The Treasure of Pearls: A Romance of Adventures in California

"Gentlemen," cried don Benito, "I assume command of my faithful tenantry, and I swear that the revolted redskins shall find my body the next barrier behind my hacienda walls." "Courage and hope!" said Father Serafino. Mr. Gladsden rose to go with the American in his sortie, since he had not sufficient acquaintance with Spanish to carry on conversation with the besieged, strangers all to him as well. "Since we are still to travel in a team," said Oliver, gladdened by this arrangement, "put yourself inside a uniform like me. They've made me a brigadier general, at the least," he added, facetiously admiring himself in a well gold-laced coat. Whilst the Englishman was apparelling himself in much such another suit, he continued:-- "Thar hev been six score men picked out for my band. The don says these hev had a brush with the smoke skins, and with wild cats, and can be relied on. I don't vally them a dollar per ton myself, Hows'ever, we shan't be shot by them in the back, as they are only trusted with long sticking poles, being rigged out as _lancers_--about all the _heroes_ we shall find them, I opine." "The lance is the Mexican national weapon," remarked Mr. Gladsden. "I trust more to a dozen cowpunchers among 'em--the _vaqueros_ do know how to swing the lasso, and that's a fact. Are you ready?" "Your lieutenant is ready, Captain." "Call me 'colonel.' They are all captains in my squad, I b'lieve. You have come out a full-grown shiner. I feel like the big dog with a new brass collar--how's your feel, too?" In plain words, the pair looked a handsome and portentous couple in their metamorphosis into Mexican officers. On going out they found don Benito in the vestibule. He, too, had donned an old, but carefully preserved, brilliant costume of his father's as President-General, and was as the sun to a star in his superior effulgence beside them. A black servant was holding a golden salver, with a decanter and glasses rimmed with gold, at his elbow, grinning with awe and admiration at his master being so superbly caparisoned. "A parting cup," said the hacendero, "and away! We have no time for coquetting." "A loving cup," said Gladsden, tasting the cup, whilst Oliver refused his. "I have head enough as it is," he remarked, in excuse. "You are drefful good, I will say that; but I am not overly grasping for liquor when thar is a monstracious kickin' out in prospect. After the slaying of the wild cattle, don, then I am 'on' for my share o' the b'ar steaks and honey." On going out into the courtyard they at once perceived the great change. All the bonfires were beaten out, song and dance had been hushed, and the gates were closed and barricaded. In the gloom could only be distinguished the shadowy sentinels watching immovably in the loops and gaps in the wall, and at peepholes in the palisades. As Monte Tesoro was an eminence, these vigiladores could see fairly over the whole plain. Oliver pointed out that, to both east and west, there was a ruddy, tawny tinge. "Villages burning. The enemy is coming on." They crossed one immense corral, and then a still larger enclosure, wherein the hundred and twenty sham lancers were awaiting, each man standing by his horse, the bridle in the left hand, ready to vault into the saddle like real troopers. Two peons held a couple of very fine animals, completely harnessed and decked out, of which they presented the reins to Oliver and the Englishman. Don Benito paused. With him were several of the elders of his guests; all wore grave expressions. Everyone was armed. "Out!" said he. He stepped over to the stockade, scrutinising it attentively for a space, then, stooping a trifle, he bore his weight on one particular pile, whereupon, all of a sudden, a piece of the palisade opened widely, like the secret door that it was, quite noiselessly, and left a broad gangway. Oliver waved his hand, signifying "come on!" and held up three fingers, meaning "three at a time!"--sign language being universal on the border where so many tongues are intermixed. The horsemen passed him in review, three abreast, each leading his mount. As, strangely enough, the hoofs drew no sound whatever from contact with the soil, Mr. Gladsden stooped and examined the feet of his own steed, upon which act all the enigma was solved. Like the old wars man he was, Oliver had hinted that he wanted his troop with muffled hoofs, and the delicate trick over which King Lear was ecstatic, had been performed by swathing them in strips of blanket around cotton wool pads. The Englishman was the very last to march forth, still shaking the hands of don Benito and his young namesake. "Go with God!" said the sire, fervently; "You hold our fate in your brave hands. You alone can save us." "Keep up your spirits," was the rejoinder. "That friend of mine is no common man, and, in any case, we are going to do our best. If I never return, mind, as that scrap of writing I dashed off, records, I leave my sons especially to you as a second father, and to you, Jorge, as an elder brother." As he mounted, and moved on to join his comrades, the secret door swung to, and all dissolution of continuity in the barrier disappeared. There was a ditch to leap, and its sloping front to slide down. There the squadron formed. Oliver had taken to his side the oldest _tigrero_, or "vermin" eradicator of the farm, as his pilot. "Follow!" said the American, curtly, between this hunter and Gladsden, "By threes, follow!" CHAPTER XXI. THE LANCERS' CHARGE. The forlorn hope started off at full gallop behind the trio, in a flight through the obscurity which was as lugubrious as fantastic. The sweet and sadly wan moonbeams stretched the cavaliers' shadows immeasurably over the land. Every detail of the landscape took gaunt aspects. The trees, waving white and grey beards of Spanish moss, and endless creepers in loops and knots, seemed spectres that were stationed to catch and hang the riders. No such headlong course could have been performed by any but such Mexican centaurs. It lasted over an hour, till Oliver reined in and called out-- "Pull up!" "_Alto! ¡Alto!_" was reiterated down the line, till the column was all in quiescence on the edge of a boundless virgin forest. "Where are we?" inquired Gladsden. "Three leagues from the farm," answered Oliver, after the Tigrero had given him a clue. "I thought more. We have turned the main body of the insurgents, and are on their rear if they are about to fall on the big farm. I am going to cache the squad under the leaves, and go on the scout myself." "Had you not better send one of these, who are so familiar with the country?" remonstrated the Englishman. "Your place as commander--" "Tush! There are too many lives at stake for me to hesitate to risk mine. I kin never make by big throws onless I hev sartin news. That Old Silvano could be trusted to see all that I shall see, but he hasn't a passle (_parcelle_, particle, used in that sense by the Canadian French trappers) o' jedgment, and on jedgment depends the ha'r o' them Spanish in the hacienda. I do this scout," said he shortly. "If I know anything, I b'lieve it's scouting." "Since things are so, go ahead." Oliver alighted, gave some orders, delegated his authority to the Englishman with Silvano as his sub., and glided into the woods. Though there was no underbush, he was lost to the view almost instantly, so instinctively did he cover his body by the trunks. During his absence, the Mexicans rode under the branches, and dozed in the saddle, with pickets thrown out upon all sides. Gladsden let himself be absorbed in his reflections, marvelling that after a brief period, he, the English gentleman of wealth, could be in the heart of an unexplored wood, on the borders of a desert, guarded by a band of men complete strangers not ten hours before, and exposed to being overwhelmed by a whole army of revolted slaves. In the midst of his reverie, without any warning, a hand was abruptly slapped on his knee, and a jesting voice said-- "How many mile in'ard of the Land of Nod?" "I was not asleep, Oliver," cried Gladsden, indignantly, as, however, he opened his eyes, and blinked them in a way that belied his denial. The scout had returned and come right up to his side so stealthily that he had not been aroused. But the tiger slayer had perceived him, and was smiling slightly at the practical joke which was, also, a lesson. "Well, what's the news?" "Things are a good deal as I s'posed," he answered. "Thar are something like three or four thousand of the critters, and sich a rabble! Very few have firearms, and, likely enough, no powder, and, if powder, no ball, so that they will top the loading with stones and gravel and blow their blamed topknots off at the first pull. The others hev come out powerful with spears, sheep shearers divided and the blades thong'd on to poles, scythes, reaping hooks, and all kind o' things ugly to look at of which they have made we'pins. Some 'stonishing black niggers are the head men of gangs. They are in a valley there away, on a road. They have no flankers out, and no look out, for they have no idee they mout be _attackted_." "So we can manoeuvre without any apprehension of being discovered, you mean, Ol.?" "Jess so, gineral! One of them mountain howitzer our army promenades with could pepper 'em up sure from hyar." "Where's their left?" "On a little village half a league tharabouts." "And their right?" "On a little cluster of shanties that Old Silvano says is called Rancho Nuevo--nigh enough to be seen in the crack o' day from hyar." "Can the signal rockets of the hacienda be seen from the two points you mention, and the road occupied by the mass of the rebels?" "For why not? They are three high p'ints over the sink they are in." "This looks promising enough." "What! Do you think to cut up three or four thousand niggers?" "My dear Oliver, I am sure that you have your idea in your head fully matured, and that we have nothing to do but put it into execution." "I don't know rightly about that. In any event, I am going to execute what the army men call a divarsion. If the innymy accept it as divarting, I'm satisfied. I should give it another name, myself, but thar! Thar's no 'counting for tastes. Besides the bulk of the Yaquis, thar is a long straggling train, with the plunder, the fat, cowardly, and cunning, who are drinking and singing, _and_ dancing like all possessed. They are coming almost dead to'rds us, and we hev no more 'n time to receive them properly. If we turn them back, scattered, they wilt not be in condition to reinforce the army. That's the first article on the bill o' fare." He beckoned the tiger hunter to him. "Capitano," said he, "pick out your bullwhackers, and add to them enough more to make about forty strong. Them's your _cuadrilla_, savvy! Thar's a right smart sprinkle of cattle straying over the plain, bewildered, whom those barbarians hev scared, some--well, into a fever. Lasso a dozen in a herd, tie up and throw down, and send one to report progress. Meanwhile, collect a heap of fat (resinous) candlewood. Cook away--_cuca_, cap'en!" Silvano, delighted with his rank, and beaming with smiles to the eyebrow, soon departed with one-third or so of the little party. The rest were divided into two troops, of which the American and Gladsden took the leadership. The mufflers were removed from the hoofs as useless, and each troop was arranged in three ranks, twelve, fifteen, and eighteen in a line. Thus in order, they moved off under the trees, tall ones whose boughs only sprang out at an altitude of great degree, and parting at a silent signal, ranged themselves one each side of a