CHAPTER SEVENTY FOUR.
AN AERIAL COUCH.
After escaping from the company of Arroyo and his bandits, Don Corneliomechanically followed the guidance of Costal--who was now aiming toreach the lake of Ostuta as soon as possible, in order that he mightcommence his incantations before the rising of the moon.
Don Cornelio knew that it would be breath thrown away to attemptpersuading the Indian to abandon his absurd and superstitious design;and to propose accompanying him, and becoming either actor or spectatorin the pagan ceremony, would be equally against the wishes of Costal.
After they had ridden for some distance towards the lake, the Captainadmonished his companions of his intention to stay behind and wait fortheir return, after they should have accomplished their purpose, and hadtheir interview with Tlaloc and his wife Matlacuezc. Costal was onlytoo glad to agree to this proposition; and promised to find a properhalting-place for Don Cornelio at some distance from the shores of thelake. There was no house of any kind in the vicinity, not even themeanest hut. This, Costal, from his perfect knowledge of the locality,was aware of; but the night was a pleasant one, and a few hours might bepassed in the open air without any great inconvenience.
Shortly after, the cool freshness of the breeze proclaimed that the lakewas not far off; and a pleasant grove of shady palm-trees offered aninviting shelter to Don Cornelio. It was the spot which Costal haddesigned for his halting-place; and here, parting from the two acolytes,the Captain dismounted, and prepared to make himself as comfortable aspossible during their absence. Meanwhile Costal and Clara kept ontowards the lake, and were soon lost to view under the shadows of theforest.
Don Cornelio had not been long left to himself, ere he began to rue thedisposition thus made of him. It now occurred to him, and not withoutreason, that the comrades of Gaspacho might fancy to avenge thebrigand's death, and for that purpose follow him and his two attendantsthrough the forest. Arroyo would now be absent from the hacienda; DonCornelio had heard him proclaim his intention of going in search of itsmistress; and his subalterns might pay less respect to the emissary ofMorelos than their chief.
These considerations influencing the spirit of Don Cornelio, producedwithin him a certain degree of uneasiness--sufficient to make himdiscontented with the position he had chosen.
Determined to get nearer to Costal--whom he looked upon almost as hisnatural protector--he remounted his horse, and continued along the paththat had been taken by the other two.
After riding a few hundred yards, he discerned rising up before his facea high hill crowned with mist; and shortly after, the woods becomingmore open, he was enabled to perceive that this hill was surrounded by alarge lake of dark, sombre aspect. Though he now looked upon both thelake and mountain for the first time, he had no difficulty inidentifying them as the Lake Ostuta and the sacred mountain ofMonopostiac.
A belt of forest still lay between him and the lake, extending aroundits southern end. Entering into the timber, he rode nearly across it,until the reedy shore of the lake came in view through the openingsbetween the trees. Here he again halted, and after a moment'sreflection, dismounted.
Although the change of locality might make it more difficult for thebrigands of Arroyo to discover his retreat, he was still not so certainof being free from danger. To render his situation more secure, hedetermined upon climbing into a tree, and concealing himself among thebranches.
He had another motive for freeing himself. At a short distance from thespot he saw the horses of Costal and Clara, standing tied to somebushes; and he knew that their owners could not be far off. No doubt itwas there they intended to go through their absurd rites; and all atonce Don Cornelio had become inspired with a curiosity to witness them.His Christian conscience slightly reproached him, for thus assisting, asit were, at a pagan ceremony; but he ended by persuading himself thatthere would be something meritorious in his being a witness to theconfusion of the infidel.
A tree near at hand offered him a favourable point of observation. Fromits higher branches he could command a full view of the lake and itsshores to a considerable distance on each side of him, and also thesacred mountain in its midst.
Securing his horse below, he ascended the tree, and seated himself amongits topmost branches. He had taken the precaution to carry up hiscarbine along with him, which was hanging from his shoulders upon itssling.
He had just fixed himself commodiously upon his perch, when the fullmoon appeared, at once lighting up the waters of the lake with her mostbrilliant beams.
He looked to discover the whereabouts of Costal and the negro; but forsome time he could see nothing of either. The enchanted hill,glistening with a vitreous translucence under the white moonbeams,presented a wild, weird aspect; and, from time to time, strangeunearthly sounds appeared to proceed from it, as also from the woodsaround.
The nerves of the ex-student were at no time of the strongest; and hehad not long occupied his elevated post before he began to rue hisrashness, in having trusted himself alone in a place which seemed to bethe abode of the supernatural.
All at once a sound reached him, proceeding from the margin of the lake;and, turning his eyes in that direction, he beheld the figure of a nakedman moving among the reeds. It was the same apparition that had causedsuch alarm among the domestics of Don Mariano, who, although unseen bythe Captain, were at that moment only fifty paces distant, screenedbehind the bushes that grew around the glade in which they had encamped.
The apparition, although it at first startled Don Cornelio, did notfrighten him so much as it had the domestics; for, by the light of themoon, he was enabled to recognise the figure as that of his attendant,Costal. The Captain, moreover, saw--what, from their position, wasinvisible to the people in Don Mariano's camp--another human figure,naked like the first, but differing from it in the colour of the skin,which was black as ebony.
Both having passed through the reeds, plunged at once into the openwater of the lake; and, swimming off towards the enchanted mountain,were soon lost to the eyes of Don Cornelio, as well as to those of theaffrighted attendants of Don Mariano.
While the latter remained under the full conviction that they had seenthe Indian who, for five hundred years, had been vainly searching forhis heart, Don Cornelio knew that the two adventurers were his ownfollowers, Costal and Clara.
From the direction they had taken through the water, he divined that itwas their object to reach the mountain island, there, no doubt, topractise their superstitious ceremonial.
Although somewhat disappointed at being deprived of a spectacle he hadfelt curious to witness, he still remained on his perch upon the tree.His apprehension of being pursued by the bandits of Arroyo had not yetforsaken him; and in such a contingency, he believed that he would besafer among the branches than upon the ground. He could watch forCostal and Clara coming back through the water, and then rejoin them asthey returned to take possession of their horses, which were stillvisible to him upon his elevated post.
For a short time he remained in his position without hearing any noisein particular, or seeing anything calculated to alarm him. Then a soundreached his ears that came from a direction opposite to that in whichlay the lake. It was a booming sound, like the report of a cannon--shortly after followed by another and another of precisely similarintonation.
Don Cornelio had no suspicion that at that very moment the hacienda ofSan Carlos was being attacked by the garrison of Del Valle, and that thenoise he heard was the report of the howitzer battering in the gates ofthe building.
Although at first rendered uneasy by these inexplicable sounds, as theysoon after ceased to be repeated, Don Cornelio no longer troubledhimself to explain them. He had heard so many others, as mysterious asthey, that he despaired of finding an explanation. As time passed,however, and neither Costal nor Clara showed themselves, the Captainbegan to feel a strong desire to sleep, and his eyelids every momentgrew heavier, until at length he felt that he could no longer resist thed
esire. Like Colonel Tres-Villas, on the preceding night, he took theprecaution, before committing himself to slumber, of making secureagainst a fall; and for this purpose he attached himself with his sashto one of the branches. In another minute he was in the land of dreams,unconscious of the singularity of the couch on which he was reclining.