Томас Майн Рид - Всадник без головы / The Headless Horseman

“What damned foolery’s this, boys?” continues the colossus, addressing himself to the crowd, still speechless from surprise. “You don’t mean hanging, do you?”

“We do,” answers a stern voice. “And why not?”

“Why not! You’d hang a fellow-citizen without trial?”

“Not much of a fellow-citizen – so far as that goes. Besides, he’s had a trial – a fair trial.”

“Indeed. A human creature to be condemned with his brain in a state of delirium! Sent out of the world without knowing that he’s in it! You call that a fair trial, do you?”

“What matters it, if we know he’s guilty? We’re all satisfied about that.”

“The hell you are! I’m not going to waste words with such as you, Jim Stoddars. But for you, Sam Manly, and yourself, Mister Poindexter – surely you aren’t agreed to this which, in my opinion, would be neither more nor less than murder?”

“You haven’t heard all, Zeb Stump,” interposes the Regulator Chief, with the design to justify his acquiescence in the act. “There are facts—”

“I don’t want to hear them. It’ll be time enough for that, when the thing comes to a regular trial; the which surely nobody here’ll object to.”

“You take too much upon you, Zeb Stump. What is it your business, we’d like to know? The man that’s been murdered wasn’t your son; nor your brother, nor your cousin neither! If he had been, you’d be of a different way of thinking, I take it.”

It is Calhoun who has made this interpolation – spoken before with so much success to his scheme.

“It concerns me – first, because this young fellow’s a friend of mine, though he is Irish, and a stranger; and secondly, because Zeb Stump isn’t going to stand by, and see foul play.”

“Foul play! There’s nothing of the sort. Boys! you’re not going to be scared from your duty by such swagger as this? Let’s make a finish of what we’ve begun. The blood of a murdered man cries out to us. Lay hold of the rope!”

“Do it – one of you – if you dare. You may hang this poor creature as high as you like; but not till you’ve laid Zebulon Stump stretched dead upon the grass, with some of you alongside of him.”

Zeb’s speech is followed by a profound silence. The people keep their places – partly from the danger of accepting his challenge, and partly from the respect due to his courage and generosity. Also, because there is still some doubt in the minds of the Regulators, both as to the expediency, and fairness, of the course which Calhoun is inciting them to take.

With a quick instinct the old hunter perceives the advantage he has gained, and presses it.

“Give the young fellow a fair trial,” urges he. “Let’s take him to the settlement, and have him tried there. You’ve got no clue proof, that he’s had any hand in the black business. I know how he felt towards young Poindexter. Instead of being his enemy, there isn’t a man on this ground that had more of a liking for him.”

The Regulator Chief says they have proof that there was “ bad blood [52]between Gerald and young Poindexter”. But on hearing that the story about their quarrel was told by Calhoun, Zeb says he didn’t believe a word of it. He also has facts that’ll “go a good way towards explication of this mysterious business.”

“What facts?” demands the Regulator Chief. “Let’s hear them, Stump.”

“There’s more than one. First place what do you make of the young fellow being wounded himself? I don’t talk of the scratches you see; I believe they’re done by coyotes that attacked him, after they saw he was wounded. But look at his knee. Something else than coyotes did that. What do you make of it, Sam Manly?”

“Well – some of the boys here think there’s been a struggle between him and the man that’s missing.”

“Yes, that’s he who we mean,” speaks one of the “boys” referred to. “They’ve had a fight, and the mustanger fell among the rocks. That’s what’s given him the swelling in the knee. Besides, there’s the mark of a blow upon his head – looks like it had been the butt of a pistol. [53]As for the scratches, we can’t tell what’s made them. Thorns may be; or wolves if you like. That foolish fellow of his has a story about a tiger; but it won’t do for us.”

Zeb confirmed Phelim’s story about the jaguar and said he’d seen the animal himself and saved the mustanger from its claws. When he was about to tell what he though about the Indians that had been in the hut, according to Phelim, the clattering of hoofs, borne down from the bluff, saluted the ear of everybody at the same instant of time.

Along the top of the cliff, and close to its edge, a horse is seen, going at a gallop. There is a woman – a lady – upon his back, with hat and hair streaming loosely behind her – the string hindering the hat from being carried altogether away!

That woman equestrian – man-seated in the saddle – once seen was never more to be forgotten. It was Isidora who had thus strangely and suddenly shown herself. Why was she riding at such a dangerous pace?

“Los Indios! Los Indios!” comes the cry of the strange equestrian.

To those who hear it at the jacale it needs no translation. They know that she, who has given utterance to it, is pursued by Indians.

There are four of them going in full gallop, against the clear sky.

The leading savage has lifted the lazo from his saddle horn: he is winding it over his head! At this moment the sharp crack of a rifle comes echoing out of the glen, – or perhaps a little sooner, as a stinging sensation in his wrist causes him to let go his lazo, and look wonderingly for the why!

A single glance is sufficient to cause a change in his tactics. He beholds a hundred men, with a hundred gun barrels!

His three followers see them at the same time; and as if moved by the same impulse, all four turn in their tracks, and gallop away from the cliff.

The sight of the savages has produced another quick change in the tableau formed in front of the mustanger’s hut. The majority who deemed Maurice Gerald a murderer has become transformed into a minority; while those who believed him innocent are now the men whose opinions are respected.

1) Who interrupted “the stern ceremonial of death”? Did she succeed in saving Maurice?

2) Who interrupted the trial for the second time?

3) How did the assembled party react to the old hunter’s words? What did he suggest?

4) Who was seen by the party? How did it change the state of affairs?

Civilians who had gone in pursuit of the savages seen on the Alamo came back on the same day and reported: that no Indians had been there!

They came provided with proofs of their statement which consisted in a collection of miscellaneous articles – wigs of horse-hair, cocks’ feathers stained blue, green, or scarlet, breech-clouts of buckskin, mocassins of the same material, and several packages of paint, all which they had found concealed in the hollow of a cottonwood tree!

There still were several subjects worth thinking and talking about. There was the arrival, still of recent date, of the most beautiful woman ever seen upon the Alamo; the mysterious disappearance and supposed assassination of her brother; the yet more mysterious appearance of a horseman without a head; the story of a party of white men “playing Indian”; and last, though not of least interest, the news that the suspected murderer had been caught, and was now inside the walls of their own guardhouse [54]—mad as a maniac!

Zeb Stump headed his horse in the direction of the Port.