 | CHAPTER V. Guarica, the charib bride |  |
5. CHAPTER V.
Day after day passed onward, but no
more did Guarica hear or see of Don Guzman
de Herreiro; for not only did he not
again venture to approach her forest home,
but not once did he quit the guarded precincts
of the fortress. And well was it for
him he did not.
Perhaps, indeed, it was a secret instinct
that taught him to conceal himself within
the barrack square, a consciousness that
wrong, so deadly as he had meditated to
the forest princess, could not be offered
with impunity. Bold as he was, and daring
in the battle field, perhaps his heart
failed him when he thought of lurking foes
concealed in every brake, waiting with all
the deadly patience of Indian revenge, to
wing the fatal arrow to his heart—and well
was it for him.
For from the very hour in which Orozimbo
had tracked him to the fortress,
saved only by the fleetness of his charger,
from that very hour not ten steps could he
have made beyond the drawbridge, without
encountering death, beyond a peradventure.
Day and night, fair or foul, the
wakeful Charibs lay concealed around;
never was there a moment when one at
least of Orozimbo's men was not within
easy arrow range of the castle gates. One
watching while another slept, one feeding
while another fasted, constantly, resolutely,
was the ward kept—the watch and ward
of vengeance.
Yet with such skillful subtlety, with such
deep craft was it all ordered, that though
Herreiro might have had his spies on the
look out, he could have learned or suspected
nothing.
The watcher now would be a solitary
mouth; now a wild hunter offering
his game for sale to the officers; now a
group of old Indians with palm and wine
and fruits, and now a knot of striplings
playing or wrestling on the green before
the esplanade; but each and all with bow
and quiver at his back, eyeing furtively
but keenly the form of every passer, each
and all ready and alert to avenge the insult
offered to their young princess.
Nor while the gates of Isabella were
thus formidably guarded and beset, was
Guarica again left unprotected or alone.
Whenever Orozimbo was abroad, and he
was now abroad more frequently than ever,
for it appeared that something new and
strange was in the wind, armed musters
being held almost nightly of Caonabo's
vassals, whenever Orozimbo was abroad,
two or three stalwart Indians might be
seen at some point or other within sight
and earshot of the cottage, while others
were on the scout constantly among the
woods, through which a foe must pass to
reach the dwelling of Guarica.
That something was on foot among the
savages, as they were still termed by the
Spaniads, could not be doubted. The great
Lord of the Golden House had mustered all
his warriors; and many subjects of the four
other independent caciques of the Island,
who, more timid or less patriotic than the
heroic Caonabo, shrunk from collision with
the whites, were gathered to the banners
of the champion of his people.
This was especially the case with the
tribemen of the queen Anacaona. Invariably
the friend of the white men herself,
she had inculcated the like pacific notions
into the minds of her kinsmen; so
that both Orozimbo and Guarica had been
scarce second to their aunt in good will to
the pale invaders.
The fiery blood of the young Indian had
been, however, so thoroughly aroused by
the atrocious outrage offered to his sister
that he had jeined heart in hand with his
warlike kinsman, who had determined on
a simultaneous onslaught upon every Span
ish post, previous to the return of the great
Admiral. Not a few of the best and boldest
of his tribes were united with him, but
knowing well the predilection of his aunt
and sister for the European colonists, all
had been carefully concealed from them.
While Orozimbo satisfied his conscience
as to the consequences of his conduct on
his sister's fate, by charging all his followers
to respect the person of Hernando, and
preserve him at all hazards, and by obtaining
a pledge of his safety from the great
cacique.
Such was the state of things when De
Leon returned from his mission, late in the
afternoon of the seventh day from his parting
with Guarica. The plans of Caonabo
were all laid and determined; but the day
and hour on which the attack should be
made he still kept buried in his own bosom,
lest once known to his people, treason,
or drunkenness—for, since the coming
of the white men this curse likewise was
entailed upon the Indian—or careless indiscretion
might betray it to the foe. Even
Orozimbo knew no more than the meanest
of his tribesmen; night after night every
inferior chief was ordered to hold all his
men in readiness, though none knew for
what; and night after night, up to the
evening of Hernando's coming, each had
received a mandate instructing him to disband
his people until the following moonrise.
Scarce had Hernando disembarked from
his caravella, ere he hurried to the quarters
of Don Guzman, expecting to receive
a solution of all his doubts and surmises.
But when he reached his door, he was, to
his extreme astonishment, refused admittance,
on the pretence that Herreiro had
been very ill and confined to his bed during
the whole period of his, Hernando's,
absence, and that the leech had forbidden
strictly that any person should have access
to him.
Frustrated thus, he inquired of the servant
whether the packet he had left on the
morning of his departure was delivered—
to which question the man answered
truly, that it was—that he gave it to his
master, on his return from hunting, the
same day on which he received it; although,
he added, that he knew not whether
Don Guzman had read it, having been
taken ill within an hour or two of his return,
in consequence, it was supposed, of a
sun-stroke.
Having exhausted thus every source of
information that was open to him, Hernando,
after making his report to the commandant,
and receiving his congee for the
night, ordered his horse to be prepared immediately,
and rode away into the forest,
taking his bloodhounds with him.
In the mean time the officers were revelling
in the mess room, with cards, and
dice and wine, and dark haired Indian women;
the sentinels were slumbering or
drinking at their posts; the cannon were
unloaded; the walls almost unguarded
Riot and luxury within, and relaxed discipline;
and without armed foes, thirsty
for blood and vengeace.
So stood affairs, when Hernando galloped
from the gates, fearless and free of
heart, and full of bright and gay anticipation.
The very news he had received from
Herreiro's servant reassured him—for it
had not occurred to him to doubt its truth
So that, secure in his imagination that Guarica
could have been troubled by no fresh
intrusion, he rode joyously along the forest
track, in all the confidence of happy and
successful love.
He was surprised a little, it is true, at
meeting, three times, on his road an armed
Indian, apparently on the scout; such a
thing never having previously happened in
all the times he had come and gone to and
fro. But the men, all of whom happened
to be acquainted with his person, spoke to
him pleasantly, and passed on their way;
and Hernando, indeed, almost forgot that
he had seen them, until, when he saw Guarica,
and she related to him, amid tears of
gratitude and joy, all that had happened,
he perceived and appreciated the object of
the wise precaution.
Fierce and tremendous was his indignation,
as, without a touch of fear at the foul
menace of Herreiro, the fair girl recited to
him the whole of that thrilling scene; but
so much more were his love and admiration
kindled toward the heroic maiden, that his
ire smouldered in his bosom as quietly as
though he had entertained no such feeling.
So much so that Guarica herself almost
wondered that, with so much cause for violent
and quick resentment, her lover's
mood should be softer, calmer, and more
tranquil than its wont.
Little she knew that the current of fierce
wrath, when stillest, is ever deadliest and
deepest. Little she fancied that Hernando's
spirits were so gay and lightsome, his
manner so soft and unconcerned, because
he saw his course of vengeance plain
before him—because he knew that on the
morrow his enemy must pay his debt even
unto the uttermost farthing.
After a little while, as is sometimes the
case with all of us, when our spirits are
enkindled and our sensibilities aroused far
beyond their wont, the atmosphere of the
airy room in which the lovers sat appeared
to them confined and oppressive, their souls
seemed to want scope to expand—they
panted for the free air of the wide, starry
heavens, and forth they strolled, arm-inarm,
through the quiet moonlight, across
the beautiful savannah—across the little
brook, dry-shod upon the snow-white stepping-stones—and
thence along the forest's
edge whence first Hernando had beheld her.
That, since their loves had grown into
maturity, had been to them a hallowed
place—and on the streamlet's bank, just on
the spot where he had forced his Andalusian
steed to leap it, de Leon's hands had
built a rustic seat, beneath the shelter of a
huge palm tree, and close to the verge of
the unbroken forest. Thither they bent
their steps, led by some secret mutual
impulse, and there they sat down, side by
side, in happiness too deep to find vent in
many words.
It was Guarica who spoke first, and when
she did, it was of the subject that was ever
treason of Don Guzman. But she struck
no responsive string in Hernando's mind;
and he spoke wide of the mark, making
some passing observation, touching the
beauty of the night.
“But let us speak,” she said, “of this
Herreiro: think you that he will dare
attempt his menaced vengeance?”
“His vengance, paltry knave!” said
Hernando, scornfully. “No! but let him
dread mine—for it shall find him out before
he dream of it; nor shall his feigned distemper
save him! But let us think of
him no further. He is not worth one instant's
care. The viper is but perilous so
long as we suspect him not; once seen, he
is so harmless, that it is scarce worth the
while to crush him, and, for the rest, it
will be but a little space—a little space,
which we must bear with patience—
scarcely a week, I trust, my own and best
beloved, before the good and great Columbus
shall return; and then, then, sweet
one, there will be an end to all your doubts,
anxieties, and fears. He is the best, the
noblest, the most just of men. He is my
friend, too, and a tried one. He once returned,
I will avow at once to him my love
for my Guarica; his consent it is meet that
we should have before our union, and of it
I am certain! Then—then, thou shalt be
mine, for ever mine, in the sight of men,
as thou art now in the sight of Heaven and
all its angles!”
“My own Hernando!” was her sole
answer, for her heart swelled as she spoke,
and her passion was too strong for words,
and two large diamond tears collected
slowly on the long, silky fringes of her
eyelids, and hanging there like dew-drops
on the violet's petal, slid slowly down her
soft, transparent cheeks.
“Tears—tears, Guarica!” cried the
lover, half reproachfully, “Can it be, can
it be, that thou doubtest me?—me, who
have never asked the slightest freedom—
never assayed the smallest and most innocent
familiarity; me, who would rather
die—die, not on earth only, but for all eter
nity, than call up one chaste blush upon
those maiden cheeks—than wake one doubt
in that pure heart—than print one stain
upon the whiteness of that virgin mind!
Can it be—”
“No! no!” exclaimed the girl, panting
with eagerness to interrupt him, for he had
spoken, hitherto, with such impetuous
haste, that she had vainly sought to answer
him. “No! no! Sooner could I doubt
Heaven than thee, Hernando. They were
tears, not of sorrow, not of doubt, but of
pure, heart-felt joy! I know thou art the
very soul of honor—I know thou wouldst
ask nothing of thy Guarica that it would
not be her pride, her joy, her duty, to bestow.
It was but joy, dear, dear Hernando,
to think that we should so soon be united
beyond the power of man to part us.”
Even as she spoke, while her cheek
almost touched the face of her young lover,
—for, in the intense excitement of the
moment, she had leaned forward, clasping
Hernando's hand in both her own, and
watering it with her tears,—a sharp, keen
twang, mixed with a clash, as if of steel,
was heard behind them; a long, dark streak
seemed to glare through the narrow space
between their heads, with a low, whizzing
sound, and on the instant a bolt, or arrow,
stood quivering in the stem of a palm tree
opposite.
To spring upon his feet, to whirl his long,
two-edged Toledo from the scabbard, to
dart, with a loud shout, into the thicket,
calling upon his trusty hounds, which, quite
unconscious of any peril, were slumbering
at Guarica's feet, to whom they had become
familiar guardians, was but an instant's
work to the young and fiery hidalgo. For
at least ten minutes' space, he was absent
from the Indian maiden; who, trembling
with apprehension for the safety of him
whom she had learned to love far more
than life itself, with every tinge of color
banished by mortal terror from her features,
awaited his return. With every sense on
the alert, eye, ear and spirit on the watch,
she stood in terrible excitement. She heard
him crashing through the tangled brake;
blood-hounds to track out the footsteps of
his hidden foeman; but no bay of the sagacious
animals, no clash of steel, or answering
defiance, fell on her anxious ear. His
search was vain—his/anxious labor fruitless
—no fraying of the interlaced and thorny
branches showed where the dastardly
assassin had forced a passage for his retreating
footsteps—no print in the clayey
soil revealed where he had trodden; and,
stranger yet, the keen scent of the sagacious
dogs detected not the slightest taint
upon the earth, or on the dewy herbage,
although they quested to and fro, three
hundred yards, at least, in circuit, around
the tree wherein the well-aimed arrow
stood—sure evidence of the murderer's
intent. He returned, baulked and disappointed,
to Guarica; big drops of icy perspiration
standing, like bubbles, on his high,
clear, forehead, and his whole frame trembling
with the agitation of strong excitement.
“By Him who made me,” he exclaimed,
as he returned to her, “this is most marvelous!
there is not, nor hath been, within
two hundred yards of us, a human being
since we have sat here—if I may trust the
sight of mine own eyes, or, what is truer
far, the scent of my good hounds! Yet
here,” he added, as he tore from the stem
of the tall palm tree the short, massive
bolt, with its four-cornered barbed steel
head, “here is the evidence that one—and
that, too, a Spaniard—hath been, or now is
close beside us. Come, dearest, come, let
us leave this perilous spot. By Heaven!
but it is wondrous strange!”
In silence—for the girl was too full of
terror, the cavalier, of dark and anxious
thought, to enter into converse—he led her
homeward. Across the bright savannah,
gleaming in the moonlight, they reached,
ere long, the portico of her loved home,
and there, after a tender parting, Hernando
vaulted into the saddle of his fiery Andalusian,
whistled his faithful blood-hounds to
hs heel, and dashed away, at a furious gallop,
toward the fortress of his unfriendly
countrymen. Eager, still, to discover, if
so it might be, something of him who had
so ruthlessly aimed the murderer's shaft
that night, Hernando rode directly to the
spot where he had sat with Guarica when
the fell missile was discharged: he saw the
grass betraying, by its bruised and prostrate
blades, the very spot by which they had
been sitting; but all was still and lonely.
Onward he went across the very ground
which he had searched so carefully scarce
half an hour before, and, ere he had traversed
fifty paces, both blood-hounds challenged
fiercely. Calling them instantly to
heel, the cavalier alighted, bound his hot
war-house to a tree, and eagerly scanned
the soil. At the first glance, deep printed
in the yielding mould, he found the clear
print of a Spanish buskin, furnished with a
long, knightly spur. To follow the trace
backward was his first impulse; and scarce
three minutes were consumed, before he
tracked it to a tall and shadowy oak, the
bark of which, scarred and defaced, showed
that some person had, not long before, both
climbed it and descended.
“Ha!” he exclaimed, striking his breast
with his clenched hand, “ha! idiot that I
was, who thought not of this. It matters
not, however; by God! it matters not; for
right soon will I have him! Forward,
good hounds,” he added, “forward, hark,
halloa, ho! hark, forward!” And the
vexed woodlands rang to the deep-mouthed
dogs, and the hard gallop of the hunter.
They reached the open ground, a league
of forest having been already passed, and
the hounds, for a moment, were at fault.
Springing again to the earth, Hernando
easily discovered, by the prints in the soil,
that here the fugitive had taken horse—
having, it would seem, left his charger
under the keeping of a menial, while prosecuting
his foul enterprise; for henceforth
two broad horse-tracks might be seen running
distinctly over the bare savannah
homeward. Laying the hounds upon the
horse-track, the cavalier again re-mounted,
and the fresh dew aiding the scent, away
they drove, at a pace almost unexampled,
plain, athwart the murky covert—hill and
hollow vanished beneath their fiery speed,
rock and tree glanced by and disappeared,
so furious was their pace; the deepest torrent
turned him not, nor the most perilous
leap deterred him—for the most fiery, the
most constant, the most pervading of all
human passions—deadly revenge was burning
his heart's core, turning the healthful
currents of his bloed to streams of fiery
lava.
The deadest hour of night had long been
passed already, when he dashed forth upon
that desperate race; the pale cold light of
morning was streaming, broad but still,
over the palisaded ditch and ramparts of
the Spanish fortress, when Don Hernando
de Leon pulled up his foaming steed before
the drawbridge. Early, however, and untimely
as was the hour, men were abroad
already. A mounted servitor, in liverieof
Isabel and silver, riding a coal-black
jennet, and leading by the bridle-rein a tall
bay charger, trapped and housed richly with
the same colors, was retiring from the
gates, which were just closing, toward the
barrack stables. Toward this steed, jaded
and spent with toil, and all embossed with
sweat and foam-flakes, and galled and bleeds
ing at the flanks from cruel and incessant
spurring, the savage blood-hounds still in
full cry, dashed without check or stint,
and would have pulled the bay horse down
had not the stern voice of their master
checked them. He rode up to the groom,
and in a deep voice, calm, slow, and perfectly
unmoved, demanded, “Whose charger?”
Without reply the serxitor was hastening
away, when he asked once again, in
fiercer tones, drawing his dagger as he
spoke—
“Whose charger, dog? Speak, or thou
diest! Whose charger? and who hath
now dismounted from him? Not that I
need thy voice to tell me what I already
know, but that I choose to hear my knowledge
confirmed by human words. Whose
charger?
“Don Guzman de Herreiro's,” replied
the faltering menial; “he hath even now
gone in—the bridge is not yet lifted.”
“Excellent well!” replied the cavalier,
“excellent well! Mine ancient comrade;
excellent well! My fellow soldier, whose
life I have thrice saved—once from the
Moors, amid the mountain glens of Malaga,
once from the surf, among the dread Antilles,
and once here in this isle of Hispaniola,
from the envenomed arrow of the
Charib. Excellent well, Don Guzman!”
In the mean time dismounting at the
gates, he gave his charger and his hounds
to the care of a faeorite domestic who
awaited him; and, with a firm, slow step,
crossing the drawbridge, stopped for a moment
to address the sentinel.
“So,” he said “old Gaspar, thou keepest
good watch. When went Don Guzman
forth?”
“After we set the watch yestreen, fair
sir, replied the old Castilian, presenting, as
he spoke, his partizan. “Now I bethink
me, it was scarce five minutes after thou didst ride forth into the forest!”
“And he hath now returned?”
“But now.”
No farther words were interchanged;
the young knight slowly passed across the
court-yard, entered the vaulted passage
which led toward the chambers of Don
Guzman, paused at the door, and without
one word struck on the panel one strong
blow. A stern voice from within cried
“enter!” And he did enter, and closed
the door behind him, and locked and double
locked it; and though strange sounds were
heard, and fearful voices, above half an
hour passed ere he came forth; and when
he did so, his face, though very stern and
calm, was pale as death; and he retired to
his own quarters without a word to any one.
| CHAPTER V. Guarica, the charib bride | |