Gustave Aimard - The Treasure of Pearls - A Romance of Adventures in California

A man, clanking his huge spurs to rid them of mud and rotten leaves, drenched almost through his blanket, splashed to the waist, his tough leather breeches scored by wait-a-bit thorns, swearing at the dog's weather, wringing out his hair, for he had lost his hat – this individual, hailed amicably as "our dear Ignacio," but heedless of the welcome in his vexation and a species of alarm, pushed aside his comrades flocking round him, and, saluting the captain, basking in the fire beams, said reproachfully:

"My brother not here? Then ill fares him! There are strangers in the chaparral!"

"Strangers!" all the voices exclaimed, whilst weapons clattered their scabbards.

From only this transient glance at don Ignacio, the Englishman made up his mind that he would not trust him with his life.

"Aye, strangers, and no jokers! But to my tale. Captain, in the first place your Indian hireling has done his work well. He slew the don – the youngster, I opine – and, as for the damsel, why I have had her on my arm this half hour, till the storm forced me to cache her!"

"Aha! Good!" said the captain, rubbing his hands on his nearly roasted knees. "Albeit, I am sorry that the girl escaped. I'd as lief marry the aunt to obtain the Miranda Hacienda, as wed the lass and be saddled with the old lady."

"Well, she's next to dead. The Apache worried them sore, so that they have had no food."

"And he? Did you pay him, as I suggested?"

"I followed him up to administer the dose of lead, but I was anticipated. Some strangers, I tell you, are roaming the desert, and blew a tunnel through his head."

"And Pepillo?" questioned Ricardo.

"Either lying perdu till the storm abates, or gratified with the same pill. It is a deuce of a heavy gun to carry a bullet so large and so true."

"An American rifle?" queried the captain, uneasily, whilst Gladsden, patting his gun silently, so conveyed to it the flattering fear with which its prowess had inspired the depredators.

"It is this way," went on Ignacio, who saw that all eyes were bent on him. "I struck the broad trail of the don and the Apache. I heard a shot of an unknown piece, so I alighted, hoppled my mule, and, making a circuit, entered the thicket afoot, going slow because of my spurs."

"Soon I came to a sort of glade, where a big tree stump stands. There the Indian had sent an arrow through don José, and there the unknown had sent a heavy bullet through him. All was quiet. No sign of the young man, their guide. But the señorita, the heiress, lay as one dead at the stump. I felt no pulse. Her eyes were closed. I took her up and made for my mule, but, either I had missed my mark or had strayed. No mule. Then, believing he would come here, since he has a sneaking affection for your horses, captain, I tried to carry the girl on my own way hither. She was light as a feather, but the thorns are a veritable net to catch hummingbirds, and then, again, the storm about to break! Faith, I hid her in a hollow tree, and hastened on. But I was overtaken by the rain, and am as tattered as a lepero !"

"And Pepillo?"

"He was never born to be drowned in the deluge upon us," answered lieutenant Ignacio, with no superabundance of fraternal affection, as he sat at the fire, and overhauled the rent raiment. "We will fish for him and the girl, in the day."

"But if she was spent, she will die of starvation," remarked Matasiete, with a spark of humanity or of affection.

"Pshaw! As you say, you can, in the character of don Aníbal de Luna, marry the old lady and so obtain the property; besides, I left my flask of aguardiente (firewater, or whiskey) in her cold pit, and that's meat and drink, eh, gentlemen?"

A silence ensued, the others having nodded a double tribute to his gallantry and the potency of raw spirits.

"I do not like the young man being out of your view," said Matasiete, who had a small, carping spirit, "If he should not meet Pepillo and Farruco – "

"Crawled off with an arrow in him to die in the bushes," was the reply. "That Apache is one of the poisoners, you know, and nothing that will not cure a rattlesnake bite, will subdue the venom of his wounds. A good riddance whoever perforated his skull! And here's his health," holding up a horn of spirits on high as though he divined the actual whereabouts of the avenger of don José de Miranda.

"There is Farruco still to come in," said the captain, yawning.

"Pah! He's under a stone like an iguana! If he eludes the rain as cleverly as he does the leaden hail when we attack a caravan, methinks he will turn up in the day as dry as the core of a miser's heart."

Meanwhile, the storm, which had but inadequately manifested its power in the heralding blow and pour, now swept across the plain and buffeted the tower. It began to rock, and the sentries, who set discipline at defiance and had come into the shelter, were half afraid that they had not taken the wiser course. Whatever their terror below, that of Gladsden would have been more justifiable, for the loose stones atop were moved at each gust, and some fell, both within and without. The prospect of the lightning bolt flinging him scathed to the death, amid ruins, upon the knot of robbers, was quite within reasonable surmise.

He wrapped his gun up beside him, so that its steel should not attract the flame that seemed, when it played within his nook, to linger upon him, and expected the worst between the two perils.

All at once, splitting the rolling thunder in its higher key, a frightened voice cried out, "The horses! There is a stampede!"

Notwithstanding the pouring rain, half a dozen of the bandits rushed out. But almost instantly returning, they gladly reported that the agitation among the horses was caused, not so much by their fright at the lightning, as by the mad gambols of Ignacio's mule, which, running into the group tethered on the leeward of the tower, was plying tooth and hoof in order to range himself near the horse to which he had taken one of those devoted fancies not uncommon among the hybrids. Instead of their forming a mass, rounded in shape, their tails outward, to meet the rain, they half encircled the tower, accommodating themselves to the wind, which was shifting to the southeast.

"The old tower holds firm," said Ignacio, his mouth full of beef, as he plied a needle and fine deer's sinew for thread in the reparation of his leggings.

"Only the gale shakes out a tooth of the old hag's head," said his neighbour, on whom sundry fragments of the crumble had fallen.

"Ha!" ejaculated don Matasiete, abruptly, as he clapped his long hand to his head, and then clutched the object which had struck him there, and then rolled into the ashes. He had pulled it forth with amazing alacrity. "Since when has this tower been built with cartridges?"

"What!" was the general cry, as all, like the speaker, looked upward.

"I tell you that this fell on my head. If it rains more of the like we must dash out the fire, or we'll be blown higher than the eagle flies!"

Every man had drawn a weapon. Their ignorance of meteorology might be great or little, but cartridges do not come with Mexican rain often enough to be calmly accepted without an inquisition.

"The strangers!" cried the captain, prudently backing towards the wall at the point furthest from the ladder's end. "Have they come in among us?"

"Stuff! What man in his lightness of heart would leap thus into the wolf's throat?"

"That's all very well put, Ricardo," rejoined the leader. "But they may have preceded you, and not known that this is our lair. Just climb up and see if, by any chance, we are receiving uninvited guests."

Ricardo, who was singled out, was a burly rogue, but he did not accept this order. On the contrary he made a wry face and thrust his cheek out with his tongue, which signified "go and do it yourself." This incipient mutiny was clearly contagious, for all the bandits returned their commander's interrogative look with another, defiant, stupid, or complacent, pursuant to their natures.