A DISTANCE of 150 miles separates Fort Independence from the shores of
the Atlantic. Unless unexpected and certainly improbable delays should
occur, in four days Glenarvan would rejoin the DUNCAN. But to return on
board without Captain Grant, and after having so completely failed in
his search, was what he could not bring himself to do. Consequently,
when next day came, he gave no orders for departure; the Major took
it upon himself to have the horses saddled, and make all preparations.
Thanks to his activity, next morning at eight o’clock the little troop
was descending the grassy slopes of the Sierra.
Glenarvan, with Robert at his side, galloped along without saying a
word. His bold, determined nature made it impossible to take failure
quietly. His heart throbbed as if it would burst, and his head was
burning. Paganel, excited by the difficulty, was turning over and over
the words of the document, and trying to discover some new meaning.
Thalcave was perfectly silent, and left Thaouka to lead the way. The
Major, always confident, remained firm at his post, like a man on whom
discouragement takes no hold. Tom Austin and his two sailors shared the
dejection of their master. A timid rabbit happened to run across their
path, and the superstitious men looked at each other in dismay.
“A bad omen,” said Wilson.
“Yes, in the Highlands,” repeated Mulrady.
“What’s bad in the Highlands is not better here,” returned Wilson
sententiously.
Toward noon they had crossed the Sierra, and descended into the
undulating plains which extend to the sea. Limpid RIOS intersected these
plains, and lost themselves among the tall grasses. The ground had once
more become a dead level, the last mountains of the Pampas were passed,
and a long carpet of verdure unrolled itself over the monotonous prairie
beneath the horses’ tread.
Hitherto the weather had been fine, but to-day the sky presented
anything but a reassuring appearance. The heavy vapors, generated by the
high temperature of the preceding days, hung in thick clouds, which ere
long would empty themselves in torrents of rain. Moreover, the vicinity
of the Atlantic, and the prevailing west wind, made the climate of
this district particularly damp. This was evident by the fertility
and abundance of the pasture and its dark color. However, the clouds
remained unbroken for the present, and in the evening, after a brisk
gallop of forty miles, the horses stopped on the brink of deep CANADAS,
immense natural trenches filled with water. No shelter was near, and
ponchos had to serve both for tents and coverlets as each man lay down
and fell asleep beneath the threatening sky.
Next day the presence of water became still more sensibly felt; it
seemed to exude from every pore of the ground. Soon large ponds, some
just beginning to form, and some already deep, lay across the route to
the east. As long as they had only to deal with lagoons, circumscribed
pieces of water unencumbered with aquatic plants, the horses could get
through well enough, but when they encountered moving sloughs called
PENTANOS, it was harder work. Tall grass blocked them up, and they were
involved in the peril before they were aware.
These bogs had already proved fatal to more than one living thing, for
Robert, who had got a good bit ahead of the party, came rushing back at
full gallop, calling out:
“Monsieur Paganel, Monsieur Paganel, a forest of horns.”
“What!” exclaimed the geographer; “you have found a forest of horns?”
“Yes, yes, or at any rate a coppice.”
“A coppice!” replied Paganel, shrugging his shoulders. “My boy, you are
dreaming.”
“I am not dreaming, and you will see for yourself. Well, this is a
strange country. They sow horns, and they sprout up like wheat. I wish I
could get some of the seed.”
“The boy is really speaking seriously,” said the Major.
“Yes, Mr. Major, and you will soon see I am right.”
The boy had not been mistaken, for presently they found themselves in
front of an immense field of horns, regularly planted and stretching
far out of sight. It was a complete copse, low and close packed, but a
strange sort.
“Well,” said Robert.
“This is peculiar certainly,” said Paganel, and he turned round to
question Thalcave on the subject.
“The horns come out of the ground,” replied the Indian, “but the oxen
are down below.”
“What!” exclaimed Paganel; “do you mean to say that a whole herd was
caught in that mud and buried alive?”
“Yes,” said the Patagonian.
And so it was. An immense herd had been suffocated side by side in this
enormous bog, and this was not the first occurrence of the kind which
had taken place in the Argentine plains.
An hour afterward and the field of horns lay two miles behind.
Thalcave was somewhat anxiously observing a state of things which
appeared to him unusual. He frequently stopped and raised himself on his
stirrups and looked around. His great height gave him a commanding view
of the whole horizon; but after a keen rapid survey, he quickly resumed
his seat and went on. About a mile further he stopped again, and leaving
the straight route, made a circuit of some miles north and south, and
then returned and fell back in his place at the head of the troop,
without saying a syllable as to what he hoped or feared. This strange
behavior, several times repeated, made Glenarvan very uneasy, and quite
puzzled Paganel. At last, at Glenarvan’s request, he asked the Indian
about it.
Thalcave replied that he was astonished to see the plains so saturated
with water. Never, to his knowledge, since he had followed the calling
of guide, had he found the ground in this soaking condition. Even in the
rainy season, the Argentine plains had always been passable.
“But what is the cause of this increasing humidity?” said Paganel.
“I do not know, and what if I did?”
“Could it be owing to the RIOS of the Sierra being swollen to
overflowing by the heavy rains?”
“Sometimes they are.”
“And is it the case now?”
“Perhaps.”
Paganel was obliged to be content with this unsatisfactory reply, and
went back to Glenarvan to report the result of his conversation.
“And what does Thalcave advise us to do?” said Glenarvan.
Paganel went back to the guide and asked him.
“Go on fast,” was the reply.
This was easier said than done. The horses soon tired of treading over
ground that gave way at every step. It sank each moment more and more,
till it seemed half under water.
They quickened their pace, but could not go fast enough to escape the
water, which rolled in great sheets at their feet. Before two hours
the cataracts of the sky opened and deluged the plain in true tropical
torrents of rain. Never was there a finer occasion for displaying
philosophic equanimity. There was no shelter, and nothing for it but
to bear it stolidly. The ponchos were streaming like the overflowing
gutter-spouts on the roof of a house, and the unfortunate horsemen had
to submit to a double bath, for their horses dashed up the water to
their waists at every step.
In this drenching, shivering state, and worn out with fatigue, they came
toward evening to a miserable RANCHO, which could only have been called
a shelter by people not very fastidious, and certainly only travelers in
extremity would even have entered it; but Glenarvan and his companions
had no choice, and were glad enough to burrow in this wretched hovel,
though it would have been despised by even a poor Indian of the Pampas.
A miserable fire of grass was kindled, which gave out more smoke than
heat, and was very difficult to keep alight, as the torrents of rain
which dashed against the ruined cabin outside found their way within and
fell down in large drops from the roof. Twenty times over the fire would
have been extinguished if Mulrady and Wilson had not kept off the water.
The supper was a dull meal, and neither appetizing nor reviving. Only
the Major seemed to eat with any relish. The impassive McNabbs was
superior to all circumstances. Paganel, Frenchman as he was, tried to
joke, but the attempt was a failure.
“My jests are damp,” he said, “they miss fire.”
The only consolation in such circumstances was to sleep, and accordingly
each one lay down and endeavored to find in slumber a temporary
forgetfulness of his discomforts and his fatigues. The night was stormy,
and the planks of the rancho cracked before the blast as if every
instant they would give way. The poor horses outside, exposed to all the
inclemency of the weather, were making piteous moans, and their masters
were suffering quite as much inside the ruined RANCHO. However, sleep
overpowered them at length. Robert was the first to close his eyes and
lean his head against Glenarvan’s shoulder, and soon all the rest were
soundly sleeping too under the guardian eye of Heaven.
The night passed safely, and no one stirred till Thaouka woke them by
tapping vigorously against the RANCHO with his hoof. He knew it was time
to start, and at a push could give the signal as well as his master.
They owed the faithful creature too much to disobey him, and set off
immediately.
The rain had abated, but floods of water still covered the ground.
Paganel, on consulting his map, came to the conclusion that the RIOS
Grande and Vivarota, into which the water from the plains generally
runs, must have been united in one large bed several miles in extent.
Extreme haste was imperative, for all their lives depended on it. Should
the inundation increase, where could they find refuge? Not a single
elevated point was visible on the whole circle of the horizon, and on
such level plains water would sweep along with fearful rapidity.
The horses were spurred on to the utmost, and Thaouka led the way,
bounding over the water as if it had been his natural element. Certainly
he might justly have been called a sea-horse--better than many of the
amphibious animals who bear that name.
All of a sudden, about ten in the morning, Thaouka betrayed symptoms
of violent agitation. He kept turning round toward the south, neighing
continually, and snorting with wide open nostrils. He reared violently,
and Thalcave had some difficulty in keeping his seat. The foam from his
mouth was tinged with blood from the action of the bit, pulled tightly
by his master’s strong hand, and yet the fiery animal would not be
still. Had he been free, his master knew he would have fled away to the
north as fast as his legs would have carried him.
“What is the matter with Thaouka?” asked Paganel. “Is he bitten by the
leeches? They are very voracious in the Argentine streams.”
“No,” replied the Indian.
“Is he frightened at something, then?”
“Yes, he scents danger.”
“What danger?”
“I don’t know.”
But, though no danger was apparent to the eye, the ear could catch the
sound of a murmuring noise beyond the limits of the horizon, like the
coming in of the tide. Soon a confused sound was heard of bellowing
and neighing and bleating, and about a mile to the south immense flocks
appeared, rushing and tumbling over each other in the greatest disorder,
as they hurried pell-mell along with inconceivable rapidity. They raised
such a whirlwind of water in their course that it was impossible to
distinguish them clearly. A hundred whales of the largest size could
hardly have dashed up the ocean waves more violently.
“_Anda, anda!_” (quick, quick), shouted Thalcave, in a voice like
thunder.
“What is it, then?” asked Paganel.
“The rising,” replied Thalcave.
“He means an inundation,” exclaimed Paganel, flying with the others
after Thalcave, who had spurred on his horse toward the north.
It was high time, for about five miles south an immense towering wave
was seen advancing over the plain, and changing the whole country into
an ocean. The tall grass disappeared before it as if cut down by a
scythe, and clumps of mimosas were torn up and drifted about like
floating islands.
The wave was speeding on with the rapidity of a racehorse, and the
travelers fled before it like a cloud before a storm-wind. They looked
in vain for some harbor of refuge, and the terrified horses galloped so
wildly along that the riders could hardly keep their saddles.
“_Anda, anda!_” shouted Thalcave, and again they spurred on the poor
animals till the blood ran from their lacerated sides. They stumbled
every now and then over great cracks in the ground, or got entangled in
the hidden grass below the water. They fell, and were pulled up only to
fall again and again, and be pulled up again and again. The level of
the waters was sensibly rising, and less than two miles off the gigantic
wave reared its crested head.
For a quarter of an hour this supreme struggle with the most terrible
of elements lasted. The fugitives could not tell how far they had gone,
but, judging by the speed, the distance must have been considerable.
The poor horses, however, were breast-high in water now, and could only
advance with extreme difficulty. Glenarvan and Paganel, and, indeed,
the whole party, gave themselves up for lost, as the horses were fast
getting out of their depth, and six feet of water would be enough to
drown them.
It would be impossible to tell the anguish of mind these eight men
endured; they felt their own impotence in the presence of these
cataclysms of nature so far beyond all human power. Their salvation did
not lie in their own hands.
Five minutes afterward, and the horses were swimming; the current alone
carried them along with tremendous force, and with a swiftness equal to
their fastest gallop; they must have gone fully twenty miles an hour.
All hope of delivery seemed impossible, when the Major suddenly called
out:
“A tree!”
“A tree?” exclaimed Glenarvan.
“Yes, there, there!” replied Thalcave, pointing with his finger to a
species of gigantic walnut-tree, which raised its solitary head above
the waters.
His companions needed no urging forward now; this tree, so opportunely
discovered, they must reach at all hazards. The horses very likely might
not be able to get to it, but, at all events, the men would, the current
bearing them right down to it.
Just at that moment Tom Austin’s horse gave a smothered neigh and
disappeared. His master, freeing his feet from the stirrups, began to
swim vigorously.
“Hang on to my saddle,” called Glenarvan.
“Thanks, your honor, but I have good stout arms.”
“Robert, how is your horse going?” asked his Lordship, turning to young
Grant.
“Famously, my Lord, he swims like a fish.”
“Lookout!” shouted the Major, in a stentorian voice.
The warning was scarcely spoken before the enormous billow, a monstrous
wave forty feet high, broke over the fugitives with a fearful noise. Men
and animals all disappeared in a whirl of foam; a liquid mass, weighing
several millions of tons, engulfed them in its seething waters.
When it had rolled on, the men reappeared on the surface, and counted
each other rapidly; but all the horses, except Thaouka, who still bore
his master, had gone down forever.
“Courage, courage,” repeated Glenarvan, supporting Paganel with one arm,
and swimming with the other.
“I can manage, I can manage,” said the worthy savant. “I am even not
sorry--”
But no one ever knew what he was not sorry about, for the poor man was
obliged to swallow down the rest of his sentence with half a pint of
muddy water. The Major advanced quietly, making regular strokes, worthy
of a master swimmer. The sailors took to the water like porpoises, while
Robert clung to Thaouka’s mane, and was carried along with him. The
noble animal swam superbly, instinctively making for the tree in a
straight line.
The tree was only twenty fathoms off, and in a few minutes was safely
reached by the whole party; but for this refuge they must all have
perished in the flood.
The water had risen to the top of the trunk, just to where the parent
branches fork out. It was consequently, quite easy to clamber up to it.
Thalcave climbed up first, and got off his horse to hoist up Robert and
help the others. His powerful arms had soon placed all the exhausted
swimmers in a place of security.
But, meantime, Thaouka was being rapidly carried away by the current.
He turned his intelligent face toward his master, and, shaking his long
mane, neighed as if to summon him to his rescue.
“Are you going to forsake him, Thalcave?” asked Paganel.
“I!” replied the Indian, and forthwith he plunged down into the
tumultuous waters, and came up again ten fathoms off. A few instants
afterward his arms were round Thaouka’s neck, and master and steed were
drifting together toward the misty horizon of the north.