William Westall

“ Are you not grateful, señor Fortescue?”
“No; why should I be grateful for a death more terrible than hanging. Kill us at once, and have done with it. You are a disgrace to the noble profession of arms, general, and the time will come—”
“Another word, and I will throw you to the hounds without further parley,” broke in Griscelli, savagely.
“Better keep quiet; there is nothing to be gained by roiling him,” whispered Carmen. ”

“ I had a terrible thirst. The cords chafed my limbs and cut into my flesh. Every movement gave an exquisite pain; I was continually on the rack; rest, even for a moment, was impossible, as, though the nandu had diminished his speed, he never stopped. And then a wind came up from the sea, bringing with it clouds of dust, which well-nigh choked and half blinded me; filled my ears and intensified my thirst. After a while a strange faintness stole over me; I felt as if I were dying, my eyes closed, my head sank on my breast, and I remembered no more.
Chapter XXVI. Angela. ”

“ As we leave the valley, through a pass no wider than a gateway, the cacique gives me a word of warning.
“The part we are coming to is the most dangerous of all,” he said. “But it is, fortunately, not long. Two hours will bring us to a sheltered valley. And now leave everything to your mule. If you feel nervous shut your eyes, but as you value your life neither tighten your reins nor try to guide him.”
I repeat this caution to Gahra, and ask how he feels.
“Much better, señor; the sunshine has given me new life. I feel equal to anything.” ”

“ Much of the water had overflowed into the desert and been absorbed by the sand, and the little that remained was now sinking into the earth and being evaporated by the sun.
For hours Angela and I rode on in silence; our distress was too deep for words.
“Quipai is gone,” she murmured at length, shuddering and looking at me with tear-filled eyes.
“Yes, gone and forever. As entirely as if it had never been. It is worse than the carnage of a great battle. These poor people! Nature is more cruel than man.”
“But surely! will you not try to restore the oasis and re-create Quipai?” ”

“ It is not in my power to bequeath you a fortune, in the ordinary sense of the word, for money I have none, yet so long as the mission prospers you will be better off than if I could give you millions. But everything human is ephemeral and I cannot disguise from myself the possibility of some great disaster befalling you. Those mountains contain both gold and silver, and an invasion of treasure-seekers, either from the sea or the Cordillera would be the ruin of the mission. My poor people would be demoralized, perhaps destroyed, and you would be compelled to quit Quipai and return to the world. ”

“ I whispered to Carmen.
“By all means. One moment, señores; I beg your pardon—now, Fortescue!”
And with that we placed our horses across the road, whipped out our pistols and pointed them at the troopers’ heads, to their owners’ unutterable surprise.
“We are sorry to inconvenience you, señores,” said my companion, politely; “but we are going to release this slave, and we have need of your horses. Unbuckle your swords, throw them on the ground, and dismount. No hesitation, or you are dead men! Shall we treat them as they proposed to treat the slave, Señor Fortescue? Blow out their brains? ”

“ I take my electric baths by horseback exercise, and riding to hounds.
Yes, I believe I shall finish my century—without becoming senile either in body or mind—if I can escape the Griscelli. I was in hopes that I had escaped them by coming here; but I never stay long in Europe that they don’t sooner or later find me out. I think I shall have to spend the remainder of my life in America or the East. The consciousness of being continually hunted, that at any moment I may be confronted with a murderer and perchance be murdered, is too trying for a man of my age. ”

“ In all my wanderings I have not beheld the equal of Angela Dieu-donnée. Though I can see her now, though I learned to paint in order that, however inadequately, I might make her likeness, I am unable to describe her; words can give no idea of the comeliness of her face, the grace of her movements, and the shapeliness of her form. I have seen women with skins as fair, hair as dark, eyes as deeply blue, but none with the same brightness of look and sweetness of disposition, none with courage as high, temper as serene. ”

“ Fortescue, quietly, “it was a very enjoyable run. You like hunting, I think?”
“Like it! I should rather think I do. I regard fox-hunting as the very prince of sports. It is manly, health-giving, and exhilarating. There is no sport in which so many participate and so heartily enjoy. We enjoy it, the horses enjoy it, and the hounds enjoy it.”
“How about the fox?”
“Oh, the fox! Well, the fox is allowed to exist on condition of being occasionally hunted. If there were no hunting there would be no foxes. ”

“ But for Captain Bigelow and his officers I should have buried myself with Angela in the fathomless sea. I owed him my life a second time—such as it was—more, for he taught me the duty and grace of resignation, showed me that, though to cherish the memory of a great sorrow ennobles a man, he who abandons himself to unmeasured grief is as pusillanimous as he who shirks his duty on the field of battle. ”

“ Behind us rose the stupendous range of the Andes, with its snow-white peaks and smoking volcanoes; before us the oasis of Quipai rolled like a river of living green to the shores of the measureless ocean, whose shining waters in that clear air and under that azure sky seemed only a few miles away, while, as far as the eye could reach, the coast-line was fringed with the dreary waste where I had so nearly perished. ”

“ Gondocori made fast the canoe to a tree, and we stepped ashore.
We are on the summit of a spur which stands out like a bastion from the imposing mass of the Cordillera, through the very heart of which runs the mysterious waterway we have just traversed. Two thousand feet or more below is a broad plain, bounded on the west by a range of gaunt and treeless hills ribbed with contorted rocks, which stretch north and south farther than the eye can reach. The plain is cultivated and inhabited. ”

“ Taller and more strongly built than fox-hounds, muscular and broad-chested, with pendulous ears and upper lips, and stern, thoughtful faces, they were splendid specimens of the canine race; even sized too, well under control, and in appearance no more ferocious than other hounds. Why should they be? All hounds are blood-hounds in a sense, and it is probably indifferent to them whether they pursue a fox, a deer, or a man; it is entirely a matter of training.
“I am going to let you have more law than I mentioned just now” said Griscelli, turning to Carmen and me. ”

“ Yes, killing prisoners in cold blood is a brutal practice! I am obliged to be severe sometimes, much to my regret. But there is only one way of dealing with a rebellion—you must stamp it out; civil war is not as other wars. Why not join us, Señor Fortescue? I will give you a command.”
“That is quite out of the question, General Griscelli; I am not a mere soldier of fortune. ”

“ When breakfast was ready I woke Angela.
“Is it real, or have I been dreaming?” she asked, with a shudder, looking wildly round.
“It is only too real,” I said, pointing to the smoking crater.
“Misericordia! what shall we do?”
“First of all, we must go down to the oasis and see whether any of the people are left alive.”
“You are right. When we have done what we can for the others it will be time enough to think about ourselves.”
“Are there any others?” I thought, for I greatly doubted whether we should find any alive, except, perhaps, Yawl and the three or four men who were helping him. ”

“ We are on the montaña of the eastern Cordillera, a mountain land of amazing fertility, well wooded, yet not so thickly as to render progress difficult; the wayside is bordered with brilliant flowers, cascades tumble from rocky heights, and far away to the west rise in the clear air the glorious Andes, alps on alps, a vast range of stately snow-crowned peaks, endless and solemn, veiled yet not hidden by fleecy clouds, and as cold and mysterious as winter stars looking down on a sleeping world. ”

“ Nevertheless, the preparations for our expedition went on, and the time for our departure was drawing near, when one evening, as I returned from a ride, I found Juanita alone on the veranda, gazing at the stars, and looking more than usually pensive and depressed.
“So you are still resolved to go, Señor Fortescue?” she said, with a sigh.
“I must. One of my principal reasons for coming to South America is to make an expedition to the Andes, and I want much to travel in parts hitherto unexplored. And who knows? We may make great discoveries.” ”

“ Angela would have yielded, but I was obdurate. I could not see that it was in any sense our duty to bury ourselves in a remote corner of the Andes for the sake of a score or two of Indians who were very well able to do without us. What could be the good of building up another colony and creating another oasis merely that the evil genii of the mountains might destroy them in a night? Had the abbé, instead of spending a lifetime in making Quipai, devoted his energies to some other work, he might have won for himself enduring fame and permanently benefited mankind. ”

“ The oasis, as I now for the first time discovered, was a valley, a broad shallow depression in the desert falling in a gentle slope from the foot of the Cordillera to the sea, whereby its irrigation was greatly facilitated.
“How beautiful Quipai looks, and how like a river!” said Angela. “That is what I always think when I come here—how like a river!”
“Who knows that long ago the valley was not the bed of a river!”
“It must be very long ago, then, before there was any Cordillera. Rain-clouds never cross the Andes, and for untold ages there can have been no rain here on the coast.” ”

“ I do not think I am a coward, and in helping Señora de la Vega to escape and sending her off with Gahra, I knew that I had done the right thing. Yet I looked forward to the approaching interview with some misgiving. Barbarian though Mamcuna was, I could not help entertaining a certain respect for her. She had treated me handsomely; in offering to make me her husband she had paid me the greatest compliment in her power; and how little soever you may reciprocate the sentiment, it is impossible to think altogether unkindly of the woman who has given you her love. ”

“ But just now it is a veritable battle-field of the winds, which seem to blow from every point of the compass at once. The snow dashes against our faces like spray from the ocean, and whirls round us in blasts so fierce that, at times, we can neither see nor hear. The mules, terrified and exhausted, put down their heads and stand stock-still. We dismount and try to drag them after us, but even then they refuse to move. ”

“ The roar of the storm in the gully is louder than ever; the drift, now higher than the tallest man, grows even as we look.
Fifteen men buried alive within a few yards of us, yet beyond the possibility of help! Poor Gahra! If he had loved me less and himself more, he would still be enjoying the dolce far niente of Happy Valley, instead of lying there, stark and stiff in his frozen winding-sheet. ”

“ Here and there is a stagnant pool, and underneath can be heard a dull roar, as if an imprisoned ocean were beating on a pebble-strewed shore. There is an unmistakable smell of sulphur, and the ground on which we stand, as well as the moor itself, is of a deep-yellow cast.
This, then, is the azuferales—a region of sulphur springs, a brimstone inferno, a volcano in the making. No hounds will follow us over that hideous heath and through that Stygian stream.
“Can we get across and live?” I ask. “Will it bear?” ”

“ Let courage be our watchword. Hasta mañana!”
“Pray take a seat, Señor Fortescue, and we will have a talk about old times in Spain. Allow me to offer you a cigar—I beg your pardon, I was forgetting that my fellows had tied you up. Captain Guzman (to one of the loungers) , will you kindly loose Mr. Fortescue? Gracias! Now you can take a cigar, and here is a chair for you.”
I was by no means sure that this sudden display of urbanity boded me good, but being a prisoner, and at Griscelli’s mercy, I thought it as well to humor him, so accepted the cigar and seated myself by his side. ”

“ Ten days after our flight from San Felipe we were on the banks of the Apure. We received a warm welcome from Carmen’s friend, Señor Morillones, a Spanish creole of the antique type, grave, courtly, and dignified, the owner of many square miles of fertile land and hundreds of slaves, and as rich in flocks and herds as Job in the heyday of his prosperity. He had a large house, fine gardens, and troops of servants. A grand seigneur in every sense of the word was Señor Don Esteban Morillones. ”

“ I sympathize with you, señores. Is the man a runaway that you have to take such care of him?”
“That is just it. He ran away and rambled for months in the forest; and if he had not stolen back to La Victoria and been betrayed by a woman, he would never have been caught. After that, the colonel would not trust him at large; but he thinks that at Caracas he will have him safe. And now, señores, with your leave we must go on.”
“Ah! You are the last, I suppose?”
“We are; curse it! The main body must be a league ahead by this time, and we shall not reach Caracas for hours. Adios!” ”

“ Though the caciques had not dared to make any open protest against Mamcuna’s matrimonial project, I knew that they were bitterly opposed to it, and nothing, I felt sure, would please them better than to kindle the queen’s jealousy by making it appear that I was engaged in an intrigue with one of Chimu’s wives.
Yet no, I could not believe it. No Christian woman would play so base a part. Señora de la Vega could have no interest in betraying me. ”

“ Had our attention been less taken up with the guerillas this new portent would not so long have escaped us.
“Mejia! I’ll wager ten thousand piasters that behind that cloud are Mejia and his braves,” exclaimed Carmen, excitedly. Hijo de Dios! Won’t they make mince-meat of the Spaniard? How I wish I were with them! Shall we go back Señor Fortescue?”
“If you think—”
“Think! I am sure. I can see the gleam of their spears through the dust. By all means, let us join them. The Spaniards have too much on their hands just now to heed us. But I must have a spear.” ”

“ Nothing can be finer than the ride to Caracas by the old Spanish road, or more superb than its position in a magnificent valley, watered by four rivers, surrounded by a rampart of lofty mountains, and enjoying, by reason of its altitude, a climate of perpetual spring. ”