University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.
THE RUINED RANCHO.

The moon by this time had risen,
and already far above the horizon was
beginning to pour her light into the
shadowy recesses of the forest. The
skies were as clear as a vault of the
purest crystal, and the broad, round
disk of the beautiful satellite now well
nigh full, rode over them in perfect
majesty, surrounded by a host of resplendent
stars.

But through the heavy foliage of the
mighty live oaks, the tops of which,
whenever any opening occurred in the
thick woodland, might be seen bathed in
the pure pallid lustre, every leaf, wet
with the diamond dew-drops, twinkling
and shivering in the soft air; scarcely
a beam found its way to the soil from
which they sprang. The nature of the
soil itself was different from that which
they had thus far traversed, and in lieu
of the deep, moist, black mould covered
with long rich grass, and giving birth to
a thousand gorgeous flowers and luxuriant
shrubs, the hoofs of the horses
now turned up a thick and ponderous
sand from beneath the scanty herbage,
which thinly clad its arid surface.

Under the heat of the Mexican noonday,
when the breeze is asleep in its
far chambers of the vaulted sky, the
march through these elevated woods
were toilsome and even painful to excess.
The over burdened animals
sinking more than fetlock beneath the
weight of their riders or their packs;
the intolerable dust-wreaths smoking up
from beneath their tread, the torturing
bites of envenomed insects, the smothering
heat that broods ever undisturbed
by a breath of air, beneath those green
aisles, render a mid day journey
through that district, an enterprise
more difficult, if not so dangerous as a
pilgrimage across the parched waste of
Sahara.

Beneath the coolness of the dewy
night, and under the rays of the cold
moon, the case is widely different; and
when the little party again mounted
their horses, restored by their short
halt, and reinvigorated by the forage
which had been hastily collected for
them, their progress was once more
rapid and less laborious than during
any portion of their previous progress.

No sounds were to be heard but the
light flutter of the breezy leaves, for the
tramp of the horses was inaudible on
the soft sandy road, and had it not been
for the occasional cry of some startled
night bird, or the hum of some chance
insects, the voyagers might have imagined
that without the exception of
themselves and their horses, there was
not a living animal awake within the
precincts of the great upland forest.

Throughout this wild tract, the ground
beneath the canopy of the huge trees
was bare and quite clear of underwood,
so much so that squadrons of cavalry
might have manœuvred between the
gigantic stems, although the far reaching

boughs and evergreen foliage, excluded
even glimmering of moonlight,
except where along the line of the narrow
road they were pursuing, an occasional
gleam pierced through at distant
intervals.

Along this road they had travelled
without any occurrence to disturb or
interrupt them, for about four hours
since they halted, and although advancing
only at an easy ambling canter had
traversed something better than twenty
miles, when the distant barking of a
large dog was distinctly heard by all
the party, and within a few minutes
after that sound became audible, the advanced
dragoon, who was a hundred or
two yards ahead of the party, reined up
and informed the Partisan that a heavy
body of horse were coming down the
road rapidly towards them.

Scarcely, indeed, had the man spoken
before the truth of his report was evident.
For, as he halted instantly on the
receipt of the unwelcome tidings, the
clang of stirrups and scabbards became
at once audible, and the quick ear of
the Partisan enabled him almost immediately
to form a shrewd conjecture as
to their numbers.

The road, a little way above the spot
where they stood, made an abrupt elbow
to avoid the gulley of a brook, the waters
of which could be heard gurgling
faintly over the pebbles, and wound to
and fro so as nearly to form a letter S,
a line drawn through which would not
have exceeded half a mile in length,
while the measure of all its sinuosities
would easily have exceeded thrice that
distance.

“There are above an hundred of
them,” said Pierre, after listening for
a moment; “and it is sure enough
they are coming right down upon us.
Fortunate is it for us that the read is
not straight, or they would have been
down on us before we suspected it. As
it is we can be safe enough, before they
come thus far, and yet we have little
time to lose. Hold up your sabres, my
men, that they do not strike your spurs
or stirrups, and follow me in single file.
Let me have a hand on your bridle
rein, lady. Gordon, close up behind
us, we must trot.”

And with the word, pricking his
orse lightly with the spur, he turned
the head of Julia's palfrey short to the
right hand, and leaving the beaten track
plunged without hesitation into the
depths of the forest. For a hundred
yards, or better, the ground which they
crossed was entirely level, but at the
end of this distance it became broken
and uneven, and the roar of rapid water
sounded nearer and nearer at every
step.

Darker and darker grew the forest,
as they proceeded and descended, and
as they neared the banks of the torrent,
the ground became interspersed with
single shrubs, and then with scattered
patches of brake and brushes, until at
the margin of the turbulent water, a
dense fringe of continuous underwood
was visible.

Before they reached this, however,
and within a quarter of a mile of the
road itself, Pierre halted, and telling
Julia that there was no danger, and desiring
the men not to stir from the spot,
or speak, or call out whatever they
might hear or see, dismounted from his
horse, cast the rein to a dragoon, and
then hurried back on foot, as fast as he
could, directly toward the track which
they had just left.

Treading the soft earth with a noiseless
step, and availing himself of the
covert of every bush, every stem, every
inequality of the ground, he soon contrived
to worm his way to the very edge
of the road, along which the cavalry
they had heard was in full march.

He had scarcely thrown himself
down on the grass, at a spot, where in
consequence of some trifling moisture,
it grew longer and ranker than elsewhere,
before the increasing clatter
and clang announced the approach of
the horsemen, and the next moment a
long line of bright sparks of fire became
visible, undulating as they followed the
sweep of the road, and agitated gently
up and down by the swift motion of the
horses.

“Just as I thought, Guerillas!” muttered
the Partisan to himself; “even
Mexican regulars would scarce be
smoking thus on a forced night march,
as this must be; for they can scarce
expect any work to do, or any enemy
to surprise within fifty miles of this or
better. But patience! patience! we
shall soon know their game, for by heaven!

they are talking as if each man
had two tongues. It is Juan de Alava's
squadron, for a thousand!”

Scarcely had he ceased from speaking,
or rather thinking within himself,
for although his ideas almost formed
themselves into actual sentences, they
were by no means formed in articulate
words, when the body of irregular horse
began to file past him, in loose order,
three or four sometimes riding abreast,
and at other times each cavalier singly,
and, that too, with considerable intervals
between. Just when they passed him,
there was an opening in the treetops,
and the moonlight streamed down
through it in a pencil of bright yellow
lustre which was contrasted splendidly
against the surrounding shadows,
and which, the Partisan judged truly,
would render the darkness of the forest
around only the more intense to those
who viewed it from that focus of illumination.

The spot of the road, on which this
clear light fell, was but two or three
yards across at the utmost, and as man
after man rode into it out of the shadow
on the one hand, gleamed, fully revealed,
to the minute details of his dress
and accountrements for a moment, and
was again lost in the gloom beyond—
the sight was beyond conception strange,
savage, and exciting.

The wild, active little horse, the huge
hats, and long jetblack elflocks of the
riders—their many colored blankets
and ponchos, and the flash of the positive
armory which each trooper bore
about him, composed a picture worthy
the pencil of Salvator.

The red gleam of their cigars as they
drew them, now and then, into a keener
radiance with their breath, flashed luridly
up over their swarthy features,
and disclosed some of them so fully,
that the Partisan even recognised the
faces of individuals whose names and
deeds were familiar to his ears.

The squadron was perhaps ten minutes
or a quarter of an hour passing
him, for they were as he had conjectured
by the sound, while they were
yet at a distance above a hundred of
them—in fact he reckoned about a score
beyond that number—and they rode, as
I have said, in very open order, and
not much faster than a foot pace.

Pierre listened to every word that
fell from their lips, as if his life depended
on his catching the import of what
they said, but for a long time it was all
in vain. For though he lay so close to
the speakers as to catch every syllable,
and understood their tongue perfectly,
the riders either knew not the object of
their own march, or cared not to converse
about it. Their words, therefore,
were to the ears of the Partisan mere
jargon, turning on subjects of personal
interest to the men, and sometimes containing
sentiments of mere ribaldry
and licentiousness, or anticipations of
massacre and plunder, which made the
heart of the listener bound in his breast
with indignant anger.

At last when a hundred and twenty
men, all armed with the lance and long
straight two edged sword, all having
the formidable lasso coiled up at the
saddle-bow, and the most of them having
two escopetas, or short heavy ounce
balled carabines slung at their sides,
had filed passed him in succession, a
longer interval occurred in the line than
he had hitherto observed, and thinking
that they were all gone, and that the
danger was at an end, he was on the
point of rising to his feet. It was well
for him, however, that he did not so,
for, when he had actually raised himself
to his knees, the tramp of two
horses at a gallop struck his ear, suddenly,
and he had barely the time to
conceal himself again in the grass, before
the two horses were within arms
length of him.

The next glance showed him that his
life had not been worth a dollar's purchase
had he fully arisen to his feet, for
he needed nothing to tell him that the
eyes of the two who now passed him—
eyes wandering suspiciously at every
step of their horses through the forest
about them—were very different to encounter
from those of the mere troopers,
who had hitherto passed by him.

These two men were of a widely different
aspect from the rest, and from
each other also, though one of them
were clad, except that the materials
were richer, in the same costume with
the men who preceded him.

The other, who rode a little the foremost
of the two, and the nearest to the
Partisan, was a little old shrivelled

man, not above the middle height, and
worn down almost to the emaciation of
a living skeleton between the fatigues
of war, and exposure to weather. Yet
within that frail and meagre frame,
hardened as it was and exercised into
a mere mass of compact bone and
sinew, it was easy to perceive that
there resided a world of untamed youthful
spirit, and all the strength of manhood.

He sat a fine black horse, which
arched its neck against the curb proudly,
and seemed to be fighting, all the
time, against the hand which controlled
it, with all the elastic strength and easy
vigor which are natural to twenty years,
but at three score and ten seem almost
miraculous.

And yet from his thin wrinkled face,
his bird-like hand—for he rode gloveless
—the aged stoop of his shoulders, as he
bowed over his saddle bow, and the
snow-white hair which escaped from
beneath his broad-leafed hat, the long
moustache and peaked vandy ke beard,
all of the same wintry hue, it was evident
that his earthy pilgrimage had
been prolonged already beyond the
term which the psalmist assigns to the
strongest of the sons of men.

His dress was a closely fitted sackshaped
coat, or tunic, barely descending
to his saddle, and buttoned up to his
very throat with large jet buttons. A
broad white band or collar was folded
squarely over it at the neck, and gave a
singular character, half clerical, half
puritanical, to the figure which was
little in keeping with the keen hard
impressive features, or with the weapons
which he bore. Loose black knee-breeches,
not far different from the
trunk-hose of Cromwell's time, with
a pair of cavalry boots equipped with
heavy spurs, and a broad brimmed,
high crowned black hat, completed his
attire. For arms: from his girdle of
black leather there hung a light English
sabre with a steel scabbard and
ivory handle, such as was carried many
years ago, and in his holsters a pair of
cavalry pistols of the same date and
fabric, but he bore neither lance nor
lasso, nor was there any escopeta at
his side.

The young man who accompanied him
was a tall, handsome, powerful figure,
deep-chested, and thin flanked, and
showing prodigious powers both of offence
and endurance. His high gray hat
glittered with massive ornaments of silver;
his velvet jacket was profusely laced
with gold, and the large buckskin pantaloons,
open from the knee downward,
were decorated with a double row of
golden fillagree buttons, hanging like
little bullets along the seam. His poncho,
which was strapped behind his saddle,
was of the very finest texture, and
the brightest color; and all the weapons
which he bore, though in character and
form precisely similar to those of the
men, were of the finest fabric, and in
the best condition.

“Now, Padre,” exclaimed the younger,
“for the love of God! let us set
spur to our horses, and get the troop
forward at a quicker pace. At this
rate, we shall not reach the open ground
before day-break; and, in that case,
they will have the start of us.”

“Not so, not so, Juan,” replied the
old man, in a clear, hard voice. “If
our information be correct, and there be
a lady with them, as I doubt not it is,
they will have halted for the night, and
the later we come upon the ground, the
more chance of finding them. I know
a little of the habits of these English
and American ladies, for they are pretty
much the same, I fancy. I have
seen more than one or two of them in
Spain, and it took as many men to
escort one of them, and wait on her
pleasure, as would have guarded a battery,
or a train of specie. No, no, my
lad, we will not blow our horses: it is
the slow thrower who makes the sure
winner.”

They continued speaking as they rode
along; but these were all the words
that reached the ears of the Partisan.
No more did he require, however, to
inform him of all that he wished to know.
It was their own party, of whom the
Rancheros were in search, informed
probably by an express from Carrera,
of the direction which they were supposed
to have taken, and ignorant as
yet of the vicinity of the Camanches,
who but rarely advanced so far into the
interior.

So soon as the clatter of their passage
had died away into the ordinary silence
of the woods, the Partisan hurried back

to join his friends, who were awaiting
his return in no small anxiety, at least,
not to say trepidation.

“All is well!” he exclaimed, as soon
as he came into ear-shot of the little
party: “all is well. Better even than
I expected. It is Padre Taranto, and
young Juan de Alava, with the best
troop I have yet seen of guerillas. Pretty
men, and well mounted. They are
in search of us, too, having received
notice of our being on the prairie, and
not knowing anything about the Caman.
ches.”

“And do you call that good news?”
cried Gordon, in some surprise.

“Of course; I do. In the first place,
we shall find the rancho ungarrisoned,
and little Margarita at liberty to receive
us as she will. And, in the second—even
if they do not meet the
Indians, and fall foul of them—they
have got at the least a three days' scout
before them. For this is the last place
on the face of the wide world, where
they would think to look for us; and,
long before they can return, I will have
rifles enough here to beat them into the
Bravo, if they should dare to attack us.
But come, let us move. We are but a
mile or two distant from the rancho.”

No sooner said than done. They
hastened back to the main road, and,
relieved now from the necessity of so
much caution, cantered forward at a better
pace than they had as yet ventured
on trying. Half an hour's riding brought
them to the banks of the rivulet which
divided the clear grounds that surrounded
the once splendid estate from
the wild forest.

Over the open fields, now all over-grown
with bushes, and overrun with
creeping vines and wild flowers, and
over the once trim and well-kept gardens,
now a rank wilderness of neglected
sweets and unkempt verdure, the
cold moon, now declining toward the
horizon, poured her slant rays with a sad
melancholy lustre, as if she grieved over
the desolation of the scene.

Many tall shattered piles of building,
completely overrun with the luxuriant
foliage of unnumbered parasitical plants,
stood here and there in the wide area
outspread before their eyes, all silvered
at the edges by the dewy moonlight; but
not a single beam could fall upon the
one low, lonely building, which alone
remained habitable in that scene of ruthless
devastation, so thickly was it overshadowed
by the superb trees which, by
their friendly shelter, had saved it from
destruction.

A solitary owl was hooting wild and
shrill from one of the ruins, as they rode
into what had once been the great court
of the rancho, and paused for a moment
to water their horses at a stone basin in
which once a tall fountain had played
brilliantly, but no other sound, betokening
life of man or beast, reached their
ears.

A minute or two afterward, however,
as the hoofs of their horses began to
clatter on the pavement, a fierce baying
broke upon the stillness of the night, and
two huge sheep-dogs, of the far-famed
Mexican breed, came bounding out,
furious, as if to attack the intruders.

But the Partisan spoke to them sharply,
calling them by their names, and, at
the instant, they ceased baying, and
cowered before his horse's feet, fawning
and whimpering with delight, as if rejoiced
to welcome an old friend.

Then, as if aroused by the uproar,
some one was heard to stir within the
rancho, a light flashed through one of
the casements, which was immediately
afterward thrown open—a loud voice
hailing to inquire who came so late, and
a long glittering musket barrel being
protruded in stern menace from the lattice.

“Friends, friends!” cried the Partisan,
in the Spanish tongue. “It is I,
Sanchez; it is Pedro, the Forester.”

“Thanks be to God!” shouted the old
man, who had spoken from within:
“welcome, welcome, senor! Wait 'till
I open the doors for you.”

The lattice was pulled to, as he ceased
speaking; but they could hear him hallooing
within to arouse his mistress and
the scanty household.

“Ho! senorita, senorita! Ho! rise,
arise! It is he, it is he, who comes
with good fortune. It is he, senora Margarita;
he, Pedro the Forester, Pedro el
Salvador!”

A moment afterward, the bolts were
drawn and the gate thrown open, and
the lady, with her conductors, entered
the ruined rancho.