The Guide of the Desert
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"Yes, yes, all that is true; but believe me, my lord, if Malco has so abruptly left us, it is because he had strong reasons for doing so, and that he has near here some accomplices, in conjunction with whom he is preparing our ruin."
"I think with you, Don Diogo; but who are these accomplices? Where are they hidden?"
The captain smiled with cunning.
"Only birds and fishes do not leave traces of their path," said he; "skilful as a man may be, we can always discover his track."
"So you would give much to know where this man has gone to?"
"Certainly, my lord; notwithstanding the precautions by which he has surrounded his flight, and the care which he has taken to hide his tracks."
"Unhappily, before undertaking anything, we must wait for sunrise."
"Why should we wait till tomorrow, my lord? I ask your pardon for daring to interrogate you."
"Why, it appears to me that to discover a track, even if it were ever so plainly indicated, the first condition is to see clearly."
"That is of little importance, my lord," answered the captain; "for a man accustomed as I am to track the desert at all hours, darkness does not exist."
"So," cried the marquis, with a movement of satisfaction, "if I ordered you to mount horse – "
"I would mount immediately, my lord."
"And you would bring me news?"
"No doubt of it; am I not an Indian myself, my lord – a civilised Indian, it is true; but, nevertheless, I have preserved sufficient of the sagacity of the race to which I belong to fear no failure in a step which may appear to you very difficult."
"Since it is to be so, Don Diogo, put yourself in the saddle as soon as possible, and go, for heaven's sake. I await your return with most eager impatience."
"Before the rising of the sun I will return, and with good news; but I want you to allow me to conduct the affair in my own way."
"Act as you please, Captain; I trust to your sagacity."
"I shall not deceive your expectation, my lord," answered the captain, rising.
The marquis accompanied him as far as the curtain of the tent, and then returned to sit down; but, after some minutes of reflection, he abruptly rose, went out, and walked rapidly towards the mysterious tent of which we have already had occasion to speak.
This tent, much larger, than that erected for the marquis, was divided into several compartments by canvas sheets, ingeniously adapted, and rather resembled, for luxury and comfort, a habitation intended to last several months, than a camp merely constructed for a few hours.
The compartment which the marquis entered was furnished with sofas; a carpet was spread on the ground, and a silver lamp, curiously chased, placed on a piece of furniture, diffused a gentle and mellow light.
A young Negress of about twenty, of sprightly countenance and pretty figure, was occupied, on the entry of the marquis, in playing with a magnificent ara perched on a slip of rosewood, to which he was attached by a gold chain fastened to one of his legs.
The Negress, without leaving off the occupation in which she seemed to take delight, and making the bird utter discordant cries, leant carelessly towards the marquis, half turning in his direction with a movement full of arch insolence, and gave him a roguish look from beneath her long eyelashes, and waited till he should address her.
The marquis, without appearing to observe the hostile attitude assumed by the slave, took some steps towards her, and, touching her lightly with his finger —
"Phoebe," said he to her in Spanish, "will you please to take notice that I am here?"
"What is your presence to me, Señor marquis?" answered she, slightly shrugging her shoulder.
"To you, nothing; it is true, Phoebe, as it is not for you that I have come, but for your mistress."
"At this hour?"
"Why not?"
"Because doña Laura – fatigued, as it appears, by the long journey that she has been obliged to make today – has retired, ordering me not to allow anyone to come near her."
A feverish flush suffused the countenance of the marquis; he knitted his eyebrows so as to make them meet; but considering, no doubt, the ridiculousness of a scene with a slave who was only acting according to orders, he soon mastered himself.
"Well," said he, intentionally slightly raising his voice, "your mistress is free in her own house to act in her own way; only, this interview, which for some days she has refused me with such obstinacy, I shall know how to compel her to accord to me."
Scarcely had he pronounced these words, when a curtain was drawn aside, and doña Laura entered the room.
"You threaten me, I think, Don Roque de Castelmelhor," said she, in a sharp and loud voice. "Retire, Phoebe," added she; "but only go so far as you may be able to come to me immediately."
Phoebe bowed her head, cast a last look at the marquis, and left the room.
"Now, Señor caballero," pursued doña Laura, "since the slave has retired, speak; I will listen to you."
The marquis bowed respectfully to her —
"Not, Señorita, before you have deigned to take a seat."
"What good will that do? But," she added, "if that mark of condescension will abridge this interview, it would ill become me not to obey you."
The marquis bit his lip, but did not answer.
Doña Laura seated herself on the sofa farthest removed, and crossing her arms on her chest with a wearied air, while she fixed on her interlocutor a haughty look —
"Speak now, I beg you," said she. "Phoebe has not lied to you; I am extremely fatigued."
These words were hissed, if we may employ the happy expression of an old author, from the most sharpened beak than can be imagined, and doña Laura leant her head on a cushion, feigning a slight gape.
But the resolution of the marquis had been taken, not to see or understand anything.
Doña Laura was sixteen years of age; all grace and delicacy. Her charmingly developed figure had that sprightliness which Spanish women alone possess. Her bearing was marked by that careless and voluptuous languor, the secret of which the Hispano-Americans have obtained from the Andalusians. Her long deep chestnut hair fell in silky ringlets on brilliantly white shoulders; her blue and dreamy eyes seemed to reflect the azure of the sky, and were crowned by black eyebrows, the delicate outline of which was traced as with a pencil. Her finely chiselled nose, and her charming little mouth, which, in half opening, discovered a double row of pearly teeth, completed a beauty rendered more gentle and noble by the delicacy and transparency of her skin.
Dressed in gauze and muslin, like all Creoles, the young girl was ravishing, seated on a sofa like the beija flor in the chalice of a flower, especially at that moment when anger, suppressed and mastered with difficulty, caused her virgin bosom to palpitate, and covered her cheeks with a crimson flush, doña Laura had something seductive, and at the same time majestic about her, which imposed respect, and almost commanded veneration.
Don Roque de Castelmelhor, notwithstanding the decision, and the formal intention he had manifested, could not resist the powerful charm of a beauty so noble and pure. His look fell before that of the young girl, which was filled with hatred and almost with contempt.
"We have reached, Señorita," he said, "after great fatigues, the limit of the civilised countries of Brazil; for, if I do not deceive myself, the route it is now necessary to follow is hidden in deserts into which, before us, a few hardy explorers only had dared to venture. I think, then, that the time has come to exchange explanations frankly."
Doña Laura smiled with disdain, and, interrupting him with a gesture:
"As that situation, caballero," said she, with bitterness, "cannot be rendered clearer and more decided, I will spare you, if you wish it, the embarrassment of entering into certain details… Oh, do not interrupt me," said she, with vivacity, "here is the fact in a few words: my father, don Zeno Álvarez de Cabral, a descendant of one of the most illustrious conquerors of this country, a refugee in the environs of Buenos Aires, from reasons of which I am ignorant, but which doubtless little concern you, rendered hospitality to a lost traveller, who, in the middle of the night, during a frightful storm, presented himself at the door of his hacienda. That traveller was you, Señor, you, a descendant of a race not less illustrious than ours, since one of your ancestors was governor of Brazil. The name of the marquis, don Roque de Castelmelhor, offered to my father all the guarantees of honour and good faith he could desire; you were received, then, by the exile, not as a foreigner, not even as a compatriot, but as a friend and a brother. Our family became yours; all that is true, is it not?"
"All that is true, Señorita," answered the marquis.
"I see, with pleasure, that you have, in default of other qualities, frankness, Señor," ironically replied the girl. "Robbed of all its property, my family, exiled for nearly a century from the country discovered by one of its ancestors, could live but with difficulty. You presented yourself to my father as a victim of the political intrigues of people into whose hands the king of Portugal had delegated his powers; this reason was sufficient for our house to become yours, and for my father not keeping secrets from you. There was one, however, of which, notwithstanding all your skill, it was impossible for you to obtain the revelation; it is on the discovery of that secret that depended the future fortune of his family, if, as my father hoped, the king should permit him someday to return to Brazil. This secret, which my father, my brother, and myself alone knew, by what means you succeeded, if not in wholly discovering it, at least in penetrating it sufficiently that your covetousness and your avarice should be aroused to the point of making you betray your benefactors – that is what I shall not seek to explain. In a word, although you had, during several months, lived intimately with us, without appearing to honour me with the least attention – treating me rather as a child than as a young girl, suddenly you changed. You see that I also am frank."
"Go on, Señorita," answered the marquis, smiling, "I know your candour. It remains for me to learn whether you possess as much perspicacity."
"You shall not be long judging of that, Señor," replied she, ironically. "Perhaps your cares and devotion would have obtained the result you hoped for, and I might have been brought, if not to love you, at least to be interested in you; but, happily for me, I was not long in seeing clearly into your heart. Carried away by insatiable avarice, you allowed yourself on several occasions in my presence, to speak to me of everything but your pretended love."
"Oh, Señorita," exclaimed the marquis.
"Yes," answered she, with bitter raillery; "I know you are a consummate actor, and that it would not be my fault were I even now to believe in that passion of which you make so great a display."
The young girl paused for some moments, to allow the marquis the opportunity of answering, but, instead of doing so, he bit his lips and bowed his head.
Doña Laura smiled.
"The brutal way in which you have traitorously carried me off is the most decided proof to me of the odious scheme of which I have been the victim. If you really loved me, nothing was easier to you than to ask my hand of my father."
"Señorita, did you not answer to the demand I had the honour to address to you by a refusal?" asked the marquis.
"Certainly; but I am only a young girl," answered she, with animation, "a child, as you yourself have said, who does not know herself. That offer of marriage ought not then in any way, and especially with regard to the rules of society to have been addressed to me, but to my father. But no! You had another design: that marriage was but a pretext for you to seize on the immense riches you covet. At this moment you would not dare to maintain the contrary."
"Who knows?" murmured he, with an air of raillery.
"So you have preferred to cause me to fall into a snare, to carry me away from my family, whom my disappearance has plunged into the most profound despair, and to force me to follow you – I, a poor defenceless child, a prisoner in the midst of bandits, of whom you are the chief."
"Since, according to your own expression, Señorita, I have so brutally carried you away from your family, have I conducted myself towards you otherwise than as a gentleman of my name and race ought?"
"It is true," answered she, bursting into a fit of laughter; "I must admit that. But what is the cause of these attentions and this respect?"
"Love most sincere and most – "
"Enough of lies, Señor;" she cried, "your first word on entering under this tent betrayed you."
"Señorita!"
"You believe yourself to have arrived in the latitude of the diamond country discovered by one of my ancestors, and you wish at last to try and obtain from me – for avarice blinds you – the revelation of the secret you believe I possess!"
CHAPTER VIII
A NOBLE BANDIT
There was, after this accusation, so energetically pronounced by the young girl, some minutes of deathlike silence in the tent.
Without, the wind lashed the trees, and intertwined the branches with sounds almost like human wailings; the leaves were whirled in the air, and fell quivering on the thicket; at short intervals the lugubrious note of the owl, concealed in the hollows of the rocks, was heard, repeated from the distance like a dismal echo. Vague and indefinable sounds arose, carried on the wings of the wind, dying away only to be continually repeated, and further adding to the mysterious horror of this sombre and moonless night, the thick darkness of which gave to the objects a fantastically deathlike appearance.
The marquis had risen, his arms crossed behind his back, his head reclining on his breast; he strode about the tent, a prey to an agitation which he made vain efforts to conceal.
Doña Laura, half lying on the sofa, her head thrown backwards, followed him with a fixed and mocking look, waiting with anxiety the approaching explosion of that anger she had not been afraid to excite.
At last, after some minutes, which appeared an age to the young girl, the marquis stopped in front of her, and raised his head.
His face was pale, but his features had resumed their careless and mocking expression, only a light nervous quivering of his eyebrows – an index with him of a furious rage, mastered with difficulty – bore witness to the efforts he was compelled to make to subdue himself.
"I have allowed you, have I not, Señorita," said he, "to speak without interrupting you; I have in this interview – you will at least render me that justice – given proof, not only of patience, but of good taste. In fact," added he, with an ironical smile, "of what use is it to discuss an accomplished fact? Nothing that you can say will change your actual position; you are in my power; no human aid can succeed in modifying my intentions towards you. This conversation, that I should wish to have been conducted more amicably, you yourself, of your own accord, have placed on the unfriendly footing on which it now is."
He stopped; the young girl coquettishly supported her head on her right hand, and surveying him with a look, in which contempt and raillery were equally mingled, she answered him with a careless voice —
"You make a grave mistake, caballero. This conversation, which you value so much, I care very little for. Now that I have explained myself clearly, and without reservation, I will allow you to speak as much as you please, since it is impossible for me to impose silence on you, and I am condemned to hear you; only, I warn you beforehand, in order to avoid the expenditure of useless eloquence, that whatever you may say to me, whatever may be the threats you offer me, you will not obtain the honour of an answer."
The marquis bit his lip with so much violence that he drew blood, but answered with a sneer —
"In truth, Señorita, is this resolution firmly fixed in your mind? You will not deign to answer me? I shall be deprived of hearing the harmonious music of your gentle voice resounding in my ear; but, in spite of yourself, I am convinced, you will fail in your heroic vow."
"Try it," answered she with disdain. "The occasion is suitable for me to give you a denial."
"I shall take care not to allow it to escape, Señorita."
The marquis approached a butaca, placed a few paces before the young girl, sat down, and assuming an attitude full of grace and carelessness, he continued in a tone as peaceable as though he had been commencing a confidential communication —
"Señorita," said he, "you have, I admit, perfectly defined our respective positions; that secret you possess has been revealed to me by chance by a former servant of your family, who sold it me very dear. It was, then, with the fixed intention of obtaining the information necessary to the success of my plans, that I presented myself to your father. You see that I imitate your candour. I did not love you, and, to say the truth, I do not love you now. A woman like you, seductive as you are, would not suit me; your disposition is too much like my own. I should have probably married you had you consented to give me your hand – pardon me this rude candour – but, resolved to seize the treasure that I covet, I should, to assure myself of its possession, have accomplished what I consider as the greatest sacrifice, that is to say, the act of alienating my liberty forever in favour of a woman whom I did not love."
The young girl bowed with a mocking smile, and clapped her hands two or three times.
Almost immediately the curtain was drawn aside, and the slave appeared.
"Phoebe," said doña Laura to her, "as probably I shall not be able to take the repose which I need till very late, and as I feel, in spite of myself, my eyelids drooping, and sleep overcoming me, bring me the maté, my child, and bring me at the same time papelitos; perhaps these two stimulants combined, and taken in a strong dose, will triumph over the sleepiness which oppresses me."
The slave went out laughing, and the marquis remained an instant, overcome by the superb coolness of the young girl, and her heroic indifference.
Some minutes passed away, during which they both maintained silence; there the light step of the Negress was again heard, and she reappeared, holding in her hands a silver platter, on which were the maté, some cigarettes of Indian maize straw, and a silver braserito, containing fire.
Phoebe presented the maté to her mistress, and made a movement to withdraw.
"Remain, chica," said doña Laura; "what the marquis has to tell me cannot be too serious for you to hear."
The young servant placed on the table the platter she held, and came incontinently to lie at the feet of her mistress, exchanging with her a mocking smile, which redoubled, if that is possible, the rage of the marquis.
"Let it be so," said the marquis, bowing, "I will continue before your slave, Señorita; it is little consequence to me who hears or who listens to me; moreover, I have but a few more words to say."
Doña Laura sipped her maté, without paying any attention to the speech of the marquis.
"You never put sugar enough in the maté, chica," said she; "this is bitter."
"I was saying, Señorita," continued the marquis, "that, repulsed by you, but not wishing to renounce projects for a long time ripened and fixed in my mind, I at last resolved to carry you away. I will not weary you with the recital of the means employed by me to succeed in deceiving the restless vigilance of your family. Since you are here alone in my power, at several hundred leagues from the residence of your father, it is not only that I have succeeded in making you fall into the snare laid by me under your feet, but also that I have so well guarded against the suspicions of those who interest themselves in your fate."
"Decidedly, Phoebe, this maté is too bitter," said the young girl; "give me a cigarette."
The slave obeyed.
"Now, Señorita," continued the marquis, still impassable, "I am coming to the end of this conversation, of which all that has been yet said is to a certain extent only a preface – a rather long preface, perhaps, but one which you will pardon me, for it was indispensable, to make myself well understood by you. I have carried you away, it is true; but reassure yourself, as long as you remain under my protection, your honour shall be safe; I give you the word of a gentleman for it. You smile; you are wrong. I am honest in my way. Give me the exact indications that I expect from you, and immediately I grant you, not only liberty, but, moreover, I engage to send you back safe and sound, without your honour being suspected, into the hands of your family. Strange as this proposition may appear to you, it is nevertheless serious, and appears to me to merit your consideration. Answer me one word – one word only, 'Yes' and on the instant you are free."
The marquis paused; doña Laura remained mute, and appeared not to have heard.
"You are obstinate, Señorita," replied Don Roque, with some animation "you are wrong; you are staking, I repeat, your fortune and your future happiness at this moment."
"Another cigarette, Phoebe," interrupted doña Laura, shrugging her shoulders.
"Beware!" cried Don Roque, with ill-suppressed irritation; "Beware, Señorita we must finish once for all these continual evasions."
The young girl rose, took a step towards the marquis, measured him for an instant from head to foot, covering him, so to speak, with a look charged with all the contempt which she felt for him, and turning towards Phoebe, who was motionless and mute by her side —
"Come, chica," said she to her, placing her hand on her shoulder; "the night is far advanced, it is time for us to retire, and go to sleep."
And without granting another look to the marquis, mute and stupefied with this audacious procedure, the young girl quitted the room.
In spite of himself, the marquis remained an instant in the place which he occupied; his eyes firmly fixed on the curtain, the folds of which still preserved a scarcely perceptible vibration. All of a sudden he recovered himself, passed his hand across his forehead, moist with perspiration, and darting a look of hatred towards the spot where doña Laura had disappeared —
"Oh!" cried he, with a voice stifled by fury, "What tortures will I pay for so many insults!"
He left the tent, staggering like a drunken man.
The cold air of the night, fanning his face, brought him wonderful relief; little by little his features regained their serenity; calmness returned to his mind; an ironical smile played upon his slender lips, and he murmured in a low voice, as he strode towards his tent:
"Fool that I am to allow myself to be carried away thus by a foolish child! What in reality are her insults and contempt to me? Am I not master to subdue her pride? Patience, patience! Nay, vengeance, if it be long in coming, will only strike her the more cruelly, and will be only the more terrible."
The marquis re-entered his tent. After having regulated the wick of a lamp the flickering light of which feebly illumined the surrounding objects, Don Roque approached a round stool, which served him for a table, and drawing from his breast a yellow and stained paper, on which was rudely drawn, by an unskilful hand, a kind of rough plan, he proceeded to study it with the greatest care, and was not long in becoming completely absorbed.
The entire night was passed away without the marquis quitting the position he had taken, and without his eyes closing for a single instant.
The plan, rough and incomplete as it appeared to be, was that of the diamond country, which concealed those incalculable riches so ardently coveted by the young man.
But this plan – made from memory a long time after having seen the country, and that in superficial manner, by an ignorant man – could unluckily only be a feeble aid to the marquis. He felt it in spite of himself, and this certainty redoubled his fury.
But what could be done with a woman more than he had done with doña Laura? How was he to vanquish her resistance, and constrain her to speak?
For more than three hours the sun had already risen; the marquis, still plunged in his thoughts, had not appeared to perceive the return of the light, when the gallop of a horse which approached rapidly, caused him suddenly to raise his head.