Last of the Incas: A Romance of the Pampas

"¡Demonios!" he muttered, as he got up and leapt on to his horse again; "we are pursued. Can that Satan of a Pedrito have recognized me?"

"What's the matter?" the governor asked. "Nothing," Torribio replied, laying his left hand on his arm. "Don Antonio Valverde, surrender; you are my prisoner."

"Are you mad, Don Torribio?"

"No longer call me Don Torribio, señor," the young man said in a hollow voice; "I am Nocobotha, the great chief of the Patagonian natives."

"Treachery!" the governor shouted; "Help, gauchos, defend me!"

"It is useless, colonel, for those men belong to me."

"I will not surrender," the governor continued "Don Torribio, or whoever you may be, you are a coward."

He freed himself from the young man's grasp by a bound of his horse, and drew his sabre. The rapid gallop of several horses came nearer every moment.

"Can that be help arriving for me?" the governor said, as he cocked a pistol.

"Yes, but too late," the Indian chief answered coldly.

By his orders, the gauchos surrounded the commandant, who killed two of them. From this moment the fight in the dark became frightful. Don Antonio, seeing that his life was lost, wished, at least, to die as a soldier should die, and fought desperately.

The sound of the galloping horses constantly drew nearer.

Nocobotha saw that it was time to finish, and with a pistol shot killed the governor's horse. Don Antonio rolled on the sand, but, jumping up suddenly, he dealt his adversary a sabre stroke, which the latter parried by leaping on one side.

"A man such as I am does not surrender to dogs like you," Don Antonio exclaimed, as he blew out his own brains.

This explosion was followed by a sharp discharge of musketry, and a squadron of horsemen rushed like a whirlwind on the gauchos. The contest hardly lasted a moment. At a whistle from Nocobotha the gauchos turned round and fled separately over the dark plain. Eight corpses strewed the ground.

"Too late!" Pedrito said to Major Bloomfield, who had started in pursuit of Don Torribio so soon as the bombero warned him of the peril into which the Indian had led the governor.

"Yes," said the major, sorrowfully, "he was a good soldier; but how are we to catch the traitors up, and know what we have to depend on?"

"They are already in the Indian camp."

Pedrito leapt from his horse, cut with his machete a branch of resinous fir, which he made into a torch, and by its light examined the bodies stretched on the ground.

"Here he is!" the bombero exclaimed; "His skull is fearfully fractured; his hand grasps a pistol; but his face still retains an expression of haughty defiance."

A silent tear rolled down Major Bloomfield's bronzed face.

"Why was my old friend fated thus to die in an ambuscade when his fortress is besieged?" the Englishman murmured.

"God is the Master," Pedrito remarked, philosophically.

"He has performed his duty, so let us perform ours."

They raised the body of Don Antonio Valverde, and then the whole squadron returned to Carmen.

Nocobotha, however, we must remark, had only wished to make the colonel prisoner in order to treat with the colonists, and shed as little blood as possible, and he bitterly regretted the governor's death. While the gauchos were rejoicing at the success of the trap, Nocobotha, gloomy and dissatisfied, returned to his camp.

Mercedes and Doña Concha, on seeing the toldo of the great chief unoccupied, could not repress a sigh of satisfaction. They had the time to recover from their emotion in his absence, and prepare for the interview which Concha desired to have with him. They had removed their Indian garb in all haste, and resumed their Spanish attire. By an accident that favoured the plans of Don Sylvio's betrothed wife, she was lovelier and more seductive than usual; her pallor had a touching and irresistible grace about it, and her eyes flashed eager flames of love or hatred.

When Nocobotha arrived in front of the toldo, the matchi walked up to him.

"What do you want?" the chief asked.

"My father will pardon me," the sorcerer answered, humbly. "This night two women have entered the camp."

"What do I care?" the chief interrupted him, impatiently.

"These women, though dressed in the Indian fashion, are white," the matchi said, laying a stress on the last word.

"They are doubtless wives of the gauchos."

"No," the sorcerer said; "their hands are too white, and their feet too small. Besides, one of them is the white slave of the tree of Gualichu."

"Ah! and who made them prisoners?"

"No one; they arrived alone."

"Alone?"

"I accompanied them through the camp, and protected them against the curiosity of the warriors."

"You acted well."

"I introduced them into my father's toldo."

"Are they there now?"

"For the last hour."

"I thank my brother."

Nocobotha took off one of his bracelets, and threw it to the matchi, who bowed down to the ground.

The chief, suffering from indescribable agitation, rushed toward his toldo, the curtain of which he raised with a feverish hand, and he could not restrain a cry of delight and astonishment on hearing Doña Concha's voice.

The maiden greeted him with one of those strange and charming smiles of which women alone possess the secret.

"What is the meaning of this?" the chief asked, with a graceful bow.

Doña Concha involuntarily admired the young man; his splendid Indian costume flashing in the light, heightened his masculine and proud attitude, and his head was haughtily erect. He was very handsome, and born to command.

"By what name shall I address you, caballero?" she said to him, as she pointed to a seat of carved copal wood by her side.

"That depends, señorita. If you address the Spaniard, call me Don Torribio; if you have come to speak to the Indian, my brothers call me Nocobotha."