University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.
THE SOLDIER'S FUNERAL.

In spite of every effort of the young
dragoon, the morning meal passed silently

and sadly; he could not for his life
sufficiently abstract his mind from the
consideration of the perils which environed
not only himself but her whom he
so dearly loved, to maintain the conversation,
which he set on foot several times,
only as it would seem to flag as soon as
it was commenced.

And she whom he would have diverted,
could he have commanded his
own soul from the gloomy thoughts in
which she was plunged, sat motionless
and pale as statuary marble; and
though a faint glow would enkindle
her white cheek for a moment, and a
transient smile flit across her quivering
lip, as the voice she loved to hear addressed
her with words of cheerfulness
and comfort, she relapsed almost immediately
into gloomy silence, and seemed
to be unconscious of all that was passing
around her.

The simple viands to which yesterday
the Spartan sauce of healthful
hunger had lent a flavor so agreeable,
now lay before her untasted or distasteful,
and it was only by an effort that
she compelled herself to swallow the
coffee which Gordon pressed upon her
as a necessary stimulant, even if it
were not a refreshment.

It was perhaps a relief to both when
the breakfast was ended; and Julia,
worn out with the watching and alarm
of the past night, coupled with the fatigues
of so many days passed in the
saddle, withdrew to court repose under
the shelter of the little tent, which had
been pitched once more in the most secret
nook of their sylvan amphitheatre.

Then turning to the performance of
his active duties, as much perhaps to
divert his own mind from anxious and
painful reflections, as that those duties
were of any great real moment or utility,
the youthful soldier once more ascended
the eminence on which his sentinel
was posted, and carefully surveyed
the country round his halting-place.

The sun had now gained so much elevation
that the morning mists were altogether
dispersed, and his broad rays
were poured down far and near over the
whole expanse of grassy plain and leafy
forest.

No signs, however, were to be discovered,
from the farthest horizon to
the near foreground, of anything like
humanity, and when Arthur Gordon
came down from his watch-post, he did
so in the full conviction that no immediate
danger threatened him, nor would he
have hesitated about setting forth on his
march, but for the absence of the Partisan,
whose return he still confidently
looked for.

He had determined, happen what
might, to wait patiently until the shades
of night should fall, and the day was to
be consumed by some means or other.
One duty there was, which might in
truth be deemed imperative—the consigning
to its last resting place of their
gallant comrade's body, and to this, leaving
one of the dragoons on the hill-top
to guard against surprise, he applied
himself in the first instance.

The sabres of his dragoons, and an
axe or two, which had been brought
with them as a part of the camp equipage,
sufficed to scoop out a little hollow
in the rich soil of the moist basin,
hard by the streamlet's bed, and in it,
wrapped in his watch-cloak, with his
plumed shako on his head, and his good
sword on his thigh, all that was earthly
of the gallant veteran was laid to take
its long last sleep, that sleep which
knows no earthly waking. There was
in that sad ceremony none of the proud,
yet melancholy pomp which marks the
soldier's funeral—no dead march pealing
solemnly from the wild bugle and
the muffled drum—no slow and hollow
tramp of the grave escort, following
with dark warworn features and reversed
arms the coffin of their comrade—no
charger led along with mourning trappings—no
sword and helm and gauntlet
displayed upon the coffin's lid—no,
there were none of these. But truer
and sincerer was the tribute paid by the
faltering voice of the commanding officer,
as he read in the earnest, subdued
tones of real feeling the touching ritual
of the church of England, and by the
heavy tears that fell from the eyes of
the two hardy soldiers, who having dug
his grave and laid him in the bosom of
his mother earth, leaned on their carbines,
gazing down upon his grim and
ghastly features, well knowing that his
fate might be their own ere nightfall.

The heart of Arthur Gordon was
stirred to its utmost depths; strange
thoughts, half sad and half sublime

crowded upon his spirit, and all that
there was of sentiment and romance
within him—and there is some within
the soul of every human being however
slow or stolid—was awakened, and he
read those thrilling sentences from Paul's
epistle to the Corinthians, with a vigor
of enunciation, an eloquence of tone
and an inspiration of manner which fairly
startled his rough listeners, and called
forth perceptions in their souls of
which they had lived hitherto unconscious.

So high did his accents rise, and so
strangely did they ring in that wild solitude,
which surely never before had
known its echoes awakened by the
sounds of the gospel truth, that the
sentinel on the little hill turned his
eyes from the country, to watch which
he was posted there, and stood gazing
down with moisty eyes and a full heart
upon the solemn group gathered around
the sergeant's grave.

Julia, too, awakened from her light
and restless slumbers by the raised
tones of her young husband's voice,
had come forth from her tent, and
stood beside the reader in her snow-white
dress, with her long chestnut
ringlets floating disorderly on the soft
morning air, too bright and beautiful a
being to belong to so rude a party, to
be mingled in so strange a scene.

“Behold,” cried the young dragoon,
his voice rising more and more emphatically
with the rising sublimity of
his subject, “Behold, I shew you a
mystery. We shall not all sleep, but
we shall all be changed in a moment,
in the twinkling of an eye, at the last
trump, for the trumpet shall sound—”

But scarcely had the words passed
his lips, when he started as if he had
received a blow, nor he alone but every
one of those who stood about the grave,
and Julia even uttered a faint cry, and
gazed on the face of the dead man in
horrid uncertainty, as if she expected
to see him start from the slumbers of
the grave.

For, at the very moment when Arthur
Gordon uttered the word, the long,
shrill note of a bugle, clearly and powerfully
winded, rose upon the morning
air, as it seemed close beside them.

It was the first impression of the
young officer, that the bugler of his
party, struck by the coincidence of the
fine passage with his own profession,
and carried away by his feelings, had
ventured upon this singular accompaniment,
and he was on the point of
rebuking him sternly for his unmilitary
conduct, when the astonished air of the
man, and the absence of the instrument
satisfied him that he must seek another
cause for the interruption.

One glance at the sentinel satisfied
him. For aroused by the bugle call to
a recollection of his neglected duty, the
man had turned round to reconnoitre
the prairie in the rear of the low hills,
and had instantly crouched down among
the underwood to avoid being discovered,
as he had been ordered to do in
case of the appearance of an enemy.

Motioning to his men that they should
remain at ease, Arthur Gordon bounded
at ten springs to the soldier's side,
and saw a sight which for the moment
made his bold heart stand still. A troop
of Mexican lancers, splendidly equipped
and well mounted, although on undersized
horses, had emerged from the
nearest point of forest land, and marching
onward silently, over the deep
greensward of the prairie, were now
actually wheeling round the outer base
of the low hill on which he stood, and
which alone concealed his party from
their view.

They were sixty in number, dressed
in green uniforms with crimson facings,
and crimson trousers richly laced, and
slouched hats with gaudy bands and
gorgeous plumes fluttering in the air,
as did the crimson banderols of their
long glittering lances. Two officers,
gallantly equipped, and bestriding animals
vastly superior to the chargers of
the men, rode at the head of the troop,
with their eyes fixed upon the ground,
endeavoring, as Gordon speedily discovered,
to trace the hoof-marks of his
own horses in the moist greensward.

The young officer's heart beat fast
and thick, and he positively trembled
with the violence of his excitement, of
his apprehension. He doubted not that
all was lost, and that another moment
would see the cruel and licentious sons
of the fierce Spaniard, the masters of
his own, of his sweet Julia's destiny.

Wild thoughts and wicked whirled
madly for the moment through his distracted

brain, and as he thought of the
utter hopelessness of strife or resistance,
as he recalled to mind the dread
tales he had heard of torture, and outrage
worse than torture wrought on defenceless
women by the exasperated
Mexicans, he grasped the butts of his
pistols, half resolved to save himself
and her whom he loved far above himself,
from that extremity of evil, by
kindly murder and self immolation.

Well was it for them both, however,
that he paused ere he accomplished his
dread determination, for just as he
turned on his heel to rush down into the
valley where his fair wife stood in mute
consternation, the officers in advance
pulled in their horses abruptly, and the
word was passed to halt so suddenly
that the troop was thrown into some
confusion, the front ranks halting instantly,
and those in the rear pressing
tumultuously to the front, ere they
could check their small but spirited
horses.

They had come, it appeared, upon
the broad track left on the plain by the
headlong passage of the wild Camanches,
and as through a singular piece
of good fortune, the point at which the
savages had leaped the little rivulet
was the same at which the dragoons
had entered it and ridden upward into
the basin where it rose, the tracks of
the two parties were completely mixed
up and confounded.

It was evident that the Mexican lancers
were much disturbed and alarmed
by the certainty, which they perceived
at a glance, that they were in the close
vicinity of the dreaded Camanches,
those Ishmaelites of the western wilderness.

Their ranks were hastily re-formed
their escopetas were unslung, the primings
inspected, the swords loosened in
their scabbards, and every thing made
ready for immediate action.

“Our march has been useless,” said
the captain of the troop to his licutenant,
in their own tongue; “the savages have
taken them, that is plain enough.”

“Not useless, thanks be to God,” returned
the other, “for we have learned
their fate at least; and little matters it
to us how the accursed Yankees perish,
so they do perish. Carrera will be well
pleased, Captain, to learn that they are
all cut off without loss to our brave fellows;
for, though they were but five,
they would have fought like incarnate
devils, and cost us half a dozen empty
saddles at the least.”

“True, true!” replied the captain
hastily; “but we are not so safe ourselves.
These cursed savages are within
sight and hearing of us, even now, it
is like enough. I should not wonder if
they were lurking in this chapparal, on
the hill-sides here, at this moment.”

A bright thought flashed upon the
mind of Gordon, at this juncture; and
well knowing the terror which the Mexicans
entertained for the wild rovers, he
determined to act upon it on the instant.
Among some other curiosities and trinkets
which had been picked up in the
course of their march, there was a powerful
Indian bow, and a quiver full of
long well-feathered arrows; and, to
bring these up from the camp, he instantly
despatched the soldier who was
crouching by his side.

In the meantime, the conversation between
the Spanish officers continued in
rapid and eager sentences.

“How far is the main-guard behind
us?” asked the commander of the party,
hastily, of a trooper who rode up from
the rear.

“About a league, senor captain,” replied
the man, saluting as he spoke.

“Take a sergeant's guard, and ride
back for your life!” returned the
doughty commander, “and inform the
colonel that a strong force of Camanches
is close before us, and that we are in
momentary expectation of attack!”

A small group was instantly detached
from the troop, and away they went at
the top of their speed, now lost to view
as they dashed down some long declivity,
now glancing on the eye as they
toiled up some rolling swell of the green
prairie—their active little horses spurning
the sod high into the air behind their
rapid hoofs, and their plumes and banderols
streaming out in the current of
air, created by their own swift motion.

“Were it not well, captain, to let all
the bugles sound the alarm? It may be
they would hear them, and spur on at
once.”

“More like that the savages would
hear and understand them, and so fall
upon us ere the succor should come up.”

“They would scarcely dare, captain,
to attack so strong a force as ours,” interposed
the cornet, who appeared to
possess something more of spirit than his
companions.

“Not dare! they dare anything, the
accursed devils!” replied the leader.
“And, as for strength, they cannot be
less than forty in number, by these hoof-tracks.”

“But they have no fire-arms.”

“Tush! a Camanche arrow will carry
farther and kill more surely than the
ball of an escopeta,” returned the captain,
sharply. “You have seen nothing
as yet, I believe, of these Indians, Cornet
Valdiz?”

Little he thought, as he spoke, that
his own words were destined to be made
good on his own person; yet so, in truth,
it was. For, ere the sounds had yet
died upon his lips, an arrow whistled
from the bow which Gordon drew to its
utmost tension, as he lay hidden in the
thorny brake, scarce twenty paces distant;
and striking the unhappy Mexican
full in the breast, pierced him through
and through, and fairly came out at his
back, literally reeking with his life-blood.

A wild and thrilling yell followed, no
mean imitation of the Camanche war
cry; for so long had the young dragoon
served on the south-western frontier,
that the war cries, and even the languages,
of many of the Indian tribes,
were nearly as familiar to him as his
native tongue.

Another and another, and another
shaft succeeded, so rapidly did he notch
them on the tough sinew, and discharge
them. But he shot no longer with the
deliberate aim and fatal execution of the
first arrow, and death no longer followed
the twang of the quick-drawn bowstring.

Still two of the three arrows, though
discharged almost at random, found a
mark, as they fell in the midst of the
serried ranks, and a man and a horse
were wounded.

No more was needed: without waiting
for any word or signal, the lancers
turned their reins, set spurs to their
horses, and gallopped off as hard as they
could ride—their officers yielding at first
to the panic, and leaving their comman
der writhing in his death-pangs on the
gory sod.

Still Gordon whooped and yelled from
his covert, and shot arrow after arrow
into their receding ranks, until his quiver
was nearly empty, and he had seen
that the last shaft fell short of the enemy.

This they, too, now perceived; and,
after some little effort of the officers, the
troop was halted, rallied, and re-formed,
with its front facing the low hills which
held, as they supposed, the fierce and
murderous savages.

Then at a word they levelled their
escopetas, and the first rank poured in
a volley, not a single bullet of which so
much as fell among the underwood by
which Gordon was sheltered from their
view. Breaking off from the centre,
right and left, the front rank now wheeled
at quick time to the rear, and the
second rank in its turn fired and wheeled
off, the third following its example.
And so they continued working, continually
increasing their distance from
the dangerous covert, until they had
actually discharged twelve rounds each
man, not a single ball of which but had
fallen short of the supposed ambush of
the enemy.

Then, finding that they were unpursued,
and that no missiles were directed
against them from the underwood, they
stood firm; and eagerly reflecting that,
if their firing had failed to provoke an
attack from the savages, their bugles
would probably have no more effect,
while they might possibly stir up their
lagging countrymen to increased exertion,
they made the plains and woods
re-echo, for miles around, with the long
flourishes of their wind instruments.

Scarcely had the brazen clangor subsided
into silence, before it was taken
up and repeated in the remote distance,
by an answering flourish, and the head
of a heavy column of cavalry, apparently
some hundreds strong, was seen
emerging from the forest, at three or
four miles' distance to the eastward.

As he beheld this demonstration, the
heart of Gordon began once more to
beat thick and painfully, and he doubted
the wisdom of the ruse, which he had
practised in order to drive the intrusive
Mexicans from too close a neighborhood
to his own quarters.

For now that he saw the powerful

body which was moving steadily forward
to rejoin their advanced party,
judging from experience, and from the
consideration of what would be his own
conduct at the head of such a force,
with a mere handful of marauding savages
before him, he felt assured that,
so soon as the regiment should come up,
his position would be attacked in form,
and his successful ruse discovered.

Indeed, so strong was his conviction
of the certainty of this termination, that
had it been possible for him to extricate
himself from the amphitheatre which he
occupied, without issuing on the plain
directly in the face of the lancers, he
would unhesitatingly have evacuated
his camp, abandoned his baggage, and
made the best of his way toward the
forest-land which closed the view of the
horizon to the westward.

As it was, however, no such option
was given to him, and he had no alternative
but to remain perdu where he
was, in the hope that the cowardice and
imbecility of the Mexican leaders might
deter them from attacking a position
which certainly, if manned by riflemen,
or even by the archery of the Camanches,
would have offered some difficulties
to the attack of cavalry, so dense
and thorny was the brake which covered
the low hills.

He descended therefore from his
post, charging the sentinel, whom he
left behind on the verge of the knoll, to
keep a good look out; and, after telling
the two troopers in the hollow that the
danger of discovery was at an end for
the present, and desiring them to cover
the grave of their comrade, and to surround
it with an abattis of branches, in
order to prevent the wolves from dragging
forth the miserable relics of humanity,
passed into the little tent to
console the lovely girl who was awaiting
his return, breathless and pale, but
wonderfully self-composed and patient.

Not many minutes was he permitted
to remain in that sweet companionship,
for, before a quarter of an hour had
elapsed, one of the dragoons thrust his
head through the opening in the canvass
wall, and gave his officer notice that the
sentinel on the hill was making signals
that something was in process on the
plain below.

“I will return in an instant, dearest,”
he exclaimed, “or at least will send
you word what is happening. Be of
good cheer, for in truth I think there is
little danger. These Dons, I fancy,
will scarcely try another Indian arrow.”

He clasped her to his heart, pressed
one long kiss on her pure lips, and
rushed forth, half maddened between
the excitement of the soldier, and the
apprehension of the man and lover.

A moment brought him to the signal
post, this time accompanied by the old
soldier whom he had appointed sergeant
in the room of the deceased; and, as he
cast his eyes upon the landscape, a
sight met them which made his blood at
first stagnate in his veins with horror,
and then thrill fiercely with returning
hope of safety.