The Guide of the Desert

by Gustave Aimard

  CHAPTER XV.

  EL VADO DEL CABESTRO.

  On the 23rd December, 1815, between two and three o'clock in theafternoon, that is to say, at the hottest time of the day, twotravellers--coming respectively from the north and south--met face toface on the banks of a little river, an affluent of the Rio Dulce, atthe ford of the Licol, situated at an equal distance from Santiago andSan Miguel de Tucuman.

  On arriving on the bank of the stream, as by one accord, the twotravellers drew bridle, and looked about them attentively for some time.

  The river that both were preparing to cross in a contrary direction,swollen by the rains from recent storms, was pretty broad at this time,which fact hindered the two travellers from severally reconnoitringeach other sufficiently to form a decided opinion of one another.

  Every stranger that one meets in the desert is, if not an enemy, atleast without information, an individual whom prudence warns thetraveller to mistrust.

  After a short but decidedly perceptible hesitation, each travellertook his fusil in his hand, from his shoulder belt, loaded it, makingthe trigger snap with a sharp noise, and appearing to take a decidedresolution, lightly touched the flanks of his horse with a spur, andentered the river.

  The ford was broad and not deep, the water reached scarcely to thebelly of the horses, which permitted the horsemen to go their own way.

  However, they advanced towards each other, continuing to watch eachother attentively, and ready to fire at the least suspected movement.

  Suddenly they raised a joyful exclamation, and stopped, bursting outinto hearty laughter.

  Several times they tried to speak, but laughter was stronger than theirwill.

  Meanwhile, they had suddenly dropped their fusils, which immediatelyresumed their unoffensive position in the shoulder belt.

  At last one of them succeeded in gaining sufficient coolness to giveexpression to his thoughts.

  "Pardieu!" cried he in French, stretching out his right hand to hiscompanion, who was still laughing; "The encounter is strange. I donot yet dare to believe my eyes. Are you a man or a phantom? Is ityourself, my dear sir--you whom I saw scarcely two years ago in Paris,dancing attendance on the government for some employment or other--thatI now find in the depths of the desert, wearing poncho and sombrero?"

  "Yes," answered the other, casting a look of satisfaction at himself;"the costume suits me very well; but," added he, between two bursts oflaughter, "I have a right, it appears to me, to put the same questionto you."

  "Hush!" interrupted the first speaker; "Nothing is stable in thisworld, you know, M. Gagnepain."

  "Alas! Who more than I has been in a position to learn that?" sadlysaid the first traveller.

  "You sigh. Have you become the sport of fortune?"

  "Fortune and I are too little acquainted just at present," said he,with a smile, "for her to have treated me in one fashion or the other.In fact. I only complain about her indifference towards me. As to you,Monsieur, I should think that the recent events of which our unhappycountry has been the theatre cannot but have favourably influenced yourfortune."

  The second traveller smiled bitterly.

  "Ingratitude and proscription are current money in courts," said he;"it is in vain that man thinks himself skilful and acute in this world."

  "Without reckoning the passions which influence him," interrupted thefirst speaker, with a slight accent of raillery. "Where are you going,then, in this manner?"

  "To San Miguel de Tucuman; then to Chili."

  "Alone?"

  "Oh no; my people are coming after me. And you?"

  "Oh, as to me it is different; I am nearly on my estate here."

  "Indeed?"

  "Ma foi, yes; only, you must understand, I do not intend to liveforever in this country; if you like, I shall be happy to invite you tomy house, from, which we are only about twenty miles distant."

  "What! Your house? You have a house here?"

  "Mon Dieu! Yes; it is necessary to come here to America to accomplishthat miracle of becoming landowner. That is a good joke, is it not?"said he, laughing. "What do you say to my proposition? Does it pleaseyou?"

  The other hesitated a moment.

  "Decide, sir; chance, or, if you prefer it, Providence, which hasbrought us together so strangely, has perhaps some unknown plansconcerning us. Do not let us oppose it."

  "Why joke on this subject. M. Gagnepain?" asked the other; "Althoughyou are an artist, and consequently a man of strong mind, what you sayis more true than you doubtless wish to avow."

  "Pardon; I had forgotten that you were an Oratorian. Well, will youretrace your route?"

  "I am not in a hurry; I shall arrive soon enough whither I am going. Ishall have great pleasure in passing a few hours in your company."

  "Come, then, we will stretch ourselves on the grass in the shade ofthose magnificent palm trees, and, while our horses rest themselves,we will pass the great heat of the day in talking and waiting for yourpeople."

  "Your offer is so cordial that I cannot refuse it."

  "Well spoken, my dear duke."

  "Silence," briskly interrupted he to whom this title was given; "myname is Dubois, and I am a naturalist; remember that, I beg."

  "Ah!" said the other, with slight astonishment; "As you like. Pass asDubois; that name is as good as another."

  "Better for me at this time."

  The two travellers then regained the bank of the river, where,according to the plan they had agreed on, they unloosed the bridle ofthe horses, taking care to tie them by a strap of leather, for fearthey should wander; and after having beaten the bushes with the barrelsof their guns to frighten the reptiles, they stretched themselves onthe fresh and tufted grass, under the protecting shade of a giganticpalm tree, giving a sigh of agreeable relief.

  The country, in the centre of which our travellers had met, was,according to all reports, far from meriting the epithet which oneof the two had conferred on it; it was on the contrary, a beautifulcountry; the grand landscapes of it have always given rise, to theadmiration of explorers--very rare, by the way--whom the love ofscience has induced to visit them under all their aspects.

  The Tucuman, where are passing at the present time the events of ourhistory, is one of the most happily situated countries in South America.

  Situated at the north of the province of Catamarca, this country,crossed by a branch of the Andes, enjoys a climate temperate in summer,and scarcely cold in winter; a great part of this territory is composedof immense plateaux or llanos, covered with luxuriant vegetation,intersected by numerous streams and considerable rivers, which, notfinding any outlet by reason of the want of undulation in the ground,form numerous lakes, without any tide.

  It is at the present time one of the most vast, the most thicklypopulated, and the richest of the Buenos Airean confederation.

  From the spot where the travellers had stopped they enjoyed anenchanting view, and saw spread out before them a most charminglandscape. At their feet a large and deep river wound like a silverribbon through the plains, covered with high grass of an emerald green,in the midst of which bounded every moment stags and sheep, playingin troops; wild bulls raised their large heads, armed with formidablehorns, and casting about them half timid looks; flights of pigeons andpartridges were wheeling in every direction, uttering their sharp orgentle notes, whilst magnificent black swans were playing on the river,and allowed themselves to be carelessly carried along by the current,defiling before the herons that were occupied in searching for fish inthe river. Immense forests spread on the background of the landscape,and rose step by step on the far-off slopes of the Cordilleras, whoserugged summits, covered with eternal snow, were mingled with the clouds.

  The sun spread profusely its dazzling rays over this primitive scene,and caused the incessantly moistened sand of the shores of the river tosparkle like millions of diamonds.

  A profound calm reigned in this desert, so full of animal life,nevertheless, and from the bosom of which rose li
ke a solemn hymn thesongs of the innumerable birds perched under the foliage.

  Before proceeding farther, and reporting the conversation of ourtravellers, we will make the reader more intimately acquainted withthem, by sketching their portraits in a few lines.

  The first--he who did not wish to be known by the title of duke, andwho pretended to be a naturalist, calling himself Dubois--was a manabout fifty-two years of age, but who appeared more than sixty. Hisbody, long and lean, was slightly bent; his slender limbs were lost, soto say, in the ample folds of his clothing; his features, fatigued bywatching and intellectual labour, without doubt, must have been at onetime handsome. His forehead was large, but furrowed by deep wrinkles;his black and full eye, surmounted by thick eyebrows, had a fixed andpenetrating look, which, when he became animated, it was impossible tosupport. His nose was straight, his mouth rather large, but furnishedwith magnificent teeth; his lips, somewhat slender, on which a cold andmocking smile appeared stereotyped. His square chin, with total absenceof beard, completed an imposing physiognomy--a little hard, perhaps,but which, when he pleased, he could render extremely prepossessing.

  All his person manifested that aristocratic, unctuous, and somewhatsleek grace which distinguishes diplomats and the high dignitaries ofthe Church. It formed, with the nobility of his gesture, a completecontrast, not only to the costume he had thought proper to adopt, butalso with the plebeian manners which he affected, and which, like apart badly learned, he every now and then forgot.

  The other traveller was named Emile Gagnepain; he was about thirtyor thirty-two years of age, his figure was ordinary, but well andstrongly made; his shoulders were large his chest prominent; healthcharacterised his whole person; his arms, on which large muscles stoodout like cords, hard as iron, manifested uncommon bodily strength.His countenance indicated frankness and good humour; his regularfeatures, his brown eyes full of intelligence, his laughing mouth,his hair--tawny blonde in colour--curled like that of a Negro, hismoustache, oiled with care and coquettishly turned up; his chin shaved,and his bushy whiskers, which reached nearly the corner of his mouth,formed a physiognomy full of frankness and energy, which, at the firstglance, attracted sympathy. The rather rude liberty of his movements,his rapid and decided conversation, caused him to be easily set downas one of those privileged beings, as some say--but unfortunate as wesay--whom people call artists. In a word, he was a painter. For therest--a peculiarity that we have forgotten to mention--he had firmlyattached to the croup of his horse a box of colours, a large umbrella,an easel, and a maulstick, an apparatus indispensable to all painters,and which, in a country less savage than that in which he was, wouldhave immediately pronounced his profession, notwithstanding his costumeof a gaucho.

  It was he who first began the conversation. Scarcely had he stretchedhimself on the grass than, getting up abruptly, and tracing a circle inspace with his right arm stretched out before him--

  "What an admirable thing is Nature," he cried, "and how culpableare men in spoiling it, as they incessantly do, under pretext ofamelioration, as though Providence were not more skilful than they!"

  "Bravo!" answered the other--to whom we will give, for the present,the name of Dubois under which he made himself known to us--"Bravo!Monsieur Emile; I see that you are still as enthusiastic as even at thetime when I had the pleasure of first meeting you."

  "Eh, Monseigneur--Monsieur, I should say--pardon this involuntaryslip--do not envy us enthusiasm, we poor devils of artists; enthusiasmis faith, is youth, is hope, perhaps."

  "God preserve me from such a thought. I admire you, on the contrary--Iwho, at my time of life, can drink nothing but absinthe."

  "Bah!" gaily said the painter, "Tomorrow does not exist; it is a myth;let us be merry today. Look, what a brilliant sun; what a magnificentlandscape! Will all that not make you more contented with humanity?"

  "How happy is youth!" said monsieur Dubois; "Everything strikes uponit. Even in the desert, where it runs the imminent risk of dying withhunger."

  "Allowing that, Monsieur, the man who has lived in Paris on nothingought not to fear any desert."

  "That leads us to a question that I wish to ask," answered the other,laughing at the artist's jest.

  "Let us have the question," said the artist.

  "Be so good, then, not to attribute to an indiscretion unworthy of me,but only to the lively interest I take in you, the question I proposeto ask you."

  "As to indiscretion with me, sir, you are jesting, no doubt; come, donot fear to ask me. Whatever it may be, I will do my best to answer itsatisfactorily."

  "Since our first rencontre, I have racked my brains to discover themotive which induced you to emigrate here."

  "Emigrate! Bah, Monsieur; villainous word! To travel, you wish to say,no doubt?"

  "To travel, let it be, my young friend; I will not quibble with you onan expression that you have a right to regard as 'villainous.'"

  "Why not tell me frankly that you wish to know my history, Monsieur leDuc?"

  "Hush; do forget that title!"

  "To the devil with it; I shall always forget."

  "I hope not, when I shall have informed you that it is of the lastimportance that this unlucky title should be ignored by everyone inthis country."

  "That is sufficient; I will not forget myself."

  "I thank you; now, if I do not abuse your good nature, relate to me thehistory I so much want to learn; for at Paris we met one another undercircumstances of too trivial a character for me even to inform myselfof your antecedents, which I do not know why, now interest me more thanI can explain to you."

  "That is easy to understand, Monsieur; the distances which separate usfrom each other, the insurmountable barriers which in Paris are raisedbetween us, exist no longer here. We are two men, face to face in thedesert, one as important as the other, and, I hasten to add, two fellowcountrymen, that is to say, two friends. Naturally, we ought to makecommon cause in everything, to interest ourselves in each other, andlove one another, as a protest of dislike of the strangers in the midstof whom fate has cast us, and who are, and ought to be, our naturalenemies."

  "Perhaps you are right; but I shall be happy, if you please, to hearyour history."

  "This history is very simple, Monsieur; in a few words I will relate itto you; only I much doubt whether it will interest you."

  "Tell it me, my young friend."

  "Well, then, my name, you know, is Emile Gagnepain--a plebeian name itis, is it not?"

  "The name is of little consequence."

  "Without doubt. In 1792, when the country was in danger, my father, apoor devil of a first clerk to a procureur, who had been married but afew years, abandoned his wife and child--the latter aged seven or eightyears--to engage himself as a volunteer, and fly to the defence of theRepublic. When my father announced to his wife the determination he hadtaken, she answered him with quite a Spartan brevity--"

  "'Go and defend your country; it ought to rank before your family,'said my mother."

  "My father left; our poor hearth, already very miserable, became stillmore so; happily, I had the good fortune of being recommended to David,in whose studio I entered. My mother could thus, by dint of economy,wait for better times. However, years passed away, my father did notreturn; we seldom received news of him; we learnt that he had beennominated a captain in the Twenty-fifth demi-brigade."

  "Sometimes, though rarely, a little aid in money reached my mother.At the camp of Boulogne my father refused the cross of the Legion ofHonour, under pretext that the Republic had no distinctions to give tothose of her children who were doing their duty."

  "Some months later he fell, pierced by the ball of Austerlitz, in themidst of an Austrian square that he had penetrated at the head of hiscompany, crying, 'Vive la Republique!'"

  "The emperor did not entertain any rancour against a soldier of '92.He gave a pension of eight hundred francs to his widow; that was verywell, but not enough to live upon. Happily, I had grown up, and wasnow in a position to
do something in aid of my mother. Thanks to theall-powerful protection of my master, although still very young, Igained enough money, not only to support myself comfortably, but alsoto give my mother a little of that comfort of which she had so muchneed."

  "It was then, I don't know for what reason, that I was seized with adesire to travel in America, in order to study that scenery of which,as people say, we have only counterfeits, more or less successful."

  "You are severe, Monsieur," interrupted his companion.

  "No, I am just. Nature does not exist amongst us; art alone struts inher place; no European landscape will ever sustain a comparison with astage scene."

  "But I resume: I then redoubled my efforts. I wished to leave, but notbefore assuring my mother a position which would place her forever,whatever might happen during my absence, above want. By dint of workand perseverance, I succeeded in solving this almost unsolvableproblem; the efforts it was necessary to make I will not tell you, sir:they surpass all belief; but my determination was taken."

  "I wished to see that America of which travellers give us suchmagnificent descriptions. At last, after ten years of incessantstruggle, I succeeded in acquiring a sum of thirty-five thousandfrancs--that was very little, was it not? However, that was sufficientfor me; I kept five thousand francs for myself, and placed the rest inmy mother's name."

  "I left; it is now eight months since I landed in America. I am ashappy as on the first day. Everything looks smiling to me; the futureis mine; I live like the birds, without care for the morrow. I havepurchased for the comparatively large sum of two hundred and fiftyfrancs, a rancho of some poor Indian Guaranis, who, frightened by thewar of the colonies against the metropolis, have taken a refuge inthe grand chaco, among their own people. That is how I have become alandowner."

  "Continually journeying hither and thither, I study the country, and Ichoose the landscape that, at a later period, I shall paint. That willlast as long as it may: the future is with God; it is useless for meto concern myself with it beforehand."

  "There is my history, Monsieur; you see it is simple."

  "Yes," answered his companion, with a pensive air; "too simple, infact. Complete happiness does not exist in the world in which we are.Why not think a little of the adversity which may surprise you?"

  "Why," said the artist, laughing, "it is because, more unhappy andpoorer than Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos, I have not even a ring tothrow into the sea. Moreover, you know the end of the history; somefish or other would bring it back to me. I prefer to wait."

  "This philosophy is good; I see no fault in it. Happy are those who canpractise it; unhappily I am not of the number," said he, repressing asigh.

  "If I did not fear to displease you, I would, in my turn, address you aquestion," pursued the painter.

  "I know what you wish to ask. You do not understand--is it not so?--howit is that I, whose elevated position would seem to place me undershelter from tempests, find myself near you today in the desert."

  "Pardon me, Monsieur; if what I ask you will the least in the worldannoy you, do not tell me a word."

  The old man smiled with bitterness--

  "No," pursued he; "it is good sometimes to pour off the fulness ofone's heart into a pure and indulgent soul. I will only tell you a fewwords which will acquaint you with all."

  "Elevated summits fatally attract lightning; that is an axiom generallyacknowledged. Notwithstanding the support I gave the Bourbons, mydevotion would not convince them of my fidelity."

  "Under the rule of Louis XVIII., they regained the same spiritwhich had formerly voted the death of Louis XVI. Friends warned me,condemning myself to exile, to avoid the death suspended, withoutdoubt, over my head."

  "I abandoned all--parents, friends, fortune, even a name without stain,and honoured up to that time--to go into another hemisphere, to concealmy proscribed head."

  "While you, young and careless, arrived by one side in America, Iarrived by another side--old, with all my illusions dispelled, cursingthe blow which struck me."

  "Believe me, whatever may be their name, dynasties are all ungrateful,because they feel themselves powerless. The people alone is just,because it knows that it is strong."

  "I pity you in a double sense," answered the young man, holding out hishand: "first, because your proscription is iniquitous, then because youarrive in a country in full revolution."

  "I know it," answered he, smiling; "it is on this revolution that Ireckon: perhaps it will save me."

  "I hope so, for your sake, although your words are so obscure to methat I cannot understand them. It is true that up to the present time Ihave never thought of politics."

  "Who knows if they will not soon absorb all your thoughts?"

  "God forbid, Monsieur," cried he with a sort of indignation; "I am apainter."

  "Here are my people," said M. Dubois.

  "Where?"

  "Why here, before us!"

  "The devil! Then what are these horsemen who are coming towards us onthis side?" said the painter, indicating with his finger, diametricallyopposite to that at which appeared a group composed of some fifteenindividuals.

  "Hum!" said his companion, with a shade of uneasiness; "Who can thesepeople be?"

  "Bah!" said the young man; "We shall soon know."

  "Too soon, perhaps," answered the old man, pensively shaking his head.

  Two troops, in fact, were galloping down towards the river.

  They were at about an equal distance from the travellers.