Wood Rangers Part 69

"What, dead?" cried the Senator, hiding his face with an embroidered cambric handkerchief. "Poor Don Estevan! I do not think I shall ever be able to console myself."

His future, nevertheless, might not have been obscured by perpetual grief, for the regret he expressed was far from being in harmony with his most secret thoughts. While he acknowledged the many obligations he owed to Don Estevan, he could not help remembering that had he lived, he would have been compelled to spend in political intrigues the half of his wife's marriage portion; half a million of money he must thus have thrown to the dogs. It is true, he said to himself, I shall neither be a count, marquis, or duke of any kind, but to my thinking, half a million of money is worth more than a t.i.tle, and will multiply my pleasures considerably. This fatal event will besides hasten the period of my marriage. Perhaps after all Don Estevan's death is not a misfortune. "Poor Don Estevan," he continued aloud, "what an unexpected blow!"

Tragaduros had yet to learn that it might have been better for him had Don Estevan lived. We will leave him with the haciendado, and follow Gayferos--for perhaps the reader will be glad to hear from him again.

The adventurer had saddled his horse, and unseen by anybody had crossed the plain and again taken the road which led to the Presidio of Tubac.

The route which he followed for some time brought him in contact with few travellers, and when by chance some horseman appeared in the distance, Gayferos, as he pa.s.sed him, exchanged an impatient salutation, but failed to recognise the one he sought.

The day was drawing towards a close, and it was at a late hour when Gayferos uttered a joyful exclamation on seeing three travellers advancing at a gallop.

These travellers were no others than the Canadian, Pepe, and Fabian de Mediana. The giant was mounted upon a strong mule, larger and more vigorous than the Mexican horses. Nevertheless this animal was somewhat out of proportion with the gigantic stature of the rider.

Fabian and Pepe rode two excellent coursers, which they had taken from the Indians.

The young man was greatly changed since the day when he arrived for the first time at the Hacienda del Venado.

Painful and indelible recollections had left their traces upon his pale and wasted cheeks, a few wrinkles furrowed his brow, though the brilliancy of his eye was heightened by the sorrowful reflection of the pa.s.sion which consumed him. But perhaps in the eyes of a woman his pale and sickly appearance might render the young Count of Mediana still more handsome and interesting than was that of Tiburcio Arellanos.

Would not that countenance, enn.o.bled by toil and travel, remind Dona Rosarita of the love for which she had every reason to feel proud and happy? Would it not tell of dangers overcome, and surround itself with a double halo of sacrifice and suffering?

As to the rough countenances of the hunters, sun, fatigue, and danger of every kind had left them unchanged. If the hot winds had bronzed their skin, six months more of the adventurous life to which they were accustomed left no trace upon their sunburnt features.

They testified no surprise on seeing the gambusino, but a lively curiosity was depicted in the glance of each. A look from Gayferos, however, soon satisfied them. That look doubtless a.s.sured them that all was as they wished. Fabian alone expressed some astonishment on seeing his old companion so near the Hacienda del Venado.

"Was if in order to precede us here that you came to take leave of us near Tubac?" asked Fabian.

"Doubtless--did I not tell you so?" replied Gayferos.

"I did not understand you thus," said Fabian, who, without seeming to attach much importance to that which was said or done around him, relapsed into the melancholy silence which had become habitual to him.

Gayferos turned his horse's head round, and the four travellers continued their journey in silence.

At the expiration of an hour, during which Gayferos and the Canadian only exchanged a few words in a low tone, and to which Fabian, always absorbed in thought, gave no attention, the recollections of a past, not very remote, crowded upon the memory of the three travellers. They were again crossing the plain which extends beyond El Salto de Agua, and a few minutes afterwards they reached the torrent itself which foams down perpetually between the rocks. A bridge, the same size as the former one, replaced that which had been precipitated into the gulf below by those men who now slept their last sleep in the valley of gold, the object of their ambition.

The Canadian here dismounted.

"Now, Fabian," said he, "here Don Estevan was found; the three bandits (I except, however, poor Diaz, the tenor of the Indians) were there.

See, here are still the prints of your horse's hoofs--when he slipped from this rock, dragging you downwards in his fall. Ah! Fabian, my child, I can even now see the water foaming around you--even now hear the cry of anguish I uttered. What an impetuous young man you then were!"

"That I no longer am," said Fabian, smiling sadly.

"Oh, no! at the present time your manner is imbued with the firm stoicism of an Indian warrior who smiles at the tortures of the stake.

In the midst of these scenes your face is calm, yet I am convinced the recollections they recall to you must be harrowing in the extreme; is it not so, Fabian?"

"You are mistaken, my father," replied Fabian; "my heart resembles this rock, where, though you say so, I no longer trace my horse's hoofs; and my memory is mute as the echo of your own voice, which you seem still to hear. When, before suffering me to return and live forever removed from the inhabitants of yonder deserts, you required as a last trial that I should again behold a spot which might recall old recollections, I told you those recollections no longer existed."

A tear dimmed the Canadian's eye, but he concealed it by turning his back to Fabian as he remounted his mule.

The travellers then crossed the bridge formed of the trunks of trees.

"Do you trace upon this moss which covers the ground the print of my horse's hoofs when I pursued Don Estevan and his troop?" asked Fabian of Bois-Rose. "No! the dead leaves of the past winter have obliterated them--the gra.s.s which sprung up after the rainy season has grown over them."

"Ah! if I raised the leaves, if I tore up the gra.s.s, I should again discover their traces, Fabian; and if I searched the depth of your heart--"

"You would find nothing, I tell you," interrupted Fabian with some impatience; "but I am mistaken," he added, gently, "you would find a reminiscence of childhood, one of those in which you are a.s.sociated, my father."

"I believe it, Fabian, I believe it--you who have been the delight of my whole life; but I have told you that I will not accept your sacrifice until to-morrow at this hour, when you shall have seen all, even the breach in the old wall, over which you once sprung, wounded in body and spirit."

A shudder, like that of the condemned on seeing the last terrible instrument of torture, pa.s.sed through Fabian's frame.

The travellers halted at length, in that part of the forest situated between the Salto de Agua and the hacienda, in the open s.p.a.ce where Fabian had found in the Canadian and his comrade, friends whom G.o.d seemed to have sent to him from the extreme ends of the earth.

Now the shades of night no longer obscured the silent depths of the American forest--a silence in which there is something awful when the sun in its zenith sends forth burning rays like blades of crimson fire, when the flower of the lliana closes its chalice, when the stems of the gra.s.s drop languidly downwards, as though in search of nourishment, and the whole face of nature, silent and inanimate, appears buried in sleep.

The distant roar of the cataract was the only sound which at this hour broke the stillness of the forest.

The travellers unsaddled, and having removed their horses' bridles, fastened them at some distance off. As they had travelled all night to escape the heat of the sun, they determined to take their siesta under the shade of the trees.

Gayferos was the first who fell asleep. His affection for Fabian was not disturbed by any fears for the future. Pepe was not long in following his example. The Canadian only and Fabian did not close their eyes.

"You are not sleeping, Fabian," said Bois-Rose, in a low voice.

"No, nor you. Why do you not take some rest, like our companions?"

"One cannot sleep, Fabian, in a spot consecrated by so many sacred memories," replied the old hunter. "This place is rendered holy to me.

Was it not here that, by the intervention of a miracle, I again found you in the heart of this forest, after having lost you upon the wide ocean? I should be ungrateful to the Almighty if I could forget this-- even to obtain the rest which He has appointed for us."

"I think as you do, my father, and listen to your words," replied the young Count.

"Thanks, Fabian; thanks also to that G.o.d who ordained that I should find you with a heart so n.o.ble and so loving. See! here are still the remains of the fire near which I sat; here are the brands, still black, though they have been washed by the rain of an entire season. Here is the tree against which I leant on the happiest evening of my life, since it restored you to me; for now that I can again call you my son, each day of my existence has been fraught with happiness, until I learnt what I should have understood, that my affection for you was not that to which the young heart aspires."

"Why so frequently allude to this subject, my father?" said Fabian, with that gentle submission which is more cutting than the bitterest reproach.

"As you will. Let us not again allude to that which may pain you; we shall speak of it after the trial to which I have submitted you."

The father and son--for we may indeed call them so--now maintained a long silence, listening only to the voices of nature. The sun approached the horizon, a light breeze sprung up and rustled among the leaves; already hopping from branch to branch, the birds resumed their song, the insects swarmed in the gra.s.s, and the lowing of cattle was heard in the distance. It was the denizens of the forest who welcomed the return of evening.

The two sleepers awoke.

After a short and substantial repast, of which Gayferos had brought the materials from the Hacienda del Venado, the four travellers awaited in calm meditation the hour of their great trial.

Some time pa.s.sed away before the azure sky above the open clearing was overcast.

Gradually, however, the light of day diminished on the approach of twilight, and then myriads of stars shone in the firmament, like sparks sown by the sun as he quitted the horizon. At length, as on that evening to which so many recollections belonged, when Fabian, wounded, reached the wood-rangers by their fire, the moon illumined the summits of the trees and the glades of the forest.

"Can we light a fire?" inquired Pepe.

"Certainly; for it may chance that we shall spend the night here,"