Gustave Aimard - Stronghand - or, The Noble Revenge

Don Ruiz naturally asked an explanation of his cousin; which he did not hesitate to give, by telling them of the conversation between himself and the hunter. Don Ruiz and his sister had been too near death to expose themselves again to the hazards of a long journey in the desert alone, and unable to offer any effectual defence against such persons as thought proper to attack them; still the young man, annoyed at this new delay, asked the Captain at what period they might hope to regain their liberty.

"Oh! Your seclusion will not be long," the latter replied with a smile; "so soon as I have received the reinforcements I expect from San Estevan – that is to say, in seven or eight days at the most – I will pick you out an escort, and you can be off."

Don Ruiz, forced to satisfy himself with this promise, thanked him warmly; and the young people made their arrangements to pass the week in the least wearisome way possible. But life is very dull at a frontier post, especially when you are expecting a probable attack from the Indians, and when, consequently, all the gates are kept shut, when sentries are stationed all around, and the only amusement is to look out on the plain through the loopholes.

The Captain, justly alarmed by the news the hunter had given him, had made the best arrangements his limited resources allowed to resist any attack from the Indians, if they appeared before the succour arrived from San Estevan. By his orders all the rancheros and small landowners established within a radius of fifteen leagues had been warned of an approaching invasion, and received an invitation to take shelter within the post.

The majority, recognising the gravity of this communication, hastened to pack up their furniture and most valuable articles; and driving before them their horses and cattle, hurried from all sides at once to the fort, with a precipitation which proved the profound terror the Indians inspired them with. In this way, the interior of San Miguel was soon encumbered with young men and old men, women, and children, and cattle – most of whom, unable to find lodgings in the houses, were forced to bivouac in the yards; which, however, was but a trifling inconvenience to them in a country where it hardly ever rains, and where the nights are not cold enough to render sleeping in the open air unpleasant.

The Captain organized this heterogeneous colony to the best of his ability. The women, children, and old men were sheltered under tents or jacales made of branches, to protect them from the copious morning dew, while all the men capable of bearing arms were exercised, so as in case of attack to assist in the common defence.

But this enormous increase of population required an enormous stock of provisions; and hence the Captain sent out numerous patrols for the purpose of procuring the required corn and cattle. Don Ruiz took advantage of this to make excursions in the vicinity; while his sister, in the company of young girls of her own age, of whom several had entered the fort with their families, tried to forget, or rather cheat, the weariness of their seclusion.

The appearance of the post had completely changed; and, thanks to the Captain's intelligence, ten days after the hunter's departure San Miguel had become a really formidable fortress. Large trenches had been dug, and barricades erected; but, unfortunately, the garrison, though numerous enough to resist a sudden attack, was too weak to sustain a long siege.

One morning, at sunrise, the sentries signalized a thick cloud of dust advancing towards the post with the headlong speed of a whirlwind. The alarm was immediately given; the walls were lined with soldiers; and preparations were made to resist these men, who, though invisible, were supposed to be enemies.

Suddenly, on coming within gunshot, the horsemen halted, the dust dispersed, and the garrison perceived with delight that all these men wore the Mexican uniform. A quarter of an hour later, eighty lanceros, each carrying an infantry man behind him, entered the fort, amid the deafening shouts of the garrison and the farmers who had sought refuge behind the walls. It was the succour requested by the Captain, and sent off from San Estevan by Colonel Don Gregorio.

In Spanish America, and especially in Peru and Mexico, all the Creoles of the pure white breed pretend to be descended in a straight line from the first Conquistadors. We have no need to discuss this claim, whose falsehood is visible to any man at all conversant with the sanguinary history of the numberless civil wars – a species of organized massacre – which followed the establishment of the Spaniards in these rich countries.

Still there are in America some families, very few in number it is true, which can justly boast of this glorious origin. Most of these families live on the estates conceded to their ancestors – they only marry among themselves, and only interfere against the grain in the political events of the day. With their eyes turned to the past, which is so full of great memories for them, they have kept up the old traditions of the chivalrous loyalty of the time of Charles V., which are forgotten everywhere else. They maintain the national honour unsullied, and those patriarchal virtues of the old time which they alone still practise with a proud and simple majesty.

The Creoles, half-breeds, and Indians, in spite of the hatred they affect for their old masters, and the principles of so-called republican equality which they profess with such absurd emphasis in the presence of strangers, feel for these families a respect bordering on veneration; for they seem to understand inwardly the superiority of these powerful natures, which no political convulsion has been able to level or even bind, over their own vicious decrepit natures, which have grown old without ever having been young.

A few leagues from Arispe, the old capital of the Intendancy of Sonora, but now greatly fallen, and only a second-class city, there stands like an eagle's nest, on the summit of an abrupt rock, a magnificent showy mansion, whose strong and haughty walls are crowned with Almenas , which at the time of the Spanish conquest were only permitted to families of the old and pure nobility, and they alone had the right to have battlements on their houses.

This fortress-palace – which dates from the first days of the conquest, and whose antiquity is written on its walls, which have seen so many bullets flatten, so many arrows break against them, but which time, that grand destroyer of the most solid things, is gradually crumbling away by a continuous effort, under the triple influences of the air, the sun, and rain – has never changed masters since the day of its construction, and the chiefs of the same family, on dying, have ever left it to their descendants.

This family is one of those to which we just now referred, whose origin dates back to the first conquerors, and whose name is Tobar de Moguer – (Moguer was added at a later date, doubtless in memory of the Spanish town whence the chief of the family came.)

In 1541, Don Antonio de Mendoza, Viceroy of New Spain, organized the expedition to Cibola, a mysterious country, visited a few years previously by Alvaro Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, and about which the most marvellous and extraordinary reports were spread, all the better suited to inflame the avarice and unextinguishable thirst for gold by which the Spanish adventurers were devoured.

The expedition, consisting of 300 Spaniards and 800 Indian allies, started from Compostela, the capital of New Galicia, on April 17, 1541, under the orders of Don Francisco Vásquez de Coronado. The officers nominated by the Viceroy were all gentlemen of distinction; among them as standard bearer was Don Pedro de Tobar, whose father, Don Fernando de Tobar, had been Majordomo-Major in the reign of Jane the Mad, mother of the Emperor Charles V.