The Lost Mountain Part 16

"If," says Don Estevan, hopeful as any, "he meet no accident before arriving at Arispe, then we may count on receiving succour. There's but one thing we have to fear--time! Nor need we fear that, if Colonel Requenes be there with his regiment. By ill fortune he may not."

"What reason have you for thinking he may not?" asks Robert Tresillian.

"I recall his telling me, just before we started, that there was a likelihood of his being ordered to Guaymas, to a.s.sist in suppressing a reported rising of the Yaquis Indians. If he has gone thither we'll be no better off than before."

"But the people of Arispe--surely they will not be indifferent to our situation?"

It is the Englishman who interrogates.

"Ah, true," returns the Mexican, correcting himself, as a rea.s.sured expression comes over his countenance. "They will not. I did not think of that. I see it now."

"'Tis not for us and ours alone we may expect them to bestir themselves; but for their own relatives and friends. Think, _amigo mio_! There isn't one of our following but has left some one behind who should rush to the rescue soon as hearing how things stand."

"You're right, Don Roberto. Whether the soldiers be there or not.

Arispe and its surroundings can surely furnish force enough to effect our deliverance. We must have patience--hope and pray for it."

"Dear husband," here interposes the senora, "you seem to forget my brother, Juliano, and his three hundred _peones_. At least half of them are brave fellows, a match for any savages as these who surround us. If Henrique succeed in reaching Arispe, he will go on to my brother's _hacienda_, soldiers or no soldiers."

This speech from an unexpected quarter further heightens their hopes, already rapidly rising. They almost feel as if the siege was being raised, and themselves about to continue their long-delayed journey.

A like sentiment pervades the people all through the camp. In every shed and booth is a group conversing on the same topic, and much in a similar way; all with trusting reliance on the friends left behind, confident they will not fail them.

At this self-same hour the feeling in the Coyotero camp is quite the contrary: instead of confidence, there is doubt, even apprehension. The white men's messenger--for they are sure he must have been this--has got through their lines, clear away, and well do they comprehend the consequences.

They know the miners come from Arispe--marks on the wagons and other chattels tell them that--and the paleface courier will be now hastening thither. On such a swift steed he will reach it in quick time; and, with the tale which he has to tell, alike quick will be the response: a rescuing host in rush for Nauchampa-tepetl. It may even arrive before the return of their raiders from the Horcasitas.

Thus apprehensive, on the day and night following the escape of Henry Tresillian, and for many days and nights after, there is as much, if not more, anxiety in the camp of the besiegers as in that of the besieged.

The latter fear but famine; the former, fire and sword.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

FRIENDS IN FEAR.

"Glad to see you, Senor Juliano! It's not often you honour Arispe with your presence."

Colonel Requenes is the speaker, he spoken to being a gentleman of middle age, in civilian costume, the dress of a _haciendado_. It is Don Juliano Romero, brother of the Senora Villanueva, the owner of a large _ganaderia_ or grazing estate, some six or seven miles out of Arispe.

"True," he admits, "nor would you see me now, only that this thing begins to look serious."

"What thing?" asks the Colonel, half divining it.

"No news from Villanueva, I came to see if _you've_ had any."

"Not a word; and you're right about it's beginning to look serious. I was just talking of it to your son there, before you came in."

They are in a large apartment in Colonel Requenes' official residence, his receiving-room, into which the _ganadero_ has just been ushered; the son alluded to being there already, a youth of some sixteen summers, in military uniform, with sabretasche and other insignia proclaiming him an aide-de-camp. After greeting his father, he has resumed his seat by a table on which are several open despatches, with which he seems to busy himself.

"_Por Dios_! I cannot tell what to make of it," pursues the _ganadero_; "they must have reached the mine, wherever it is, long ago. Time enough for word to have been brought back. And my sister not writing to me, that's a puzzle! She promised she would soon as they got there."

"And Villanueva himself promised he would write to me. Besides, the people, many of them, have left friends behind, relatives out in the neighbourhood of the old _minera_. Some of them are in Arispe every day, inquiring if there be any news of those gone north; so it's clear they've had no word from them either."

"What do you suppose can be the cause, Requenes?"

"I've been trying to think. At first I fancied the great drought that's been, with every stream and pond dried up, might have forced them out of their way for water, and so lengthened their journey. But even with that there's been time enough for them to have reached their destination long since, and us to have heard of it. As we haven't, I fear it's something worse."

"What's your conjecture, Colonel?"

"I'm almost afraid to venture on conjectures, but they force themselves on me, Don Juliano; and in the one shape you will yourself, no doubt, be thinking of."

"I comprehend. _Los Indios_!"

"_Los Indios_," echoes the officer; "just that. Villanueva told me the new-discovered _veta_ lies a long way to the north-west, beyond the headwaters of the Horcasitas. That's all country claimed by the Apaches of different bands; as you know, every one of them determinedly hostile to the whites, especially to us Mexicans, for reasons you may have heard of."

"I know all that; you allude to the affair of Gil Perez?"

"I do; and my fear is our friends may have encountered these red-handed savages. If so, Heaven have mercy on them, and G.o.d help them; for He only can."

"Encountering them would mean being attacked by them?"

"Surely so; and destroyed if defeated: the men butchered, the women and children carried into captivity."

At this the young aide-de-camp turns round on his chair, his face showing an expression of pain. He says nothing, however, but continues an earnest listener to the conversation.

"Merciful Heaven!" exclaims the _ganadero_, with a groan, "I hope it has not come to that."

"I hope so too, and don't yet think it has; only that it's probable enough--too probable. Still, even if set upon, they would resist; and when one comes to remember how many there were of them, they ought to make a stout resistance."

"Many of them," rejoins Don Juliano, "both miners and _vaqueros_, are of approved valour, and were well armed. I was at the old _minera_ when they started off, and saw that for myself."

"Yes, I know; but their holding out would depend on the sort of ground they chanced to be on when attacked, if they have been attacked. By good luck, our mutual brother-in-law is no novice to Indian tactics, but a soldier of experience, who'll know how to act in any emergency."

"True; but the worst of it is his being embarra.s.sed by having so many women and children with him; among them, alas! my sister and niece.

_Pobrecitas_!"

Again the young officer s.h.i.+fts uneasily on his chair, the expression of pain still upon his face. For he is the cousin whom Gertrude was said to have forgotten.

"They took a number of large vehicles with them?" says the Colonel, interrogatively. "American wagons, did they not?"

"They did."

"How many? Can you remember?"

"Six or seven, I think."