Gustave Aimard - Stronghand - or, The Noble Revenge

But, ere long, the bushes were parted by a powerful hand; and two horsemen appeared at the base of the rock. The maiden stretched out her hands to them with an exclamation of delight; and, too weak to support this last emotion, she fainted.

She had recognised in the men, who arrived side by side, her brother and the stranger to whom she owed her life.

When she regained her senses, she was lying on furs in front of a large fire. The two men were sitting on her right and left; while in the rock cave, three horses were eating their provender of alfalfa.

Somewhat in the shadow a few paces from her, the maiden perceived a mass, whose form it was impossible for her to distinguish at the first glance, but which a more attentive examination enabled her to recognise as a bound man lying on the ground.

The maiden was anxious to speak and thank her liberator; but the shock she had received was so rude, the emotion so powerful, that it was impossible for her to utter a word – so weak did she feel. She could only give him a glance full of all the gratitude she felt, and then fell back into a state of feverish exhaustion and morbid apathy, which almost completely deprived her of the power of thinking and feeling, and which rendered her involuntarily ignorant of all that was going on around her.

"It is well," said the stranger, as he carefully closed a gold mounted flask and concealed it in his bosom. "Now, Caballero, there is nothing more to fear for the Señorita; the draught I have administered to her, by procuring her a calm and healthy sleep, will restore her strength sufficiently for her to be able to continue her journey at sunrise, should it be necessary."

"Caballero," the stranger answered, "you are really performing the part of Providence towards me and my sister, I know not, in truth, how to express to you the lively gratitude I feel for a procedure which is the more generous as I am a perfect stranger to you."

"Do you think so?" he answered sarcastically.

"The more I examine your face, the more convinced I am that I have met you tonight for the first time."

"You would not venture to affirm it?"

"Yes, I would. Your features are too remarkable for me not to remember them if I had seen you before; but I repeat, if you fancy you know me, you are mistaken, and an accidental resemblance to some other person is the cause of your error."

There was a momentary silence, and then the stranger spoke again, with a politeness too affected for the irony it concealed not to be seen —

"Be it so, Caballero," he answered, with a bow; "perhaps I am mistaken. Be good enough, therefore, if you have no objection, to tell me who you are, and by what fortuitous concourse of circumstances I have been enabled to render you what you are kind enough to call a great service?"

"And it is an immense one, in truth, Caballero," the stranger interrupted with warmth.

"I will not discuss that subject any longer with you, Caballero; I am awaiting your pleasure."

"Señor, I will not abuse your patience for long. My name is Don Ruiz de Moguer, and I reside with my father at a hacienda in the vicinity of Arispe. For reasons too lengthy to explain to you, and which would but slightly interest you, the presence of my sister (who has been at school for some years at the Convent of the Conception at El Rosario) became indispensable at the hacienda. By my father's orders I set out for El Rosario a few months ago, in order to bring my sister back to her family. I was anxious to rejoin my father; and hence, in spite of the observations made to me by persons acquainted with the dangers attending so long a journey through a desert country, I resolved to take no escort, but start for home merely accompanied by two peons, on whose courage and fidelity I could rely."

"My sister who had been separated from her family for several years, was as eager as myself to quit the convent; and hence we soon set out. For the first few days all went well; our journey was performed under the most favourable auspices, and my sister and I laughed at the anxiety and apprehensions of our friends, for we had begun to believe ourselves safe from any dangerous encounter."

"But yesterday at sunset, just as we were preparing our camp for the night, we were suddenly attacked by a party of bandits, who seemed to emerge from the ground in front of us, so unforeseen was their apparition. Our poor brave peons were killed while defending us; and my sister's horse, struck by a bullet in the head, threw her. But the brave girl, far from surrendering to the bandits, who rushed forward to seize her, began flying across the savannah. Then I tried to lead the aggressors off the scent, and induce them to pursue me. You know the rest, Caballero; and had it not been for your providential interference, it would have been all over with us."

There was a silence, which Don Ruiz was the first to break.

"Caballero," he said, "now that you know who I am, tell me the name of my saviour?"

"What good is that?" the stranger answered, sadly. "We have come together for a moment by chance, and shall separate tomorrow never to meet again. Gratitude is a heavy burden. Not knowing who I am, you will soon have forgotten me. Believe me, Señor Don Ruiz, it is better that it should be so. Who knows if you may not regret some day knowing me?"

"It is the second time you have said that, Caballero. Your words breathe a bitterness that pains me. You must have suffered very grievously for your thoughts to be so sad and your heart so disenchanted at an age when the future ordinarily appears so full of promise."

The stranger raised his head, and bent on his questioner a glance that seemed trying to read to the bottom of his soul: the latter continued, however, with some degree of vivacity —

"Oh! Do not mistake the meaning I attach to my words, Caballero. I have no intention to take your confidence by surprise, or encroach on your secrets. Every man's life belongs to himself – his actions concern himself alone; and I recognise no claim to a confidence which I neither expect nor desire. The only thing I ask of you is to tell me your name, that my sister and myself may retain it in our hearts."

"Why insist on so frivolous a matter?"

"I will answer – What reason have you to be so obstinate in remaining unknown?"

"Then you insist on my telling you my name?"

"Oh, Caballero, I have no right to insist; I only ask it."

"Very good," said the stranger, "you shall know my name; but I warn you that it will teach you nothing."

"Pardon me, Caballero," Don Ruiz remarked, with a touch of exquisite delicacy, "this name, repeated by me to my father, will tell him every hour in the day that it is to the man who bears it that he owes the life of his children, and a whole family will bless you."

In spite of himself, the stranger felt affected. By an instinctive movement he offered his hand to the young man, which the latter pressed affectionately. But, as if suddenly reproaching himself for yielding to his feelings, this strange man sharply drew back his hand, and reassuming the expression of sternness, which had for a moment departed from him, said, with a roughness in his voice that astonished and saddened the young Mexican, "You shall be satisfied."

We have said that Doña Marianita, in looking round her, fancied she saw the body of a man stretched on the ground a few paces from the fire. The maiden was not mistaken; it was really a man she saw, carefully gagged and bound. It was in a word, one of the two bandits who had pursued her so long, and the one whom the stranger had almost killed with a blow of his rifle butt.

After recommending Don Ruiz to be patient by a wave of his hand, the stranger rose, walked straight up to the bandit, threw him on his shoulders, and laid him at the feet of the young Mexican, perhaps rather roughly – for the pirate, in spite of the thorough Indian stoicism he affected, could not suppress a stifled yell of pain.