Gustave Aimard
The Freebooters: A Story of the Texan War

CHAPTER XIII.
THE SIEGE

While all this was going on, the hunters, as we mentioned before, resumed their journey, so soon as the Apaches disappeared. The night was clear, and the hunters marched in Indian file, that is to say, one after the other; still, through a prudential motive, Carmela was placed pillion-wise behind Tranquil, while Singing-bird rode with Black-deer.

The Canadian had whispered a few words to Lanzi and Quoniam, upon which the two men, without replying, dug their spurs in, and started at a gallop.

"When you have ladies with you," Tranquil said, with a laugh to Loyal Heart, "it is necessary to take precautions."

The hunter, however, did not ask him for any explanation, and the four men continued their march in silence. During the whole night nothing occurred to disturb their journey; the Apaches kept their word faithfully, and had really withdrawn. Tranquil had not for a moment doubted their promise. At times the hunter turned to the maiden, and asked her with ill-disguised anxiety if she felt fatigued, but Carmela constantly replied in the negative. A few minutes before sunrise, he bent down to her for the last time.

"Courage," he said, "we shall soon arrive."

The girl attempted to smile, but this long night spent on horseback had crushed her; she could not even find the courage to answer, so annihilated was she, and Tranquil, anxious for his daughter, hurried on. Still in the sunbeams, whose warmth caressed her, the maiden felt newborn, her courage returned, and she drew herself up with a sigh of relief. The journey, then, became more gay; for each, on this much desired appearance of day, had forgotten his fatigue and the emotions of the past night. Two hours later they reached the base of a hill, halfway up which was a natural grotto.

"Our friends are expecting us there," said Tranquil.

A few moments later, the little band entered the grotto on horseback, without leaving any traces of its passage. This grotto, like many others in that country, possessed several entrances, and through this peculiarity it often served as a refuge to the wood rangers, who, being thoroughly conversant with all its windings, could easily escape from the search of any enemies who might have followed their trail. It was divided into several compartments, without visible communication with each other, and formed a species of maze, which ran with inextricable windings under the whole of the hill. On the prairie the name of the Jaguar's grotto had been given it.

The two hunters, sent forward by the Canadian, were seated by an enormous fire of heather, and quietly roasting a magnificent haunch of venison, as they silently smoked their pipes. Although they must have been waiting a long time for their friends, on the arrival of Tranquil and his comrades they contented themselves with a slight bow, and did not evince the slightest desire to know what had occurred since their departure, for these men had lived so long on the desert, that they had grown to assume all the Indian habits. Tranquil led the two females into a grotto a considerable distance from the principal one.

"Here," he said in a gentle whisper, "you must speak as little as possible, and as low as you can, for you never know what neighbours you may have; pay great attention to this piece of advice, for your safety depends on it. If you require me, or have an inclination to join us, you know where we are, and it is an easy matter for you to come; good-bye."

His daughter caught him by the arm for a moment, and whispered in his ear. He bowed in reply, and went out. When the two females found themselves alone, their first impulse was to fall into each other's arms. This first emotion past, they lay on the ground with that feeling of comfort which is experienced when you have sighed during a long period for a rest, the want of which you greatly feel. At the expiration of about an hour, Tranquil returned.

"Are we going to start again?" Carmela asked hurriedly, with an ill-disguised agitation.

"On the contrary, I expect to remain here till sunset."

"Heaven be praised!" the maiden exclaimed.

"I have come to tell you that breakfast is ready, and that we are only awaiting your presence to begin our meal."

"Eat without us, my dear papa," Carmela answered; "at this moment we have more need of sleep than anything else."

"Sleep if you like; I have brought you, however, male clothing, which I must ask you to put on."

"What, father, dress ourselves as men?" Carmela said in surprise, and with a slight repugnance.

"You must, child – it is indispensable."

"In that case I will obey you, father."

"Thank you, my daughter."

The hunter withdrew, and the two young women soon fell asleep. Their sleep lasted a long time, for the sun was beginning to sink beneath the horizon, when they awoke, completely recovered from their fatigue. Carmela, fresh and rosy, felt no effects of the long sleeplessness of the preceding night; and the Indian girl, stronger, or more hardened, had not suffered so much as her companion. The two girls then began, while chattering and laughing, to prepare everything necessary for the disguise the hunter had recommended them.

"Let us begin our toilette," Carmela said gaily to Singing-bird.

At the moment when they were removing their dresses, they heard the noise of footsteps near them, and turned like two startled fawns, thinking that Tranquil was coming to see whether they were awake yet; but a couple of words distinctly pronounced, caused them to listen, and stand quivering with emotion, surprise, and curiosity.

"My brother has been a long time," the voice had said, which seemed to belong to a man standing scarce three paces from them; "I have been expecting him for two hours."

"By Heaven, Chief, your remark is perfectly correct; but it was impossible for me to come sooner," another person immediately answered, whose strongly pronounced accent proved to be a foreigner.

"My brother will speak without loss of tune."

"That is what I intend doing,"

At this moment Tranquil came up. The young women laid the forefinger on their lips, recommending silence; the hunter understood what this meant, and advanced on tiptoe to listen.

"The Jaguar," the second speaker continued, "desires most eagerly that, in accordance with the promise you made him, you should join his army with your warriors."

"Up to the present that has been impossible."

"Blue-fox!" Tranquil muttered.

"I warn you that he accuses you of breach of faith."

"The Pale Chief is wrong; a Sachem is not a chattering old woman who knows not what he says. This evening I shall join him with two hundred picked warriors."

"We shall see, Chief."

"At the first song of the mankawis, the Apache warriors will enter the camp."

"All the better. The Jaguar is preparing a general assault on the fort, and only awaits your arrival to give the signal of attack."

"I repeat to my brother that the Apaches will not fail."

"Those confounded Mexicans fight like demons; the man who commands them seems to have galvanized them, they second him so well. There was only one good officer in the Mexican army, and we are obliged to fight against him. It is really most unlucky."

"The Chief of the Yoris is not invulnerable. The arrows of the Apaches are long – they will kill him."

"Nonsense," the other said ill-temperedly; "this man seems to have a charm that protects him. Our Kentuckian rifles are wonderfully true, and our marksmen possess a far from common skill; but no bullet can hit him."

"While coming to this grotto, Blue-fox raised the scalp of a Chief of the Yoris."

"Ah!" the first speaker observed with indifference.

"Here it is; this man was the bearer of a necklace."

"A letter, by Heavens!" the other exclaimed anxiously; "What have you done with it? You have not destroyed it, I trust?"

"No, the Chief has kept it."

"You did well. Show it to me, perhaps it is important."

"Wah! It is some medicine of the Palefaces; a Chief does not want it; my brother can take it."

"Thanks!"

There was a moment's silence, during which the hearts of the three hearers might have been heard beating in unison, so great was their anxiety.

"By Jove!" the white man suddenly burst out; "A letter addressed to Colonel Don Juan Melendez de Gongora, Commandant of the Larch-tree, by General Rubio. You were in luck's way, Chief. Are you sure that the bearer of this letter is dead?"

"It was Blue-fox who killed him."

"In that case I feel confident, for I can trust to you. Now, this is what you must do: so soon as – "

But while speaking thus, the two men had withdrawn, and the sound of their voices was lost in the distance, so that it was impossible to hear the termination of the sentence, or guess its purport.

The two women turned round. Tranquil had disappeared, and they were again alone. Carmela, after listening to this strange conversation, of which accident allowed her to catch a few fragments, had fallen into a profound reverie, which her companion, with that sense of propriety innate in Indians, was careful not to disturb.

In the meanwhile, time slipped away, the gloom grew denser in the grotto, for night had set in; the two young women, afraid to remain alone in the obscurity, were preparing to rejoin their companions, when they heard the sound of footsteps, and Tranquil entered.

"What!" he said to them, "Not ready yet? Make haste to put on your masculine attire, for every minute is an age."

The girls did not allow this to be repeated; they disappeared in an adjoining compartment, and returned a few minutes later, entirely disguised.

"Good," the Canadian said, after examining them for a moment; "we are going to try and enter the Larch-tree hacienda. Now follow me, and be prudent."

The eight persons left the grotto, gliding along in the darkness like phantoms.

No one, unless he has tried the experiment, can imagine what a night march on the desert is, when you are afraid each moment of falling into the hands of invisible enemies, who watch you behind every bush. Tranquil had placed himself at the head of the little party, who marched in Indian file, at times stooping to the ground, going on his hands and knees, or crawling on his stomach so as to avoid notice.

Doña Carmela, in spite of the extraordinary difficulties she had to surmount, advanced with admirable courage, never complaining, and enduring, without seeming to notice them, the scratches of the roots and brambles, which lacerated her hands, and caused her atrocious suffering. After three hours of gigantic effort in following Tranquil's trail, the latter stopped, and had them look around them. They raised their heads, and found themselves in the camp of the Texan insurgents. All around them, in the moonbeams, they could see the elongated shadows of Indian sentries, leaning on their long lances, motionless as equestrian statues, who were watching over the safety of their Paleface brothers. The young women felt a thrill of terror run over their persons at this sight, which was not of a nature to reassure them.

Fortunately for them, the Indians keep very bad guard, and most generally only place sentries to frighten the enemy. On this occasion, as they knew very well, they had no sortie to apprehend on the part of the Larch-tree garrison, the sentinels were nearly all asleep; but the slightest badly-calculated move, the merest false step, might arouse them, for these men, who are habituated in keeping their senses alive, can hardly ever be taken unawares.

At about two hundred yards at the most from the adventurers were the advanced works of the Larch-tree, gloomy, silent, and apparently, at least, abandoned or plunged in sleep. Tranquil had only stopped to let his comrades fully understand the imminent danger to which they were exposed, and urge them to redouble their caution, for, at the slightest weakness, they would be lost. After this they started again. They advanced thus for one hundred yards, or about half the distance separating them from the Larch-tree, when suddenly, at the moment when Tranquil stretched out his arms to shelter himself behind a sandhill, several men, crawling in the opposite direction found themselves face to face with him. There was a second of terrible anxiety.

"Who goes there?" a low and menacing voice asked.

"Oh!" he said; "We are saved! It is I – Tranquil the Tigrero."

"Who are the persons with you?"

"Wood rangers, for whom I answer."

"Very good; pass on."

The two parties separated, and crawled in opposite directions. The band with which the hunters exchanged these few words was commanded by Don Felix Paz, who, more vigilant than the Texans, was making a round of the glacis to assure himself that all was quiet, and no surprise need be feared. It was very lucky for Tranquil and his companions that the Jaguar, in order to do honour to Blue-fox, had this night intrusted the camp guard to his warriors, and that, confiding in the Redskins, the Texans had gone to sleep, with that carelessness characteristic of Americans; for, with other sentries than those through whom they had glided unseen, the adventurers must infallibly have been captured.

Ten minutes after their encounter with Don Felix, which might have turned out so fatally for them, the hunters reached the gates, and at the mention of Tranquil's name a passage was at once granted them. They were at length in safety within the hacienda, and it was high time that they should arrive; a few minutes longer and, Carmela and her companion would have fallen by the wayside. In spite of all their courage and goodwill, the girls could no longer keep up, their strength was exhausted. Hence, so soon as the danger had passed, and the nervous excitement, which alone sustained them, ceased, they fell down unconscious.

Tranquil raised Carmela in his arms, and carried her to the interior of the hacienda; while Black-deer, who, in spite of his apparent insensibility, adored his squaw, hurried up to restore her to life.

The unexpected arrival of Tranquil caused a general joy among the inhabitants of the hacienda, who all had a deep friendship for this man, whose glorious character they had had so many opportunities of appreciating. The hunter was still busied with his daughter, who was just beginning to recover her senses, when Don Felix Paz, who had finished his rounds, entered the cuarto, with a message from the Colonel to the Canadian, begging the latter to come to him at once.

Tranquil obeyed, for Doña Carmela no longer required his assistance – the maiden had scarce regained her senses, ere she fell into a deep sleep, the natural result of the enormous fatigue she had endured during several days. While proceeding to the Colonel's apartments, Tranquil questioned the major-domo, with whom he had been connected for several years, and who had no scruples about answering the hunter's queries.

Matters were far from being well at the Larch-tree; the siege was carried on with an extraordinary obstinacy on both sides, and with many strange interludes. The insurgents, greatly annoyed by the artillery of the fort, which killed a great many of them, and to which they could not reply, owing to their absolute want of cannon, had adopted a system of reprisals, which caused the besieged considerable injury. This simple system was as follows: The insurgents, who were mostly hunters, were exceedingly skilful marksmen, and renowned as such in a country where the science of firing is carried to its extreme limits. A certain number of these marksmen sheltered themselves behind the epaulments of the camp; and each time a gunner attempted to load a piece, they infallibly shot away his hands.

This had been carried so far, that nearly all the gunners were hors de combat, and it was only at very long intervals that a gun was fired from the fort. This isolated shot, badly aimed, owing to the precipitancy with which the men laid the gun, through their fear of being mutilated, caused but insignificant damage to the insurgents, who applauded, with reason, the good result of their scheme.

On the other hand, the fort was so closely invested, and watched with such care, that no one could enter or quit it. It was impossible for those in the fort to understand how it was that the adventurers had managed to slip in after traversing the whole length of the enemy's camp. We must state, too, in order to treat everybody with justice, that the adventurers understood it less than anybody.

The garrison of the hacienda lived, then, as if they had been roughly cut off from the world, for no sound transpired without, and no news reached them. This situation was extremely disagreeable to the Mexicans; unfortunately for them, it was daily aggravated, and threatened to become, ere long, completely intolerable. Colonel Melendez, since the beginning of the siege, had proved himself what he was, that is to say, an officer of rare merit, with a vigilance nothing could foil, and a trustworthy bravery. Seeing his gunners so cruelly decimated by the Texan bullets, he undertook to take their place, loading the guns at his own peril, and firing them at the insurgents.

Such courage struck the Texans with so great admiration, that although it would several times have been easy for them to kill their daring foe, their rifles had constantly turned away from this man, who seemed to find a delight in braving death at every moment. The Jaguar, while closely investing the fort, and eagerly desiring to carry it, had given peremptory orders to spare the life of his friend, whom he could not refrain from pitying and admiring, as much for his courage as for his devotion to the cause he served.

Although it was near midnight, the Colonel was still up; at the moment when the hunter was brought to him, he was walking thoughtfully up and down his bedroom, consulting from time to time a detailed plan, of the fortifications that lay open on a table.

Tranquil's arrival caused him great satisfaction, for he hoped to obtain from him news from without. Unfortunately, the hunter did not know much about the political state of the country, owing to the isolated life he led in the forests. Still, he answered with the greatest frankness all the questions the Colonel thought proper to ask him, and gave him the little information he had been enabled to collect; then he told him the various incidents of his own journey. At the name of Carmela the young officer was slightly troubled, and a vivid flush suffused his face; but he recovered, and listened attentively to the hunter's story. When the latter came to the incident in the grotto, and the fragment of conversation he had overheard between the Apache Chief and the Texan, his interest was greatly excited, and he made him repeat the story.

"Oh, that letter," he muttered several times, "that letter; what would I not give to know its contents!"

Unhappily, that was impossible. After a moment, the Colonel begged Tranquil to continue his story. The hunter then told him in what way he had managed to cross the enemy's lines and introduce himself into the fort. This bold action greatly struck the Colonel.

"You were more fortunate than prudent," he said, "in thus venturing into the midst of your enemies."

The hunter smiled good-temperedly.

"I was almost certain of succeeding," he said.

"How so?"

"I have had a long experience of Indian habits, which enables me to make nearly certain with them."

"Granted; but in this case you had not Indians to deal with."

"Pardon me, Colonel."

"I do not understand you, so be kind enough to explain."

"That is an easy matter. Blue-fox entered the Texan camp this evening, at the head of two hundred warriors."

"I was not aware of it," the Colonel said, in surprise.

"The Jaguar, to do honour to his terrible allies, confided to them the camp guard for this night."

"Hence?"

"Hence, Colonel, all the Texans are sleeping soundly at this moment, while the Apaches are watching, or, at least, ought to be watching over the safety of their lives."

"What do you mean by ought to be watching?"

"I mean that the Redskins do not at all understand our manner of carrying on war, are not accustomed to sentinel duty, and so everybody is asleep in the camp."

"Ah!" said the Colonel, as he began once more, with a thoughtful air, the promenade he had interrupted to listen to the hunter's story.

The latter waited, taking an interrogative glance at Don Felix, who had remained in the room till it pleased the Commandant to dismiss him. A few minutes passed, and not a syllable was exchanged; Don Juan seemed to be plunged in serious thought. All at once he stopped before the hunter, and looked him full in the face.

"I have known you for a long time by reputation," he said, sharply. "You pass for an honest man, who can be trusted."

The Canadian bowed, not understanding to what these preliminaries tended.

"I think you said the enemy's camp was plunged in sleep?" the Colonel continued.

"That is my conviction," Tranquil answered; "we crossed their lines too easily for it to be otherwise."

Don Felix drew nearer.

"Yes," the young officer muttered, "we might give them a lesson."

"A lesson they greatly need," the Major-domo added.

"Ah, ah!" the Colonel said, with a smile; "Then you understand me, Don Felix?"

"Of course."

"And you approve?"

"Perfectly."

"It is one in the morning," the Colonel went on, as he looked at a clock standing on a console; "at this moment sleep is the deepest. Well, we will attempt a sortie; have the officers of the garrison aroused."

The Major-domo went out: five minutes later the officers, still half-asleep, obeyed their Chief's orders.

"Caballeros," the latter said to them, so soon as he saw them all collected round him, "I have resolved to make a sortie against the rebels, surprise them, and fire their camp, if it be possible. Select from your soldiers one hundred and fifty men, in whom you can trust; supply them with inflammable matters, and in five minutes let them be drawn up in the Patio. Go; and before all, I recommend you the deepest silence."

The officers bowed, and at once left the room. The Colonel then turned to Tranquil.

"Are you tired?" he asked him.

"I am never so."

"You are skilful?"

"So they say."

"Very good. You will serve as our guide; unfortunately, I want two others."

"I can procure them for your Excellency."

"You?"

"Yes, a wood ranger and a Comanche Chief, who entered the fort with me, and for whom I answer with my life; Loyal Heart and Black-deer.

"Warn them, then, and all three wait for me in the Patio."

Tranquil hastened to call his friends.

"If that hunter has spoken the truth, and I believe he has," the Colonel continued, addressing the Major-domo, "I am convinced we shall have an excellent opportunity for repaying the rebels a hundredfold the harm they have done us. Do you accompany me, Don Felix?"

"I would not for a fortune leave you one inch, under such circumstances."

"Come, then, for the detachment must be ready by this time."

They went out.