CHAPTER XXI
A FALSE TRAIL
THE Sierra Tandil rises a thousand feet above the level
of the sea. It is a primordial chain — that is to say, anterior
to all organic and metamorphic creation. It is formed of
a semi-circular ridge of gneiss hills, covered with fine
short grass. The district of Tandil, to which it has given
its name, includes all the south of the Province of Buenos
Ayres, and terminates in a river which conveys north all
the rios that take their rise on its slopes.
After making a short ascent up the sierra, they reached
the postern gate, so carelessly guarded by an Argentine
sentinel, that they passed through without difficulty, a circumstance which
betokened extreme negligence or extreme security.
A few minutes afterward the Commandant appeared in
person. He was a vigorous man about fifty years of age,
of military aspect, with grayish hair, and an imperious eye,
as far as one could see through the clouds of tobacco
smoke which escaped from his short pipe. His walk reminded Paganel instantly of
the old subalterns in his own
country.
Thalcave was spokesman, and addressing the officer, presented Lord
Glenarvan and his companions. While he
was speaking, the Commandant kept staring fixedly at Paganel in rather an
embarrassing manner. The geographer
could not understand what he meant by it, and was just
about to interrogate him, when the Commandant came forward, and seizing both his
hands in the most free-and-easy
fashion, said in a joyous voice, in the mother tongue of the
geographer:
"A Frenchman!"
"Yes, a Frenchman," replied Paganel.
"Ah! delightful! Welcome, welcome. I am a French
man too," he added, shaking Paganel's hand with such
vigor as to be almost alarming.
"Is he a friend of yours, Paganel?" asked the Major.
"Yes," said Paganel, somewhat proudly. "One has
friends in every division of the globe."
After he had succeeded in disengaging his hand, though
not without difficulty, from the living vise in which it was
held, a lively conversation ensued. Glenarvan would fain
have put in a word about the business on hand, but the
Commandant related his entire history, and was not in a
mood to stop till he had done. It was evident that the
worthy man must have left his native country many years
back, for his mother tongue had grown unfamiliar, and if
he had not forgotten the words he certainly did not remember how to put them
together. He spoke more like a negro
belonging to a French colony.
The fact was that the Governor of Fort Independence
was a French sergeant, an old comrade of Parachapee. He
had never left the fort since it had been built in 1828; and,
strange to say, he commanded it with the consent of the
Argentine Government. He was a man about fifty years
of age, a Basque by birth, and his name was Manuel
Ipharaguerre, so that he was almost a Spaniard. A year
after his arrival in the country he was naturalized, took
service in the Argentine army, and married an Indian girl,
who was then nursing twin babies six months old — two
boys, be it understood, for the good wife of the Commandant would have never
thought of presenting her husband
with girls. Manuel could not conceive of any state but a
military one, and he hoped in due time, with the help of
God, to offer the republic a whole company of young soldiers.
"You saw them. Charming! good soldiers are Jose,
Juan, and Miquele! Pepe, seven year old; Pepe can handle a gun."
Pepe, hearing himself complimented, brought his two
little feet together, and presented arms with perfect grace.
"He'll get on!" added the sergeant. "He'll be colonelmajor or brigadier-general some day."
Sergeant Manuel seemed so enchanted that it would
have been useless to express a contrary opinion, either to
the profession of arms or the probable future of his chil
dren. He was happy, and as Goethe says, "Nothing that
makes us happy is an illusion."
All this talk took up a quarter of an hour, to the great
astonishment of Thalcave. The Indian could not understand how so many words
could come out of one throat.
No one interrupted the Sergeant, but all things come to an
end, and at last he was silent, but not till he had made his
guests enter his dwelling, and be presented to Madame
Ipharaguerre. Then, and not till then, did he ask his
guests what had procured him the honor of their visit.
Now or never was the moment to explain, and Paganel,
seizing the chance at once, began an account of their journey across the Pampas,
and ended by inquiring the reason
of the Indians having deserted the country.
"Ah! there was no one!" replied the Sergeant, shrugging his shoulders —
"really no one, and us, too, our arms
crossed! Nothing to do!"
"But why?"
"War."
"War?"
"Yes, civil war between the Paraguayans and Buenos
Ayriens," replied the Sergeant.
"Well?"
"Well, Indians all in the north, in the rear of General
Flores. Indian pillagers find pillage there."
"But where are the Caciques?"
"Caciques are with them."
"What! Catriel?"
"There is no Catriel."
"And Calfoucoura?"
"There is no Calfoucoura."
"And is there no Yanchetruz?"
"No; no Yanchetruz."
The reply was interpreted by Thalcave, who shook his
head and gave an approving look. The Patagonian was
either unaware of, or had forgotten that civil war was
decimating the two parts of the republic — a war which
ultimately required the intervention of Brazil. The Indians have everything to
gain by these intestine strifes,
and can not lose such fine opportunities of plunder. There
was no doubt the Sergeant was right in assigning war then
as the cause of the forsaken appearance of the plains.
But this circumstance upset all Glenarvan's projects, for
if Harry Grant was a prisoner in the hands of the Caciques,
he must have been dragged north with them. How and
where should they ever find him if that were the case?
Should they attempt a perilous and almost useless journey
to the northern border of the Pampas? It was a serious
question which would need to be well talked over.
However, there was one inquiry more to make to the
Sergeant; and it was the Major who thought of it, for all
the others looked at each other in silence.
"Had the Sergeant heard whether any Europeans were
prisoners in the hands of the Caciques?"
Manuel looked thoughtful for a few minutes, like a man
trying to ransack his memory. At last he said:
"Yes."
"Ah!" said Glenarvan, catching at the fresh hope.
They all eagerly crowded round the Sergeant, exclaiming,
"Tell us, tell us."
"It was some years ago," replied Manuel. "Yes; all
I heard was that some Europeans were prisoners, but I
never saw them."
"You are making a mistake," said Glenarvan. "It
can't be some years ago; the date of the shipwreck is explicitly given. The
Britannia was wrecked in June, 1862.
It is scarcely two years ago."
"Oh, more than that, my Lord."
"Impossible!" said Paganel.
"Oh, but it must be. It was when Pepe was born.
There were two prisoners."
"No, three!" said Glenarvan.
"Two!" replied the Sergeant, in a positive tone.
"Two?" echoed Glenarvan, much surprised. "Two
Englishmen?"
"No, no. Who is talking of Englishmen? No; a
Frenchman and an Italian."
"An Italian who was massacred by the Poyuches?"
exclaimed Paganel.
"Yes; and I heard afterward that the Frenchman was
saved."
"Saved!" exclaimed young Robert, his very life hanging on the lips of the
Sergeant.
Yes; delivered out of the hands of the Indians."
Paganel struck his forehead with an air of desperation,
and said at last,
"Ah! I understand. It is all clear now; everything is
explained."
"But what is it?" asked Glenarvan, with as much impatience.
"My friends," replied Paganel, taking both Robert's
hands in his own, "we must resign ourselves to a sad disaster. We have been on a
wrong track. The prisoner
mentioned is not the captain at all, but one of my own
countrymen; and his companion, who was assassinated by
the Poyuches, was Marco Vazello. The Frenchman was
dragged along by the cruel Indians several times as far as
the shores of the Colorado, but managed at length to make
his escape, and return to Colorado. Instead of following
the track of Harry Grant, we have fallen on that of young
Guinnard."
This announcement was heard with profound silence.
The mistake was palpable. The details given by the Sergeant, the nationality of
the prisoner, the murder of his
companions, his escape from the hands of the Indians, all
evidenced the fact. Glenarvan looked at Thalcave with
a crestfallen face, and the Indian, turning to the Sergeant,
asked whether he had never heard of three English captives.
"Never," replied Manuel. "They would have known
of them at Tandil, I am sure. No, it cannot be."
After this, there was nothing further to do at Fort Independence but to
shake hands with the Commandant, and
thank him and take leave.
Glenarvan was in despair at this complete overthrow of
his hopes, and Robert walked silently beside him, with his
eyes full of tears. Glenarvan could not find a word of
comfort to say to him. Paganel gesticulated and talked
away to himself. The Major never opened his mouth, nor
Thalcave, whose amour propre, as an Indian, seemed quite
wounded by having allowed himself to go on a wrong
scent. No one, however, would have thought of reproaching him for an error so
pardonable.
They went back to the fonda, and had supper; but it was
a gloomy party that surrounded the table. It was not that
any one of them regretted the fatigue they had so heedlessly
endured or the dangers they had run, but they felt their
hope of success was gone, for there was no chance of coming across Captain Grant
between the Sierra Tandil and the
sea, as Sergeant Manuel must have heard if any prisoners
had fallen into the hands of the Indians on the coast of the
Atlantic. Any event of this nature would have attracted
the notice of the Indian traders who traffic between Tandil
and Carmen, at the mouth of the Rio Negro. The best
thing to do now was to get to the
Duncan as quick as possible at the
appointed rendezvous.
Paganel asked Glenarvan, however, to let him have the
document again, on the faith of which they had set out on
so bootless a search. He read it over and over, as if trying
to extract some new meaning out of it.
"Yet nothing can be clearer," said Glenarvan; "it gives
the date of the shipwreck, and the manner, and the place of
the captivity in the most categorical manner."
"That it does not — no, it does not!" exclaimed Paganel,
striking the table with his fist. "Since Harry Grant is
not in the Pampas, he is not in America; but where he is
the document must say, and it shall say, my friends, or my
name is not Jacques Paganel any longer."