The Border Rifles Part 22

A bitter smile contracted his lips; he frowned and muttered, in a hollow voice--

"Every man has his task in this world, and I shall know how to accomplish mine."

Carmela came in again.

"Santiago will be ready in a moment. Here are your vaquera boots, which Lanzi begged me to give you."

"Thank you," he said.

And he began fastening on his legs those two pieces of stamped leather which in Mexico play the part of gaiters, and serve to protect the rider from the horse.

While the young man fastened on his botas, with one foot on the bench, and his body bent forward, Carmela examined him attentively, with an expression of timid hesitation.

The Jaguar noticed it.

"What do you want?" he asked her.

"Nothing," she said, stammering.

"You are deceiving me, Carmela. Come--time presses--tell me the truth."

"Well," she replied, with a hesitation more and more marked, "I have a prayer to make to you."

"Speak quickly, Nina, for you know that, whatever it may be, I grant it to you beforehand."

"You swear it?"

"I do."

"Well, whatever may happen, I desire that if you meet the Captain of Dragoons who was here this morning, you will grant him your protection."

The young man sprung up, as if stung by a viper.

"Ah, then," he shrieked, "what I was told was true, then?"

"I do not know what you are alluding to, but I repeat my request."

"I do not know the man, since I did not arrive until after his departure."

"Yes, you know him," she continued, boldly. "Why seek a subterfuge, if you wish to break the promise you made me? It would be better to be frank."

"It is well," he replied, in a gloomy voice and a tone of biting irony; "rea.s.sure yourself Carmela, I will defend your lover."

And he rushed madly from the venta.

"Oh!" the maiden exclaimed, as she fell on a bench, and melted into tears; "Oh! That demon is properly christened the Jaguar! He has a tiger's heart in his bosom."

She buried her face in her hands, and broke out into sobs.

At the same moment the rapid gallop of a retreating horse was heard.

CHAPTER XIII.

CARMELA.

Before we continue our story, it is indispensable for us to give our readers certain important and indispensable details about facts that have to come.

Among the provinces of the vast territory of New Spain, there is one, the most eastern of all, whose real value the Government of the Viceroys has constantly ignored. This ignorance was kept up by the Mexican Republic, which, at the period of the proclamation of Independence, did not think it worthy of being formed into a separate state, and, without dreaming of what might happen at a later date, negligently allowed it to be colonized by the North Americans, who even at that period seemed infected by that fever of encroachment and aggrandizement which has now become a species of endemic mania among these worthy citizens--we refer to Texas.

This magnificent country is one of the most fortunately situated in Mexico; territorially regarded, it is immense, no country is better watered, for considerable rivers pour into the sea, their waters swollen by countless streams which fertilize this country, as they traverse it in every direction; and these currents and rivers being deeply imbedded, never form those wide expanses of water by their overflow, which in other countries are transformed into fetid marshes.

The climate of Texas is healthy, and exempt from those frightful diseases which have given such a sinister celebrity to certain countries of the New World.

The natural borders of Texas are the Sabina on the East, Red River on the north, to the west a chain of lofty mountains, which enters vast prairies, and the Rio Bravo del Norte, and lastly, from the mouth of the latter river to that of the Sabina, the Gulf of Mexico.

We have said that the Spaniards were almost ignorant of the real value of Texas, although they had been acquainted with it for a very long time, for it is almost certain that in 1536, Cabeca de Vaca traversed it when he proceeded from Florida to the northern provinces of Mexico.

Still the honour of the first settlement attempted in this fine country belongs incontestably to France.

In fact, the unfortunate and celebrated Robert de la Salle, ordered by the Marquis de Siegnelay to discover the mouth of the Mississippi in 1684, made a mistake, and entered the Rio de Colorado, which he descended with countless difficulties, till he reached the San Bernardo lagoon, where he built a fort between Velasco and Matagorda, and took possession of the country. We will enter into no further details about this bold explorer, who twice attempted to reach the unknown lands to the east of Mexico, and was traitorously a.s.sa.s.sinated in 1687, by villains who belonged to his band.

A later reminiscence attaches France to Texas, for it was there that General Lallemand attempted in 1817 to found, under the name of _Champ d'Asyle_, a colony of French refugees, the unhappy relics of the invincible armies of the first empire. This colony, situated about ten leagues from Galveston, was utterly destroyed by the orders of the Viceroy Apodaca, by virtue of the despotic system, constantly followed by the Spaniards of the New World, of not allowing strangers, under any pretext, to establish themselves on any point of their territory.

We shall be forgiven these prosy details when our readers reflect that this country, scarce twenty years free, with a superficies of one hundred thousand acres and more, and inhabited by two hundred thousand persons at the most, has, however, entered on an era of prosperity and progress, which must inevitably arouse the attention of European Governments, and the sympathies of intelligent men of all nations.

At the period when the events occurred which we have undertaken to narrate, that is to say in the later half of 1829, Texas still belonged to Mexico, but its glorious revolution had begun, it was struggling valiantly to escape from the disgraceful yoke of the central government, and proclaim its independence.

Before, however, we continue our story, we must explain how it was that Tranquil, the Canadian hunter, and Quoniam, the Negro, who was indebted to him for liberty, whom we left on the Upper Missouri leading the free life of wood-rangers, found themselves established, as it were, in Texas, and how the hunter had a daughter, or, at any rate, called his daughter, the lovely fair-haired girl we have presented to the reader under the name of Carmela.

About twelve years before the day we visit the Venta del Potrero, Tranquil arrived at the same hostelry, accompanied by two comrades, and a child of five to six years of age, with blue eyes, ruddy lips, and golden hair, who was no other than Carmela; as for his comrades, one was Quoniam, the other an Indian half-breed, who answered to the name of Lanzi.

The sun was just about setting when the little party halted in front of the venta.

The host, but little accustomed in this desolate country, close to the Indian border, to see travellers, and especially at so late an hour, had already closed and barred his house, and was himself getting ready for bed, when the unexpected arrival of our friends forced him to alter his arrangements for the night.

It was, however, only with marked repugnance, and on the repeated a.s.surances the travellers made him that he had nought to fear from them, that he at length decided to open his door, and admit them to his house.

Once that he had resolved to receive them, the host was as he should be to his guests, that is to say, polite and attentive, as far as that can enter into the character of a Mexican landlord, a race, be it noted in a parenthesis, the least hospitable in existence.

He was a short, stout man, with cat-like manners, and crafty looks, already of a certain age, but still quick and active.

When the travellers had placed their horses in the corral, before a good stock of alfalfa, and had themselves supped with the appet.i.te of men who have made a long journey, the ice was broken between them and the host, thanks to a few tragos of Catalonian refino, liberally offered by the Canadian, and the conversation went on upon a footing of the truest cordiality, while the little girl, carefully wrapped up in the hunter's warm zarape, was sleeping with that calm and simple carelessness peculiar to that happy age when the present is all in all, and the future does not exist.

"Well, gossip," Tranquil said gaily, as he poured out a gla.s.s of refino for the host; "I fancy you must lead a jolly life of it here."