The Tiger-Slayer: A Tale of the Indian Desert

CHAPTER XXV
EL AHUEHUELT

The count de Lhorailles entered the great Del Norte desert under the guidance of Cucharés. During the first day all went on famously; the weather was magnificent – the provisions more than plentiful. With their innate carelessness the Frenchmen forgot their past fears, and laughed at the alarm which the Mexican peons did not cease manifesting; for, better informed, they did not conceal the terror which the prolonged stay of the company in this terrible region caused them.

The days were spent in the desert in wandering purposelessly in search of the Apaches, who had at length become invisible. At times they perceived an Indian horseman in the distance, apparently mocking them, who presently came up close to their lines. Boot and saddle was sounded; everybody mounted, and pursued this phantom horseman, who, after allowing them to follow him for a long time, suddenly disappeared like a vision.

This mode of life, however, through its very monotony, began to grow insipid and insupportable. To see nothing but grey sand, ever sand – not a bird or a wild beast – tawny, weather-worn rocks – a few lofty ahuehuelts – a species of cedar, with long bare branches, covered with a greyish moss, hanging in heavy festoons – had nothing very amusing about it. The troop began to grow dispirited. The reflection of the sun on the sand caused ophthalmia; the water, decomposed by the heat, was no longer drinkable; the provisions were spoiling; and scurvy had commenced its ravages among the soldiers. This state of things was growing intolerable: measures must be taken to get out of it as rapidly as possible.

The count formed his officers into a council; and it was composed of Lieutenants Martin Leroux and Diégo Léon, Sergeant Boileau, Blas Vasquez, and Cucharés. These five persons, presided over by the count, took their seats on bales, while a short distance off, the soldiers, reclining on the ground, tried to shelter themselves beneath the shadow of their picketed horses.

It was urgent to assemble the council, for the company was rapidly demoralising; there was revolt in the air, and complaints had already been openly uttered. The execution at the Casa Grande was completely forgotten; and, if a remedy were not soon found, no one knew what terrible consequences this general dissatisfaction might not entail.

"Gentlemen," the Count de Lhorailles said, "I have assembled you in order to consult with you on the means to put a stop to the despondency which has fallen on our company during the last few days. The circumstances are so serious that I shall feel obliged by your giving me your frank opinion. The general welfare is at stake, and in such a state of things each has a right to express his opinion without fear of wounding the self-love of anyone. Speak; I am listening to you. You first, Sergeant Boileau: as the lowest in rank, you must take the word first."

The sergeant was an old African soldier, knowing his duties perfectly – a thorough trooper in the fullest sense of the word; but we must confess that he was nothing of an orator. At this direct challenge from his chief he smiled, blushed like a girl, let his head droop, opened an enormous mouth, and stopped short. The count, perceiving his embarrassment, kindly urged him to speak. At length, after many an effort, the sergeant managed to begin in a hoarse and perfectly indistinct voice.

"Hang it, captain!" he said, "I can understand that the situation is not at all pleasant; but what is to be done? A man is a trooper, or he is not. Hence my opinion is that you ought to act as you think proper; and we are here to obey you in every respect, as is our peremptory duty, without any subsequent or offensive after-thought."

The officers could not refrain from laughing at the worthy sergeant's profession of faith, as he stopped all ashamed.

"It is your turn, capataz," the captain said. "Give us your opinion."

Blas Vasquez fixed his burning eyes on the count.

"Do you really ask it frankly?" he said.

"Certainly I do."

"Then listen," he said in a firm voice, and with an accent bearing conviction. "My opinion is that we are betrayed; that it is impossible for us to leave this desert, where we shall all perish in pursuing invisible enemies, who have caused us to fall into a trap which will hold us all."

These words produced a great impression on the hearers, who understood their perfect truth. The captain shook his head thoughtfully.

"Don Blas," he said, "you bring, then, a heavy accusation against someone. Have you conscientiously weighed the purport of your words?"

"Yes," he replied; "but – "

"Remember that we can admit no vague suppositions. Things have reached such a pitch that, if you wish us to give you the credence you doubtlessly deserve, you must bring your charges precisely, and not shrink from pronouncing any name if it be necessary."

"I shall shrink from nothing, señor conde. I know all the responsibility I take on myself. No consideration, however powerful it may be, will make me conceal what I regard as a sacred duty."

"Speak, then, in Heaven's name; and God grant that your words may not compel me to inflict an exemplary chastisement on one of our comrades."

The capataz collected himself for a moment. All anxiously awaited his explanation: Cucharés especially was suffering from an emotion which he found great difficulty in concealing. Blas Vasquez at length spoke again, while keeping his eye so fixed on the count that the latter began to understand that he and his men were the victims of some odious treachery.

"Señor conde," Blas said, "we Mexicans have a law from which we never depart – a law which, indeed, is inscribed in the hearts of all honest men. It is this: in the same way that the pilot is responsible for the ship intrusted to him to take into port, the pioneer responds with his person for the safety of the people he undertakes to guide in the desert. In this case no discussion is possible: either the guide is ignorant, or he is not. If he is ignorant, why, against the opinion of everybody, has he forced us to enter the desert, while taking on himself the entire responsibility of our journey? Why, if he be not ignorant, did he not guide us straight across the desert as he agreed to do, instead of leading us at venture in pursuit of an enemy who, he knows as well as I do, is never stationary in the desert, but traverses it at his horse's utmost speed when forced to enter it? Hence on the guide alone must weigh the blame of all that has happened, as he was master of events, and arranged them as he thought proper."

Cucharés, more and more perturbed, knew not what countenance to keep; his emotion was visible to all.

"What reply have you to make?" the captain asked him.

Under circumstances like the present, the man attacked has only two means of defence – to feign indignation or contempt. Cucharés chose the latter. Summoning up all his boldness and impudence, he raised his voice, shrugged his shoulders disdainfully, and answered in an ironical tone, —

"I will not do Don Blas the honour of discussing his remarks: there are certain accusations which an honest man scorns to repel. It was my duty to act in conformity with the orders of the captain, who alone commands here. Since we have been in the desert we have lost twenty men, killed by the Indians or by disease. Can I be logically rendered responsible for this misfortune? Do I not run the same risks as all of you of perishing in the desert? Is it in my power to escape the fate that threatens you? If the captain had merely ordered me to cross the desert, we should have done so long ago: he told me that he wished to catch the Apaches up, and I was compelled to obey him."

These reasons, specious as they were, were still accepted as good by the officers. Cucharés breathed again, but he had not yet finished with the capataz.

"Good!" the latter said. "Strictly speaking, you might be right in your remarks, and I would put faith in your statements, had I not other and graver charges to bring against you."

The lepero shrugged his shoulders once more.

"I know, and can supply proof, that, by your remarks and insinuations, you sow discord and rebellion among the peons and troopers. This morning, before the réveillé, believing that no one saw you, you rose, and with your dagger pierced ten of the fifteen water skins still left us. The noise I made in running toward you alone prevented the entire consummation of your crime. At the moment when the captain gave us orders to assemble, I was about to warn him of what yon had done. What have you to answer to this? Defend yourself, if it be possible."

All eyes were fixed on the lepero. He was livid. His eyes, suffused with blood, were haggard. Before it was possible to guess his intention, he drew a pistol and fired at the capataz, who fell without uttering a cry; then with a tiger-bound he leaped on his horse, and started at full speed. There was an indescribable tumult. All rushed in pursuit of the lepero.

"Down with the murderer!" the captain shouted, urging his men by voice and gestures to seize the villain.

The Frenchmen, rendered furious by this pursuit, began firing on Cucharés as on a wild beast. For a long time he was seen galloping his horse in every direction, and seeking in vain to quit the circle in which the troopers had inclosed him. At length he tottered in his saddle, tried to hold on by his horse's mane, and rolled in the sand, uttering a parting yell of fury. He was dead!

This event caused extreme excitement among the soldiers: from this moment they felt that they were betrayed, and began to see their position as it really was – that is to say, desperate. In vain did the captain try to restore them a little courage; they would listen to nothing, but yielded to that despair which disorganises and paralyses everything. The count gave the order for departure, and they set out.

But whither should they go? In what direction turn? No trace was visible. Still they marched on, rather to change their place than in the hope of emerging from the sepulchre of sand in which they believed themselves eternally buried. Eight days passed away – eight centuries – during which the adventurers endured the most frightful tortures of thirst and hunger. The troop no longer existed; there were neither chiefs nor soldiers; it was a legion of hideous phantoms, a flock of wild beasts ready to devour each other on the first opportunity.

They had been reduced to splitting the ears of the horses and mules in order to drink the blood.

Wandering now on this side, now on that, deceived by the mirage, dazzled by the burning sunbeams, they were a prey to a hideous despair. Some laughed with a silly air; and these were the happiest, for they no longer felt their sufferings: they were mad. Others brandished their weapons furiously, raising their fists, with menaces and curses to heaven, which, like an immense plate of red-hot iron, seemed the implacable dome of their sandy tomb. Some, rendered raging by suffering, blew out their brains, while mocking their comrades who were too weak-minded to follow their example.

The French are, perhaps, the bravest nation in existence; but, on the other hand, the easiest to demoralise. If their impulse is irresistible in the onward march; it is the same when they give way. Nothing will stop them – neither reasoning nor coercive measures. Extreme in everything, the Frenchman is more than a man, or less than a child.

The Count de Lhorailles, gloomy and heart-broken, surveyed the ruin of all his hopes. Ever the first to march the last to rest, not eating a mouthful till he was certain that all his comrades had their share, he watched with unexampled tenderness and care over these poor soldiers, who, strangely enough, in the misery in which they were plunged, never dreamed of addressing a reproach to him.

Of Blas Vasquez' peons the majority were dead. The rest had sought safety in flight; that is, they had gone a little further on to seek a hidden tomb. All those who remained faithful to the captain were Europeans, principally Frenchmen, brave Dauph'yeers, utterly ignorant of the way to combat and conquer the implacable enemy against whom they struggled – the desert! Of the two hundred and forty-five men of which the squadron was composed on its entering the Del Norte, one hundred and thirty-three still survived, if we allow that these haggard, fleshless spectres were men.

The most atrocious pain which a man can suffer in the desert is the frightful malady called calentura by the Mexicans. The calentura! That temporary madness, which makes you see, during its intermittent attacks, the most dainty and delicious dishes, the most limpid water, the most exquisite wines; which satiates and enervates you; and, when it leaves you, renders you more desponding, more broken, than before, for you retain the remembrance of all you possessed during your dream.

One day, at length, the wretched men, crushed by misery and torture of every description, refused to go further, and resolved to die where accident had led them. They lay down in the torrid sand, beneath the shadow of a few ahuehuelts, with the firm will of remaining motionless until death, which they had summoned so loudly, came at length to deliver them from their woes. The sun set in a mist of purple and gold, to the sound of the curses and imprecations of these wretched men who, expecting nothing more, hoping nothing more, had only retained the cruel instincts of the wild beast.

Still the night succeeded to day – gradually calmness took the place of disorder. Sleep, that great consoler, weighed down the heavy eyelids of the men, who, if they did not sleep, fell into state of somnolency, which brought a truce to their fearful tortures, if only for a few moments. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, a formidable sound aroused them – a fiery whirlwind passed over them – the thunder burst forth in terrific peals. The sky was black as ink – not a star, not a moonbeam – nothing but dense gloom, which hid the nearest objects from sight.

The poor fellows rose in great terror; they dragged themselves on as well as they could one after the other, crouching together like a flock of sheep surprised by a storm, wishing, with that inborn egotism of man, to die together.

"A temporal, a temporal!" all shouted with an expression of voice impossible to render.

It was in reality the temporal, that fearful scourge, which was unloosing all its fury, and passing over the desert to subvert its surface. The wind howled with extraordinary force, raising clouds of dust, which whirled round with extreme velocity, and formed enormous spouts, that, ran along and suddenly burst with a frightful crash. Men and animals caught in the tornado were whisked away into a space like straws.

"Down on the ground!" the count shouted in a tremendous voice; "Down on the ground. 'Tis the African simoom! Down, all of you who care for life!"

Strange to say, all these men, weighed down with atrocious sufferings, obeyed their chiefs orders like children, so great is the terror death inspires in the darkness. They buried their faces in the sand, in order to avoid the burning blast of air that passed over them. The animals crouched on the ground, with outstretched necks, instinctively followed their example. At intervals, when the wind granted a moment's respite to these unhappy men, whom it took a delight in torturing, cries and groans of agony could be heard, mingled with blasphemies and ardent prayers, that rose from the crowd stretched trembling on the earth. The hurricane raged through the entire night with ever increasing fury; toward morning it gradually grew calmer; by sunrise it had exhausted all its strength, and rushed toward other regions.

The aspect of the desert was completely changed. Where valleys had been on the previous night were now mountains; the sparse trees, twisted, uprooted, or burned by the hurricane, displayed their blackened and denuded skeletons; no trace of a footpath, no sign of man; all was flat, smooth, and even as a mirror. The French had been reduced to sixty men; the others had been carried off or swallowed up, and there was no hope of discovering the slightest sign of them: the sand was stretched over them like an immense greyish shroud.

The first feeling the survivors experienced was terror; the second, despair; and then the groans and complaints broke out again with renewed strength. The count, gloomy and sad, regarded these poor people with an expression of the tenderest pity. Suddenly he burst out into a feverish laugh, and going up to his horse, which had hitherto, by a species or miracle, escaped disaster, he saddled it, while gently patting it and humming a wild tune between his teeth.

His companions watched him with a feeling of vague terror, for which they could not account. Although they were so miserable, their captain still represented superior intellect and a firm will, those two forces which have so much power over coarse natures, even when circumstances have forced them to deny them. In their wretched condition they collected round their chief, like children seek shelter on their mother's breast. He had ever consoled them, giving them an example of courage and abnegation: thus, when they saw him acting as he was doing, they had a foreboding of evil.

When his horse was saddled the count leaped lightly on its back, and for a few minutes he made the animal curvet, though it had the greatest difficulty in keeping on its feet.

"Hold, my fine fellows!" he suddenly shouted. "Come up here! You had better listen to some good advice – a parting hint I wish to give you before I go."

The soldiers dragged themselves up as well as they could, and surrounded him.

The count turned a glance of satisfaction around.

"Existence is a miserable farce, is it not?" he said, bursting into a laugh; "and it is often a heavy chain to drag about. How many times, since we have been wandering about this desert, have I had the thought which I now utter openly! Well, I confess to you, as long as I had a hope of saving you, I struggled courageously: that hope I no longer possess. As we must die of want within a few days – a few hours, perhaps – I prefer to finish it at once. Believe me, you had better follow my example. It is soon done, as you shall see."

While uttering the last words he drew a pistol from his waist belt. At this moment cries were heard.

"What is it? What is the matter?"

"Look, captain! People are coming at last to our help: we are saved!" Sergeant Boileau exclaimed, rising like a spectre by his side, and seizing his arm.

The count freed himself with a smile.

"You are mad, my poor comrade," he said, looking in the direction indicated, where a cloud of dust really rose, and was rapidly approaching; "no one can come to our aid. We have not even," he added with bitter irony, "the resource of the shipwrecked crew of the Méduse! We are condemned to die in this infernal desert. Farewell, all – farewell!"

He raised the pistol.

"Captain," the sergeant cried reproachfully, "take care! You have no right to kill yourself. You are our chief, and must be the last to die: if not, you are a coward!"

The count bounded as though a serpent had stung him, and made a gesture as if to rush on the sergeant. The expression of his face was so savage, his movement so terrible, that the sergeant was terrified, and recoiled. The captain profited by this second respite, put the muzzle of the pistol to his temple, and pulled the trigger. He fell to the ground, with his skull fractured.

The adventurers had not yet recovered from the stupor this frightful event had thrown them into, when the cloud of dust they had noticed burst violently asunder, and they perceived a troop of mounted Indians, in the midst of whom were a woman and two or three white men, galloping toward them at full speed. Convinced that the Apaches had come up to deal them the final blow, like vultures collecting round a fallen buffalo, they did not even attempt an impossible resistance.

"Oh!" one of the hunters shouted, as he leaped from his horse and rushed toward them, "the poor fellows!"

The newcomers were Belhumeur, Louis and their friends the Comanches. In a few words they were apprised of all that had happened, and the tortures the French had endured.

"Good heavens!" Belhumeur shouted, "if provisions failed, you had water in abundance; then why do you complain of thirst?"

Without saying a word, Eagle-head and the Jester dug up the ground with their knives at the foot of an ahuehuelt. Within ten minutes an abundant stream of limpid water poured along the sand. The Frenchmen rushed in disorder toward it.

"Poor fellows!" Don Louis murmured, "Shall we not take them from this spot?"

"Do you think I would let them perish, now I have restored them to hope? Poor girl!" casting a melancholy glance at Doña Anita, who was laughing and cracking her fingers like castanets, "why is it not equally easy to restore her to reason?"

Don Louis sighed, but made no reply.

The French then learned a thing, which would have saved them all probably, had they known it sooner – that the ahuehuelt, which, in the Comanche Indian dialect, signifies the Lord of the Waters, is a tree which grows in arid spots, and its presence ever indicates either a spring flush with the soil or a hidden source; that for this reason the redskins hold it in veneration; and, as it is principally found in the deserts, they designate it also by the name of the Great Medicine of Travellers.

Two days later the adventurers, guided by the hunters and Comanches, quitted the desert. They speedily reached the Casa Grande of Moctecuhzoma, where their saviours, after giving them the provisions they stood in such pressing need of, finally left them, hardly knowing how to escape from their hearty thanks and blessings.

(Those of our readers who have felt an interest in Don Louis will find his history continued in another volume, called "THE GOLD-SEEKERS.")

THE END