Gustave Aimard
The Freebooters: A Story of the Texan War
CHAPTER XXV.
FORWARD!
In the meanwhile, Master Lovel made his men row vigorously, in order to reach land as soon as possible. But whatever desire he might have for haste, it was impossible for him to reach the shore so soon as he might have wished, for not knowing the coast, and steering, as it were, blindly, his boat ran several times upon submarine reefs, which caused him to lose a considerable amount of time by forcing him to change his course; hence, when he at last reached the shore, the Captain had landed long before.
The old sailor had his boat tied up to the Captain's, in order that they could be used if required, and then leaped ashore, followed by his men, and advanced cautiously inland. He had not proceeded many yards, however, ere a tremendous noise reached his ears, and he saw the sailors who accompanied the Captain debouch from the hollow way in disorder, and closely pursued by Mexican soldiers.
Master Lovel did not lose his heart under these critical circumstances: instead of rushing into the medley, he ambushed his men behind a clump of Peru and mahogany trees that stood a short distance off, and prepared with perfect coolness to make a diversion in favour of his comrades when the favourable moment arrived.
The Texans, with their backs to a rock, not ten yards from the sea, were fighting desperately against an immense number of enemies. A minute later, and all would have been over, but suddenly the cry of "Forward! Texas y Libertad!" was raised in the rear of the Mexicans, accompanied by a tremendous noise and a deadly discharge, almost at point-blank range, scattered terror and disorder through their ranks. It was Master Lovel effecting his diversion, in order to save his Captain, or his adopted son, as he called him in his simple devotion.
The Mexicans, who already believed themselves victors, were terrified at this unforeseen attack, which, owing to the vigour with which it was carried out, they supposed to be made by a considerable body of these terrible freebooters, commanded by the Jaguar, whose reputation was already immense in the ranks of the American army. Persuaded that the Texans had landed in force, and had only given way in order to make them fall more surely into the trap, they hesitated, fell back in their turn, and finally being seized with a panic terror which their officers could not succeed in mastering, they broke and fled in all directions, throwing their arms away.
The Texans, revived by the providential arrival of the old sailor, and excited by their Captain's voice, redoubled their efforts. Tranquil tied a handkerchief round his thigh, and supported by Quoniam, who, during the action, had not left him for an instant, he retreated to the boats, leading Carmela, and followed by the Captain and his brave sailors. The latter, like lions at bay, turned at each instant to dash with axes and bayonets at the few soldiers their officers had at length succeeded in rallying, but who did not venture to press too closely the terrible adversaries, whom, since the beginning of the action, they had learned to appreciate and consequently to fear.
Still fighting, the sailors at length reached the boats prepared for their reception. Captain Johnson ordered the wounded to be placed in the launch, and getting into the other boat with Tranquil, Quoniam, and the sound men, he put off from the shore, towing the boat that served as an ambulance. This daring retreat, effected under the enemy's fire, was carried out with admirable precision and skill. One part of the crew of the pinnace fired at the Mexicans who lined the beach, while the other portion pulled vigorously in the direction of the brig.
Ere long the coast disappeared in the fog, the shouts of the enemy became less distinct, the shots ceased, the lights flashing on the shore died out one after the other, and all grew silent again.
"Ah!" the Captain said with a sigh of relief, as he offered his hand to Master Lovel, "without you, father, we were lost."
"Aha!" the old sailor answered with a hearty grin, and rubbing his hands joyously, "I suspected that if you had a secret from me, it was because you meditated some act of folly, so that is why I came after you."
The Captain merely replied to his worthy mate's remark by a fresh squeeze of the hand. Carmela, with her hands clasped and eyes raised above, was praying fervently, while returning thanks to Heaven for her miraculous deliverance.
"This is the girl you have saved," Tranquil said; "it is to you I owe the recovery of my daughter, and I shall not forget it, Captain."
"Nonsense, old hunter," the Captain said, laughingly, "I only kept the promise I made you; did I not pledge myself to help you, even at the risk of my life?"
"And you were uncommonly near losing your stake," Master Lovel observed. "After all, though," he added gallantly, "though I am no connoisseur, I can perfectly understand a man risking his skin to board so neat a corvette."
This sally restored the gaiety of the sailors, which the grave events that had occurred had temporarily dissipated.
"Are we really out of danger, father?" the maiden asked with a shudder of fear, which she was unable to conceal.
"Yes, my child; keep your spirits up," the hunter answered, "we are now in safety."
At this very moment, the sailors, as if wishing to confirm the Canadian's assurance, or perhaps with the wish to mock the enemies they had so barely escaped, struck up one of those cadenced songs which serve to mark time, and the words of which each repeats as he lays out on his oars. Master Lovel, after turning and returning several times the enormous quid that swelled his right cheek, made a signal to the crew of the pinnace, and struck up in a rough voice a stanza, which all repeated in chorus after him. This song, which was as interminable as a sailor's yarn, would, in all probability, have lasted much longer, if the Captain had not suddenly ordered silence by an imperious gesture.
"Is a new danger threatening us?" Tranquil inquired anxiously.
"Perhaps so," the Captain replied, who had for some time been scanning the horizon with a frowning brow.
"What do you mean?" the hunter asked.
"Look!" the Captain said, extending his hand in the direction of the fishing Tillage, to which we before alluded.
Tranquil hastily took up the night glass: a dozen large boats, crowded with soldiers, were leaving a small creek, and pulling out to sea. The water was lumpy, the breeze blew strongly, and the over-crowded long boat advanced but slowly, as it was compelled to tow the pinnace. The peril which they fancied they had escaped, burst out again in a different shape, and this time assumed really terrific proportions, for the Mexicans were rapidly approaching, and would soon be within gunshot.
The brig, whose tall masts were visible, was, it is true, only two cables' length, at the most, from the Texan boats, but the few men left on board were not nearly sufficient to make the requisite manoeuvres to enable the brig to help its boats effectually. The position grew with each moment more critical, and the Captain sprang up.
"Lads," he said, "the ten best swimmers among you will jump into the sea, and go to the ship with me."
"Captain," the hunter exclaimed, "what do you propose doing?"
"To save you," he simply answered, as he prepared to carry out his design.
"Oh, oh," Master Lovel said hastily, "I will not allow such an act of madness."
"Silence, sir," the Captain interrupted him rudely. "I am the sole commander."
"But you are wounded!" the Master objected. In fact, Captain Johnson had received an axe stroke, which laid open his right shoulder.
"Silence! I tell you. I allow no remarks."
The old sailor bowed his head, and wiped away a tear. After squeezing the hunter's hand, the Captain and his ten sailors leaped boldly into the sea, and disappeared in the darkness. At the news of fresh danger, Carmela had fallen, completely overwhelmed, in the bottom of the boat. Master Lovel, leaning out, tried to discover his chief. Heavy tears coursed down his bronzed cheeks, and all his limbs were agitated by a convulsive quivering. The Mexicans approached nearer and nearer; they were already close enough for the number of their boats to be distinguished, and a schooner was already leaving the creek, and coming up under press canvas, to ensure the success of the attack.
At this moment a mournful cry, desperate as the last shriek of a dying man, came over the waters, and terrified all the men whom no danger could affect.
"Oh, the unhappy man!" Tranquil cried, as he rose and made a move to leap overboard. But Lovel seized him by the waist belt, and in spite of his resistance, compelled him to sit down again.
"What are you about?" he asked him.
"Well," Tranquil replied, "I want to pay my debt to your captain; he risked his life for me, and I am going in return to risk mine to save him."
"Good!" the Master exclaimed, "By heaven! You are a man. But keep quiet, that doesn't concern you; it is my business."
And ere Tranquil had time to answer him, he plunged into the waves. The Captain had presumed too much on his strength, he was hardly in the water ere his wound caused him intolerable suffering, and his arm was paralyzed. With that tenacity which formed the basis of his character, he tried to contend against the pain, and overcome it, but nature had proved more powerful than his will and energy, a dizziness had come over his sight, and he felt himself slowly sinking. At this moment he uttered that parting cry for help to which Lovel had responded by flying to his aid. Ten minutes passed, minutes of agony, during which the persons who remained in the boat scarce dared to breathe.
"Courage, my lads," the panting voice of Lovel was suddenly heard saying, "he is saved!"
The sailors burst into a shout of joy, and laying on their oars, redoubled their efforts. A frightful discharge answered them, and the balls flattened against the sides of the pinnace and dashed up the water around. The Mexicans, who had come within range, opened a terrible fire on the Texans, but the latter did not reply.
A dull noise was heard, followed by cries of despair and imprecations, and a black mass passed to windward of the long boat. It was the brig coming to the assistance of its crew, and in passing it sunk and dispersed the enemy's boats.
When she set foot on the deck of the brig, Carmela, at length succumbing to her emotions, lost her senses. Tranquil raised her in his arms, and, aided by Quoniam and the Captain, carried her hastily down to the cabin.
"Captain," a sailor shouted, as he rushed after him, "the Mexicans, the Mexicans!"
While the Texans were engaged in taking their wounded aboard, feeling convinced that the Mexican boats had been all, or at any rate the majority of them, sunk by the brig, they had not dreamed of watching an enemy they supposed crushed. The latter had cleverly profited by this negligence to rally, and collecting beneath the bows of the brig, had boldly boarded her, by climbing up the main chains, the spritsails, and any ropes' ends they had been able to seize. Fortunately, Master Lovel had the boarding nettings triced up on the previous evening, and through this wise precaution on the part of the old sailor, the desperate surprise of the Mexicans did not meet with the success they anticipated from it.
The Texans, obeying the voice of their Captain, took up their weapons again and rushed on the Mexicans, who were already all but masters of the forepart of the ship. Tranquil, Quoniam, Captain Johnson, and Lovel, armed with axes, had flown to the front rank, and by their example excited the crew to do their duty properly. There, on a limited space of ten square yards at the most, one of those fearful naval combats without order or tactics began, in which rage and brutal strength represent science. A horrible struggle, a fearful carnage, with pikes, axes, and cutlasses; a struggle in which each wound is mortal, and which recalls those hideous combats of the worst days of the middle ages, when brute strength alone was the law.
The White Scalper had never before fought with such obstinacy. Furious at the loss of the prey he had so audaciously carried off, half mad with rage, he seemed to multiply himself, rushing incessantly with savage yells into the densest part of the fight, seeking Carmela, and longing to kill the man who had so bravely torn her from him. Accident seemed for a moment to smile on him, by bringing him suddenly face to face with the Captain.
"Now for my turn," he exclaimed with a ferocious shout of joy.
The Captain wised his axe.
"No, no!" said Tranquil, as he threw himself hurriedly before him; "this victim is reserved for me; I must kill this human-faced tiger. Besides," he added, with a grin, "it is my profession to kill wild beasts, and this one will not escape me."
"Ah," the White Scalper said, "it is really fatality which brings you once more face to face with me. Well, be it so! I will settle with you first."
"It is you who will die, villain!" the Canadian replied. "Ah, you carried off my daughter and fancied yourself well concealed, did you? But I was on your trail; for the last three months I have been following you step by step, and watching for the favourable moment for vengeance."
On hearing these words the Scalper rushed furiously on his enemy. The latter did not make a movement to avoid him; on the contrary, he seized him in his powerful arms, and tried to throw him down, while stabbing him in the loins with his dagger. These two men, with flashing eyes and foaming lips, animated by an implacable hatred, intertwined breast to breast, face to face, each trying to kill his adversary, caring little to live provided that his enemy died, resembled two wild beasts determined to destroy each other.
Texans and Mexicans had ceased fighting as if by common accord, and remained horrified spectators of this atrocious combat. At length the Canadian, who had been severely wounded before, fell, dragging his enemy down with him. The latter uttered a yell of triumph, which was soon converted into a groan of despair: Quoniam rushed madly upon him, but, unfortunately, he had miscalculated his distance, and they both fell into the sea, which closed over them with a hollow and ill-omened sound.
The Mexicans, deprived of their Chief, now only thought of flight, and rushed in mad disorder to their boats; a moment later, they had all quitted the brig. Quoniam reappeared, the worthy Negro was dripping with water. He tottered a few paces and fell by the side of Tranquil, to whom Carmela and the Captain were paying the most assiduous attention, and who was beginning to recover his senses. A few minutes later the hunter felt strong enough to try and rise.
"Well!" he asked Quoniam, "Is he dead?"
"I believe so," the Negro replied; "look here," he added, as he offered him a small object he held in his hand.
"What is it?" the hunter asked.
Quoniam shook his head mournfully. "Look at it," he said.
After having attentively regarded the Negro for an instant, whose features expressed singular despondency, strange in a man of this stamp, he asked him in alarm: —
"Are you seriously wounded?"
The Negro shook his head.
"No," he said, "I am not wounded."
"What is the matter, then?"
"Take this," he said, stretching his arm out a second time, "take this and you will know."
Astonished at this singular persistence, Tranquil stretched out his arm, too.
"Give it here," he said.
Quoniam handed him an article which he seemed anxious to conceal from the persons present; the Canadian uttered a cry of surprise on seeing it.
"Where did you find this?" he asked anxiously.
"When I rushed on that man, I know not how it was, but this chain and the articles attached to it were placed, as it were, in my hand. When I fell into the sea, I clung to the chain; there it is, do what you please with it."
Tranquil, after again examining the mysterious object, concealed it in his chest, and gave vent to a profound sigh. All at once, Carmela started up in horror.
"Oh, look, look, father!" she shrieked, "Woe, woe, we are lost!"
The hunter started at the sound of the girl's voice, and his eyes filled with tears.
"What is the matter?" he asked in a weak voice
"The matter is," the Captain said rudely, "that unless a miracle take place, we are really lost this time, as Doña Carmela says."
And he pointed to some thirty armed boats, which were pulling up and converging round the brig, so as to enclose it in a circle, whence it would be impossible for it to escape.
"Oh! Fate is against us!" Carmela exclaimed in despair.
"No, it is impossible," Tranquil said quickly; "God will not abandon us thus!"
"We are saved!" Master Lovel shouted; "we are saved! Look, look! The boats are turning back!"
The crew burst into a shout of joy and triumph; in the beams of the rising sun, the Libertad corvette could be seen passing through Galveston straits, hardly two cannon shots' distance from the brig. The Mexican boats pulled at full speed in the direction of land, and soon all had disappeared. The brig drifted down to the corvette, and both returned to their old anchorage, which they reached an hour later.
The two ships had scarce let their anchor fall, ere a boat came alongside the brig, from the fort, containing; the Jaguar and El Alferez. The prisoners had been handed over to the Jaguar, who, while ordering them to be closely watched, thought it advisable to let them move freely about the fortress.
The success of the two hazardous expeditions attempted by the Texans, had given the cause they defended a great impulse. In a few hours the revolt had become a revolution, and the insurgent Chiefs men whose existence must henceforth be recognised. The Jaguar desired to push matters on actively, and wished to profit by the probable discouragement of the Mexicans to secure the surrender of the town without a blow, if it were possible.
In his conversation with Colonel Melendez, the young Chief had purposely startled him with the news of the success of the two expeditions, calculating for the success of future operations on the stupor General Rubio would experience on being told of them. But ere undertaking anything, the Jaguar desired a conference with his friends, in order to settle definitively the way in which he must behave under such serious circumstances, as he was not at all anxious to assume the responsibility of the undertaking that might be formed. This was acting not only with prudence, but also with perfect self-denial, especially after the way in which he had behaved since the commencement of hostilities, and the high position he had attained among his party.
But as the heart of even the purest and most honourable man is never exempt from those weaknesses inherent in human nature, the Jaguar, though perhaps not daring to avow it to himself had another motive that urged him to go aboard the brig so speedily. This motive, of a thoroughly private nature, was the desire to learn as soon as possible the result of the expedition attempted by Captain Johnson and Tranquil against the rancho of the White Scalper.
Hence, the young man had scarce reached the deck, ere, without returning the salutes of his friends who hurried to greet him at the ladder, he enquired after Tranquil, feeling justly surprised at not seeing him among the persons assembled. The Captain gave him no other answer than a sign to follow. The young man, not understanding this reserve, though feeling seriously alarmed, went below, where he saw Tranquil reclining in a berth, and a weeping female seated on a chair by his side. The Jaguar turned pale, for in the female he recognized Doña Carmela; his emotion was so extreme, that he was obliged to lean against the partition lest he should fall. At the sound of his approaching footsteps, the maiden raised her head.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, clasping her hands with joy, "It is you! You have come at last then!"
"Thanks, Carmela," he replied in a gasping voice; "thanks for this kindly greeting! It proves to me that you have not forgotten me."
"Forget you, to whom, next to my father, I owe everything! Oh, you know that was impossible."
"Thank you once again. You do not, you cannot know how happy you render me at this moment, Carmela. My whole life, employed in your service, would not suffice to repay the good you do me. You are free at last! Brave Tranquil, I felt sure that he would succeed!"
"Alas, my friend, this success costs him dear."
"What do you mean? I trust that he is not dangerously wounded?"
"I fear the contrary, my friend."
"Oh! We will save him."
"Come hither, Jaguar," the hunter then said in a feeble voice; "give me your hand, that I may press it in mine."
The young man walked quickly up to him.
"Oh, with all my heart!" he said, as he held out his hand.
"The affair was a tough one, my friend," the Canadian went on; "that man is a lion."
"Yes, yes, he is a rude adversary; but you got the better of him at last?"
"Thanks to Heaven, yes; but I shall keep his mark all my life, if God permit me to rise again."
"Canarios! I trust that will soon happen."
The hunter shook his head.
"No, no," he answered, "I am a connoisseur in wounds, through having inflicted a good many, and received more than my proper share: these are serious."
"Have you no hopes of recovery, then?"
"I do not say so, I merely repeat that many days will pass ere I can return to the desert," the hunter replied, with a stifled sigh.
"Nonsense, who knows? Any wound that does not kill is soon cured, the Indians say, and they are right. And what has become of that man?"
"In all probability he is dead," Tranquil said, in a hollow voice.
"That is all for the best."
At this moment Captain Johnson opened the door.
"A boat, bearing a flag of truce, is hailing the brig; what is to be done?" he asked.
"Receive it, Sangre de Dios! my dear Johnson. This boat, if I am not mistaken, is a bearer of good news."
"Our friends would like you to be present to hear the proposals which will doubtless be made."
"What do you say, Tranquil?" the young Chief asked, turning to the old hunter.
"Go, my boy, where duty calls you," the latter answered; "I feel that I need repose. However, you will not be away long."
"Certainly not, and so soon as I am at liberty again I will return to your side, but merely to have you carried ashore; your condition demands attention you cannot obtain here."
"I accept, my friend, the more so as I believe the land air will do me good."
"That is settled then," the Jaguar said, joyously; "I shall be back soon."
"All right," Tranquil replied, and fell back in his berth.
The young man, after bowing to Carmela, who returned the salute with a gentle and sad glance, left the cabin with the Captain and returned on deck.
[In our next volume, "THE WHITE SCALPER," we shall again come across all the characters of this long history, for the great stake is about to be played for: liberty and tyranny are at length face to face, and the destiny of a people will probably depend on the fate of a battle.]
