to this new
intoxication and the pleasures of hope. These smiles, these looks,
everything reassured him. Why had she come to him through so many
dangers? She loves me, he thought, and love intensified the bandage
which Doña Concha had fastened over his eyes with so much grace and
perfidy.
Men of lofty intellect are nearly all unconsciously affected by
a weakness that frequently causes their ruin, the more so because
they believe nobody clever enough to cheat them. Had Nocobotha
nothing to fear from this girl of fifteen, who avowed her love with
such simplicity? But as his mind was, so to speak, turned away from
real life to be absorbed in a single dream--the independence of his
country--Nocobotha had never essayed to read that enigmatical book
called a woman's heart; he was ignorant that a woman, especially an
American woman, never forgives an insult offered to her lover, for he
is her deity and is inviolable.
The Indian loved for the first time, and this first love, which is
so sharp that at a later date all other loves grow pale at the mere
remembrance of it, had sunk deeply into his heart. He loved, and the
transient doubt which had saddened his thoughts could not struggle
against a thought which was now eradicable.
"Can I," Concha asked, "remain in your camp without fear of being
insulted, until my father arrives?"
"Command me, madam," the Indian answered, "you have only slaves here."
"This girl, to whom you owe my presence here, will proceed to the
Estancia of San Julian."
Nocobotha walked to the curtain of the toldo and clapped his hands
twice. Lucaney appeared.
"Let a toldo be prepared for me, I give up to the two paleface women,"
the chief said in the Aucas tongue. "A band of picked warriors,
selected by my brother, will watch over their safety night and day. Woe
to the man who fails in respect to them! These women are sacred and
free to come and go and receive any visitors they think proper. Have
two horses saddled for me and for one of the white women."
Lucaney went out.
"You see, madam, that you are the queen here."
Doña Concha drew from her bosom a letter written beforehand and
unsealed, which she handed to him, with a smile on her lips, but
trembling at her heart.
"Read, Don Torribio, what I have written to my father."
"Oh, señorita!" he exclaimed, thrusting the note away.
Doña Concha slowly folded the letter without any apparent emotion, and
delivered it to Mercedes.
"My child, you will give this to my father when alone, and explain to
him what I have forgotten to say."
"Permit me to withdraw, madam."
"No," Concha replied, with a bewitching smile, "I have no secrets from
you."
The young man smiled at this remark. At this moment the horses were
brought up, and Doña Concha found time to whisper in Mercedes' ear the
hurried words: "Your brother must be here in an hour."
Mercedes slightly closed her eyes as a sign of intelligence.
"I will accompany your friend myself," the chief said, "as far as the
entrenchments of Carmen."
"I thank you, Don Torribio."
The two maidens tenderly embraced.
"In an hour," Doña Concha murmured.
"Good," Mercedes answered.
"You are at home here, madam," Nocobotha said to Doña Concha, who
accompanied him to the entrance of the toldo.
Mercedes and the chief mounted their horses: the young Spanish girl
followed them with eye and ear, and then re-entered the toldo.
"The game has begun, and he must reveal his plans to me."
In a quarter of an hour Mercedes and her guide came within fifty yards
of Carmen, without having exchanged a word.
"Here," said Nocobotha, "you no longer require my services."
He turned back and galloped toward the camp. The girl advanced boldly
in the direction of the town, whose gloomy outline rose before her. But
a vigorous hand seized her bridle, she felt a pistol placed against her
bosom, and a low voice said in Spanish--
"Who goes there?"
"A friend," she replied, suppressing a shriek of terror.
"Mercedes!" the rude voice exclaimed, becoming much softer.
"Pedrito!" she replied joyously, as she slipped into the arms of her
brother, who embraced her affectionately.
"Where do you come from, little sister?"
"From the camp of the Patagonians."
"Already?"
"My mistress has sent me to you."
"Who accompanied you?"
"Nocobotha himself."
"Malediction!" the bombero said, "For five minutes I had him at the end
of my rifle. Well, but come, we will talk inside."
"Oh!" Pedrito exclaimed, when Mercedes ended the narration of their
expedition, "Oh, women are demons, demons, and men plucked chickens;
and your letter?"
"Here it is."
"Don Valentine must receive it tonight, for the poor father will be
pining in mortal anxiety."
"I will carry it," said Mercedes.
"No; you need rest. I have a safe man here, who will ride to the
estancia. You, little sister, come into the house, where a worthy
woman, who knows me, will take care of you."
"Will you go to Doña Concha?"
"I should think so. Poor girl! alone among the Pagans."
"Ever devoted, my kind brother!"
"It seems that is my vocation."
Pedrito led Mercedes to the house he had referred to, warmly
recommended her to the hostess, and then turned into a street, in the
middle of which a large fire was burning, and several men reposing
round it, wrapped in their cloaks. The bombero roughly shook the foot
of one of the sleepers.
"Come, come, Patito," he said to him, "up with you, my boy, and gallop
to the Estancia of San Julian."
"Why, I have just come from there," the gaucho muttered, yawning and
rubbing his eyes.
"The better reason; you must know the road. It is Doña Concha who sends
you."
"If the señorita wishes it, of course," Patito said, whom the name
thoroughly aroused; "what am I to do?"
"Mount your horse and carry this letter to Don Valentine; it is an
important letter, you understand?"
"Very good."
"Let nobody take it from you."
"Of course not."
"If you are killed--?"
"I shall be killed."
"When you are dead it must not even be found on you."
"I will swallow it."
"The Indians will not think of ripping you up."
"All right."
"Be off."
"Only give me time to saddle my horse."
"Good-bye, Patito, and luck be with you." Pedrito left the gaucho, who
speedily started.
"It is now my turn," the bombero muttered; "how am I to reach Doña
Concha?"
He scratched his head and frowned, but ere long his forehead became
unwrinkled, and he proceeded gaily to the fort; After a conference
with Major Bloomfield, who had succeeded Don Antonio Valverde in
command of the town, Pedrito doffed his clothes, and disguised himself
as an Aucas. He set out, slipped into the Indian camp, and shortly
before sunrise was back again in the town.
"Well?" his sister said to him.
"All goes well," the bombero answered, "_¡Viva Dios!_ Nocobotha, I
fancy, will pay dearly for carrying off Don Sylvio. Oh, women are
demons!"
"Am I to go and join her?"
"No; it is unnecessary."
And, without entering into any details, Pedrito, who was worn out with
fatigue, selected a place to sleep in, snored away, not troubling
himself about the Indians.
Several days elapsed ere the besiegers renewed their attack on the
town, which, however, they invested more closely. The Spaniards,
strictly blockaded, and having no communication with the exterior,
found their provisions running short, and hideous famine would soon
pounce on its victims. Fortunately, the indefatigable Pedrito had an
idea which he communicated to Major Bloomfield. He had a hundred and
fifty loaves worked up with arsenic, water, and vitriol mingled with
twenty barrels of spirits; the whole loaded on mules, was placed under
the escort of Pedrito and his two brothers. The bomberos approached
the Patagonian earthworks with this frugal stock of provisions. The
Indians, who are passionately fond of firewater, rushed to meet the
caravan, and seize the barrels. Pedrito and his brothers left their
burden lying on the sand, and returned to the town at a gallop with the
mules, which were intended to support the besieged, if the Patagonians
did not make the assault.
There was a high holiday in the camp. The loaves were cut up; the heads
of the barrels stove in, and nothing was left. This orgy cost the
Indians six thousand men, who died in atrocious tortures. The others,
struck with horror, began disbanding in all directions. The chiefs
were no longer respected. Nocobotha himself saw his authority wavering
before the superstition of the savages, who believed in a celestial
punishment. The prisoners, men, women, and children, were massacred
with horrible refinements of barbarity. Doña Concha, though protected
by the great chief, only owed her escape to chance or to God, who
preserved her as the instrument of His will.
The rage of the Indians, having no one left to vent itself on,
gradually calmed down. Nocobotha went about constantly to restore
courage. He felt that it was time to come to an end, and he gave
Lucaney orders to assemble all the chiefs in his toldo.
"Great chiefs of the great nations," Nocobotha said to them, so soon as
they were all collected round the council fire, "tomorrow, at daybreak,
Carmen will be attacked on all sides at once. So soon as the town is
taken the campaign will be over. Those who recoil are not men, but
slaves. Remember that we are fighting for the liberty of our race."
He then informed each chief of the place of his tribe in the assault;
formed a reserve of ten thousand men to support, if necessary, those
who gave way, and, after cheering up the Ulmens, he dismissed them. So
soon as he was alone, he proceeded to Doña Concha's toldo. The young
lady gave Lucaney orders to admit him. Doña Concha was talking with her
father, who, on receiving her letter, through Patito, at once hastened
to her.
The interior of the toldo was completely altered, for Nocobotha
had placed in it furniture, carried off from the estancias by the
Indians. Externally nothing was changed, but inside it was divided by
partitions, and rendered a perfect European residence. Here Concha
lived pleasantly enough, honoured by the supreme chief and in the
company of her father and Mercedes, who acted as her lady's maid.
The Indians, though somewhat astonished at their great Toqui's mode of
life, remembered the European education he had received, and dared not
complain. Was not Nocobotha's hatred of the white men still equally
ardent? Were not his words still full of love for his country at the
council fire? Was it not he who had directed the invasion, and led the
tribes on the path of liberty? Hence, Nocobotha had lost nothing in the
opinion of the warriors. He was still their well-beloved chief.
"Is the effervescence of the tribes appeased?" Doña Concha asked
Nocobotha.
"Yes, Heaven be thanked, señorita; but the man commanding at Carmen is
a wild beast. Six thousand men have been killed by poison."
"Oh, it is fearful," the young lady said.
"The whites are accustomed to treat us thus, and poison--"
"Say no more about it, Don Torribio; it makes me shudder."
"For centuries the Spaniards have been our murderers."
"What do you intend doing?" Don Valentine asked, in order to turn the
conversation.
"Tomorrow, señor, a general assault will be made on Carmen."
"Tomorrow?"
"Yes. Tomorrow I shall have destroyed the Spaniards' power in the
Patagonia, or be dead myself."
"God will protect the good cause," Doña Concha said in a prophetic
voice.
A cloud passed over Don Valentine's forehead.
"During the battle, which will be obstinate, I implore you, señorita,
not to leave this toldo, before which I will leave twenty men on guard."
"Are you going to leave us already, Don Torribio?"
"I must; so excuse me, madam."
"Good-bye, then," Doña Concha said.
"All is over!" Don Valentine murmured, in despair, when Nocobotha had
gone out. "They will succeed."
The maiden, who was calm and half smiling, but whose eye was inflamed
with hatred, walked up to Don Valentine, clasped her hands on his
shoulder, and said, in a whisper--
"Have you read the Bible, father?"
"Yes; when I was young."
"Do you remember the history of Samson Delilah?"
"Do you mean to cut his hair off, then?"
"Do you remember Judith and Holofernes?"
"Then you mean to cut his head off?"
"No, father."
"What mean these strange questions?"
"I love Don Sylvio!"