 | CHAPTER VI. Guarica, the charib bride |  |
6. CHAPTER VI.
It was not until a late hour on the night
following that of Hernando's departure
from the presence of Guarica, who was
she never doubted to be an attempt, on Herreiro's
part, to execute his deadly meaace,
than she had been at his outrage toward
herself, that Orozimbo returned from Caonaho's
council, heated, and out of breath, as
if he had run hard; and somewhat fatigued,
but with an air of high enthusiasm and excitement,
such as before she had never seen
in her brother's features. So much, however,
was she engrossed with the thoughts
of what had, the previous night, befallen
her—proving as it did, beyond a doubt, the
implacable and fiendish malice of Don Guzman,
and filling her with the wildest apprehensions
for her beloved Hernando's
safety—that she paid far less attention to
the manner or appearance ol her brother,
than under any other circumstances she
would have done. Eagerly, and with a
vehement rapidity of speech, singularly at
variance with the calm and almost inanimate
tranquillity of her usual demeanor,
she related to Orozimbo, without remarking
the absent and distracted expression
with which he listened to her, the wondrous
attempt on her life and that of De
Leon.
If she was not surprised, however, at the
vacancy of his look, as she began her narrative,
she was indeed astonished, although
she well knew the excitability of his nature,
at the tremendous burst of passion
with which he replied to her last words.
“I thank the Great Spirit,” he cried,
springing to his feet, and shaking his hand
furiously aloft, “I thank the Great Spirit
that it is so! This, this alone was needful
to banish the last throb of compunction,
to extinguish the last spark of mercy or of
friendship in my soul. Ha! ha! It is well,
very well! He would have slain thee?
Ha! let him look to himself, now, dog and
villain. Now am I all the Charib; now
am I all my country's! Give me my arms,
give me my arms, Guarica, I am but
wasting time, when time is most precious.
Give me my helm of tiger skin—give me
the golden buckler, the strong war-club of
my father; never yet was it brandished in
more just or holy cause; give me—”
“Hold! Orozimbo,” exclaimed the lovely
girl, now terrified by his continued vehemence,
“what mean you, brother? For
what should I give you arms? Are you
mad, that you dream—you, you alone, o
seeking out this Spaniard in his guarded
fortress. Why, boy, the very sentinels
would spurn you from their gates!”
“Will they? ha! will they? Will the
two paltry sentinels who stand beside their
empty cannon, spurn back unconquered
Caonabo? Let them look, I say, let them
now look to themselves, these ravishing
and murderous Spaniards. By the great
gods! they shall learn, and that ere to-morrow's
dawn, that it is one thing to strain
in the hug of an Indian warrior, panting for
vengeance and athirst for blood, and another
to dally in the soft arms of an Indian
maiden!”
“Brother, what mean you? Brother,
brother, what fearful words are these—
what frantic meaning do they bear?”
“Ask me not, ask me not, Guarica; these
are no times for girlish thoughts or girlish
councils. Give me my arms, I say; let
me begone; give me my arms!”
And with the words, he seized Hernando's
bugle from the wall, and, springing to
the window, blew a long thrilling blast,
which was answered on the instant by the
dull roar of a dozen conch-shells, sounding
the Indian war-note everywhere through
the nightly forest.
“There is your answer, Guarica—the
souls of a thousand warriors, the bravest
of the brave, are alive, are burning in those
war-notes. Give me my arms. I say, before
to-morrow's day-break, there shall be
no more Isabella; by the gods! no more
Spaniards!”
But as he spoke she threw herself at his
feet, clung to his knees, watered his feet
with her tears; she called on him by every
tenderest pledge, invoked him by every
dearest name, reminded him of every
fondest memory, implored him by the soul
dead mother—implored him for her sake
—for her sake, whom that dying mother
had confided to his charge—if he would not
see her die broken-hearted at his knees, to
forego, to forget his fearful purpose, to desert
the disastrous combination.
It was long, very long, ere she succeeded
in the least in bending him; he was intractable,
fierce, resolute. The last worst outrage
had maddened him. It was long ere
he would listen in the least to the voice of
nature, much less to the words of reason.
But at last nature did prevail, and old affection;
his heart melted, and he raised her
from the ground and kissed her, and mixed
his tears with hears. But even when this
step was gained, she had yet much to do,
ere she could win him to her wishes. Pride
now forbid him to desert the expedition in
which he had enlisted with such zealous
ardor—to forsake the comrades to whom
his faith was plighted, to prove disloyal to
the monarch to whom he insisted that he
owed allegiance. But Guarica's mind, although
a woman's and a young lovely
woman's too, was of the firmer and the
sterner stuff, and in the end it conquered.
Reason and wisdom were on her side, and
for once reason and wisdom carried the
day, over passion and brute violence.
She showed him, in clear colors, the
hopelessness, the madness of the expedition;
she proved to him, beyond the power
of paradox to resist, that even if in the
first their efforts should be crowned with
success, the end would but be the more
disastrous to the rash patriots, and to their
country.
“Even,” she said, “even if you should
carry Isabella—if you should, as you tell me
you have sworn to do, hurn it with fire, and
raze it to the very earth, till not one stone
remain upon another—even if you should
drown the smoking embers of the last Spanish
dwelling with the life-blood of the last
Spanish soldier, what will all this avail
you? Is not the great, the God-like, the
invincible and irresistible Columbus, even
now flying hitherward on the wings of
the very wind to which you propose to fling
your banners of defiance? Does no not
bring with him a fleet, a whole fleet,
freighted with steel-clad men, invulnerable
and with no mimic thunderbolts? And will
not he avenge—merciful as he is, and good,
and gracious—will not he exact awful retribution
for the destruction of his comrades?
And who dare hope to succeed, to strive,
even, against the unconquered, the unconquerable
admiral? Spare them, my brother,
spare—I will not say your sister, but your
king, your countrymen, your country!”
“But how?” replied Orozimbo, mightily
moved both by her arguments and her
passion, “how shall I dare be a deserter—
a traitor to my tribe—a recreant to my
honor? How, if I do so, shall I ever dare
again to show my face before my tribemen?
—to take my seat in the council of the
chiefs? No! sister, no! it is too late—too
late! and if you be i' the right, as now I
believe you are, to-morrow will be a day
fatal both to us and to our invaders. I
would—I would, indeed, that I had told
you of our plans heretofore, while there
was yet the time to listen to your arguments—but
it is now too late, and I must
on.”
“It is never too late to repent, brother,”
answered the eager and excited girl—
“never too late to exchange evil for good
counsel, madness for wisdom, crime for
virtue. And it is evil counsel, it is madness—yes!
Orozimbo, it is crime, knowingly
to rush headlong on destruction; nor
to destroy yourself alone, but to involve
hundreds in one common, hopeless, unnecessary
ruin. Listen to me, and believe
me, brother. You may think—you do
think, doubtless, that I am but a love-sick
girl, pleading the cause of selfish passion,
terrified for my lover's safety, and willing
to give up all beside, friends, kinsmen,
country, so that my senseless love for this
stranger of a hostile race may be gratified.
No! by my Christian faith, no! by the
Christian's God, whom he has taught me to
adore! it is not so. Were there a reasonable
hope that permanent success could follow
chance in the thousand that our country
could be once more free—that the invader's
foot prints could be erased forever
from our virgin shores—that no white face
should ever more be seen in our happy
fields—then, Orozimbo, then would I cry
forward! forward! although your first step
should be planted on my breaking heart,
and the next on my Hernando's prostrate
head! Then would my voice be the first
and the loudest to cheer you to the fray, as
it is now the only one to warn you.”
“And why not,”—asked her brother,
gloomily, as he sat with his head buried
between his hands—“Why is it not so
now?”
“You know why not,” she answered,
firmly. “You know that, were every
white man swept, to-night, from the face of
our fair island, thousands and tens of thousands
would spring up in their places.
When was the Spaniard's footstep ever
checked by the fear of peril?—when was
his lust of gold ever repressed by thoughts
of the risk incurred in snatching? Their
race is as numerous as the green leaves of
the forest, or as the sands on the sea shore
—in fierceness they are the tiger's equals,
in wisdom they are almost gods! Look at
the beasts which they have trained to fight
their battles: the glorious war-horse, with
his eye kindling to the trumpet; the dreadful
blood-hound, more wily and more savage
than the jaguar; look at their bright, impenetrable
armor, from which your strongest
shafts rebound, as from the earthfast rock;
look at their cannon-shot, more perilous to
man than heaven's own thunders. And
then think—think if a few, a mere handful
of adventurers—for such they were who
first landed on our shores—if they have
subjugated half, aye! four-fifths of our
nation, and that for the mere love of gold
and of dominion, think what their nation
would effect in its majesty and might,
roused to revenge the blood of its slaughtered
sons—roused to uphold and vindicate
the honor of its name! No! brother, no!
when the first little band stepped forth from
their winged canoes upon our hospitable
shores, had our people then broke down
upon them with the spear and mace, the
death-drum and the battle-cry—had they
all perished to a man, and none returned
across the wide, wide sea, to tell their
comrades' fate—them might we have been
saved from the white man's dominion. But
the very day that saw the first caravella
spread its wings to the homeward breeze,
that day, I tell you, rivetted on our necks
a yoke that must endure for ever. I tell
you their mariners, their very dumb and
senseless galleys, know the path to and fro
the trackless deep, as surely as you know
the wood-tracks of our native island. For
every Spanish breath you quench, a hundred,
and a hundred times a hundred, will
be quenched, and forever, of our own; for
every drop of Spanish blood you shed,
rivers shall flow of ours. The white man
has an eye that descries every thing, though
seas may roll between; an arm that strikes
a thousand leagues aloof; a hand that, when
it once hath closed upon its prey, never
foregoes its hold! I have spoken!—but I
look not that you will believe me! Go!
pour your naked hundreds against the mail-clad
cavaliers; go! dash your bare breasts
on their walls of granite; go! and expose
your mortal flesh to the blasting breath of
their cannon: and then, when all is lost,
when, hunted to the last verge of the last
precipice, bayed by their unrelenting
hounds, cut down by their resistless steel,—
no longer even to be saved as the remnant
of a people,—ye call upon the earth to
yawn and swallow ye, upon the rocks to
fall and cover ye—and earth and rocks are
pitiless as your avenging foemen—then, I
say, then remember the words of her whom
you murdered—of your sister, your only
and fond sister, who told you all these
things, how they should be, and you heard
not her warning, but laughed her words to
scorn, and murdered her—the last of your
unhappy race!”
“Murdered you!” he exclaimed, starting
to his feet—“murdered you, Guarica!” and
his dark features were convulsed, and his
contending passions.
“Ay, Orozimbo! murdered; for think
you that I could, even if I would, survive
him—and that, too, knowing him slaughtered
by a brother?”
“But I have charged our warriors,” he
exclaimed, vehemently—“but I have drawn
an oath from Caonabo, to spare him in the
strife, and, the war ended, to treat him as
a friend and kinsman.”
“And how long would your charge be
heeded?—until the first frenzy of the
strife had turned their blood to liquid fire.
And how long would Caonabo's oath be
kept, after its end was answered? Tush!
brother, tush! If you can so deceive yourself,
so can you not deceive me; moreover,
think you Hernando de Leon is the man to
be spared—to spare himself in such a conflict?
Think you Hernando de Leon is the
man to survive the extermination of his
comrades, and to clasp in his own the reeking
hands of their butchers? If he were
so, he might seek some European girl to
share his life, and his infamy—an Indian
maid would scorn him. No! Orozimbo,
follow out your plans, and mark what I tell
you: when the last blow is stricken, when
the last heroes die around the flag-staff of
their country's honor, there will be found
my slaughtered love, and there will I die
on his body. Go! boy; we meet on earth
no more. Go, brother, to your duty; I
have mine, likewise!”
She ended; but long before she ended,
her soul-fraught eloquence, the fire and
pathos that were blended in her words,
and, above all, the truth of what she said,
had won back the ascendancy which she
had ever had over her brother's spirit—the
ascendancy of moral strength over physical
power—of mind over matter. It was now
his turn to cast himself at his sister's feet,
but, ere he could do so, she had caught him
in her arms, and clasped him to her heart,
and covered him with the chaste kisses of
a sister's holy love.
“Guaricia!” he said, “dear, dear Guarica,
you have prevailed. Do with me as
you will; I am your slave—the creature
of your bidding. Only think for me, and
say how I shall save my honor!”
“Go to your uncle!” she cried, impetuously.
“Go straight to the wise and noble
Caonabo, and say to him as I have said to
thee”—
“It would avail me nothing; he would
either strike me to the earth, or drive me
in scorn from his presence: he will endure
no opposition to his will, and hear no reason.
As well may you hope to turn the
sun from his course, as Caonabo from his
project.”
“Then mark me, brother. This plot of
the great cacique depends, you tell me, on
his finding the fortress unprepared, and the
guards negligent and off their duty?”
“Ay!” he replied, “but what of that?”
“Ask me no further. Only observe
what I say: All shall go well, yet. At
what time is your onslaught appointed to
begin?”
“Soon after day-break”—
“Then go: join your leaders—take your
arms; lead your followers hence; but be
sure that you lead all of them: leave not a
soul behind you to play the spy on me.
Where do your warriors muster?”
“By the spring, which they call the `hunter's
rest,' in the woodlands, within a mile of
Isabella.”
“I know—I know,” replied Gnarica;
“then go, brother, go: be of good cheer;
all shall go well yet. Ask me no questions;
but be sure that you send scouts to
mark if the Spaniards be so unprepared as
you imagine, ere you proceed to the attack.”
“So it is ordered, sister But you mean
not—”
“Ask me no questions,” she replied
smiling; “for I shall answer none. Whate'er
I do, that will I do, honestly and
wisely, and it were better for all causes
that you should know naught else. Kiss
me, dear brother, and farewell; it is long,
long past midnight. Farewell, go to your
duty, and remember”—
“Never will I forget, Guarica—never
will I forget what you have said to me this
henceforth, whatever you command me.”
And with the words, he seized the arms
which she gave him hastily, clasped her
once more in his arms, and, calling to his
Indian followers, who were collected under
arms already, at a short distance from the
building, to follow him at their speed, he
set off at a long, swinging run, over the
open meadow, and through the deep woodland,
toward the forest rendezvous.
Scarcely was her brother out of sight,
before the girl, who had eagerly watched
his departure, and satisfied herself that
none of his myrmidons remained behind,
applied herself hastily to collect some articles
of clothing more suitable, as it appeared,
than those she wore, for a long and
toilsome walk through the forest. She
bound a pair of stronger sandals on her
feet; she girded up her dress succinctly,
in a form not unlike that of the graceful
Doric chiton, as represented in the statues
of Diana. She took in her hand a long,
light, reed-javelin, with a flint head: it
may have been as a staff to support her
footsteps; it might have been as a weapon
of defence; and with no further preparation,
alone and unprotected, save by her
own high resolution—by that innate and
noble daring which springs from the consciousness
of chastity and innocence, and
truth—that glorious confidence of incorrupt
virginity, concerning which
“It is said that a lion will turn and flee
From a maid, in the pride of her purity.”
in her yet higher trust in God, forth she
went into the wild and midnight forest,
upon her errand of goodwill and mercy.
The sky was dim and clouded; not a star
twinkled through the murky gloom; not a
moonbeam checkered the dark shadows of
the heavy trees: yet on she went, unshrinking
and undaunted, although the
howl of the wolf, and the prowling foot of
the panther, came constantly to her ear;
though the snake coiled itself in her path,
and the tangled briers opposed her passage,
still, all night long, she traveled steadily
onward, in the intent to warn the garrison
of Isabella of the approaching peril, that
they might be on their guard in time, and
that the attack and bloodshed might be
spared.
Full of her noble purpose, inspired by
high benevolence and immortal love with
strength beyond her powers, she struggled
insensible to fatigue, and superior to weak
terrors—but all would have been in vain,
for the day was beginning to show the first
pale tokens of its coming in the far east,
while she was yet many miles aloof from
the Spanish fortress, and cold apprehension
near akin to despair, was usurping rapidly
the place of high hope and confidence,
when suddenly, as she turned an angle of
the blind deer-path she was treading, her
eye was attracted and astonished by a clear
gleaming light, burning purely in the deepest
part of the forest.
Holding her very breath for fear its
slightest aspiration might betray her, and
treading stealthily upon the fallen leaves,
she stole toward it, and, ere she had gone
many steps a strange sight met her eyes.
In a small sheltered glade of the forest,
stretched on the ground, with their watch
cloaks round them, in deep slumber, their
long lances planted erect by every sleeper's
head, and their bright burnished helmets
at their sides, lay ten Spanish cavaliers;
their tall chargers with their steel
plated demipiques, champons upon their
frontlets, and iron poitrels on their breasts,
stood round them, linked by their chain
bridles, each horse hard by his lord.
But at a little distance from the rest one
man kept watch—but kept watch rather as
a cowled monk than as a dauntless warrior
—for he knelt on both his knees, with his
hands clasped in earnest supplication before
an exquisitely painted picture of the
virgin, which he had hung, by a little chain
attached to it, from the hilt of his dagger
driven deep into the stem of a gigantic
palm tree. It was before this picture that
burned, in a small lamp of richly embossed
silver, fed with some odoriferous oil, the
strange clear light which she had seen
was a wild and singular scene, and worthy
of the pencil of Salvator. The sweet white
silvery light streaming upward, and playing
over the heavenly features of Madonna,
which seemed to smile in the focus of
its consecrated radiance, thence flashing
on the dark enthusiastic features of the
kneeling warrior, dancing upon his waving
plume and polished armor, and thence
flickering less distinctly over the figures of
his sleeping comrades, and over the large
limbs of the barbed chargers, which looked
even larger and more formidable when
half seen in the dim and hazy lustre of the
distance.
The warrior who was kneeling at his
orisons in that wild place, and at that untimely
hour, was a man not above the middle
height, perhaps rather under it, but
very powerfully built, with broad shoulders
and thin flanks, and a chest singularly
prominent and deep; his arms were long
and muscular, and his legs, although slightly
bowed outward, perhaps from constant
exercise on horseback, were unusually
strong and sinewy.
His features, which were almost as dark
from exposure to all sorts of weather as
those of an Indian, were rather stern than
comely or agreeable. But harsh and strongly
marked as they were, there was an air
of inborn worth and dignity, of frankness
and chivalric loyalty that could not be mistaken
in his whole aspect; and at times
there was a wild and outflashing beam of
inspiration in his large dark eye, that told
of the fiery and untamed spirit of that
first, best and sole knight-errant, if he
might be so called, of the Western Hemisphere.
From head to heel he was sheathed in a
full panoply of Spanish steel, richly wrought
with gold arabesques and bosses; his casque
with its tall crimson plume, which indeed
he rarely laid aside, was on his head, although
the avantaille was raised, displaying
his bold manly features. Gilt spurs of
knighthood were buckled on his heels over
his greaves and shoes of burnished steel,
and from a scarf of rich crimson silk hung
his long two-edged broadsword.
Such was Alonzo de Ojeda, the wildest
and most daring spirit, the most fiery warrior,
the most perfect knight of the bold
band which had left the gay courts of their
native land for the fierce forays and the
wild adventures of the new western world.
Fervently as he was praying to the especial
object of his chivalric and imaginative
worship, his ear, accustomed to every
sound, however slight or distant, of the forest,
caught instantly the light tread of the
Indian maiden, and recognized it as instantly
for a human footstep.
He started to his feet, and cried aloud—
“Ho! who goes there?”
And ere the last words had left his lips,
all his brave partisans were afoot, and on
the alert around him.
“If you be friendly,” he continued,
“draw near fearlessly; if foes, be on your
guard!” and then turning toward his nearest
comrade, “It was a woman's tread I
heard, if I mistake not—”
He had said but thus far, when Guarica
stepped forth modestly but firmly into the
circle of light which the lamp cast for a
little space around the armed group, saying—
“It is, Sir Knight, indeed a woman—but
as she is so fortunate as to recognize Alonzo
de Ojeda, she knows full well that she
is as safe in his presence in the wild forest,
alone, and unprotected, as she would be
surrounded by a hundred of her tribesmen!”
“Lady,” replied Alonzo, “for lady you
must needs be, to understand so truly the
spirit and devotion of a true cavalier, you
do me, I am proud to say, no more than
justice. But what are your commands at
this dead hour? or wherefore have you
sought me thus strangely, and how have
you found me? Have you wrongs to be
righted, damsel, for if you have, by the
splender of the blessed virgin's brow, and
by the aid of good St. James of Compostella!
never more willingly laid I the lance
in rest for the fairest duchess of Castile,
so nobly trusted in mine honor!”
“I sought you not, Don Alonzo,” answered
the Charib maiden; “I sought you
not, but right fortunate it is that without
seeking I have found you, for life and death
is on my haste, and the distance, which I
cannot accomplish even in hours, your
coursers will make good in minutes.”
“Your words are full of emphasis,” answered
Ojeda, gravely, “and you speak as
one used to authority, and accustomed to
command. May I know with whom I am
conversing?”
“My name will avail you little, senor.
It is, I think, unknown to you—I am called
Guarica; but if my name be strange, my
lineage is well known to you—I am the
niece and adopted daughter of queen Anacaona.”
“Of the good queen—the friend of the
Admiral? Say then, dear lady, what is
your errand? If done it may be at all,
trust me it shall be done right speedily.”
“It must be so done—if it be done at all.
But it must be said in your private ear. It
is too secret, too full of dread import, to be
spoken even before your chosen comrades.”
And with the words she motioned him to
move a little way apart, and he followed
her with an air of deep respect, which,
however different from the mode of treatment
most of his countrymen would have
vouchsafed to an Indian girl, was perfectly
in keeping with the grand though perhaps
exaggerated character of his knight errantry.
Although, therefore, he moved out of
earshot of his brother partisans, he did not
suffer her to go so far from them that any
motion on the part of either should be unseen
by all; for with a delicate compunction,
most honorable to his feelings, he was
resolved that her reputation should in no
wise suffer by her noble confidence in his
integrity.
The other Spaniards, who awaited in
great wonder and some surprise the issue
of this strange conference, soon saw by the
extreme surprise which every gesture of
Alonzo indicated, that the girl's news must
be indeed important. They could perceive
that he asked two or three questions, which
were answered readily, and it seemed satisfactorily,
for after a minute or two,
Alonzo raised her hand to his lips and
kissed it respectfully—saying,
“Thanks—thanks! eternal thanks!—
This never shall be forgotten—never! and
be not alarmed, there is ample time!”
Then turning to his men, he cried in
quick, commanding tones—
“To horse! to horse, hastily!”
But even in the hurry and confusion
which succeeded, confusion tending unto
order, they could see that Guarica again
spoke to him even more urgently than before,
and they heard him answer,
“I promise you—I promise you, upon
the honor of a cavalier—upon my honor, it
shall be as you wish. Unless they return
again, there shall be no bloodshed.”
And again kissing her hand, he hastily
put up his picture of the virgin and his
hallowed lamp in his knapsack, where at
all times and in all expeditions he ever
carried them, mounted his warhorse, thundered
his orders in a voice meant by nature
for command, and spurring his horse
to the gallop, rode furiously, straight as the
bird flies through the forest, to the gates of
Isabella.
Don Guzman de Herreiro had just ridden
out of sight, as Alonzo reached the
drawbridge, which he found actually lowered,
with but some three or four half
drunken soldiers lounging about the gate
house. But ere he had been within the
walls ten minutes, the drums beat to arms,
the great alarm bell tolled, the gates were
barricaded, and the bridges raised; cannon
were loaded and extra ammunition served
to the cannoneers. The Spanish flag was
hoisted, and the whole garrison was mustered
in full war array upon the guarded
ramparts.
These preparations had been made about
an hour, when two or three Indians were
seen lurking about the edge of the nearest
woodland, and their appearance being hailed
soldiers manœuvering upon the esplanade
above the gates, they instantly retired, and
nothing was heard or seen that day from
the walls of Isabella to justify the suddenness
of Alonzo de Ojeda's arrival, and the
alarm he had occasioned.
| CHAPTER VI. Guarica, the charib bride | |