Gustave Aimard - The Rebel Chief - A Tale of Guerilla Life

The woman wore the garb of Mexican rancheros; as for the man, he was a vaquero.

All three, on coming close to the stranger, stopped before him, and watched him sleeping.

At this moment a sunbeam entered through the open window, and fell on the stranger's face.

"Vive Dieu!" the latter exclaimed in French, as he sprang up suddenly and opened his eyes; "Why, deuce take me, I really believe I was asleep!"

"Parbleu! Mr. Oliver," the ranchero replied, in the same language; "what harm is there in that?"

"Ah! There you are, my good friends," he said, with a pleasant smile, as he offered them his hand; "it is a joyous waking for me, since I find you at my side. Good day! Louise, my girl. Good day! Mother Therese; and good day to you, too, my old Loïck! You have cheerful faces, which it is a pleasure to look at!"

"How sorry I am that you woke up, Mr. Oliver," the charming Louise said.

"The more so, because you were doubtless fatigued," Loïck said.

"Stuff! I have forgotten it. You did not expect to find me here, eh?"

"Pardon me, Mr. Oliver," Therese replied; "Lopez informed us of your arrival."

"That confounded Lopez cannot hold his tongue," Oliver said, gaily; "he must always be chattering."

"You will breakfast with us, I hope?" the young woman asked.

"Is that a thing to ask, girl?" the vaquero said; "I should like to see Mr. Oliver decline, that is all."

"Come, rough, one," Oliver said, laughingly; "do not growl. I will breakfast."

"Ah! That is all right," the young woman exclaimed. And, aided by Therese, who was her mother, as Loïck was her father, she instantly began making preparations for the morning meal.

"But, you know," said Oliver, "nothing Mexican – I do not expect the frightful cooking of the country here."

"All right!" Louise answered, with a smile; "We will have a French breakfast."

"Bravo! The news doubles my appetite."

While the two women went backwards and forwards from the kitchen to the dining room, preparing the breakfast, and laying the table, the two men remained near the window, and were conversing together.

"Are you still satisfied?" Oliver asked his host.

"Perfectly," the other answered. "Don Andrés de la Cruz is a good master; besides, as you know, I have but few dealings with him."

"That is true. You only depend on No Leo Carral."

"I do not complain of him. He is a worthy man, although a majordomo. We get on famously together."

"All the better. I should have been grieved had it been otherwise. However, it was on my recommendation that you consented to take this rancho; and if there were anything – "

"I would not hesitate to inform you of it, Mr. Oliver; but in that quarter all goes well."

The adventurer looked at him fixedly.

"Then something is going wrong elsewhere?" he remarked.

"I do not say so, sir," the vaquero stammered, with embarrassment.

Oliver shook his head.

"Do you remember, Loïck," he said to him, sternly, "the conditions I imposed on you, when I granted you your pardon?"

"Oh! I do not forget them, sir."

"You have not spoken?"

"No."

"Then Dominique still believes himself?"

"Yes, still," he replied hanging his head; "but he does not love me."

"What makes you suppose so?"

"I am only too certain of it, sir: ever since you took him on the prairies, his character has completely changed. The ten years he spent away from me have rendered him completely indifferent."

"Perhaps it is a foreboding," the adventurer remarked in a hollow voice.

"Oh, do not say that, sir," the other exclaimed with horror, "musing is a bad counsellor: I was very guilty, but if you knew how deeply I have repented of my crime – "

"I know it and that is the reason why I pardoned you. Justice will be done, some day, on the real culprit."

"Oh, sir, and I tremble, wretch that I am, at having been mixed up in this sinister history, whose denouement will be terrible."

"Yes," the adventurer said with concentrated energy, – "very terrible indeed! And you will help in it, Loïck."

The vaquero gave a sigh, which did not escape the other.

"I have not seen Dominique," he said, with a sudden change of tone; "is he still asleep?"

"Oh no, you have instructed him too well, sir; he is always the first of us to rise."

"How is it that he is not here, in that case?"

"Oh," the vaquero said with hesitation, "he has gone out: hang it, he is free, now that he is twenty-two years of age."

"Already!" the adventurer muttered in a gloomy voice. Then suddenly shaking his head, he said:

"Let us breakfast."

The meal commenced under rather melancholy auspices, but thanks to the efforts of the adventurer, the former gaiety soon returned, and the end of the breakfast was as merry as could be desired.

All at once Lopez suddenly entered the rancho.

"Señor Loïck," he said, "here is your son: I do not know what he is bringing, but he is on foot and leading his horse by the bridle."

All rose and left the rancho. At about a gunshot from the rancho, they really saw a man leading a horse by the bridle: a rather heavy burden was fastened on the animal's back.

The distance prevented them from distinguishing the nature of this burden.

"It is strange," Oliver muttered in a low voice, after attentively examining the arrival for some moments, "can it be he? Oh, I must make certain without delay."

And, after making Lopez a sign to follow him, he rushed down the steps, to the amazement of the vaquero and the two women who soon saw him running, followed by Lopez, across the plain to meet Dominique.

The latter had noticed the two men and had halted to await their arrival.

A profound calm brooded over the country: the night breeze had died away; no other sound but the continual buzzing of the infinitely little creatures, that toil incessantly at the unknown task for which they were created by Providence, disturbed the silence of the night: the deep blue sky had not a cloud: a gentle, penetrating brilliancy fell from the stars and the moonbeams flooded the landscape with gleams that gave a fantastic appearance to the trees and mounts whose shadows they immoderately elongated: bluish reflections seemed to pervade the atmosphere whose dearness was such, that the heavy flight of the coleoptera buzzing round the branches could be easily distinguished: here and there fireflies darted like will-o'-the-wisps through the tall grass, which they lit up with phosphorescent gleams as they passed.

It was, in a word, one of those limpid and pure American nights, unknown in our cold climates less favoured by heaven, and which plunge the mind into gentle and melancholy reverie.

All at once a shadow rose on the horizon, rapidly increased and soon revealed the black and still undecided outline of a horseman; the sound of horses' hoofs striking the hardened ground hurried blows, soon left no doubt in this respect.

A horseman was really approaching and going in the direction of Puebla; half asleep on his steed, he held the bridle rather loose, and allowed it to go much as it pleased, until the animal, on reaching some cross roads, in the middle of which a cross stood, gave a sudden start and leaped on one side, cocking its ears and pulling back forcibly.

The rider, suddenly aroused from his sleep or, as is more probable, from his reflections, would have been thrown, had he not, by an instinctive movement, gathered up his horse by pulling at the bridle.

"Holah," he exclaimed, drawing himself up sharply and laying his hand on his machete, while he looked anxiously around, "what is going on here? Come, Moreno, my good horse, why this terror? There, calm yourself, my good boy, no one is thinking of us."