The Freebooters: A Story of the Texan War Read online

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  THE FREEBOOTERS.

  A Story of the Texan War.

  BY

  GUSTAVE AIMARD,

  AUTHOR OF "BORDER RIFLES," "THE INDIAN SCOUT," ETC.

  LONDON:

  WARD AND LOCK,

  158, FLEET STREET.

  MDCCCLXI.

  PREFACE.

  Apart from the thrilling interest of Aimard's new story, which Iherewith offer to English readers, I think it will be accepted withgreater satisfaction, as being an historical record of the last greatcontest in which the North Americans were engaged. As at the presentmoment everything is eagerly devoured that may tend to throw light onthe impending struggle between North and South, I believe that the storyof "THE FREEBOOTERS," which is rigorously true in its details, willenable my readers to form a correct opinion of the character of theSoutherners.

  The series, of which this volume forms a second link, will be completedin a third volume, to be called "THE WHITE SCALPER," which contains anelaborate account of the liberation of Texas, and the memorable battleof San Jacinto, together with personal adventures of the mostextraordinary character.

  L.W.

  7, DRAYTON TERRACE,

  WEST BROMPTON.

  CONTENTS.

  I. FRAY ANTONIO II. INDIAN DIPLOMACY III. DOWN THE PRECIPICE IV. TWO ENEMIES V. GENERAL RUBIO VI. THE HUNTER'S COUNCIL VII. AN OLD FRIEND VIII. QUONIAM'S RETURN IX. HOSPITALITY X. THE LARCH-TREE HACIENDA XI. A METAMORPHOSIS XII. THE SUMMONS XIII. THE SIEGE XIV. THE PROPOSAL XV. A THUNDERBOLT XVI. THE CONSPIRATORS XVII. THE SPY XVIII. THE PULQUERIA XIX. AT SEA XX. THE PRIZE XXI. A STRANGE LEGEND XXII. THE SURPRISE XXIII. EL SALTO DEL FRAYLE XXIV. THE LANDING XXV. FORWARD!

  CHAPTER I.

  FRAY ANTONIO.

  All the wood rangers have noticed, with reference to the immense virginforests which still cover a considerable extent of the soil of the NewWorld, that, to the man who attempts to penetrate into one of thesemysterious retreats which the hand of man has not yet deformed, andwhich preserve intact the sublime stamp which Deity has imprinted onthem, the first steps offer almost insurmountable difficulties, whichare gradually smoothed down more and more, and after a little whilealmost entirely disappear. It is as if Nature had desired to defend by abelt of thorns and spikes the mysterious shades of these aged forests,in which her most secret arcana are carried out.

  Many times, during our wanderings in America, we were in a position toappreciate the correctness of the remark we have just made: thissingular arrangement of the forests, surrounded, as it were, by arampart of parasitic plants entangled one in the other, and thrusting inevery direction their shoots full of incredible sap, seemed a problemwhich offered a certain degree of interest from various points of view,and especially from that of science.

  It is evident to us that the circulation of the air favours thedevelopment of vegetation. The air which circulates freely round a largeextent of ground covered with lofty trees, and is driven by the variousbreezes that agitate the atmosphere, penetrates to a certain depth intothe clumps of trees it surrounds, and consequently supplies nourishmentto all the parasitical shrubs vegetation presents to it. But, onreaching a certain depth under the covert, the air, less frequentlyrenewed, no longer supplies carbonic acid to all the vegetation thatcovers the soil, and which, through the absence of that aliment, pinesaway and dies.

  This is so true, that those accidents of soil which permit the air amore active circulation in certain spots, such as the bed of a torrentor a gorge between two eminences, the entrance of which is open to theprevailing wind, favour the development of a more luxuriant vegetationthan in flat places.

  It is more than probable that Fray Antonio[1] made none of thereflections with which we begin this chapter, while he stepped silentlyand quietly through the trees, leaving the man who had helped him, andprobably saved his life, to struggle as he could with the crowd ofRedskins who attacked him, and against whom he would indubitably havegreat difficulty in defending him.

  Fray Antonio was no coward; far from it: in several criticalcircumstances he had displayed true bravery; but he was a man to whomthe existence he led offered enormous advantages and incalculabledelights. Life seemed to him good, and he did all in his power to spendit jolly and free from care. Hence, through respect for himself, he wasextremely prudent, only facing danger when it was absolutely necessary;but at such times, like all men driven into a corner, he became terribleand really dangerous to those who, in one way or the other, had provokedin him this explosion of passion.

  In Mexico, and generally throughout Spanish America, as the clergy areonly recruited from the poorest class of the population, their rankscontain men of gross ignorance, and for the most part of more thandoubtful morality. The religious orders, which form nearly one-third ofthe population, living nearly independent of all subjection and control,receive among them people of all sorts, for whom the religious dressthey don is a cloak behind which they give way with perfect liberty totheir vices, of which the most venial are indubitably indolence, luxury,and intoxication.

  Enjoying a great credit with the civilized Indian population, andgreatly respected by them, the monks impudently abuse that halo ofsanctity which surrounds them, in order to shamefully plunder these poorpeople under the slightest excuses.

  Indeed, blackguardism and demoralisation have attained such a pitch inthese unhappy countries, which are old and decrepit without ever havingbeen young, that the conduct of the monks, offensive it may seem in thesight of Europeans, has nothing at all extraordinary for those amongwhom they live.

  Far from us the thought of leading it to be supposed that among theMexican clergy, and even the monks we have so decried, there are not menworthy of the gown they wear, and convinced of the sanctity of theirmission; we have, indeed, known many of that character; butunfortunately they form so insignificant a minority, that they must beregarded as the exception.

  Fray Antonio was assuredly no better or worse than the other monks whosegown he wore; but, unluckily for him, for some time past fatalityappeared to have vented its spite on him, and mixed him up, despite hisfirm will, in events, not only opposed to his character but to hishabits, which led him into a multitude of tribulations each moredisagreeable than the other, and which were beginning to make himconsider that life extremely bitter, which he had hitherto found sopleasant.

  The atrocious mystification of which John Davis had rendered the poormonk a victim, had especially spread a gloomy haze over his hitherto sogay mind; a sad despondency had seized upon him; and it was with a heavyand uncertain step that he fled through the forest, although, excited bythe sounds of combat that still reached his ear, he made haste to getoff, through fear of falling into the hands of the Redskins, if theyproved the victors.

  Night surprised poor Fray Antonio ere he had reached the skirt of thisforest, which seemed to him interminable. Naturally anything buthard-working, and not at all used to desert life, the monk found himselfgreatly embarrassed when he saw the sun disappear on the horizon in amist of purple and gold, and the darkness almost instantaneously coverthe earth. Unarmed, without means of lighting a fire, half-dead withhunger and alarm, the monk took a long glance of despair around him, andfell to the ground, giving vent to a dull groan: he literally did notknow to what saint he should appeal.

  Still, after a few moments, the instinct of self-preservation gained themastery over discouragement, and the monk, whose teeth chattered withterror on hearing re-echoed through the forest the lugubrious roaring ofthe wild beasts, which were b
eginning to awaken, and greeted in theirfashion the longed-for return of gloom--rose with a feverish energy,and suffering from that feverish over-excitement which fear raised to acertain pitch produces, resolved to profit by the fugitive rays thatstill crossed the glade, to secure himself a shelter for the night.

  Opposite to him grew a majestic mahogany tree, whose interlaced branchesand dense foliage seemed to offer him a secure retreat against theprobable attack of the gloomy denizens of the forest.

  Assuredly, under any other circumstances than those in which he foundhimself, the bare idea of escalading this immense forest would haveappeared to the monk the height of folly and mental aberration, owingfirst to his paunch, and next to his awkwardness, of which he feltintimately convinced.

  But it was a critical point: at each instant the situation grew moredangerous; the howling came nearer in a most alarming manner; there wasno time to hesitate; and Fray Antonio did not do so. After walking onceor twice round the tree, in order to discover the spot which offered himthe greatest facility for his ascent, he gave vent to a sigh, embracedthe enormous and rugged trunk with his arms and knees, and painfullycommenced his attempted climb.

  But it was no easy matter, especially for a plump monk, to mount thetree, and Fray Antonio soon perceived this fact at his own expense; foreach time that, after extraordinary efforts, he managed to raise himselfa few inches from the ground, his strength suddenly failed him, and hefell back on the ground with lacerated hands and torn clothes.

  Ten times already had he renewed his efforts, with the desperationproduced by despair, without seeing them crowned with success; theperspiration poured down his face; his chest panted; he was in a stateto produce pity even in his most obstinate enemy.

  "I shall never succeed in mounting it," he muttered sadly; "and if Iremain here, I am a lost man, for within an hour I shall be infalliblydevoured by some tiger in search of its supper."

  This final reflection, which was incontestably true, restored a freshardour to the monk, who resolved to make a new and supreme attempt Butthis time he wished to take all his precautions; consequently, he begancollecting the dead wood round him and piling it at the foot of thetree, so as to form a scaffolding high enough for him to reach, withoutany great difficulty, a branch sufficiently low for him, while carefulto remain awake, to hope to spend the night without fear of beingdevoured--an alternative for which the worthy monk did not feel theslightest inclination.

  Soon, thanks to the vivacity of his movements, Fray Antonio had aconsiderable heap of wood piled up around him. A smile of satisfactionlit up his wide face, and he breathed again, while wiping away theperspiration that poured down his face.

  "This time," he muttered, calculating with a glance the space he had tocover, "if I do not succeed, I shall be preciously clumsy."

  In the meanwhile the last gleams of twilight, so useful to the monk, hadentirely disappeared; the absence of the stars, which had not yet shownthemselves, left a profound obscurity in the sky, which was even moreobscure under the covert; all was beginning to be blotted out, onlyallowing here and there a few clumps of trees to be distinguished, asthey designed their gloomy masses in the night, or a few patches ofwater, the result of the last storm, which studded the forest with palerspots. The evening breeze had risen, and could be heard soughing throughthe foliage with a sad and melancholy plaintiveness.

  The dangerous denizens of the forest had quitted their lurking places,and crushed the dead wood, as they eagerly came on, amid a deafeningcurrent of catlike howls. The monk had not an instant to lose, if he didnot wish to be attacked on all sides at once by the wild beasts, whom alengthened fast rendered more terrible still.

  After taking a searching glance around him in order to assure himselfthat no pressing danger threatened him, the monk devotedly crossedhimself, fervently recommended himself to Heaven with a sincerity he hadprobably never evinced before, and then, suddenly making up his mind,began resolutely climbing up the pile of wood. After severalunsuccessful attempts, he at last reached the top of this fictitiousmount.

  He then stopped for a minute to draw breath; indeed, thanks to hisingenious ideas, Fray Antonio was now nearly ten feet from the ground.It is true that any animal could easily have overthrown this obstacle;but for all that, this beginning of success revived the monk's courage,the more so because, on raising his eyes he saw a few paces above him,the blessed branch toward which he had so long extended his arms invain.

  "Come!" he said, hopefully.

  He embraced the tree once more, and recommenced his fatiguingclambering. Either through skill or accident Fray Antonio at lengthmanaged to seize the branch with both hands, and clung to it with allhis strength. The rest was as nothing. The monk assembled by a supremeeffort all the vigour his previous attempts had left him, and raisinghimself by his arms, tried to get astride on the branch. Owing to hisenergetic perseverances, he had raised his head and shoulders above thebranch, when all at once he felt a hand or a claw fasten round his rightleg, and squeeze it as in a vice. A shudder of terror ran over themonk's body: his blood stood still in his veins; an icy perspirationbeaded on his temples, and his teeth chattered fit to break.

  "Mercy!" he exclaimed in a choking voice, "I am dead. Holy virgin, havepity on me."

  His strength, paralyzed by terror, deserted him, his hands let loose theprotecting branch, and he fell in a lump at the foot of the tree.Fortunately for Fray Antonio, the care he had taken in piling up thedead wood to a considerable extent broke his fall, otherwise it wouldprobably have been mortal: but the shock he experienced was so greatthat he completely lost his senses. The monk's fainting fit was long:when he returned to life and opened his eyes again, he took a frightenedglance around, and fancied he must be suffering from a horriblenightmare.

  He had not stirred from the spot, so to speak: he still found himselfby the tree, which he had tried so long to climb up in vain, but he waslying close to an enormous fire, over which half a deer was roasting,and around him were some twenty Indians, crouching on their heels,silently smoking their pipes, while their horses, picketed a few yardsoff, and ready to mount, were eating their provender.

  Fray Antonio had seen Indians several times before, and had stood onsuch intimate terms, indeed, with them, as to be able to recognize them.His new friends were clothed in their war garb, and from their hairdrawn off their foreheads, and their long barbed lances, it was easy torecognize them as Apaches.

  The monk's blood ran cold, for the Apaches are notorious for theircruelty and roguery. Poor Fray Antonio had fallen from Charybdis intoScylla; he had only escaped from the jaws of the wild beasts in order tobe in all probability martyred by the Redskins. It was a sad prospectwhich furnished the unlucky monk with ample material for thoughts, eachmore gloomy than the other, for he had often listened with a shudder tothe hunters' stories about the atrocious tortures the Apaches take adelight in inflicting on their prisoners with unexampled barbarity.

  Still, the Indians went on smoking silently, and did not appear toperceive that their captive had regained his senses. For his part, themonk hermetically closed his eyes, and anxiously preserved the mostperfect tranquillity, in order to leave his dangerous companions, solong as he could, in ignorance of the state in which he was.

  At length the Indians left off smoking, and after shaking the ash out oftheir calumets, passed them again through their girdle; a Redskinremoved from the fire the half deer which was perfectly roasted, laid itin abanijo leaves in front of his comrades, and each drawing hisscalping knife, prepared for a vigorous attack on the venison, whichexhaled an appetizing odour, especially for the nostrils of a man who,during the whole past day, had been condemned to an absolute fast.

  At this moment the monk felt a heavy hand laid on his chest, while avoice said to him with a guttural accent, which, however, had nothingmenacing about it.

  "The father of prayer can open his eyes now, for the venison is smoking,and his share is cut off."

  The monk, perceiving that his stratagem w
as discovered, and excited bythe smell of the meat, having made up his mind, opened his eyes, and satup.

  "Och!" the man who had before spoken said, "My father can eat; he mustbe hungry, and has slept enough."

  The monk attempted to smile, but only made a frightful grimace, soalarmed did he feel. As however, he was really hungry as a wolf, hefollowed the example offered him by the Indians, who had alreadycommenced their meal, and set to work eating the lump of venison whichthey had the politeness to set before him. The meal did not take long;still it lasted long enough to restore a little courage to the monk, andmake him regard his position from a less gloomy side than he hadhitherto done.

  In truth, the behaviour of the Apaches toward him had nothing hostileabout it; on the contrary, they were most attentive in serving him withwhat he needed, giving him more food so soon as they perceived that hehad nothing before him: they had even carried their politeness so faras to give him a few mouthfuls of spirit, an extremely precious liquid,of which they are most greedy, even for their own use, owing to thedifficulty they experience in obtaining it.

  When he had ended his meal, the monk, who was almost fully reassured asto the amicable temper of his new friends, on seeing them light theirpipes, took from his pocket tobacco and an Indian corn leaf, and afterrolling a _pajillo_ with the skill which the men of Spanish racepossess, he conscientiously enjoyed the bluish smoke of his excellentHavana tobacco, _costa abajo_.

  A considerable space of time elapsed thus, and not a syllable wasexchanged among them. By degrees the ranks of the Redskins thinned: oneafter the other, at short intervals, rolled themselves in theirblankets, lay down with their feet to the fire, and went to sleep almostimmediately. Fray Antonio, crushed by the poignant emotions of the day,and the enormous fatigue he had experienced, would gladly have imitatedthe Indians, had he dared, for he felt his eyes close involuntarily, andfound immense difficulty in contending against the sleep thatoverpowered him. At last the Indian who hitherto had alone spoken,perceiving his state of somnolency, took pity on him. He rose, fetched ahorsecloth, and brought it to the monk.

  "My father will wrap himself in this fressada,[2]" he said, employingthe bad Spanish in which he had hitherto spoken; "the nights are cold,and my father needs sleep greatly, he will, therefore, feel warmed withthis. Tomorrow, a Chief will smoke the calumet with my father incouncil. Blue-fox desires to have a serious conversation with the fatherof prayer of the Palefaces."

  Fray Antonio gratefully accepted the horsecloth so graciously offered bythe Chief, and without attempting to prolong the conversation, hewrapped himself up carefully, and lay down by the fire so as to absorbthe largest amount of caloric possible. Still the Indian's words did notfail to cause the monk a certain degree of anxiety.

  "Hum!" he muttered to himself, "That is the reverse of the medal. Whatcan this Pagan have to say to me? He does not mean to ask me to christenhim, I suppose? especially as his name appears to be Blue-fox, a nicesavage name, that. Well, heaven will not abandon me, and it will be daytomorrow. So now for a snooze."

  And with this consolatory reflection the monk closed his eyes: twominutes later he slept as if never going to wake again.

  Blue-fox, for it was really into the hands of that Chief the monk had sounexpectedly fallen, remained crouched over the fire the whole night,plunged in gloomy thought, and watching, alone of his comrades, over thecommon safety: at times, his eyes were fixed with a strange expressionon the monk who was fast asleep, and far from suspecting that the ApacheChief was so obstinately engaged with him.

  At sunrise Blue-fox was still awake: he had remained the whole nightwithout once changing his position, and sleep had not once weighed downhis eyelids.

  [1] See "Border Rifles," same publishers.

  [2] "frazada."