The Treasure of Pearls: A Romance of Adventures in California
eyes over the ledge where ended the means of ascension, and stared
below.
A number of persons, congratulating themselves on their reunion loudly
with the hyperbolic phrases of the Spanish ceremony of greeting,
clattered into the tower. Presently a light was struck, and a roaring
fire kindled. As the shaft thus became the chimney, Gladsden was forced
to cough, though he smothered the sound as much as possible, hoped, as
did the man who lighted the damp wood, that it would lose no time in
burning up clearly.
When he could protrude his face over the peephole again, he beheld a
dozen persons, swarthy, robust, richly clad as the prairie rovers,
or cattle thieves, armed to the teeth. Cruel of eye, malignant and
ferocious, he judged it highly imprudent to make their acquaintance,
unless Ignacio was the introducer.
Before very many sentences were uttered, every syllable of which came
to his ears direct, the overhearer was not allowed to cherish any error
as to their profession. They were the Gentlemen of the Night, the road
robbers, the scourges of Sonora, belonging to the squad (_cuadrilla_)
of Matasiete, "the Slayer of Seven."
The gestures of the Mexicans grew animated as they sat around the fire,
or leaned against the wall, which the gleams showed to be painted by
the Indians; now and then they clapped their unwashed but jewelled
hands to their weapons--at which moments the witness earnestly prayed
that they would join in a free fight and kill everyone to the last.
They were wrangling over the division of spoil, and perhaps the plunder
would have cost additional lives to those of its original proprietors,
when the advent of someone in authority caused the dispute to cease. It
was their captain.
He was not the heroic figure that Gladsden had imagined fit to rule
such desperadoes. He was tall, but lean, don Quixote with Punch's nose
and chin, rather the fox than the wolf, and though his features were
set stern and his voice was savage, doubts might be conceived as to his
own reliance on his bullying mode of government.
"At your differences again," he cried in a sharp voice, which now and
then ran up shrill and high, spite of himself, more to the resemblance
of the puppet show hero than ever. "_¡Caray!_ Why can't you pull
together like honourable gentlemen of the prairie?"
Two of the brigands began an explanation which their leader cut short
by replying to the less ruffianly of the two:
"Silence! I'll not be bothered by a single word! _¡Viva Dios!_ Here you
are hugging the fire like herders broiling a steak, without a thought
of our common safety. I have had to post sentries myself, and even they
grumbled at such important duty, just because there is a barrel of
water coming down. I tell you I heard a shot in the thicket, which was
not from any of our guns."
Another of the gang spoke up, with whom he judged it meet to argue. It
is due to the estimable captain Matasiete to say that the debater in
question was picking a fragment of buffalo beef out of a huge hollow
grinder, with an unpleasant long knife.
"It is true, Ricardo, that the red men do never approach the Owl Tower;
but what is that? Someday our secret haunt will be surprised and the
Yaquis will fall on us for profaning the old pile. Where is Ignacio?
Where is the lieutenant, I say?"
Neither he nor his brother had arrived, that was the answer, to Mr.
Gladsden's chagrin.
"Then will they get their boots choked with rain," remarked the
commander of these precious rogues, comfortably installing himself at
the fire, in the very manner which he had disapproved of in his men.
There was a flash of lightning. The thunder roared round the tower,
which bravely met the precursor shower, though it was of a drenching
nature to justify the repugnance of the salteadores to standing
sentinel in the open, whilst their luckier comrades enjoyed the shelter
and the fire.
There was silence within the tower: the bandits, drawing a little aloof
from their chief, in respect or lack of sympathy, prepared supper,
priced their property with a view of staking it in card play, or, as
far as two or three were concerned, lounged at the door, watching
the ground smoke after the wetting, and glancing tauntingly at their
brothers on guard, who shone with moisture in the chance ray from the
glorious fire.
The extreme heat around Gladsden, his fatigue and a dulness engendered
by the recent strain on his faculties, forced his eyes to close now and
then, and he was about falling into a torpor, when a commotion below
aroused him.
A man, clanking his huge spurs to rid them of mud and rotten leaves,
drenched almost through his blanket, splashed to the waist, his
tough leather breeches scored by wait-a-bit thorns, swearing at the
dog's weather, wringing out his hair, for he had lost his hat--this
individual, hailed amicably as "our dear Ignacio," but heedless of
the welcome in his vexation and a species of alarm, pushed aside his
comrades flocking round him, and, saluting the captain, basking in the
fire beams, said reproachfully:
"My brother not here? Then ill fares him! There are strangers in the
chaparral!"
"Strangers!" all the voices exclaimed, whilst weapons clattered their
scabbards.
From only this transient glance at don Ignacio, the Englishman made up
his mind that he would not trust him with his life.
CHAPTER VII.
A WAKING NIGHTMARE.
"Aye, strangers, and no jokers! But to my tale. Captain, in the first
place your Indian hireling has done his work well. He slew the don--the
youngster, I opine--and, as for the damsel, why I have had her on my
arm this half hour, till the storm forced me to _cache_ her!"
"Aha! Good!" said the captain, rubbing his hands on his nearly roasted
knees. "Albeit, I am sorry that the girl escaped. I'd as lief marry the
aunt to obtain the Miranda Hacienda, as wed the lass and be saddled
with the old lady."
"Well, she's next to dead. The Apache worried them sore, so that they
have had no food."
"And he? Did you _pay_ him, as I suggested?"
"I followed him up to administer the dose of lead, but I was
anticipated. Some strangers, I tell you, are roaming the desert, and
blew a tunnel through his head."
"And Pepillo?" questioned Ricardo.
"Either lying perdu till the storm abates, or gratified with the same
pill. It is a deuce of a heavy gun to carry a bullet so large and so
true."
"An American rifle?" queried the captain, uneasily, whilst Gladsden,
patting his gun silently, so conveyed to it the flattering fear with
which its prowess had inspired the depredators.
"It is this way," went on Ignacio, who saw that all eyes were bent on
him. "I struck the broad trail of the don and the Apache. I heard a
shot of an unknown piece, so I alighted, hoppled my mule, and, making a
circuit, entered the thicket afoot, going slow because of my spurs."
"Soon I came to a sort of glade, where a big tree stump stands. There
the Indian had sent an arrow through don José, and there the unknown
had sent a heavy bullet through him. All was quiet. No sign of the
young man, their guide. But the señorita, the heiress, lay as one dead
at the stump. I felt no pulse. Her eyes were closed. I took her up and
made for my mule, but, either I had missed my mark or had strayed.
No mule. Then, believing he would come here, since he has a sneaking
affection for your horses, captain, I tried to carry the girl on my own
way hither. She was light as a feather, but the thorns are a veritable
net to catch hummingbirds, and then, again, the storm about to break!
Faith, I hid her in a hollow tree, and hastened on. But I was overtaken
by the rain, and am as tattered as a _lepero_!"
"And Pepillo?"
"He was never born to be drowned in the deluge upon us," answered
lieutenant Ignacio, with no superabundance of fraternal affection, as
he sat at the fire, and overhauled the rent raiment. "We will fish for
him and the girl, in the day."
"But if she was spent, she will die of starvation," remarked Matasiete,
with a spark of humanity or of affection.
"Pshaw! As you say, you can, in the character of don Aníbal de Luna,
marry the old lady and so obtain the property; besides, I left my flask
of _aguardiente_ (firewater, or whiskey) in her cold pit, and that's
meat and drink, eh, gentlemen?"
A silence ensued, the others having nodded a double tribute to his
gallantry and the potency of raw spirits.
"I do not like the young man being out of your view," said Matasiete,
who had a small, carping spirit, "If he should not meet Pepillo and
Farruco--"
"Crawled off with an arrow in him to die in the bushes," was the reply.
"That Apache is one of the poisoners, you know, and nothing that will
not cure a rattlesnake bite, will subdue the venom of his wounds. A
good riddance whoever perforated his skull! And here's his health,"
holding up a horn of spirits on high as though he divined the actual
whereabouts of the avenger of don José de Miranda.
"There is Farruco still to come in," said the captain, yawning.
"Pah! He's under a stone like an iguana! If he eludes the rain as
cleverly as he does the leaden hail when we attack a caravan, methinks
he will turn up in the day as dry as the core of a miser's heart."
Meanwhile, the storm, which had but inadequately manifested its power
in the heralding blow and pour, now swept across the plain and buffeted
the tower. It began to rock, and the sentries, who set discipline at
defiance and had come into the shelter, were half afraid that they
had not taken the wiser course. Whatever their terror below, that of
Gladsden would have been more justifiable, for the loose stones atop
were moved at each gust, and some fell, both within and without. The
prospect of the lightning bolt flinging him scathed to the death, amid
ruins, upon the knot of robbers, was quite within reasonable surmise.
He wrapped his gun up beside him, so that its steel should not attract
the flame that seemed, when it played within his nook, to linger upon
him, and expected the worst between the two perils.
All at once, splitting the rolling thunder in its higher key, a
frightened voice cried out, "The horses! There is a stampede!"
Notwithstanding the pouring rain, half a dozen of the bandits rushed
out. But almost instantly returning, they gladly reported that the
agitation among the horses was caused, not so much by their fright at
the lightning, as by the mad gambols of Ignacio's mule, which, running
into the group tethered on the leeward of the tower, was plying tooth
and hoof in order to range himself near the horse to which he had taken
one of those devoted fancies not uncommon among the hybrids. Instead of
their forming a mass, rounded in shape, their tails outward, to meet
the rain, they half encircled the tower, accommodating themselves to
the wind, which was shifting to the southeast.
"The old tower holds firm," said Ignacio, his mouth full of beef, as he
plied a needle and fine deer's sinew for thread in the reparation of
his leggings.
"Only the gale shakes out a tooth of the old hag's head," said his
neighbour, on whom sundry fragments of the crumble had fallen.
"Ha!" ejaculated don Matasiete, abruptly, as he clapped his long hand
to his head, and then clutched the object which had struck him there,
and then rolled into the ashes. He had pulled it forth with amazing
alacrity. "Since when has this tower been built with cartridges?"
"What!" was the general cry, as all, like the speaker, looked upward.
"I tell you that this fell on my head. If it rains more of the like we
must dash out the fire, or we'll be blown higher than the eagle flies!"
Every man had drawn a weapon. Their ignorance of meteorology might be
great or little, but cartridges do not come with Mexican rain often