CHAPTER IV.
THE MANADA.
The night was splendid, the dark blue sky was studded with millions ofstars which shed a gentle and mysterious light.
The silence of the desert was traversed by thousands of melodious andanimated whispers; gleams, flashing through the shadows, ran over thegrass like will-o'-the-wisps. On the opposite bank of the river the oldmoss-clad oaks stood out like phantoms, and waved in the breeze theirlong branches covered with lichens and lianas; vague sounds ran throughthe air, nameless cries emerged from the forest lairs, the gentlesighing of the wind in the foliage was heard, and the murmur of thewater on the pebbles, and last that inexplicable and unexplained soundof buzzing life which comes from God, and which the majestic solitude ofthe American savannahs renders more imposing.
The hunter yielded involuntarily to all the puissant influences of theprimitive nature that surrounded him. He felt strengthened and cheeredby it; his being was identified with the sublime scene he surveyed; agentle and pensive melancholy fell upon him; so far from men and theirstunted civilization, he felt himself nearer to God, and his simplefaith was heightened by the admiration aroused in him by these secretsof nature, which were partly unveiled in his presence.
The soul is expanded, thought enlarged, by contact with this nomadiclife, in which each minute that passes produces new and unexpectedincidents; where at each step man sees the finger of God imprinted in anindelible manner on the abrupt and grand scenery that surrounds him.
Hence this existence of danger and privation possesses, for those whohave once essayed it, a nameless charm and intoxication,incomprehensible joys, which cause it ever to be regretted; for it isonly in the desert man feels that he lives, takes the measure of hisstrength, and the secret of his power is revealed to him.
The hours passed thus rapidly with the hunter, though slumber did notonce close his eyelids. Already the cold morning breeze was curling thetops of the trees, and rippling the surface of the stream, whose silverywaters reflected the shadows of its irregular banks; on the horizonbroad pink stripes revealed the speedy dawn of day. The owl, hiddenbeneath the foliage, had twice saluted the return of light, with itsmelancholy toowhit--it was about three o'clock in the morning.
Tranquil left the rustic seat on which he had hitherto remained, shookoff the stiffening feeling which had seized on him, and walked a fewpaces up and down the sand to restore the circulation in his limbs.
When a man, we will not say awakes--for the worthy Canadian had notclosed his eyes once during the whole of this long watch--but shakes offthe torpor into which the silence, darkness, and, above all, thepiercing cold of night have plunged him, he requires a few minutes toregain possession of his faculties, and restore perfect lucidity ofmind. This was what happened to the hunter; still, long habituated as hehad been to desert life, the time was shorter to him than to another,and he was soon as acute and watchful as he had been on the previousevening; he therefore prepared to arouse his comrade, who was stillenjoying that good and refreshing sleep which is only shared here belowby children and men whose conscience is void of any evil thought--whenhe suddenly stopped, and began listening anxiously.
From the remote depths of the forest, which formed a thick curtainbehind his camping-place, the Canadian had heard an inexplicable rumourrise, which increased with every moment, and soon assumed theproportions of hoarsely-rolling thunder.
This noise approached nearer; it seemed like sharp and hurried stampingof hoofs, rustling of trees and branches, hoarse bellowing, which hadnothing human about it; in short, it was a frightful, inexplicablesound, momentarily growing louder and louder, and yet more confused.
Quoniam, startled by the strange noise, was standing, rifle in hand,with his eye fixed on the hunter, ready to act at the first sign, thoughunable to account for what was occurring, a prey to that instinctiveterror which assails the bravest man when he feels himself menaced by aterrible and unknown danger.
Several minutes passed thus.
"What is to be done?" Tranquil murmured, hesitatingly, as he tried invain to explore the depths of the forest, and account for what wasoccurring.
All at once a shrill whistle was audible a short distance off.
"Ah," Tranquil exclaimed, with a start of joy as he threw up his head,"now I shall know what I have to depend on."
And, placing his fingers in his mouth, he imitated the cry of the heron;at the same moment a man bounded from the forest, and with twotiger-like leaps was by the hunter's side.
"Wah!" he exclaimed, "What is my brother doing here?"
It was Black-deer, the Indian Chief.
"I am awaiting you, Chief," the Canadian answered.
The Redskin was a man of twenty-six to twenty-seven years of age, ofmiddle height, but admirably proportioned. He wore the great war-garb ofhis nation, and was painted and armed as if on the war-trail; his facewas handsome, his features intelligent, and his whole countenanceindicated bravery and kindness.
At this moment he seemed suffering from an agitation, the moreextraordinary because the Redskins make it a point of honour never toappear affected by any event, however terrible in its nature; his eyesflashed fire, his words were quick and harsh, and his voice had ametallic accent.
"Quick," he said, "we have lost too much time already."
"What is the matter?" Tranquil asked.
"The buffaloes!" said the Chief.
"Oh! oh!" Tranquil exclaimed, in alarm.
He understood all; the noise he had heard for some time past wasoccasioned by a _manada_ of buffaloes, coming from the east, andprobably proceeding to the higher western prairies.
What the hunter so quickly comprehended requires to be briefly explainedto the reader, in order that he may understand to what a terribledanger our characters were suddenly exposed.
Manada is the name given in the old Spanish possessions to an assemblageof several thousand wild animals. Buffaloes, in their periodicalmigrations during the pairing season, collect at times in manadas offifteen and twenty thousand animals, forming a compact herd; andtravelling together, they go straight onwards, closely packed together,leaping over everything, and overthrowing every obstacle that opposestheir passage. Woe to the rash man who would attempt to check or changethe direction of their mad course, for he would be trampled like a wispof straw beneath the feet of these stupid animals, which would pass overhim without even noticing him.
The position of the three hunters was consequently extremely critical,for hazard had placed them exactly in front of a manada, which wascoming towards them at lightning speed.
Flight was impossible, and could not be thought of, while resistance wasmore impossible still.
The noise approached with fearful rapidity; already the savage bellowingof the buffaloes could be distinctly heard, mingled with the barking ofthe prairie wolves; and the shrill miauls of the jaguars which dashedalong on the flanks of the manada, chasing the laggards or those thatimprudently turned to the right or left.
Within a quarter of an hour all would be over; the hideous avalanchealready appeared, sweeping away all in its passage with thatirresistible brute force which nothing can overcome.
We repeat it, the position was critical.
Black-deer was proceeding to the meeting place; he had himselfindicated to the Canadian hunter, and was not more than three or fourleagues from the spot where he expected to find him, when his practisedear caught the sound of the mad chase of the buffaloes. Five minutes hadsufficed for him to recognize the imminence of the danger his friendincurred; with that rapidity of decision which characterizes Redskins inextreme cases, he had resolved to warn his friend, and to save or perishwith him. He had then rushed forward, leaping with headlong speed overthe space that separated him from the place of meeting, having only onethought, that of distancing the manada, so that the hunter might escape.Unhappily, however quickly he went--and the Indians are remarkable fortheir fabulous agility--he had not been able to arrive soon enough tosave his friend.
"When the Chief, after warning the hunter, recognized the futility ofhis efforts, a sudden change took place in him. His features reassumedtheir old stoicism; a sad smile played round his mocking lips, and hesank to the ground, muttering, in a hollow voice--
"The Wacondah would not permit it."
But Tranquil did not accept the position with the same resignation andfatalism, for he belonged to that race of energetic men whose powerfulcharacter causes them to struggle to their dying breath.
When he saw that the Redskin, with the fatalism peculiar to his race,gave up the contest for life, he resolved to make a supreme effort, andattempt impossibilities.
About twenty yards in front of the spot where the hunter had establishedhis bivouac, were several trees lying on the ground, dead, and, as itwere, piled on each other; then, behind this species of breastwork aclump of five or six oaks grew, isolated from all the rest, and formed asort of oasis in the midst of the sand on the river bank.
"Quick!" the hunter shouted. "Quoniam, pick up as much dead wood as youcan find, and come here. Chief, do the same."
The two men obeyed without comprehending, but reassured by theircomrade's coolness.
In a few minutes a considerable pile of dead wood was piled over thefallen oaks.
"Good!" the hunter exclaimed; "By Heaven! All is not lost yet--takecourage!"
Then, carrying to this improvised bonfire the remains of the fire he hadlit at his bivouac, to defeat the night cold, he enlarged the flameswith resinous matters, and in less than five minutes a large column rosewhirling to the clouds, and soon formed a dense curtain more than tenyards in width.
"Back! back!" the hunter then shouted,--"follow me."
Black-deer and Quoniam dashed after him.
The Canadian did not go far; on reaching the clump of trees we havealluded to, he clambered up the largest with unparalleled skill andagility, and soon he and his comrades found themselves perched a heightof fifty feet in the air, comfortably lodged on strong branches, andcompletely concealed by the foliage.
"There," the Canadian said, with the utmost coolness, "this is our lastresource; so soon as the column appears, fire at the leaders; if theflash startles the buffaloes, we are saved; if not, we shall only havedeath to await. But, at any rate, we shall have done all that washumanly possible to save our lives."
The fire kindled by the hunter had assumed gigantic proportions; it hadextended from tree to tree, lighting up the grass and shrubs, and thoughtoo remote from the forest to kindle it, it soon formed a curtain offlames nearly a quarter of a mile in length, whose reddish gleam tingedthe sky for a long distance, and gave the landscape a character ofstriking and savage grandeur.
From the spots where the hunters had sought shelter they commanded thisocean of flame, which could not reach them, and completely hovered overits furnace.
All at once a terrible crash was heard, and the vanguard of the manadaappeared on the skirt of the forest.
"Look out!" the hunter shouted, as he shouldered his rifle.
The buffaloes, startled by the sight of this wall of flame that rosesuddenly before them, dazzled by the glare, and at the same time burnedby its extreme heat, hesitated for an instant, as if consulting, butthen rushed forward with blind fury, and uttering snorts of fury.
Three shots were fired.
The three leading buffaloes fell and rolled in the agonies of death.
"We are lost!" Tranquil said, coldly.
The buffaloes still advanced.
But soon the heat became insupportable; the smoke, driven in thedirection of the manada by the wind, blinded the animals; then areaction was effected; there was a delay, soon followed by a recoil.
The hunters, with panting breasts, followed anxiously the strangeinterludes of this terrible scene. A question of life or death for themwas being decided at this moment, and their existence only hung on athread.
In the meanwhile the mass still pushed onward. The animals that led themanada could not resist the pressure of those that followed them; theywere thrown down and trampled underfoot by the rear, but the latter,assailed in their turn by the heat, also tried to turn back. At thismoment some of the buffaloes diverged to the right and left; this wasenough, the others followed them: two currents were established oneither side the fire, and the manada cut in two, overflowed like atorrent that has burst its dykes, rejoining on the bank, and crossingthe stream in close column.
Terrible was the spectacle presented by this manada flying in horror,pursued by wild beasts, and enclosing, amid its ranks, the fire kindledby the hunter, and which seemed like a gloomy lighthouse intended toindicate the track.
They soon plunged into the stream, which they crossed in a straightline, and their long serried columns glided up the other bank, where thehead of the manada speedily disappeared.
The hunters were saved by the coolness and presence of mind of theCanadian; still, for nearly two hours longer, they remained Concealedamong the branches that sheltered them.
The buffaloes continued to pass on their right and left. The fire hadgone out through lack of nourishment, but the direction had been given,and, on reaching the fire, which was now but a pile of ashes, the columnseparated of its own accord into two parts.
At length, the rearguard made its appearance, harassed by the jaguarsthat leaped on their back and flank, and then all was over. The desert,whose silence had been temporarily disturbed, fell back into its usualcalmness, and merely a wide track made through the heart of the forest,and covered with fallen trees, testified to the furious passage of thisdisorderly herd.
The hunters breathed again; now they could without danger leave theirairy fortress, and go back again to earth.