The Bee Hunters: A Tale of Adventure

CHAPTER IV
SUPERFICIAL REMARKS

The haciendas of Spanish America were never feudal tenures, whatever certain badly informed authors may assert, but simply large agricultural holdings, as their name clearly indicates.

These haciendas, scattered over Mexico at great distances from each other, and surrounded by vast stretches of country, for the greater part uninhabited, are generally situated on the top of abruptly rising hills, in positions easy of defence.

As the hacienda, properly so called, —i. e. the habitation of the proprietor of the estate, – forms the nucleus of the colony, and, in addition to the barns and stables, contains also the out houses, the lodgings of the peones, and, above all, the chapel, its walls are high, massive, and surrounded by a ditch, so as to put it out of danger from a coup-de-main.

These numerous haciendas frequently maintain from six to seven hundred individuals of all trades, the lands belonging to a farm of this description being often of greater extent than a whole province in France.

They are the wholesale breeding places of the wild horses and cattle that graze at freedom in the prairies, watched over at a distance by peones vaqueros as untamed as themselves.

The Hacienda de las Norias de San Antonio —i. e. St. Anthony's Wells – rose gracefully from the summit of a hill covered with thick groves of mahogany, Peru trees and mesquites, forming a belt of evergreen foliage, the palish green of which contrasted agreeably with the dead white of the lofty walls, crowned with almenas, a kind of battlement intended to announce the nobility of the proprietor of the holding.

In fact, Don Pedro de Luna was what is called a cristiano viejo (old Christian), and descended in a direct line from the first Spanish conquerors, without a single drop of Indian blood having been infused into the veins of his ancestors. So, although after the Declaration of Independence the ancient customs began to fall into disuse, Don Pedro de Luna was proud of his nobility, and clung to the almenas as marks of distinction which only noblemen were allowed to adopt in the time of the Spanish rule.

Since the period when, in the suite of that genial adventurer, Fernando Cortez, a Lopez de Luna had first put foot in America, the fortunes of this family, very poor and much reduced at that time – for Don Lopez literally possessed nothing but his cloak and sword, – the fortunes of this family, we say, had taken an incredible flight upwards, and entered on a career of prosperity that nothing in time's course could trammel. Thus Don Pedro de Luna, the actual representative of this ancient house, was in the enjoyment of wealth, the amount of which it would certainly have puzzled him to state, – wealth which had been increased still more by the property of Don Antonio de Luna, his elder brother, who had disappeared more than twenty-five years after events to which we shall have to revert, and who it was supposed had perished miserably in the mysterious wilderness in the neighbourhood of the hacienda. It was likely that he had fallen a victim to the horrible pangs of hunger, or more probably into the hands of the Apaches, those implacable enemies of the whites, on whom they ceaselessly wage an inveterate war.

In short Don Pedro was the sole representative of his name, and his fortune was immense. No one who has not visited the interior of Mexico can figure to himself the riches buried in these almost unknown regions, where certain land owners, if they would only take the trouble to put their affairs in order, would find themselves five or six times more wealthy than the greatest capitalists of the old world.

Now, although everything seemed to smile on the opulent hacendero, and although, to the world that looks beyond the surface, he seemed to enjoy, with every appearance of reason, an unalloyed happiness, nevertheless the deep wrinkles channelled in the forehead of Don Pedro, the mournful severity of his face, and his gaze often turned to heaven with an expression of sombre despair, might give rise to the surmise that the life all thought so happy was secretly agitated by a profound sorrow, which the years, as they rolled on, augmented instead of solacing.

And what was the sorrow? What storms had troubled the course of a life so calm on the surface?

The Mexicans are the most forgetful people on earth. This certainly arises from the nature of their climate, which is incessantly distracted by the most frightful cataclysms. The Mexican, whose life is passed on a volcano, who feels the soil incessantly trembling under his feet, only cares to live for today. For him yesterday no longer exists; tomorrow he may never see the sun rise; today is his all, for today is his own.

The inhabitants of the Hacienda de las Norias, incessantly exposed to the inroads of their redoubtable neighbours the redskins, constantly occupied in defending themselves from their attacks and depredations, were still more forgetful than the rest of their countrymen of a past in which they took no interest.

The secret of Don Pedro's grief, if really such a secret existed, was, therefore, confined pretty nearly to his own breast; and as he never complained, – never made allusion to the earlier years of his life, – surmise was impossible, and the ignorance of everyone on the subject complete.

One single being had the privilege of smoothing the anxious brow of the hacendero, and of bringing a languid and fleeting smile to his lips.

It was his daughter. Doña Hermosa at sixteen was dazzlingly beautiful. The jet black arches of her brow, finely traced as with a pencil, enhanced the beauty of a forehead not too high and of a creamy white. Her large eyes, blue and pensive, contrasted harmoniously with hair of ebon hue, which curled about the delicate neck, and on which the sweet jasmines died away with pleasure.

Short, like all Spanish women of her race, her figure was slender but well knit. No smaller feet had ever pressed in the dance the greensward of Mexico; no more delicate hand ever ransacked the dahlias of a garden. Her walk, easy, like that of all Creoles, was a serpentine and undulating motion, full of grace and of salero, as they say in Andalusia.

This exquisite girl scattered mirth and joy over the hacienda, whose echoes from morning to night repeated lovingly the melodious modulations of her pellucid notes, the pure and fresh qualities of which made the birds die of envy as they hid themselves under the foliage of the puerta (open court).

Don Pedro idolised his daughter; he felt for her that passionate and boundless affection the immense power of which can only be understood by those who are fathers in the true sense of the word.

Hermosa, brought up at the hacienda, had only paid a few short visits, at long intervals, to the great centers of the Mexican Confederation. Their manners were entirely strange to her. Accustomed to lead the free and untrammelled life of a bird, and to express her thoughts aloud, her frankness and innocent simplicity were extreme, while her sweetness of temper made her adored by all the inhabitants of the hacienda, over whose welfare she watched with constant care.

Nevertheless, owing to the peculiar kind of education she had received, – exposed on this distant frontier to the frequent sound of the frightful war whoop of the redskins, and to be present during horrible scenes of carnage, – she had accustomed herself from an early age to look perils in the face, if not coldly, at all events with a courage and strength of mind scarcely to be expected in so delicate a child.

In conclusion, the influence she exercised over all who approached her was incomprehensible: it was impossible to know her without loving her, or without feeling a wish to lay down one's life for her.

On several occasions, in the attacks made on the hacienda by those ferocious plunderers of the desert the Apaches and Comanches, some wounded Indians had fallen into the hands of the Mexicans. Doña Hermosa, far from suffering these wretches to be maltreated, had ordered every care to be taken of them, and restored them to liberty as soon as their wounds were healed.

From this course of action it resulted that the redskins by degrees renounced their attacks upon the hacienda, and that the girl, attended by only one man – with whom we shall soon make the reader acquainted – unconcernedly took long rides in the wilderness, and often, carried away by the ardour of the chase, rambled off to a great distance from the hacienda; while the Indians who saw her pass not only abstained from injuring her, but laid no obstacles in her way. On the contrary, these primitive beings, having conceived a superstitious veneration for her, contrived, while remaining out of sight themselves, to remove from her path any dangers she might otherwise have encountered.

The redskins, with that natural tone of poetry which distinguishes them, had called her "the White Butterfly," so light and fragile did she seem to them as she bounded like a frightened fawn through the tall prairie grasses, which hardly bent under her weight.

One of her most favourite resting places in these excursions was a rancho, (a farm) seven or eight miles from the hacienda. The rancho, built in a charming situation and surrounded by fields well looked after and carefully cultivated, was inhabited by a woman of fifty and her son, a tall and handsome man of twenty-five or twenty-six with a proud eye and a warm heart, named Estevan Diaz. Na Manuela, as they called the old woman, and Estevan had an affection for the girl which knew no bounds. Manuela had nursed Hermosa when an infant, and the foster mother almost looked upon her young mistress as her own child, so deep was the love she bore her. The woman belonged to a class of domestics, now unhappily extinct in Europe, who form, as it were a part of the family, and are looked upon by their masters more as friends than servants.

It was under Estevan's escort that Hermosa took those long rides of which we spoke above. These continual têtes-à-têtes between a girl of sixteen and a man of twenty-five, which in our hypocritical and prudish world would be considered compromising, seemed very natural to the inhabitants of the hacienda. They knew the profound respect and loyal affection which bound Estevan to his mistress, whom he had dandled on his knees when a child, and whose first steps he had supported. Hermosa, who was as laughing, playful, and teasing as most girls of her age, took very great pleasure in being with Estevan, whom she could torment and plague to her heart's delight without his ever attempting to turn restive at the capricious vagaries of his young mistress. Did he not endure all her caprices with a patience beyond praise?

Don Pedro manifested an affectionate esteem for Manuela and her son. He had great confidence in both, and for the last two years had entrusted Estevan with the important post of major-domo– a post he shared, as far as the land was concerned, with Luciano Pedralva, who, however, was placed under his orders.

Thus Estevan Diaz and his mother were, next to the proprietor, the persons of greatest account at the hacienda, where they were treated with infinite respect, not only on account of the post they occupied, but also for the sake of their character, which was duly appreciated by all.

The Mexican hacenderos, whose properties are of immense extent, have a practice at certain times of the year of making a progress through their estates, in order to cast over their holding that "eye of the master" which, according to the favourite saying in Southern America, makes the crops ripen and the cattle fatten. Don Pedro never failed to undertake these tours, on which he was anxiously expected by the inferior persons in his employ, and by the peones of the haciendas, to whom the casual presence of their master brought some temporary alleviation of their miserable lives.

In Mexico slavery, abolished in principle by the Declaration of Independence, no longer exists by right; but it exists de facto through the whole extent of the Confederation; and the following is the adroit manner in which the law is eluded by the rich owners of the soil: – Every hacienda necessarily employs a great number of individuals as peones, vaqueros, tigreros, (herdsmen, hunters), &c. All these people are Indios mansos, or civilized Indians – that is to say, they have been baptised, and practise, after their own fashion, a religion they will not take the trouble to understand, and which they mix up with most absurd and ridiculous customs derived from their old creeds.

Brutalised by misery, the peones hire themselves, at very moderate wages, to the hacenderos, for the sake of satisfying their two chief vices, – gambling and drunkenness. But as Indians are the most thriftless beings in creation, their petty wages never suffice to feed and clothe them; and every day they are liable to die of hunger, if they cannot contrive to procure the ordinary necessaries of life from some source independent of their pay. It is when they have reached this climax that the rich proprietors trap them.

The capataz and major-domo keep in every hacienda, by order of their master, stores filled with clothing, arms, household utensils, and so forth, which are open to the peones, who pawn their labour for the needful articles advanced to them; the prices of the articles being always ten times their value.

It follows, from this simple combination, that the poor devils of peones not only never touch an infinitesimal fraction of the nominal wages allotted to them, but find themselves always on the debit side of the hacendero's balance sheet; and in a few months owe sums they could not possibly pay off in a lifetime. As the law is positive in these cases, the peones are compelled to remain in the service of their masters until, by their labour, this debt is liquidated. Unfortunately for them, their necessities are so imperious at all times, their position so precarious, that, after a life spent in incessant toil, the peones die insolvent. They have lived as slaves, fatally, adscripti glebæ, shamelessly worked, without mercy, down to their latest sigh, by men whom their sweat and their labour have enriched tenfold.

Doña Hermosa, good natured, as girls usually are when brought up in the bosom of their families, generally accompanied her father in these annual progresses, and pleased herself by leaving bounteous marks of her welcome visit with the poor peones.

This year, as in the preceding ones, she had attended Don Pedro de Luna, signalizing her visit to each rancho by relieving, in some way or other, the infirm, the old, and the children.

About forty-eight hours before the day on which our story commences, Don Pedro had left a silver mine he was working some leagues off in the desert, and set off for Las Norias de San Antonio. When he had got within twenty leagues of the hacienda, he felt convinced that his escort was not needed so near his own property, and sent forward Don Estevan and the armed retainers to announce his return, keeping with him only the capataz, Luciano Pedralva, and three or four peones.

Don Estevan had tried to dissuade his master from remaining in the desert almost single-handed, pointing out to him that the Indian frontiers were infested by freebooters and marauders of the vilest kind, who, skulking among the thickets, would be upon the watch for an opportunity of attacking his little band; but, by a singular fatality, Don Pedro, convinced that he had nothing to fear from these vagabonds, who had never exhibited signs of hostility towards him, had insisted on the major-domo's departure, and the latter had been forced to obey, although with reluctance.

The escort rode off; the hacendero quietly continued his road, chatting with his daughter, and laughing at the sinister presentiments clouding the face of the major-domo when he took leave of his master.

The day slipped away without anything happening to confirm the misgivings of Don Estevan; no accident interrupting the monotonous regularity of the march; no suspicious sign excited the fears of the travellers. The desert was at peace; as far as the eye could reach, nothing was to be seen but some straggling herds of elks and antelopes, browsing on the tall and tufted grasses of the prairie.

At sunset Don Pedro and his companions had reached the outskirts of an immense virgin forest, part of which they would have to cross to reach the hacienda, now about a dozen leagues off.

The hacendero resolved to encamp for the night at the edge of the covert, hoping to reach Las Norias early on the morrow, before the great heat of the day set in.

In a short time everything was arranged; a hut of branches was put together for Doña Hermosa; fires were lit, and the horses securely tethered, to prevent their straying during the night.

The travellers supped gaily; after which everyone laid down to sleep as comfortably as he could manage.

However, the capataz, a man trained to Indian artifices, thought it prudent not to neglect a single precaution to secure the repose of his companions. He placed a sentry, to whom he recommended the utmost vigilance, and saddled his horse, with the intention of making a reconnaissance round the camp.

Don Pedro, already half asleep, raised his head, and asked Don Luciano what he intended to do. When the capataz had explained, the hacendero burst out laughing, and peremptorily ordered him to leave his horse to feed in peace, and to lay himself down by the fire, in order to be ready to resume the journey at break of day. The capataz shook his head, but obeyed; he could not understand the conduct of his master, who was usually so prudent and circumspect.

The truth was, that Don Pedro, impelled by one of those inexplicable fatalities which, without apparent reason, often make the most intelligent blind, was convinced that he had nothing to fear so near his home, and almost on his own territory, from the rovers and marauders of the frontiers, who would think twice before they attacked a man of his importance, having the means in his power to make them pay dearly for any attempt upon his person. Nevertheless, the capataz, agitated by a secret uneasiness, which kept him awake in spite of his efforts to sleep, determined to keep good watch during the night, notwithstanding the injunctions of his master.

As soon as he saw Don Pedro decidedly asleep, he rose softly, took his rifle, and crept stealthily towards the forest to reconnoitre; but he had scarcely quitted the circle of light formed by the watch fire, and advanced a few paces into the covert, than he was suddenly and rudely seized by invisible hands, thrown on the ground, gagged, and bound with cords; and with such expedition, that he could neither use his arms nor utter a cry of warning to his companions.

But, in strange contrariety to the tragical usages of the prairie, the persons who had so abruptly mastered the capataz subjected him to no ill usage, contenting themselves with binding him firmly, so as to put the possibility of the slightest resistance out of the question, and leaving him stretched upon the ground.

"My poor mistress!" sighed the worthy fellow as he fell, without indulging a thought for himself.

He remained in this position for a length of time, listening greedily to every sound in the desert, expecting every instant to hear cries of distress from Don Pedro and Doña Hermosa. But not a cry was heard: nothing disturbed the calm of the wilderness, over which the silence of death seemed brooding.

At last, after twenty or twenty-five minutes, someone threw a zarapé over his face, most likely with the intention of preventing any recognition of his assailants; he was lifted from the ground with a certain degree of precaution, and two men carried him in their arms to some considerable distance.

The situation became more complicated every moment. In vain the capataz racked his mind to divine the intentions of his captors. The latter uttered not a word, and glided over the ground with light and noiseless steps, as if they were spectres. The generality of Mexicans are fatalists. The capataz, recognizing the futility of a struggle, philosophically consoled himself for what had happened, and patiently awaited the result of this singular scene.

He had not long to wait for the issue. His unknown captors, having probably reached the intended spot, halted and laid the capataz on the ground, after which everything round him grew calm and silent again.

At the end of several minutes he determined on an attempt to recover his liberty, and made a desperate effort to break his bonds. But here again a fresh surprise was reserved for him: the cords which bound him, and which were so fast a minute before, broke after a slight resistance.

The capataz's first impulse was to lift the zarapé which covered his face, and free himself from the gag. He next looked about him to reconnoitre, and to find out what had become of his companions, and uttered a cry of astonishment and fright on seeing Doña Hermosa, her father, and the peones stretched on the ground close by, gagged as he had been, and their heads muffled in zarapés.

The capataz hastened to the relief of his mistress and Don Pedro, after which he severed the cords which bound the peones.

The place to which the travellers had been transported by their invisible aggressors was completely dissimilar to the site chosen for the camp. They were in the midst of a thick forest, where at an immense height above their heads, the gigantic trees formed a green vault, almost impenetrable to the light of day. The horses and baggage of the travellers had vanished. Their position was frightful, deserted as they were in the virgin forest without provisions or horses. Every hope of safety was gone, and a terrible death, after horrible sufferings stared them in the face.

It is impossible to describe the despair of Don Pedro. He acknowledged, when it was too late, the folly of his conduct. He fixed his weeping eyes on his daughter with an expression of unspeakable tenderness and sorrow, accusing himself as the sole cause of the evil that had overwhelmed them. Doña Hermosa was the only one who did not give way to despair in these critical circumstances. After trying to raise the courage of her father by tender and consoling words, she was the first to speak of quitting the place and endeavouring to find the road they had lost.

The courage which sparkled in the eye of the daughter reanimated the energy of her father and the rest. If she did not succeed in reviving hope in their breasts, at all events she aroused in them sufficient spirit to encounter the necessary struggle before them. The final words of this young creature put a stop to all hesitation, and completed the happy reaction she had excited in their minds.

"Our friends," said she, "on finding we do not arrive, will suspect our misfortune, and devote themselves immediately to a search for us. Don Estevan, to whom all the secrets of the wilderness are known, will infallibly recover our trail. Our position, therefore, is far from desperate. Let us not abandon ourselves, if we do not wish God to abandon us. Let us go: soon I hope we shall find our way out of the forest, and see the sun once more."

So they began their march.

Unfortunately it is impossible to find the right direction in a virgin forest, unless we are well acquainted with the localities, – the forests, where all the trees are alike, where there is no visible horizon, and where the only available knowledge is the instinct of the brute, not the reason of man. Thus the travellers wandered at random the whole day long, always turning, without knowing it, in the same circle, travelling far without advancing, and vainly seeking to find a road which was not in existence.

Don Pedro endeavoured to discover a reason why the men who had stolen their horses should have abandoned them in this inextricable labyrinth; why they had been thus callously condemned to an agonising death; and who the enemy might be who had cruelly conceived a plan of such atrocious revenge. But the hacendero racked his brains in vain for even a surmise. His mind suggested no one on whom suspicion could rest as the probable author of this unqualified crime.

All the morning the travellers continued their devious course: the sun went down, the day gave way to night, and they were still toiling on, wandering mechanically without any fixed direction, now to the right, now to the left; struggling on more in the endeavour to escape from their thoughts by physical fatigue, than in the hope of emerging from the forest – their horrible prison.

Doña Hermosa uttered no complaint. Cool and resolute, she pushed forward with a firm step, encouraging her companions by voice and gesture, and still finding spirit enough to chide and shame them for their want of perseverance.

All of a sudden she uttered a cry of pain. She had been bitten by a snake. This fresh misfortune, which should have apparently completed the travellers' despair, on the contrary, excited them to such a pitch, that they forgot all else, except how to think for and to save her whom they called their guardian angel.

But human strength has limits, beyond which it may not go. The travellers, overcome by fatigue and their poignant emotions during their wanderings, and convinced, besides, of the inutility of their efforts, were on the point of yielding to their despair, when God placed them suddenly face to face with the hunter.