The Tiger Hunter Part 16

"Jesus G.o.d!" exclaimed Don Cornelio, who now for the first time had found the power of speech; "Jesus G.o.d!" he repeated, seeing himself, not without some apprehension, between two strange beings--the one red, the other black--both dripping with water, and their hair covered with the yellow sc.u.m of the waves!

"Eh! Senor student," rejoined Clara, in a good-humoured way, "is that all the thanks you give us for the service we have done you?"

"Pardon me, _gentlemen_," stammered out Don Cornelio; "I was dreadfully frightened. I have every reason to be thankful to you."

And, his confidence now restored, the student expressed, in fit terms, his warm grat.i.tude; and finished his speech by congratulating the Indian on his escape from the dangers he had encountered.

"By my faith! it is true enough," rejoined Costal, "I have run some little danger. I was all over of a sweat; and this cursed water coming down from the mountains as cold as ice--_Carrambo_! I shouldn't wonder if I should get a bad cold from the ducking."

The student listened with astonishment to this unexpected declaration.

The man whose fearful intrepidity he had just witnessed to be thinking only of the risk he ran of getting a cold!

"Who are you?" he mechanically inquired.

"I?" said Costal. "Well, I am an Indian, as you see--a Zapoteque-- formerly the _tigrero_ of Don Matias de la Zanca; at present in the service of Don Mariano de Silva--to-morrow, who knows?"

"Don Matias de la Zanca!" echoed the student, interrupting him; "why, that is my uncle!"

"Oh!" said Costal, "your uncle! Well, Senor student, if you wish to go to his house I am sorry I cannot take you there, since it lies up among the hills, and could not be reached in a canoe. But perhaps you have a horse?"

"I had one; but the flood has carried him off, I suppose. No matter. I have good reasons for not regretting his loss."

"Well," rejoined Costal, "your best way will be to go with us to the Hacienda las Palmas. There you will get a steed that will carry you to the house of your uncle. But first," added he, turning his eyes towards the tamarinds, "I must look after my carbine, which has been spilled out of the canoe. It's too good a gun to be thrown away; and I can say that it don't miss fire once in ten times. It should be yonder, where the brute capsized us; and with your permission, Senor student, I'll just go in search of it. Ho, Clara! paddle us back under the hammock!"

Clara obeyed, though evidently with some reluctance. The hissing of the serpents still sounded ominously in his ears.

On arriving near the spot where the canoe had turned over, Costal stood up in the bow; and then raising his hands, and joining them above his head, he plunged once more under the water.

For a long time the spectators saw nothing of him; but the bubbles here and there rising to the surface, showed where he was engaged in searching for his incomparable carbine.

At length his head appeared above water, then his whole body. He held the gun tightly grasped in one of his hands, and making a few strokes towards the canoe he once more climbed aboard.

Costal now took hold of the paddle; and turning the head of the canoe in a westerly direction commenced making way across the turbid waters towards the Hacienda las Palmas.

Although the fury of the inundation had by this time partially subsided, still the flood ran onward with a swift current; and what with the danger from floating trees, and other objects that swelled the surface of the water, it was necessary to manage the canoe with caution. Thus r.e.t.a.r.ded, it was near mid-day before the voyageurs arrived within sight of the hacienda. Along the way Don Cornelio had inquired from his new companions, what strange accident had conducted them to the spot where they had found him.

"Not an accident," said Costal; "but a horseman, who appeared to be in a terrible hurry himself, as _Por Dios_! he had need to be. He was on his way to the house of Don Mariano, for what purpose I can't say. It remains to be known, Senor student, whether he has been as fortunate as you, in escaping the flood. G.o.d grant that he has! for it would be a sad pity if such a brave young fellow was to die by drowning. Brave men are not so plentiful."

"Happy for them who are brave!" sighed Don Cornelio.

"Here is my friend, Clara," continued Costal, without noticing the rejoinder of the student, "who has no fear of man; and yet he is as much afraid of tigers as if he were a child. Well, I hope we shall find that the gallant young officer has escaped the danger, and is now safe within the walls of the hacienda."

At that moment the canoe pa.s.sed round a tope of half-submerged palm-trees, and the hacienda itself appeared in sight, as if suddenly rising from the bosom of the waters. A cry of joy escaped from the lips of the student, who, half-famished with hunger, thought of the abundance that would be found behind those hospitable walls.

While gazing upon them a bell commenced to toll; and its tones fell upon his ears like the music of birds, for it appeared as if summoning the occupants of the hacienda to pa.s.s into the refectory. It was, however, the _angelus_ of noon.

At the same instant two barges were seen parting from the causeway that led down in front, and heading towards the high ridge that ran behind the hacienda, at a little distance on the north. In the first of these boats appeared two rowers, with a person in a travelling costume of somewhat clerical cut, and a mule saddled and bridled. In the second were two gentlemen and the same number of ladies. The latter were young girls, both crowned with luxuriant chaplets of flowers, and each grasping an oar in her white delicate fingers, which she managed with skill and adroitness. They were the two daughters of Don Mariano de Silva. One of the gentlemen was Don Mariano himself, while the other was joyfully recognised by Costal as the brave officer who had asked him the way, and by the student as his _compagnon du voyage_ of yesterday-- Don Rafael Tres-Villas.

Shortly after, the two boats reached the foot of the Sierra; and the traveller with the mule disembarked. Mounting into his saddle, he saluted those who remained in the other boat; and then rode away, amidst the words oft repeated by Don Mariano and his daughters--

"_A dios! a dios! Senor Morelos! a dios_!"

The two barges now returned towards the hacienda, arriving there nearly at the same time as the canoe which carried the student of theology, the Indian, and the negro.

Don Cornelio had now a better opportunity of observing the rich freight carried in the larger of the two boats. The drapery of purple silk which covered the seats and fell over the sides of the barge, threw its brilliant reflections far out upon the water. In the midst of this brilliance appeared the young ladies, seated and bending languidly upon their oars. Now and then Marianita, in plunging her oar-blade into the water, caused the pomegranate flowers to rain down from her hair, as she shook them with bursts of laughter; while Gertrudis, looking from under the purple wreath, ever and anon cast stealthy glances at the cavalier who was seated by the side of her father.

"Senor Don Mariano!" said Costal, as the barge drew near, "here is a guest whom I have taken the liberty to bring to your hospitable mansion."

As the Indian delivered this speech he pointed to the student of theology still seated in the canoe.

"He is welcome!" rejoined Don Mariano; and then, inviting the stranger to disembark, all except Costal, Clara, and the servants, landed from the boats, and pa.s.sed out of sight through the front gateway of the hacienda.

These taking the boats around the battlements of the building, entered the enclosure by a gate that opened towards the rear.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

RAFAEL AND GERTRUDIS.

As already stated, Don Luis Tres-Villas, the father of Don Rafael, was a Spaniard. He was one of those Spaniards, however, who from the first had comprehended the necessity of making liberal political concessions to the Creoles--such as those accorded to them by the enlightened Don Jose Iturrigaray. Even the interest of Spain herself demanded these reforms.

Don Luis, himself an officer in the vice-regal guard, had been one of the most devoted partisans of Iturrigaray; and when the latter was arrested by the more violent _Gachupinos_ and sent prisoner to Spain, Tres-Villas saw that all ties of attachment between Spaniards and Creoles had been severed by the act; and that an open rupture was at hand. Unwilling to take part against the native people, Don Luis had thrown up his commission as captain in the vice-regal guards, left the capital, and retired to his estate of Del Valle.

This hacienda was situated on the other side of the ridge that bounded the plain of Las Palmas on the north, and about two leagues distant from the dwelling of Don Mariano de Silva. These two gentlemen had met in the metropolis; and the slight acquaintance there initiated had been strengthened during their residence in the country.

On receiving the news of Hidalgo's insurrection, Don Luis had sent an express messenger to his son Don Rafael, summoning him to the Hacienda del Valle. In obedience to the order of his father, the young captain of dragoons, having obtained leave of absence from his regiment, was on his way thither, when he overtook upon the road the student of theology.

Nevertheless, Don Rafael had not deemed the order of his father so pressing as to hinder him from pa.s.sing a day at the hacienda of Las Palmas, which lay directly in the route to that of Del Valle. This, therefore, he had determined upon doing.

A word about the antecedents, which led to this resolve on the part of the dragoon captain.

In the early part of the preceding year Don Mariano de Silva had pa.s.sed three months in the Mexican metropolis. He had been accompanied by his daughter Gertrudis--Marianita remaining in Oajaca with a near relative of the family. In the _tertulias_ of the gay capital the fair _Oajaquena_ had met the das.h.i.+ng captain of dragoons, and a romantic attachment had sprung up between them, mutual as sincere. To this there could be no objection by the parents on either side: since there was between the two lovers a complete conformity in age, social position, and fortune. In all likelihood the romance of courts.h.i.+p would soon have ended in the more prosaic reality of marriage; but just at that time the young officer was ordered upon some military service; and Don Mariano was also suddenly called away from the capital. The marriage ceremony, therefore, that might otherwise have been expected to take place, thus remained unconsummated.

It is true that up to this time Don Rafael had not formally declared his pa.s.sion to the young Creole; but it is probable that she knew it without any verbal avowal; and still more that she fully reciprocated it.

Neither had Don Mariano been spoken to upon the matter: the captain of dragoons not deeming it proper to confer with him till after he had obtained the consent of Gertrudis.

After the separation of the two lovers, by little and little Don Rafael began to doubt whether his pa.s.sion had been really returned by the fair Oajaquena. Time and absence, while they rendered more feeble the remembrance of those little incidents that had appeared favourable to him, increased in an inverse ratio the impression of the young Creole's charms--that in fancy now appeared to him only the more glowing and seductive. So much did this impression become augmented, that the young officer began to think he had been too presumptuous in aspiring to the possession of such incomparable loveliness.

His cruel doubts soon pa.s.sed into a more cruel certainty; and he no longer believed that his love had been returned.

In this state of mind he endeavoured to drive the thoughts of Gertrudis out of his head: by saying to himself that he had never loved her! But this attempt at indifference only proved how strongly the sentiment influenced him; and the result was to force him into a melancholy, habitual and profound.

Such was the state of Don Rafael's mind when the soldier-priest, Hidalgo, p.r.o.nounced the first _grito_ of the Mexican revolution. Imbued with those liberal ideas which had been transmitted to him from his father--and even carrying them to a higher degree--knowing, moreover, the pa.s.sionate ardour with which Don Mariano de Silva and his daughter looked forward to the emanc.i.p.ation of their country; and thus sure of the approbation of all for whom he had reverence or affection--Don Rafael determined to offer his sword to the cause of Independence. He hoped under the banners of the insurrection to get rid of the black chagrin that was devouring his spirit; or if not, he desired that in the first encounter between the royalist and insurgent troops, death might deliver him from an existence that was no longer tolerable.

At this crisis came the messenger from Del Valle. The message was simply a summons to his father's presence that he might learn from him some matters that were of too much importance either to be trusted to paper or the lips of a servant. The young officer easily conjectured the object for which he was summoned to Oajaca. Knowing his father's political leanings, he had no doubt that it was to counsel him, Don Rafael, to offer his sword to the cause of Mexican Independence.

The message, however significant and mysterious, partially restored the captain of dragoons to his senses. In the journey he was necessitated to make, he saw there might be an opportunity of sounding the heart of Gertrudis, and becoming acquainted with her feelings in regard to him.

For this purpose he had determined upon frankly declaring his own. In fine, he had half resolved to renounce those chivalric sentiments, that had already hindered him from opening the affair to Don Mariano without the consent of Gertrudis. So profound had his pa.s.sion become, that he would even have preferred owing to filial obedience the possession of her he so devotedly loved, than not to possess her at all.