The Rifle Rangers, Mayne Reid [intellectual books to read txt] 📗
- Author: Mayne Reid
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Many an uneasy look was thrown over our shoulders as we struggled down that slope. Our strength was urged to its utmost; and this was not much, for we had all lost blood in our encounter with the sleuth-hounds, and felt weak and faint.
We were baffled, too, by a storm—a fierce, tropical storm. The rain, thick and heavy, plashed in our faces, and made the ground slippery under our feet. The lightning flashed in our eyes, and the electric sulphur shortened our breathing. Still we coughed and panted and staggered onward, nerved by the knowledge that death was behind us.
I shall never forget that fearful race. I thought it would never end. I can only liken it to one of those dreams in which we are always making endeavours to escape from some horrible monster, and are as often hindered by a strange and mysterious helplessness. I remember it now as then. I have often repeated that flight in my sleep, and always awoke with a feeling of shuddering horror.
We had got within five hundred yards of the timber. Five hundred yards is not much to a fresh runner; but to us, toiling along at a trot that much more resembled a walk, it seemed an infinity. A small prairie, with a stream beyond, separated us from the edge of the woods—a smooth sward without a single tree. We had entered upon it—Raoul, who was light of foot, being in the advance, while Lincoln from choice hung in the rear.
An exclamation from the hunter caused us to look back. We were too much fatigued and worn out to be frightened at the sight. Along the crest of the hill a hundred horsemen were dashing after us in full gallop, and the next moment their vengeful screams were ringing in our ears.
“Now, do yer best, boys!” cried Lincoln, “an’ I’ll stop the cavortin’ of that ’ere foremost feller afore he gits much furrer.”
We trailed our bodies on, but we could hear the guerilleros fast closing upon us. The bullets from their escopettes whistled in our ears, and cut the grass around our feet. I saw Raoul, who had reached the timber, turn suddenly round and walk back. He had resolved to share our fate.
“Save yourself, Raoul!” I called with my weak voice, but he could not have heard me above the din.
I saw him still walking towards us. I heard the screams behind; I heard the shots, and the whizzing of bullets, and the fierce shouts.
I heard the clatter of hoofs and the rasping of sabres as they leaped out of their iron sheaths; and among these I heard the crack of Lincoln’s rifle, and the wild yell of the hunter. Then a peal of thunder drowned all other sounds: the heavens one moment seemed on fire, then black—black. I felt the stifling smell of sulphur—a hot flash—a quick stroke from some invisible hand—and I sank senseless to the earth!
Something cool in my throat and over my face brought back the consciousness that I lived. It was water.
I opened my eyes, but it was some moments before I could see that Raoul was bending over me, and laving my temples with water from his boot. I muttered some half-coherent inquiries.
“It was a coup d’éclair, Captain,” said Raoul.
Good heavens! We had been struck by lightning! Raoul, being in the advance, had escaped.
The Frenchman soon left me and went to Clayley, who, with Chane and the hunter, lay close by—all three, as I thought, dead. They were pale as corpses, with here and there a spot of purple, or a livid line traced over their skins, while their lips presented the whitish, bloodless hue of death.
“Are they dead?” I asked feebly.
“I think not—we shall see;” and the Frenchman poured some water into Clayley’s mouth.
The latter sighed heavily, and appeared to revive.
Raoul passed on to the hunter, who, as soon as he felt the water, started to his feet, and, clutching his comrade fiercely by the throat, exclaimed:
“Yur cussed catamount! yer wud hang me, wud yur?”
Seeing who it was, he stopped suddenly, and looked round with an air of extreme bewilderment. His eye now fell upon the rifle, and, all at once seeming to recollect himself, he staggered towards it and picked it up. Then, as if by instinct, he passed his hand into his pouch and coolly commenced loading.
While Raoul was busy with Clayley and the Irishman, I had risen to my feet and looked back over the prairie. The rain was falling in torrents, and the lightning still flashed at intervals. At the distance of fifty paces a black mass was lying upon the ground motionless—a mass of men and horses, mingled together as they had fallen in their tracks. Here and there a single horse and his rider lay prostrate together. Beyond these, twenty or thirty horsemen were galloping in circles over the plain, and vainly endeavouring to head their frightened steeds towards the point where we were. These, like Raoul, had escaped the stroke.
“Come!” cried the Frenchman, who had now resuscitated Clayley and Chane; “we have not a moment to lose. The mustangs will get over their fright, and these fellows will be down upon us.”
His advice was instantly followed, and before the guerilleros could manage their scared horses we had entered the thicket, and were crawling along under the wet leaves.
Raoul thought that their superstition might prevent the enemy from pursuing us farther. They would consider the lightning as an interference from above—a stroke of the hrazos de Dios. But we had little confidence in this, and, notwithstanding our exhaustion, toiled on through the chaparral. Wearied with over-exertion, half-famished—for we had only commenced eating when roused from our repast in the morning—wet to the skin, cut by the bushes, and bitten by the poisoned teeth of the bloodhounds—blinded, and bruised, and bleeding, we were in but poor travelling condition.
Even Lincoln, whose buoyancy had hitherto borne up, appeared cowed and broken. For the first mile or two he seemed vexed at something and “out of sorts”, stopping every now and again, and examining his rifle in a kind of bewilderment.
Feeling that he was once more “in the timber”, he began to come to himself.
“Thet sort o’ an enemy’s new ter me,” he said, speaking to Raoul. “Dog-gone the thing! it makes the airth look yeller!”
“You’ll see better by and by,” replied his comrade.
“I had need ter, Rowl, or I’ll butt my brainpan agin one of these hyur saplin’s. Wagh! I cudn’t sight a b’ar, if we were to scare him up jest now.”
About five miles farther on we reached a small stream. The storm had abated, but the stream was swollen with the rain, and we could not cross it. We were now a safe distance from our pursuers—at least, we thought so—and we resolved to “pitch our camp” upon the bank.
This was a simple operation, and consisted in pitching ourselves to the ground under the shade of a spreading tree.
Raoul, who was a tireless spirit, kindled a fire, and commenced knocking down the nuts of the corozo palm, that hung in clusters over our heads. We dried our wet garments, and Lincoln set about dressing our numerous wounds. In this surgical process our shirts suffered severely; but the skill of the hunter soothed our swelling limbs, and after a frugal dinner upon palm-nuts and pitahayas we stretched ourselves along the greensward, and were soon asleep.
I was in that dreamy state, half-sleeping half-waking, when I was aroused by a strange noise that sounded like a multitude of voices—the voices of children. Raising my head I perceived the hunter in an attitude of listening.
“What is it, Bob?” I inquired.
“Dod rot me if I kin tell, Cap’n! Hyur, Rowl! what’s all this hyur channerin?”
“It’s the araguatoes,” muttered the Frenchman, half-asleep.
“Harry-gwaters! an what i’ the name o’ Nick’s them? Talk plain lingo, Rowl. What are they?”
“Monkeys, then,” replied the latter, waking up, and laughing at his companion.
“Thar’s a good grist on ’em, then, I reckin,” said Lincoln, throwing himself back unconcernedly.
“They are coming towards the stream. They will most likely cross by the rocks yonder,” observed Raoul.
“How?—swim it?” I asked. “It is a torrent there.”
“Oh, no!” answered the Frenchman; “monkeys would rather go into fire than water. If they cannot leap the stream, they’ll bridge it.”
“Bridge it! and how?”
“Stop a moment, Captain; you shall see.”
The half-human voices now sounded nearer, and we could perceive that the animals were approaching the spot where we lay. Presently they appeared upon the opposite bank, headed by an old grey-bearded chieftain, and officered like a regiment of soldiers.
They were, as Raoul had stated, the araguatoes (Simia ursina) of the tribe of “alouattes,” or “howlers.” They were of that species known as “monos colorados” (red monkeys). They were about the size of foxhounds, though there was a difference in this respect between the males and females. Many of the latter were mothers, and carried their human-like infants upon their shoulders as they marched along, or, squatted upon their hams, tenderly caressed them, fondling and pressing them against their mammas. Both males and females were of a tawny-red or lion-colour; both had long beards, and the hair upon their bodies was coarse and shaggy. Their tails were, each of them, three feet in length; and the absence of hair on the under side of these, with the hard, callous appearance of the cuticle, showed that these appendages were extremely prehensile. In fact, this was apparent from the manner in which the young “held on” to their mothers; for they appeared to retain their difficult seats as much by the grasp of their tails as by their arms and hands.
On reaching the bank of the “arroyo” the whole troop came to a sudden halt. One—an aide-de-camp, or chief pioneer, perhaps—ran forward upon a projecting rock; and, after looking across the stream, as if calculating its width, and then carefully examining the trees overhead, he scampered back to the troop, and appeared to communicate with the leader. The latter uttered a cry—evidently a command—which was answered by many individuals in the band, and these instantly made their appearance in front, and running forward upon the bank of the stream, collected around the trunk of a tall cotton-wood that grew over the narrowest part of the arroyo. After uttering a chorus of discordant cries, twenty or thirty of them were seen to scamper up the trunk of the cotton-wood. On reaching a high point, the foremost—a strong fellow—ran out upon a limb, and, taking several turns of his tail around it, slipped off and hung head downwards. The next on the limb—also a stout one—climbed down the body of the first, and, whipping his tail tightly around the neck and fore-arm of the latter, dropped off in his turn, and hung head down. The third repeated this manoeuvre upon the second, and the fourth upon the third, and so on, until the last one upon the string rested his fore-paws upon the ground.
The living chain now commenced swinging backwards and forwards, like the pendulum of a clock. The motion was slight at first, but gradually increased, the lowermost monkey striking his hands violently on the earth as he passed the tangent of the oscillating curve. Several others upon the limbs above aided the movement. The absence of branches upon the lower part of the tree, which we have said was a cotton-wood (Populus angulata), enabled them to execute this movement freely.
The oscillation continued to increase until the monkey at the
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