Gustave Aimard - The Queen of the Savannah - A Story of the Mexican War

Don Aníbal, warned by his spies of what was preparing against him, resolved on a vigorous resistance; but as he really loved his wife, and did not wish to expose her to the hazards of a storm, and the sight of those atrocities which are the inevitable consequence of it, he arranged with Father Sandoval that he should remove her from the hacienda as soon as possible, and place her and her child in safety. When these arrangements were made, the two gentlemen proceeded in search of the señora, to tell her of the plan they had formed.

Doña Emilia spent a very dull life at the Hacienda del Barrio. Her husband, who was elsewhere engaged, often left her for days, only seeing her for a moment at meals, and addressing a few unmeaning words to her during the quarter of an hour they were together. Fortunately for the poor lady, the hacienda possessed a magnificent garden. She spent nearly the entire day in it under an arbour of orange and lemon trees, reading pious books and watching her child, who was nursed by a quadroon to whom Doña Emilia was sincerely attached, and had married to a peon of the hacienda.

On the day to which we allude, at about two in the afternoon, the warmest hour of the day, Doña Emilia, according to her wont, was indulging in a siesta in a hammock suspended from two enormous orange trees, whose tufted crests almost entirely overshadowed the entire nook. A few paces from her, Rita, the quadroon, was carelessly rocking in a butaca , and giving the breast to the child.

As we have said, the heat was stifling. The burning sunbeams made the sand on the garden walks sparkle like diamonds; there was not a breath of air; the atmosphere, impregnated with the sweet exhalations of the flowers and fragrant woods, was intoxicating, and conduced to slumber. The birds, hidden under the leaves, had ceased their song, and were waiting till the evening breeze refreshed the soil; a solemn silence brooded over nature, and the fall of a leaf would have been heard, so profound was the calm. Rita, involuntarily yielding to the narcotic influences that surrounded her, had fallen asleep with the child still clinging to her breast.

All at once a strange, terrible, frightful thing occurred – a horrible scene, which we feel a hesitation to describe, although we had the fact from a credible witness. 1 1 The person to whom we allude is at this moment in Paris, and could, if necessary, confirm our statement. The branches of a dahlia bush were gently and noiselessly parted, and in the space thus left free appeared the hideous and distorted face of Running Water. This man had, at the moment, something fatal and satanic in his physiognomy, which would have filled with terror anyone who saw it. After remaining motionless for an instant, which he employed in looking around, through fear of being surprised, he laughed cunningly in the Indian fashion, and began crawling softly till his entire body had emerged from the bush. Then he rose, carefully repaired the disorder his passage had caused in the bush, advanced two paces, placed on the ground a rather large bag he held in his right hand, folded his arms and gazed at Doña Emilia, who was sleeping calmly and peacefully in her hammock, with a strange fixedness, and an expression of hatred and joy impossible to describe.

How had this man contrived to penetrate into the hacienda, which was so strongly guarded, and whose walls were almost insurmountable? Why had he entered alone the garden of a man whom he knew to be his most implacable foe? He doubtless meditated vengeance, but of what nature was it? Running Water, whom the hacendero had strove so hard to injure, and to whom he had done such hurt, was not the man to content himself with ordinary revenge. The redskins have refinements of cruelty and barbarity of which they alone possess the secret. What did he intend doing? What was his object? The Indian chief alone could have answered these questions; for the redskins are well acquainted with the proverb, that "revenge is eaten cold."

I know not what gloomy thoughts agitated this man while he gazed at the sleeping lady, but his countenance altered every second, and seemed to grow more and more ferocious. He made a move as if about to seize the bag on the ground in front of him, but suddenly reflected.

"No," he muttered to himself, "not that; he alone would suffer; the hearts of both of them must bleed. Yes, yes, my first idea is the best."

Then, after taking a parting glance at the lovely, sleeping lady, he stooped with a terrible smile, picked up the bag, which he placed under his left arm, and went away with a step light and stealthy as that of a tiger preparing to leap on its prey. Still, he only went a few paces. Turning suddenly to his right, he found himself in front of the nurse. The latter was still sleeping, intoxicated by the smell of the flowers which appeared to bend over her, as if to shed sleep more easily upon her. Rita was sleeping like a child, without dreams or fears. Rita was young and lovely; anyone but a ferocious Indian, like the man who gazed at her at this moment, and devoured her with his eyes, would have felt affected by such confiding innocence.

With the upper part of her body indolently thrown back, with her eyes half closed and veiled by her long black lashes, and her rosy lips slightly parted so as to display her pearly teeth, the young quadroon with her slightly coppery complexion was delicious. We repeat that anyone but Running Water would have felt subdued and vanquished by the sight of her. Her two hands, folded over the little girl, held her against her bosom, and seemed trying to protect her even in sleep. The infant was neither asleep nor awake. She was in that state of lethargic somnolency which seizes on these frail creatures when they have sucked for a long time. Clinging to the breast, on which she had laid her two small, snow-white hands, the child, with her eyes already closed to sleep, was imbibing a drop of milk at lengthened intervals.

The Indian regarded this group with a tiger's glance, and for some two or three minutes, involuntarily fascinated by this picture, whose innocence and candour no artist would be able to depict, he stood gloomy and thoughtful, perhaps hesitating in the accomplishment of the infernal work he had meditated so long, and to execute which he had treacherously entered the hacienda. But Satan, conquered for a second, regained his ascendancy in the redskin's heart.

"It is well," he muttered in a hollow voice. "The babe will die. The death of the child kills doubly father and mother."

And he smiled once again that terrible and silent laugh which would have caused anyone who saw it to shudder, and which was habitual to him. He fell back a step, and with a look around him he explored the neighbourhood in its most hidden corners. Assured at length that no one could see him he fell back till he reached the hole in one of the orange trees from which the hammock was hung, and which was exactly opposite the nurse; then he carefully concealed himself behind a tree, and laid his bag on the ground. This bag was of tapir hide, and fastened up with the greatest care.

The Indian stood motionless for a second, then drawing his dagger he did not take the trouble to cut the leather thongs that closed the bag; on the contrary, throwing himself back as if afraid of the consequences of the deed he was about to do, he ripped up the bag its entire length, and at once disappeared behind the trunk of a tree. The body of a cascabel, or rattlesnake; appeared in the gaping orifice of the bag. Indian manners brand as infamous any man who, excepting in Combat, strikes and kills a child at the breast. Hatred is intelligent, and Running Water had found the means to satisfy his upon the poor little creature without breaking the rules of his tribe. He had gone in search of a snake, which was not difficult to find. He enclosed it in a bag of tapir hide so that it could not escape, and kept it for several days without food so as to restore to the animal, which he had surprised while digesting a gorge, all its original ferocity. When the redskin supposed that the snake was in proper condition, he entered the garden as we have seen.