The Border Rifles Part 53

The Captain looked at him.

"Will you answer my questions?"

"I do not know."

"What do you say?"

"Listen, Excellency," the guide said, with a simple look, "my mother, worthy woman that she was, always recommended me to distrust two sorts of people, borrowers and questioners, for she said, with considerable sense, the first attack your purse, the others your secrets."

"Then you have a secret?"

"Not the least in the world."

"Then what do you fear?"

"Not much, it is true. Well, question me, Excellency, and I will try to answer you."

The Mexican peasant, the Manzo or civilized Indian, has a good deal of the Norman peasant about him, in so far as it is impossible to obtain from him a positive answer to any question asked him. The Captain was compelled to be satisfied with the guide's half promise, so he went on:--

"Who are you?"

"I?"

"Yes, you."

The guide began laughing.

"You can see plainly enough," he said.

The Captain shook his head.

"I do not ask you what you appear to be, but what you really are."

"Why, senor, what man can answer for himself, and know positively who he is?"

"Listen, scoundrel," the Captain continued, in a menacing tone, "I do not mean to lose my time in following you through all the stories you may think proper to invent. Answer my questions plainly, or, if not--"

"If not?" the guide impudently interrupted him.

"I blow out your brains like a dog's!" he replied, as he drew a pistol from his belt, and hastily c.o.c.ked it.

The soldier's eye flashed fire, but his features remained impa.s.sive, and not a muscle of his face stirred.

"Oh, oh, senor Captain," he said, in a sombre voice, "you have a singular way of questioning your friends."

"Who a.s.sures me that you are a friend? I do not know you."

"That is true, but you know the person who sent me to you; that person is your Chief as he is mine. I obeyed him by coming to find you, as you ought to obey him by following the orders he has given you."

"Yes, but those orders were sent me through you."

"What matter?"

"Who guarantees that the despatch you have brought me was really handed to you?"

"Caramba, Captain, what you say is anything but flattering to me," the guide replied with an offended look.

"I know it; unhappily we live at a time when it is so difficult to distinguish friends from foes, that I cannot take too many precautions to avoid falling into a snare; I am entrusted by Government with a very delicate mission, and must therefore behave with great reserve toward persons who are strangers to me."

"You are right, Captain; hence, in spite of the offensive nature of your suspicions, I will not feel affronted by what you say, for exceptional positions require exceptional measures. Still, I will strive by my conduct to prove to you how mistaken you are."

"I shall be glad if I am mistaken; but take care. If I perceive anything doubtful, either in your actions or your words, I shall not hesitate to blow out your brains. Now that you are warned, it is your place to act in accordance."

"Very good, Captain, I will run the risk. Whatever happens. I feel certain that my conscience will absolve me, for I shall have acted for the best."

This was said with an air of frankness which, in spite of his suspicions, had its effect on the Captain.

"We shall see," he said; "shall we soon get out of this infernal forest in which we now are?"

"We have only two hours' march left; at sunset we shall join the persons who are awaiting us."

"May Heaven grant it!" the Captain muttered.

"Amen!" the soldier said boldly.

"Still, as you have not thought proper to answer any of the questions I asked you, you must not feel offended if I do not let you out of sight from this moment, and keep you by my side when we start again."

"You can do as you please, Captain; you have the power, if not the right, on your side, and I am compelled to yield to your will."

"Very good, now you can sleep if you think proper."

"Then you have nothing more to say to me?"

"Nothing."

"In that case I will avail myself of the permission you are kind enough to grant me, and try to make up for lost time."

The soldier then rose, stiffing a long yawn, walked a few paces off, lay down on the ground, and seemed within a few minutes plunged in a deep sleep.

The Captain remained awake. The conversation he had held with his guide only increased his anxiety, by proving to him that this man concealed great cunning beneath an abrupt and trivial manner. In fact, he had not answered one of the questions asked him, and after a few minutes had succeeded in making the Captain turn from the offensive to the defensive, by giving him speciously logical arguments to which the officer was unable to raise any objection.

Don Juan was, therefore at this moment in the worst temper a man of honour can be in, who is dissatisfied with himself and others, fully convinced that he was in the right, but compelled, to a certain extent, to allow himself in the wrong.

The soldiers, as generally happens in such cases, suffered from their chief's ill temper; for the officer, afraid of adding the darkness to the evil chances he fancied he had against him, and not at all desirous to be surprised by night in the inextricable windings of the forest, cut the halt short much sooner than he would have done under different circ.u.mstances.

At about two o'clock P.M. he ordered the boot and saddle to be sounded, and gave the word to start.

The greatest heat of the day had pa.s.sed over, the sunbeams being more oblique, had lost a great deal of their power, and the march was continued under conditions comparatively better than those which preceded it.