Last of the Incas: A Romance of the Pampas

"The colony of the white men will be destroyed by fire, their warriors massacred, and their wives and children carried off into slavery."

"I will transmit your demands to the governor, and tomorrow at sunset, you will have his answer. You will, however, suspend hostilities till then?"

"Keep on your guard."

"Thanks for your frankness, chief; I am delighted to meet an Indian who is not an utter scoundrel. Good-bye till tomorrow."

"Tomorrow!" the chief repeated, courteously, and involuntarily affected by the old gentleman's noble bearing.

The major withdrew slowly to the barricades, where the colonel, alarmed by the long interview, had made all preparations to avenge the death of his old friend.

"Well?" he said, as he pressed his hand.

"They are trying to gain time," the major answered, "in order to play us one of their demon's tricks."

"What do they demand, though?"

"Impossibilities, colonel, and they are well aware of it, for they appeared to be laughing at us, when they submitted their absurd demands to me. The Negro cacique, they say, had no right to sell his territory, which they also say we must return to them in twenty-four hours, and then came the bede-roll of their usual threats. Ah! That is not all; they are ready to repay us all that the Negro cacique received for the sale of his lands."

"Why," Don Antonio interrupted, "the fellows must be mad."

"No, colonel, they are robbers."

At this moment, tremendous shouts were heard at the barriers, and the two officers hurried up in all haste.

Four or five thousand horses, apparently free but whose invisible riders were concealed, according to the Indian fashion, along their flanks, were coming at a frightful pace against the barricades. Two rounds of canister produced disorder in their ranks, without checking their speed, and they fell like lightning on the defenders of Población del Sur. Then began one of those terrific fights of the Indian frontier, a cruel and indescribable contest, in which no prisoners were made, the bolas perdidas, the laquis, the bayonet, and the lance, were their sole weapons. The Indians were immediately reinforced, but the Spaniards did not give way an inch. This desperate struggle lasted for about two hours; the Patagonians seemed to give ground, and the Argentines redoubled their efforts to drive them back to their camp, when, suddenly, the cry was heard behind them —

"Treachery! Treachery!"

The major and the colonel, who were fighting in the front rank of the soldiers and volunteers, turned round; they were caught between two fires.

Pincheira, dressed in the uniform of a Chilian officer, was prancing at the head of a hundred gauchos, more or less intoxicated, who followed him, yelling —

"Pillage! Pillage!"

The two veteran officers exchanged a long, sad glance, and their determination was formed in a second.

The colonel hurled among the Indians a barrel of gunpowder, with a lighted fuse, which swept them off, as the wind sweeps the dust, and put them to flight. The Argentines, at the major's command, wheeled round and charged the gauchos, commanded by Pincheira. These bandits, with their sabres and bolas in their hands, dashed at the Argentines, who slipped into the open doors of the abandoned houses, in a narrow street, where the gauchos could not manoeuvre their horses. The Argentines, who were skilful marksmen, did not throw away a shot; they fell back on the river bank, and kept up a well-sustained fire on the gauchos, who had turned back, and on the Aucas, who had again escaladed the barricades, while the guns of the fort scattered canister and death among them.

The white men crossed the river without any risk, and their enemies installed themselves in the Población del Sur, filling the air with triumphant hurrahs.

The colonel ordered considerable works to be thrown up on the river bank, and placed in them two batteries, of six guns each whose fire crossed.

Through the treachery of the gauchos the Indians had seized Población del Sur, which, however, was not the key of the place; but this negative success entailed an enormous loss upon them. The colonists, through this, saw their communications interrupted with the estancias on the opposite bank, but luckily the farmers had come into Upper Carmen beforehand with their horses and cattle, and the boats were all moored under the batteries of the fort which protected them. The suburb captured by the assailants was, consequently, entirely empty.

On one side, the Argentines congratulated themselves at having no longer to defend a dangerous and useless post; on the other, the Aucas asked themselves of what good this dearly acquired suburb would prove to them.

Three gauchos, during the fight, were dragged from their horses by the Argentines and made prisoners. One of them was Pincheira, the second Panchito, and the third a man of the name of Diego. A council of war, assembled in the open air, sentenced them to the gallows.

"Well, Diego," asked Panchito, "where is Pincheira?"

"The scoundrel has escaped," honest Panchito replied; "deserter from the army, deserter from the gallows! That is the way in which he breaks all his engagements. He will come to a very bad end."

"Our affair seems clear enough," Diego said with a sigh.

"Nonsense! A little sooner or a little later, what's the odds?"

"The gallows seems to tickle your fancy, Panchito."

"Not exactly," the other answered; "but for four generations my family have been hanged, from father to son; we quite expect it. What will the fiend do with my soul?"

"I do not know."

"Nor do I."

During this edifying conversation two lofty gallows had been erected a little outside the intrenchments on the river bank, in the sight of the whole population and of the gauchos, who, grouped in the Población del Sur, yelled with rage. Panchito and Diego were hung as a warning example; a bando, affixed at the foot of the ladder, threatened every insurgent gaucho with the same fate.

While this was going on, night set in, illumined by the burning faubourg conquered by the Indians. The flames tinged the hapless town with fantastic gleams, and the inhabitants, plunged in a gloomy stupor, said to themselves that the flames would soon cross the road and reduce Carmen to ashes. The governor seemed made of iron; he did not take a moment's rest, he visited the forts, heightened drooping spirits, and tried to imbue all with hopes which were far from his heart. As for the Indians, they made two attempts to surprise the town, and, just before dawn, retired to their camp.

"Major," the colonel said, "it is not possible to deceive ourselves. Tomorrow, the day after, or in a week, all will be over with us."

"Hum! At the last moment we will blow up the fort."

"We are deprived of even that resource."

"Why so?"

"Old soldiers, such as we are, cannot thus dispose of the lives of others."

"You are right," the major continued, precisely; "we will blow out our brains."

"Nor can we do that either, my friend; for we must be the last on the breach."

"But," the major said, after a short silence, for the undeniable reasoning of his superior had crushed him, "how is it that we have received no news yet from Buenos Aires?"

"They have something else to do there than think about us."

"Oh! I cannot believe that."

A slave announced Don Torribio Carvajal.

Don Torribio came in, dressed in the splendid uniform of a colonel in the Argentine army, with an aide-de-camp's badge on his left arm. The two officers, on his entrance, felt an inward tremor Don Torribio bowed to them.

"Is it really you, Don Torribio?" the colonel asked.

"Well, I suppose so," he answered, with a smile.

"And your long journey?"