University of Virginia Library

17. CHAPTER XVII.
DANGERS IN THE PATH—OMENS IN THE SKY.

The departure of Garabito with the matador, had necessarily
released his men from their attendance upon
him. Ortado asked for no witnesses but the one most interested,
to assist and to conceal his crime. These fellows,
who, as we may remember, had also their schemes
of treachery, as well as their master, were free, in consequence,
to put them into exercise; and filled with glowing
anticipations of the vast reward which had been offered
by the governor Obando, for the capture, dead or alive,
of the outlawed rebel Caonabo, they commenced their
journey when night had set in fairly, for the bohio of the
woman, his wife, among the mountains. To prevent suspicion
of their object, they took a circuitous route which
somewhat delayed their progress; and plied their way
with infinite labour, but equal industry and patience, up
the broken piles and abrupt ledges of rock which lay between,
and led them to, the abiding places of the emasculated
tribe in the encomienda of Ribiero. They were
both properly armed to the teeth with sword and dagger,
and whatever doubts they might have had of finding the
rebel cassique in the cottage of his wife, they had little or
no fears of success if they did so. Confident in their own
strength, and no less so in the notorious imbecility of the
timid and unsinewed tribes over whom their people had
triumphed with such infinite ease, they did injustice to
the man whom they sought, when they assumed, presumptuously,
that the daring and intractable rebel was to
be overcome with the same ease with the feeble and submissive
slave. The cupidity which prompted the scheme
of the conspirators was also the parent of that audacity
which led them upon the adventure with so small a force.

Sanchez alone had some doubts as to their capacity, but
these were soon silenced by his companion.

“What!—thou fearest, Sanchez? Thou smell'st the danger,
and hast a misgiving of thy own strength, joined to
mine, in the encounter with Caonabo. It is too late for
thee to fear, nor is there a reason for it. The outlaw is
one to fight, yet not with us. He is good at bow and arrow,
yet we shall give him little chance to use them, if
we hold to our purpose, and shorten the strife to the close
business of knife and dagger. Even if he were match for
either of us singly, he were no match for both. We are
all that is needful, and help that we need not would only
lessen the reward, the whole of which we need. If the
fight be a hard one, the reward is good. Wouldst thou
have the victory easier and get nothing for it?”

“But the slaves of the encomienda,—there are some
twenty-five men of this village! Should they hear the
summons of Caonabo whom they love, or his cry, they
would rise upon us.”

“Not they—not they! the sight of Spanish steel would
send them howling to their fig trees. Were they all like
the outlaw, the case were otherwise. He hath fought with
D'Aguilar, and once got advantage upon him, which had
been fatal, only for the timely coming in of the dog Leonchico,
which belongs to the Senor Vasco Nunez. The
dog had taken Caonabo himself by the throat, but that the
fearless rebel leapt headlong into the sea, and disappeared
among the broken rocks that fence the shore in this region.
The most serious wound of Leonchico came from
the arrow of this same Caonabo.”

“Would the dog were with us now,” muttered the
more timid Sanchez; “there were less doubt of our success?”

“Of a truth, that were the very thing to make it doubtful.
What! to tell the rebel of our coming, and leave him
to flight. Truly, mi amigo, thou knowest not thy own
necessity, and left to thyself, wouldst play but a sorry
game, even with the help of a fool's fortune. Art thou yet
to learn the plan which I have striven to make clear to
thee already? Must I tell it in thy dull ears once more?”

“Nay, I know that, but it does seem to me that a
third companion were not amiss. Thou hast not spoken

to the danger from the other savages,—the slaves of the
encomienda. What if they come out upon us?”

“Nay, thou hast not heeded me. I have answered thee
on this head more than once. I will once more inform
thee, and I pray thee to give ear at this time, for the hour
approaches when thou wilt need to have thy wits about
thee. Pass we through this gorge upon which we are now
entering, and we ascend a little hill which rises at the
mouth of it above; when we shall have reached that hill,
the bohios of the infidel are in sight.”

“Thou knowest thy path, Pedro, I trust.”

“Have no fear, I have trodden it an hundred times,
when Garabito was chief lieutenant of the repartimiento,
and the infidels that inhabit here have a lasting
and seemly recollection of my person. All that I ask of
thee is to keep a still tongue in thy head—a task which I
well know is among the most difficult that I could set
thee—a ready knife in thy hand, and a keen eye to
counsel thee the fit moment when to use it—a labour
which, I trust, is far less difficult than all the rest.”

“I thank thee for so much,” said the other; “of a truth,
I believe that I can use dagger with the best when the
strife is needful, and if my speech be something free when
there is no need of better weapon, I am still in hope that
it may rest when the other is wanted. But still thou sayst
nothing of thy plan to keep these heathen slaves from
coming out upon us. How dost thou propose to do
this?”

“By going in to them. Thou wilt see that all the bohios
are far apart, each under its own fig tree. We have but
to seek these dwellings singly, and give warning to those
within. Let them but see thy face and mine, and behold
our bared weapons, and hear our commands, and there
needs no more. We shall then move towards the bohio
of Buru, the mother of the boy whom Garabito slew today
and the wife of Caonabo. He will be there, I doubt
not then only will our strife begin.”

“But what are the commands which thou wilt give, to
make these slaves keep within while we strive with Caonabo?”

“None, save only that they shall do so, on pain of
death.”

“They will hear his cry,—they will give ear to his summons,
rather than to thy commands.”

“Amigo, thou knowest not the infidel of San Domingo.
It were pain enough for him to rise only from his sleep,
after a day of toil; but when thou tell'st him of the peril,
he sleeps the sounder. I will say to him, look on my dagger,
thou shalt eat it, if thou com'st forth before morning.
He likes not such food, he will see the day peep through
the leaves of his banyan ere he presumes to peep out
upon it.”

“But should Caonabo be in some of the bohios which
we first seek—should we meet him?”

“Then our strife begins, with all its difficulties, in that
instant, unless it be that we discover him within, ere we
show ourselves, when we must only wait his coming
forth. But, he knows their cowardice, and hath fears of
their treachery; and it is my thought, that he suffers
them not to know of his visits to the woman. We shall
find him this night, in his own cabin, if any where;—and
now keep thine eyes about thee, for the gorge opens upon
the hill. Seize upon the tufts before thee, and let the
bush conceal thee as thou ascendest. Do as thou seest
me, and show nothing of thy person until I bid thee—the
bohios are in sight.”

“Seest thou aught, Pedro?”

“The dwellings of the infidels only. The slaves sleep,
methinks; but it will need that we look into each. Keep
thyself within shadow, and let there be no more speech.
Hast thou risen?”

“Behind thee—I am close. Go forward, I see as well
as thou.”

“Take then thy dagger in thy teeth, while thou crawlest
after me: it will stop thy speech—but of that we have
no need. The keen steel must be our best speech until
the business be ended.”

The conspirators maintained excellent watch as they
advanced toward the bohios, and on the broken path
before them; but they looked not once behind, and knew
not that as sharp, although not so hostile an eye, was
maintained upon their own movements, as that which
they kept upon the dwelling of Caonabo. The person
who followed them was no other than the venerable
astrologer, Micer Codro, whom we may remember as

having left his friend and companion, Vasco Nunez, on
learning his rejection of the offer of the Indian woman.
With that devoted zeal which he had ever manifested in
behalf of the fortunes of the cavalier, from the first hour
of his acquaintance with him, he resolved that, however
the latter might disregard the resources of the woman, he
was not to be suffered to scorn the gifts of fortune; for,
in this light alone,—as an intimation of the stars—did he
regard the offer of her gold which Buru had made him.

“The gold is of no use to the woman,”—so he soliloquized—“and
it may retrieve his fortune—may procure
him a ship from Cuba; and help him on to the pearly ocean
of the south, which is even now awaiting his progress. It
is but a sickly feeling of Vasco Nunez, that which makes
him deny to receive the gift of the woman. It is well that
I know the path to the encomienda of Ribiero—there is no
danger, since the guards of the repartimiento are strong.
I will go to her as the friend of Vasco, and, doubtless
she will yield to me the treasure for his use which she
would have bestowed upon him.”

We have seen his progress with this object. Ignorant
of that of the two Spaniards before him, whom he beheld
for the first time as they ascended the plain, he yet
reasonably argued that it must be characteristic of those
which so commonly and so brutally distinguished the
greater number of the conquerors in all their intercourse
with the natives. It was now the fear of the astrologer
that their presence would be hostile to his success. Perhaps,
they too had been apprised of the hoard of gold which
the woman had proffered Vasco Nunez; and which, in
the extremity of her grief, she might unconsciously have
disclosed to others. This thought afflicted him. Gradually
his curiosity became enlisted, as he followed the conspirators,
and he pressed onward after them with a
vigorous perseverance, that might not have been expected
from his years. At the foot of the gorge he saw them
ascend it, and he redoubled his speed, as, rising above
the hill at its mouth, they suddenly disappeared from his
sight, in the neighbourhood of the Indian settlement.

At that moment a mountainous mass of cloud, expanding
from the smallest speck rolled over the surface of the
moon, and from the deep, well-like ravine, through which
he was moving, he saw the stars suddenly start out before

his sight, and look down upon him with their most
perfect radiance.

“Adonai!” exclaimed the astrologer while his heart
trembled within him, and his knees shook, “what is it that
I see?”

The star which he had assigned to his companion was
now in the seventh mansion of the moon. His fears increased
as he looked upon its varying aspects. His lips
opened to utter broken exclamations—fragments of
speech, which, though significant enough of the apprehensions
in his bosom, were yet imperfect of themselves, and
deficient in every other signification.

“He hath surely left the dwelling—there is confusion
in his thoughts, and fear! Fear in the heart of Vasco
Nunez? No! no!—it cannot be. But the aspect changes
—Ha! it is the fear of woman! The edges of the star
grow dim—the points break and bend! The waters
fill my eye—I see not—I see nothing. Oh, Vasco Nunez—my
son—wherefore hast thou left the bohio—thou
hast left it for evil—there is treachery in waiting—there
is danger on thy path—I look again—an evil planet crosses
the centre of the star—it shapes itself into a dagger, and
lo! as I look, thy star moulds itself around it even as a
grasping heart. Saddai the Celestial—Methuellon of the
seraphim—Razael of the cherubim, leave not thy charge
to the evil demon of the west—to the mighty Paymon,
who hath power under this sign. Stand before his presence,
oh, Michael, that keepest the virtues from harm—
strengthen the shield before his bosom, so that the dagger
reacheth it not!”

The old man sank upon his knees; and never was prayer
more fervently uttered than that which mingled, in the
wild and superstitious forms of that half benighted period,
the gibberish of the dreamer and the impostor with the
pure and intelligent supplication of the Christian and the
man. Tears were in his eyes while he prayed, and the
thick drops stood out upon his forehead. His eyes meanwhile
were never for a moment taken from those aspects
in the heavens which had wrought so deeply upon his
fears, and awakened in him the most intense apprehensions.
His fears and feelings broke forth in fragments
from his lips.

“The forms move not. There is no change, which

shows that the treachery still works, and is in waiting—
now doth humility clothe the face of the star of Vasco
Nunez—is it shame—is it sorrow? He bows—he kneels
—wherefore! Can it be that he prays for life from the
hand which holds the dagger? It relents not—the sign
of death still reigns in the house of life. There is no relenting—there
is no mercy! And yet there is a change.
Thy star is pale no longer. It burns red. There is anger
in the heart of Vasco Nunez—there is anger, and
there is pride and strength. He bends no longer—he
rises—now the points lengthen and ray out; and the
bright edges are no longer dim. But that bloody dagger
under the sign of Paymon keeps its place. My heart
trembles. The malice works, and the keen point is at
the centre of the heart. It hath no handle—it is all blade.
That should seem as if it were a death from accident,
since there is no hand to guide the dagger. Ah! I can
see no more—there is nothing but confusion in my eyes.”

The astrologer sank prostrate with his face to the
earth as he turned from those aspects which so awakened
his fears and feelings. But his anxieties were too great
to suffer him to remain long in this state of apathy. Once
more he looked up, and shrieked aloud.

“The blow is given—there is hand and dagger both—
the blow is given—I see it, and the blood-drops gather
on my sight. I see nothing beside—the lights are gone
—the stars are all swallowed up in blood. Oh, Vasco
Nunez, Vasco Nunez—son of my soul—light of my eye
—child that I have followed and watched from the time
thou wert a silent page in the castle of Moguer, even to
the present hour—wherefore did I leave thee? why didst
thou go forth against my prayer? Have they slain thee
in truth—is it from thy heart that these drops trickle?
Alas! I may not know—the cloud goes from the moon—
thy star and the hateful planet that assails thee, all have
departed. I may not press this journey. I must back to
Santo Domingo. There is no gold for Micer Codro, if
that bright star be set in blood.”

Let us return, also, to the city and resume the narrative
of those transactions which we left in as great doubt
to the reader, as to the astrologer, who seeks his information
from a more sublimated source of intelligence.