In a short time everything was arranged; a hut of branches was put together for Doña Hermosa; fires were lit, and the horses securely tethered, to prevent their straying during the night.
The travellers supped gaily; after which everyone laid down to sleep as comfortably as he could manage.
However, the capataz, a man trained to Indian artifices, thought it prudent not to neglect a single precaution to secure the repose of his companions. He placed a sentry, to whom he recommended the utmost vigilance, and saddled his horse, with the intention of making a reconnaissance round the camp.
Don Pedro, already half asleep, raised his head, and asked Don Luciano what he intended to do. When the capataz had explained, the hacendero burst out laughing, and peremptorily ordered him to leave his horse to feed in peace, and to lay himself down by the fire, in order to be ready to resume the journey at break of day. The capataz shook his head, but obeyed; he could not understand the conduct of his master, who was usually so prudent and circumspect.
The truth was, that Don Pedro, impelled by one of those inexplicable fatalities which, without apparent reason, often make the most intelligent blind, was convinced that he had nothing to fear so near his home, and almost on his own territory, from the rovers and marauders of the frontiers, who would think twice before they attacked a man of his importance, having the means in his power to make them pay dearly for any attempt upon his person. Nevertheless, the capataz, agitated by a secret uneasiness, which kept him awake in spite of his efforts to sleep, determined to keep good watch during the night, notwithstanding the injunctions of his master.
As soon as he saw Don Pedro decidedly asleep, he rose softly, took his rifle, and crept stealthily towards the forest to reconnoitre; but he had scarcely quitted the circle of light formed by the watch fire, and advanced a few paces into the covert, than he was suddenly and rudely seized by invisible hands, thrown on the ground, gagged, and bound with cords; and with such expedition, that he could neither use his arms nor utter a cry of warning to his companions.
But, in strange contrariety to the tragical usages of the prairie, the persons who had so abruptly mastered the capataz subjected him to no ill usage, contenting themselves with binding him firmly, so as to put the possibility of the slightest resistance out of the question, and leaving him stretched upon the ground.
"My poor mistress!" sighed the worthy fellow as he fell, without indulging a thought for himself.
He remained in this position for a length of time, listening greedily to every sound in the desert, expecting every instant to hear cries of distress from Don Pedro and Doña Hermosa. But not a cry was heard: nothing disturbed the calm of the wilderness, over which the silence of death seemed brooding.
At last, after twenty or twenty-five minutes, someone threw a zarapé over his face, most likely with the intention of preventing any recognition of his assailants; he was lifted from the ground with a certain degree of precaution, and two men carried him in their arms to some considerable distance.
The situation became more complicated every moment. In vain the capataz racked his mind to divine the intentions of his captors. The latter uttered not a word, and glided over the ground with light and noiseless steps, as if they were spectres. The generality of Mexicans are fatalists. The capataz, recognizing the futility of a struggle, philosophically consoled himself for what had happened, and patiently awaited the result of this singular scene.
He had not long to wait for the issue. His unknown captors, having probably reached the intended spot, halted and laid the capataz on the ground, after which everything round him grew calm and silent again.
At the end of several minutes he determined on an attempt to recover his liberty, and made a desperate effort to break his bonds. But here again a fresh surprise was reserved for him: the cords which bound him, and which were so fast a minute before, broke after a slight resistance.
The capataz's first impulse was to lift the zarapé which covered his face, and free himself from the gag. He next looked about him to reconnoitre, and to find out what had become of his companions, and uttered a cry of astonishment and fright on seeing Doña Hermosa, her father, and the peones stretched on the ground close by, gagged as he had been, and their heads muffled in zarapés.
The capataz hastened to the relief of his mistress and Don Pedro, after which he severed the cords which bound the peones.
The place to which the travellers had been transported by their invisible aggressors was completely dissimilar to the site chosen for the camp. They were in the midst of a thick forest, where at an immense height above their heads, the gigantic trees formed a green vault, almost impenetrable to the light of day. The horses and baggage of the travellers had vanished. Their position was frightful, deserted as they were in the virgin forest without provisions or horses. Every hope of safety was gone, and a terrible death, after horrible sufferings stared them in the face.
It is impossible to describe the despair of Don Pedro. He acknowledged, when it was too late, the folly of his conduct. He fixed his weeping eyes on his daughter with an expression of unspeakable tenderness and sorrow, accusing himself as the sole cause of the evil that had overwhelmed them. Doña Hermosa was the only one who did not give way to despair in these critical circumstances. After trying to raise the courage of her father by tender and consoling words, she was the first to speak of quitting the place and endeavouring to find the road they had lost.
The courage which sparkled in the eye of the daughter reanimated the energy of her father and the rest. If she did not succeed in reviving hope in their breasts, at all events she aroused in them sufficient spirit to encounter the necessary struggle before them. The final words of this young creature put a stop to all hesitation, and completed the happy reaction she had excited in their minds.
"Our friends," said she, "on finding we do not arrive, will suspect our misfortune, and devote themselves immediately to a search for us. Don Estevan, to whom all the secrets of the wilderness are known, will infallibly recover our trail. Our position, therefore, is far from desperate. Let us not abandon ourselves, if we do not wish God to abandon us. Let us go: soon I hope we shall find our way out of the forest, and see the sun once more."
So they began their march.
Unfortunately it is impossible to find the right direction in a virgin forest, unless we are well acquainted with the localities, the forests, where all the trees are alike, where there is no visible horizon, and where the only available knowledge is the instinct of the brute, not the reason of man. Thus the travellers wandered at random the whole day long, always turning, without knowing it, in the same circle, travelling far without advancing, and vainly seeking to find a road which was not in existence.
Don Pedro endeavoured to discover a reason why the men who had stolen their horses should have abandoned them in this inextricable labyrinth; why they had been thus callously condemned to an agonising death; and who the enemy might be who had cruelly conceived a plan of such atrocious revenge. But the hacendero racked his brains in vain for even a surmise. His mind suggested no one on whom suspicion could rest as the probable author of this unqualified crime.
All the morning the travellers continued their devious course: the sun went down, the day gave way to night, and they were still toiling on, wandering mechanically without any fixed direction, now to the right, now to the left; struggling on more in the endeavour to escape from their thoughts by physical fatigue, than in the hope of emerging from the forest their horrible prison.
Doña Hermosa uttered no complaint. Cool and resolute, she pushed forward with a firm step, encouraging her companions by voice and gesture, and still finding spirit enough to chide and shame them for their want of perseverance.
All of a sudden she uttered a cry of pain. She had been bitten by a snake. This fresh misfortune, which should have apparently completed the travellers' despair, on the contrary, excited them to such a pitch, that they forgot all else, except how to think for and to save her whom they called their guardian angel.
But human strength has limits, beyond which it may not go. The travellers, overcome by fatigue and their poignant emotions during their wanderings, and convinced, besides, of the inutility of their efforts, were on the point of yielding to their despair, when God placed them suddenly face to face with the hunter.
CHAPTER V
CONFIDENTIAL CHAT
After conducting his guests to the compartment of the teocali which he had appointed for them, the Tigercat retraced his steps, and turned in the direction of a sufficiently ample excavation, which served for his own particular abode.
The old man walked at a slow pace, with his head raised, and his brow wrinkled under the tension of mighty thoughts. The flame of the torch he held in his right hand played capriciously over his countenance, revealing a strange expression on his features, where hate, joy, and uneasiness reflected themselves by turns.
When he arrived at his cuarto (bedchamber), if it is right to give the name chamber to a kind of hole ten feet square by seven feet high, which contained as furniture a few skulls of the bison dispersed here and there, with a handful of maize-straw negligently thrown into a corner, and serving, no doubt, as couch for the inhabitants of this sorry refuge, the Tigercat fixed his ocote torch in a bracket of iron made fast to the wall, crossed his arms on his breast, lifted his eyes with an air of defiance, and muttered the words:
"At last!"
Doubtless these words summed up in his thoughts a long series of dark and bold combinations.
After pronouncing these words, the old man cast a searching glance around him, as if he dreaded having been overheard. A mocking smile passed across his pale lips; he sat down on a bison's skull, and, burying his face in his hands, plunged into profound meditation.
A long time elapsed before he changed his position. At last, a slight noise fell on his ear: he lifted his head with a start, and turned towards the entrance to his cell.
"Come in!" he shouted. "I have waited for you with impatience."
"I think not!" replied a powerful voice; and the young hunter appeared at the threshold, where he stopped, holding his head erect, and looking proud and daring.
A shade crossed the forehead of the Tigercat.
"Ah, ha!" cried he, with pretended gaiety. "In truth, I was not expecting you, muchacho (boy); but never mind; you are welcome."
"Is that wish truly in your thoughts at this moment?" sneered the other.
"And why should it not be in my thoughts? Am I in the habit of disguising them?"
"It is a useful habit under particular circumstances."
"A truth I do not deny; but not in this case. Come in; sit down, and let us talk."
"I comply," answered the hunter, taking a few steps forward, "particularly as I have to demand an explanation from you."
The Tigercat frowned, and replied, with rising and ill-suppressed anger:
"Is it to me you speak thus? Have you forgotten who I am?"
"I forget nothing that I ought to remember," concisely replied the other.
"Boy! Have you forgotten that I am your father?"
"My father! Who will prove it?"
"You are over-venturesome," cried the old man in ire.
"After all," said the hunter scornfully, "it is nothing to me whether you be my father or not. What does it matter? Have you not told me a thousand times over, that bonds of relationship do not exist in nature; that they are only a factitious sentiment, invented by human egotism for the profit of the petty exigencies of debased society? Here, we are only two men, equals in strength and courage; of whom the one comes to demand from the other a clear and unvarnished explanation."
While the hunter was speaking, the old man fixed upon him a look which flashed fire from under his half-closed eyelids. When he ceased, the Tigercat smiled ironically.
"The wolf's cub feels he is cutting his teeth, and wants to bite his fosterer."
"He will devour him without hesitation, if it be needful," fiercely replied the hunter, as he let the butt end of the heavy rifle he carried in his hand fall violently on the ground.
Instead of being lashed into a fury by a menace uttered so peremptorily, the Tigercat suddenly became calm. His austere features lighted up with an expression of good nature which rarely visited them. Clapping his large hands together gaily, he exclaimed, with an air of lively satisfaction:
"Well roared, my lion's whelp! ¡Vive Dios! You deserve your name, Stoneheart! The more I see of you, the more I love you. I am proud of you, muchacho; for you are my handiwork, and I congratulate myself on my success in producing so complete a monster. Go on as you have begun, my son: I prophesy, you will go far."
The tone in which these words were pronounced by the Tigercat clearly proved that they were in reality the unreserved expression of his thoughts.
Stoneheart for at last we know the name of this man listened to his father with a shrug of his shoulders, and an affectation of disdain. When the latter ceased, the son replied as follows:
"Will you listen to me or not?"
"Certainly, my darling child. Speak! Tell me what frets you."
"Seek not to dupe me, gray-haired demon. I know your hellish malignity, and your unmatchable knavery."
"You are complimentary, muchacho."
"Answer frankly and categorically the questions I will put to you!"