Gustave Aimard
The Flying Horseman
"Silence!" a second time called Zeno Cabral; "However well taken may be your precautions; however far you may have come, so as to secretly plot your treason, for a long time I have been watching you, but I wanted to take you in the very act. Throw away your swords, gentlemen; you are my prisoners."
"Your prisoners! You are joking!" cried they.
"It is time!" cried Don Armero, who up to this time had remained a silent, but not disinterested, witness of the scene.
Zeno Cabral had not made a movement. At the cry of Juan Armero the glade had, as if by magic, filled with soldiers.
Don Roque and Don Eusebio saw that they were lost. Followed by Don Sebastiao, who had boldly placed himself at their side, a pistol in one hand and a sword in the other, they rushed on the nearest Montoneros, and tried to force a passage.
There was a moment of frightful tumult, mixed with cries and imprecations of rage or pain – the sound of firearms – a hurried tramping – and then calmness suddenly ensued.
Don Eusebio, his left arm broken by a ball, was lying on the ground, tightly bound with a lasso; Don Roque and Don Sebastiao, both unwounded, were also bound, and crouching on the ground, at a few paces from General Moratín; as to M. Dubois, at the moment when he drew two pistols from his pocket and prepared, though he was no soldier, to sell his life dearly, he had received a ball in the middle of the forehead, and was lying dead.
Mataseis and Sacatripas tried to gain the money which they had received; they alone had drawn, Zeno Cabral having given the order to seize the conspirators without wounding them, if possible.
The partisan then approached the prisoners.
"Do you now admit that you are in my power?" said he.
"All is not yet finished," answered the marquis, with disdain; "I have not come here alone; I have troops – "
"Listen," said Zeno Cabral to him, sharply interrupting him.
At this moment a horrible clamour arose in the plain.
"What is that?" cried the marquis, with alarm.
"The war cry of Indians," coldly answered the partisan – "who are massacring your soldiers."
"Oh, it is not – it cannot be – my soldiers are brave, they will defend themselves," cried the general.
"They will be massacred," pursued Zeno Cabral, "and those who will escape the massacre will be burned alive."
"Burned alive!" cried he.
"Do you not see that, for some time, the air is rarefied; the Indians have fired the plain;" and turning towards the Montoneros, "To horse!" cried he, in a thundering voice, "To horse! We have scarcely the time to escape!"
"Oh! These men are wild beasts!" cried the marquis.
"Did you not know that people cannot invade the sacred territory of the Guaycurus with impunity?"
"It is true," murmured the marquis, appearing, rather to reply to his own thoughts than to the words of the Montonero.
"Give me your word of honour not to try and escape," said Zeno Cabral, "and you will be free in a moment from all constraint."
"I give it you," answered the marquis, despondingly.
His bonds immediately fell, like those of Don Sebastiao Vianna, who had also given his word.
General Don Eusebio, since he had been in the power of the Montoneros, had maintained a sullen silence; the only answer that they obtained from him, when they proposed to him to give his word, was confined to these words, "Go to the devil!"
They were obliged to carry him away, and to tie him as well as they could on horseback.
Meanwhile time pressed; it was necessary to hasten away; the air became more and more rarefied; a suffocating heat was felt; thick volumes of smoke rolled over the glade; showers of sparks were rained upon the trees; the shrubbery began to burn; there was not a moment to lose.
Zeno Cabral placed himself at the head of his troop, having at his side Don Roque and Don Sebastiao, and having cried "Advance!" in a thundering voice, he rode at full speed across the glade.
The entire plain, for a distance of more than ten leagues, became an immense lake of flame, in the midst of which the Indians, half naked, looked like so many demons, leaping and brandishing their arms, and uttering cries like wild beasts.
The Brazilian troops – entrenched on the hill where they had established their camp, circled by an impenetrable wall of fire, kept up a continual and well-sustained fire on the Indians, not in the hope of conquering them, but so that they might die bravely, and make their wild and implacable enemies pay dearly for their victory.
Zeno Cabral gave the order to halt, to allow their horses to regain their wind.
They stopped. The Brazilians still fought, or at least they continued to fire, for they had no longer any enemy; the Indians were flying in all directions, in their turn pursued by the fire which they had themselves lighted.
Suddenly a frightful explosion was heard; an immense cloud of dust, fragments of rock, and broken trees, rose in the air to a prodigious height, and fell with a crash.
The Brazilians had disappeared. They had fired the powder, and had blown themselves up, to put an end to this horrible tragedy.
CHAPTER XX
CONCLUSION
Ten days had passed since this frightful catastrophe. In an arid and sandy plain, on the borders of a lake, the stagnant and blackish waters of which seemed stamped with immobility, a troop of some thirty horsemen had established a temporary camp.
The horsemen of whom we speak had arrived in this spot scarcely two hours. A part of them wore the European costume, while the others were dressed in the Indian manner.
The first were Zeno Cabral, the Marquis de Castelmelhor, Emile Gagnepain, the Marchioness de Castelmelhor and her daughter, Doña Eva.
Ten Montoneros, probably serving as an escort, and commanded by Don Sylvio Quiroga, had established themselves a little way off.
The number of the Indians was greater than that of the whites; they also formed a separate encampment under the orders of Tarou Niom, Diogo, Gueyma, and Arnal.
All the persons of whom we speak had, on the invitation of Zeno Cabral, come with him to this desolate spot, without even suspecting the motives which had led the Montonero to bring them there.
Zeno Cabral, who for nearly an hour had been in conference with Diogo and Gueyma, at last came out of the enramada; and the two chiefs followed him, with downcast eyes and sad countenances.
With a gesture, Zeno Cabral called all his friends around him.
"Come, señor marquis," said the partisan; "and you also, Madame – and you, señorita."
These three persons, who till then had remained a little distance off, then came forward. Emile and Tyro immediately placed themselves without ceremony near the ladies.
Zeno Cabral feigned not to observe this movement.
Each one waited with secret anxiety for what was about to transpire; the silence was so profound and solemn that the flight of a bird, if there had been any birds in that desolate plain, would have been heard.
Zeno Cabral at last raised his head, which till that moment had fallen sorrowfully on his breast; his face was livid, his eyes were hollow and bloodshot; he was a prey to emotion so violent that his whole body was agitated with convulsive movements.
"Friends," said he, in a sad tone, "I thank you for having consented to follow me here, where a great act of justice and of expiation is to be performed. Many years have passed since the day when that crime was committed, to be the avenger of which is my terrible task; it is in this place, which none of you knew before coming here with me, that this vengeance is to be accomplished."
Then, after a moment of silence, he added, turning towards the general:
"Marquis de Castelmelhor, you remember the unfortunate Laura?"
"I remember," answered the marquis, in a stifled voice; "I have been criminal and cowardly; I have carried despair and shame into a family which offered me paternal hospitality; in contempt of all divine and human laws, I committed a horrible crime, not only in trying to seize on the fortune of my benefactor, but in robbing him by carrying off his daughter, whom I never loved, but whom I wished to make use of as a means of securing the riches that I coveted."
All the persons present were struck with astonishment on hearing the man speak thus; the marchioness concealed her face; Doña Eva threw herself into the arms of her mother; Zeno Cabral alone remained calm, cold, and impassive.
"So," said he, "you admit you are guilty?"
"Yes; but the crimes of the young man have been atoned for, if such crimes can be, by the honourable and loyal conduct of the man of riper years."
"You lie, Marquis de Castelmelhor," coldly interrupted Zeno Cabral.
"Caballero," cried the general, quickly raising his head, and instinctively carrying his hand to his side, as if to take the sword which was not there.
"You lie," resumed Zeno Cabral; "the mature man has if possible been more criminal than the young man; he has assassinated the wife of his best friend. Gueyma, there is the assassin of your mother!"
"Oh!" cried the young man.
"The mature man," Zeno Cabral continued, "after having seduced the girl, abandoned her child in the streets of Rio Janeiro, and poisoned her whom he had dishonoured in order to seize on her fortune. The child was saved by me, and confided to the Guaycurus: it was Dove's Eye. The middle-aged man – the general in the service of Brazil – was arrested by me ten days ago, at the moment when he was preparing to sell the interests of his master to another wretch like himself."
With an instinctive movement, the marchioness abruptly seized the arm of her daughter, and snatched her away from the man whom she had so loved, to whom she had sacrificed all, and who she learned was a monster.
The persons present, mute with horror, heard as in a dream the recital of these horrible crimes, so clearly and calmly detailed.
"Thrown in spite of myself on the path of this man," resumed Zeno Cabral; "mixed up unwillingly with his career, I followed him step by step, day by day, for many years; I have no right to call him to account for his crimes, except for one – the most horrible of all – the first. Blood for blood, eye for eye, tooth for tooth – This man killed my sister; I will kill him." Then, placing his right hand on the shoulder of the general, "Marquis de Castelmelhor," continued he, "look around you; there is the diamond country that you wished to reach, the secret relative to which you sought to steal from my sister, who did not possess it; all the sand which surrounds us for a distance of ten leagues abounds with diamonds; this country belongs to me, for it was discovered by my grandfather, and no one after him has ever seen it; well, rejoice, Marquis de Castelmelhor," cried he, with an accent of terrible irony; "this country I give you; all these diamonds are yours; henceforth you shall possess them forever." Turning then towards the Montoneros: "Dig a hole," said he, in a hollow voice; "this man shall be buried alive on a bed of diamonds!"
At this terrible conclusion, the marchioness uttered a piercing cry, and fell fainting to the ground. Eva became wildly delirious. Emile and Tyro, mad with grief, in vain lavished on the girl and her mother the most devoted attentions.
Meanwhile, according to the order of Zeno Cabral, two Montoneros had proceeded to dig the grave.
The witnesses of this horrible scene exchanged terrified looks, not daring in any other way to express the sentiments which agitated them.
Suddenly Arnal advanced rapidly towards Zeno Cabral.
"Stop, caballero," said he in a firm voice; "stop, take care that you are not criminal yourself, while thinking you are but a judge; vengeance belongs only to God; that man did not kill your sister."
"I have proofs of his crime."
"You cannot have the proofs of that which does not exist," pursued Arnal, with energy.
"What do you mean?"
"Your sister is not dead."
This unexpected piece of news, of such powerful interest, completely changed the aspect of the scene, and everyone crowded round him.
"She is alive," cried Tarou Niom.
Arnal let go the hand of the partisan, which, until that time he had held in his own, and looking at him with an expression of, pain and of infinite tenderness:
"Oh, men, men!" cried he, with feverish energy, "Will the heart of woman then always remain incomprehensible to you? Will you never be able to read a single page of it? Can you not understand that your sister – that artless and pure child of sixteen years, downcast by the grief of an unmerited shame, succumbing under the weight of a fault that she never committed – did not choose to bend her stainless brow, and to blush before that implacable world for which appearances are everything, and which always thinks the worst? Will you not admit, then, that sublime abnegation which has made her, still living, cut herself off from the world which respects the dead martyr, whom living it would insult?"
"But," cried Zeno Cabral, dumfounded by these words, spoken in a tone of irresistible truthfulness, "who has told you that this is really the case?"
"Who – who?" murmured Arnal, in a feeble and trembling voice.
And, taking off her hat, she allowed some long and silky brown hair to fall in disorder on her shoulders.
"Laura! My sister!" cried the partisan, rushing towards her.
"My brother! My brother!" murmured she, in a broken voice.
"Courage, my child!" said Tarou Niom, gently.
Suddenly the sound of a pistol was heard; everyone turned with anxiety; the marquis, with his skull fractured, was writhing in agony.
"I have revenged my mother," said Gueyma, coldly, showing the smoking weapon that he still held in his hand.
Laura, notwithstanding the prayers and supplications of her brother, would never consent to abandon the Guaycurus, with whom she had found, for so many years, such constant protection. She lived with Gueyma and Dove's Eye, often visited by her brother.
The marchioness died of grief a few months only after the terrible death of her husband, reproaching herself to her last hour for the love that she had still for his memory. Before her dying hour, she united her daughter to the French painter, whose devotion, under the trying circumstances in which she had found herself, was so valuable.
Emile Gagnepain is Marquis de Castelmelhor, but he can never get accustomed to his title. Every time that it is given to him, he looks round him to see who is being addressed, and then he laughs on perceiving his mistake.
Tyro is his steward.
