Gustave Aimard
The Indian Chief: The Story of a Revolution

At last all was ready, and the day for starting settled. Within forty-eight hours the expedition would leave Guetzalli, when, at about five in the evening, just as the captain, after giving a final glance at the wagons already loaded and arranged in the courtyard, was about to re-enter his house, the sentry on the isthmus announced the arrival of a stranger. As soon as the captain felt assured that it was a white man, and that he wore the uniform of a Mexican field officer, he ordered his admission to the colony. The barrier was at once raised, and the colonel (for he wore the insignia of that rank) entered Guetzalli, followed by two lanceros, who served as his escort, and a mule bearing his baggage.

The captain advanced to meet him. The colonel dismounted, threw the reins to a lancero, and bowed politely to the captain, who returned the salute with equal courtesy.

"With whom have I the honour of speaking?" he asked the stranger.

"I am," the latter answered, "Colonel Vicente Suarez, aide-de-camp to General Don Sebastian Guerrero, Governor-General of the province of Sonora."

"I am delighted, Señor Don Vicente, at the chance afforded me of making jour acquaintance. You must be fatigued with the long journey you have had to this place, so I trust you will not refuse to accept some modest refreshment."

"I accept most gladly, caballero," the colonel answered with a bow; "the more so because I have ridden so fast that I have scarce rested a minute since leaving Pitic."

"Ah! you come from Pitic?"

"As the bird flies. I have been only four days covering the ground."

"Hum! you must be terribly fatigued in that case, for it is a long distance, and, as you did me the honour to inform me, you have travelled very rapidly. Be kind enough to follow me."

The colonel bowed in reply, and the captain introduced him into a room where refreshments of every description had been prepared.

"Sit down, Don Vicente," the captain said as he drew forward a chair.

The colonel fell back into the butaca offered him with a sigh of satisfaction, whose meaning only those who have ridden thirty leagues at a stretch can understand. For some minutes the conversation between the captain and his guest was interrupted, for the colonel ate and drank with an avidity which, judging from the well-known sobriety of the Mexicans, proved that he had fasted a long time. De Laville examined him thoughtfully, asking himself mentally what reason was so important as to induce Don Guerrero to send a colonel to Guetzalli, and spite of himself he felt a vague uneasiness weighing on his heart. At length Don Vicente drank a glass of water, wiped his mouth, and turned to the captain.

"A thousand pardons," he said, "for having behaved so unceremoniously to you; but now I will confess to you that I was almost dead of inanition, having eaten nothing since eight o'clock last evening."

The captain bowed.

"You do not, of course, intend to return this evening?" he asked him.

"Pardon me, caballero, if it be possible, I shall start again in an hour."

"So soon?"

"The general ordered me to make the greatest speed."

"But your horses are half dead."

"I count on your kindness to supply me with fresh ones."

Horses were plentiful at the colony: there were more than the colonists could use, and hence de Laville would have found no difficulty in granting the colonel's request. Still his guest's manner seemed so little natural, and he fancied he detected something so mysterious about him, that he felt his alarm increased, and said, —

"I do not know, colonel, whether, in spite of my lively desire to be agreeable to you, it will be possible for me to fulfil your request; for horses are extremely scarce here at this moment."

The colonel made a sign of annoyance.

"Caramba!" he said, "that would vex me greatly."

At this moment a peon discreetly opened the door, and handed the captain a paper, on which a few words were written in pencil. The young man, after apologising, opened the paper and quickly read it.

"Oh!" he suddenly exclaimed, as he crumpled the paper in his hands with considerable agitation, "he here! What can be the matter?"

"Eh?" the colonel said curiously, who had not understood the meaning of this sentence spoken in French.

"Nothing," the other answered; "a mere personal matter." Then turning to the peon, he said, "I am coming."

The peon bowed and left the room.

"Colonel," de Laville continued, addressing his guest, "permit me to leave you for an instant."

And without waiting for a reply he left the room hurriedly, closing the door carefully after him. This brusque departure totally discountenanced the colonel.

"Oh!" he muttered, repeating in Spanish, though unconsciously, what the captain had said in French. "What can be the matter?"

As he was a true Mexican, fond of knowing everything, and, above all, of discovering anything people wished to keep secret from him, he rose gently, walked to the window, pulled the mosquito curtain aside, and looked out curiously into the yard. But it was labour in vain: the courtyard was deserted. He then returned on tiptoe to his seat, and began carelessly rolling a papelito, while muttering half aloud, —

"Patience! The man who knows how to wait always gains his end. I shall obtain the clue to this mystery sooner or later."

This aside having doubtlessly consoled him for the disappointment he had experienced, he philosophically lit his cigarette, and soon disappeared in the midst of a dense cloud of smoke which issued from his mouth and nostrils simultaneously. We will leave the worthy colonel enjoying this amusement at his ease, and follow de Laville, in order to explain to the reader the meaning of the exclamation that escaped from him on reading the paper which the peon so unexpectedly handed to him.

CHAPTER IX
DOÑA ANGELA

Before relating, however, what took place at Guetzalli between de Laville and the colonel, we must return to the adventurers' encampment.

Louis, still holding the maiden pressed to his breast, carried her to the interior of the hut of branches which his comrades had built for him at the entrance of the church. On arriving there he laid her in a chair, and seated himself on a stool. There was a long silence, during which both reflected deeply. A strange phenomenon took place in Louis' heart. In spite of himself he felt hope returning to his soul: he inhaled life through every pore – a desire to live came back to him. He thought of the future – that future he had wished to destroy in himself, by choosing as his mode of suicide the mad and rash expedition at the head of which he had placed himself.

The heart of man is made up of strange contrasts. The count had wrapped himself up in his grief; he had, as it were, settled it in his mind, living with it and through it, making it in his own eyes an excuse for justifying the line of conduct he had traced for himself, or rather which his foster brother had made him adopt, only desiring and accepting the bitterness of life, and disdainfully rejecting the joy and happiness it contains. Now, though unable to account for the extraordinary revolution that had taken place in him, he instinctively felt that grief he had so nurtured and petted growing: less, and ready to disappear, to make room for a gentle and dreamy melancholy, which, before he thought of wrestling with it and tearing it from his heart, had put forth such powerful roots that he felt it had seized on his whole being.

This new feeling was love. All passions are in the extreme, and, above all, illogical. Were they not so, they would no longer be passions. Don Louis loved Doña Angela. He loved her with the love of a man who has reached the confines which separate youth from age; that is, furiously and frenziedly. He loved her and hated her at the same time; for he was angry with this new love, which caused him to forget the old, and revealed to him that the heart of man may at times slumber, but never die. The empire the maiden held over him was the stronger and more powerful, because physically and morally she afforded the most striking contrast to Doña Rosaria, the gentle creature with angel's wings, the count's first love. Doña Angela's majestic and severe beauty, her impetuous and ardent character – all in her had seduced and subjugated the count. Hence he was angry at the power he had unconsciously allowed her to gain over his will, and blamed as a weakness unworthy of his character the reaction which this love had effected in his heart, by obliging him to recognise that it was still possible for him to be happy.

Louis was far from forming an exception in the great human family. All men are alike. When they have arranged their existence under the influence of any feeling, either of joy or grief, they take pleasure in the continual development of that feeling, convert it into a portion of their being, and intrench themselves behind it as in an impregnable fortress; and when, by some sudden blow, the edifice they have taken such pains to construct falls in ruins, they feel angry with themselves for not having known how to defend it, and, as a natural consequence, blame the innocent cause of this great overthrow.

While reflecting, the count had let his head sink on his breast, isolating himself in his thoughts, and plunging deeper and deeper into his sombre reverie, following instinctively the incline on which his mind was at the moment gliding. He raised his eyes, and fixed on Doña Angela a glance in which all the feelings that agitated him were reflected. The maiden was lying back, with her face buried in her hands: the tears were slowly dropping between her fingers, and resembled a dew of pearls. She was weeping gently and noiselessly: her breast heaved convulsively, and she seemed a prey to intense grief. The count turned pale. He rose hurriedly, and walked toward her.

At this sudden movement Doña Angela let her hands sink, and regarded Don Louis with such a gentle expression of resigned grief and true love, that the count felt a thrill of happiness flush through his body. Exhausted, overcome, he fell on his knees, murmuring in a panting and broken voice, —

"Oh! I love you – I love you!"

The maiden half rose from her seat, bent over him, and regarded him for a long time pensively. Suddenly she fell into his arms, laid her head on his shoulder, and began sobbing. The count, alarmed by this grief, the cause of which it was impossible for him to discover, gently put her back on her chair, sat down by her side, and took her hand, which he held between his own.

"Why these tears?" he asked her tenderly. "Whence comes this grief that oppresses you?"

"No, I am not weeping. Look!" she replied, trying to smile through her tears.

"Child, you conceal something from me – you have a secret!"

"A secret! That of my love. Did I not tell you that I love you, Louis?"

"Alas! and I, too, love you," he replied sorrowfully. "And yet I cannot think of that love without alarm."

"Why so if you love me?"

"If I love you, child! For you and your love I would sacrifice everything."

"Well?" she said.

"Alas, child! I am an accursed man. My love is deadly, and I tremble."

"What greater joy than to die for the man I love?"

"I am proscribed – a pirate, an outlaw."

She drew herself up proudly and haughtily, with frowning brow, dilated nostrils, and flashing eye.

"You are truly noble, Don Louis!" she almost shrieked in her excitement. "You have dreamed of the regeneration of an enslaved people. What do I care for the names given you, my friend? The day will come when brilliant justice will be done you." Then growing gradually calmer, she smiled tenderly. "You are proscribed, my poor darling," she said gently; "and is it not woman's mission in this world to support and console? The struggle you are about to undertake will be terrible. Your project is almost a madman's for grandeur and boldness: perhaps you will succumb in this struggle. You need, not a counsellor or a brother, but a woman friend whose soul understands yours; from whose heart your heart keeps no secrets; who consoles you, and cries 'Courage!' when you allow despair to master you, and when, like a vanquished Titan, you feel ready to retire. That faithful, devoted friend, ever watchful over you and for you, I will be, Don Louis – I who will never leave you, and who, if you fall, will fall by your side, struck by the same blow that crushed you."

"Thanks, child; but I am not worthy of such sublime devotion. Think of the painful existence you create for yourself – think of the pleasant calm and peaceful life you leave behind you, to affiance yourself to grief, perchance to death."

"What do I care for that? Death will be welcome if it come by your side. I love you!"

Don Louis hesitated.

"Think," he said presently, "of the immense grief of your father, whom you abandon – your father who loves you so dearly, and has only you – "

She laid her hand quickly on his lips.

"Be silent – be silent!" she screamed in a heart-rending accent. "Do not speak of my father. Why do you say that to me? Why augment my despair? I love you, Don Louis – I love you! Henceforth you are everything to me – fortune, parents, friends – all, I tell you. From the day when I first saw you, powerful and terrible as the exterminating angel, my heart fled toward yours. Something, a presentiment perhaps, revealed to me that our two destinies were for ever enchained to each other. When I saw you again my heart had divined you, but I remained in the shadow, for you did not need me; but now times are changed. You are betrayed, tracked, abandoned, by those whose interest it would have been to support you. The country you have come to deliver renounces you. My father, whose life you saved, has become your most implacable foe, because you spurned his offers, and would not serve his paltry and shameful ambition. Well, I, intrenching myself in my heart as in a fortress, have in my turn renounced my country, abandoned my father, and, like a true daughter of the Mexican volcanoes, feeling lava instead of blood coursing in my veins, bounding with indignation at the numberless acts of treachery which have begirt you on all sides – I have forgotten everything, even that modesty innate in maidens, and defying that world which I abhor and despise, because it rejects you, I have come to you to love you – to render sweeter the few days which are perhaps still left you to live; for I do not deceive myself as to the future any more than you do, Don Louis. And when the fatal hour arrives, when the hurricane bursts above your head, I shall be there to support you by my presence, to encourage you by my boundless love, and to die in your arms!"

There is in the woman who really loves, and whom passion masters, so grand a magnetic attraction, a poesy so powerful, that the man with the greatest self-restraint feels, in spite of himself, a species of voluptuous dizziness, and suddenly finds his reason desert him, only to see that love he inspires, and of which he is proud.

"But you wept, Angela," the count said. "Your tears are still flowing."

"Yes," she continued energetically, "I wept – I still weep. Well, cannot you guess why, Don Louis? It is because I am a woman, after all; because I am weak, and, in spite of all my will and all my love, my rebellious nature is struggling with my heart; and because, in order to follow you, and give myself up to you, I despise all that a woman ought to remember under such circumstances, confined as she is by the miserable claims of a puny civilisation, a slave to stupid proprieties, and compelled constantly to hide her feelings in order to play an infamous comedy. That is why I wept – why I still weep. But what matter these tears, my well-beloved? There is as much joy as shame in them, and they prove to you the triumph you have gained over me."

"Angela," the count answered nobly, "I will deceive neither your love nor your confidence. Your happiness will not depend on me."

She gave him a glance of sublime abnegation.

"Nothing but your love!" she said gently. "I want nothing but that. What do I care for aught else?"

"But I care that the woman who has given up all for me should not sink in public opinion, and be scandalised."

"What will you do?"

"Give you my name, my child – the only property left me. At any rate, if you are the companion of a pirate," he said bitterly, "no one shall reproach you with being his mistress. In the eyes of the world, I swear it to you, you shall be his wedded wife."

"Oh!" she said, clasping her hands in mad delight.

"Good, brother!" Valentine said as he entered the hut. "I will take on myself to have your union blessed by a simple-hearted priest, to whom the Gospel is not a dead letter, and who understands Christianity in all its gentle and touching grandeur."

"Thanks, Don Valentine."

"Call me brother, madam; for I am so to you, as I am his brother. You are a noble creature, and I thank you for the love you bear Don Louis. And now," he added, with a smile, "there will be a struggle between us: there are two of us to love him."

The count, his eyes filled with tears, but not finding words to express all he felt, held out his hands to these two beings, who were so good and so devoted, with an emotion that came from the heart.

"Now," Valentine said gaily, to change the conversation, "let us talk about business."

"Business!"

"By Jove!" the hunter said with a laugh, "it seems to me that, for the moment, what we have on hand is sufficiently important for us to trouble ourselves about it."

"That is true," Louis answered; "but can we, in the presence of this lady – "

"That is true: I did not think of that. I am so little accustomed to society, I trust the lady will pardon me."

"Permit me, gentlemen," she said with a smile: "a woman is often a good counsellor, and under present circumstances I believe I can be of some use to you."

"I do not doubt it," the hunter said politely; "but – "

"But you do not believe a word of it," she laughingly interrupted, her petulant character gaining the upper hand again. "However, you shall judge for yourselves."

"We are listening," the count said.

"My father is at this moment making great preparations: his object is to crush you before you are prepared to undertake a campaign. All the Indios Mansos capable of bearing arms are called out, and an extraordinary levy of troops is ordered through the whole of Sonora."

"Ah, indeed!" Louis observed. "Those are tremendous preparations."

"That is not all. Is there not somewhere near here a French colony?"

"Yes, there is," the count said, suddenly becoming serious; "the colony of Guetzalli."

"My father intends to send there, if he has not done so already, his aide-de-camp, Colonel Suarez."

"For what purpose?"

"I suppose to neutralise, by the brilliant promises made to the colonists, the assistance you might expect from them."

Louis became pensive.

"We must make up our minds," Valentine said sharply, "while the company is preparing, to open the campaign speedily. We must send some safe person to Guetzalli. As the colonists are French it is impossible for them not to make common cause with us in a quarrel like that which compels us to take up arms, and which concerns them as much as ourselves."

"You are right, brother. No more delay; but let us act vigorously. You will accompany me to Guetzalli."

"What do you mean?"

"It is only two days' journey at the most from here. It is always best to manage one's own business; and besides, nobody can obtain from the colonists so much as I can."

"How so?"

"That is too long a story to tell you now. It is enough for you to know that, on a recent occasion, I rendered rather a great service to the colony, which I hope they have not yet had time to forget."²

"Oh, oh! if that be the case, I no longer object. In truth, no one can have a better hope of succeeding in the negotiation than yourself. Let us go, then; and may Heaven aid us!"

"Let us go," Louis answered.

"Well," Doña Angela said with a smile, "did I not say I should be a good counsellor?"

"I never doubted it, madam," the hunter replied gallantly. "Besides, it could not be otherwise, as my brother assured us that you would be our guardian angel."

Don Louis, after handing the command over to the first lieutenant, and recommending the greatest activity and vigilance, announced to his comrades his temporary absence, though he did not reveal to them the object of his journey, in order not to discourage them in case his negotiation failed; and at sunset, followed only by Valentine, and after saying farewell to Doña Angela once more, he left the mission, and started at a gallop on the road to Guetzalli.