Gustave Aimard - Stoneheart - A Romance

The moon had disappeared behind the clouds, and Don Torribio was once more enveloped in darkness. But if he could no longer distinguish the wild beasts, he knew they were there: he smelt their odour; he saw their eyes flashing through the obscurity; and their yells, nearing him more and more, made him feel that the last spark of hope would soon be extinguished for ever.

Firmly planting his feet on the ground and leaning a little forward to secure his aim, he drew a revolver, and fired six shots in rapid succession at the tiger cats. Six howls of agony, and the noise produced by falling from branch to branch, immediately followed. Six of the beasts were killed or wounded.

Nothing more horrible can be conceived than the uproar caused by this unexpected onslaught. The wolves threw themselves yelling on the victims, which they began to devour eagerly, disputing their booty with the vultures and zopilotes , who also claimed their share.

Suddenly there was a strange rustling amongst the leaves and branches of the trees. A body, of indistinguishable shape, shot through the air, and alighted growling on the platform. Don Torribio, clutching his rifle, dealt the animal a terrific blow with the butt on the skull, and the brute rolled howling from the top of the rock to the bottom.

And now his ears were stunned by the uproar arising from a dreadful combat, a few feet below him, between the jaguars and tiger cats on one side, and the panther which had attacked them. Fascinated by the terrible danger to which he was exposed, Don Torribio, forgetful of the evil consequences to him that might ensue, fired two pistol shots into the mass of foes tearing and rushing at each other's throats at his feet.

Thereupon a strange thing occurred: all these animals, natural enemies to each other, seemed to comprehend that it would be better to unite against man, their common foe, than waste their strength in strife among themselves. Suddenly ceasing from the terrible combat in which they were engaged, and abandoning, with one accord, the bloody and half-devoured bodies of the victims, they turned their rage in the direction of the rock on which Don Torribio seemed to set them at defiance, and attacked it in concert with terrific energy – leaping upon its excrescences, striving to hold on to them, and trying to escalade it on all sides at once.

The situation grew more and more critical. Several tiger cats had already bounded on to the platform. As fast as Don Torribio knocked them over, others took their place. The number of his enemies increased with every minute; his own strength and energy were gradually deserting him.

This strife of one man against a host of ferocious brutes had something grand and striking about it. Don Torribio, like one with the nightmare, strove in vain to beat back the constantly renewed crowds of his assailants: he felt close to him the hot and fetid breath of the tiger cats and panthers; the roaring of the jaguars, and mocking moans of the panthers, poured into his ears a frightful song, that deafened and made him giddy; the eyes of thousands of his invisible foes flashed through the obscurity, and fascinated his own gaze; and sometimes the heavy wing of the vulture or zopilote brushed his cheek, from which the cold sweat exuded.

An accurate perception of his own existence had vanished from his soul; he no longer thought: his life, if we may still use the expression, had grown mechanical; his motions and gestures were those of a machine, and his arm rose and fell with the dull regularity of a pendulum.

Talons had already torn his flesh; several catamounts, rushing upon him, had fastened on his throat, and he had been obliged to seize them bodily to force them to quit their hold. His blood was streaming from twenty wounds, superficial, it is true; but the moment was close at hand when the energy which alone sustained him would be worn out, and he would fall from the rock, to be torn in pieces by the brutes who were ever pressing more madly upon him.

At this solemn moment, when strength and courage were alike failing, a last cry issued from his breast – a cry of agony, a cry of horrible expression, which was repeated far and wide by the echoes: the last, the final protest of a bold man, who owns himself vanquished, and instinctively calls on his kind for succour before he falls.

Wonderful to relate, a cry answered his own!

Don Torribio, astonished, and not daring to believe that a miracle was to take place in a wilderness where none before himself had dared to penetrate, fancied his ears had deceived him; yet, confessing to himself how little strength was still left him, and feeling hope faintly reviving in his soul, he uttered a second cry, more poignant, more help-seeking than the former.

As soon as the echoes of the forest were silent after their repetition of the cry, a single word, weak as a sigh, was borne to his listening ears on the wings of the breeze: "Hope!"

Don Torribio recovered himself. Electrified by the word, he seemed to regain new life and strength, and redoubled his strokes on his numberless assailants.

Suddenly the gallop of many horses was heard in the distance, several discharges of firearms illumined the darkness with their transient splendour, and some men, or rather demons, rushed unexpectedly into the thickest crowd of wild beasts, making a horrible slaughter.

At this moment Don Torribio, attacked by two tiger cats, rolled upon the platform struggling with both.

In a very short time the brutes were put to flight by the newcomers, who hastened to light fires to keep them at bay for the rest of the night.

Two of the men armed with burning torches of ocote wood, set themselves to search for the man whose cries of distress had brought them to his aid.

They were not long in finding him stretched out on the platform, surrounded by ten or twelve dead tiger cats, and clutching in his stiffened hands the throat of a strangled catamount.

"Well, Carlocho," exclaimed a voice, "have you found him?"

"Yes," replied the other; "but he seems dead."

" ¡Caray! " resumed Pablito; "It would be a pity; for he was a bold fellow. Where is he?"

"There; on the rock opposite you."

"Can you let him down with the verado's help?"

"Nothing easier; he is as still as a log."

"Make haste, then, in the name of heaven!" said Pablito; "Every minute's delay may be a year's life stolen from him!"

Carlocho and the verado lifted Don Torribio by the feet and shoulders, and with infinite precaution carried him from the improvised fortress he had defended so bravely to one of the fires, and laid him on a bed of leaves prepared by El Zapote; for the four vaqueros were, by a strange chance, reunited in this spot.

" ¡Canarios! " cried Pablito, at sight of the miserable man; "Poor devil! How they have mauled him! It was high time for help."

"Do you think he will recover?" asked Carlocho, with great interest.

"There is always hope," said Pablito dogmatically, "when the vital organs are uninjured. Let us look at him."

He bent over the body of Don Torribio, unsheathed his poniard, and put the blade to his lips.

"Not a sign of breath!". and he shook his head.

"Are his wounds serious?" asked the verado .

"I think not: he has fallen from fatigue and overexcitement."

"But in that case he may come round again?"

"Perhaps he may; perhaps he may not: all depends upon the greater or less violence of the shock to his nervous system."

"Ha!" exclaimed the verado joyfully; "Look here! He breathes. ¡Vive Dios! He has tried to open his eyes!"

"Then he is saved!" replied Pablito; "He will soon come to his senses. This man has a constitution of iron. He will be able to be in the saddle in a quarter of an hour, if he likes; but we must attend to his wounds."