Gustave Aimard
Last of the Incas: A Romance of the Pampas

CHAPTER XXI.
THE TOLDO OF THE GREAT TOQUI

Don Antonio Valverde, delighted at the succour the president of the Argentine Republic sent him, rode at a gallop by the side of the new colonel, Don Torribio. They soon reached a barrier, guarded by a large body of gauchos and armed colonists.

"We must go out here," Don Torribio said to the governor, "but, as the night is dark, and we have one or two leagues to ride, it would be imprudent to venture alone upon a plain traversed by vagabond Indians."

"That is true," Don Antonio interrupted him.

"The governor must not risk his life lightly; suppose you were made prisoner, for instance, what a blow it would be for the colony."

"You speak most sensibly, Don Torribio."

"Let us take an escort."

"Of how many men?"

"Ten will be enough."

"We will take twenty, for we may come across a hundred Indians."

"Twenty, then, if you wish it, Don Antonio," the other answered with a sardonic smile.

On the governor's arrival the defenders of the fort had got under arms. Don Torribio detailed twenty horsemen, who, by his orders formed up behind him.

"Are we ready to start, governor?"

"Let us be off."

The escort, having the two colonels at its head, started in the direction of the plain, Torribio delighted Don Antonio Valverde for three quarters of an hour by the rolling fire of his witty remarks, when he was interrupted by him.

"Pardon me, colonel," the governor said anxiously, "but does it not appear singular to you that we have as yet met nobody?"

"Not the least in the world, señor," Torribio answered; "of course they know what road to take, and they are awaiting my return."

"That is possible," the governor said, after a moment's reflection.

"In that case we shall have another league to ride. Let us go on, then."

Don Torribio's vein of humour was exhausted. At times his eye examined the space around him, while Don Antonio remained silent. All at once the distant neighing of a horse reached their ears.

"What's that?" Torribio asked.

"Probably the men we are seeking."

"In any case let us be prudent. Wait for me; I will go ahead as scout."

He galloped forward and disappeared in the gloom. When a certain distance off, he dismounted and put his ears to the ground.

"¡Demonios!" he muttered, as he got up and leapt on to his horse again; "we are pursued. Can that Satan of a Pedrito have recognized me?"

"What's the matter?" the governor asked. "Nothing," Torribio replied, laying his left hand on his arm. "Don Antonio Valverde, surrender; you are my prisoner."

"Are you mad, Don Torribio?"

"No longer call me Don Torribio, señor," the young man said in a hollow voice; "I am Nocobotha, the great chief of the Patagonian natives."

"Treachery!" the governor shouted; "Help, gauchos, defend me!"

"It is useless, colonel, for those men belong to me."

"I will not surrender," the governor continued "Don Torribio, or whoever you may be, you are a coward."

He freed himself from the young man's grasp by a bound of his horse, and drew his sabre. The rapid gallop of several horses came nearer every moment.

"Can that be help arriving for me?" the governor said, as he cocked a pistol.

"Yes, but too late," the Indian chief answered coldly.

By his orders, the gauchos surrounded the commandant, who killed two of them. From this moment the fight in the dark became frightful. Don Antonio, seeing that his life was lost, wished, at least, to die as a soldier should die, and fought desperately.

The sound of the galloping horses constantly drew nearer.

Nocobotha saw that it was time to finish, and with a pistol shot killed the governor's horse. Don Antonio rolled on the sand, but, jumping up suddenly, he dealt his adversary a sabre stroke, which the latter parried by leaping on one side.

"A man such as I am does not surrender to dogs like you," Don Antonio exclaimed, as he blew out his own brains.

This explosion was followed by a sharp discharge of musketry, and a squadron of horsemen rushed like a whirlwind on the gauchos. The contest hardly lasted a moment. At a whistle from Nocobotha the gauchos turned round and fled separately over the dark plain. Eight corpses strewed the ground.

"Too late!" Pedrito said to Major Bloomfield, who had started in pursuit of Don Torribio so soon as the bombero warned him of the peril into which the Indian had led the governor.

"Yes," said the major, sorrowfully, "he was a good soldier; but how are we to catch the traitors up, and know what we have to depend on?"

"They are already in the Indian camp."

Pedrito leapt from his horse, cut with his machete a branch of resinous fir, which he made into a torch, and by its light examined the bodies stretched on the ground.

"Here he is!" the bombero exclaimed; "His skull is fearfully fractured; his hand grasps a pistol; but his face still retains an expression of haughty defiance."

A silent tear rolled down Major Bloomfield's bronzed face.

"Why was my old friend fated thus to die in an ambuscade when his fortress is besieged?" the Englishman murmured.

"God is the Master," Pedrito remarked, philosophically.

"He has performed his duty, so let us perform ours."

They raised the body of Don Antonio Valverde, and then the whole squadron returned to Carmen.

Nocobotha, however, we must remark, had only wished to make the colonel prisoner in order to treat with the colonists, and shed as little blood as possible, and he bitterly regretted the governor's death. While the gauchos were rejoicing at the success of the trap, Nocobotha, gloomy and dissatisfied, returned to his camp.

Mercedes and Doña Concha, on seeing the toldo of the great chief unoccupied, could not repress a sigh of satisfaction. They had the time to recover from their emotion in his absence, and prepare for the interview which Concha desired to have with him. They had removed their Indian garb in all haste, and resumed their Spanish attire. By an accident that favoured the plans of Don Sylvio's betrothed wife, she was lovelier and more seductive than usual; her pallor had a touching and irresistible grace about it, and her eyes flashed eager flames of love or hatred.

When Nocobotha arrived in front of the toldo, the matchi walked up to him.

"What do you want?" the chief asked.

"My father will pardon me," the sorcerer answered, humbly. "This night two women have entered the camp."

"What do I care?" the chief interrupted him, impatiently.

"These women, though dressed in the Indian fashion, are white," the matchi said, laying a stress on the last word.

"They are doubtless wives of the gauchos."

"No," the sorcerer said; "their hands are too white, and their feet too small. Besides, one of them is the white slave of the tree of Gualichu."

"Ah! and who made them prisoners?"

"No one; they arrived alone."

"Alone?"

"I accompanied them through the camp, and protected them against the curiosity of the warriors."

"You acted well."

"I introduced them into my father's toldo."

"Are they there now?"

"For the last hour."

"I thank my brother."

Nocobotha took off one of his bracelets, and threw it to the matchi, who bowed down to the ground.

The chief, suffering from indescribable agitation, rushed toward his toldo, the curtain of which he raised with a feverish hand, and he could not restrain a cry of delight and astonishment on hearing Doña Concha's voice.

The maiden greeted him with one of those strange and charming smiles of which women alone possess the secret.

"What is the meaning of this?" the chief asked, with a graceful bow.

Doña Concha involuntarily admired the young man; his splendid Indian costume flashing in the light, heightened his masculine and proud attitude, and his head was haughtily erect. He was very handsome, and born to command.

"By what name shall I address you, caballero?" she said to him, as she pointed to a seat of carved copal wood by her side.

"That depends, señorita. If you address the Spaniard, call me Don Torribio; if you have come to speak to the Indian, my brothers call me Nocobotha."

"We shall see," she said.

During a momentary silence, the two speakers examined each other aside. Doña Concha did not know how to begin, and the chief himself was seeking the motive for such a visit.

"Did you really wish to see me?" Nocobotha at length began.

"Who else?" she replied.

"The happiness of seeing you here appears to me a dream, and I fear lest I should awake from it."

This remark reminded her of Don Valentine Cardoso's guest, and did not agree with the ornaments of an Indian chief and the interior of a toldo.

"Good gracious!" Doña Concha said lightly, "You are not far removed from believing me a witch or a fairy, so I will break my wand."

"For all that you will not be the less an enchantress," Nocobotha interrupted her with a smile.

"The sorcerer is this child's brother, who revealed to me your real name, and the spot where I might find you. You must give Pedrito all the credit."

"I shall not forget it when an opportunity offers," he answered with a frown, which did not escape Doña Concha's notice; "but let us return to yourself, señorita. Would it be an indiscretion to ask you to what extraordinary circumstance I owe the favour of a visit which I did not anticipate, but which overwhelms me with joy?"

"Oh! A very simple cause," she replied, giving him a fiery look.

"I am listening, madam."

"Perhaps you wish to make me undergo an examination?"

"Oh! I trust that you do not think what you are saying."

"Don Torribio, we live in such unhappy times, that a person can never be sure of addressing a friend."

"I am yours, madam."

"I hope so, and even believe it, hence I will speak to you in the most perfect confidence. A girl of my age, and especially of my rank, does not take a step so singular, without very serious motives."

"I am convinced of that."

"What can make a woman lay aside her instinctive modesty, and cause her to disdain even her reputation? What feeling inspires her with masculine courage? Is it not love, Don Torribio – love? Do you understand me?"

"Yes, madam," he answered with emotion.

"Well, I have said it, it is a question of my heart and of yours – perhaps – Don Torribio. At our last interview, my father announced rather suddenly, both to you and me, my approaching marriage with Don Sylvio d'Arenal. I had thought you loved me – "

"Señorita!"

"But at that moment I became certain of it; I saw your sudden pallor, your voice was troubled."

"Still! – "

"I am a woman, Don Torribio; we women guess a man's love before a man himself does so."

The Indian chief gazed at her with an undefinable expression.

"A few days later," she continued, "Don Sylvio fell into an ambuscade – why did you do that, Don Torribio?"

"I wished to avenge myself on a rival, but I did not order his death."

"I knew it."

Nocobotha did not understand her.

"You had no rival – you had scarce left the house ere I confessed to my father that I did not love Don Sylvio, and would not marry him."

"O Heavens!" the young man exclaimed sorrowfully.

"Reassure yourself, the misfortune is repaired; Don Sylvio is not dead."

"Who told you so?"

"I know it, I know it so well that Don Sylvio, torn from Pincheira's hands by my orders, is at this moment at the Estancia de San Julian, whence he will shortly set out for Buenos Aires."

"Can I – "

"That is not all. I made my father understand toward whom my heart turned, and whose love it confided in, and my father, who has never been able to refuse me anything, permitted me to go and join the man whom I prefer."

She gave Don Torribio a glance full of love, looked down and blushed. A thousand contradictory feelings were contending in Nocobotha's heart, for he did not dare believe that which rendered him so happy; a doubt remained, a cruel doubt – suppose she were trifling with him?

"What!" he said, "You love me?"

"My presence here, – " she stammered.

"Happiness renders me confused, so forgive me."

"If I did not love you," she answered, "Sylvio is free and I could marry him."

"Oh women! Adorable creatures, who will ever sound the depths of your heart! Who can divine the sorrow or joy you conceal in a glance or in a smile? Yes, señorita, yes, I love you, and I wish to tell you so on my knees."

And the great chief of the Patagonian nations threw himself at Doña Concha's feet; he pressed her hands and covered them with burning kisses. The maiden, who held her head erect, while he lay thus prostrate before her, had a ferocious delight in her eyes; she had repeated the eternal allegory of the lion that surrenders its claws to the scissors of love. This man, so powerful and formidable, was conquered, and henceforth she was sure of her vengeance.

"What shall I tell my father?" she said in a voice gentle as a caress.

The lion rose with flashing eyes and radiant brow.

"Madam," he answered with supreme majesty, "tell Don Valentine Cardoso that within a month I shall place a crown on your beloved forehead."

CHAPTER XXII.
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!"