CHAPTER XXXVI.
A THUNDERCLAP.
The Araucanos, spread about the camp, saw with surprise these twopersons, both in apparent agitation, pass them. Dona Maria rushed intothe toldo, followed by Don Tadeo. Dona Rosario was fast asleep upona bed of dry leaves, covered with sheepskins. She had the appearanceof a dead person. Don Tadeo, deceived by this, sprang towards her,exclaiming in a tone of despair--
"She is dead! oh, heavens, she is dead!"
"No, no," said the Linda, "she is asleep."
"Still," he exclaimed, "this sleep cannot be natural, for our coming inshould have awakened her."
"Well! perhaps it is not natural."
Don Tadeo cast an inquiring glance at her.
"Oh," she said, ironically, "she is alive; only it was necessary tosend her to sleep for awhile."
Don Tadeo was mute with confused astonishment.
"You do not understand me," she resumed. "Well, I will explain; thisgirl whom you love so much--"
"Oh, yes, I love her!" he interrupted.
"It was I who took her from you," said the Linda, with a bitter smile.
"Wretch, miserable wretch!"
"Why, I hated you, and I avenged myself; I knew the deep love you bearthis creature. To take her from you was aiming a blow at your heart."
"Miserable!" Don Tadeo cried.
"Ah, yes," the Linda replied, smiling, "that revenge was miserable; itdid not at all amount to what I intended; but chance offered me whatcould alone satisfy me, by breaking your very heart."
"What frightful infamy can this monster have imagined?" Don Tadeomurmured.
"Antinahuel, the enemy of your race, your enemy, became enamoured ofthis woman."
"What!" he exclaimed, in a tone of horror.
"Yes, after his fashion, he loved her," she continued, coolly; "so Iresolved to sell her to him, and I did so; but when the chief wished toavail himself of the rights I had given him, she resisted, and armingherself suddenly with a dagger, threatened to plunge it into her ownheart."
"Noble girl!" he exclaimed, deeply affected.
"Is she not?" said the Linda, with her malign vacant smile; "so Itook pity on her, and as I had no particular wish for her death, buta very anxious one for her dishonour, I this evening gave her someopium, which will place her, without means of defence, in the power ofAntinahuel. Have I attained my object this time?"
Don Tadeo made no reply, this utter depravity in a woman absolutelyterrified him.
"Well," she continued, in a mocking tone, "have you nothing to say?"
"Mad woman, mad woman!" he cried, in a loud voice, "you have avengedyourself, you say? Mad woman! Could you a mother, pretending to adoreyour daughter, coolly, unhesitatingly, conceive such crimes? I say, doyou know what you have done?"
"My daughter, you named my daughter! Restore her to me! Tell me whereshe is, and I will save this woman. Oh! if I could but see her!"
"Your daughter, wretch? You serpent bursting with venom! Is it possibleyou think of her?"
"Oh, if I found her again, I would love her so."
"Do you fancy that possible?" said Don Tadeo.
"Oh, yes, a daughter cannot hate her mother."
"Ask herself, then!" he cried, in a voice of thunder.
"What! what! what!" she shrieked. In a tone of thrilling agony, andspringing up as if electrified; "What did you say? What did you say,Don Tadeo?"
"I say, miserable wretch! that the innocent creature whom you havepursued with the inveteracy of a hungry hyena, is your daughter!--doyou hear me? your daughter! She whom you pretend to love so dearly, andwhom, a few minutes ago, you demanded of me so earnestly."
The Linda remained for an instant motionless, as if thunderstruck; andthen exclaimed, with a loud, demoniac laugh--
"Well played, Don Tadeo! well played, by Heaven! For a moment Ibelieved you were telling the truth."
"Oh!" Don Tadeo murmured, "this wretched being cannot recognise her ownchild."
"No, I do not believe it! It is not possible! Nature would have warnedme that it was my child!"
"God renders those blind whom He would destroy, miserable woman! Anexemplary punishment was due to His insulted justice!"
The Linda turned about in the toldo like a wild beast in a cage,uttering inarticulate cries, incessantly repeating in a broken voice--
"No, no! she cannot be my daughter!"
Don Tadeo experienced a feeling of deadly hatred, in spite of hisbetter nature, at beholding this profound grief; he also wished toavenge himself.
"Senseless woman," he said, "had the child I stole from you no sign, nomark whatever, by which it would be possible for you to recognise her?"
"Yes, yes," she cried, roused from her stupor; "wait! wait!"
And she threw herself down upon her knees, leant over the sleepingRosario, and tore the covering from her neck and shoulder.
"My child!" she exclaimed; "it is she! it is my child!"
She had perceived three small moles upon the young girl's rightshoulder. Suddenly her body became agitated by convulsive movements,her face was horribly distorted, her glaring eyes seemed staring fromtheir sockets; she, clasped her hands tightly to her breast, uttereda deep rattle, more like a roar than a sound from a human mouth, androlled upon the ground, crying with an accent impossible to describe--
"My daughter! my daughter! Oh, I will save her!"
She crawled, with the action of a wild beast, to the feet of the poorgirl.
"Rosario, my daughter!" she cried, in a voice broken by sobs; "it is I,it is your mother! Know me, dear!"
"It is you who have killed her," Don Tadeo said, implacably; "unnaturalmother, who coolly planned the dishonour of your own child."
"Oh, do not speak so!" she cried, clasping her hands; "She shall notdie! I will not let her die! She must live! I will save her, I tellyou!"
"It is too late."
"I tell you I will save her," she repeated, in a deep tone.
At this moment the steps of horses resounded.
"Here is Antinahuel!" said Don Tadeo.
"Yes," she replied, with a short, determined accent, "of whatconsequence is his arrival? Woe be to him if he touch my child!"
The curtain of the toldo was lifted by a firm hand, and an Indianappeared: it was Antinahuel. A warrior followed with a torch.
"Eh, eh!" said the chief, with an ironical smile.
"Yes," Linda replied smiling; "my brother arrives opportunely."
"Has my sister had a satisfactory conversation with her husband?"
"Yes," she replied.
"Good! the Great Eagle of the Whites is an intrepid warrior; the Aucaswarriors will soon put his courage to the test."
This brutal allusion to the fate that was reserved for him wasperfectly understood by Don Tadeo.
"Men of my temperament do not allow themselves to be frightened by vainthreats," he retorted.
The Linda drew the chief aside.
"Antinahuel is my brother," she said, in a low voice; "we were broughtup together."
"Has my sister anything to ask for?"
"Yes, and for his own sake my brother would do well to grant it me."
Antinahuel looked at her earnestly.
"Speak," he said, coolly.
"Everything my brother has desired I have done."
The chief bowed his head affirmatively.
"This woman, who resisted him," she continued, "I have given up to himwithout defence."
"Good!"
"My brother knows that the palefaces have secrets which they alonepossess?"
"I know they have."
"If my brother pleases it shall not be a woman cold, motionless, andburied in sleep, that I surrender to him."
The eye of the Indian kindled with a strange light.
"I do not understand my sister," he said.
"I am able," the Linda replied, earnestly, "in three days so completelyto change this woman's feelings for my brother, that she will betowards him loving and devoted."
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"Can my sister do that?" he asked, doubtingly.
"I can do it," she replied, resolutely.
Antinahuel reflected for a few minutes.
"Why did my sister wait so long to do this?"
"Because I did not think it would be necessary."
"Ooch!" said the Indian, thoughtfully.
"Besides," she added, carelessly, "if I say anything about it now, itis only from friendship for my brother."
Whilst pronouncing these words, an internal shudder agitated her wholeframe.
"And will it require three days to effect this change?"
"Three days."
"Antinahuel is a wise chief--he will wait."
The Linda experienced great inward joy; if the chief had refused, herresolution was formed--she would have stabbed him to the heart.
"Good!" she said; "my brother may depend upon my promise."
"Yes," the Toqui replied; "the girl is sick; it would be better sheshould be cured."
The Linda smiled with an undefinable expression.
"The Eagle will follow me," said Antinahuel; "unless he prefers givingme his word."
"No!" Don Tadeo answered.
The two men left the toldo together. Antinahuel commanded his warriorsto guard the prisoner strictly.
At sunrise the camp was struck, and the Aucas marched during the wholeday into the mountains without any determinate object.
"Has my sister commenced?" asked the chief of Linda.
"I have commenced," she replied.
The truth was she had passed the whole day in vainly endeavouring toinduce the maiden to speak to her; the latter had constantly refused,but the Linda was not a woman to be easily repulsed. As soon as thechief had left her, she went to Dona Rosario, and stooping to her ear,said in a low, melancholy voice--
"Pardon me all the ill I have done you--I did not know who you were; inthe name of Heaven, have pity on me--I am your mother!"
At this avowal, the young girl staggered as if she were thunderstruck.The Linda sprang towards her, but Dona Rosario repulsed her with a cryof horror, and fled into her toldo.
"Oh!" the Linda cried, with tears in her eyes, "I will love her so thatshe must pardon me."