Gustave Aimard

“ Floods of light inundated the landscape; a gentle breeze refreshed the atmosphere; the bugles played merry tunes; the drums rattled; and the assembled populace uttered shouts of joy, while waving handkerchiefs and hats. The count smiled, for he was momentarily happy. The future appeared to him less gloomy and sad. He examined the prisoners for a moment with a pensive eye.
"I have come to Sonora," he at length said in a piercing voice, "to give liberty to the people of this country. I have been represented to you as a cruel and faithless man. Begone! You are free! ”

“ What are you to us Mexicans but strangers? You are leeches, who come to our country to suck the brightest of our blood; that is to say, to gorge yourselves with our riches, deride our ignorance, turn into ridicule our manners and customs, and impose on us your tastes, and what you call your Western civilisation. By what right do you seize on all that is dear to us? You are only ferocious beasts, to destroy whom all measures are justifiable. If we are not the stronger in the sunshine, well, we have the night. Loyalty and frankness would ruin us, so we employ falsehood and treachery. ”

“ Doña Angela then emerged from behind the curtain.
"I am waiting for you, Don Louis," she said.
The latter shook his head sadly.
"Alas!" he said, "I cannot fly: my life is not my own. I have sworn to my comrades not to abandon them. Were I to fly, I should be a traitor."
Doña Angela went up to him and bent gracefully over him.
"Farewell, Don Louis," she said. "You are acting as a caballero. Follow your destiny. Your honour is as dear to me as to yourself. I wish it to be unspotted. I no longer insist. Farewell! Give me a kiss on the forehead: we shall not meet again till the day of our death." ”

“ My life is a burden to me, as yours is to you; but we have before us the boundless desert, the immense horizon of the prairies. Why not recommence our happy life of hunting and liberty, instead of trusting to the fallacious promises of these heartless Mexicans, who have already made you suffer so deeply, and whose infamous treachery brought you to your present condition?"
"I must," the count said with resolution.
"Listen," Valentine went on. "You no longer possess that ardent enthusiasm which sustained you on your first expedition. You lack faith. You do not yourself believe in success." ”

“ By acting thus we not only protect our own honour, but defend our country, and guard from any insult that title of Frenchmen of which we are justly proud."
"You speak well, captain," Valentine interrupted him. "Your words are those of a man of heart. It is abroad that patriotism must be strong and inflexible. We have no right to allow wretched enemies to lower that national honour which our brothers in France have intrusted to us; for each of us here represents our beloved country, and must at his risk and peril make it be respected by all, no matter under what circumstances." ”

“ Don Cornelio withdrew to carry out the orders he had received, and soon a brilliant cavalcalde, at the head of which was General Guerrero, entered the mission. The general was pale, and frowned: it was easy to see that he with difficulty suppressed a dumb fury that filled his heart. The adventurers, in scattered groups, and haughtily wrapped up in their rags, regarded curiously these smart Mexican officers, so vain and so glittering with gold, who scarce deigned to bestow a glance upon them. The count walked a few paces toward the general, and uncovered with a movement full of singular grace. ”

“ I wished to come—I insisted on accompanying him."
"Alas!" the count replied with an ineffable sadness, "you break my heart, poor darling child. In your presence all my resolution and courage abandon me. Oh! why have you come to revive, by your presence, regrets which nothing will be able to calm again?"
"You are mistaken, Don Louis," she said with febrile energy. "You believe me to be a weak woman, without courage. My love for you is too true and too pure for me ever to advise you to do anything against your honour or your glory. ”

“ There were a few moments of deadly struggling and a horrible carnage. The count, in the height of the medley, fought like the meanest of his soldiers, exciting them incessantly, and urging them forward. At last, in spite of their desperate resistance, the Mexicans, pitilessly sabred by the French, no longer able to organise any effectual defence, and frightened by the ardour and invincible courage of their adversaries, whom they regarded as demons, began to break and fly in every direction. In spite of the fatigue of the horses, de Laville started in pursuit with his cavalry. ”

“ General Guerrero insults us by inviting us not merely to abandon one of our countrymen, who is in every respect worthy of our support, through his loyalty, courage, and nobility of character, but also by proposing to us to hunt him down like a wild beast, and deliver him over. The general menaces us with outlawry if we assist the count, whom he brands as a pirate and a rebel. ”

“ Doña Angela came alone, impelled by her own will, into my camp: she is respected and treated with all the attention she merits. Doña Angela is free to act as she pleases, and I recognise no right to influence her. As I did not carry her off from her father, as I did nothing to attract her hither, I cannot restore her, as this gentleman appears to demand. If Doña Angela is willing to return to her friends, nobody will oppose it; but if, on the contrary, she prefers to remain here under the protection of my brave comrades and myself, no human power will succeed in tearing her from me. ”

“ He passed his fingers for the last time through his moustache, smoothed his hair, took up his Panama straw hat, which he held in his hand, and after taking a melancholy glance around, went out.
Father Seraphin walked on his right; Doña Angela, with the hood over her head, on his left. Valentine came next, tottering like a drunken man, in spite of all the efforts he made, with haggard eyes, and face bathed in tears. There was something heart-rending in the aspect of this man, with the energetic features and bronzed face, a prey to such grief, which was the more profound because it was silent. ”

“ She drew herself up proudly and haughtily, with frowning brow, dilated nostrils, and flashing eye.
"You are truly noble, Don Louis!" she almost shrieked in her excitement. "You have dreamed of the regeneration of an enslaved people. What do I care for the names given you, my friend? The day will come when brilliant justice will be done you." Then growing gradually calmer, she smiled tenderly. "You are proscribed, my poor darling," she said gently; "and is it not woman's mission in this world to support and console? The struggle you are about to undertake will be terrible. ”

“ The camp was silent and gloomy; the adventurers, who had retired under their leafy jacales, were enjoying that rest so necessary after a day's march; the horses, hobbled pell-mell with the mules, were devouring their alfalfa; the sentries, with shouldered muskets, were walking slowly around the intrenchments with their eyes fixed on the plain.
The count, after walking about for some time, and convincing himself that everything was in the most perfect order, was induced by the melancholy and mysterious softness of the night, to lean on the breastwork ”

“ I have faith in Don Louis. Heaven must protect his expedition, for the work he has undertaken is grand and noble, as it has for its object the emancipation of an entire country."
"Believe me, my father, I am happy to hear you speak thus. The count may fail; but in that case he will fall like a hero, and his death will be that of a martyr." ”

“ Their courage and strength all exhausted, the wretched redskins had thrown away their arms, and, with their hands crossed on their chests, they gave up any further struggle for life, and awaited death with that gloomy calmness of despair and stoicism which characterises their race.
The count had wished for a long time to arrest this horrible carnage; but, in the intoxication of victory, his orders were not so much disobeyed as unheard. ”

“ This colony of Guetzalli, founded with so much trouble, bedewed with so much blood, prospers, and is beginning to repay amply the toil and perspiration it cost you. The day is at hand when, stimulated by your example, other colonists will come to join you, and, by aiding you to repulse the Indios Bravos into their impenetrable deserts, will for ever protect the Mexican frontiers from the depredations of the savages, and restore to this magnificent country its pristine splendour. ”

“ A little distance behind the principal group four hobbled horses were munching their provender, while their riders, for their part, were concluding a scanty meal, composed of a slice of venison, a few pieces of tasajo, and maize tortillas, the whole washed down with water slightly dashed with refino to take off its hardness.
These three men were Count Louis, Valentine, and Don Cornelio. Although they ate like true hunters—that is to say, with good appetite, and not losing a mouthful—it was easy to guess that our friends were engaged with serious matters for thought. ”

“ Among the colonists at Guetzalli was a young man scarce thirty years of age, but gifted with an ardent imagination and a far from common intellect. This young man, whose name was Charles de Laville, had left Europe, impelled rather by a certain restlessness of character and secret curiosity than by a desire to acquire the boasted riches of San Francisco. In that city, to which he proceeded with his brother, an older and more earnest man than himself, chance had made him acquainted with the Count de Lhorailles. ”

“ It is true that a great disaster has fallen on us: many of our companions have perished miserably in the great Del Norte desert. The count who brought us here, our chief, is dead too. I repeat it, it is an immense loss for us generally, and for the welfare of the colony. But is the misfortune, though so terrible, irreparable? Ought we, through this death, to lose all our courage, and abandon a task which is scarce commenced? ”

“ It is the expedition of this great soldier, who only lacked a lever to overturn a world, that we have attempted to describe. Don Louis is the count. By the side of Consul Calvo, General Yanès, and the Commandant Lebourgeois-Desmarets, a sinister trinity fatal to the count, the first two through a mean hatred, the third through jealousy, also grin the ignoble and gloomy faces of Colonel Campusano and Cubillas, those subaltern agents, the buzzards who were less hideously ferocious than the men who urged them to action. ”

“ Dense woods of palma Christi, styrax, Peru trees, and mahogany form an insurmountable barrier against the burning winds of the desert, while refreshing and perfuming the atmosphere, and serve as a refuge for thousands of blue jays, cardinals, and loros, which chatter gaily under the foliage, and enliven the enchanting landscape—this ravishing oasis, placed there by the hand of nature, as if to make the traveller returning from the prairie forget the sufferings and fatigues of the desert. ”

“ For his part, the sachem also strove to approach the count, with whom he burned to measure himself, persuaded that, if he succeeded in killing the chief of the palefaces, the latter would be struck with terror, and abandon the battlefield.
At length, as if by mutual agreement, the white men and Indians fell back a few paces, doubtlessly to prepare for a final contest; and it was then that, for the first time since the combat, the count and the sachem found themselves face to face. The two men exchanged a flashing glance, and rushed upon each other furiously. ”

“ Yes, the count is a chosen vessel. I believe, like yourself, my child, that if his contemporaries do not do him the justice which is his due, posterity at least will not confound him with those filibusters and shameless adventurers for whom gold alone is everything, and who, whatever may be the title they assume, are in reality no more than highway robbers. But the road is growing wider—we are about to enter the pass. ”

“ Have we the right to plunge our unhappy country, already half ruined, in the horrors of a civil war, when in this unfortunate land nothing is prepared for an energetic resistance? The Government of Mexico, so weak for good, is powerful for evil, and it will manage to find troops to reduce us if we revolt. General Guerrero is an experienced officer—a cold and cruel man, who will recoil before no extremity, however terrible its nature, to stifle in blood any attempt at insurrection. ”

“ Sonora is menaced by powerful enemies other than the Indians. These enemies are the North Americans, those Wandering Jews of civilisation, whose axes you may hear felling the trees of the last forests that separate you, and who will soon invade and occupy your country, unless you take care; and it will be impossible for you to offer the slightest resistance to this unjust conquest, for you have no support to expect from your Government, which consumes all its energies in the purposeless and universal contests of the cabecillas, who seize on the power in turn. ”

“ Father Seraphin remarked, "travellers would not go at such a pace: they are doubtlessly persons in pursuit of us."
"That is not probable, my father: no one is aware of our journey."
"Treachery has the eye of the lynx and the ear of the opossum, my dear child. It is incessantly on the watch: everything is known—a secret is no longer one when two persons know it. But time presses: we must make up our minds."
"We are lost if they are enemies!" Doña Angela exclaimed with terror. "We have no help to expect from any one." ”

“ The two foster brothers went down into the patio, where all the inhabitants of the hacienda had assembled to salute the count on his departure. Doña Angela, wrapped up in a long white dressing gown, with pallid face and eyes filled with tears, looked like a phantom in the glare of the torches shaken by the peons. The escort had mounted and sat motionless. Curumilla held the horses of the two Frenchmen. When they appeared, all raised their hats and saluted with a deep and respectful bow.
"Farewell, Don Louis," Don Rafaël said to him. "May Heaven grant you the victory!" ”

“ Don Rafaël, Don Ramon, and, the other persons present were men of recognised courage. On several occasions they had sustained giant combats against enemies tenfold in number; in short, they had furnished proof of the most extravagant courage and most insane temerity. But the count's eccentric proposition of going coolly with a handful of adventurers to take a city defended by 10,000 men seemed to them so extraordinary and so incredible, that they remained dumb for a moment, hardly knowing whether they were awake or suffering from a frightful nightmare. ”

“ In spite of themselves the adventurers felt moved by a species of admiration for the savage resolution of this man, with his feline and crafty manner, who had suddenly revealed himself in so different a light from that in which they had hitherto known him. In speaking with such brutal frankness the bandit had, as it were, raised himself in the eyes of all. His roguery appeared less vile; he inspired a sort of sympathy in these brave men, for whom courage and virtue are the first two virtues.
"Then you do not even try to defend yourself?" Don Louis said sorrowfully. ”

“ The count and the missionary, after exchanging an earnest glance, shook hands with a smile. They had understood each other.
"You are welcome, sir," the count said, addressing the general, "although I am surprised that you place such confidence in pirates, as you call us, as to confide yourself so entirely to our honour."
"The law of nations, sir," the general replied, "has certain recognised rules which are respected by all men."
"Excepting by those who are placed without the pale of society and the common law of humanity," Don Louis remarked dryly. ”

“ The Frenchmen who had followed him—for the most part greedy adventurers, devoured by that inextinguishable thirst for gold which had made them give up everything to go to America—had been cruelly deceived in their hopes, when, on disembarking in Mexico, that classic land of riches, the count, instead of leading them to gold or silver mines, which they would have worked and filled their pockets abundantly, took them to the Mexican frontier, and forced them to, till the soil. ”