Gustave Aimard
Last of the Incas: A Romance of the Pampas
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE AGONY OF A TOWN
About two in the morning, at the moment when the blue jay struck up its first song, faint as a sigh, Nocobotha, completely armed for war, left his toldo, and proceeded to the centre of the camp. Here the Ulmens, Apo-Ulmens, and caraskens, were squatting on their heels round an immense fire, and smoking in silence. All rose on the arrival of the supreme Toqui, but at a signal from the master they resumed their seats. Nocobotha then turned to the matchi, who was walking gravely by his side, and to whom he had dictated his orders beforehand.
"Will Gualichu," he asked him, "be neutral, adverse, or favourable in the war of his Indian sons against the pale faces?"
The sorcerer went up to the fire, and walked round it thrice from left to right, while muttering unintelligible words. At the third round he filled a calabash with sacred water contained in closely plaited reeds, sprinkled the assembly, and threw the rest toward the east. Then, with body half bent and head advanced, he stretched out his arms, and appeared listening to sounds perceptible to himself alone.
On his right hand the blue jay poured forth its plaintive note twice in succession. Suddenly the matchi's face was disfigured by horrible grimaces; his blood-suffused eyes swelled; he turned pale and trembled as if suffering from an ague fit.
"The spirit is coming! The spirit is coming!" the Indians said.
"Silence!" Nocobotha commanded; "The sage, is about to speak."
In fact, obeying this indirect order, he whistled guttural sounds between his teeth, among which the broken words could be detected —
"The spirit is marching!" he exclaimed; "He has unfastened his long hair, which floats in the wind; his breath spreads death around. The sky is red with blood! Gualichu, the prince of evil will not want for victims. The flesh of the palefaces serves as a sheath for the knives of the Patagonians. Do you hear the urubús and vultures in the distance? What a splendid meal they will have! – Utter the war yell! Courage, warriors, Gualichu guides you death is nothing; glory everything."
The sorcerer still continued to stammer, and rolled on the ground, suffering from a fit of epilepsy. Then the Indians pitilessly turned away from him, for the man who is so rash as to touch the matchi when the spirit is torturing him would be struck by a sudden death. Such is the Indian belief.
Nocobotha addressed the audience in his turn. "Chiefs of the great Patagonian nations, as you see, the God of our fathers is with us, and He wishes our land to become free again. The sun, when it sets, must not see a Spanish flag waving in Patagonia. Courage, brothers! The Incas, my ancestors, who hunt on the blessed prairies of the Eskennam, will joyfully receive among them those who may fall in battle. Each will proceed to his post! The cry of the urubú, repeated thrice at equal intervals, will be the signal for the assault."
The chiefs bowed and withdrew.
The night, studded with stars, was calm and imposing. The moon coloured with a pale silver the dark blue of the firmament. There was not a breath in the air, not a cloud in the sky; the atmosphere was serene and limpid; nothing disturbed the silence of this splendid night, except the dull, vague murmur which seems on the desert to be the breathing of sleeping nature.
A thousand varied feelings were confounded in the mind of Nocobotha, who thought of the approaching deliverance of his country, and his love for Doña Concha. Then raising his eyes to the star-studded vault of Heaven, the Indian fervently implored Him who is omnipotent, and who tries the loins and hearts to fight on his side. If he had been compelled to choose between his love and the cause he defended, he assuredly would not have hesitated; for the happiness of an individual is as nothing when compared with the liberty of an entire nation.
While the Toqui was plunged in these reflections a hand was laid heavily on his shoulder. It was the matchi who looked at him with his tiger cat eyes.
"What do you want?" he asked him drily.
"Is my father satisfied with me? Did Gualichu speak well?"
"Yes," the chief said, repressing a start of disgust. "Withdraw."
"My father is great and generous."
Nocobotha contemptuously threw one of his rich necklaces to the wretched sorcerer, who made a grimace to show his joy.
"Begone!" he said to him.
The matchi, satisfied with his reward, went away. The trade of an Indian sorcerer is a famous one.
"I have the time," Nocobotha muttered, after calculating the hours by the position of the stars.
He hastily bent his steps toward Doña Concha's toldo.
"She is there," he said to himself, "she is sleeping, lulled by her childish dreams; her lips are opened like a flower to inhale the perfumed breath of night. She is slumbering with her hand upon her heart to defend it. And I love her! Grant, O Heaven, that I may render her happy! Help my arm, which wishes to save a people!"
He went up to a warrior, standing at the entrance to the toldo.
"Lucaney," he said, in a voice that was powerfully affected, "I have twice saved you from death."
"I remember it."
"All I love is in that toldo: I intrust it to you."
"This toldo is sacred, my father."
"Thanks!" Nocobotha said, affectionately pressing the hand of the Ulmen, who kissed the hem of his robe.
The Ulmens, after the council was over, had drawn up their tribes in readiness for the assault; the warriors, lying down flat on the ground, began one of those astounding marches which Indians alone are capable of undertaking. Gliding and crawling like lizards through the lofty grass, they succeeded, within an hour, in placing themselves unnoticed at the very foot of the Argentine intrenchments. This movement had been executed with the refined prudence the Indians display on the war trail. The silence of the prairie had not been disturbed, and the town seemed buried in sleep.
Some minutes, however, before the Ulmens received Nocobotha's final orders, a man, dressed in the costume of the Aucas, had left the camp before them all, and made his way to Carmen on his hands and knees. On reaching the first barricades, he held out his hands to an invisible hand, which hoisted him over the wall.
"Well, Pedrito?"
"We shall be attacked, major, within an hour."
"Is it an assault?"
"Yes; the Indians are afraid of being poisoned like rats, and hence wish to come to an end."
"What is to be done?"
"We must die."
"By Jupiter! That's fine advice."
"We may still try – "
"What?"
"Give me twenty faithful gauchos."
"Take them, and what then?"
"Leave me to act, major. I do not answer for success, as these red demons are as numerous as flies; but I shall certainly kill some of them."
"And the women and children?"
"I have shut them up in the Estancia of San Julian."
"Heaven be praised!"
"But, by the way, they will attack the estancia if they take Carmen."
"You're a humbug, Pedrito," the major said, with a smile. "You forget Doña Concha."
"That is true," the bombero remarked gaily; "I did not think of the señorita. I also forgot this – the signal for the attack will be an urubú cry, repeated at three equal intervals."
"Good! I will go and prepare, for I do not expect they will wait for sunrise."
The major on one side, and the bombero on the other, proceeded from post to post to awake the defenders of the town, and warn them to be on their guard.
On that very evening, Major Bloomfield had convened all the inhabitants; and in a short and energetic harangue depicted to them their desperate situation.
"The boats tied up under the guns of the fort," he said, in conclusion, "are ready to receive the women, children, and any frightened men. They will be removed during the night to the Estancia of San Julian."
The inhabitants stationed themselves behind the barricades with eye and ear on the watch, and musket in hand. An hour was spent in watching for the Patagonians, when suddenly the hoarse, ill-omened cry of the urubú broke the silence. A second cry followed the first closely, and the last note of the third was still vibrating, when a frightful clamour burst forth on all sides simultaneously, and the Indians dashed forward tumultuously to scale the outer entrenchments. They broke against the living wall that rose at the barriers. Astounded by this unexpected resistance, the Patagonians fell back, and were decimated by the canister, which spread desolation and death among their ranks.
Pedrito, profiting by the panic of the Redskins, dashed, after them at the head of his gauchos, and cut them down vigorously.
After two hours of terrific fighting, the sun, disdainful of human contests, majestically rose in the horizon, and spread the splendour of its beams over the field of carnage. The Indians saluted its apparition with shouts of joy, and rushed with much rage at the intrenchments – their shock was irresistible.
The colonists fled, pursued by the savages. But a formidable explosion upheaved the ground beneath their feet, and the hapless Indians hurled into the air fell dead all around. It was a mine the Argentines had fired.
The Indians, wild with terror, and deaf to the voice of their Ulmens, fled, and refused to begin the engagement again.
Nocobotha, mounted on a splendid charger, black as night, dashed forward, almost alone, and waved the sacred totem of the United Nations, shouting in a voice heard above the din of battle —
"Cowards who refuse to conquer, at least see me die!"
This cry sounded in the ears of the Indians as a shameful reproach, and they ran after their chief.
Nocobotha appeared invulnerable. He made his horse curvet, rushed into the thickest of the fight, parried every blow with the staff of the totem, which he raised above his head and shouted to his men —
"Courage, follow me!"
"Nocobotha, the last of the Indians! Let us die for the Child of the Sun!" the Patagonians shouted, electrified by the rash boldness of their Toqui.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, enthusiastically pointing to the planet of day, "See! My radiant father smiles on our valour. Forward, forward!"
"Forward!" the warriors repeated, and redoubled their fury.
All the town was already invaded, and the fighting went on from house to house. The Aucas formed in close columns, and, led by Nocobotha, dashed up the eastern steep street that runs to Old Carmen and the citadel. They advanced fearlessly, in spite of the incessant fire from the guns of the fort. Nocobotha, respected by death, and ever in front, brandished his totem, and made his black horse rear.
"Well," Major Bloomfield said, mournfully to Pedrito, "the hour has arrived."
"Do you wish it, major?"
"I insist on it."
"That is enough," the bombero added. "Good-bye, major, till we meet again in another world."
The two men shook hands: it was a final leave-taking, for, unless a miracle occurred, they were about to die. After this farewell, Pedrito collected fifty horsemen, formed them into a close squadron, and between two discharges from the battery, they dashed at full speed upon the ascending Indians. The Redskins opened right and left before this avalanche that rushed down the mountain; and they had scarce recovered from their stupor, ere they perceived the Spanish horsemen in three boats, pulling out to sea with all their might.
Taking advantage of this bold diversion, all the colonists, by Major Bloomfield's directions, shut themselves up in the fort.
Nocobotha made the Aucas a sign to halt, and advanced alone up to the walls of the citadel.
"Major," he shouted in a firm voice, "surrender; you and your men will be allowed to live."
"You are a traitor and a dog," the major, who at once appeared, answered.
"You are warned, you and your men."
"I will not surrender."
Twenty bullets whistled from the top of the wall, but Nocobotha had returned to his warriors with the rapidity of an arrow.
"Back! Back!" he shouted to them.
A detonation, loud as a hundred peals of thunder, rent the air. The major had blown up the powder in the fortress. The stony giant oscillated for two or three seconds on its base like an intoxicated mastodon; then, suddenly torn from the ground, it rose in the air, and burst like an overripe pomegranate, amid expiring cries of "Long live our country!"
A shower of stones and horridly mutilated corpses fell on the terrified Indians.
All was over. Nocobotha was master of the ruins of Carmen. Weeping with rage on seeing this disastrous victory, he planted his totem on a piece of tottering wall, which was the only relic of the fort and its defenders.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE LAST OF THE INCAS
The principal houses of the town were only spared from pillage; and Nocobotha, in order to save their riches, adjudged them to the most powerful Ulmens. As for himself, he established his headquarters in his own mansion in Old Carmen. Don Valentine and his daughter took possession of their house, which had escaped the fury of the Indians.
The town, crowded with Patagonians, offered an image of desolation.
A week after the capture of the colony, at about ten in the morning, three persons were conversing in a low voice in Don Valentine Cardoso's saloon. They were Don Valentine himself, his daughter, and the Capataz Don Blas Salazar. The latter, in his gaucho dress, had the look of a thorough bandit. Mercedes, standing as sentry at a window was laughing heartily at him, to the great despair of the capataz, who most sincerely wished his confounded disguise at the deuce.
"Blas, my friend," Don Valentine was saying, "get yourself ready for a dance."
"Then the ceremony is to take place today?"
"Yes, Blas. I must confess that we live in singular times, and a singular country. I have seen several revolutions, but this one beats them all."
"From the Indian point of view," Concha said, "it is very logical."
"Which of you, a month ago, expected such a sudden re-establishment of the empire of the Incas?"
"Not I," the capataz replied. "Still, it seems to me that Nocobotha is not at all magnanimous for a future emperor."
"What do you mean by that, my friend?"
"Has he not written to Don Sylvio that, if he does not leave the colony in three days, he will have him hung?"
"Before hanging people," said Doña Concha, "it is necessary to catch them."
"All that is very fine, Blas, but you will return to the estancia. Above all, do not forget my instructions."
"Trust to me for that, Excellency; but I am anxious about Pedrito," he added, in a low voice, not to be overheard by Mercedes; "he has disappeared for the last six days, and we have heard nothing about him."
"Don Pedro," Concha remarked, "is not the man to be lost without leaving traces. Reassure yourself, we shall see him again."
"Nocobotha!" Mercedes exclaimed, turning round.
"Blas, my friend, decamp," Don Valentine said.
"Come again soon," Mercedes added.
Nocobotha walked in. The great chief of the Aucas, dressed in his magnificent Indian costume, had a thoughtful brow and anxious look. After the first compliment, Doña Concha, alarmed by the chiefs gloomy appearance, bent forward gracefully to him, and said, with an affectionate air, which was admirably assumed —
"What is the matter with you, Torribio; you seem troubled? Have you received any unpleasant news?"
"No, madam; I thank you. If I were ambitious, all my wishes would be fulfilled. The Patagonian chiefs have resolved on re-establishing the Empire of the Incas, and they have elected me, who am the direct heir, to succeed the unfortunate Athahualpa; but – "
"They have done you justice."
"This distinction terrifies me, and I fear I cannot bear the weight of an empire. The wounds dealt my race by the Spaniards are old and deep. The Indians have been brutalized by a long servitude. What a task it is to command these disunited tribes! Who will carry on my work if I die in twenty years, two years, tomorrow, perhaps? What will become of the dream of my life?"
"Heaven means you to live long, Don Torribio," Doña Concha answered.
"A diadem on my brow! Stay, señorita, I am discouraged, weary of life; it seems to me that the crown will press my temples like a band of iron, and crush them, and that I shall be buried in my triumph!"
"Dismiss these vain presentiments," the girl remarked, giving a side glance full of meaning.
"As you know, madam, the Tarpeian Rock is close to the Capitol."
"Come, come! Don Torribio," Don Valentine said, gaily; "Let us take our places."
A splendid breakfast had been laid. The first moments passed in silence. The guests seemed embarrassed, but by degrees, thanks to Doña Concha's efforts, the conversation became more animated, Nocobotha, it could be easily seen, was making a violent effort to drive back the flood of thoughts that ran to his lips. Toward the end of the repast he turned to the young lady.
"Señorita," he said to her, "this evening all will be over. I shall be Emperor of the Patagonians, and enemy of the Spaniards, who will doubtless return with arms in their hands to overthrow our empire. What they most dread in an Indian insurrection is the reprisals, that is to say, the massacre of the white men. My marriage with an Argentine is a pledge of peace for your countrymen, and a security for their commerce. Doña Concha, give me your hand."
"What hurry is there at this moment, Don Torribio?" she asked. "Are you not sure of me?"
"Ever the same vague and obscure answer," the chief said with a frown. "Child, you are playing with a lion, and I see to the bottom of your heart. Imprudent girl, you are rushing on your own destruction; but no, you are in my power; and after saving your life ten times, I offer you half a throne. Tomorrow, madam, you will and must marry me. Your father's and Don Sylvio's heads will answer for your obedience."
And seizing a crystal bottle full of limpid water, he filled his glass to the brim, and emptied it at a draught, while Doña Concha gazed at him fixedly; this look contained a cruel and concealed joy.
"In an hour," he added as he placed the glass on the table again, "you will be present at the ceremony by my side; I insist on it."
"I will be there," she replied.
"Farewell, madam."
The young lady rose quickly, seized the bottle, and walked up to the window.
"What are you going to do there?" Don Valentine asked.
"I am watering my flowers, father."
While pouring out the water, Concha, whose eye sparkled with a gloomy fire, muttered to herself —
"Don Torribio, you told me one day that there's many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip; well, listen to me in my turn; between your forehead and a crown there is death!"
She then placed two flower pots near the balustrade on the terrace of the house. This was doubtless a signal, for in a few minutes Mercedes entered the saloon hurriedly, saying —
"He is here."
"Let him come in," Don Valentine and his daughter said simultaneously.
Pedrito made his appearance. The estanciero recommended the utmost vigilance to Mercedes, closed the door, and then seated himself by the bombero's side.
"Well?" he asked him.
The Plaza Mayor on this day offered an unexpected sight. In the centre rose a tall scaffold covered with red velvet tapestry, on which a chair of carved nopal wood was placed. The back was surmounted by a massive gold sun flashing with diamonds; a vulture of the Andes, the sacred bird of the Incas, also of gold, held in its bent beak an imperial crown, while in its claws it had a sceptre terminating in a trident, and a hand of justice holding a dazzling sun. This vulture, with outstretched wings, seemed hovering over the chair, to which there was an ascent of four steps. On the right of this chair was another, somewhat lower, but more simple.
At midday, the moment when the day star at its zenith darts forth all its beams, five cannon shots, fired at regular intervals, boomed forth majestically. At the same moment the different Patagonian tribes debouched through each of the entrances of the square, led by their Ulmen, and dressed in their robes of state. Only fifteen thousand warriors were assembled, for, according to the Indian custom, so soon as Carmen was taken, the booty was sent under safe escort to the mountains, and the Patagonian troops disbanded and returned to their tolderías, ready to come back, however, on the first signal.
The tribes drew up on three sides, leaving the fourth vacant, which was soon occupied by five hundred gauchos. The latter were mounted and well armed, while the Indians were on foot, and had only their machetes in their girdle. The windows were lined with spectators, behind whom Indian women, irregularly grouped, thrust out their heads over their shoulders.
The centre of the square was free. In front of the scaffolding, and at the foot of a clumsy altar shaped like a table, with a deep gutter running down it and a sun above it, stood the great matchi of the Patagonians and twenty priests, all with their arms crossed, and their eyes fixed on the ground.
When all had taken their places, five more gunshots were fired, and a brilliant cavalcade came up. Nocobotha, who marched at their head, with Doña Concha on his right and Don Valentine on his left, held his totem in his hand. After them came the principal Ulmens and caraskens of the united nations, with their brilliant ornaments of gold and precious stones.
Nocobotha got off his horse, held out his hand to Doña Concha to help her to dismount, mounted the scaffold, led her to the second chair, and himself stopped before the first one, though without sitting down. His ordinary pale features were inflamed, his eyes seemed swollen by watching, and he incessantly wiped away the perspiration that stood on his forehead. Something unusual was going on within him. Doña Concha's pallor was extreme, but her face was tranquil.
The Ulmens surrounded the scaffold, and at a third cannonade, the priests stepped on one side and displayed a securely bound man lying on the ground in their midst. The matchi turned to the crowd.
"All you who listen to me, the Sun, our ancestor, has smiled on our arms, and Gualichu himself fought for us. The empire of the Incas is established, the Indians are free, and the supreme chief of the Patagonian nation, Nocobotha, is about to place on his head the diadem of Athahualpa. In the name of the new emperor and ourselves we are about to offer to the Sun from whom he is descended, the most grateful of all sacrifices. Priests, bring up the victim."
The priests laid the unhappy wretch in the trough of the altar. He was a colonist made prisoner at the taking of Población del Sur; indeed the pulquero in whose shop the gauchos were accustomed to drink their chicha.
In the meanwhile Nocobotha trembled as if smitten with ague. He had a buzzing in his ears; his temples beat violently, and his eyes were suffused with blood. He supported himself on one of the arms of his chair.
"What is the matter?" Doña Concha asked him.
"I do not know," he answered; "the heat, the excitement, perhaps – I am stifling; I hope it will be nothing."
The unfortunate pulquero had been stripped of all his clothes, with the exception of his trousers, and he uttered heart-rending cries. The matchi approached him, brandishing his knife.
"Oh, it is frightful!" Doña Concha exclaimed, burying her face in her hands.
"Silence!" Nocobotha murmured; "It must be."
The matchi, insensible to the yells of the victim, selected the spot where he was to strike, looked at the day star with an inspired air, raised his knife, and laid open the pulquero's chest. Then, while the victim writhed in agony, and the priests collected the blood which poured in a stream, the matchi plucked out his heart, and held it up to the sun, like the host in Catholic churches.
At this moment all the Ulmens mounted the scaffold, and seating Nocobotha on the throne, raised him on their shoulders, shouting enthusiastically —
"Long live the new Emperor! Long live the Son of the Sun!"
The priests sprinkled the crowd with the blood of the victim, and the Indians filled the air with deafening shouts.
At length Nocobotha exclaimed, "I have restored the Empire of the Incas, and freed my race!"
"Not yet!" Doña Concha said to him, triumphantly. "Look!"
The gauchos, who had hitherto been impassive spectators of the ceremony, suddenly dashed at a gallop upon the defenceless Indians, while through all the streets poured Argentine troops, who had arrived from Buenos Aires, and all the windows were lined with white men, who fired at the mob. In the centre of the square could be recognized Don Sylvio d'Arenal, Blas Salazar Pedrito and his two brothers, who pitilessly massacred the Indians with shouts of "Exterminate the Pagans!"
"Oh!" Nocobotha exclaimed, brandishing his totem with a trembling hand, "What treachery!" He tried to fly to the help of his people, but he tottered and fell on his knees; his eyes were covered by an ensanguined mist; a devouring fire burnt his entrails. "What is the matter?" he asked himself in despair.
"You are dying, Don Torribio," Doña Concha whispered in his ear, as she seized his arm forcibly.
"Woman, you lie," he said, striving to rise. "I will help my brothers."
"Your brothers are being slaughtered; did you not mean to kill my father, my affianced husband, and myself? Die, villain! Die by a woman's hand! I love Don Sylvio – do you hear me? – And I am avenged."
"Woe, woe!" Nocobotha shrieked, dragging himself on his knees to the edge of the platform, "I am the murderer of a people I wished to save."
The Indians fell like ripe corn before the sickle of the reapers. It was no longer a combat, but a butchery. Several chiefs flying before Pedrito the capataz and Don Sylvio rushed to the platform as a last refuge.
"Oh!" Nocobotha howled, as he took a tiger bound and seized Don Sylvio by the throat, "I too will revenge myself."
There was a moment of terrible anxiety.
"No," the chief added, letting loose his enemy and falling back; "it would be cowardly, for this man has done me no injury."
Doña Concha, on hearing these words, could not restrain tears of admiration, tardy tears; tears of repentance, or of love, perhaps!
Pedrito fired his rifle into the chest of the chief, who was lying stretched out at his feet. At the same instant Pincheira fell, his head cleft asunder by Don Sylvio. Don Valentine struck by a straggling bullet, sank into his disconsolate daughter's arms.
"My God," Nocobotha murmured, "you will judge me!" He locked up to heaven, moved his lips again as if in prayer, and suddenly his countenance became radiant; he fell back and expired.
"Perhaps this man's cause was just," Doña Concha said, overwhelmed with remorse.
It is not the first time that a woman has, through the decree of Heaven, arrested a conqueror.
