CHAPTER XXV.
THE LOYALTY OF THE APACHE.
"This is the gate," said the Mayo Indian, touching the palisades. "See,it moves at a pressure. Now, who comes?"
The captain shuddered, he knew not why, as the secret piece in thestockade yawned ajar.
"We await," said Iron Shirt, laconically, pointing to his followers,who were huddling up against the long wall, and taking advantage ofevery irregularity in its line.
"You await? Here?" cried the robber, astounded, "You never mean tosay you are not going to accompany me now that you see the way isunimpeded?"
"Here we await," replied the Apache, firmly, "till we hear the war cryof the Foe-to-all-Men. When the Legless Man sends up the whoop forreinforcements, the Apaches will dash in and succour him."
"But, chief--"
"The chief has spoken, and his tongue is tired of talk."
"Well, if it is no avail remonstrating with the great warrior," repliedPedrillo, grumbling to himself, "hang him for an obstinate red devil!On, come on," he added, to his own five men and their corporal, asreluctant as himself, on seeing the Apaches leave them to their ownvalour, and he pushed them before him roughly with his horse's shoulder.
The Mexicans had all dismounted, not having his reason for keepingin the saddle, and noiselessly stole in at the opening after theredskinned pilot.
The little party was within the corral.
"To mark the place of this gate," said the salteador, "two of youremain here."
"Good," said Diego, who pushed the gate shut, whereupon so neatly wasit contrived that, particularly in such absence of light, the joiningplace of the edges was not perceptible.
"Deuce take you--what's that for?" cried the robber, suspiciously.
"Not to arouse observations if a keen eye follows the line of thefences," replied the Mayo. "Your men plainly denote the spot, if wemust retreat."
"That is true," rejoined the valiant captain, but not in a tone ofassurance, whilst his men looked downhearted at one another, andenviously at the couple left behind.
However, with the Apaches at hand, a retreat without striking a blowwould probably have caused a dispute which would have imperilled theirunholy alliance; and had as the prospect was, at least the Mexicansmight show a fellow countryman quarter, while the Indians would surelynot spare the turncoat whites.
After all, so far the smoothness of the entry promised fairly, and tohave to do with twenty gentlewomen was no formidable matter.
"On!" said he, impatiently, twitching up his wooden leg so that itseemed to point the way.
They crossed the enclosure, and reached the second wall without achallenge, over a ground eight inches deep in water, in the depressionscaused by horses' hoofs, and rude cartwheels.
Diego scrambled up the pickets like a cat. He almost instantly droppeddown, and said, in an ordinary tone--
"Not a head along the wall far or near."
"They have drawn in their sentries," said Zagal, a quick-eyed,nimble half-breed, "or they have fallen back under the verandah forprotection. It's quite right of them. I would not put a dog out thisweather."
"Bah," returned the captain, eager to believe the coast was clear ofsharpshooters, and well defended by his waterproof, "war dogs shoulddisregard the rain. As I cannot leap my horse over those pikes, supposeyou find the gate."
The Mayo had already groped along the corral, and unexpectedly thegate was opened by him. With a few strokes of his knife he had cut therawhide thongs that served as fastenings and were relaxed by the wet.
"Let two of you stay here," said Pedrillo, before following the othersthrough.
Then he pushed his horse between the main post and the gate held halfopen by Diego.
He and his three trusty rogues were before the house, which loomed uplarge at the end of the long, wide enclosure.
The thunder was dying away, and the swishing of the rain in the puddlesand against the palisades seemed lessening in intensity. Certainly, thesentries were removed, and the building was silent as a mausoleum.
Nevertheless, they durst not directly cross the open spaces, butskirted the stockade until they could move forward in the cover ofoutbuildings which favoured a zigzag advance.
In this manner they attained a brick wall, where Diego halted them withhis uplifted hand.
"The garden," he whispered.
By all these movements an hour and a half had elapsed. They were soclose to the house that the windows were seen to be outlined here andthere by the glow around the edges of the sashes and, through insectprotectors of gauze, from subdued lights within.
All seemed asleep.
"We might have taken the hacienda," observed Captain Pedrillo, vexedly."But those poltroon redskins hung back."
"Nay," replied the Mayo, shaking his head. "They are on their guardwithin, never fear. There is only one weak point, and that I am showingto your honour."
With his knife, the Indian's tool of all work, he severed the woodenbolt of a door in the wall, and burst it open from a hasp within by asteady pressure of the shoulder. He drew on one side, after pushing itopen, in respect. The glimpse within was purely of a black den wherewet vines and nodding plants glistened dully of the pouring shower.
"Thank you," said the captain, "for myself and band. But just you go inand scout about first. So far we have done a deed of daring; to run ourheads into the wolf's very jaws smacks of rashness."
Diego plunged into the doorway in a cautious manner.
"What do you think of all this, Zagal?" inquired the Mexican chiefquickly.
"That we ought to have carried fifty pounds of that blasting powdereach man, and we could have blown the hacienda into mud pies! What achance to miss!"
"Very true," said the captain, pretending to see the venture in thesame way. "I wish we had the affair to begin all over again: I shouldact in a very different way."
In the next instant the Indian reappeared.
"The garden is deserted. Not so much as a horned owl drowned out of itsnest," he said.
"Ah!" sighed Pedrillo, like a martyr; "Let us go on. Only one of youremain at this post, his foot in the doorway, holding the door close,but not letting it shut, on his life."
The horseman, the Indian, and the two other Mexicans then invadedthe garden. Pedrillo shook with eager heroism so that his steedparticipated in the tremor. It was a night, and the garden a place toinspire terror, even in the breast least timid, one must grant.
The garden was a maze designed after some labyrinth in a Spanish palacegrounds, and rendered more bewildering by the luxuriant growth of theplants and shrubbery chosen to form the intervolutions.
It angered El Manco very much that Zagal would not regard the affairwith his own eyes, but persisted in cherishing the plan.
"What a splendid spot for an ambush," said he. "The keenest eye cannotperceive any of us, even your Excellency on the horse's back."
"So be it," answered the captain testily. "Take your nestling places,then, at least till after this clearing-off shower. What a swamping!'Sdeath of my life! I do not blame the men of don Benito for keepingindoors."
Diego pointed out a species of alcove of verdure into which he backedhis horse, equally grateful for shelter in the worst torrent of allthat had fallen.
Diego, grinning and showing shark teeth, stood at the mouth of thisbay, lashed by the swinging vines and lianas, eyeing the sky andlistening attentively to all sounds, quiet as a statue.
After that waterspout, the tempest fled with haste, sweeping away allthe gloomy clouds.
Out of the sky of deep blue suddenly sparkled a myriad of stars. Themoon, too, presented a pale face in a watery vapour, which gave aneffect of mirage as if it had a misty partner and the two were slowlydancing.
The atmosphere became of singular limpidity, and the smallest leavesand the flower cups so tiny that only the hummingbirds' bills couldpierce their hollow, were discernible at a distance. Thousands ofgnats and mosquitoes swarmed out of their retreats and played in the
moonlight like motes in the solar beams. The earth began to smoke withvapour, and the flowers exhaled oppressive wealth of perfumes.
The captain, galvanised by the fresh morning breeze, for it must havebeen about three o'clock, was about to call his men for a consultation,when on each side of him he felt a figure rise, and in each of hisleather cheeks was pressed the muzzle of a pistol. At the same time,his arms were grasped and pressed down by his sides. Another pair ofhands seized each leg, real and fictitious, and lifting him up, he washeld in the air like a puppet, whilst the traitorous Diego drew thehorse out from under him. Then his unknown seizers lowered him to theground, in the softness of which his stump was deeply embedded, and alow but firm voice muttered in his ear:
"No nonsense, or you are a dead man before being justly hanged!"
Some stifled oaths and cries, at the same time as a scuffle, betokenedthat his followers were being mastered in the like manner. Only thehorrid grating of a knife along a bone, and a deep groan or two provedthat Zagal or another had offered such a manful resistance as theircaptain well heeded not to attempt.
Two men took the salteador between them, bending like a sack of grain,and carried him, heels first, in that ignominious attitude, through themaze, which was no puzzle to them, into the house over the porch and inat a window from the verandah. The room into which he was transportedwas that where Mr. Gladsden had been entertained. Don Benito, his son,and another gentleman, chiefs of the defensive operations, were thereseated. Two lamps, burning low, were quickly turned up on the arrivalof the prisoner, evidently expected. His carriers were two Mexicansof strong build, armed to the teeth, who set him in an armchair,confronting their master, and stood, one each side of him, pistolsstill in hand.
For a moment don Benito and his captive looked at one another. Hatredand anguish at having been thus placed before his old enemy gave theformer don Anibal the impudence not to quail.
"My so-called captain," said the hacendero, "you are my prisoner."
"By the cursedest treachery," returned Pedrillo, bitterly and reallyburning with indignation.
"Which trick has only prevented you attempting a more shameful deedagainst women and children of your own race--a race that repudiatessuch as you, though."
"I am a volunteer frontier guard," rejoined the freelance, still moreimpudently. "If it were not for my band doing soldierly duty along theborder, your houses, your sheep, your cattle, your families would notbe safe."
"Trash!" returned don Benito. "You are an ally of the redskinmurderers, not their repressor."
"This is the first time I have ever been hand in hand with them," wenton Pedrillo, pleading direct to the third Mexican whom he knew to bea rich proprietor. "They have forced me to act with them. When one isamong wolves, he must howl with them."
"A wolf howls with wolves, but a dog dies battling with them," retortedsenor Bustamente.
Diego entered the room at this juncture.
"Well?" demanded the hacendero.
"One dead with his own knife in his heart; one wounded with a pistolshot which went off in the folds of his blanket, the other safe andsound," reported the false guide.
"This Indian will bear me out that I entered on the mad enterprisereluctantly," began the bandolero in a less firm voice.
"This Indian Diego knows you of old, and I advise you not to requirea character from him. In the time when you resumed your old craft ofpiracy and attacked me in the Gulf, this Indian and his father scuttledyour steamer, effectually executing that diversion which prevented yourcrew from overwhelming my brave friend."
Captain Pedrillo rewarded the Mayo with a malignant look. If he hadonly have suspected this before when he had him in his camp. Whilst heground his teeth and jerked his stump nervously, his judge pursued:
"I have had you decoyed out of your forces that the savages maynot have the benefit of your cultured cunning. You deserve death ahundredfold for warring against Mexico, and that death should be thetraitor's--that by the ignoble rope. But I have no hangman's noosehere; you are going to be honoured with the soldier's fate--you shallonly be shot!"
"Beware!" said Pedrillo, stoutly, though his heart sank; "This house issurrounded by a multitude like the waves of a sea. When the assault ismade for which the signal is the crushing shot of an enormous cannonbeing levelled hereon under cover of the stormy darkness, you will beinundated by the sands of a desert storm. My murder will be avenged oneach of you, your wives, your daughters and your sons and servants,over and over again!"
"Thanks for the caution, but we mean to sell our lives and our dearones' honour most dearly. Meanwhile, you will be shot. Take the carrionhence to the room where Father Serafino will try to soften his hardheart, and then lead him out to execution."
The cold, stern sentence annihilated the salteador's insolence. Hishands dropped and hung each side of the armchair, whilst he murmured indeep terror.
"You have robbed me before of my ship, of my bravest men, and now wouldhave my blood! It is of evil omen to you!"
He trembled, and his eyes seemed to be moistened; clearly his ferocioussoul was weakening, and fear had stricken him to the heart. The twopeons bore him away between them, like an automatic figure, of whichthe limbs of flesh and bone were no more vivified than that of wood.In this supine, hopeless state, the priest could in no way prevail onhim. Half an hour was entirely wasted in unavailing pleading. Then camethe guard to carry out the prostrated miscreant to meet his doom at thedawn of that day when he anticipated he should have the farm at hismercy.
Without resistance, ceasing to tremble but still a weakling, the oncedreaded bandit allowed himself to be propped up against the palisade.By the morn's early light his figure, firmly set by his wooden legbeing fixed in the wet ground, his back against the wood, his headon one shoulder, his eyes closed, his white lips muttering nothingintelligible, could all be seen by the Indians and his followersupon the other eminence. Thence, too, could be discerned the firingparty of peons, five in number, ranged at a few paces, before donBenito, who was to give the word. The miserable aspect of the lameman, like a buzzard with a broken and trailing wing, pitiable despiteits loathsomeness, made the Mexican see that he was judicious in nothanging the robber; the sight of the single leg twitching in the deathstruggle in air would have appealed to humanity, and Pedrillo el Mancowould become an exalted legend among the reprobates of the province.
All was ready.
A gleam of sunlight irradiated the corral, and glistened on the wetpickets, and yellowed the waxen face of the wretch condemned to death.
Don Benito looked at the five gun barrels just catching the sunbeam,and was about to give the order for them to fire, when a totallyunforeshadowed interposition occurred.
When, during the night, the Apaches at the secret gate had heard thescuffle within the enclosure, which denoted how the Mexicans had fallenon the unfortunate companions of Pedrillo, they were off at full speedwithout delay, clearing the moat at a tremendous bound. Two of therobbers succeeded in passing through the postern, but were overtakenand cut down on the brink of the ditch. After that, during the trial ofCaptain Pedrillo, the environs of the hacienda had not been disturbed.At the present moment all eyes within the corral were directed on theculprit so soon to expiate his crimes. Nevertheless, the sentrieswould not have permitted a numerous body of enemies to have approachedunchallenged. But it was another matter as regarded a solitary Apache,who, now hanging by the side of his war pony, now leading it, nowcrawling on alone before, and whistling softly for it to join him, cameup to the palisade totally unseen and unexpected. In fact, how couldthe two hundred peons and Mexicans in the farm enclosure fear anythingfrom a solitary red man?
Thus had Iron Shirt, for it was the chief who devoted himself to adesperate enterprise, reached the outside of the stockade just wherethe bullets, sure to perforate the wood around the death-awaitingbandolero, would salute the unsuspected bystander painfully. Thewoodwork rose some fourteen feet high, effectually masking him and hisequally as ste
adily moving steed. He stopped the latter, vaulted on hisback like a circus rider, stood up, and all of a sudden the startledMexicans beheld the plumed head, the black painted face, and the longarm of the Apache above the pointed posts, just over the coweringbandit's form.
"Fire!" cried don Benito.
But even as he spoke the red arm was extended downwards, the steellikefingers clutched the shoulder of Captain Pedrillo, and he was liftedup with what was a prodigious expenditure of force, albeit he was thelighter by a limb than most men, clear of the low aim of the peons.Then, caught in both arms of the savage, standing on his horse, theMexican was transferred to the farther side of the barricade.
It was the deed of an instant, this snatching aloof of the victim.
Fifty eager men, shaking off their stupefaction, sprang to thestockade, and leaping upon shelves, placed there for the purpose,fired on the disappearing pony, burdened with the double charge, butgallantly bounding away.
At the same time, to draw off a second volley from their gallant chief,a number of Apaches, and the rebels who ran up the incline as far asthe verge of the ditch, shot arrows and bullets into the corral. TheMexicans were compelled to drop down and retire.
True to the chivalric creed that a chief's scalp is to be rescued atany cost, Iron Shirt had saved his brother commander.