The Trapper's Daughter Part 6

The young man rolled on the ground in despair.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, "I have suffered enough."

Valentine looked at him for a moment with tender pity, then bent over him, and touching his shoulder:

"Listen to me, Don Pablo," he said in a gentle voice.

CHAPTER IV.

A BACKWARD GLANCE.

We will now take up our narrative at the point where we left it at the conclusion of the "Pirates of the Prairies." During the six months which had elapsed since the mournful death of Dona Clara, certain events have taken place, which it is indispensable for the reader to know, in order properly to understand the following story.

He will probably remember that White Gazelle was picked up in a fainting condition by Bloodson, while at the side of the old pirate, Sandoval. He threw the girl across his horse's neck, and started at full speed in the direction of the teocali, which served him as a refuge and fortress. We will follow these two important persons, whom we reproach ourselves with having too long neglected.

Bloodson's mad course was frightful to look on. In the shadow of the night the horse bounded forward, trampling beneath its nervous hoofs everything they met, while its outstretched head cleft the air. Its ears were thrown back, and from its widely opened nostrils issued jets of steam which traced long white furrows in the gloom. It dashed forward, uttering snorts of pain, and biting between its clenched teeth the _bozal_ which it covered with foam, while its flanks, torn by the spurs of its impatient rider, dripped with blood and perspiration. But the faster it went, the more did Bloodson torment it, and seek to increase its speed.

The trees and rocks disappeared with marvellous rapidity on either side the road, and White Gazelle was presently restored to life by the violent shocks the movements of the horse gave to her body. Her long hair trailed in the dust, her eyes, raised to Heaven, were bathed in tears of despair, grief, and impotence. At the risking of fracturing her skull against the stones, she made useless efforts to escape from the arms of her ravisher, but the latter fixed on her a glance whose pa.s.sion revealed a ferocious joy, and did not appear to notice the terror he caused the girl, or rather seemed to derive from it an unspeakable pleasure. His compressed lips remained silent, only allowing pa.s.sage at intervals to a shrill whistle intended to increase the ardour of his horse, which, exasperated by the pressure of its rider, seemed no longer to touch the ground, and devoured the s.p.a.ce like the fantastic steed in the ballad of Lenore.

The girl uttered a cry, but it was lost in the gloomy echoes, drowned in the sound of this mad chase. And the horse still galloped on. Suddenly White Gazelle collected all her strength, and bounded forward with such vivacity, that her feet already touched the ground; but Bloodson was on his guard, and ere she had regained her balance, he stooped down without checking his steed, and seizing the girl by her long tresses, lifted her up, and placed her again before him. A sob burst from the Gazelle's chest, and she fainted once again.

"Ah, you shall not escape me," Bloodson yelled; "no one in the world can tear you from my grasp."

In the meanwhile darkness had been succeeded by day; the sun rose in all its splendour. Myriads of birds saluted the return of light by their joyous strains; nature had awakened gaily, and the sky, of a diaphanous azure, promised one of those lovely days, which the blessed climate of these countries has alone the privilege of offering.

A fertile landscape, exquisitely diversified, stretched out on either side the road, and blended with the distant horizon. The girl's body hung down the side of the horse, following unresistingly all the movements imparted to it; with her face covered with a livid paleness, half opened lips, clenched teeth, uncovered bosom and panting chest, she palpitated under Bloodson's hand, which pressed heavily upon her.

At length, they reached a cavern, where were encamped some forty Indians, armed for war; these were Bloodson's companions. He made them a sign, and a horse was brought to him; it was high time, for the one he rode had scarce stopped ere it fell, pouring forth black blood from its nostrils, mouth, and ears. Bloodson mounted, took the girl before him, and started again.

"To the hacienda Quemada (the burnt farm)," he shouted.

The Indians, who doubtless were only awaiting their chief's arrival, followed his example, and soon the whole band, with the stranger at their head, galloped along, hidden by the dense cloud of dust they raised. After five hours' ride, whose speed surpa.s.ses all description, the Indians saw the tall steeples of a town standing out in the azure of the horizon, beneath a ma.s.s of smoke and vapour. Bloodson and his band had left the Far West.

The Indians turned slightly to the left, galloping across fields, and trampling under their horses' hoofs, with wicked fury, the rich crops that covered them. At the expiration of about half an hour, they reached the base of a lofty hill, which rose solitary in the plain.

"Wait for me here," said Bloodson, as he checked his horse; "whatever happens, do not stir till my return."

The Indians bowed in obedience, and Bloodson, burying his spurs in his horse's flanks, started again at full speed. But this ride was not long.

When Bloodson had disappeared from his comrades' sight, he stopped his horse and dismounted. After removing the bridle, to let the animal browze freely on the thick and tall gra.s.s of the plain, the stranger raised in his arms the girl whom he had laid on the ground, where she remained senseless, and began slowly scaling the hillside.

It was the hour when the birds salute with their parting strains the sun, whose disc, already beneath the horizon, shed around only oblique and torpid beams. The shadow was rapidly invading the sky; the wind was rising with momentarily increasing violence, the heat was oppressive, large blackish clouds, fringed with grey and borne by the breeze, chased heavily athwart the sky, drawing nearer and nearer to the earth. In a word, all foreboded one of those hurricanes such as are only seen in these countries, and which make the most intrepid men turn pale with terror.

Bloodson still ascended, bearing the girl in his arms, whose lifeless head hung over his shoulder. Drops of lukewarm rain, large as dollars, had begun to fall at intervals, and spotted the earth, which immediately drank them up; a sharp and penetrating odour exhaled from the ground and impregnated the atmosphere.

But Bloodson still went up with the same firm step, his head drooping and eyebrows contracted. At length he reached the top of the hill, when he stopped and bent a searching glance around. At this moment, a dazzling flash shot athwart the sky, illuminating the landscape with a bluish tint, and the thunder burst forth furiously.

"Oh!" Bloodson muttered with a sinister accent, and as if answering aloud an internal thought, "nature is harmonising with the scene about to take place here; but the storm of the Heavens is not so terrible as the one growling in my heart. Come, come! I only needed this fearful melody. I am the avenger, and am about to accomplish the demoniacal task which I imposed on myself; during a night of delirium."

After uttering these ill-omened words, he continued his progress, proceeding toward a pile of half-calcined stones, whose black points stood out of the tall gra.s.s a short distance off. The top of the hill where Bloodson was, offered a scene of inexpressible savageness. Through the tufts of gra.s.s might be noticed ruins blackened by fire, pieces of wall, and vaults half broken in. Here and there were fruit trees, dahlias, cedars, and a _noria_ or well, whose long pole still bore at one end the remains of the leathern bucket once employed to draw water.

In the centre of the ruins stood a large wooden cross, marking the site of a tomb; at the foot of this cross were piled up, with ghastly symmetry, some twenty grinning skulls, to which the rain, wind, and sun had given the l.u.s.tre and yellowish tinge of ivory. Round the tomb, snakes and lizards, those guests of sepulchres, silently glided through the gra.s.s, watching with their round and startled eyes the stranger who dared to disturb their solitude. Not far from the tomb, a species of shed, made of interlaced reeds, was falling to ruin, but still offered a scanty shelter to travellers surprised by a storm. It was toward this shed that Bloodson proceeded.

In a few minutes he reached it, and was thus sheltered from the rain, which at this moment fell in torrents. The storm had reached the height of its fury--the flashes succeeded each other uninterruptedly; the thunder rolled furiously, and the wind violently lashed the trees. It was, in a word, one of those awful nights on which deeds without a name, which the sun will not illumine with its brilliant beams, are accomplished.

Bloodson laid the girl on a pile of dry leaves in one of the corners of the shed, and after gazing on her attentively for some seconds, he folded his arms on his chest, frowned, and began walking up and down, muttering unconnected sentences. Each time he pa.s.sed before the maiden, he stopped, bent on her a glance of undefinable meaning, and resumed his walk with a shake of his head.

"Come," he said hoa.r.s.ely, "I must finish it! What! That girl, so strong and robust, lies there, pale, worn out, half dead. Why is it not Red Cedar that I hold thus beneath my heel?--but patience, his turn will come, and then!"

A sardonic smile played round his lips, and he bent over the girl. He gently raised her head, and was about to make her smell a bottle he had taken from her girdle, when he suddenly let her fall on her bed of leaves, and rushed away, uttering a cry of terror.

"No," he said, "it is not possible: I am mistaken, it is an illusion, a dream."

After a moments' hesitation, he returned to the girl, and bent over her again. But this time his manner had completely changed: though he had been rough and brutal previously, he was now full of attention to her.

During the various events to which White Gazelle had been the victim, some of the diamond b.u.t.tons which fastened her vest had been torn off, and exposed her bosom. Bloodson had noticed a black velvet scapulary, on which two interlaced letters were embroidered in silver, suspended round her neck by a thin gold chain. It was the sight of this mysterious cypher which caused Bloodson the violent emotion from which he was now suffering.

He seized the scapulary with a hand trembling with impatience, broke the chain, and waited till a flash enabled him to see the cypher a second time, and a.s.sure himself that he was not deceived. He had not long to wait: within a few seconds a dazzling flash illumined the hill. Bloodson looked, and was convinced: the cypher was really the one he fancied he had seen. He fell to the ground, buried his head in his hands, and reflected profoundly. Half an hour pa.s.sed ere this man emerged from his statue-like immobility; when he raised his head, tears were coursing down his bronzed cheeks.

"Oh! this doubt is frightful!" he exclaimed; "at all risks I will remove it: I must know what I have to hope."

And drawing himself up haughtily to his full height, he walked with a firm and steady step toward the girl, who still lay motionless. Then, as we saw him once before with Shaw, he employed the same method which had been so successful with the young man, in order to recall White Gazelle to life. But the poor girl had been subjected to such rude trials during the last two days, that she was quite exhausted. In spite of Bloodson's eager care, she still retained her terrible corpse-like rigidity: all remedies were powerless. The stranger was in despair at the unsatisfactory results of his attempts to recall the girl to life.

"Oh!" he exclaimed at each instant, "She cannot be dead: Heaven will not permit it."

And he began again employing the measures whose futility had been proved to him. All at once he smote his forehead violently.

"I must be mad," he exclaimed.

And searching in his pocket, he drew from it a crystal flask, filled with a blood-red liquor; he opened with his dagger the girl's teeth, and let two drops of the fluid fall into her mouth. The effect was instantaneous: White Gazelle's features relaxed, a pinky hue covered her face; she faintly opened her eyes, and murmured in a weak voice--

"Good Heaven! Where am I?"

"She is saved!" Bloodson exclaimed with a sigh of joy, as he wiped away the perspiration that ran down his forehead. In the meanwhile the storm had attained its utmost fury; the wind furiously shook the wretched shed, the rain fell in torrents, and the thunder burst forth with a terrible din.

"A fine night for a recognition!" Bloodson muttered.

CHAPTER V.

THE HACIENDA QUEMADA.

It was a strange group formed by this charming creature and this rough wood ranger, at the top of this devastated hill, troubled by the thunder, and illumined by the coruscating lightning.