The Rover of the Andes: A Tale of Adventure on South America, R. M. Ballantyne [world of reading .txt] 📗

shown the slightest hesitancy or fear—supposing them to have been what they looked—would have been to invite attack, but, as the reader knows, our travellers were not the men to betray themselves thus. Before starting, they had carefully examined their weapons, and had bestowed them about their persons somewhat ostentatiously. Pedro had even caused Manuela to stick a brace of small pistols and a large knife in her belt; and, as Indian women are sometimes known to be capable of defending themselves as vigorously as men, she was by no means a cipher in the effective strength of the party.

With a dignified yet free-and-easy air that would have done credit to a Spanish Don of the olden time, Pedro saluted the party as he rode past. His aspect, and the quiet, self-possessed air of the huge Englishman, with the singularity of his cudgel, coupled with the look of graceful decision about the Indian maiden, and the blunt bull-doggedness of the square negro, were sufficient to ensure a polite response, not only from that party, but from several other bands of the same stamp that were met with during the day.

Diverging from the main road in order to avoid these bands, they followed a track well-known to the guide. Towards the afternoon, from the top of a rising ground, they descried a solitary foot traveller wending his way wearily up the hill.

He was a man of middle age, and powerfully-built, but walked with such evident difficulty that it seemed as if he were either ill or exhausted. Pedro eyed him with considerable suspicion as he approached. In passing, he begged for assistance. As he spoke in French, Lawrence, whose sympathies, like those of Quashy, were easily roused, asked in that tongue what was the matter with him.

He had been robbed, he said, by that villainous bandit, Conrad of the Mountains, or some one extremely like him, and had been nearly killed by him. He was on his way to San Ambrosio, where his wife and family dwelt, having heard that it had been greatly damaged, if not destroyed, by an earthquake.

“It has been utterly destroyed, my poor fellow,” said Lawrence, in a tone of pity; “but it may be that your family has escaped. A good number of people have escaped. Here are a few dollars for you. You will need them, I fear. You can owe them to me, and pay them when next we meet.”

The gift was accompanied with a look of pleasantry, for Lawrence well knew there was little chance of their ever meeting again.

Pedro sat regarding them with a grim smile. “You are a stout fellow,” he said, in a tone that was not conciliatory, after the beggar had accepted the dollars with many expressions of gratitude; “from all I have heard of Conrad of the Mountains, you are quite a match for him, if he were alone.”

“He was not alone, senhor,” replied the beggar, with a look that told of a temper easily disturbed.

To this Pedro replied contemptuously, “Oh, indeed!” and, turning abruptly away, rode on.

“You doubt that man?” said Lawrence, following him.

“I do.”

“He looked honest.”

“Men are not always to be judged by their looks.”

“Das a fact!” interposed Quashy; “what would peepil judge ob me, now, if dey hoed by looks?”

“They’d say you were a fine, genial, hearty, good-natured blockhead,” said Lawrence, laughing.

“True, massa, you’s right. I’m all dat an’ wuss, but not always dat. Sometimes I’m roused; an’ I’m awrful w’en I’m roused! You should see me w’en my back’s riz. Oh my!”

The negro opened his eyes and mouth so awfully at the mere idea of such a rising that his companions were fain to seek relief in laughter. Even the grave Manuela gave way to unrestrained merriment, for if she failed to thoroughly understand Quashy’s meaning, she quite understood his face.

That night they found welcome shelter in a small farm.

“Did you fall in with the notorious bandit, Conrad of the Mountains?” asked their host, after the ceremonious reception of his guests was over.

“No, senhor,” answered Pedro. “Is that fellow in this neighbourhood just now?”

“So it is said, senhor. I have not seen him myself, and should not know him if I saw him, but from descriptions I should think it must be he. I have a poor fellow—a peon—lying here just now, who has been robbed and nearly murdered by him. Come, he is in the next room; you can speak to him.”

Saying this, the host introduced Pedro and Lawrence into an inner chamber, where the wounded man lay, groaning horribly. He was very ready, indeed eager, to give all the information in his power. Fear had evidently given the poor fellow an exaggerated idea of the appearance of the man who had waylaid him; nevertheless, from his description our travellers had no difficulty in recognising the poor bereaved beggar whom they had met and assisted.

“Was he a large man?” asked Pedro.

“Yes, yes, senhor; tremendous!—seven feet or more, and so”—indicating about three feet—“across the shoulders. Rough black head, huge black beard and moustache, hawk nose, with such awful eyes, and the strength of a tiger! I could never have been so easily overcome by one man if he had not been a giant.”

“You see,” said Pedro in English, turning to Lawrence with a smile, “the description tallies exactly, making due allowance for this poor fellow’s alarm. He must be a clever fellow this Conrad of the Mountains, for he has not only frightened a peon out of his wits, but roused the pity of an Englishman by asserting that he had been robbed by himself! Your charity, you see, was ill bestowed.”

“So, it seems we might have made this noted bandit prisoner if we had only known!” exclaimed Lawrence, who seemed more distressed at missing the chance of becoming an amateur thief-catcher than at misdirected charity. “But do you really think the fellow was Conrad of the Mountains?”

“I am certain he was not,” said Pedro.

“How do you know?”

“I have several grounds for my belief, but, even if I had not, I might easily judge from appearances. Conrad is said to be kind to women and children. The scoundrel we met with could not be kind to any one. Moreover, there is no clear proof that Conrad is a bandit, while this man certainly is one.”

“I’m sorry you seem so sure, because I should like much to be able to say I had seen this notorious fellow about whom every one appears to hear so much and to know so little.”

Although the bandit of whom we have just made mention was not Conrad of the Mountains, it may interest the reader to know that he was in truth a sufficiently notorious villain, named Fan, the captain of a band of twenty assassins, most of whom were escaped criminals from the prisons of Chili and Peru. Among other exploits, Fan once attacked the armed escort of a troop of mules conveying silver in bars from the mines to Chili. Fan and his men attacked them in a ravine so suddenly, and with such a deadly fire of musketry, that the few who survived laid down their arms at once, on the promise being made that their lives should be spared.

Banditti do not usually regard promises as binding. It would be surprising if they did. Fan made the survivors lie down on their faces, and was about to plunder the mules, when he changed his mind, and shot all the rest of the convoy in cold blood, except the last, who, seeing the fate that awaited him, leaped over a precipice, rolled down a steep slope many hundred feet deep, and, strange to say, escaped with his life. He then procured a dozen or two well-armed men, and returned to the scene of the robbery, but found that the robbers had flown with as much silver as they could carry, the remainder being scattered about on the road.

These miscreants were afterwards captured, but, owing to disputes between the Peruvian and the Chilian Governments, the former of whom had hold of, while the latter claimed, the robbers, they all escaped their merited punishment, and were set at large.