Gustave Aimard - The Adventurers

"Have at the horsemen!" Valentine shouted; "help the weaker party!"

"Be of good heart, gentlemen!" said Louis; "help is at hand!"

And timely help it was for Don Gregorio and his friend. A minute later, and they must have succumbed. The providential arrival of the Frenchmen quickly changed the appearance of the fight. Two horsemen fell dead from pistol shots fired by the young men; while a third, knocked down by Don Gregorio, was silently strangled by Cæsar. The other two thought it high time to decamp, leaving their fair prisoner behind them. She had fainted; and Don Tadeo, leaning against the wall of a house, was upon the point of following her example. Valentine, with the presence of mind acquired in his old profession of a Spahi, secured the horses of the bandits killed in the skirmish.

"Quick, gentlemen! to the saddle!" Valentine said to the Chilians.

Louis had already dismounted, and was attending to the young lady.

"Do not leave us," Don Gregorio remarked; "we are surrounded by enemies."

"Fear nothing!" said Valentine, "we are quite at your service."

"Many thanks! – A little assistance, if you please, to place my friend, who is wounded, on horseback."

Once in the saddle, Don Tadeo declared he felt sufficiently strong to keep his seat without help. Don Gregorio placed the still inanimate young lady before him.

"Now, gentlemen," he said, "nothing remains for me but to thank you most cordially, if your business will not allow you to remain longer with us."

"I beg to repeat, caballeros, that we are at your service."

"We have no pressing demand upon our time; we will not leave you till we are assured you are in safety," Louis said, with animation.

"Follow me, then," said Don Gregorio, with a bow; "and do not spare the horses; it is an affair of life and death."

And the four horsemen set off as fast as their horses could bear them.

"Eh! eh!" said Valentine, in an undertone to his foster brother. "Here is an adventure that promises something! We are losing no time at Santiago! What think you?"

"We shall see!" Louis replied, in a more thoughtful tone.

No light had gleamed out, no window had been opened, during the combat. The streets remained silent and gloomy; the city seemed abandoned. Nothing was to be heard but the clatter of the horses' feet upon the rough pavement of the streets through which they galloped. The cathedral clock struck two as they passed across the Plaza Mayor. Don Tadeo could not repress a sigh of relief when glancing at the spot where on, only a few hours before, he had so miraculously escaped death.

Don Tadeo was right, when, on seeing General Bustamente pass, he said he was on his way to visit his mistress. It was, in fact, to the residence of the Linda the General was going. On arriving at the gate, one of his men dismounted, and knocked. But no one answered; and at a sign from the General, the soldier knocked louder. But still all remained silent; there was no movement within. He began to feel uneasy. This silence was the more extraordinary from the General's visit having been announced, and he was, consequently, expected. "Oh! oh!" he said, "What is going on here? Knock again, Diego, and knock in a way to make yourself heard!"

The soldier knocked with all his strength, but still uselessly. Don Pancho's brow contracted; he began to fancy some misfortune must have occurred.

"Break open the door!" he cried.

The order was instantly obeyed; and the General, followed by his escort, entered the house. In the Patio all dismounted.

"Be prudent," said the General in a low voice to the corporal who commanded the escort; "place sentinels everywhere, and keep a sharp look-out whilst I search the house."

After giving these orders, the General took his pistols from his holsters, and, followed by some of his lancers, entered the house; but everywhere the silence of death prevailed. After passing through several apartments, he arrived at a door, which, being a little ajar, allowed a stream of light to pass. From the other side of this door proceeded something like stifled groans. With a kick of his foot, one of the lancers dashed open the door; the General entered, and a strange spectacle presented itself to his astonished eyes! Doña Maria, tightly bound, and gagged, was fastened to the foot of a damask bed, saturated with blood. The furniture was broken and disordered, whilst two dead bodies, lying in a pool of blood, made it evident that the room had been the scene of a desperate conflict.

The general ordered the dead bodies to be removed, and then desired to be left alone with the lady. As soon as the lancers had departed he shut the door, and approaching the Linda, he hastened to release her from her bonds. She was senseless.

On turning round to place the pistols he had retained in his hands on the table, he drew back with astonishment, and almost with terror, as he perceived the dagger standing erect in the middle of it. But this instinctive feeling lasted only a moment. He went quickly up to the table, seized the dagger, which he carefully drew out, and eagerly took up the paper it had pinned down.

" The tyrant Don Pancho Bustamente is cited at the expiration of ninety-three days!

he read in a loud, harsh tone, and then crushed the paper violently in his hand. "Sangre de Dios! Will these demons always make a mock of me? Oh! they know that I show no mercy, and that those who fall into my hands – "

"Escape!" said a hollow voice, which made him start involuntarily.

He turned sharply round, and beheld the Linda, with her vicious eye fixed upon him with a demoniacal expression. He sprang towards her.

"Thank God!" he cried warmly, "you are again restored to your senses. Are you sufficiently recovered to explain the scene that has taken place here?"

"A terrible scene, Don Pancho!" she replied, in a tremulous voice; "a scene, the bare remembrance of which still freezes me with terror."

"Are you strong enough to describe it to me?"

"I hope so," she replied. "Listen to me attentively, Don Pancho, for what I have to tell concerns you, perhaps, more than me."

"You mean this insolent summons, I suppose?" he remarked, showing it.

She glanced over it, and replied —

"I did not even know that such a paper had been addressed to you. But listen to me attentively."

"In the first place, have the goodness to explain to me what you just now said."

"Everything in its turn, General; I will not fail to explain everything, for the vengeance I thirst for must be complete."

"Oh!" he said, a flash of hatred gleaming from his eye, "set your heart at ease on that head, – whilst avenging myself, I will avenge you."

The Linda related to the General what had passed between her and Don Tadeo in the fullest details – how the Dark-Hearts had snatched him from her hands, and the threats they had addressed to her on leaving her. But, with that talent which all women possess, of making themselves appear innocent in everything, she represented as a miraculous piece of awkwardness on the part of the soldiers charged to shoot him, the fact of Don Tadeo being alive after his execution. She said that, attracted by the hope of avenging himself upon her, whom he suspected of being no stranger to his condemnation, he had introduced himself unseen into her house, where by a strange chance she happened to be alone, having that evening permitted her servants to be present at a romeria (a fête), from which they were not to return before three o'clock.

The General had not for an instant the idea of doubting the veracity of his mistress. The situation in which he had found her, – the incredible news of the resurrection of his most implacable enemy, altogether so confused his thoughts, that suspicion had no time to enter his mind. He strode about the room with hasty steps, revolving in his head the most extravagant projects for seizing Don Tadeo, and, above all, for annihilating the Dark-Hearts, – those never-to-be-caught Proteuses, who so incessantly crossed his path, thwarted all his plans, and always escaped him. He plainly saw what additional strength the escape of Don Tadeo would give to the patriots, and how much it would complicate his political embarrassments, by placing at their head a resolute man who could have no longer any considerations to preserve, but would wage war to the knife with him. His perplexity was extreme; he instinctively felt that the ground beneath him was mined, that he was walking over a volcano, but he had no power to denounce to public opprobrium the enemies who conspired his ruin. The recital made by his mistress had produced the effect of a thunderclap upon him; he knew not what measures to employ in order to counteract the numerous plots in action against him on all sides, and simultaneously. The Linda did not take her eyes off him for a moment, but watched upon his countenance the various feelings aroused by what she told him.