The Treasure of Pearls: A Romance of Adventures in California

by Gustave Aimard

  CHAPTER XIX.

  THE OLD, OLD FRIENDS.

  Between seven and eight o'clock in the evening the two guardsmen ofLa Perla Purisima were still riding with her in a somewhat melancholymood. They had even feared her indications were wrong, particularly asthey had met none of their native woodcutters, employed by the Missionof San Fernando, or of the hacienda of the young lady's father, atthe magnificent remuneration of half a dozen dollars per month, theinsignificant rations in supplement being not worth considering. As aconsequence the loan of an _ounce_, which vast amount they never dreamof repaying, constitutes them serfs for life. Whatever the causes, notone of these slaves appeared in the land, where a carrion crow or two,that evidence of a settled county, now and then was visible, havingperceived even so far away the battlefield contested by border ruffiansand the Indian raiders.

  "Queer," remarked Oliver, shaking his head, and redoubling hisprecautions, whilst relaxing the pace for the same reasons, though theystood in need of food and rest at the earliest moment.

  Their horses, too, which the Indians had ridden with that recklessnessto their manner born, were suffering from thirst and enforced fast.

  It came on dark, too, "a nigger of a night," grumbled the hunter, andnot a star in the sky. Thick clouds, charged with electricity, coursedoverhead like antelopes in fright, urged by a gale that increasedcontinually, and the rumble of far-off thunder warned them that a stormwas imminent and shelter needful.

  Still they rode on, doggedly, step by step, or rather, _paso entrepaso_ which is the Spanish for intermingling steps, taken, indeed,by the horses shrinking together hoof locked and trying to "hump up"their backs in alarm, when suddenly the pioneer's mount, lifting itshanging head and wagging its ears briskly, uttered a derisive neigh. Sodoes the noble animal often express his lordly contempt for the humbleby-brother, the mule.

  Indeed, not far aside on the northeast or left, they heard the quickamble of some quadruped. In a few instants there appeared a shadow,which approached with a daring or simplicity which perplexed thehunter, already grasping his gun.

  The hail of the oncomer was in Spanish, a religious greetingappropriate to the vesper hour, to which, involuntarily and throughwell-schooled habit, the sweet fresh voice of the Mexican maidenstraightway responded.

  "It is Father Serafino," she added in explanation. "Our Lady ofGuadalupe be thanked!" The name vaguely struck the Englishman asfamiliar, once upon a time, and he extended his hand to check themovement of Oliver, despite the recognition, to be wholly in readinessto fire.

  Meanwhile the priest, for it was one, bestriding a fine Spanish mule ofunusual size and docility, had come up.

  As well as the murkiness would allow one to discern, he was a manof about fifty, but his broad brow was smooth as a youth's; sweetintelligence dwelt in the blue eyes which were shaded by long lashesunder brown brows regularly traced. His face was perfectly cleanlyshaven, and his long hair, only slightly threaded with silver, camedown on his shoulders, and framed an oval visage. His voice wasmelodious, but not devoid of manliness. Altogether, the attractive andsterling man was a worthy successor of the brothers who accompanied themailclad knights in their inroads from Mexico to San Francisco. Hissimple costume was composed of a black gown buttoned all the way andgathered in by a broad band; his sombrero had been lost in his ride,made in haste.

  This same precipitation impelled him to be brief in his story and inhis congratulations to the senorita for having been saved from thespoilers.

  "Though there will be great joy at the house," he said, "there willstill remain mourning, my daughter."

  "My father! My mother!"

  "All these are well, and so your brother, but he and his wife and theyall in grief--an arrow, at random, entered an upper window and slewthe babe in its cradle. The will of heaven be done in all things! Thelittle angel, at least, will not be exposed to the horrors which I fearstill are poised ere soon descending."

  He closed his sentence with so sad an air that all gazed at him, afraidto question.

  "Yea, terrible events are in preparation, of which the swoop of theApaches on the farm and the taking away of the heiress form no adequateexamples. At least, when they strike, they fly, and are gone like thehawk. But a danger on the very hearth is arising. In short, friends ofmy little daughter here, listen; the Yaqui Indians, the Christians,the converts, the semi-civilised, whom we employ throughout Sonora aspeons, field hands or labourers, have seen in the too often successfulraids of the wild brethren active slurs on their tameness. The easewith which this last band of Apaches overcame the servants of donBenito has set them plotting, I know, to revolt against him, andagainst other masters, alas, not so kind, fair and punctual in paymentof their pittance as your father, my poor child."

  "Of them, who is going to be uneasy, father?" responded La Perla, withthe confident, arrogant smile of the daughter of the ruling race. "Havenot these poor dogs many a time in my young life, brooded, ay, andyelped of an attack, but between the menace and its execution, what adistance!"

  "That is the saying of a child, gentlemen," continued Father Serafino."She mistakes this time. Acknowledging the good Indians to have beentreated badly of late, they are out of patience. They are in activerebellion. All the Indians who were on our Mission have disappeared.Last night," he added in a whisper, "of my two brothers who wentover to the farms of Bella Vista and the Palmero, to inquire news,one only returned," this in a still lower tone so that the girlcould not possibly overhear, "the outbreakers had carried them bystorm--massacred every living creature and danced round the blazingbuildings, one of those pagan dances whose memories I had hoped we hadbanished from their darkened brains. The surviving brother, hiding inthe thicket till he could secure a stray horse, heard their councilswear to destroy the white man and all his works throughout Sonora andretreat to the Northern Deserts to live free and wild in the abominablepractices of their ancestors. They talked even of attacking Ures, andsaid all the Indians in the pueblos would join them. What will thehundred soldiers at Ures do? I tell you, gentlemen, such is the generalsituation."

  "It's a tight nip," agreed Oliver.

  "Terrible!" added the Englishman, shuddering to think of the poorfather, his friend, ignorant still of the happy fate of his child, andexposed to the overwhelming storm of the revolted serfs.

  "It is good and bad, too," resumed the priest, "that the neighbours andkinsmen of don Benito will be flocking there to celebrate the ascensionto heaven of his grandchild. Good, that so many heads of family shouldbe under one roof, but bad that their own homes should be withoutcommanders at such an emergency."

  "The Indians," said Oliver authoritatively, "will move in a mass, forthey have not been trained as individual warriors; hence they willattack this house, which contains all they hate, their masters. My voteis: on to don Benito's!"

  The priest bowed at this utterance of a man of warfare. The Englishgentleman approved, if only out of eagerness to place dona Perla in hermother's arms.

  "I'll show you the way!" said Father Serafino, smiting his mule withhis slipper. "On to the Hacienda of Monte Tesoro, then."

  "The Treasure Hill!" Don Benito had erected his chief farmhouse as amemorial of the haul in the Gulf of California.

  They tailed away at once in a new order; the mule leading at a goodpace, spite of the obscurity which little impeded one very familiarwith the ground, bringing up the rear, ever and anon looking steadilybehind him.

  It was the middle of the night, amid falling raindrops of great size,that the little troop beheld the loopholed walls of an enclosure roundthe grounds of an imposing mansion rise up into view. All the gates anddoors were wide open, and every window blazed with light. A number ofpeons, brandishing torches, rushed out to welcome those they took to bebelated guests. But as soon as the illumination fell upon the beauteousface of the daughter of the proprietor, they sent up a ringing shoutwhich revealed how deeply endeared was that master and all his kith andkin.

  The farmhouse itself was engirt,
and all its approaches encumberedby at least a hundred shanties (_chozas_) and mud brick cabins, ofmiserable aspect, scattered at haphazard, and used for the abodesof the house servants and farm labourers. At the present juncture,though, the misery was gilded, since every hut glowed with light, andout of the doorways poured the jingling of tambourines, the bangingof _tambores_ or drums, and laughter; songs and shouts mingled withthe tinkling and strumming of stringed instruments, in wild, thrillingnative waltzes.

  Though there were women and children squatting and sprawling in theclear space between the cabins, mounted peons, swinging flambeaux, wereracing to and fro, at the risk of trampling on them.

  On triumphantly and joyously entering the courtyard (_patio_), thestrangers beheld a no less singular and picturesque spectacle.

  Around great piles of burning wood, which would have roasted mastodons,whole trees being required to feed them, a multitude were revelling,swilling, and cramming, whilst a few in tatters, Indians as theircomplexion showed, were pacing the ancient steps, which so scandalisedFather Serafino, and which were the ceremonial performances of theYaquis, perhaps as old as the creed he so sturdily supported.

  Through this carousing throng, spite of the spell which theannouncement of the recovery of the maiden by the reverend fatherexercised tolerably potently, the horsemen made but new progress.

  By the time they arrived at the wide portals, these were choked up bya party of gentlemen, in the front of whom, even had he not called outhis daughter's name with indescribable joy, the Englishman recognisedhis former shipmate.

  Yes, truly, the well-preserved gentleman who embraced La Perla wasnone other than our don Benito Vazquez de Bustamente, son of theGeneral-President of Mexico, now proprietor of Monte Tesoro and manyanother estate as rich, the pearl diver of old.

  When the hacendero looked on the group behind his daughter, glancingaffectionately at the _padre_ who was so close and old an acquaintance,and curiously and not very kindly at the American whose position herecognised, and whose buckskin frock was stained with blood from thefresh lank scalp thrust into his belt until he should have time to cureit, and comb out the clotted hair into fringe for ornament, he finallyrested his gaze as if spellbound on the fair complexioned European.

  "Papa," said the Purest of Pearls, suddenly remembering that she stoodin the place of a mistress of ceremonies, "I have the happiness topresent to you the oldest of your friends, to whom I owe, as you haveoften told me, the bliss of being rich, with my mama. I now presenthim, too, as having reappeared in our world after many years--mine ownlifetime, in faith, in order to save my life!"

  "Don Jorge!" shouted the Mexican, rushing forward and, not to berepelled by an attempt only to clasp his hand, enfolding the bashfulBriton in a powerful embrace.

  "My dear old Benito!" and the Englishman could say not a word insurplus.

  "Gentlemen," said the hacendero, turning to his countrymen, withoutcaring to conceal the tears of delight upon his black moustache andbeard, "I have the signal honour to introduce to you the noblest heartthat ever beat in the breast of a man! My friend of friends, don JorgeFederico Gladsden."

  Every head was politely bent.

  "The honour falls on me," observed Gladsden. "As for the rescue ofyour child, it was a providential casualty that brought her acrossmy path--the rest is all the work of this keen, resolute, prompt andfearless American whom I, too, call my friend in the same full sense inwhich don Benito uses it towards your humble servant."

  So saying, he caught hold of the hand of the hunter and squeezed it soheartily that the latter quite forgot a little rising pain at havingbeen rather unjustly omitted in the young lady's presentation.

  "And now," said the master, "let me lead you to my wife, and my son anddaughter, whom, unfortunately, we cannot relieve of grief at their lossas you have done of his parents, by the restoration of our treasuredone."

  "Your son! How time flies!" murmured Gladsden, "Though, for the matterof that, I have a couple of torments of my own. Only, less fortunatethan you, my friend, I lost their mother long ago."

  They had entered the house, where a silence ran before them and seemedgradually to begin to diminish the merrymaking clamour.

  "Yes," said the priest, with a sigh, "time is fleeting and death comethas swiftly, and who of us can be certain of having ample opportunity toaccomplish his duty--the task which heaven sets unto him?"

  The solemnity of the accent deepened a gloom already befalling theguests.

  "The _padre_ is right," broke in Oregon Oliver, whose impatience atthe loss of time in ceremony was augmenting, "jest let out that youare coming to save the house from the scalper and pison hatchets! Whatyou've had was the _blazing_ (marking a tree with a chop to denote itchosen for felling), the next call, the murderous minded Apaches meanto fell the trunk from the topmost switch to the lowest bough."

  All the gentlemen withdrew into a side room, where the priest impartedhis tragic intelligence. There was terrible anxiety, since the farminggentlemen had left their homesteads at the mercy of their peons thusdenounced as treacherous.

  "Well, Senores caballeros," said Benito, "since you look to me, I saywith our norteamericano (Oliver) that, under such circumstances, thedetermination we are driven into is the best, I have four hundred peonson this farm. Of the lot, I can rely on three hundred, for one reasonand another. I know the bulk of them as I do my own children. Againstthe hundred, or near a hundred and fifty, since some off strangeplantations have flocked here, ostensibly for the junketing, we can pitmy gentlemen friends, our relations. Each of them is the value of fiveor six wild Indians. You see, gentlemen, I rate you very low! Now yourequire rest, a change of dress--."

  "No, no," said the Englishman and his guide with one breath.

  "Pardon me, a short rest is requisite. By that time I shall have mademy preparation, and then we may put the finishing touches on our planof battle."

  "And dona Dolores?" queried Mr. Gladsden.

  "My daughter has gone to inform her that we have the honour andpleasure, at last," he said, reproachfully, "to see under the roofalways bound to shelter him, our foremost of friends and benefactors.After your repose, dona Dolores will have the honour to receive you."

  The Englishman and his companion were led away separately by servantsbearing silver lamps. The former was conducted through severalcorridors into a chamber, where the steward ordered another massivesilver lamp on a table to be lit. Whilst a third peon held the lampup on high, the other two noiselessly and rapidly prepared a bath ofrosewater in the next room. During their preparations, two othersarrived in haste with a choice of clothes, the underlinen very fine,and from the first Paris houses.

  Meanwhile Gladsden looked about him.

  The room was quite large, having two small windows and one glazed door-opening into a garden. On the whitened walls were pictures in goldframes, such as are painted in a mechanical way for Northern dealersto send in quantity to New Orleans, Santa Fe, and Mexico, for sale bytorchlight. They represented, after good and popular masters, scenes ofreligion, battle, hunting, history, &c, and were hung without order. Atall events, they regaled the sight by their vivid colour. In one cornerwas a folding sleeping chair, on which were thrown splendid skins andfurs and fine blankets, to be arranged as the sleeper fancied. Thefurniture was completed by a massive mahogany centre table, a squaretable against the wall near the chairbed, two openwork armchairs, andsome Indian wickerwork footstools. There was a pedestal of marble for areligious image, but the statue had been removed to figure in the halldevoted to the ceremony of the Angelito.

  Whatever the English guest had said against his need for repose whendanger threatened, he had no sooner returned from his bath in freshhabiliments, to find on the table a tasteful spread of preserved fruit,smoking chocolate of fine savour and much thickness, and light pastry,to say nothing of some cold turkey and ham with golden hued corn bread,then he did not blame his host for the insistence on overruling him.Lighting a cigarette, he reclined on the couch-ch
air, and soon sankinto a blessed state of physical enjoyment less and less appreciated,of course, as his overtasked brain and frame lent themselves gratefullyto slumber.

  When he awoke, a couple of hours only thence, he saw the table againcovered with eatables, but a great deal more substantial. It was laidfor three. A couple of superior servants were just finishing thedecoration with vases of spring flowers, and so deftly doing theirwork, that it was not any noisy blunder on their part that had arousedhim. He did not like to inquire of them who were going to be hisguests. Luckily, he was not long left on tenterhooks.

  The door opened, and don Benito, showing himself, made way courteouslyfor Oliver to precede him. The American was clad in a Mexican dress,jingling and shining with silver buttons, and really would have mademany a black-eyed damsel's heartache at a dance in his new but notaltogether unaccustomed array.

  With fine forethought, Benito had arranged to take supper--or whatevername this midnight meal deserved--with his old friend and the otherdeliverer of his beloved daughter.

  After appeasing hunger--for Gladsden's had revived, and Oregon Ol.never seemed at a loss to eat when anything was on the board--theyconferred seriously.

  The hacendero had made his servants and the Indians who were trulyconverts kiss the cross and swear to die for their master--about theonly binding oath to impose on such gentry. A hundred of the leastdubious were to be clad in a kind of uniform so as to look likesoldiers.

  "Your friend, our friend, will lead them. These North Americanshave persuasive methods and a spirit which converts the timid into_guerreadores_--heroes even, which we do not possess, or we should notbe the yearly prey of the Comanches."

  "As to leading them," said Oliver, eating a tortilla smeared withmarmalade with the gusto of a schoolboy, "I shall rather git on behindthem; and how they will charge when they know I shall shoot the firstthat turns back on my toes!"

  "If this is North American persuasion," began Gladsden, laughing.

  "Jest another time. In brief, don Olivero will take his five scoresham soldiers out of the secret gate in the _corral_ which, by theway, you may not know, every rich landed proprietor has in order in acountry of revolution; and he will go and ambush a quarter of a leagueaway. Meanwhile, we shall establish our watches so as not to be takenby surprise. If the ambuscade be discovered, don Olivero will signalme by two rockets--red and white. If we, however, as is more likely,are first attacked, we shall notify him, in await, by sending up tworockets--white and red. Then will he lead, or follow his chivalry, andtake the red rabble in the rear as they envelope my farm. They willimagine the lancers and dragoons have come from Ures or Hermosillo, andrecoil on our enclosure. We will rally out, and we'll mince them upinto bits as fine as that poor Matasiete was chewed by the sharks ofthe Gulf of California; eh, you remember him, don Jorge?"

  "Decidedly! He lives in my remembrance all the more lively, because Icannot have been mistaken in my impression that I saw him only thisearly morning."

  "Saw don Anibal, as he called himself? Saw the gallant of my lateaunt, Josefa Maria--and only this morning! Impossible! You are stilldreaming!"

  "My friend! As truly as your bullet creased that hooknose, I saw it atthe wicket in the door of the Green Ranch Tavern. Don Matasiete, whosegarland of names I cannot recall in full, was not entombed in the mawof the tintoreras, but escaped with the loss of a limb. In pleasantallusion to that disaster he is called 'The Dismembered' even now,and he is that One-leg Peter, or Pedrillo el Manco, who, it appears,revives on this frontier all the old tales of rascally doing for which,in former days, he was so famous. What's bred in the blood won't comeout with the loss of a limb, you see."

  "An enemy like that! So near me, and often! How, then, is it that Ihave never been injured by him or his band?"

  "Really," answered Mr. Gladsden, perplexed, "I am at a loss to enterinto the mind of such rascals. Mayhap he is reserving you for a top offto his career of scoundrelism."

  The repast being ended, don Benito conducted his old and his new friendto present them to his wife and family.

  Neither they nor the other ladies had been informed of the terribledisaster in suspense; and, as far as they were concerned, as well evenas some of the younger gentlemen from the neighbourhood, the festivalof the Angelito was still proceeding.