The Rover of the Andes: A Tale of Adventure on South America, R. M. Ballantyne [world of reading .txt] 📗
- Author: R. M. Ballantyne
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“My conscience reproached me, and I began to think how I could manage to live a less selfish life, but before I could make up my mind what course to follow an event occurred which caused delay. A little girl was sent to us. I called her Mariquita, of course, and thought no more of leaving our happy home in the mountains. For five years we remained here, and the little Mariquita grew to be an angel of light and beauty—like her mother in all respects, except that she was very fair, with curly golden hair.
“About that time war broke out—doubly accursed war! One night a band of deserters came and attacked my cottage. It had always been well prepared for anything of the sort with bolts, and bars and shutters, and even flanking loop-holes, as well as plenty of fire-arms and ammunition. But the party was too numerous. The villains forced the door in spite of me, and fired a volley before making a rush. From that moment I remembered nothing more until I recovered and found my head supported on the knee of an old man. I knew him at once to be a poor lonely old hunter who ranged about in the mountains here, and had paid us occasional visits. When he saw I was able to understand him, he told me that he had come suddenly on the villains and shot two of them, and that the others, perhaps thinking him the advance-guard of a larger party, had taken fright and made off. ‘But,’ he said, in a low, hesitating tone, ‘Mariquita is dead!’
“I sprang up as if I had been shot, but instantly fell again, for my leg had been broken. I had seen enough, however. My beloved one lay dead on the floor, not far from me, with a bullet through her brain. And now,” added Pedro, pointing in deep despondency to the little mound at their feet—“she lies there!”
“Not so, my friend,” said Lawrence, in a low but earnest tone, as he grasped the man’s hand, “it is only her dust that lies there, and even that is precious in the sight of her Lord.”
“Thank you, senhor, for reminding me,” returned Pedro; “but when the memory of that awful night is strong upon me, my faith almost fails.”
“No wonder,” rejoined Lawrence, “but what of the child?”
“Ah! that is what I asked the old hunter,” returned Pedro. “He started up, and searched high and low, but could not find her. Then he went out, calling her by name loudly, and searched the bushes. Then he returned with a wild look and said the robbers must have taken her away—he would pursue! I knew it would be useless, for the scoundrels were mounted and the old hunter was on foot; but I let him go, and was not surprised when, two hours later, he returned quite exhausted. ‘It is in vain,’ he said. ‘Yet if I could have come up with them, I would have died for her.’
“I was long ill after that. A good while, they say, I was out of my mind, but old Ignacio nursed me through. He also buried Mariquita where she now lies.”
The guide paused.
“And the child?” asked Lawrence, anxiously.
“I have sought her far and wide, year after year, over mountain and plain. She may be dead—she may be alive—but I have never seen her nor heard of her from that day to this.”
“Your story is a very, very sad one,” said Lawrence, his face expressing the genuine sympathy which he felt. “May I ask—are your wanderings mere haphazard? Have you no idea who they were that stole your little one, or where they went to?”
“None whatever. The broken leg, you know, prevented my commencing the search at once, and when I was able to go about I found that all trace of the band was gone. No wonder, for the country was at war at the time, and many marauding parties had traversed the land since then.”
“I—I shrink,” said Lawrence, with some hesitation, “from even the appearance of unkindness, but I cannot help expressing the fear that this vague, undirected wandering will be useless.”
“It would be so,” returned Pedro, “if God did not direct all human affairs. If it be His will, I shall yet find my child on earth. If not, I shall find her above—with her mother. In our intercourse, senhor, I have observed in you a respect for God’s Word. Is it not written, ‘Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him, and He will bring it to pass?’”
“Most true,” replied Lawrence, feeling the reproof, “yet God works by means. If we do not take the right means, we cannot expect to attain our end, however much we may trust.”
“Right, senhor, and I have taken the only means open to me. Since I cannot give direction to my search, I search everywhere. Fortunately my business permits of this, and also of doing a little service to my fellow-men as I go on my way. Periodically I return here to rest,”—(he pointed to the little mound,)—“and when my powers begin to wane, either through disease or age, it is my purpose, if God permit, to return and die beside Mariquita’s grave.”
On their way back to the cottage they heard dogs barking, and a man talking to them. Next moment these came in sight.
“The old hunter!” exclaimed Pedro, hastening forward with evident pleasure to meet his friend.
It was equally evident that the old man was as much pleased to meet Pedro, for they grasped each other’s hands with hearty good-will.
“What news?” asked the old man, eagerly, as he held up a hand to check the dogs, which were leaping round him.
Pedro shook his head sadly, and the expression of the old man became grave. The question referred to Pedro’s search for his lost child. It had long been the first inquiry when these two met after a separation. The old man seemed never to lose hope, but he had become so accustomed to the reply that his despondency was now of short duration. He had known and loved the child in days gone by—had helped the mother in cultivating her garden-plot, and had gone out hunting with the father many a time. He was a fine-looking man, above seventy years of age, with iron-grey hair, turning in some places to pure white. The hunter’s spare though still upright figure showed that he must have been a powerful man in his youth, and the deeply-marked wrinkles about his mouth and eyes told eloquently that he was a kind one. Round his shoulders were twined the cords of the heavy “bolas,” or balls, with which he sometimes felled, at other times entangled, his prey. These balls were covered with clotted blood. He carried a short gun in his hand, and a large knife was stuck in his belt.
The dogs that leaped around him were a strange pack—some being very large, some very small, and all of different breeds. A few of them had been lamed, and all were more or less marked by the wounds received from jaguars and pumas.
“You expected me, Ignacio?” said Pedro, after the first greetings were over.
“No—not quite so soon, but I chanced to be wandering about in the mountains, and came down to take a look at the old place, to see that all was right. You know I am fond of our old haunts, and never stay long away from them, but I did not expect to find you here.”
The hunter spoke in Spanish, and Lawrence found to his satisfaction that, although he by no means understood all that was said, he had already improved so much in that tongue through his frequent efforts to converse with Manuela, that he could follow the drift at least of the hunter’s remarks.
“I have come back sooner than I intended,” returned Pedro, “for war is a wonderful hastener, as well as dictator, of events; but I have to thank war for having given me a new friend. Let me introduce Senhor Lawrence Armstrong to you; Senhor, my old comrade Ignacio, who, as I have told you, nursed me back to life many years ago.”
The old man held out a hard bony hand, and gave Lawrence a hearty squeeze of friendship that had something vice-like in its vigour. He then turned to Pedro, and began to make anxious inquiries about the war. As the two men spoke in undertones, Lawrence drew back a few paces, and followed them towards the cottage. He observed that Ignacio shook his head very often, and also that he laughed once or twice silently, but with apparent heartiness. As he overheard the name of Manuela just before one of these laughs, he experienced some disagreeable feelings, which it was not easy to understand or get rid of, so he took to fondling the hunter’s dogs by way of diversion to his mind.
The animals testified indirectly to the character of their master by receiving his advances with effusive demonstrations of joy.
At the cottage they found Ignacio’s horse—a very fine one—with a lasso hanging from the saddle. Beside it stood a loose horse with the carcass of a guanaco flung over it, and a Gaucho lad who was the hunter’s only attendant. Quashy was engaged in animated conversation with this youth, and Manuela stood beside him listening.
“I cannot understand,” said Lawrence to Pedro, as they approached, “how men ever acquire dexterity in the use of these bolas.”
“Practice makes perfect, you know,” said the guide, “and it doesn’t matter much what sort of weapons you use, if you only learn to use them well. Of course it’s not easy to a beginner. When Ignacio’s dogs turn out a jaguar or a puma, they follow him hotly till he stops to defend himself. If the dogs fly upon the brute, the hunter usually jumps off his horse, whirls the three balls about till they get up tremendous momentum, and then brings them down on the jaguar’s skull with a whack that generally drops him. But if the dogs are afraid to go at him, Ignacio throws the lasso over him, gallops away, and drags him over the ground, while the dogs rush in and tear him. What between bumping and hounds, the jaguar’s career is soon finished.”
“I’m glad I’ve met you,” said Pedro to Ignacio, as they turned aside into the bushes together, “for I’ve got news to tell, and I’ll want your help. There’s mischief brewing in the air, and I am commissioned—”
Thus much did Lawrence and Quashy overhear before the voice died away in the distance. It was a tantalising point to stop at! Lawrence looked at Quashy and at Manuela, who stood near.
“Does Manuela know anything of the mischief that is brewing?” asked Lawrence in amazing Spanish.
“Not’ing,” replied the girl in English, “but she trust Pedro.”
“So do I, with all my heart,” returned Lawrence; “my question was prompted by curiosity, not by doubt.”
“I’s not so sure,” said Quashy, with a frown, and a tone of self-assertion which was rare
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