Gustave Aimard
The Insurgent Chief

CHAPTER IX
IN THE MOUNTAIN

It was about three o'clock in the afternoon when Emile Gagnepain left the camp. Notwithstanding the rather suspicious escort by which he was accompanied, it was with a sigh of satisfaction that the young man at last saw himself clear of this repair of bandits, from which at one time he feared he should never again set out.

The route which the little caravan followed was most picturesque and varied. A narrow path wound on the side of the mountains, almost always close to unfathomable precipices, from the base of which arose mysterious murmurs produced by invisible waters. Sometimes a bridge formed by two trunks of trees thrown across a chasm, which suddenly interrupted the route, was crossed, as if in play, by horses and mules for a long time accustomed to walk over routes more perilous still.

Obliged to travel one behind the other, owing to the narrowness of the scarcely traced path which they were pursuing, the travellers could not talk to each other; it was scarcely possible for them to exchange a few words, and they were constrained to abandon themselves to their own thoughts, or to charm the weariness of the journey by singing or whistling. It was in thus examining the abrupt and wild landscape by which he was surrounded that the young man formed a good idea of the formidable and almost impregnable position chosen by the partisan for his headquarters, and the great influence that this position must give him over the dismayed inhabitants of the plain. He shuddered as he thought of the imprudence he had committed in allowing himself to be taken to this fortress which, like the infernal circles of Dante, was by nature surrounded by impassable intrenchments, and which never gave up the prey that had once been drawn into it. A crowd of melancholy stories of young girls, who had been carried away and had disappeared, recurred to his mind, and, by a strange reaction of thought, he experienced a kind of retrospective turn – if we may be allowed the expression – in thinking of the terrible dangers that he had run in the midst of these lawless bandits, by whom, in many instances, the law of nations – sacred among all civilised peoples – had not been respected.

Then, from reflection to reflection – by a very natural gradation – his mind fixed itself on the ladies whom he had left without support or protection in the midst of these men. Although he had only left them with the design of attempting a last effort for their deliverance, his conscience reproached him for having abandoned them; for, notwithstanding the absolute impossibility of his being useful to them at Casa-Frama, he was convinced that his presence was a check upon the Pincheyras, and that before him none of them would have dared to have subjected the captives to any brutal act.

A prey to these painful thoughts, he felt his spirits sadden by degrees, and the joy that he had at first experienced on seeing himself so unexpectedly at liberty gave place to the despondency which several times already had seized on him, and had destroyed his energy.

He was drawn from these reflections by the voice of Don Santiago, which suddenly fell upon his ear.

The young man quickly raised his head, and looked round him like a man suddenly awakened.

The landscape had completely changed. The path had by degrees become broader, and had assumed the appearance of a regular route; the mountains were lower; their sides were now covered with verdant forests, the leafy summits of which were tinted with all the colours of the rainbow by the mild rays of the setting sun. The caravan emerged at this moment into a rather extensive plain, surrounded by thick shrubbery and traversed by a narrow stream, the capricious meanderings of which were lost here and there in the midst of high and thick grass.

"What do you want?" asked the Frenchman, who, susceptible like all artists, had become absorbed, unknown to himself, by the influence of this majestic landscape, and felt gaiety replace the sadness which had for a long time oppressed him; "What do you want now, Don Santiago?"

"The devil!" exclaimed the latter; "It is fortunate that you have at last consented to answer me. For more than quarter of an hour I have been speaking to you without getting a word out of you. It seems as if you had been sound asleep, companion."

"Pardon me, Señor, I was not asleep; I was reflecting, which is often much about the same."

"¡Demonio! I will not quibble about that; but as you now consent to listen to me, will you be so good as to answer me?"

"I am quite agreeable; but that I may do so, it will be necessary, my dear Don Santiago, to repeat your question, of which I assure you I have not heard a word."

"I will do so, although, without exaggeration, I have done so at least ten times to no purpose."

"I have already begged you to excuse me."

"I know it, and I therefore will not be offended at your inattention. This is what I have to say: it is at least six o'clock; the sun is setting amidst coppery clouds of the worst kind; I fear a storm tonight."

"Oh! Oh!" exclaimed the young man; "Are you sure of that?"

"I have too much acquaintance with these mountains to be deceived."

"Hum! And what do you intend to do?"

"That is what I ask; that concerns you at least as much as me, I suppose."

"Just so – even more, since it is for my sake that you have agreed to accompany me. Well, what is your advice. I will at once adopt the expedients that your experience may suggest, and accept them without question."

"That is what I call speaking, and your answer is none the worse for making me wait for it. My advice, then would be to stop here, where we can – unless there is a deluge impossible to foresee – place ourselves under shelter from the hurricane, and camp for the night. What do you think of it?"

"I think that you are right, and that it would be folly, under circumstances like those, considering the advanced hour – especially the charming spot where we are – to persist in going further."

"Especially as it would be almost impossible for us to reach as good a refuge as this, before it is quite dark."

"Let us stop, then, without further discussion, and let us hasten to make our encampment."

"Well, dear Señor, as it is to be so, alight and let us unload the mules."

"Very good," said the young man, leaping from his horse – a movement immediately imitated by the Pincheyra.

Don Santiago had spoken truly. The sun was setting, drowned in waves of dull clouds; the evening breeze was rising with some force; the birds wheeled in large circles, uttering discordant cries – everything, in fact, foretold one of those terrible hurricanes called temporales, the violence of which is so great that the country over which they wreak their vengeance is in a few minutes completely changed and thrown into disorder, as if an earthquake had shattered it.

The painter had several times, since his arrival in America, been in a position to witness the terrifying spectacle of these frightful convulsions of nature in labour. Knowing the inconvenience of the danger then, he hastened to prepare everything, so that the tempest might do as little damage as possible. The baggage piled together in the centre of the valley, not far from the stream, formed a solid rampart against the greatest fury of the wind; the horses were left free and abandoned to that infallible instinct with which Providence has endowed them, and which in giving them a foreknowledge of the danger, suggests to them the means of escaping from it. Then, in a hole dug in haste, they lit the fire for cooking the slices of charqui, or wild bull's flesh dried in the sun, destined, with the harina tostada and a little queso of goat's flesh, for the evening meal. The water from the brook served to satisfy the thirst of the travellers, for, except Don Santiago and the painter, who were each provided with a large bota of white brandy, they did not carry with them either wine or liqueurs; but this forgetfulness, if it really was such, was of little importance for men of such great frugality as the Hispano-Americans – people who live, so to speak, on nothing, and whose hunger or thirst is appeased by the first thing which offers itself.

The meal was what it should be among men who expect from one moment to another to see a terrible and inevitable danger fall upon them – that is to say, sorrowful and silent. Each ate in haste, without holding conversation with his neighbour; then, hunger satisfied and the cigarette lighted, the travellers, without even wishing good night to each other, enveloped themselves in their frazadas and their pellones, and tried to sleep with that placid resignation which forms the foundation of the character of the Creoles, and makes them accept without useless murmurs the frequently disastrous consequences of the nomadic life to which they are condemned.

Soon, with the exception of the three or four sentinels placed on the outskirts of the encampment, in order to guard against the approach of wild beasts, and the two chiefs of the caravan – that is to say, Don Santiago and Emile – all were plunged into deep sleep.

The Pincheyra appeared thoughtful; he smoked his cigarette, his back leaning on a trunk of a tree, and his eyes directed straight forward, without looking on any object. The Frenchman, on the contrary, more wakeful and more gay than ever, was humming a tune and amusing himself by digging with the point of a knife a hole in which he piled some dry wood, evidently intending to light a watch fire to warm his feet, when he felt inclined to go to sleep.

"Eh! Don Santiago," said he at last, addressing Pincheyra, and touching him lightly on the shoulder, "what are you thinking of now? Is it that you are not going to try and sleep for a couple of hours?"

The Chilian shook his head without answering.

"What does it matter?" pursued the young man persistently – "You, who a little while ago reproached me for my melancholy – you seem to have inherited it, upon my word. Is it the weight of the atmosphere that influences you?"

"Do you take me for a woman?" answered he at last, in a surly tone; "What matters to me the state of the sky? Am I not a child of the mountains, accustomed from my infancy to brave the most terrible storms?"

"But, then, what is it that distresses you?"

"What is it? Do you wish to know?"

"Pardieu! Since I ask it."

Don Santiago shook his head, threw around him a suspicious look, and then at last made up his mind to speak in a low and almost indistinct voice, as if he feared to be heard, although all his companions were asleep at too great a distance for the sound of his voice to reach them.

"I have," said he, "but one thing which vexes me."

"You, Don Santiago – you much astonish me; can it be that you are on bad terms with your brother, Don Pablo?"

"My brother, it is true, has something to do with the affair, but with him personally I have no misunderstanding – at least I believe so, for with him one never knows how to act; no, it is only on your account that I am chagrined just now."

"On my account!" cried the young man with surprise, "I confess I do not understand you."

"Speak lower; there is no occasion for our companions to hear what we say. Look you, Don Emile, I wish to be frank with you. We are about to separate, perhaps never to see one another again – and I hope, for your sake, it may be so. I wish our parting to be friendly, and that you should not entertain any ill feeling against me."

"I assure you, Don Santiago – "

"I know what I say," interrupted he, with some vivacity; "you have rendered me a great service. I cannot deny that, to a certain extent, I owe my life to you, for when I met you in the cavern of the rancho my position was almost desperate; well, I have not, in appearance, conducted myself towards you as I ought to have done. I engaged myself to shelter you and yours from the danger which threatened you, and I have conducted you to Casa-Frama, when I ought, on the contrary, to have taken you in quite an opposite direction. I know that I have acted badly in this aspect, and you have a right to entertain ill feeling to me. But I was not free to do otherwise. I was forced to obey a will stronger than my own – the will of my brother – whom no one has ever dared to resist. Now, I acknowledge my fault, and I wish as much as possible to repair the evil I have done, and that I have allowed to be done."

"That is speaking like a caballero and a man of heart, Don Santiago. Be assured that, come what may, I shall be pleased at what you tell me at this moment; but, since you have begun so well, do not leave me any longer in the painful doubt in which I now am; answer me sincerely, will you?"

"Yes, as far as it depends on me."

"The ladies that I have been obliged to abandon, do they run any danger at present?"

"I think so."

"On the part of your brother?"

"Yes, on his, and others also. These two strangers have implacable enemies bent on their destruction."

"Poor women!" murmured the young man, sighing; "They will not, then, leave the camp?"

"Yes; tomorrow, at sunrise, they will quit it, escorted by the officer who, in our presence, claimed them of my brother."

"Do you know that officer?"

"A little."

"Who is he?"

"That I cannot say; I have sworn not to reveal it to anyone."

The Frenchman saw that he must not persist, so he modified his questions.

"What route will they take?" asked he.

"That which we are following."

"And they are going – "

"Towards the Brazilian frontier."

"So they will rejoin General Castelmelhor?"

The Pincheyra shook his head negatively.

"Then why take this direction?"

"I do not know."

"And, nevertheless, you think that danger threatens them?"

"Terrible."

"Of what kind?"

"I do not know."

The young man stamped his foot with vexation. These continual reticences on the part of the partisan disquieted him more than the truth, so frightful that he kept watching out to hear it.

"So," pursued he, after a pause, "supposing I remain here for some time, I shall see them."

"There is no doubt of it."

"What do you advise?"

"Me?"

"Yes."

"Nothing; I am not, like you, in love with Doña Eva," said he, with a certain tinge of raillery which made the young man start.

"In love with Doña Eva!" – cried he – "I!"

"What other motive could induce you, with all the chances against you, to risk your life to save her, if it were not so."

The young man did not answer. A light flashed suddenly on his mind. That secret, which he had hid from himself, others knew it; and when he did not dare to question himself on this insensate love which burned within him, the certainty of its existence was discovered even by strangers.

"Oh!" stammered he at last; "Don Santiago, do you think me capable of such a folly?"

"I do not know if it is a folly to love when one is young and ardent as you are," coldly answered the Pincheyra. "I have never loved but my horse and my gun; but I know well that the love of two young and handsome beings is a law of nature, and that I do not see what reason you should have to try and escape from it I do not blame you or approve you; I state a fact – that is all."

The young painter was astonished to hear a man speak thus who, up to that time, he had supposed to be endowed with a very moderate share of intelligence, and all whose aspirations seemed to him directed towards war and pillage. This half savage, uttering with so careless an air sentiments so humanely philosophic, seemed to him an incomprehensible phenomenon.

The Pincheyra, without appearing to notice the impression that he had produced on his companion, continued quietly —

"The officer who escorts these ladies, not only is ignorant of your love for the youngest of the two ladies, but he is not even aware that you know them. For particular and personal reasons, my brother has thought proper to keep silence on that subject. I give you this information, the correctness of which I guarantee, because it will be of service to you in case of need."

"Now, it is too late."

"Don Emile, know this – that immediately after our conversation my companions and I will withdraw, for our mission is terminated; and if I have remained so long with you, it is because I decided to tell you certain things."

"I thank you for it."

"Well, I am certain that you will not quit this place without having tried, not only to see these ladies again, but to carry them off from those who have them in charge – which, for that matter, would not be impossible, since they will be but a dozen at the most. I wish you good fortune from the bottom of my heart, for I like you. Only, take my advice – act with prudence; cunning has united more bonds than force has broken. Follow the counsel that I give you, and I hope that you will find it good. Now we must separate; I have, if not repaired, at least lessened the serious consequences of the fault I have been obliged to commit. Let us part as two friends. The only hope that I have is, that we shall never see one another again."

"What! You are going to set out in the midst of darkness when we are threatened with a storm!"

"It must be, Don Emile. I am expected there. My brother is preparing an important expedition, in which I ought, and wish, to assist. As to the storm, it will not burst for two or three hours, and, terrible as it may be, it is too old an acquaintance for me not to know how to defend myself from it. Adieu, then, and once more – good fortune! Whatever happens, silence on what I have said! Now, wrap yourself in your poncho, and feign to sleep till I have given the signal for my men to depart."

The young man followed the counsel which had been given to him; he rolled himself in his mantle and stretched himself on the ground.

When Don Santiago was assured that nothing would arouse suspicion as to the conversation which had just taken place, he rose, stretched his limbs to freshen himself up, and, taking a whistle suspended to his neck by a little silver chain, he gave a shrill and prolonged call with it.

The horsemen immediately raised their heads.

"Come, boys!" cried the Pincheyra in a loud voice, "Up and saddle your horses, we return to Casa-Frama."

"What! You leave us at this hour, Señor Don Santiago?" asked the young man, feigning to be awakened by the sound of the whistle.

"It must be so, Señor," answered he; "our escort is not necessary to you, and we have a long journey to make if we would reach Casa-Frama before sunrise."

Meanwhile, the Pincheyras had with alacrity obeyed the order which they had received; they had risen and had proceeded to get ready and saddle their horses.

By accident apparently, but no doubt as planned by Don Santiago, the sentinels who were charged with watching over the common safety were the two gauchos and the Guaraní, so that he was certain that the secret of his conversation with the Frenchman would not transpire.

In a few minutes the horsemen were in the saddles. The Pincheyra put himself at their head, and, turning towards Emile, making him a friendly salute with the hand —

"Adieu, Señor, and good fortune!" said he significantly.

"The painter returned his cordial salute, and the little troop set out. It soon disappeared at the turn of the path. The sound of its steps gradually lessened, and before long had ceased altogether. When silence was completely re-established, Emile made a sign to his companions.

"Now that we are alone, Señores," said he, "let us talk, for affairs are serious. Tyro, light the fire; we will hold counsel in the Indian fashion."

The Guaraní gathered some dry wood, piled it carefully, struck a light, and soon a slight column of flame rose brightly in the air.

A death-like silence reigned in the valley; the breeze had died away; there was not a sound in the air; the sky, black as ink, had not a single star; nature appeared to be gathering all her powers for a terrible strife of the elements; from the unexplored depths of the chasms dull and mysterious sounds sometimes rose, mingling at intervals with the low growl of beasts going to seek water.

The four men crouched round the fire, lit their cigarettes, and the young man talked to them, telling them what he thought advisable of the conversation which had taken place between him and Don Santiago.

"Now," added he, "answer me frankly; can I count on you for all that I think proper to do?"

"Yes," answered they with one voice.

"Whatever happens?"

"Whatever happens."

"Well, I shall not be ungrateful; the reward shall equal the services; now, if you have any observations to submit, I am ready to hear them."

The gauchos, peculiarly men of action, and not by nature great talkers, contented themselves by saying that when the moment for action arrived they would be ready – that they had nothing to say on the mode of proceeding – that that did not concern them.

"That is right," said Tyro. "Go to sleep, my braves, and leave us – the Señor, our master and I, agree on what is best to be done."

The gauchos did not require this to be repeated; they rose and proceeded to stretch themselves amongst the baggage: a few minutes later, and they were sound asleep.

Emile and the Guaraní, who alone were awake, held a long and serious conversation, and arranged a plan which it is needless to state here.