Майн Рид
The Guerilla Chief, and Other Tales

Story 1, Chapter XX
A Cuadrilla of Salteadores

Sudden as it was, and unexpected, there was no mystery in my capture. I had fallen into the hands of Mexicans, and, of course, enemies.

It was a party of horsemen, about forty in number – irregularly armed, but all armed one way or another. They must have seen me as I advanced up the long opening among the trees, though I had no idea that I had been observed by human eye.

Perhaps they had not seen me, but only received warning of my approach by hearing the hoof-strokes of my horse; or they might have seen the steed I was in pursuit of, before mine had made its appearance in the avenue.

At all events, they had been made aware of my coming in some way, and had thrown themselves into an ambush on both sides of the path.

Improbable as it might appear, I could not help fancying that the grey mustang had been sent forth as a “stool pigeon,” so well had the creature succeeded in decoying me into their midst.

I scrambled over the ground, and at length managed to recover my legs. On looking up, I saw that I was surrounded; and felt, moreover, that, although permitted to regain my feet, I was still tightly held in the loops of numerous lazos, which encircled my neck, arms, waist, and limbs.

Any attempt to get away from such multifarious fastenings would have been worse than idle, and could only result in my being plucked off my feet again, and perhaps treated with greater rudeness than before.

Knowing this, I surrendered without making the least movement or resistance.

It was a motley group in whose midst I stood: in this respect equalling a party of Guy Fawkes mimers. No two were dressed exactly alike, though there was a general similitude of costume among them, especially in the particular articles of broad-brimmed hats, and wide-legged trowsers of velveteen.

Some of them had serapés hanging scarf-like over their shoulders; but all were armed with long knives (machetés), and lances; I could also see short guns (escopetas) strapped along the sides of their saddles.

“A guerilla,” I muttered to myself, thinking I had fallen among a hand of guerilleros.

I was soon undeceived, and found I had not been so fortunate. The ruffian countenances of my captors – as soon as I had time to scrutinise them more closely – the coarse jests and ribald language passing between them, along with some other professional peculiarities – told me that, instead of a band of partisans, I was in the clutches of a cuadrilla of salteadores– true robbers of the road!

My observation of the fact was not calculated to tranquillise my spirits, but the contrary. As a general rule, the bandits of Mexico are not bloodthirsty. If the purse be freely delivered up to them, they have no object in ill-treating the person of their captives. It is only when the latter show ill-humour, or attempt resistance, that their lives are in danger.

At that time, however, with the country in a state of active war – with a hated enemy marching victorious along its roads – some of the outlawed chiefs had become inspired with a sort of sham patriotism – in most instances for the purpose of being left free to plunder, or else with the design of obtaining pardon for past offences. Though occasionally acting as guerilleros, and attacking the wagon trains of the American army, their patriotism was of a very ambiguous order; and not unfrequently were their own countrymen the victims of their despoiling propensities.

In one respect only did this patriotism display itself with partiality, and that was in the ferocity with which they treated such American prisoners as had the misfortune to fall into their hands. Horrible mutilations were common – with all the vindictive modes of punishment known to the lex talionis.

I could easily believe, while regarding the ferocious faces around me, that I was in great danger of some fearful fate: perhaps to be drawn and quartered; perhaps burnt alive; perhaps – I knew not what – I could only conjecture something terrible.

After I had been pulled about for some minutes, and rudely abused by several of the band, a man made his appearance in their midst, who seemed to exert over the others some species of authority. The word “capitan,” pronounced by several as he came forward, told me that he was the chief of the robbers; and his appearance entitled him to the distinction.

He was a man of large frame, and swarthy complexion – heavily bearded and moustached. His dress was splendid in the extreme – being a full suit of ranchero costume, with all its ornamental trimming of gold lace, bell-buttons, and needlework embroidery.

The countenance of this man might have been handsome, but for an expression of ferocity that pervaded it; and this was so marked as at once to impress the beholder with the belief that it was the face of a fiend rather than of a human being.

A row of white teeth glistened under his coal-black moustache; and these, as he came near the spot where I was held captive, were displayed, in what was intended for a smile of gratification, but which had all the characteristics of a grin.

I supposed at first that this gratification simply proceeded from his having made prisoner one of the enemies of his country. I had no idea that it could by any possibility have especial reference to myself.

One thing, however, struck me as peculiar. When the brigand spoke – addressing some words of direction to his subordinates – I fancied I had heard his voice before!

It fell on my ears without producing an agreeable impression. Rather the contrary; but where I could have heard it, or why it should jar upon my ear, were questions I could not answer.

I had been a good deal among Mexicans of all classes – not only since the capture of Vera Cruz, but long before the commencement of the campaign. My knowledge of their language had naturally inducted me into a more extensive acquaintance with our enemies than was the lot of most of my comrades. For this reason it did not follow that the sound of a familiar voice should lead to the instant recognition of the man who uttered it – more especially as he from whom it proceeded was before my eyes in propria persona– the chief of a band of salteadores.

I scanned the robber’s face with as much minuteness as circumstances would permit. I could not perceive in it a single feature that I remembered ever to have seen before.

Perhaps I was mistaken about the voice?

I listened to hear it again. Not long was I kept waiting. Once more it was raised; not, as before, in words addressed to the salteadores who surrounded me, but to myself.

“Ho, cavallero!” cried the robber chief, coming up to the spot where I stood, and speaking in a tone of triumphant exultation; “you are welcome among us – the more especially as I owe you a revanche for the little bit of service you did me last night. If I am not mistaken, it is to your bullet I am indebted for this.”

As the brigand spoke, he threw back upon his shoulders the closed folds of his manga, exposing his right arm to my view. I saw that it was carried in a sling, and that the hand, protruding beyond the scarf that supported it, was wrapped in cotton rags, that were stained with blotches of dry blood!

My memory needed no further refreshing. No wonder that the bandit’s voice had fallen upon my ears with a familiar sound. It was the same I had heard only the night before, giving utterance to that hideous threat of which I had hindered the fulfilment – the same that had cried, “Die, Calros Vergara!”

No additional explanation was required. I stood in the presence of Ramon Rayas!

“How feel you now?” continued the robber, in a taunting tone, not unmingled with fierce bitterness. “Don Quixote of the modern time! You, the protector of female innocence! Ha! ha! ha!”

“Ah,” cried he, turning round, and fixing his eyes upon my beautiful horse – held captive, like myself, by half a score of lazos. “Por Dios! You have the advantage of La Mancha’s knight in your mount. A steed fit for a salteador! He will suit me, as if he had been foaled on purpose.

“Ho there, Santucho!” he cried out to one of his band, who was holding Moro by the bridle-rein. “Off with that stupid saddle, and replace it with my own. I just wanted such a horse. Thank you, Señor Americano! You can have mine in exchange; and you will be the more welcome to him since you have only one more ride to make before making that great leap that will launch you into the gulf of eternity! Ha! ha! ha!”

To this series of taunting speeches I offered no reply. Words of mine would have been idle as the murmurings of the wind. I knew it; and withheld them.

“Into your saddles, leperos!” cried the brigand, thus familiarly addressing himself to his subordinates. “Bring your prisoner along with you. Strap him tightly to the horse. Have a care he don’t escape! If he do you shall dearly rue your negligence, besides losing the pleasure of a spectacle which I shall provide for you after we arrive at the Rinconada.”

Rayas leaped upon the back of my own brave steed, which chafed, discontented, under the clumsy caparison of the Mexican saddle; but more so when mounted by one whom he seemed to recognise as the enemy of his master.

For myself I was roughly pitched upon the back of the brigand’s horse; and, after being securely tied, hands behind, and legs to the stirrup-leathers, I was conducted from the ground, a brace of brigands riding, one on either side, and guarding me with a vigilance that forbade me to indulge in the slightest hope of escape.

Story 1, Chapter XXI
Robbers En Route

At a short distance from the spot where I had been lazoed, the road taken by the robbers debouched from the forest, and entered the chapparal.

No longer under the gloomy shadow of the great trees, I had a better view of the band, and could see that they were genuine salteadores.

Indeed, I had not doubted it from the first – at least, not after discovering who was their leader. The wounded Jarocho had told me that most of the guerillos commanded by Rayas, were no better than brigands; and that such honest fellows as himself, who had been forced to join it, would all return to their homes, after the breaking up of the Mexican army by the defeat of Cerro Gordo.

What I now saw was no longer Rayas’ guerillas, but a remnant of it – or rather the individuals of that organisation, who had been his bandit associates before the breaking out of the war.

There were in all between twenty and thirty of these patriotic brigands; and from the opportunity I now had of scanning the faces of such as were near me, I can justly affirm that a more ferocious set of ruffians I never beheld – to the full as picturesque, and evidently as pitiless, as their Italian brethren of the Abruzzi.

On their march they observed a sort of rude order – riding two and two – though this formation was forced upon them by the necessity of the narrow path, rather than from any control of their leader.

Where the road at intervals ran through openings, the ranks were broken at will; and the troop would get clumped together, to string out again on re-entering the chapparal path.

For myself, I was guarded by a brace of morose wretches, as I have said, one riding on each side of me; and both armed with long naked blades; which, had I shown the slightest sign of attempting to escape, would have been thrust into me without either reluctance or remorse.

But there was no chance even to make the attempt. I was strapped to the stirrups, with my hands firmly bound behind my back; and lest the steed, on which they had mounted me, should stray from the track, the lazo of one of my keepers was passed through the bitt-ring of the bridle, and then attached to the tree of the robber’s own saddle.

In this manner was our march conducted – the route being towards Orizava. There was no mistaking the direction: for the snow-capped summit of the great “Citlapetel” was right before our faces – piercing up into a sky of cloudless azure.

From the top of a ridge which we crossed, shortly after coming out of the timber, I discovered that we were yet at no great distance from Cerro Gordo itself; so near, that on glancing back – for we were now riding away from it – I could see the American flag upon “El Telegrafo,” and could even distinguish the stars and stripes!

My chase after the riderless horse had carried me several miles from Corral Falso; but I had been all the while riding back in the direction of the battle-field – in a line nearly parallel to the main road, over which my troop had been travelling. It was only on re-entering the timber that the chase had conducted me in a different direction – southward, towards Orizava.

I could now understand how I had fallen into the hands of Rayas and his robbers.

After the battle, these worthies had lingered in the neighbourhood of the field – for what purpose I knew not then – plunder, I supposed – and this was, no doubt, the explanation, so far as most of them were concerned. Their chief, however, had a different object; one which, ere long, I was enabled to comprehend.

The character of the country around Cerro Gordo – a labyrinth of cañons and barrancos– covered with a thick growth of tangled chapparal, rendered their remaining near the field of their defeat an easy matter – unattended with danger. They knew the pursuit had passed up the main road to Jalapa; and there was not the remotest chance of their being followed across country.

They had accomplished whatever purpose had kept them near the field; and they were now en route for some more distant scene of action.

I had been actually riding after them– on that headlong chase which carried me into the midst of their improvised ambuscade!

As a prisoner, my position lay in the rear – only one or two files of the cuadrilla riding behind me.

I could see Rayas in front, at the head of his band.

I wondered he did not hang back for the purpose of taunting me with his triumphant speeches. I could only account for his not doing so, by the supposition that he was a man of patience, and that my hour of torture had not arrived.

That I should have to suffer some fearful indignity, in all likelihood, and the loss of my life, I felt certain. What had occurred between myself and the brigand chief, had established a relationship that must end in the ruin of one or the other; and it was clear that I was to be the victim. It needed not that hideous grin with which he had regarded me, on becoming his prisoner – nor the jovial style in which he talked of a revanche, – to assure me that for this mild term I might substitute the phrase – “Deadly revenge!”

He had promised his associates a spectacle on their arrival at La Rinconada. I had no doubt, that in that spectacle I was myself to be the prominent figure; or at all events the chief sufferer.

I had been riding for some time, absorbed in meditations, that I need not pronounce painful. Circumstanced as I was, they could not be pleasant. It was only in an occasional and involuntary glance, that my eyes had rested upon Rayas, at the head of his cuadrilla.

I had not noticed a peculiar personage riding by his side. This arose from the fact, that the individual in question was of shorter stature than the other salteadores, by nearly the head, and therefore hidden from my view by the bodies of the brigands habitually interposed between us.

After cresting the ridge above mentioned, and commencing the descent on its opposite side, I could command a better view of those in front; and then it was that the individual, riding alongside of Rayas, attracted my attention. Not only attracted it, but fixed it, to the exclusion of every other thought – even the reflections I had been hitherto indulging in, upon my own unfortunate situation.

At the first glance I had mistaken the companion of the robber chief for a man, or a boy closely approximating to manhood. There was a man’s hat upon the head – the usual low-crowned, broad-brimmed sombrero. Moreover, the style of equitation was that of a man – a leg on each side of the saddle.

It was only at the second glance that my gaze became fixed – only after perceiving, by the long plaits of hair hanging down to the croup of the saddle – along with some peculiarities of shape and costume – that the companion of the robber chief was a woman!

There was nothing in the discovery to cause me surprise. Both the hat on the head, and the mode —à la Duchesse de Berri– in which the woman was mounted, were sights that could be seen any day upon the roads of Mexico, or in the streets of its cities. Both were but the common fashions of the country.

What fixed my attention was the fact, that I fancied I knew the woman – or rather girl, as she appeared to be – that I had seen her before!

It was only the back of the head and shoulders I was yet permitted to see; but there was sufficient idiosyncracy about these, to beget within me a vague idea of identification.

I had hardly time to enter into the field of conjecture, when a slight turn in the path brought the faces of the leading riders en profile to my view; among others, that of the girl.

A shot through the heart could not have been more painful, or caused me to start more abruptly, than the sight of that face.

“Lola Vergara!”

Story 1, Chapter XXII
Dark Suspicions

I cannot describe the painful impression produced upon me, at seeing the Jarocha in such strange companionship.

At first I was inclined to disbelieve the evidence of my eyes, and to think that I was being cheated by a resemblance.

But as the path turned into a second zigzag, more abrupt than the first, the profile became a quarter-face portrait; and there was no chance for me to avoid the conviction that Lola Vergara was riding alongside Ramon Rayas!

A countenance like hers was not common. It was too beautiful to have had a counterpart, even in that land of lovely graces.

Besides, I now recognised the dress, the same worn by the Jarocha when I had last seen her, some six hours before, with only the addition of the sombrero, which had been donned, no doubt, as a protection against the hot beams of a tropical sun.

I had just time to assure myself of the identity of the girl; when the road, having reached the bottom of the hill, turned straight again; and from that time till the cuadrilla came to a halt, I could only catch occasional glimpses, either of the robber captain, or of the fair equestrian moving onward by his side.

Though no longer privileged with a fair view either of Ramon Rayas or Lola Vergara, the painful impression produced by their juxtaposition continued to harrass my soul; and during the half hour that intervened before arriving at the halting-place of the brigands, I gave myself up to reflections and conjectures imbued with the extreme of bitterness.

My first thought, put in the shape of a mental interrogatory, was, whether the Jarocha was a consenting party to the companionship in which I now saw her?

The position, such as it was, looked more than suspicious. Her dread of Rayas, loudly expressed on the preceding night, might, after all, have been nothing more than hypocrisy; nay, it might have been real, and yet it might have resulted in the association now before my eyes!

I had seen enough of women to convince me, that terror is too often the true weapon by which their affections may be assailed and conquered; and that the possession of absolute power may turn their hate, if not into love, at least into a feeling near akin to it.

I remembered some expressions in reference to Rayas, that, on the night before, had fallen from the lips of Lola Vergara. To me they had been unintelligible at the time, though producing a vague sense of doubt, about the honesty as to her declared antipathy to the man.

These were now recalled, with, as I fancied, a clearer comprehension of their import.

In fine, why should she be there, riding by his side, voluntarily: for there was no appearance of compulsion; but rather of complaisance.

No! I should not say that. The glimpse I had had of her face did not give me that idea. On the contrary, I saw, or fancied that I saw a pale cheek, a downcast glance, and a sorrowful expression of countenance.

I was not certain of this; I would have given much to have been assured of it; and my intent gaze was directed to this end, when the straightening of the road, and the interposition of the salteadores, cut short my investigation.

The fancy that she looked sad – in keeping with her name of Dolores – was some consolation; which enabled me, with a certain tranquillity of mind, to sustain that forced traverse through the chapparal in the companionship of the salteadores.

There was one circumstance that surprised while it pained me as well. Why did Lola not look round?

During all the time my eyes had been on her, she had not turned hers towards the rear, nor even to one side or the other. This I thought strange, whether her presence among the robbers was forced or voluntary.

Was she aware of the capture which they had made – an officer of the American army? Or could she be acquainted with the more particular fact, as to who was the individual made prisoner?

I could not think that she was cognisant of either circumstance; and yet she had not looked back. If no other feeling, that of natural curiosity, proverbially strong in her sex, would have prompted her to turn her head.

She had not done so. Surely, after what had passed between us on the preceding night, she could not be indifferent to my forlorn condition – scarcely even to the uniform that distinguished me from my captors?

Such conduct was not compatible with the character of woman, whether Mexican or American. Lola Vergara could not have known of the capture which the robbers had accomplished; she could not be aware of my presence in the rear of the cuadrilla.

There was consolation in my thinking so, slight as it may be deemed. It would have been a grievous reflection to have believed her to be a sharer in the fortunes of my captors; – to have known that she was a participator of all that had transpired; – to imagine that she had even a suspicion of who it was who was riding, fast bound to a horse, behind her.

I did not wrong her by the belief I felt convinced she was unconscious of all – at least of the last circumstance.

I was confirmed in this conviction by something that had occurred, as we parted from the spot where I had been captured. A short halt had been made by the robbers, during which they had been joined by a party that had not been present at their ambuscade. In all likelihood, the Jarocha had been one of this party, and might have been ignorant of what had passed.

This was probable enough; though for myself I had been at the time too much engrossed with my misfortune to take heed to what was transpiring around me.

The explanation satisfied, at the same time that it pleased me. I could give credence to no other. After what had passed on the preceding night – my protection extended to her brother – my sympathy for herself – my profession of something more – her own apparent reciprocation of that something – surely Lola Vergara could not be my enemy?

In all I saw there was a mystery that needed elucidation.

Ere long I obtained it. The cuadrilla came to a halt at a rancheria or collection of huts, all of which appeared to be uninhabited – their owners no doubt having fled at the approach of the robber band.

It was the Rinconada alluded to by the robber chief. In the piazza of the village the order was broken up; and the files in the rear closed in upon the heads of the “column.”

By this change of position I was brought close to the side of the Jarocha.

Words can but ill express the pleasure I felt on perceiving that she was strapped to her saddle – like myself, a prisoner; and the scream that escaped her, as she recognised me, was, to my ears, sweeter than any note that ever issued from the lips of Grisi or the “Swedish Nightingale.”

We were not allowed any interchange of words – scarcely even that of a glance. Before I could speak to her, the Jarocha was handed from her horse, and conducted inside one of the Jacales– the one which appeared to be the principal “hut” of the rancheria.