Part 31 (1/2)
Soon as Nacena had started on return to the town, the gaucho and his companions commence making preparations to descend from the hill. Not by the road leading down to the _tolderia_, but the path by which they came up. For before her parting with them the Indian girl and Gaspar had held further speech; she imparting to him additional information of how things stood in the tribe; he, in turn, giving her more detailed instructions how to act, in the event of her being able to obtain an interview with the paleface captive, and to get her off from the place where confined. In the programme arranged between them, the final part to be played by Nacena would be her conducting her charge round to the other side of the hill, where the rescuers would be in waiting to receive her. Delivered to them, the action of the Indian girl would be at end, so far as that affair was concerned, while theirs had yet to be considered.
The place where they were to await her was, of course, mutually understood--by the entrance to the uphill path, under the great _ceiba_ tree. Nacena knew it well, having oft traversed that path, reclined in the shadow of the tree, and played under it from the earliest days of childhood. For it was a pretty spot, much-frequented by the younger members of the community when out for promenade on the plain, or nutting among the palm-groves that studded it. A sort of rendezvous, or stopping place, from the two routes to the town here diverging; the shorter, though by far the more difficult, being that over the Cemetery Hill. Of the roundabout one, Gaspar, of course, had no knowledge. But he knew the _ceiba_, and the way back to it, all that they needed. The girl had trodden both, hundreds of times, and was acquainted with their every reach and turning. She would come anyhow, and no fear of her not finding the way; their only fear was of her coming unaccompanied.
Least of all has Ludwig this apprehension; instead, full confidence that the Indian will will bring Francesca back with her. Strange this; but stranger still, that, while overjoyed with the thought of his sister being delivered from captivity, his joy should have a tinge of sadness in it, like a mingling of shadow and sun. This due to his suspicion of the motives actuating her who has promised to be his sister's deliverer.
Nacena is not their friend for mere friends.h.i.+p's sake; nor his, because of the former fellows.h.i.+p between him and her own brother. Instead, jealousy is her incentive, and what she is doing, though it be to their benefit, is but done for the thwarting of Aguara.
Though Ludwig has expressed his opinion that they will soon see Francesca, he is silent about these suspicions. There is no time to speak of them if he would. For in a few seconds after Nacena's separating from them, Gaspar gives the signal for action, and all three become engaged in getting ready their horses for a return to the plain.
”_Por Dios_!” mutters the gaucho, while slipping on his bridle. ”I don't much fancy remaining longer in this melancholy place. Though high and airy, it mayn't be wholesome. If, after all, that brown beauty should change her mind, and play us false, we'd be in a bad predicament up here--a regular trap, with no chance of retreating from it. So the sooner we're back to the bottom of the hill, the safer 'twill be. There we'll at least have some help from the speed of our horses, if in the end we have to run for it. Let us get below at once!”
Having by this finished adjusting his bridle, he hands the rein to Cypriano, adding--
”You hold this, senorito, while I go after Shebotha. Botheration take that old hag! She'll be a bother to us, to say nothing of the extra weight for our poor horses. After all, she's not very heavy--only a bag of bones.”
”But, Gaspar; are you in earnest about our taking her along with us?”
asks Cypriano.
”How are we to help it, _hijo mio_! If we leave her here, she'd be back in the town before we could get started; that is, if we have the good luck to get started at all. I needn't point out what would be the upshot of that. Pursuit, as a matter of course, pell mell, and immediate. True, we might leave her tied to the post, and m.u.f.fled as she is. But then she'd be missed by to-morrow morning, if not sooner, and they'd be sure to look for her up here. No likelier place for such as she, among these scaffolds; except tied to a scaffold of another sort, and in a somewhat different style.”
The gaucho pauses, partly to enjoy his own jest, at which he is grinning, and partly to consider whether Shebotha can be disposed of in any other way.
Cypriano suggests another, asking--
”Why couldn't we take her in among these trees, and tie her to one of them? There's underwood thick enough to conceal her from the eyes of anyone pa.s.sing by, and with the m.u.f.fle over her head, as now, she couldn't cry out that they'd hear her.”
”'Twould never do,” rejoins Gaspar, after an instant of reflection.
”Hide her as we might, they'd find her all the same. These redskins, half-naked though they are, can glide about among bushes, even th.o.r.n.y ones, like slippery snakes. So many of them, they'd beat every bit of thicket within leagues, in less than no time. Besides, you forget their dogs. Scores they have--ay, hundreds, some of them keen-scented as beagles. _Carrai_! they'd smell the nasty witch half-a-mile off, and so discover her whereabouts to their masters.”
”True,” returns Cypriano, seeing the plan he has proposed would not do.
”In that way they would find her, no doubt.”
”And if they didn't,” interposed Ludwig, speaking from a sentiment of humanity, ”it would be dreadful.”
”Dreadful! what do you mean?” asks Cypriano, looking puzzled. ”For them _not_ to find her is just what we want.”
”Ah, cousin! how would it be for _her_? Tied to a tree, with no hope-- no chance of getting loosed from it--she'd die of hunger or thirst-- miserably perish. Wicked as Shebotha is, we'd be worse than she if we left her to such a fate as that, to say nothing of our bringing it upon her. Ay, and for doing so we'd deserve the same ourselves, or something as bad.”
”Well, Senor Ludwig,” rejoins the gaucho, with an air of submission rather than conviction, ”you may be right in what you say, and I'm not the man to deny it. But there need be no difference of opinion on that point. Leaving Shebotha tied to a tree wouldn't do on any account, for the reasons I've stated. It might--most likely would, and, as you say, it ought--end in ourselves getting tied to trees or stakes, with a bundle of f.a.ggots between our legs set to the tune of a slow fire.
But,” he adds, after a second or two spent considering, ”there's only one other way I can think of to deal with the witch, if we're not to take her with us.”
”What's the other?” asks Cypriano, seeing that the gaucho hesitates to declare it.
”Why, knock her on the head, or draw the blade of a _cuchilla_ across her throat, and so stop her grunting at once and for ever. The old wretch deserves no better fate and hanging's too good for her. But they'd find her dead body all the same; though not with a tongue in it to tell who stopped her wind, or, what's of more consequence, how and which way we went off. Besides, I dare say, the Senor Ludwig wouldn't agree to our getting disembarra.s.sed of her in that fas.h.i.+on.”
”Oh! no, no!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.es the humane youth, horrified at the thought of such cruelty, ”anything but that, Caspar.”
”Well, there isn't anything but what I propose doing--that is, taking her along. I'm willing to accommodate her on the croup of my _recado_, and will show her all the gallantry she deserves. If you're jealous, Senor Ludwig, you may have her behind you; and as your horse is the lightest laden, that might be best. When we're crossing back over that _riacho_ where you left your saddle-bags, if you're tired of riding double, you can drop her down among the lightning-eels, and let them play their batteries upon her old bones till every joint of them cracks asunder.”