"Silence, Estevan!" cried the old lady, interrupting him; "Such words must not be used when speaking of your master's daughter."
"Very true, mother; forgive me; I was wrong. But had you heard Doña Hermosa speaking of our friend as I did, and exacting from me a promise to search for and bring him to her, ¡vive Dios! you would not know what to think."
"Perhaps so; but, at all events, I should not have poured oil upon the flame, and, for my own sake and that of my friend, should have prudently locked up my thoughts at the bottom of my heart."
"Do not think me so mad, señora," exclaimed Don Fernando, "as to attach more importance than they deserve to your son's words. I know too well what I am I have too complete a conviction of my inferiority to dare to raise my venturous eyes to her whom honour compels me to respect as one of the angels."
"Well said, Don Fernando, and spoken as a man should speak," broke in Ña Manuela; "but let us drop the subject, and occupy ourselves in finding the means of escape from the dilemma we are in."
"I think," replied the hunter, with some hesitation "I think I can show you the means, if you cannot contrive something better."
Mother and son eagerly drew their butacas nearer to him, in order to listen more attentively.
"Speak, brother, speak," cried Don Estevan; "let us have no further delay. These means, what are they?"
"You must excuse me," resumed Don Fernando, "if the plan I am about to submit to you should not be exactly compatible with the strict laws of honour as they are understood in the civilised world; but I entreat you to recollect that I have been brought up as a redskin; that the man with whom we are about to enter into mortal strife is more than half an Indian; and the war he intends to wage with you will be an Apache war, full of treachery and ambuscades; that, in order to meet him with advantage, we too, whatever repugnance we may feel, must employ the same measures, must turn his own weapons against himself; must repel treachery by treachery, and knavery by knavery; for if, adhering to a false idea of honour, we persist in an open and honest warfare, we shall play the part of fools indeed, and he will outwit us."
"What you say, Fernando," replied the mayor domo, "is unfortunately but too true. The proverb is right, 'Cap a knave with a knave.' I perfectly understand the bearing and the justice of your reasoning, yet I confess that it is hard for an honest man, accustomed to look his enemies in the face, to be forced to wrap himself in a fox's hide, and condescend to stratagem when his heart leads him to attack openly."
"But what can we do? This is one of the sad necessities of our position. If we do not act in this wise, we may as well submit to our foe as attempt to thwart his measures; for we should fail."
"Let it be as you wish, since there is no other method; but now for your plan."
"It is this: notwithstanding the disagreement between myself and the Tigercat, he has allowed me to dive too deep into his confidence too many of his secrets are known to me for him to exhibit any rancour against me, whatever anger he may feel. Accustomed for a number of years to mould me to his will, and rule over me as he pleased, he thinks he knows my character thoroughly, and is persuaded that my dispute with him was only an outbreak of temper, and that nothing would please me more than to place myself once again under his guidance. Finally, like all men who have through long years cherished a chimera, the Tigercat who, I am convinced, has only fostered me and suffered me in his presence for the sake of making me useful in one of his infernal plots will allow himself, shrewd as he is, to be overreached by me, if I choose to take the trouble."
"All this sounds plausible enough," observed Don Estevan.
"I think it does. Well, then, listen to my proposal. At daybreak tomorrow you and I will leave for the presidio, where I will put you into communication with a certain rogue of my acquaintance, who is as much devoted to me as people of his sort can be. This pícaro will serve you as an agent: through him we shall learn all the Tigercat is doing at San Lucar with the leperos he is enrolling for some sinister purpose. We will then part: you to return quietly to this place; I to rejoin the Tigercat in the prairies. In this way, whatever happens will reach our ears. This is my project; what do you think of it?"
"It is capital, Fernando; you have thought of everything."
"But remember three things: first of all, whatever I may do or say, whatever measures you may see me try, do not take offence at them; leave me complete master of my actions, and never for a moment suspect that I intend to betray you."
"Have no uneasiness on that score; I will put no faith in the testimony of my eyes or ears: my confidence in you shall be unalterable. And now for your next remark."
"You will instantly comprehend its importance. As soon as we have left the presidio, we must be as strangers; we must know nothing of each other."
"It is indeed an important piece of advice, and I will take care to follow it; the consequences of a single mistake would be incalculably disastrous to us."
"Lastly, be ready to act at the first signal, be it by night or day. Never mind what you may be doing; leave everything instantly to assume the offensive the moment the signal is given."
"Good. After tomorrow, on the pretence of having certain urgent work to be carried out at the hacienda, I will quietly enlist a score of leperos, hairbrained fellows, who for gold will obey me blindly and recoil before no danger."
"The very thing! You can easily employ them here in doing nothing till the time comes for the use of knife and rifle."
"I will be answerable that no one shall make a single inquiry concerning them. But what sort of token will you send me, and through whom will you send it?"
"The token will be a white eagle's plume broken into three pieces, and with the quill painted red. He who brings the plume will only say the words, 'My two piastres.' You will give them to him without remark, and send him away again."
"But who is the man, Fernando?"
"He will be a stranger; most likely the first man I happen to meet. It is requisite that the messenger should not suspect the importance of the message he conveys, should he chance to fall into the enemy's hands."
"Well reasoned! Come, come, I think we shall get through this business successfully."
"As for me, I am sure of it," exclaimed Don Fernando, "if you will only follow my instructions to the letter."
"Do not be anxious on that score, brother; I will answer for my accuracy."
Everything having been thus arranged and decided on by our three personages, they separated and retired to rest, for it was already late, and the two men were to mount at daybreak to take the road to the presidio of San Lucar.
CHAPTER II.
THE VIRGIN FOREST
Don Torribio Quiroga, with whom we have now to do, was a young man of twenty-eight, with a refined and intellectual countenance, an elegant figure, and possessing in the highest degree the manners of the best society.
He belonged to one of the richest and most considerable families in the province of Chihuahua: the death of his parents had put him in possession of an income of more than five hundred thousand piastres, or about ninety thousand pounds sterling; for money is plentiful in that country.
A man in this position, and gifted with all the mental and physical advantages enjoyed by Don Torribio, had a right to very high pretensions; for, a certain amount of fortune once reached, obstacles no longer exist, or, at least, are only an excitement instead of an impediment.
Don Torribio had succeeded in all his undertakings, with one exception: his struggle against Don Fernando, a struggle in which the latter had always come off victorious.
Thus the hatred the rich hacendero felt for the bee-hunter, and which was originally based upon puerile motives, had insensibly increased with each successive mortification, and ended at last by assuming the alarming proportions of real Mexican hate, which only the death of its object can appease.
After the meeting with Don Fernando Carril, which resulted so unfavourably for him, Don Torribio Quiroga remained a prey to that cold and concentrated rage which slowly eats into the soul till it explodes with terrific violence.
As soon as he lost sight of his lucky adversary, he had started at full speed. His spurs mangled the flanks of his luckless horse, who snorted with pain, and redoubled his furious pace.
Now, where was Don Torribio going, with distorted features and hair streaming to the wind?
He did not know himself; moreover, he did not care.
He saw nothing, heard nothing. Revolving sinister projects in his brain, he crossed torrents and ravines without checking his horse's career.
Hatred was crying aloud in his heart; nothing cooled his burning forehead; his temples beat as if they would burst, and nervous agitation shook him in every limb.
This state of overexcitement lasted many hours. His steed still continued to fly. At last the noble animal, worn out with fatigue, suddenly stopped and dropped upon the sand.
Don Torribio rose, and looked around him with a bewildered air.
A shock like this rude fall was necessary to restore order to his ideas, and recall him to reality. Another hour of such continued anguish would have made him raving mad, or ended in sudden apoplexy.
It was night. Thick darkness covered the earth; a mournful silence reigned over the wilderness to which chance had brought him.
"Where am I?" he exclaimed, endeavouring to make out his position.
But the moon, hidden by clouds, gave forth no ray; the wind began to roar like thunder; the branches of the trees crashed against each other, and, from the depths of the wilderness, the growlings of the wild beast began to mingle their deep notes with the sharper howling of the wild cats.
Don Torribio strained his eyes in vain efforts to penetrate the darkness around him. At last he approached his horse, which was stretched on the ground, and drawing its breath with difficulty. Moved with pity for the faithful companion of so many adventures, he stooped down, removed his pistols from the holsters to his belt, and taking from the saddle, where it was slung, a gourd filled with rum, began to wash the eyes, nostrils, and mouth of the panting animal. Half an hour's persistence seemed to restore life to the horse. He got on his legs, and, with his natural instinct, soon discovered a neighbouring rill, at which he slaked his thirst.
"All is not yet lost," muttered Don Torribio; "after all, I may make my escape hence."
But a deep roar resounded at a short distance, repeated immediately afterwards in four different directions.
The horse's coat stood on end; and Don Torribio felt a cold shudder run through his veins.
"Curse upon it!" he exclaimed; "I have stumbled upon a drinking place for panthers! What is to be done?"
He stooped, and found the confirmation of his fears in the footprints stamped in the muddy borders of the rill.
Just at this moment he saw, at ten paces from him, two eyes, glimmering like burning coals, fixed upon him with strange intensity.
Don Torribio was a man of well-tried courage. Many a time, before the eyes of his comrades, he had performed deeds of wonderful temerity; but now, alone in the darkness, and surrounded by savage animals, he felt himself overcome by deadly terror: his chest heaved, and his breath came and went with difficulty through his set teeth; a cold sweat broke out on his limbs, and he was on the point of dropping.
But this fit of terror did not last above a minute. By a violent effort of his will, he collected himself, and calling all his energy to his aid, prepared for a desperate struggle, in which he knew he must succumb; yet, preserving that instinct of self-preservation and hope which is seldom utterly extinguished in man, he determined to defend his life to the last moment.
Just then his horse, with a snort of horrible fear, bounded away, and made his escape on to the plain.
"So much the better," muttered Don Torribio; "perhaps the poor brute's speed may save him."
A frightful concert of yells and howling broke out in all parts of the forest at the flight of the horse, and mighty shadows, indistinguishable in the darkness, bounded past Don Torribio.
He smiled bitterly.
"Aha!" said he; "Shall I stand here to be devoured, without attempting to escape? ¡Vive Dios! It would be the act of a fool! Come, I am not eaten yet: I will go."
A violent gust of wind here cleared the heaven of clouds, and for some minutes the wan light of the moon lit up the wild spot, in which Don Torribio found himself.
A few paces off, the Rio del Norte ran between two steep banks; on all sides, and far away in the distance, the dense masses of the virgin forest extended themselves. A chaos of rocks piled on each other in inextricable confusion, from whose fissures rose clumps of trees overgrown with entangled creepers drooping in fantastic garlands, pushed its ramifications to the verge of the river; the soil, composed of sand and the detritus always abounding in the forests of America, crumbled under the footstep.
Then Don Torribio knew where he was: at least fifteen leagues from the nearest inhabited spot. He was entangled in the first spurs of an immense forest the only one throughout the country of the Apaches which the hardy pioneers of civilization had not yet dared to explore, such mysterious horrors seemed concealed in its dark recesses.
Don Torribio took no pains to inquire how his headlong course had brought him to this dreaded region. Danger so frightful that it claimed the exertion of all his powers, hung too directly over his head for him to waste time in speculating on anything save the manner of extricating himself.
At this side, the limpid steam we have mentioned issued from a rock; its banks, impressed with numberless footprints of wild beasts, clearly indicating that the spot was a favourite drinking place, when, at sunset, they left their lairs to seek their food and quench their thirst. And as a further living proof of the fact, two magnificent jaguars, male and female, had at that very moment stopped at its border, and were watching with restless eyes the gambols of their young.
"So," said Don Torribio to himself, "here are pleasant neighbours;" and he mechanically cast his eyes on the other side.
An immense panther, crouched on a rock in the attitude of a cat on the watch, had fixed on him two eyeballs glowing like carbuncle.
Don Torribio, according to the custom in South America, never left home without his weapons. His carbine, of great price, was of remarkable accuracy, and by a providential chance, had not been broken when he fell with his horse. He had placed it as he rose against a rock beside him: he stretched out his arm, and seized it.
"Good!" said he, with a grim smile; "The struggle will cost them dear, at all events."
He shouldered the weapon; but at the moment he was about to fire, a plaintive caterwauling causing him to raise his eyes, he saw a dozen of catamounts and tiger cats of immense size perched in the branches above him, while a number of wolves crept stealthily up and dropped down in the bushes behind him. Poised on the summits of the surrounding rocks, a tribe of vultures, bald buzzards, and urubus, with half closed eyes, seemed to be expecting the moment to seize their share of the quarry.