Gustave Aimard
The Freebooters: A Story of the Texan War

CHAPTER XXIV.
THE LANDING

Immediately on reaching his anchorage, Captain Johnson, after conversing for a moment privately with El Alferez, gave orders that Commandant Rodriguez and his officers should be brought into his presence. The Commandant, despite the politeness with which he had been treated, and the kindness the privateer's men had shown him, could not forgive them the way in which they had seized his vessel; he was sad, and had hitherto only answered the questions asked him by disdainful silence, or insulting monosyllables. When the officers of the corvette were assembled in the cabin, Captain Johnson, turning politely to the Mexicans, said:

"Gentlemen, I am really most sorry for what has occurred. I should be glad to set you at liberty immediately, but your Commandant's formal refusal to pledge himself not to serve against us for a year and a day, obliges me, to my great regret, to keep you prisoners, at least temporarily. However, gentlemen, be assured that you will be treated as Caballeros, and everything done to alleviate the sorrow this temporary captivity must occasion you."

The officers, and even the Commandant, bowed their thanks, and the Captain continued:

"All your property has been placed in the boat I have ordered to be got ready, to convey you ashore. You will, therefore, lose nothing that belongs to you personally; if war has terrible claims, I have tried, as far as lay in my power, to spare you its bitterest conditions. If nothing retains you here, be kind enough to get ready to land."

"Would it be indiscreet, Captain, to ask you whither you have given orders to have us taken?" Commandant Rodriguez asked.

"Not at all, Commandant," the Captain replied; "you are about to be taken to the Port of the Point, whose walls will serve as your prison, until fresh orders."

"What!" the old sailor exclaimed in astonishment; "The Fort of the Point?"

"Yes," the Captain answered with a smile; "the fort which some of my friends seized, while I had the honour of boarding your fine corvette, Commandant."

The Captain could have gone on talking thus for some time: the old officer, confounded by what he had just heard, was incapable of connecting two ideas. At length, he let his head fall wearily on his chest, and making his officers a sign to follow him, went on deck. A boat, with a crew of ten men, was balancing at the starboard accommodation ladder, which the Commandant, still silent, entered, and his staff followed his example.

"Push off!" El Alferez ordered, who was holding the yoke lines.

The boat started and speedily disappeared. For some minutes the cadenced sound of the oars dipping in the water could be heard, and then all became silent again. The Captain had watched the departure of his prisoners; when the boat had disappeared in the gloom, he gave Master Lovel orders to weigh and stand out to sea, and then returned to his cabin, where a man was waiting for him. It was Tranquil, the old Tigrero.

"Well!" the hunter asked.

"They have gone, thank Heaven!" the Captain said, as he sat down.

"Then we are at liberty?"

"Quite."

"When shall we land?"

"This night; but is your information positive?"

"I believe so."

"Well, we shall soon know how matters stand."

"May Heaven grant that we succeed!"

"Let us hope it. Do you think the coast is guarded?"

"I fear it, for your vessel must have been signalled all along the shore."

"Do you know whether the Mexicans have other ships observing the ports, in addition to the corvette we have captured?"

"I think they have three more, but smaller than the Libertad."

"Hang it all! We must act prudently, then; however, whatever may happen, I will not desert so old a friend as yourself when unfortunate. We have still three hours before us, so try and sleep a little, for we shall have a tough job."

Tranquil smiled at this recommendation; but to please his friend, who had already laid himself down in his bunk, in the position of a man preparing to sleep, he wrapped himself in his zarapé, leant back in his chair, and closed his eyes.

The night, which at the beginning had been very bright and clear, had suddenly become dark and stormy; black clouds surcharged with electricity covered the whole of the sky; the breeze moaned sadly in the rigging, and mingled with the dash of the waves against the sides of the vessel. The brig was sailing slowly close to the wind, the only sails it carried being double-reefed topsails, the fore staysail, and the spanker.

At the moment when the helmsman struck the two double strokes on the bell, indicating ten o'clock, Captain Johnson and Tranquil appeared on deck. The Captain was dressed in a thick blue pilot coat, a leathern belt, through which were passed a cutlass, a pair of pistols and an axe, was fastened round his waist; a cloak was thrown over his shoulders, and a broad-brimmed felt hat completely concealed his features. The Canadian wore his hunter's garb, though, through the dangerous nature of the affair, he had added a brace of pistols to his ordinary armament.

The Captain's orders have been carried out with that minute consciousness which Master Lovel displayed in everything connected with duty. The boarding netting was braced up, and the running rigging secured as if for action. At the starboard ladder the longboat was tossing with its crew of thirty men, all armed to the teeth, and holding their oars aloft ready to dash into the water. They were, however, muffled, so as to stifle, as far as possible, the sound of rowing, and foil the vigilance of the Mexicans.

"That is well, lads," the Captain said, after giving a pleased glance at their preparations, "let us be off. Mind, father," he added, turning to Father Lovel, "that you keep a good watch. If we are not on board again by four in the morning, stand out to sea, and do not trouble yourself further about us; for it will be useless to wait for us longer, as we shall be prisoners of the Mexicans; and any lengthened stay in these waters might compromise the safety of the brig. Be of good cheer, though, for I have hopes of success."

And after kindly pressing the old sailor's hand, he went down to the boat, seated himself in the sternsheets by the side of the hunter, took up the yoke lines, and said, in a low voice, "Push, off!"

At this command the painter was cast off, the oars dashed together into the sea, and the boat started. When it had disappeared in the fog, Master Lovel ran at full speed to the stern of the brig, and leaned over the taffrail. "Are you there?" he said.

"Yes," a suppressed voice answered him.

"Get ready," the Master added, and then said to an old sailor, who had followed him: "You know what I recommended to you, Wells," he said; "I reckon on you, and intrust the lookout to you."

"All right, Master," the sailor answered, "you can cut your cable without fear, I will keep a bright lookout."

"All right; get in, men, and double-bank the oars."

Some forty sailors, who were well armed, like their predecessors, let themselves down, one after the other, by a rope that hung over the taffrail, and got into a second boat, which Master Lovel had ordered to be quietly got ready, and of which he took the command. He started at once, and steered after the Captain's pinnace, whose direction he was pretty well acquainted with, saying every now and then to the rowers, in order to increase their speed, "Give way, my lads, give way, all!" and he added, as he chewed his enormous quid, with a cunning smile, "It was very likely I should let my old fellow have his face scored by those brigands of Mexicans, who are all as crafty as caimans."

So soon as he had left the ship, the Captain, leaving on his right hand a small fishing village, whose lights he saw flashing through the darkness, steered for a jutting-out point, where he probably hoped to disembark in safety. After rowing for about three-quarters of an hour, a black line began to be vaguely designed on the horizon in front of the boat. The Captain gave his men a sign to rest on their oars for a moment, and taking up a long night glass, he carefully examined the coast. In two or three minutes he shut up the glass again, and ordered his men to give way.

All at once the keel of the pinnace grated on the sand: they had reached land. After hurriedly exploring the neighbourhood, the crew leaped ashore, leaving only one man as boat keeper, who at once pushed off, so as not to be captured by the enemy. All was calm, and a solemn silence reigned on the coast, which was apparently deserted. The Captain having assured himself that, for the present, at any rate, he had nothing to fear, concealed his men behind some rocks, and then addressed Tranquil.

"It is now your turn, old hunter," he said.

"Good!" the latter replied, not adding another word.

He left his hiding place, and walked forward, with a pistol in one hand, and a tomahawk in the other, stopping at intervals to look around him, and listen to those thousand sounds, without any known cause, which at night trouble the silence, though it is impossible to guess whence they come, or what produces them. On getting about one hundred yards from the spot where the landing was effected, the hunter stopped, and began gently whistling the first strains of a Canadian air. Another whistle answered his, and finished the tune he had purposely broken off. Footsteps were heard, and a man showed himself. It was Quoniam, the Negro.

"Here I am," he said. "Where are your men?"

"Hidden behind the rocks close by."

"Call them up, for we have not a moment to lose."

Tranquil clapped his hands twice, and a moment later the Captain and his men had rejoined him.

"Where is the person we have come to deliver concealed?" the Captain asked.

"At a rancho about two miles from here. I will lead you to it."

There was a moment's silence, during which the Captain studied the Negro's noble face, his black flashing eye, which glistened with boldness and honour; and he asked himself whether such a man could be a traitor? Quoniam seemed to read his thoughts, for he said to him, as he laid his hand on the Canadian's shoulder —

"If I had intended to betray; you, it would have been done ere now. Trust to me, Captain; I owe my life to Tranquil. I almost witnessed the birth of the maiden you wish to save. My friendship and gratitude answer to you for my fidelity. Let us start."

And without saying anything further, he placed himself at the head of the band, which followed him along a hollow way that ran between two hills.

While the incidents we have just described were taking place on the beach, two persons, male and female, seated in a room, modestly, though comfortably, furnished, were holding a conversation, which, judging from the angry expression of their faces, seemed to be most stormy. These two persons were Carmela and the White Scalper.

Carmela was half reclining in a hammock; she was pale and suffering, her features were worn, and her red eyes showed that she had been weeping. The White Scalper, dressed in the magnificent costume of a Mexican Campesino, was walking up and down the room, champing his grey moustaches, and angrily clanking his heavy silver spurs on the floor.

"Take care, Carmela!" he said, as he suddenly halted in front of the young woman, "you know that I crush all who resist me. For the last time I ask you: Will you tell me the reason of your constant refusals?"

"What good to tell you?" she answered, sadly, "for you would not understand me."

"Oh! This woman will drive me mad," he exclaimed, clenching his fists.

"What have I done, now?" Carmela asked with ironical surprise.

"Nothing, nothing," he answered, as he resumed his hurried walk. Then at the end of a moment, he returned to the maid and said, "You hate me then?"

Carmela replied by shrugging her shoulders, and turning away from him.

"Speak!" he said, seizing her arm, and squeezing it fiercely in his powerful hand.

Carmela liberated herself from his grasp, and said bitterly:

"I fancied that since you left the western prairies, you contented yourself with ordering your slaves to torture your victims, and did not descend to the part of hangman."

"Oh!" he said, furiously.

"Come," she continued, "this farce wearies me, so let us bring it to a finale. I know you too well now, not to be aware that you would not hesitate to proceed to odious extremities, if I would not submit to your wishes. Since you insist on it, I will explain my thoughts to you."

Drawing herself up to her full height, and fixing on him a bright and challenging glance, she continued in a firm and distinct voice —

"You ask me if I hate you? No, I do not hate you, I despise you!"

"Silence, wretched girl!"

"Yourself ordered me to speak, and I shall not be silent till I have told you all. Yes, I despise you, because, instead of respecting a poor girl whom you, coward as you are, carried off from her relations and friends you, torture her, and become her executioner. I despise you, because you are a man without a soul; an old man who might be my father, and yet you do not blush to ask me to love you, under some ignoble pretext of my resemblance with some woman I have no doubt you killed."

"Carmela!"

"Lastly, I despise you, because you are a furious brute, who only possess one human feeling, 'the love of murder!' because there is nothing sacred in your sight, and if I was weak enough to consent to your wishes, you would make me die of despair, by taking a delight in breaking my heart."

"Take care, Carmela!" he exclaimed furiously, as he advanced a step toward her.

"What, threats!" she continued in a loud voice. "Do I not know that all is ready prepared for my punishment. Summon your slaves, Master, and bid them torture me! But know this, I will never consent to obey you. I am not so abandoned as you may feel inclined to suppose; I have friends I love, and who love me in return. Make haste, for who knows whether I may not be liberated tomorrow, if you do not kill me to day?"

"Oh, this is too much," the White Scalper said in a low and inarticulate voice, "so much audacity shall not pass unpunished. Ah! you reckon, foolish child, on your friends! But they are far away," he said with a bitter laugh; "we are safe here, and I shall make you yield to my will."

"Never!" she exclaimed with exaltation, and rushing toward him, she stopped almost within grasp, adding, —

"I defy you, coward who threaten a woman!"

"Help!" the White Scalper exclaimed, with a tiger yell.

All at once the window was noisily burst open and Tranquil entered.

"I think you called, Señor?" he said, as he leaped into the room and advanced with a firm and measured step.

"My father! My father!" the poor girl shrieked, as she threw herself into his arms with delight; "you are come at last!"

The White Scalper, utterly astonished and startled by the unexpected appearance of the hunter, looked around him in alarm, and could not succeed in regaining his coolness. The Canadian, after lovingly replying to the maiden's warm greeting, laid her gently on the hammock, and then turned to the White Scalper, who was beginning to come to himself again.

"I ask your pardon, Señor," he said with perfect ease, "for not having advised you of my visit; but you are aware we are on delicate terms, and, as it is possible that if I had written, you would not have received me, I preferred bringing matters to the point."

"And pray what may you want with me, Señor?" the Scalper drily asked.

"You will permit me to remark, Señor," Tranquil replied still with the same placid air, "that the question appears to me singular at the least in your mouth. I simply wish to take back my daughter, whom you carried off."

"Your daughter?" the other said ironically.

"Yes, Señor, my daughter."

"Could you prove to me that this young person is really your daughter?"

"What do you mean by that remark?"

"I mean that Doña Carmela is no more your daughter than she is mine; that consequently our claims are equal, and that I am no more obliged to surrender her than you have a right to claim her."

"That is very vexatious," the hunter said mockingly.

"Is it not?" the White Scalper said.

Tranquil gave an ironical smile.

"I fancy you are strangely mistaken, Señor," he said with his old calmness.

"Ah!"

"Listen to me for a few moments. I will not encroach on your time, which no doubt is valuable. I am only a poor hunter, Señor, ignorant of worldly affairs, and the subtleties of civilization. Still, I believe that the man who adopts a child in the cradle, takes care of it, and brings it up with a tenderness and love that have never failed, is more truly its father than the man who, after giving it life, abandons it and pays no farther attention to it; such is my idea of paternity, Señor. Perhaps I am mistaken; but, in my idea, as I have no lessons or orders to receive from you, I shall act as I think proper, whether you like it or no. Come, my dear Carmela, we have remained here too long as it is."

The maiden bounded to her feet, and placed herself by the hunter's side.

"One moment, Señor," the Scalper exclaimed; "you have learned how to enter this house, but you do not yet know how to leave it."

And seizing two pistols lying on a table, he pointed them at the hunter, while shouting – "Help! help!"

Tranquil quietly raised his rifle to his shoulder.

"I should be delighted at your showing me the road," he said peaceably.

A dozen slaves and Mexican soldiers rushed tumultuously into the room.

"Ah, ah!" said the Scalper, "I fancy I have you at last, old Tiger-killer."

"Nonsense," a mocking voice replied; "not yet."

At this moment the Captain and his men dashed through the window which had afforded the Canadian a passage into the room, and uttered a fearful yell. An indescribable medley and confusion then began: the lights were extinguished, and the slaves, mostly unarmed, and not knowing with how many enemies they had to deal, fled in all directions. The Scalper was carried away by the stream of fugitives, and disappeared with them. The Texans took advantage of the stupor of their enemy to evacuate the rancho, and effect their retreat.

"Father," the maiden exclaimed, "I felt certain you would come."

"Oh!" the hunter said with ineffable delight, "you are at length restored to me."

"Make haste! Make haste!" the Captain shouted; "Who knows whether we may not be crushed by superior forces in an instant?"

At his orders, the sailors, taking the maiden in their midst, ran off in the direction of the seashore. In the distance, drums and bugles could be heard calling the soldiers under arms, and on the horizon the black outline of a large body of troops hurrying up, with the evident intention of cutting off the retreat of the Texans, could be distinguished. Panting and exhausted, the latter still ran on; they could see the coast; a few minutes more and they would reach it. All at once a band, commanded by the White Scalper, dashed upon them, shouting —

"Down with the Texans! kill them! kill them!"

"Oh, my God!" Carmela exclaimed, falling on her knees, and clasping her hands fervently; "will you abandon us?"

"Lads," the Captain said, addressing his sailors, "we cannot talk about conquering, but we will die."

"We will, Captain," the sailors answered unanimously, as they formed front against the Mexicans.

"Father," said Doña Carmela, "will you let me fall alive into the hands of that tiger?"

"No," said Tranquil, as he kissed her pale forehead; "here is my dagger, child?"

"Thanks!" she replied, as she seized it with eyes sparkling with joy. "Oh, now I am certain of dying free."

Lest they should be surrounded, the Texans leant their backs against a rock, and awaited with levelled bayonets the attack of the Texans.

"Surrender, dogs!" the Scalper shouted contemptuously.

"Nonsense!" the Captain answered; "you must be mad, Señor. Do men like us ever surrender?"

"Forward!" the Scalper shouted.

The Mexicans rushed on their enemies with indescribable rage. A heroic and gigantic struggle then began, a combat impossible to describe of three hundred men against thirty: a horrible and merciless carnage, in which none demanded quarter, while the Texans, certain of all falling, would not succumb till buried under a pile of hostile corpses. After twenty minutes, that lasted an age, only twelve Texans remained on their legs. The Captain, Tranquil, Quoniam, and nine sailors, remained alone, accomplishing prodigies of valour.

"At last!" the Scalper shouted, as he dashed forward to seize Doña Carmela.

"Not yet," Tranquil said, as he dealt a blow at him with his axe.

The Scalper avoided the blow by leaping on one side, and replied with his machete; Tranquil fell on his knee with a pierced thigh.

"Oh!" he said in despair; "She is lost! My God, lost!"

Carmela understood that no hope was left her; she therefore placed the dagger against her bosom, and said to the Scalper – "One step further, and I fall dead at your feet!"

In spite of himself, this savage man, terrified by the resolution he saw flashing in the maiden's eye, hesitated for a second, but, reassuming almost immediately his old ferocity, he shouted – "What do I care, so long as you belong to no one else!"

And he rushed toward her, uttering a fearful yell. Terrified at the immense danger to which his daughter was exposed, the hunter collected all his strength, and by a superhuman effort, once more stood menacingly before his enemy. The two men exchanged a terrible glance, and rushed on each other.

Carmela, almost dead with terror, lay stretched out between the two foes, forming with her person a barrier they did not dare to pass, but over which they crossed their machetes, whose blades met with an ill-omened clang. Unfortunately, Tranquil, weakened by his wound, could not, despite his indomitable courage, sustain this obstinate contest for any length of time, and consequently he only delayed for a few moments the fearful catastrophe he wished to prevent. He understood this; for, while wielding his machete with far from common dexterity, and not allowing his enemy time to breathe, he looked anxiously around him: Quoniam was fighting like a lion by his side.

"Friend!" he said in a heart-rending voice; "in the name of what you hold the dearest, save her – save Carmela!"

"But yourself?"

"Well," the hunter said nobly, "it is no matter what becomes of me, providing that she escapes this monster, and is happy."

Quoniam hesitated for a moment; a feeling of regret and pain rendered his face gloomy. But at a last glance from the hunter, a glance laden with an expression of despair impossible to describe, he at length decided on obeying him, and lowering his axe, which was dripping with blood, and red up to the wood, he stooped down to the maiden. But she suddenly started up, and bounding like a lioness, shrieked frenziedly —

"Leave me! leave me! He is dying for me, and I will not abandon him."

And she resolutely placed herself by her father's side. At this movement of the girl, for whom they were fighting so desperately, the two men fell back a step, and lowered the points of their machetes; but this truce was but of shout duration, for after a moment of respite, they rushed once more on each other. Then, Texans and Mexicans recommenced the fight with new fury, and the contest went on more terrible than before.