Gustave Aimard
The Smuggler Chief: A Novel
CHAPTER XXI
THE INDIAN CITY
Tcharanguii, the chief of the Jaos, had rejoined his warriors, after entrusting Inez and Maria de Soto-Mayor to the care of the Sayotkatta of Garakouaïti. Immediately after he had departed, the young ladies were imprisoned in the Jouimion Faré, inhabited by the Virgins of the Sun.
Although prisoners, they were treated with the greatest respect, according to the orders which Tcharanguii had given, and might perhaps have endured the weariness of their captivity with patience, had not a profound anxiety as to the fate reserved for them and an invincible sadness resulting from their brutal separation from those whom they loved, and the terrible circumstances under which they had left them, seized upon them.
It was then that the difference of character in the two sisters was displayed. Inez, accustomed to the eager attentions of the brilliant gentlemen who frequented her father's house, and to the enjoyment of the slothful and luxurious life which is that of all rich Spanish families, suffered on finding herself deprived of the delights and caresses by which her childhood had been surrounded, and, being incapable to resist the grief that devoured her, she fell into a state of discouragement and torpor, which she made no attempt to combat.
Maria, on the contrary, who found in her present condition but little change from her novitiate, while deploring the blow that struck her, endured it with courage and resignation. Her powerful mind accepted the misfortune as a chastisement for the fervent affection which she had devoted to Leon; but, confiding in the purity of that love, she had drawn from it the hope that she would one day emerge from the trial by the help of the man whom she loved, and who had rendered her aid and protection.
When the two sisters conversed together about the probabilities of deliverance, Inez trusted to the power of her father's name and fortune, while Maria contented herself with confiding in the bravery and intrepidity of the young smuggler chief who had escorted them up to the moment when they were carried off by the Indians. Inez did not understand what relations could exist between this captain and the future, and cross-questioned Maria; but the latter either did not answer the question or evaded it.
"In truth, sister," Inez said to her, "you incessantly speak about Captain Leon. Do you think then, that our father, Don Juan, and Don Pedro, who loves me and is going to marry me, cannot succeed without Leon in delivering us from the hands of the wicked Redskins who keep us prisoners here?"
"Sister Inez," Maria answered her, "I hope for the help of the smuggler, because he engaged to escort us to Valdivia, where we should arrive safely; and he is too honourable and brave a man not to set everything in motion to remedy the fatal event which has prevented him from keeping his word."
This last sentence was uttered by the maiden with so much conviction that Inez was surprised at it, and raised her eyes to her sister, who blushed beneath this searching glance. Inez said no more, but asked herself what could be the nature of the feeling which thus compelled her sister to defend a man whom she did not know, and whose relations with the family were of so low a nature. From that day no further allusion was made to Leon.
It is a strange fact, but one that is incontestably true, that priests, no matter to what country or religion they belong, are continually devoured by the desire of making proselytes. The Sayotkatta of Garakouaïti had not let the opportunity slip which appeared to offer itself in the persons of Inez and her sister. Endowed with a great mind, thoroughly convinced of the excellence of the religious principles which he professed; and, in addition, an obstinate enemy of the Spaniards, he conceived the plan of making the young ladies priestesses of the sun, so soon as they were entrusted to him by Tcharanguii.
In America there is no lack of such conversions; and though they may appear monstrous to us, they are perfectly natural in that country. He therefore prepared his batteries very artfully. The young ladies did not speak Indian; and he, on his side, did not know a word of Spanish; but this difficulty, apparently enormous, was speedily got over by Schymi-Tou.
He was related to a renowned warrior of the name of Meli-Antou (the four suns), whose wife, reared not far from Valdivia, spoke Spanish well enough to make herself comprehended. In spite of the law which interdicted the introduction of strangers into the Jouimion Faré, the high priest took it on himself to let Mahiaa (My Eyes), Meli-Antou's wife, visit the young ladies.
We can imagine the satisfaction which the latter must have felt on receiving the visit of someone who could talk with them, and help them to overcome the ennui in which they passed their whole time. The Indian squaw was welcomed as a friend, and her presence as a most agreeable distraction. But in the second interview they saw for what an interested object these visits were permitted, and a real tyranny succeeded the short conversations of the first days.
This was a permanent punishment for the maidens. As Spanish girls, and attached to the religion of their fathers, they could not at any price respond to the Sayotkatta's hopes, and still the squaw had not concealed from them, that in spite of the honeyed words and insinuating manners of Schymi-Tou, they must expect to suffer the most frightful torture if they refused to devote themselves to the worship of the Sun.
The prospect was far from being reassuring; hence, while pledging themselves in their hearts to remain faithful to the Catholic faith, the young girls experienced a deadly anxiety. Time slipped away, and the Sayotkatta was beginning to grow impatient at the slowness of the conversion; and the slight hopes which the maidens had retained of being able to escape the sacrifice demanded of them gradually abandoned them.
This painful situation, which was further aggravated by the absence of any news from outside, eventually produced an illness, whose progress was so rapid, that the Sayotkatta considered it prudent to suspend the execution of his ardent wish. Let us leave the unhappy prisoners almost congratulating themselves on the alteration which had taken place in their health, and which freed them from the annoyance to which they were subjected, and take up the thread of the events which happened to other persons who figure in this history.
A month after the arrival of Maria and Inez within the walls of Garakouaïti – that is to say, on a fine October evening – two men, whose features or dress it would have been impossible to distinguish owing to the obscurity, debouched from the forest which we previously described, and stopped for a moment with marked indecision upon the extreme verge of the wood.
Before them rose a mound, whose summit, though of no great elevation, cut the horizon in a straight line. After exchanging a few whispered words, the two travellers laid down on their stomach, and crawling on their hands and feet, advanced through the giant grass, which they caused to undulate, and which entirely concealed their bodies. On reaching the top of the mount, they looked down, and were struck with amazement.
The eminence on which they found themselves was quite perpendicular, as was the whole of the ridge that extended on their right and left. A magnificent plain stretched out a hundred feet beneath them, and in the centre of this plain – that is to say, at a distance of about a thousand yards – stood an Indian city, haughty and imposing, defended by a hundred massive towers and its stout walls.
The sight of this vast city produced a lively feeling of pleasure on the mind of the two men, for one of them turned to his comrade and said to him with an accent of indescribable satisfaction —
"That must be the city which Diego told me of: it is Garakouaïti! At last we have arrived."
"And it was not without trouble, captain," the other remarked, who was no other than Wilhelm; "we may compliment ourselves on it."
"What matter, since we have arrived?"
"Before the city, yes: but inside it, no."
Leon smiled.
"Don't be alarmed, comrade; I shall be inside tomorrow."
"I hope so, captain; but in the meanwhile I do not think it advisable to spend the night here in contemplating what there is at the base of this species of precipice, and I think we should not do wrong in returning to the forest, or seeking the road that leads to the place that lies before us."
"It is too late to dream of getting any nearer the city today. As for the road, we shall find it by bearing a little to the right, for the ground seems to trend in that direction."
"In that case, captain, we must put off the affair till tomorrow."
"Yes; and now let us return to the llama."
And joining action to words, Leon turned back, and exactly following the track which his body had left in the grass, he soon found himself – as did Wilhelm, who followed all his movements – once again on the skirt of the forest.
The silence which reigns at midday beneath these gloomy arches of foliage and branches had been succeeded by the hoarse sounds of a savage concert composed of the shrill cries of the nocturnal birds, which awoke, and prepared to dash at the loritos and hummingbirds belated far from their nests; of the yells of the pumas, and the hypocritical and plaintive miaulings of the tigers and panthers, whose echoes were hurled back in mournful notes by the roofs of the inaccessible caverns and the yawning pits which served as the lurking places of these dangerous guests.
Going back along the road which they had traced with the axe, the smugglers soon afterwards found themselves close to a fire of dead leaves and branches burning in the centre of a clearing. Some fifteen yards from them a magnificent llama, carelessly lying at the foot of a tree, watched them approach, and fixed on them its large eyes as melancholy and intelligent as those of a stag, though it did not appear at all astonished or startled by their presence.
"Well, Jemmy, my boy, you were not tired of waiting for us?" Wilhelm said, as he went up to the animal and patted it on the neck.
Leon threw a few branches on the fire, which was beginning to decay.
"On my honour, captain, I am not curious," the German continued, "but I should like to know what you intend doing with this llama which we have dragged after us for the last fortnight? Now that we have reached our journey's end, do you not think it time to kill and roast it?"
"For Heaven's sake, no, my friend; for if I have spared this llama, it is simply that it may serve me as a passport to enter the city which we saw just now."
"How so?"
"I will explain that to you tomorrow, till then let us keep up a good fire, as the wild beasts seem out of temper tonight, and sleep."
"Done for sleep!" the German answered, phlegmatically.
And without farther ceremony he prepared to obey his captain's orders. The latter, who felt that the hopes which he had conceived were on the point of being realized, was, as frequently happens in such cases, overcome by the fear that he had deceived himself in the supposition he had formed of the young ladies' captivity in the city of Garakouaïti. In vain did he recall the details which Diego had furnished him with about the customs of the Indians, and the art among others which they had of conveying to, and concealing in, the holy city everything they took from their enemies; the fear of being mistaken constantly reverted to his mind.
"Oh, no!" he said to himself, "I cannot have deceived myself; it is love which guides my footsteps, and I feel here," he continued, as he laid his hand on his chest, "something which tells me that I am going to see her again. Oh! see her, and then save her! It would be too great happiness, and I would give ten years of my life to be sure of success."
Then, following the current of his thoughts, Leon saw himself leading Maria back to the general, and receiving her hand as a recompense for the service which he had rendered him. Then, a moment after, he asked himself whether he could endure life hence-forward were he to fail in his plans; and, looking at the rifle he held, he vowed that it should help him not to survive his sorrow.
"Come," he said to himself, suddenly, "this is not the moment for doubt. Besides, if Maria is not in Garakouaïti, Diego will be there, or someone who can tell me where to find him; and in that case he must restore me her whom I love, for he swore that she should be sacred to him."
After the young man had to some extent regained the courage which had momentarily failed him, he removed from his brow the anxiety which had overshadowed it, and asked of sleep the calmness necessary for his thoughts and forgetfulness of his anxious cares. He therefore lay down by the side of Wilhelm, whose irregular snores added an additional note to the melody which the wild denizens of the forest were performing with a full orchestra.
The first beams of dawn had just begun to tinge the sky with a whitish reflection, when the smuggler captain opened his eyes and shook his comrade's arm. The latter turned – turned again – and at last awoke, suppressing an enormous yawn, which almost cleft his face to the ears —
"Hilloh, skulk!" Leon shouted to him, "make haste and get on your legs; for we have no time to lose. The red devils are still asleep, but they will soon spread over the plain, and they must not find us here."
"Let us decamp," Wilhelm replied, who had been quite restored by his long sleep; "I shall not be sorry to have a peep at an Indian city. It must be funny."
"My poor Wilhelm, in spite of all the desire I might have to procure you this satisfaction, I am compelled to beg you to abstain from it, because I have already told, I must go on alone."
"Der Teufel! But in that case what am I to do while waiting for you? for I do not suppose that you intend remaining any length of time in that confounded capital?"
"I will tell you. In the first place, help me to dress."
"Dress?"
"Yes; hang it all! Do you fancy I shall present myself at the city gates in Spanish costume?"
"What! are you going to disguise yourself?"
"Exactly."
"But as what?"
"As an Indian, you donkey."
"Oh! famous – famous!" Wilhelm exclaimed, bursting into a hearty laugh. "I'm your man."
"In that case make haste."
"I am ready, captain; I am ready."
The travestissement did not take long to effect; in a few minutes Leon took from his alforjas a razor, with which he removed his whiskers and moustache; and during this Wilhelm went to pluck a plant that grew abundantly in the forest. After extracting the juice, Leon, who had stripped off all his clothes, dyed his face and body with it.
Then Wilhelm drew on his chest, as well as he could, a tortoise, accompanied by some fantastic ornaments which had no warlike character about them, and which he reproduced on the face. He gave his magnificent black hair a whitish tinge, intended to make him look older than he really was, knotted it upon his head in the Indian fashion, and thrust into the knob the feather of an aras, which Leon had picked up some days previously in the forest, being careful to place it on the left side, in order to show that it adorned the head of a peaceful man, since the warriors are accustomed to fix their plumes in the centre of their top-knot. When these preparations were completed, Leon asked Wilhelm whether he could present himself among the Indians without risk?
"You are so like a redskin, captain, that, if I had not helped to transform you, I should not be able to recognise you, for you are really frightful."
"In that case, I have nothing to fear."
Leon, feeling once again in his alforjas, brought out his travelling case, and a small box of medicaments, which he always carried with him, a precious article to which he and his men had had recourse on many occasions; joining to these articles his pistols, he made the whole into a small packet, which he wrapped up in his poncho and fastened on the back of the llama, whose taming had so greatly excited Wilhelm's curiosity.
"Now," he said, addressing the German, "pay careful attention to what I am about to say to you."
"I am listening, captain."
"You will collect my clothes, and as soon as I have left the forest, start at once for the grotto, where I left Giacomo; our comrades must have reached it some days back. You have only twenty leagues to go, and the road is ready traced, since it cost us three weeks' labour; by travelling day and night, you can arrive soon."
"I will not lose an hour, captain."
"Good: you will tell Harrison where I am, and return here with all the men who have been enlisted at Valparaíso to reinforce our troops. Do you thoroughly understand?"
"Yes, captain."
"You will bring the horses with you, for they can pass. When you have all assembled at this spot, Harrison will place sentries in the environs day and night, while careful to hide them so that they cannot be noticed, and so soon as you hear the cry of the eagle of the Cordilleras, which I shall imitate, you will answer me, so that I may know your exact position; and if I repeat it twice, you will hold yourselves in readiness to help, for in that case I shall be attacked. You will remember all these instructions?"
"Perfectly, captain; and I will repeat them to you word for word."
"Good!" Leon resumed, after Wilhelm had repeated his orders word by word. "One thing more. It is possible that when I return I may bring two or three persons with me; do not be troubled by that, nor stir till you hear the agreed on signal."
"Yes, captain."
"Keep watch before all at night, for I shall probably leave the city after sunset."
"All right – a good guard shall be kept."
"And if I have not given the signal within a week, it will be because I am dead; and, in that case, you can be off and choose another chief, as you cannot hope to see Leon again."
"Oh! captain, do not say that."
"We must foresee everything, my worthy fellow; but I have hopes that, with the help of Heaven, nothing disagreeable will happen to me. Here is the day, and it is time to set out; so let us separate. Good-bye, my excellent Wilhelm, my trust is in you."
"Good-bye, captain, and distrust those scamps of Indians, for they are as treacherous as they are cowardly."
The two men shook hands, and Leon made his llama get up from the ground, while Wilhelm, after making a bundle of the clothes which his captain had bidden him remove, threw it on his shoulder with a desperate air, opened his enormous compasses of legs, and went off into the forest with long strides, and a melancholy shake of the head. Leon looked after him for a moment.
"It is, perhaps, the last friendly face that I shall ever see," he said to himself, with a sigh.
A moment after he resolutely raised his head.
"The die is cast, and I will go on."
Then, assuming the quiet, careless slouch of an Indian, he went slowly toward the plain, followed by his llama, though continually looking searchingly around him.
CHAPTER XXII
THE JAGOUAS OF THE HUILICHES
In the sparkling beams of the sun which had risen radiant, the great landscape which Leon was passing through assumed a really enchanting appearance. Nature was, so to speak, animated, and a varied spectacle had taken the place of the gloomy and solitary aspect which it had offered on the previous evening to the captain and his comrade.
From the gates of the city, which were now open, poured forth groups of Indians, mounted and on foot, who scattered in all directions with shouts of joy and bursts of noisy laughter. Numerous canoes dashed about the river, and the fields were peopled with flocks of llamas and vicunas, guided by Indians armed with long wands, who were proceeding to the city from their neighbouring farms.
Strangely-attired women, sturdily bearing on their heads long wicker baskets filled with meat, fruit, or vegetables, walked along conversing together and accompanying each sentence with that continued sharp metallic laugh of which the Indian tribes have the secret, and whose sound bears a near resemblance to that which the fall of a number of pebbles on a copper dish would produce.
Leon, who, by the aid of his new exterior, could examine at his leisure all that was taking place around him, looked curiously at the animated picture which he had before his eyes; but what most fixed his attention was a troop of horsemen in their war paint, armed with the enormous Molucho lances, which they wield with such great dexterity, and whose wounds are so dangerous. All, also, carried a slung rifle, a lasso at their girdle, and advanced at a trot in the direction of the city; they seemed to have come from the opposite direction to the one by which Leon was arriving.
The numerous persons scattered over the plain stopped to gaze at them; and Leon, taking advantage of this circumstance, hurried on so as to be mixed up with the curious crowd. The horsemen still advanced at the same pace, not noticing the attention which they excited, and arrived within fifty yards of the principal gate, where they halted. At the same moment three men quitted the city at a gallop, crossed in two bounds the bridge thrown across the moat, and came to join them.
Three warriors came out of the ranks of the troop to which we have alluded, and approached them. After a short conversation all six horsemen rejoined the squadron, which started once again, and entered the town with it. Leon, who followed them, reached the gate at the moment when the last men of the detachment disappeared within the city. Assuming the most careless air he could, although his heart beat as if to break his chest, he presented himself in his turn to enter. After crossing the wooden bridge with a firm step, he entered the gateway, where a lance was levelled at his breast and barred his passage.
An Indian of lofty stature, to whom his grey hair and the numerous wrinkles on his face imparted a certain character of gentleness, cleverness, and majesty, advanced with measured steps, and looked attentively at him.
"My brother is welcome at Garakouaïti," he said to Leon. "What does my brother desire?"
"Yourana," answered Leon, who, thanks to the life he had led in the Pampas, talked Indian with as much facility as his mother tongue – "is my father a chief?"
"I am a chief," the Indian answered.
"My father can question me," Leon said.
"My brother seems to have come a long distance?" the other went on, looking at the smuggler's worn boots.
"I left my tribe four moons back."
"Which is my brother's tribe?"
"I am a son of the Huiliches."
"Matai. My brother is not a warrior. I can see."
"My father is right; I am a Jagouas."
"Good! my brother is beloved by Chemiin."
Leon bowed, but said nothing.
"And where are the hunting grounds of my brother's tribe situated?"
"On the banks of the Great Salt Lake."
"And why has my brother left his tribe?"
"To come to Garakouaïti to exercise the skill with which Chemiin has endowed me, and to adore Agriskoui in the magnificent temple which the piety of the Indians has raised to him in the city of the sun."
"Very good! my brother is a wise man."
Leon bowed a second time to this compliment, although his anxiety was extreme, and he knew not how the examination he was undergoing would terminate.
"What is my brother's name?" the Indian asked.
"Cari-Lemon," Leon at once answered.
"My brother is truly a man of peace," the other remarked, with a smile. "I," he added, drawing himself up haughtily, "am called Meli-Antou."
"My father is a great chief."
It was Meli-Antou's turn to bow with superb modesty on receiving this flattering qualification.
"My skill supports the world: I am a son of the sacred tribe of the great Chemiin."
"My father is blessed in his race."
"My brother will follow me, and my house will be his during the period that he sojourns in Garakouaïti."
"I am not worthy to shake the dust of my moccasins off on the threshold of his door," Leon replied, modestly.
"Chemiin blesses those who practise hospitality. My brother Cari-Lemon is the guest of a chief; he will therefore follow me."
"I will follow my father, since such is his wish."
And he began walking behind the old Indian, delighted in his heart at having escaped so well from the first trial. Before starting, Meli-Antou entrusted to another Indian the post which he occupied at the city gate, and then turned to Leon.
"Arami!" he said to him.
Both, without further remark, proceeded toward the house inhabited by the chief, which was at the other extremity of Garakouaïti. The European, accustomed to the tumult, bustle, and confusion of the streets of the old world, which are constantly encumbered with vehicles of every description and busy passers-by, who run against each other and jostle at every step, would be strangely surprised at the sight of the interior of an Indian city.
There are no noisy thoroughfares bordered by magnificent shops, offering to the curiosity and covetousness of buyers or rogues, superb and dazzling specimens of European trade. There are no carriages – not even carts; the silence is only troubled by the footfall of a few passers-by who are anxious to reach their homes, and walk with the gravity of savants or of magistrates in all countries. The houses, which are all hermetically closed, do not allow any sound from within to be heard outside. Indian life is concentrated. The manners are patriarchal, and the public way is never, as among us, the scene of disputes, quarrels, or fights.
The dealers assemble in immense bazaars until midday, and sell their wares – that is to say, their fruit, vegetables, and quarters of meat, for any other trade is unknown among the Indians, as every family weaves and manufactures its own clothing and the objects which it requires. When the sun has attained one-half of its course, the bazaars are closed, and the Indian traders, who all live in the country, quit the city only to return on the morrow.
Everybody has by that time laid in the provisions for the day. Among the Indians the men never work: the women undertake the purchases, the household duties, and the preparation for everything that is indispensable for existence. The men hunt or make war. The payment for what is bought and sold is not effected as among us, by means of coins, which are only accepted by the Indians on the seaboard who traffic with Europeans, but by means of a free exchange, which is carried on by all the tribes residing in the interior of the country. This system is exceedingly simple: the buyer exchanges some object for the one which he wishes to acquire: and nothing more is said.
The two men, after walking right through Garakouaïti, at length reached the lodge of Meli-Antou, in which happened to be Mahiaa, his squaw, whom our readers know as the Indian woman whom the Sayotkatta had placed with General Soto-Mayor's daughters, in order to aid in their conversion to the worship of the Sun. Since the illness of the young ladies she had suspended her visits to the Jouimion Faré, but intended to renew them so soon as she received instructions to that effect.
She was a woman of about thirty years of age, though she looked at least fifty. In these regions, where growth is so rapid, a woman is generally married when she is twelve or thirteen. Continually forced to undertake rude tasks, which in other countries fall to the men, their freshness soon disappears, and on reaching the age of thirty, they are attacked by a precocious decrepitude which, twenty years later, makes hideous and repulsive beings of women who, in their youth, were generally endowed with great beauty and exquisite grace, of which many European ladies might be fairly jealous.
Mahiaa, seated cross-legged on a mat of Indian corn straw, was grinding wheat between two stones. By her side stood two female slaves, belonging to that bastard race to which we have already referred, and to whom the title of savage is applicable. At the moment when Leon entered the lodge, Mahiaa and her women looked up curiously at him.
"Mahiaa," said Meli-Antou to his squaw, as he laid his hand on the captain's shoulder, "this is my brother Cari-Lemon, the great Jagouas of the Huiliches; he will dwell with us."
"My brother Cari-Lemon is welcome to the lodge of Meli-Antou," the squaw replied, with a rather sweet smile. "Mahiaa is his slave."
"Will my mother permit me to kiss her feet?" said Leon.
"My brother will kiss my face!" the chiefs wife replied, as she offered her cheek to Leon, who respectfully touched it with his lips.
"Will my son take maté?" Mahiaa continued. "Maté relieves the traveller's parched throat."
The introduction was over. Meli-Antou sat down, while his wife ordered her slaves to unload the llama and lead it to the corral, after which the maté was served. Leon, while imbibing the favourite beverage of the Spaniards and Indians, looked at the house in which he now was. It was a rather spacious square room, whose whitewashed walls were adorned with human scalps, and a rack of weapons, kept remarkably clean. Folded up puma skins and ponchos were piled up in a corner, until they were arranged as beds. Wooden chairs, excessively low and carved with some degree of art, furnished this room, in the centre of which stood a table, only some fifteen inches above the ground.
This interior, which is very simple, as we see, is reproduced in all the Indian lodges; which are composed of six rooms. The first of these is the one which we have just described, and the one in which the family generally keep. The second is set aside for the children. The third is used as a bedroom. The fourth contains the looms, which are made of bamboo, and display an admirable simplicity of mechanism. The fifth contains provisions of every description; and lastly, the sixth is set apart for the slaves. As for the kitchen there is none, for the food is prepared in the corral, that is to say, in the open air. Chimneys are equally unknown, and each room is warmed by means of an earthenware brasero.
