CHAPTER XIV
BLOOD AND NOISE--WHAT ELSE?
"On stubborn foes he vengeance wreak'd, And laid about him like a Tartar, But if for mercy once they squeak'd, He was the first to grant them quarter." --Orlando Furioso.
Only for the moment of a cooling breath is Nature gray in Mexico. Thesun's barbed shafts had already ripped away the cloak of dawn whenDriscoll and his cavaliers swept over the glaring road. But there was nolonger any battle. The plain swarmed confusion only. Panic cringedbefore hunger. The defeated besiegers panted, stumbled, ran on again, orlay still in trembling. The victorious besieged were gorging fromfingers crammed full. It was the hour for trophies. A prosperoustownsman bore a stack of tortillas, and gloated leeringly as he hurriedto put his treasure safely away. A dashing Hungarian with fur pelisseshouted gallant oaths at a yoke of oxen and prodded them with his curvedsword, as though a creaking cart filled with corn were the precious lootof an Attila. Pueblo and soldiery tore ravenously at fortifications thathad so long kept them from one savory broth. With nails alone they woulddemolish walls and trenches. Some lurched over fugitives in the grass,and then pinned them there with bayonets, the lust for food turningfiendishly to a lust for blood.
But what most inflamed the Grays were the captured cannon. They countedas many as twenty being dragged into the Imperialist lines. TheMissourians were aggrieved. Never, never had Joe Shelby's brigade everlost a gun. And as they galloped, they looked anxiously about forchances of more battle. Just then Rodrigo's outlaw band caught theireye. These had swerved from the road out upon the field, hot to engageanything, everything. A long provision train offered first. Many cartshad been loaded with Republican stores, and were being convoyed to thetown by a squadron of Imperialist cavalry. It was the clash between thisescort and the brigands that attracted the Grays coming on behind. Butthe escort wheeled and fled and the brigands pursued, slashing withmachetes, and so charged full tilt into the Dragoons of the Empress whowere sent to retake the abandoned prize. Red tunics mixed with raggedyellow shirts, and war-chargers and mustangs swirled together as amaelstrom. Then the Grays pounded among them, in each hand of each man asix-shooter. The red spots began to fall out of the peppered caldron.The red tunics that were left broke, retreated, ran. It became a rout.Only a few of the Empire's best survived those ten minutes ofblood-letting. Fatality? Driscoll's lip curled. Fatality? The Dragoons,now no more, had twice held him for their bullets.
Grays and brigands chased them back toward Queretero. The fleeingremnant began yelling for help. Driscoll rose in his stirrups, and sawjust ahead a large force of the enemy. It was gathered around the CasaBlanca, a little house on the plain. The large Imperialist force therewas an army, nothing less, though still disordered from the late actionand victory. Surrounded by a brilliant staff was a tall, golden beardedchieftain, sumptuously arrayed as a general of division, regally mountedon a cream-coated horse of Spain. He was Maximilian, viewing from therethe winning of his empire. The army behind him filled his ears--"Viva SuMajestad!"
But he who had given the cue for that thrilling music now saw theconvoy's fate. He rode up and down anxiously, striving for order in theconfused ranks. He wore the green sash of a general. He had a moustacheand imperial, searching black eyes, and an open brow. His fine featuresshowed in the blend of French and Castilian blood. He was the realchieftain. He was Miramon. Impetuously he made ready to avenge theDragoons.
These things that he saw ahead brought Driscoll to his senses. Withreluctance, but instantly, he made up his mind. He held high his sabreand halted his own men, turning at the same time to collide obliquely,and purposely, against Rodrigo.
"Not that way, Rod, not that way!"
"But it's the tyrant! It's the tyrant!"
Driscoll got the brigand's bridle and swung him around fiercely. "Letthe poor tyrant be!" he yelled. "We've got to take that there Cimatariohill."
A moment later Grays and brigands wheeled to the right and were off.Back at the Casa Blanca Maximilian lowered his glasses. "They surely,they surely are not--yes," he cried, "they _are_ going to attackthe Cimatario!"
Miramon smiled. "Then they are lunatics," he said. "Why, Your Highnessknows that we have five thousand of our best men on the Cimatario."
"Yes," Maximilian agreed uneasily, "but I thought I recognized the manwho leads those lunatics. Do you happen to know, general, how Tampicofell?"
"Do not worry, sire," Miramon replied, willing to humor the prince, "Iwill take our infantry to the Alameda and strengthen our reserve there,should anything really happen."
Across the grassy plain raced the twelve hundred cavalry and the twohundred outlaws. They raced to attack five thousand brave men who hadthat morning dislodged ten thousand. Five thousand in the trenchesabove, fourteen hundred in the open below, such were the odds of Empireagainst Republic.
Grays and brigands drew rein under the Cimatario's west slope, and thebugle sounded to dismount.
"But senor," Rodrigo protested, "don't we charge straight up?"
"And not have a man left when we do get up? Here Clem," Driscoll addedto Old Brothers and Sisters, the lieutenant colonel of the Grays, "youcircle round and up the other side with eight companies. Take all thehorses, but leave 'em back of the hill as you go. Don't that look likethe best scheme?"
The parson's cherubic features beamed. "Good-bye, Din," he said. "Butpshaw, I reckon--I reckon we'll be meeting up above." He referred,however, to the top of the Cimatario.
Four companies and Rodrigo's band remained. These Driscoll spread out ina skirmish line that made a long beaded chain around their side of thehill. It was evidently an unfamiliar method, for the Imperialisttiradores fired down on them contemptuously. But each time, while theenemy above were reloading, the Grays and outlaws below were climbing afew yards, each man of them individually, up from behind his ownparticular rock. The Imperialists, it now appeared, had blunderedincomprehensibly, since they had actually taken away nearly all thecannon captured on the Cimatario. But six-pound affairs from batteriesin the Alameda soon began to splinter and furrow around the climbingmen. One loosened boulder rolled and struck Doc Clayburn on the tip ofthe shoulder, bringing him down like a bag of meal. He arose, feelinghimself. "Now, by the Great and Unterrified Continental----" he began,as he always did at the monotony of being hit. Then his disgust changedto wonder. "W'y," he cried, "I'm not either, I only thought I was!"
They mounted higher, and the business grew hotter. Each man had to lookto himself more and more sharply, lest he forget that economy of theindividual was now the hope of the regiment. But for all that, when aMissourian craved tobacco--it is a craving not to be denied, in nomatter what danger, as most any fireman knows--he would leave cover tobeg his nearest neighbor for a chew, and obtaining it, would feel theheart put back into him.
As they drew close under the first of the trenches, they concentratedfor a bit of sharp in-fighting, and so suffered more. But once theyprovoked the next volley, they meant to rush the works. The Imperialiststhough were loath to squander the one ball to a carbine when Indian-likefighters like these were so near. They had one mountain piece, a brasshowitzer, and the gunner stood ready, the lanyard in his hand. But hehesitated, bewildered. His targets were not twenty paces below, yetnowhere crouching behind the rocks were the foe massed together. Hispride forbade that he waste twelve pounds of death on a single man.
But suddenly that happened which the gunner never in this lifeexplained. Poised expectant in the lull of the fray, he was tremblingunder the tense silence, when he saw the impetuous Don Rodrigo dart upthe slope, full against the muzzle. At the same instant he heard shoutsof warning behind him, and he heard the tiradores there above firing atsomeone almost at his feet. But the figure that had scaled up the backof the hill, crawling around the trench, was already on him. He drewback his arm to drive the heavy shot through Don Rodrigo in front, butonly to feel the cord in his hand part before a knife's keen edge. Witha cry of dismay he sprang to grasp the rope
's end, but as in a vision ahead of curly black and an odd smile rose between, and a swinging fistof a great bared arm crashed back his chin, and he sank as a brained ox.
"Lambaste 'em, Din Driscoll!"
It was a rapturous shout, and Cal Grinders, passing Rodrigo, tumbledover the earth-heap and joined his colonel against five hundred. Behindswarmed others into the newly awakened hell, coatless men of Saxon neckstanned a dark ruby, and in the hot Imperialist fire they settled totheir work.
"By cracken, lambaste 'em! Why in all hell _don't_ ye lambaste'em?"
This fury boiled through oaths, unable to spend itself in blows. Thetigerish rage seized on them every one. Teeth grated vengefully as menstruck.
"Lambaste 'em, Din Driscoll!"
"Lambaste 'em--_good_--Din Driscoll!"
The yell swelled to a murderous chorus. These men did not know that theywere raving. A war cry is just the natural vent. It is simply the wholepack in full cry.
But never before--for now around him there was the contrast of hate andpanting and passions in ferment--had Driscoll seemed so distant a thingfrom flesh and the human sphere. In grime, in dust, in smoke, amongfaces changing demoniac wrath for the sharp, self-wondering agony ofmortality, his face was cool, serene, with just the hint of a smiletugging at his lips. His own men would try to look another way, tryuneasily to break the fascination of this strange warrior who led them.
The battle was short, but of the hottest. Its central point was thelittle brass howitzer. Driscoll, Grinders, Bledsoe, the Doc, all fourpushed at the carriage or pulled at the trunnion rings, while aroundthem, hindering them, swaying back and forth over rocks and in theditches, the two forces battled for possession, hand to hand, withsix-shooters and clubbed muskets. Grinders fell, cursing angrily.Bledsoe fell, toppling heavily his great length. The Doc fell. "Bythe----" he began, but got no further. He was not mistaken this time.But the gun was turned at last, and a vicious hand jerked the rope.Powder grains pierced the eyes of the nearest Imperialists. The shottore through the mass of them. Yet Driscoll remembered most how wan, how_hungry_, they looked.
"Death to the traitors! A muerte! A mu-erte!"
It was a heavy nasal, hurled from the lungs with that force and venompeculiar to the Spanish tongue. It came from Don Rodrigo, who had pulledthe lanyard, and who now pulled it again and again, crazed first withjoy, then with rage because the emptied gun would not respond.
While the combatants were so confused together, the tiradores in theupper trenches had to hold their fire, but when the defenders gave wayat last, those above could wait no longer. Four thousand and more, theyleaped their earthworks, and came charging down the slope on what wasleft of Driscoll's six hundred.
Grays and brigands faced about, but most of all they looked beyond theenemy's right flank, to the line of the hill's crest there. For justbeyond that jagged line and somewhere below Old Brothers and Sisters andthe eight other companies must be toiling up. But they would have toappear in the interval of the Imperialists' downward rush. Driscollturned to his bugler. "Blow, Hanks! Blow like the _very_ devil!"
The blast sounded long and shrill, like a plaintive wail. The sixhundred pumped lead up the hill mechanically, but their hearts wereechoing the clarion's cry for help, and rather than on the foe sweepingdown over the rocks to crush them, their eyes were strained on thesun-emblazoned line against the sky. But the parson was a man. At last,just over the slope's crest, a head appeared, a cherubic head withspectacles, and two arms waved for haste to others behind. And instantlymore heads bobbed up, and more yet, until the jagged line was fairlyencrusted with mouse-colored sombreros, like barnacles on a strandedkeel.
From where they were the new comers began their work, lying flat ontheir stomachs. Once over the ridge, down each man fell and joined thechorus of musketry. Their fusilade thickened to a blanket of flame,closely woven. The host rushing down the slope forgot the tales thatwere told of the marvelous sixteen-shot rifles. They thought insteadthat an army of Republicans, and not a man less, were upon their flank.For how else could volleys be so well sustained, how else so deadly? Andhow fast they themselves were dropping! The thing was not like bullets,but as the earth caving under them. The charge turned to panic. Theyplunged on downward, indeed, and even sheer into the cross fire ofDriscoll's six-shooters and the one howitzer. But it was headlongflight. At the trench they did not stop to grapple, but fought their waythrough and fled on down the hill, on across the grassy plain, norpaused until they had crowded pell-mell into the main Imperialist armydrawn up before the Alameda.
Maximilian and his resplendent staff were there at the Alameda. TheEmperor was perhaps less astounded than they.
"Ai, general, if you _had_ known how Tampico fell!" he said toMiramon.
Yet neither was actually dismayed. The Cimatario and five thousand menhad succumbed to a thousand or fifteen hundred daredevils. It was hardenough to believe, in all conscience. But the daredevils could bedislodged, and they must be, at once. Miramon's orders rose sharply andquick, and the Empire sprang to obey. The Alameda batteries were trainedon the hill, and a few moments later the guns on the roof of the La Cruzmonastery were also. At the same time, the army, the entire Imperialistreserve, battalion after battalion in close, hurried ranks, set outacross the grassy plain, straight toward the Cimatario's front slope.Foot, horse, artillery, the concentrated might of the Austrian'ssceptre, was being hurled against a handful of jaded warriors.Maximilian flushed with something like shame at the thought.
Back on the slope Driscoll cried, "No, no, keep to the trenches, youfellows! This ain't _our_ promenade."
And soon, when screaming comets began to fill the air and burst aroundthem, they were glad of the ditches. There they waited, smoking,spitting tobacco against the torrid rocks, but with sullen eyes on thearmy moving nearer and nearer. Where, all this morning, was Escobedo,who, with his thousands of Republicans on the north of the town hadtaken no thought of the Republican stress on the south? He had not fireda shot. Yet surely he must know by this time. But no matter. Over ahundred outlaws were left, and nearly a thousand Grays. Missourians,brigands, and guerrillas of Michoacan, they were a dangerous blend.
"Got a match, Harry?" asked Driscoll of the Kansan, as he filled his cobpipe.
They _had_ to wait, you see. Yet haste was all they would havebegged of the advancing Imperialist host.
The red jackets of the Dragoons--the few that were left--brightly dottedthe van of the attacking thousands. On either side rode the Second andFourth Lanciers. Behind tramped the battalions of Iturbide, of Celaya,and regiments of the line. They gained the foot of the hill and thecavalry were dismounting before they drew fire. The baptism had asharpshooter deadliness, even at that distance, but the Imperialistswaited tentatively. No, there was but one volley. When the second came,it was only after an interval long enough for reloading. Officers andmen glanced at one another more hopefully. The terrified fugitives wereof course mistaken, they thought. For the force above could not belarge, nor yet possess the mysterious sixteen-shot rifles. The assurancegave the buoyancy of relief. To charge against carbines that made eachman as sixteen were uncanny, too much like challenging the Unknown. Buta thousand men who fired only every two or three minutes--an antagonistlike that was quite well known to their philosophy. So breathing hard,they valiantly marched up the hill. They suffered cruelly under thescattered fusillades, yet were not materially resisted. At last theywere near enough, and the bugles sounded for the final rush.
Now what was odd, the Republicans stopped firing altogether. But theywere waiting for shorter range, and a moment later, at a hundred paces,their reopening volley had all the clockwork dispatch of platoon drill.Yet the Imperialists took the dose as a thing expected, and sprang overtheir wounded to gain the trenches. They required only the lull ofreloading. But instantly a second volley prolonged the first. The columnstaggered, and faces blanched. In a sudden despair they realized theenemy's tactics, for the enemy did have those terrible rifles, afterall. From the tr
enches a low sheet of flame had spread, searing thebreasts of rank after rank that pressed against its edge. Scarlet-coatedDragoons, the last of them, flecked the rocks, and over them fell greenuniformed troopers, as grass will cover a bloody field, and theMunicipal Guards, swaying up from behind, paid out a sprinkling ofblue--a ghastly pousse-cafe, as one grim jester described it afterward.The long massed lines wavered.
"They've stopped, they've stopped!" cried Rodrigo. "Now we'll close withthem, eh, senor--por Dios, _now_!"
"All you fellows," shouted Driscoll, "just fill your rifles while theywait. Stopped nothing, Rod! And anyhow, who'd hold the hill if we leftit? Who?"
The answer came at once, and in dramatic form. One of the picketsstationed on the flank ran among them.
"There's another big slew of 'em a-coming!" he yelled excitedly."Yonder, over yonder!"
Driscoll rose and followed the man to the east slope. From there hebeheld an overpowering force, advancing diagonally across the llanobelow. It came by the Carretas road, which skirted Queretaro on thatside, and it was hurrying toward the Cimatario. The colonel of Grayswatched them anxiously through his glasses.
"Shucks," he said at last, "the fight's over. It's Escobedo. He's senthis reserve. Don't you see those black shakos, Jim, and those graycoats? They're the Cazadores de Galeana, and the best yet. Now we'llhave someone to hold the hill!"
But getting back to the trenches, Driscoll saw that the help might notcome soon enough. For however the Imperialists squandered their lives,they would yet overcrowd death. Some had already gained the firsttrench, and were there engaged hand to hand, with sabre and pistol. Inthe trenches above the Grays steadily fed the molten flame. But Driscollchose the in-fighting, and naturally became himself the centre of thehottest patch.
"Help's here! in five minutes, just five minutes!" he spoke right andleft to his men, as a carpenter will converse and hammer at the sametime. For the outnumbered Grays it was the help arrived already.
The Imperialist cannon had of necessity ceased firing, so what should bethe consternation of the attacking column to have a shell fall amongthem from the rear! All eyes turned, and a murmur of panic rose. It wasnot that their own batteries had made a mistake, but that there had notbeen any mistake. The reserve sent by Escobedo, hearing the battle, hadwheeled and rushed straight down the centre of the plain on the chanceof giving quicker assistance. Once in sight of the trenches, thoughstill considerably to the right of the hill, they had unlimbered a gun,while cavalry and infantry pushed on to the rescue. Not to be caughtbetween trenches and plain, the Imperialists acted with soldierydecision. Their clarions sounded retreat.
"Now it's _our_ turn!" shouted Driscoll, and with the parson andthe Kansan and the outlaw chief, and guerrillas and Missourians pouringout of their ditches, he chased down hill the concentrated might of anEmpire. So closely was that chasing performed that pistol flashes burnedinto standards and uniforms.
Maximilian and Miramon and the high officers of the realm were still attheir post of observation in front of the Alameda. For the third timethat morning they faced Imperial cohorts hurled back upon them by a mannamed Driscoll. Miramon reproached himself bitterly. His plans tointercept Escobedo's reserve on the north had failed. The Emperor'spallid features were drawn with the tensity of a big loser. Yet in thesoft blue eyes there flashed a chivalrous wonder at an enemy's valiantdeed.
On the llano fugitives and pursuers mingled as one in the human wave ofconfusion. Escobedo's cavalry had overtaken the melee, and blended withthe rear of the fleeing column, until it seemed likely that both mustenter the town together. But a charge of grape, fired obliquely from theAlameda, mowed a path between them--a Spartan business, for it reapedImperialists among Republicans. However, a second and third blast werebetter gauged, and these carpeted the new alley-way with Republicanbodies. Also, the Imperialists were re-forming, and under a witheringfire the little band of victors had to draw back to the Cimatario.
As Escobedo's reserve occupied the hill, Driscoll marched his own forcebehind the same to get his horses there. But the mustangs of thebrigands had disappeared, and far to the southwest were the brigandsthemselves, moving swiftly over the plain toward the mountains. Theyhardly numbered two-score now, and at that distance seemed a few menherding a drove of empty saddles. The late indignant patriot, DonRodrigo, had changed back to outlaw. As another Cid, he might havelooked for pardon from a grateful country, but possibly he feared theRoman justice of Juarez too much to risk it. Besides, a man will notlightly give up his career. That same night Rodrigo lay again among thesierras, quite ready for the first bullion convoy or beautifulmarchioness passing by.
Shells and minie balls were yet dropping perfunctorily, and the llanobetween hill and town was still a dangerous place enough, but scatteredhere and there were a few of both sides looking for their wounded, andoften themselves going down before the aim of sharpshooters. Stiffeningbodies lay under the trampled grass in every varied horror ofmutilation, and glassy eyes peered unseeing upward through the stalks,like the absurd and ghastly contrast of a horrible dream. But among themwere the stricken living in as varied an agony, of raw wounds stung bygnats, of pain cutting deep to vitality, of thirst, of the broiling sun,of a buzzing fly, or of an intolerable loneliness there with death.Groans rose over the plain, and guided the searchers. Driscoll hadalready found many of his men in this way. Once he heard his own name.The voice was weak, but there was something vaguely familiar to it, andinvoluntarily he held his pistol against treachery as he parted thegrass and revealed a wounded man at his feet. It was a piteouslyfamished body that raised itself a little by one hand. It was asoul-tenanted death-head that crooked gruesomely down on the shoulderand lifted its eyes to Driscoll's in greeting. They were glowing coals,those eyes, glowing with the virile fire of twenty men, however wastedthe face or tightly drawn the yellow parchment skin.
"Murgie!"
Driscoll's exclamation was a shudder rather than the surprise ofrecognition. What could it be that had grown so--so _terrible_ inthe weazen, craven miser! And to find the abject little coward on abattlefield, and wounded! An occasional bomb even then screechedoverhead. And he was clothed in uniform, a soldier's uniform, he, DonAnastasio!
"Gra-_cious!_" Driscoll muttered.
More and more stupefying, the uniform was not Republican, butImperialist. There were the green pantaloons with red stripes, the redjacket, the white shoes, the white kepi, of the Batallon delEmperador--a ludicrous martial combination, but pathetic on an aged,withered man. The Batallon del Emperador? Driscoll remembered. They werethe troop that had surrounded Maximilian during the recent battle infront of the Alameda, and Murguia had fallen on the very spot. Thevenomous Republican was then become one of the Emperor's bodyguard!
As the Republican, so also was the coward gone. The gaunt little oldMexican seemed oblivious of peril, as fever blinds one to every nearestemotion. There was even a grimness in the shifting gaze. And a certainmerciless capacity, born of unyielding resolve--born of an obsession,one might say--was there also. He could have been some great militaryleader, cruel and of iron, if those eyes were all. Little shriveled DonAnastasio, he had no sense of present danger, nor of the red bloodtrickling.
"That's bad, that," said Driscoll, overcoming his repugnance. "Here,I'll get you taken right along to our surgeons."
But Murguia shrank from the offer as though he feared the Republicans ofall monsters.
"No, no," he protested feebly, yet with an odd ring of command. "Someone on--on my side will find me."
"But you called?" Driscoll insisted.
"Yes, you--have heard from Rodrigo Galan? He was to have sent you a--tohave sent you something for me."
More and more of mystery! Rodrigo had said that Driscoll would seeMurguia to give him the ivory cross, and so it had come to pass. But thebattle, the old man's wound, surely these things were not prearrangedonly that a trinket might be delivered.
"How was I to see you?" Driscoll asked abruptly.
Murguia started, and there was the old slinking evasion.
"There, there," said Driscoll hastily. "Don't move that way, you'llbleed to death! Here, take it, here it is."
Murguia clutched the ivory thing in his bony fingers.
"Maria, Maria de la Luz," he fell to murmuring, gazing upon the cross asthough it were her poor crushed face. In the old days she had made himforget avarice or fear, and now, before this token of her, the hardnessdied out of his eyes and they swam in tears. Driscoll gazed down on himpityingly. The old man was palsied. He trembled. There passed over himthe same spasm, so silent, so terrible, as on the night of her death,when he had sat at the court martial, his head buried in his arm.
"Rod said you would want it," Driscoll spoke gently. Then he moved away.An Imperialist officer was approaching over the field who would bringthe help which Murguia refused to accept of the Republicans.
Driscoll looked back once. The Imperialist officer was carrying Murguiainto the town. He was a large man, and had red hair. His regimentalswere gorgeous. There seemed to be something familiar about him, too.Greatly puzzled, Driscoll unslung his glasses, and through them herecognized Colonel Miguel Lopez. Lopez, the former colonel of Dragoons,now commanded the Imperialist reserve, quartered in the monastery of LaCruz around the person of their sovereign. But Lopez had once condemnedMurguia to death. A strange solicitude, thought Driscoll, in such a highand mighty person for a little, insignificant, useless warrior as poorMurgie. A strange, a very strange solicitude, and Driscoll could not getit out of his head.
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