CHAPTER II.
FIFTEEN YEARS' SEPARATION.
The reception offered the travellers by Don Cornelio was stamped withthat graceful kindness and careless ease which so eminently distinguishthe Spanish character. Although the adventurer's resources wereextremely limited, still he gave the little he possessed with suchcomplacency and so much good humour to his guests, that the latter knewnot how to thank him for the attentions he lavished upon them.
After supping as well as they could on _tasajo_ (jerked meat) and_tortillas_ of maize, washed down with _pulque_ and _mezcal_, theycarefully wrapped themselves in their zarapes, lay down on the groundwith their feet to the fire, and soon appeared to be buried in a deepsleep.
Don Cornelio took up his jarana, and leaning against a larch tree,hummed one of those interminable Spanish romances he was so fond of, inorder to keep awake while awaiting his partner's return.
The bivouac where our friends now found themselves was certainly notwithout a degree of the picturesque. The uncertain gleams of the firewere reflected fantastically on the heads of some seven hundred andfifty novillos, lying side by side, ruminating and sleeping, while thehorses were devouring their provender, stamping and neighing. TheSpaniard twanged his guitar, and the two hunters slept peacefully. Thisscene, at once so simple and so singular, was worthy the pencil ofCallot.
Two hours thus passed away, and nothing occurred to disturb the reposethe encampment enjoyed, and the moon sank lower and lower on thehorizon. Don Cornelio's fingers stiffened; his eyes closed; and attimes, despite his efforts to keep awake, his head fell on his chest. Indespair, the Spaniard at last, beaten by fatigue, was about to yield tothe sleep that overpowered him, when a distant noise suddenly dispelledhis somnolency, and restored him the full use of his mind and otherfaculties.
By degrees this noise, at first vague and indistinct, became louder; anda horseman, armed with a long goad, entered the clearing, driving beforehim a dozen novillos and half-savage bulls. After being helped by DonCornelio in stockading the straying animals he brought back, thepartner, who was no other than Count Louis de Prebois, dismounted andsat down to the fire with that nonchalance and careless motion producedin energetic natures, not so much by fatigue as by discouragement andmoral lassitude.
"Ah!" he said, looking at the two men stretched out at the fire, andwho, in spite of the noise caused by his arrival, still slept, orappeared to do so, "we have visitors, I see."
"Yes," Don Cornelio made answer, "two hunters from the great prairies. Ithought I ought not to refuse them hospitality."
"You have done well, Don Cornelio: no one has a right in the desert torefuse the stranger, who asks for them courteously, the heat of his fireand a moiety of his _tasajo_."
"That was my idea."
"Now, my friend, lie down by our guests and rest yourself. This longwatch after the day's toil must have fatigued you beyond measure."
"But will you not sleep a few moments, Don Louis? Rest must be morenecessary to you than to myself."
"Permit me to watch," the count answered with a sad smile. "Rest was notmade for me."
Don Cornelio did not press him any further. Long accustomed to hiscompanion's character, he considered it useless to make any moreobjections. A few moments later, wrapped in his zarape, and with hishead on his jarana for a pillow, he slept soundly.
Don Louis threw a few handfuls of dry wood on the fire, which threatenedto expire, crossed his arms on his chest, and, leaning his back againsta tree, indulged in his thoughts, which were doubtlessly sorrowful andvery bitter; for the tears soon fell from his eyes, and ran down hispallid cheeks, while stifled sighs exhaled from his bosom, and mutteredwords escaped from his lips, crushed between his teeth by sorrow.
So soon as the count, after ordering Don Cornelio to take some repose,fell down exhausted at the foot of a tree, the hunter, who appeared tobe sleeping so profoundly, suddenly opened his eyes, rose, and walkedgently toward him step by step.
Several hours passed away thus, Louis being still plunged in mournfulthoughts, Valentine standing behind him, leaning on his rifle, andfixing on him a glance full of strange meaning.
The stars gradually expired in the depths of the sky, an opal-colouredband began slowly to stripe the horizon, the birds awoke beneath thefoliage, sunrise was at hand. Don Louis let his head fall on his chest.
"Why struggle longer?" he said in a hoarse, deep voice. "What good to gofarther?"
"Those are very despairing words in the mouth of a man so strong asCount Louis de Prebois," a low but firm voice whispered in his ear, witha tone of gentle and sympathising reproach.
The count shuddered as if he had received an electric shock; aconvulsive tremor agitated all his limbs; and he bounded to his feet,examining with haggard eye, pale brow, and disordered features, the manwho had so suddenly replied to the words pain had torn from him. Thehunter had not changed his position; his eye remained obstinately fixedupon him, with an expression of melancholy, pity, and paternal kindness.
"Oh!" the count muttered in terror, as he passed his hand over his dankforehead; "it is not he--it cannot be he! Valentine, my brother!--youwhom I never hoped to see again--answer, in Heaven's name, is it you?"
"'Tis I, brother," the hunter said gently, "whom Heaven brings a secondtime across your path when all seems once again to fail you."
"Oh!" the count said with an expression impossible to render, "for along time I have been seeking you--for a long time I have called onyou."
"Here I am."
"Yes," he continued, shaking his head mournfully, "you are here,Valentine; but now, alas! It is too late. All is dead in mehenceforth--faith, hope, courage: nothing is left to me--nothing but thedesire to lie in that tomb, where all my belief and all my departedhappiness are buried eternally!"
Valentine remained silent for a few moments, regarding his friend with aglance at once gentle and stern. A flood of memories poured over thehunter's heart; two glistening tears escaped from his eyes, and slowlycoursed down his bronzed cheeks; then, without any apparent effort, hedrew the count toward him, laid his head on his wide and loyal chest,and kissed him paternally on the forehead.
"You have suffered, then, severely, my poor Louis," he said to himtenderly. "Alas, alas! I was not there to sustain and protect you; but,"he added, turning to heaven a glance of bitter sadness and sublimeresignation, "I too, Louis, I too, in the heart of the desert, where Isought a refuge, have endured agonising grief. Many times I felt myselfstrangled by despair; often and often my temples were crushed in by thepressure of the furious madness that invaded my brain; my heart wasbroken by the terrible anguish I endured; and yet, brother," he added ina soft voice, filled with an ineffable melodiousness, "yet I live, Istruggle, and I hope," he said, so low that the count could hardly hearhim.
"Oh! Blessed be the chance that brings us together again when Idespaired of seeing you, Valentine."
"There is no such thing as chance, brother: it is God who prepares theaccomplishment of all events. I was seeking you."
"You were seeking me over here?"
"Why not? Did you not yourself come to Mexico to find me?"
"Yes; but how did you learn the fact?"
Valentine smiled.
"There is nothing extraordinary in it. If you wish it, I will prove toyou in a few words that I am much better informed than you suppose, andthat I know nearly all that has happened to you since our separation atthe hacienda of the Paloma."
"That is strange."
"Why so? About three months ago were you not at the Hacienda delMilagro?"
"I was."
"You left it after spending some days there on your return from ajourney you had undertaken to the far west, in search of a richauriferous placer?"
"It is true."
"During that expedition, full of strange and terrible incidents, two menaccompanied you?"[1]
"Yes; a Canadian hunter and a Comanche chief."
"Very good. The hunter's name was Belhumeur, the chief's Eag
le-head, Ithink?"
"They were."
"Do you not remember revealing to Belhumeur (a worthy and honourablehunter, by the way) the reason of the gloomy sorrow that devours you,and for what motives, mere vague suspicions though they were, you hadcome to Mexico in order to look for your dearest friend, from whom youhad been separated so many years?"
"Yes, I remember telling him all that."
"The rest is not difficult to comprehend. I have known Belhumeur manyyears, and Heaven brought us together during a hunt on the Rio Colorado.One night, while seated at the fire, where our supper was roasting,after talking about a thousand indifferent things, Belhumeur, whom youhad left only a few days previously, began by degrees to talk about you.At first, absorbed in my own thoughts, I paid but slight attention tohis recital; but when he described to me your meeting with Count deLhorailles in the desert, your name, uttered by Belhumeurunintentionally, made me tremble. It was then my turn to cross-questionhim. When I had learned everything, by making him tell the story twentytimes over, my resolution was immediately formed, and two days later Iset out on your track. For three months I have been following you, andhave at last come up with you--this time, I hope, never to part again,"he added with a stifled sigh. "Still I do not know what has occurred toyou during the last three months. Tell me what you have been about. I amlistening."
"Yes, I will tell you all. My object, indeed, in seeking you was todemand the fulfilment of a solemn promise."
The hunter's brow grew dark, and he frowned.
"Speak," he said; "I am listening. As for the promise to which youallude, when the moment has arrived I shall know how to fulfil it."
"The sun is rising," Louis answered with a sad smile; "I must pay theproper attention to my herd."
"I will help you. You are right; those poor brutes must not beneglected."
At this moment the gloom was dispersed as if by enchantment; the sunappeared radiant on the horizon; and thousands of birds of everyvariety, hidden beneath the foliage, gaily celebrated its advent bysinging their matin hymn to it.
Don Cornelio and Curumilla shook off the torpor of sleep, and openedtheir eyes. The Indian chief rose, and walked toward Valentine with thatslow and majestic step peculiar to him.
"Brother," the latter said, taking the Araucanian's hand in his own, "Iwas not alone in my search for you. I had near me a friend whose heartand arm never failed me, and whom I have ever found ready to help me inweal and woe."
Don Louis gazed doubtfully at the man whom the hunter pointed out tohim, and who stood motionless and stoical before him. Gradually hisfeatures were expanded, his memory returned, and he affectionatelyoffered his hand to the Indian, saying with deep emotion,--
"Curumilla, my brother!"
At this proof of memory and friendship, after the lapse of so manyyears--this frank and true emotion on the part of a man to whom he hadalready given so many marks of devotion--the crust of ice thatsurrounded the Indian's heart suddenly melted, his face assumed anearthy hue, and a convulsive tremor agitated all his limbs.
"Oh, my brother Louis!" he exclaimed with an accent impossible todescribe.
A sob resembling a roar burst from his chest; and, ashamed of havingthus betrayed his weakness, the chief turned quickly away, and hid hisface in the folds of his robe.
Like all primitive and energetic natures, this man, on whom adversityhad no effect, was moved like a weak child by the immense joy heexperienced at seeing once again Don Louis, the man whom Valentine lovedmore than a brother, and whose absence he had so long lamented.
"Then you will not leave me again, brother?" Louis asked anxiously.
"No, nothing shall separate us henceforth."
"Thanks," the count answered.
"Come, come," Valentine gaily remarked, "let us attend to the cattle."
All were soon on the move in the bivouac. Don Cornelio understoodnothing of what he saw. These strangers, who had arrived but a few hoursago, already so attached to his friend, talking with him like oldacquaintances, produced in him a series of notions each more extravagantthan the other; but Don Cornelio was a philosopher, and more than that,remarkably curious. Certain that all would end sooner or, later in asatisfactory explanation, he gaily made up his mind, and had no idea ofasking any information, especially as the two helps chance had sent himcould not fail to be extremely useful to him in guiding theundisciplined animals which the count and himself had burdenedthemselves with, and had yet so far to drive.
A person must have himself been a _vaquero_ in the great Americansavannahs, in order to form an idea of the numberless difficulties metwith in guiding novillos and untamed bulls for hundreds of leaguesacross virgin forests and arid plains, defending them against wildbeasts which follow their track, and snap them up under your very eyesif you do not take care, and, like the roaring lion of the Gospel,wander incessantly round the herd, seeking what they may devour. Atother times the animals must be defended against the raving madness, or_estampida_, caused by the want of water and the refraction of the sun,during which they rush in every direction, and gore those who try tobring them back. A man must be desperate like Don Louis, or a carelessphilosopher like Don Cornelio, not to recoil before the perils anddifficulties of so hazardous a trade; for, among the eventualities wehave enumerated, we have not mentioned the _temporales_, or tempests,which in a few minutes overthrow the face of nature, hollow out lakes,and throw up mountains; nor the _Indios bravos_, or nomadic Indians, whowatch the caravans, plunder the merchandise, and murder the drivers ortraders.
Valentine in vain racked his brains in order to discover why his friend,whom he had known to be so effeminate and weak, could have resolved onadopting such a mode of life. But his astonishment almost becameadmiration when he saw him at work, and recognised the completemetamorphosis that had been effected in him, both morally andphysically, and the cold, indomitable energy which had usurped the placeof the careless weakness and original irresolution of his character.
He studied him thus carefully during the whole time he was employed inrestoring order among the herd, and organising everything for the day'smarch.
"Oh!" he said to himself, "this chosen organisation has been purified bymisfortune. There remain at the bottom of that half-broken heart a fewnoble chords, which I will manage to set in motion when the time comes."
And for the first time since many days a feeling of hearty joy causedthe trail-seeker to quiver.
[1] See "The Tiger Slayer." Same publishers.
La fièvre d'or. English Page 6