The Treasure of Pearls: A Romance of Adventures in California

same way. "I wish we had the affair to begin all over again: I should act in a very different way." In the next instant the Indian reappeared. "The garden is deserted. Not so much as a horned owl drowned out of its nest," he said. "Ah!" sighed Pedrillo, like a martyr; "Let us go on. Only one of you remain at this post, his foot in the doorway, holding the door close, but not letting it shut, on his life." The horseman, the Indian, and the two other Mexicans then invaded the garden. Pedrillo shook with eager heroism so that his steed participated in the tremor. It was a night, and the garden a place to inspire terror, even in the breast least timid, one must grant. The garden was a maze designed after some labyrinth in a Spanish palace grounds, and rendered more bewildering by the luxuriant growth of the plants and shrubbery chosen to form the intervolutions. It angered El Manco very much that Zagal would not regard the affair with his own eyes, but persisted in cherishing the plan. "What a splendid spot for an ambush," said he. "The keenest eye cannot perceive any of us, even your Excellency on the horse's back." "So be it," answered the captain testily. "Take your nestling places, then, at least till after this clearing-off shower. What a swamping! 'Sdeath of my life! I do not blame the men of don Benito for keeping indoors." Diego pointed out a species of alcove of verdure into which he backed his horse, equally grateful for shelter in the worst torrent of all that had fallen. Diego, grinning and showing shark teeth, stood at the mouth of this bay, lashed by the swinging vines and lianas, eyeing the sky and listening attentively to all sounds, quiet as a statue. After that waterspout, the tempest fled with haste, sweeping away all the gloomy clouds. Out of the sky of deep blue suddenly sparkled a myriad of stars. The moon, too, presented a pale face in a watery vapour, which gave an effect of mirage as if it had a misty partner and the two were slowly dancing. The atmosphere became of singular limpidity, and the smallest leaves and the flower cups so tiny that only the hummingbirds' bills could pierce their hollow, were discernible at a distance. Thousands of gnats and mosquitoes swarmed out of their retreats and played in the moonlight like motes in the solar beams. The earth began to smoke with vapour, and the flowers exhaled oppressive wealth of perfumes. The captain, galvanised by the fresh morning breeze, for it must have been about three o'clock, was about to call his men for a consultation, when on each side of him he felt a figure rise, and in each of his leather cheeks was pressed the muzzle of a pistol. At the same time, his arms were grasped and pressed down by his sides. Another pair of hands seized each leg, real and fictitious, and lifting him up, he was held in the air like a puppet, whilst the traitorous Diego drew the horse out from under him. Then his unknown seizers lowered him to the ground, in the softness of which his stump was deeply embedded, and a low but firm voice muttered in his ear: "No nonsense, or you are a dead man before being justly hanged!" Some stifled oaths and cries, at the same time as a scuffle, betokened that his followers were being mastered in the like manner. Only the horrid grating of a knife along a bone, and a deep groan or two proved that Zagal or another had offered such a manful resistance as their captain well heeded not to attempt. Two men took the salteador between them, bending like a sack of grain, and carried him, heels first, in that ignominious attitude, through the maze, which was no puzzle to them, into the house over the porch and in at a window from the verandah. The room into which he was transported was that where Mr. Gladsden had been entertained. Don Benito, his son, and another gentleman, chiefs of the defensive operations, were there seated. Two lamps, burning low, were quickly turned up on the arrival of the prisoner, evidently expected. His carriers were two Mexicans of strong build, armed to the teeth, who set him in an armchair, confronting their master, and stood, one each side of him, pistols still in hand. For a moment don Benito and his captive looked at one another. Hatred and anguish at having been thus placed before his old enemy gave the former don Aníbal the impudence not to quail. "My so-called captain," said the hacendero, "you are my prisoner." "By the cursedest treachery," returned Pedrillo, bitterly and really burning with indignation. "Which trick has only prevented you attempting a more shameful deed against women and children of your own race--a race that repudiates such as you, though." "I am a volunteer frontier guard," rejoined the freelance, still more impudently. "If it were not for my band doing soldierly duty along the border, your houses, your sheep, your cattle, your families would not be safe." "Trash!" returned don Benito. "You are an ally of the redskin murderers, not their repressor." "This is the first time I have ever been hand in hand with them," went on Pedrillo, pleading direct to the third Mexican whom he knew to be a rich proprietor. "They have forced me to act with them. When one is among wolves, he must howl with them." "A wolf howls with wolves, but a dog dies battling with them," retorted señor Bustamente. Diego entered the room at this juncture. "Well?" demanded the hacendero. "One dead with his own knife in his heart; one wounded with a pistol shot which went off in the folds of his blanket, the other safe and sound," reported the false guide. "This Indian will bear me out that I entered on the mad enterprise reluctantly," began the bandolero in a less firm voice. "This Indian Diego knows you of old, and I advise you not to require a character from him. In the time when you resumed your old craft of piracy and attacked me in the Gulf, this Indian and his father scuttled your steamer, effectually executing that diversion which prevented your crew from overwhelming my brave friend." Captain Pedrillo rewarded the Mayo with a malignant look. If he had only have suspected this before when he had him in his camp. Whilst he ground his teeth and jerked his stump nervously, his judge pursued: "I have had you decoyed out of your forces that the savages may not have the benefit of your cultured cunning. You deserve death a hundredfold for warring against Mexico, and that death should be the traitor's--that by the ignoble rope. But I have no hangman's noose here; you are going to be honoured with the soldier's fate--you shall only be shot!" "Beware!" said Pedrillo, stoutly, though his heart sank; "This house is surrounded by a multitude like the waves of a sea. When the assault is made for which the signal is the crushing shot of an enormous cannon being levelled hereon under cover of the stormy darkness, you will be inundated by the sands of a desert storm. My murder will be avenged on each of you, your wives, your daughters and your sons and servants, over and over again!" "Thanks for the caution, but we mean to sell our lives and our dear ones' honour most dearly. Meanwhile, you will be shot. Take the carrion hence to the room where Father Serafino will try to soften his hard heart, and then lead him out to execution." The cold, stern sentence annihilated the salteador's insolence. His hands dropped and hung each side of the armchair, whilst he murmured in deep terror. "You have robbed me before of my ship, of my bravest men, and now would have my blood! It is of evil omen to you!" He trembled, and his eyes seemed to be moistened; clearly his ferocious soul was weakening, and fear had stricken him to the heart. The two peons bore him away between them, like an automatic figure, of which the limbs of flesh and bone were no more vivified than that of wood. In this supine, hopeless state, the priest could in no way prevail on him. Half an hour was entirely wasted in unavailing pleading. Then came the guard to carry out the prostrated miscreant to meet his doom at the dawn of that day when he anticipated he should have the farm at his mercy. Without resistance, ceasing to tremble but still a weakling, the once dreaded bandit allowed himself to be propped up against the palisade. By the morn's early light his figure, firmly set by his wooden leg being fixed in the wet ground, his back against the wood, his head on one shoulder, his eyes closed, his white lips muttering nothing intelligible, could all be seen by the Indians and his followers upon the other eminence. Thence, too, could be discerned the firing party of peons, five in number, ranged at a few paces, before don Benito, who was to give the word. The miserable aspect of the lame man, like a buzzard with a broken and trailing wing, pitiable despite its loathsomeness, made the Mexican see that he was judicious in not hanging the robber; the sight of the single leg twitching in the death struggle in air would have appealed to humanity, and Pedrillo el Manco would become an exalted legend among the reprobates of the province. All was ready. A gleam of sunlight irradiated the corral, and glistened on the wet pickets, and yellowed the waxen face of the wretch condemned to death. Don Benito looked at the five gun barrels just catching the sunbeam, and was about to give the order for them to fire, when a totally unforeshadowed interposition occurred. When, during the night, the Apaches at the secret gate had heard the scuffle within the enclosure, which denoted how the Mexicans had fallen on the unfortunate companions of Pedrillo, they were off at full speed without delay, clearing the moat at a tremendous bound. Two of the robbers succeeded in passing through the postern, but were overtaken and cut down on the brink of the ditch. After that, during the trial of Captain Pedrillo, the environs of the hacienda had not been disturbed. At the present moment all eyes within the corral were directed on the culprit so soon to expiate his crimes. Nevertheless, the sentries would not have permitted a numerous body of enemies to have approached unchallenged. But it was another matter as regarded a solitary Apache, who, now hanging by the side of his war pony, now leading it, now crawling on alone before, and whistling softly for it to join him, came up to the palisade totally unseen and unexpected. In fact, how could the two hundred peons and Mexicans in the farm enclosure fear anything from a solitary red man? Thus had Iron Shirt, for it was the chief who devoted himself to a desperate enterprise, reached the outside of the stockade just where the bullets, sure to perforate the wood around the death-awaiting bandolero, would salute the unsuspected bystander painfully. The woodwork rose some fourteen feet high, effectually masking him and his equally as steadily moving steed. He stopped the latter, vaulted on his back like a circus rider, stood up, and all of a sudden the startled Mexicans beheld the plumed head, the black painted face, and the long arm of the Apache above the pointed posts, just over the cowering bandit's form. "Fire!" cried don Benito. But even as he spoke the red arm was extended downwards, the steellike fingers clutched the shoulder of Captain Pedrillo, and he was lifted up with what was a prodigious expenditure of force, albeit he was the lighter by a limb than most men, clear of the low aim of the peons. Then, caught in both arms of the savage, standing on his horse, the Mexican was transferred to the farther side of the barricade. It was the deed of an instant, this snatching aloof of the victim. Fifty eager men, shaking off their stupefaction, sprang to the stockade, and leaping upon shelves, placed there for the purpose,