Генри Хаггард - Heart of the World

An hour later I followed them myself without being observed by the spies of the attacking party, for rain fell and the night was very dark. Arriving in the garden, I collected my men, and placed them in ambush under a low wall commanding the street, up which I knew the murderers must come. Here we waited patiently till the cocks crew and the dawn began to break in the east.

Presently we heard a stir in the village beneath, as of men marching, and in the gathering light we saw the murderers creeping stealthily up the street to the number of fifty or more. So great was their fear of the Englishman, that they thought it safer to bring many men to kill him, also each of the villains desired that his neighbour should be a sharer in the crime.

"Will you not wake up the Inglese ?" asked the man next to me.

"No," I answered, "it will be time enough to wake him when the affair is settled. Let none of you fire till I give the word."

Now, the brigands in the street below—men without shame—after waiting a little time for the light to grow stronger, advanced towards the gate, looking like a procession of monks, for the air was chilly and each of them wore his serape wrapped about his head. In their hands they carried rifles and drawn machetes .

Within ten paces of the gate they paused for a minute to consult, and I heard their leader, a Mexican, direct half of them to creep round to the back of the house so as to cut off all escape. Then I whistled, which was the signal agreed upon, at the same time covering the Mexican with my rifle. Almost before the sound had left my lips, there followed a report of twenty guns, and some fifteen or sixteen of the enemy were stretched upon the ground.

For a moment they wavered, and I thought that the rest of them were going to fly, but this they dared not do, for they knew that they had been seen; therefore they rushed at the wall with a yell, firing as they came. As they climbed over it we met them with pistol shots and machetes , and for a few minutes the affair was sharp, for they were desperate, and outnumbered us.

Still they lost many men in scaling the wall and forcing the gate, and with the exception of fourteen who fled, and were for the most part caught afterwards, the rest of them we finished amongst the flowers and vegetables of the garden. Just as all was over, the Englishman, who was a sound sleeper, appeared yawning, dressed in white, and holding a pistol in his hand.

"What is this noise?" he asked, rubbing his eyes, "and why are you people fighting in my garden? Go away, all of you, or I shall shoot at you."

"I trust," I said, bowing, "that the señor will pardon us for disturbing him in his slumber, but this matter could not be settled without some noise. May I offer the señor my serape ? The air is chilly, and he will catch cold in that dress."

"Thank you," he said, putting on the serape . "And now perhaps you will explain why you come to spoil my garden by making a battle–field of it."

Then I told him, and was astonished to see that as I went on he grew very angry.

"I suppose that I must thank you, gentlemen, for saving my life," he said at last, "though I never asked you to do it. But, all the same, I think it shameless that you should have had this fight in my own garden, without giving me the opportunity of sharing it. Caramba! am I a little girl that I should be treated in such a way?" And of a sudden he burst out laughing and shook me by the hand.

That day, when all the trouble was over, and the place had been made tidy, the Señor Strickland sent a man to ask if I would do him the pleasure to dine with him. I accepted, and as we sat smoking after dinner, having talked of the fight till we were tired of it, he spoke thus to me:

"Don Ignatio, I owe you my life, and, believe me, I am grateful, for I do not see why you should have risked so much for a foreign stranger."

"I did it because I like you, señor," I answered, "also because it is very pleasant to catch the wicked in their own toils. Those who perished this morning were villains, every one of them. They came in the hope of plunder, for such 'men without shame' will murder human beings for five dollars a head; but they were set on by others who hate you because you treat your Indian workmen fairly, and also because they do not wish foreigners here to compete with them, and think that you are but the first bird of the flock. Therefore they thought that it would be good policy to kill you so as to frighten away others who might follow. However, that danger has gone by, and you need have no more fear, for they have learnt a lesson which they will not forget."

"So much the better then," he answered, "for I have troubles enough to deal with here, without being bothered to protect my life against such contemptible vermin. And now, Don Ignatio, I hardly like to ask you, and I daresay that you will think the offer beneath contempt, but are you willing to accept an engagement? I am sadly in need of a sub–manager, one who could control the Indians, and to such a man I am prepared to pay a hundred dollars a month; the funds of the company I represent will not allow me to offer more."

I thought for a while and answered:

"Señor, the money is not enough to tempt me, though it will serve to buy food, lodging, and cigars, but I accept your offer for the same reason that I fought your battles this morning, because I like you, and will gladly do my best to serve you and your interests. Still, I must warn you, for aught I know, I may have to leave your service at short notice, for my time is not altogether my own. I also am the servant of a great company, señor, and though now I am on leave, as it were, and have been for these many years, I may be required at any moment."

Thus it was, then, that I entered the service of the Señor James Strickland, or rather of his company, in which I continued for something more than a year, working very hard, for the señor did not spare either me or himself. But as the records of those months of fruitless labour could have little interest for you, my friend, instead of writing of them, I will tell you in few words what was the history of this Englishman as he told it to me.

He was of noble blood, as might be seen in his face, for he had a right to be addressed as "honourable," which it would seem means more in England than it does here. Nevertheless, his father was a priest of the heretic church and quite poor, though, how this came about, you, being an Englishman, will understand better than I, seeing that in most countries it is the privilege of nobles to enrich themselves at the expense of others of less rank.

At any rate, when James Strickland's father died, his son, who was then a lad of twenty, found that he possessed in the world no more than five thousand dollars. This sum, being of adventurous mind and sanguine temperament, he invested in a ranch in Texas, where he endured much danger and hardship, and lost all his money.

After this experience, having nothing to live on and no friends, he was obliged to labour with his hands like a peon, and this he did in many ways. He broke horses, he herded cattle; once, even, for two months he sank so low—it makes me angry to write of it—as to be forced to wait upon the guests in an inn at Panama.

Thence he drifted to Nicaragua, and became mixed up in mining ventures, and when I first met him he had been a miner for ten years. Most of this time he spent managing a mine for an American, in the Chontales country, on the frontier of Honduras, where the fever is so bad that few white men can live. Here it was that he learned to speak Spanish and the Indian or Maya tongue. At length, after an attack of fever which nearly killed him, he left Honduras, and came to Mexico, where he accepted the management of this silver mine at Cumarvo. Hitherto it had been worked by a Mexican on behalf of its owners, who dismissed the rogue for stealing the ore and selling it.