Gustave Aimard
The Gold-Seekers: A Tale of California
Something like a smile attempted to contract the Indian's features; but the attempt was not a happy one, and stopped at a grimace. All at once Curumilla laid his hand on his comrade's bridle, and bending forward, —
"Listen," he said.
Valentine listened attentively; but, for all that, several moments passed ere he could distinguish aught else than those confused and mysterious sounds which never expire in the desert: at length something resembling a musical note borne on the breeze gently died away on his ear. The hunter started back in surprise.
"Ah, by Jupiter!" he exclaimed, "that musician has chosen a strange time to give a concert. I am curious to see such an original a little nearer. Let us push on."
After marching for about a quarter of a mile further they began to see a fire flashing through the trees, and distinctly heard a masculine and sonorous voice singing to the accompaniment of a jarana. The hunters stopped in surprise, and listened.
"By heaven!" the Frenchman muttered, "it is the romancero of King Rodrigo, sung by an unknown voice at night in the heart of a virgin forest. Never has that powerful poetry affected me so deeply. In truth, everything here harmonises with that song, which is so thoroughly sorrowful and despairing. Whoever he may be, I must see the man who has unconsciously caused me a few moments of such gentle emotion. Were it the demon in person, I would shake his hand ere the last strains had ceased vibrating on the strings of his jarana."
And without further deliberation, Valentine, after giving Curumilla a sign to follow him, resolutely entered the circle of light. At the sound of horses' hoofs, the stranger, with a movement swift as thought, threw the guitar across his back, and leaped up with a sabre in his right hand and a revolver in the other.
"Hold!" he shouted boldly; "stop, if you please, caballero, or I shall fire."
"Pray do not do so, señor," Valentine answered, who considered it prudent to obey the order given him, "for you would run the risk of killing a friend, and they are too rare in the desert to be received, when met, by a pistol shot."
"Hum! I trust what you say is true," the other answered, still on the defensive; "still I should feel obliged by your explaining to me, in two words, who you are, and what you are seeking after the acquaintance becomes more intimate between us."
"Of course, caballero; I see no inconvenience in satisfying your wishes, especially as prudence is one of the theological virtues recommended in the regions where we now are."
"On my soul, you appear to me to be a jolly fellow! I hope we shall become friends ere long; and to prove to you that I sincerely desire it, and at the same time to arouse your confidence, I will begin by telling you who I am, which will not take long."
"Pray do so."
The stranger then thrust his revolver into his belt, took three paces forward, removed his wide-brimmed hat, whose long feather swept the ground, and saluted his new acquaintance ceremoniously.
"Señor caballero," he said with infinite grace and politeness, "my name is Don Cornelio Mendoza de Arrizabal, gentleman of the Asturias, noble as the king, and poor at this moment as Job of Bohemian memory. The few novillos lying around me are my property, and that of my partner, absent at this moment in search of a few strayed members of the herd, but whom I expect at any moment. These animals were purchased by us at Los Angeles, and we are taking them to San Francisco, with the purpose of selling them at the best price to the gold-seekers and other adventurers collected in that curious city."
After uttering this short speech the young man bowed again, put his hat on his head, placed the point of his sabre on his boot, and waited, foot forward, and his hand on his hip.
Valentine had listened attentively, and when he spoke of his partner a flash of joy sparkled in the hunter's eyes.
"Caballero," he answered, uncovering in his turn, "my friend and myself are two wood rangers, hunters, or trail-seekers, whichever you may please to term us. Attracted by the light of your fire, and the harmonious song that reached our ears, we came toward you for the purpose of claiming from you that hospitality which is never refused in the desert, offering to share our provisions with you, and to be hail fellows well met so long as we may remain in your agreeable company."
"You are welcome, caballeros," Don Cornelio replied nobly. "Pray consider the little we possess as your own."
The hunters bowed and dismounted.
CHAPTER II
FIFTEEN YEARS' SEPARATION
The reception offered the travellers by Don Cornelio was stamped with that graceful kindness and careless ease which so eminently distinguish the Spanish character. Although the adventurer's resources were extremely limited, still he gave the little he possessed with such complacency and so much good humour to his guests, that the latter knew not how to thank him for the attentions he lavished upon them.
After supping as well as they could on tasajo (jerked meat) and tortillas of maize, washed down with pulque and mezcal, they carefully wrapped themselves in their zarapés, lay down on the ground with their feet to the fire, and soon appeared to be buried in a deep sleep.
Don Cornelio took up his jarana, and leaning against a larch tree, hummed one of those interminable Spanish romances he was so fond of, in order to keep awake while awaiting his partner's return.
The bivouac where our friends now found themselves was certainly not without a degree of the picturesque. The uncertain gleams of the fire were reflected fantastically on the heads of some seven hundred and fifty novillos, lying side by side, ruminating and sleeping, while the horses were devouring their provender, stamping and neighing. The Spaniard twanged his guitar, and the two hunters slept peacefully. This scene, at once so simple and so singular, was worthy the pencil of Callot.
Two hours thus passed away, and nothing occurred to disturb the repose the encampment enjoyed, and the moon sank lower and lower on the horizon. Don Cornelio's fingers stiffened; his eyes closed; and at times, despite his efforts to keep awake, his head fell on his chest. In despair, the Spaniard at last, beaten by fatigue, was about to yield to the sleep that overpowered him, when a distant noise suddenly dispelled his somnolency, and restored him the full use of his mind and other faculties.
By degrees this noise, at first vague and indistinct, became louder; and a horseman, armed with a long goad, entered the clearing, driving before him a dozen novillos and half-savage bulls. After being helped by Don Cornelio in stockading the straying animals he brought back, the partner, who was no other than Count Louis de Prébois, dismounted and sat down to the fire with that nonchalance and careless motion produced in energetic natures, not so much by fatigue as by discouragement and moral lassitude.
"Ah!" he said, looking at the two men stretched out at the fire, and who, in spite of the noise caused by his arrival, still slept, or appeared to do so, "we have visitors, I see."
"Yes," Don Cornelio made answer, "two hunters from the great prairies. I thought I ought not to refuse them hospitality."
"You have done well, Don Cornelio: no one has a right in the desert to refuse the stranger, who asks for them courteously, the heat of his fire and a moiety of his tasajo."
"That was my idea."
"Now, my friend, lie down by our guests and rest yourself. This long watch after the day's toil must have fatigued you beyond measure."
"But will you not sleep a few moments, Don Louis? Rest must be more necessary to you than to myself."
"Permit me to watch," the count answered with a sad smile. "Rest was not made for me."
Don Cornelio did not press him any further. Long accustomed to his companion's character, he considered it useless to make any more objections. A few moments later, wrapped in his zarapé, and with his head on his jarana for a pillow, he slept soundly.
Don Louis threw a few handfuls of dry wood on the fire, which threatened to expire, crossed his arms on his chest, and, leaning his back against a tree, indulged in his thoughts, which were doubtlessly sorrowful and very bitter; for the tears soon fell from his eyes, and ran down his pallid cheeks, while stifled sighs exhaled from his bosom, and muttered words escaped from his lips, crushed between his teeth by sorrow.
So soon as the count, after ordering Don Cornelio to take some repose, fell down exhausted at the foot of a tree, the hunter, who appeared to be sleeping so profoundly, suddenly opened his eyes, rose, and walked gently toward him step by step.
Several hours passed away thus, Louis being still plunged in mournful thoughts, Valentine standing behind him, leaning on his rifle, and fixing on him a glance full of strange meaning.
The stars gradually expired in the depths of the sky, an opal-coloured band began slowly to stripe the horizon, the birds awoke beneath the foliage, sunrise was at hand. Don Louis let his head fall on his chest.
"Why struggle longer?" he said in a hoarse, deep voice. "What good to go farther?"
"Those are very despairing words in the mouth of a man so strong as Count Louis de Prébois," a low but firm voice whispered in his ear, with a tone of gentle and sympathising reproach.
The count shuddered as if he had received an electric shock; a convulsive tremor agitated all his limbs; and he bounded to his feet, examining with haggard eye, pale brow, and disordered features, the man who had so suddenly replied to the words pain had torn from him. The hunter had not changed his position; his eye remained obstinately fixed upon him, with an expression of melancholy, pity, and paternal kindness.
"Oh!" the count muttered in terror, as he passed his hand over his dank forehead; "it is not he – it cannot be he! Valentine, my brother! – you whom I never hoped to see again – answer, in Heaven's name, is it you?"
"'Tis I, brother," the hunter said gently, "whom Heaven brings a second time across your path when all seems once again to fail you."
"Oh!" the count said with an expression impossible to render, "for a long time I have been seeking you – for a long time I have called on you."
"Here I am."
"Yes," he continued, shaking his head mournfully, "you are here, Valentine; but now, alas! It is too late. All is dead in me henceforth – faith, hope, courage: nothing is left to me – nothing but the desire to lie in that tomb, where all my belief and all my departed happiness are buried eternally!"
Valentine remained silent for a few moments, regarding his friend with a glance at once gentle and stern. A flood of memories poured over the hunter's heart; two glistening tears escaped from his eyes, and slowly coursed down his bronzed cheeks; then, without any apparent effort, he drew the count toward him, laid his head on his wide and loyal chest, and kissed him paternally on the forehead.
"You have suffered, then, severely, my poor Louis," he said to him tenderly. "Alas, alas! I was not there to sustain and protect you; but," he added, turning to heaven a glance of bitter sadness and sublime resignation, "I too, Louis, I too, in the heart of the desert, where I sought a refuge, have endured agonising grief. Many times I felt myself strangled by despair; often and often my temples were crushed in by the pressure of the furious madness that invaded my brain; my heart was broken by the terrible anguish I endured; and yet, brother," he added in a soft voice, filled with an ineffable melodiousness, "yet I live, I struggle, and I hope," he said, so low that the count could hardly hear him.
"Oh! Blessed be the chance that brings us together again when I despaired of seeing you, Valentine."
"There is no such thing as chance, brother: it is God who prepares the accomplishment of all events. I was seeking you."
"You were seeking me over here?"
"Why not? Did you not yourself come to Mexico to find me?"
"Yes; but how did you learn the fact?"
Valentine smiled.
"There is nothing extraordinary in it. If you wish it, I will prove to you in a few words that I am much better informed than you suppose, and that I know nearly all that has happened to you since our separation at the hacienda of the Paloma."
"That is strange."
"Why so? About three months ago were you not at the Hacienda del Milagro?"
"I was."
"You left it after spending some days there on your return from a journey you had undertaken to the far west, in search of a rich auriferous placer?"
"It is true."
"During that expedition, full of strange and terrible incidents, two men accompanied you?"6
"Yes; a Canadian hunter and a Comanche chief."
"Very good. The hunter's name was Belhumeur, the chief's Eagle-head, I think?"
"They were."
"Do you not remember revealing to Belhumeur (a worthy and honourable hunter, by the way) the reason of the gloomy sorrow that devours you, and for what motives, mere vague suspicions though they were, you had come to Mexico in order to look for your dearest friend, from whom you had been separated so many years?"
"Yes, I remember telling him all that."
"The rest is not difficult to comprehend. I have known Belhumeur many years, and Heaven brought us together during a hunt on the Rio Colorado. One night, while seated at the fire, where our supper was roasting, after talking about a thousand indifferent things, Belhumeur, whom you had left only a few days previously, began by degrees to talk about you. At first, absorbed in my own thoughts, I paid but slight attention to his recital; but when he described to me your meeting with Count de Lhorailles in the desert, your name, uttered by Belhumeur unintentionally, made me tremble. It was then my turn to cross-question him. When I had learned everything, by making him tell the story twenty times over, my resolution was immediately formed, and two days later I set out on your track. For three months I have been following you, and have at last come up with you – this time, I hope, never to part again," he added with a stifled sigh. "Still I do not know what has occurred to you during the last three months. Tell me what you have been about. I am listening."
"Yes, I will tell you all. My object, indeed, in seeking you was to demand the fulfilment of a solemn promise."
The hunter's brow grew dark, and he frowned.
"Speak," he said; "I am listening. As for the promise to which you allude, when the moment has arrived I shall know how to fulfil it."
"The sun is rising," Louis answered with a sad smile; "I must pay the proper attention to my herd."
"I will help you. You are right; those poor brutes must not be neglected."
At this moment the gloom was dispersed as if by enchantment; the sun appeared radiant on the horizon; and thousands of birds of every variety, hidden beneath the foliage, gaily celebrated its advent by singing their matin hymn to it.
Don Cornelio and Curumilla shook off the torpor of sleep, and opened their eyes. The Indian chief rose, and walked toward Valentine with that slow and majestic step peculiar to him.
"Brother," the latter said, taking the Araucanian's hand in his own, "I was not alone in my search for you. I had near me a friend whose heart and arm never failed me, and whom I have ever found ready to help me in weal and woe."
Don Louis gazed doubtfully at the man whom the hunter pointed out to him, and who stood motionless and stoical before him. Gradually his features were expanded, his memory returned, and he affectionately offered his hand to the Indian, saying with deep emotion, —
"Curumilla, my brother!"
At this proof of memory and friendship, after the lapse of so many years – this frank and true emotion on the part of a man to whom he had already given so many marks of devotion – the crust of ice that surrounded the Indian's heart suddenly melted, his face assumed an earthy hue, and a convulsive tremor agitated all his limbs.
"Oh, my brother Louis!" he exclaimed with an accent impossible to describe.
A sob resembling a roar burst from his chest; and, ashamed of having thus betrayed his weakness, the chief turned quickly away, and hid his face in the folds of his robe.
Like all primitive and energetic natures, this man, on whom adversity had no effect, was moved like a weak child by the immense joy he experienced at seeing once again Don Louis, the man whom Valentine loved more than a brother, and whose absence he had so long lamented.
"Then you will not leave me again, brother?" Louis asked anxiously.
"No, nothing shall separate us henceforth."
"Thanks," the count answered.
"Come, come," Valentine gaily remarked, "let us attend to the cattle."
All were soon on the move in the bivouac. Don Cornelio understood nothing of what he saw. These strangers, who had arrived but a few hours ago, already so attached to his friend, talking with him like old acquaintances, produced in him a series of notions each more extravagant than the other; but Don Cornelio was a philosopher, and more than that, remarkably curious. Certain that all would end sooner or, later in a satisfactory explanation, he gaily made up his mind, and had no idea of asking any information, especially as the two helps chance had sent him could not fail to be extremely useful to him in guiding the undisciplined animals which the count and himself had burdened themselves with, and had yet so far to drive.
A person must have himself been a vaquero in the great American savannahs, in order to form an idea of the numberless difficulties met with in guiding novillos and untamed bulls for hundreds of leagues across virgin forests and arid plains, defending them against wild beasts which follow their track, and snap them up under your very eyes if you do not take care, and, like the roaring lion of the Gospel, wander incessantly round the herd, seeking what they may devour. At other times the animals must be defended against the raving madness, or estampida, caused by the want of water and the refraction of the sun, during which they rush in every direction, and gore those who try to bring them back. A man must be desperate like Don Louis, or a careless philosopher like Don Cornelio, not to recoil before the perils and difficulties of so hazardous a trade; for, among the eventualities we have enumerated, we have not mentioned the temporales, or tempests, which in a few minutes overthrow the face of nature, hollow out lakes, and throw up mountains; nor the Indios bravos, or nomadic Indians, who watch the caravans, plunder the merchandise, and murder the drivers or traders.
Valentine in vain racked his brains in order to discover why his friend, whom he had known to be so effeminate and weak, could have resolved on adopting such a mode of life. But his astonishment almost became admiration when he saw him at work, and recognised the complete metamorphosis that had been effected in him, both morally and physically, and the cold, indomitable energy which had usurped the place of the careless weakness and original irresolution of his character.
He studied him thus carefully during the whole time he was employed in restoring order among the herd, and organising everything for the day's march.
"Oh!" he said to himself, "this chosen organisation has been purified by misfortune. There remain at the bottom of that half-broken heart a few noble chords, which I will manage to set in motion when the time comes."
And for the first time since many days a feeling of hearty joy caused the trail-seeker to quiver.
CHAPTER III
A SAD MISTAKE
Several days elapsed ere the two friends resumed their interrupted conversation.
They had continued their journey toward San Francisco without any incident worth noticing, owing to the skill of Valentine and Curumilla. Although this was the first time they had advanced so far from the regions they were accustomed to traverse, their sagacity made up so well for their want of knowledge that they avoided, with extreme good fortune, the dangers that menaced the success of their journey, and foresaw obstacles still remote, but which their knowledge of the desert caused them to guess, as it were, intuitively.
The two old friends observed, we may say studied, each other. After so long a separation they required to restore a community of ideas. That communion of thoughts and feelings which had existed so long between them might be eternally broken through the different media into which they had been thrown, and the circumstances that had modified their characters. Each of them rendered greater by events – having acquired the consciousness of his personal value and his intellectual power – had possibly the right no longer to admit, without previous discussion, certain theories which were formerly recognised without a contest.
Still the friendship between the two men was so lively, the confidence so entire, and the devotion so true, that, after a fortnight's travelling side by side – a fortnight during which they touched on the most varying subjects without once introducing the one they had so much interest in thoroughly discussing – they convinced themselves that they stood to each other precisely in the same position as before their separation.
Either through lassitude or deference, or perhaps the tacit recognition of his foster brother's superiority over him, during this fortnight, Don Louis, happy, perhaps, at having found once more the man who had been wont to think and act for him, had not once attempted to assume an independent position, but insensibly fell back under that moral guardianship which Valentine had so long exercised over him.
The two other persons lived on a perfectly good understanding – Don Cornelio through carelessness, perhaps, Curumilla through pride.
The Spaniard – a dear lover of liberty, happy at living in the open air without troubles or annoyances of any description – goaded his novillos, strummed his jarana, and sang the interminable Romancero del Rey Rodrigo, which he began again imperturbably so soon as he had finished, in spite of Valentine's repeated remarks about the silence that must be maintained in the desert, in order to avoid the ambuscades which the Indians constantly place like so many spiders' webs in the path of incautious travellers. The Spaniard listened docilely, and with a contrite air, to the hunter's remonstrances; but, so soon as they were ended, he twanged a tune, and recommenced his romancero – a philosophy which the trail-seeker, while blaming, could not refrain from admiring.
Curumilla was always the man we have seen him – prudent, foresighted, and silent – but with a double dose of each quality. With eyes ever opened and ears alert, the Araucanian chief rode from one end of the file to the other, watching so carefully over its safety that no accident occurred up to the day when we resume our narrative.
They thus descended the woody slopes of the Sierra Nevada, and entered the naked and sandy plains that stretch down to the sea, and on which, with the exception of San José and Monterey (two towns in the last throes of existence), the traveller only sees stunted trees and thorny shrubs scattered at a great distance apart.
Three days before reaching San José – a miserable pueblo, which serves as a gathering place for hunters and arrieros who frequent these parts; but where the population, decimated by fevers and misery, can do but little for the forasteros (strangers) – the caravan encamped on the banks of a stream, beneath the shelter of a few trees that had grown there by accident, and which the sea breeze shook incessantly, and covered with that fine sand which enters the eyes, nose, ears, and nothing can keep out.
The sun was plunging into the sea under the form of a huge fire-ball; there was a fresh breeze; in the distance appeared a few white sails, which, like light kingfishers fearing a tempest, were hastening to reach San Francisco; the coyotes were beginning to bark furiously on the plain; and the few birds nestled on the branches tucked their heads under their wings, and prepared to go to sleep.
The fires were lighted, the animals penned, and after supper each hastened to repair, by a few hours' sleep, the fatigue of a long day's journey beneath a burning sky.
"Sleep!" Louis said. "I will keep the first watch – the idler's watch," he added with a smile.
"I will take the second, then," Valentine said.
"No, I will take that," Curumilla objected. "An Indian's eyes see clearly in the night."
"Hum!" the hunter remarked; "and yet I fancy my eyes are not so bad either."
Curumilla, without further reply, placed his finger on his lips.
"Good!" the hunter said; "as you wish it, keep watch in my place, chief. When you are tired, however, be sure and wake me."
The Indian bowed. The three men wrapped themselves in their zarapés, and lay on the ground, Don Louis alone remaining awake.
It was a magnificent night: the sky, of a deep azure, was studded with an infinity of stars that sparkled like diamonds; the moon poured forth its tremulous and pallid beams; the atmosphere, wondrously pure and transparent, allowed the country to be surveyed for an enormous distance; the evening breeze had risen, and deliciously refreshed the air; the earth exhaled acrid and balmy perfumes; the waves died away amorously, and with mysterious murmurs, on the beach; and in the distance might be indistinctly traced the outlines of the coyotes which prowled about, howling mournfully, for they scented the novillos.
Louis, seduced by this splendid evening, and yielding to that prairie languor which conquers the strongest minds, was indulging in a gentle reverie. He had attained that stage of mental somnolency which is not waking, and yet not sleeping. He was enjoying the magic pictures his fancy conjured up, when he was suddenly roused from this charming sensation by a hand pressing heavily on his shoulder, while a voice muttered in his ear the single word, —
"Prudence."
Louis, suddenly recalled to a consciousness of the present, opened his half-closed eyes, and turned sharply round. Curumilla was leaning over him, and repeated his warning, with a sign of terrible meaning. The count seized his rifle, which rested near him.
"What is the matter?" he asked in a low voice.
"Come, but keep in the shade," Curumilla replied in the same tone.
Louis obeyed the hint, whose importance he recognised. Lying down on the ground, he glided gently in the direction indicated by the Indian.
He soon found himself sheltered behind a thicket, where he saw Don Cornelio and Valentine in ambush, with their bodies bent forward, and looking anxiously into the darkness.
"Good heavens, friends!" the count said, "what is the meaning of this? The profoundest silence prevails around us. All appears tranquil. Why this alarm?"
"Curumilla noticed this evening, before our halt, traces of Yaqui Indians. You know, brother, that these demons are the most daring robbers in the world. It is plain that they are after our beasts."
"But what makes you suppose that? These traces, whose existence I do not deny, may belong to travellers as well as to vagabonds. Nothing up to the present makes us suppose that these fellows intend attacking us, and we have not even seen them."
A sinister smile contracted the chief's thin lips, and, touching the count's arm with his finger, while at the same time lifting his own robe, he showed him a bleeding scalp hanging from his belt.
"Oh, oh!" Don Louis said, "have those demons ventured so near us, then?"
"Yes; and had it not been for Curumilla, whose eye is never closed, and mind ever on the watch, our animals would probably have been carried off more than an hour ago."
"Thanks for his vigilance, then," the count said with an expression of annoyance, which he could not entirely conceal; "but you know the Indians, comrades: so soon as they find they are detected, they are no longer to be feared. I believe that, after the lesson they have received, we are now in safety, and we need not trouble ourselves about them more."
"No, brother, you are mistaken. Look at your novillos; they are restless. At each instant they raise their heads, and do not eat their food in comfort. God has given animals an instinct of self-preservation which never deceives them. Believe me, they fear a danger, and scent enemies not far from them."
"It is possible, indeed. Let us watch, then."
The four men remained thus silent and attentive. An hour almost passed away, and nothing happened to confirm their suspicions. Still the bulls pressed more closely together. They had left off eating, and their restlessness increased instead of diminishing.
Suddenly Curumilla stretched out his arm in a north-eastern direction, and after laconically whispering, "Do not stir," he gave Valentine his rifle to hold, and before his friends had time to guess the direction he had taken, he disappeared in the gloom. The three hunters exchanged a silent glance, and cocked their rifles, so as to be ready for any event.
There cannot be a more painful position than that of the brave man who, in a strange country and on a dark night, is obliged to stand on guard against a danger whose extent he cannot calculate. Affected by the silent majesty of solitude, he creates phantasms a hundredfold more terrible than the actual danger, and feels his courage fly away piecemeal beneath the harsh pressure of waiting for something unseen.
Such was the situation in which our three friends now were; and yet they were three lion hearts, accustomed for many years to Indian warfare, and whom no peril, however great it might have been, would have been able to affect beneath the warm beams of the sun; but, during the darkness, imagination creates such horrible phantoms, that, if we may be allowed to employ a trivial comparison, we might say that people are not so much afraid of the danger itself as of the fear of that danger.
The three men had remained in this awkward situation for some time; when suddenly a fearful yell rose in the air, followed by the fall of a body to the ground, and the flight of several men, whose black outlines stood out on the horizon. The adventurers fired at random, and rushed rapidly in the direction where they heard the struggle, which seemed still going on.
