"Yes; as well as lies in my power."
"That is to say, just so far as your interest does not lead you to lie."
"Confound it, señor, no one likes to make war upon oneself! No one ought to force me to speak ill of myself."
"You are right. Who are you?"
"Señor," replied the other, raising himself proudly, "I have the honour to be a Mexican, My mother was an Opata Indian; my father a caballero (gentleman) of Guadalupe."
"Very well; but I learn nothing from this about yourself."
"Alas, señor!" was the reply, given in that whining tone the Mexicans know so well how to adopt, "I have been unfortunate."
"Oh, you have met with misfortunes! Well, pardon me once more. You have forgotten to mention your name."
"It is a very obscure one, señor; but since you desire to know it, here it is: I am called Tonillo el Zapote at your service, señor."
"Thanks, Señor Zapote. Now proceed; I am listening."
"I have followed many trades in my day. I have been by turns lepero (vagabond), muleteer, husbandman, soldier. Unhappily, I am of a quick temper: when I am in a passion, my hand is very ready."
"And heavy," said the cavalier, with a smile.
"It is all the same; so much so, that I have had the misfortune to bleed five or six individuals who had the imprudence to pick a quarrel with me. The Juez de letras (magistrate) was annoyed; and under the pretence that I was guilty of six murders, he asserted I deserved the garotte; so, seeing my fellow citizens misapprehended me that society would not appreciate me at my real value I took refuge in the desert, and turned hunter."
"Of men?" interrupted the cavalier in a tone of sarcasm.
"By Heavens! Señor, times are hard: the Gringos pay twenty dollars for a scalp. It is a pretty sum; and, on my honour, particularly so when want presses. But I never have recourse to these means except in the direst extremity."
"It is well. And now tell me, do you know me?"
"Very well by report; personally, not at all."
"Have you any reasons for hating me?"
"I have already the honour to tell you none."
"In that case, why have you attempted to assassinate me?"
"I, señor?" cried he, showing signs of the utmost astonishment; "I assassinate you? Never!",
"What, fool!" exclaimed the cavalier, lowering his brows, "Dare you maintain such an imposture? Four times have I served as a target to your rifle. You have drawn trigger upon me this very day, and "
"Oh! By your leave, señor," said El Zapote with warmth, "that is quite a different thing. True, I fired at you; it is even likely I shall fire at you again; but never, as I hoped for Paradise, have I dreamed of assassinating you. For shame! I, a caballero! How could you form so bad an opinion of me, señor?"
"Then what was your intention in firing at me?"
"To kill you, señor; nothing more."
"Then in this case murder is not assassination?"
"Not in the slightest degree, señor; this was business."
"What! Business? The rogue will make me go mad, upon my soul!"
"By Heaven, señor, an honest man must stick to his word."
"If it is to kill me?"
"Exactly so," answered El Zapote. "You can understand that, under the conditions, I was compelled to keep my engagement."
There was a moment of silence; evidently the reasoning did not seem so conclusive to the cavalier as to the lepero.
Then said the former:
"Enough; let us have done with this."
"I ask no better of your seigneurie."
"You acknowledge, I suppose, that you are in my power?"
"It would be difficult to assert the contrary."
"Good! As, according to your own confession you have fired on me with the evident intention of killing me "
"I cannot deny it, señor."
"In killing you, now you are in my power, I should only be making use of reprisals?"
"That is perfectly true, caballero, I must even confess that you could not possibly have a stronger reason for doing so."
His companion gazed at him in surprise.
"Then you are content to die?" said he.
"Let us understand each other," replied the lepero with avidity. "I am not at all content. On the contrary, I only know that I am a thorough gambler, that is all. I played; I lost; I have to pay. It is reasonable."
The cavalier seemed to reflect.
"And if, instead of planting my knife in your throat, even as you yourself acknowledge I have the right to do "
El Zapote made a sign of assent.
"I were to restore you to liberty," continued the cavalier, "leaving you the power of acting according to your own impulse?"
The bandit shook his head sorrowfully.
"I repeat," he said, "that I would kill you. A man must stick to his word. I cannot betray the confidence of my employers; it would ruin my reputation."
The cavalier burst out laughing.
"I suppose you have been well paid for this undertaking?" said he.
"Not a great deal; but want makes many things be done. I have received a hundred piastres."
"No more?" exclaimed the stranger, with a gesture of disdain; "It is very little; I thought myself worth more than that."
"A great deal more, particularly as the undertaking was difficult; but next time I will take a silver bullet."
"You are an idiot, comrade. You will not kill me the next, any more than you did the other times. Think of what has occurred up to today. I have already heard your balls whistle four times about my ears: that annoyed me. At last I wished to find out who you were: you see I have succeeded."
"It is the truth. Now, after all, were you not aware of my being close to you?"
The cavalier shrugged his shoulders.
"I will not even demand of you," he said, "the name of him who has ordered you to compass my death. Here, take your knife, and begone. I despise you too much to fear you. Adieu!"
Speaking thus, the cavalier rose, and dismissed the bandit with a gesture full of majesty and disdain.
The lepero remained an instant motionless, then bowed profoundly before his generous adversary.
"Thanks, your worship," said he, in a voice exhibiting some emotion; "you are better than I. Never mind; I will prove to you that I am not the scoundrel you fancy me, and that there is still something within me which has not been utterly corrupted."
The cavalier's only answer was to turn his back upon him, with a shrug of the shoulders.
The lepero gazed after his retiring form with a look of which his savage features would have seemed incapable: a mixture of sorrow and gratitude impressed on his countenance a stamp very different to their customary expression.
"He does not believe me," he muttered we have already seen that he had a decided taste for soliloquy "he does not believe me. Why, indeed, should he trust my words? It is sad; but an honest man must stick to his word, and I will prove to him that he does not yet know me. Let me begone."
Comforting himself with these words, the bandit returned to the rock behind which he had originally hidden; there he picked up his rifle, then from the other side of the rock he brought his horse, which he had concealed in a hollow, replaced the bridle, and departed at a gallop, after casting a glance behind him, and murmuring, in a tone of sincere admiration:
"¡Caray! What a tremendous fellow! What natural power! What a pity it would be to knock him over like an antelope, from behind a bush! ¡Viva Dios! That shall not happen, if I can hinder it, on the honour of a Zapote."
He forded the Rio Bermejo, and speedily disappeared amongst the tall grasses that bordered the opposite bank.
As soon as the unknown had assured himself of the lepero's departure, he began to calculate the time by the enormously lengthened shadows of the trees; and, after looking about him attentively, gave a whistle, sharp and prolonged, which, although restrained, was nevertheless repeated by all the echoes of the river, so powerful was its tone.
At the end of a few seconds a distant neighing made itself audible, followed almost immediately after by the sound of precipitate galloping, resembling the rolling of distant thunder.
Little by little the sound grew nearer, the branches crashed, the underwood was violently dashed aside, and the unknown's mustang made his appearance on the skirt of a wood at a little distance.
When there, the noble animal paused, snuffed the air vigorously, turning his head and neck in all directions; then starting off, with a thousand capers he made the best of his way, till he halted before his master, and gazed upon him with eyes full of intelligence.
The latter patted him gently, talking to him in a caressing voice; then, having made quite sure that the lepero was gone, and that he was assuredly alone, he readjusted the trappings of his horse, which had become slightly disordered, vaulted into the saddle and in his turn departed.
But instead of continuing to follow the course of the Rio Bermejo, he turned his back upon it, and rode in the direction of the mountains.
The bearing of the unknown had undergone a complete change; it was no longer the man whom we formerly presented to our readers, half asleep, swaying in the saddle, and leaving his horse to wander at leisure. No; now he held himself firm and upright on his mustang, with limbs closely pressing its flanks; his face was overcast with dark shades of thought; his glances wandered about as if they would pierce the mysteries of the thick forest with which he was surrounded; with head slightly bent forward, he listened with strained attention to the most trifling noise; and his rifle, placed across the saddlebow, had the lock exactly under his right hand, in such a fashion that he could fire instantaneously, if circumstances required.
One might have said, so suddenly had the man changed, that the strange scene to which we have just introduced our reader was for him only one of those thousand accidents, without consequences, to which his desert life exposed him, but that now he was preparing to battle with dangers which might really prove serious.
CHAPTER II
IN THE FOREST
The unknown had struck into a dense forest, the last skirts of which dwindled away close to the banks of the Rio Bermejo.
American forests have little resemblance to those of the Old World: in the former, the trees shoot up hap-hazard, crossing and interlacing each other, and sometimes leaving large spaces completely open, strewn with dead trees, uprooted, and piled on each other in the strangest manner.
Some trees, partially or wholly withered, show in their hollow remnants of the strong and fruitful soil; others, equally ancient, are supported by the entangled creepers, which, in process of time, have almost attained the size of their former props the diversity of foliage forming here the most agreeable contrast; others, concealing within their hollow trunks a hotbed, formed from the remains of their leaves and half-dead branches, which has promoted the germination of the seed that fell from them, seem to promise an indemnification for the loss of the parent trees in the saplings they nourish.
One could imagine that nature had determined to put beyond the ravages of time some of these old trees, when sinking under the weight of ages, by clothing them in a mantle of gray moss, which hangs in long festoons from the topmost branches to the ground. This moss, called barbe d'Espagnol, gives to the trees a most fantastic aspect.
The ground of these forests, formed from the remains of trees falling, in successive generations, for centuries, is most eccentric: sometimes raising itself in the shape of a mountain, to descend suddenly into a muddy swamp, peopled by hideous alligators wallowing in the green slime, and by millions of mosquitoes swarming amidst the fetid vapours exhaled, sometimes extending itself endlessly in plains of a monotony and regularity truly depressing.
Rivers, without a name, traverse these unknown deserts, bearing nothing on their silent waters save the black swans, which let themselves carelessly float down the currents; while rosy flamingoes, posted along the banks, fish philosophically for their dinners, with eyes half-closed and sanctimonious air.
Even where the view seems most contracted, sudden clearings sometimes open out prospects picturesque in the extreme and deliciously fortuitous.
Incessant noises, nameless sounds, make themselves heard without a break in these mysterious regions the grand voices of the solitude the solemn hymn of the invisible world, created by the Almighty.
In the bosom of these redoubtable forests the wild beasts and reptiles, which abound in Mexico, find refuge; here and there one meets with paths incessantly trodden for centuries by jaguars and bisons, and which, after countless meanderings, all debouch on unknown drinking holes.
Woe to the daring mortal who, without a guide ventures to tempt the inextricable mazes of these immense seas of verdure! After ineffable tortures, he succumbs, and falls a prey to the savage beasts. How many hardy pioneers have died thus, without the possibility of the veil being lifted which shrouds their miserable end! Their blanched bones, discovered at the foot of some tree, alone can teach those who come upon them that on that spot men have died, a prey to infinite suffering, and that the same fate, perchance, awaits the finders.
The stranger must have been the constant guest of the forest into which he had so audaciously plunged at the moment when the sun, quitting the horizon, had left the earth to darkness darkness rendered still denser in the covert, in which the light even at midday could only struggle in at intervals through the tufted branches.
Bending a little forward, eye and ear on the watch, the unknown advanced as rapidly as the nature of the ground under his horse's hoofs would let him, following unhesitatingly the capricious deviations of a wild animal's path, whose traces were scarcely discoverable amidst the tall grasses which strove continually to efface it.
He had already ridden for several hours without having slackened the pace of his horse, plunging deeper and deeper into the forest.
He had forded several rivers, scaled many a steep ravine, hearing at a short distance, on right and left, the hoarse growlings of the jaguar and the mocking wailing of the tiger cat, which seemed to follow him with their menacing yells.
Taking no heed of roar or tumult, he continued his route, although the forest assumed a more dreary aspect at every step.
The bushes and trees of low growth had disappeared, to make room for gigantic mahogany trees, century old cork trees, and the acajou, whose sombre branches formed a vaulted roof of green eighty feet above his head. The path had grown wider, and stretched, in a gentle incline, towards a hillock of moderate height, entirely free from trees.
Arrived at the base of the hillock, the stranger halted; then, without dismounting, cast a searching glance on all around.
The stillness of death pervaded everything; the howling of the wild beasts was lost in the distance; no noise was audible, save that caused by a slender stream of water, which, trickling through the crevices of a rock, fell from a height of three or four yards into a natural basin.