Last of the Incas: A Romance of the Pampas

"Yes; when I was young."

"Do you remember the history of Samson Delilah?"

"Do you mean to cut his hair off, then?"

"Do you remember Judith and Holofernes?"

"Then you mean to cut his head off?"

"No, father."

"What mean these strange questions?"

"I love Don Sylvio!"

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE AGONY OF A TOWN

About two in the morning, at the moment when the blue jay struck up its first song, faint as a sigh, Nocobotha, completely armed for war, left his toldo, and proceeded to the centre of the camp. Here the Ulmens, Apo-Ulmens, and caraskens, were squatting on their heels round an immense fire, and smoking in silence. All rose on the arrival of the supreme Toqui, but at a signal from the master they resumed their seats. Nocobotha then turned to the matchi, who was walking gravely by his side, and to whom he had dictated his orders beforehand.

"Will Gualichu," he asked him, "be neutral, adverse, or favourable in the war of his Indian sons against the pale faces?"

The sorcerer went up to the fire, and walked round it thrice from left to right, while muttering unintelligible words. At the third round he filled a calabash with sacred water contained in closely plaited reeds, sprinkled the assembly, and threw the rest toward the east. Then, with body half bent and head advanced, he stretched out his arms, and appeared listening to sounds perceptible to himself alone.

On his right hand the blue jay poured forth its plaintive note twice in succession. Suddenly the matchi's face was disfigured by horrible grimaces; his blood-suffused eyes swelled; he turned pale and trembled as if suffering from an ague fit.

"The spirit is coming! The spirit is coming!" the Indians said.

"Silence!" Nocobotha commanded; "The sage, is about to speak."

In fact, obeying this indirect order, he whistled guttural sounds between his teeth, among which the broken words could be detected —

"The spirit is marching!" he exclaimed; "He has unfastened his long hair, which floats in the wind; his breath spreads death around. The sky is red with blood! Gualichu, the prince of evil will not want for victims. The flesh of the palefaces serves as a sheath for the knives of the Patagonians. Do you hear the urubús and vultures in the distance? What a splendid meal they will have! – Utter the war yell! Courage, warriors, Gualichu guides you death is nothing; glory everything."

The sorcerer still continued to stammer, and rolled on the ground, suffering from a fit of epilepsy. Then the Indians pitilessly turned away from him, for the man who is so rash as to touch the matchi when the spirit is torturing him would be struck by a sudden death. Such is the Indian belief.

Nocobotha addressed the audience in his turn. "Chiefs of the great Patagonian nations, as you see, the God of our fathers is with us, and He wishes our land to become free again. The sun, when it sets, must not see a Spanish flag waving in Patagonia. Courage, brothers! The Incas, my ancestors, who hunt on the blessed prairies of the Eskennam, will joyfully receive among them those who may fall in battle. Each will proceed to his post! The cry of the urubú, repeated thrice at equal intervals, will be the signal for the assault."

The chiefs bowed and withdrew.

The night, studded with stars, was calm and imposing. The moon coloured with a pale silver the dark blue of the firmament. There was not a breath in the air, not a cloud in the sky; the atmosphere was serene and limpid; nothing disturbed the silence of this splendid night, except the dull, vague murmur which seems on the desert to be the breathing of sleeping nature.

A thousand varied feelings were confounded in the mind of Nocobotha, who thought of the approaching deliverance of his country, and his love for Doña Concha. Then raising his eyes to the star-studded vault of Heaven, the Indian fervently implored Him who is omnipotent, and who tries the loins and hearts to fight on his side. If he had been compelled to choose between his love and the cause he defended, he assuredly would not have hesitated; for the happiness of an individual is as nothing when compared with the liberty of an entire nation.

While the Toqui was plunged in these reflections a hand was laid heavily on his shoulder. It was the matchi who looked at him with his tiger cat eyes.

"What do you want?" he asked him drily.

"Is my father satisfied with me? Did Gualichu speak well?"

"Yes," the chief said, repressing a start of disgust. "Withdraw."

"My father is great and generous."

Nocobotha contemptuously threw one of his rich necklaces to the wretched sorcerer, who made a grimace to show his joy.

"Begone!" he said to him.

The matchi, satisfied with his reward, went away. The trade of an Indian sorcerer is a famous one.

"I have the time," Nocobotha muttered, after calculating the hours by the position of the stars.

He hastily bent his steps toward Doña Concha's toldo.

"She is there," he said to himself, "she is sleeping, lulled by her childish dreams; her lips are opened like a flower to inhale the perfumed breath of night. She is slumbering with her hand upon her heart to defend it. And I love her! Grant, O Heaven, that I may render her happy! Help my arm, which wishes to save a people!"

He went up to a warrior, standing at the entrance to the toldo.

"Lucaney," he said, in a voice that was powerfully affected, "I have twice saved you from death."

"I remember it."

"All I love is in that toldo: I intrust it to you."

"This toldo is sacred, my father."

"Thanks!" Nocobotha said, affectionately pressing the hand of the Ulmen, who kissed the hem of his robe.

The Ulmens, after the council was over, had drawn up their tribes in readiness for the assault; the warriors, lying down flat on the ground, began one of those astounding marches which Indians alone are capable of undertaking. Gliding and crawling like lizards through the lofty grass, they succeeded, within an hour, in placing themselves unnoticed at the very foot of the Argentine intrenchments. This movement had been executed with the refined prudence the Indians display on the war trail. The silence of the prairie had not been disturbed, and the town seemed buried in sleep.

Some minutes, however, before the Ulmens received Nocobotha's final orders, a man, dressed in the costume of the Aucas, had left the camp before them all, and made his way to Carmen on his hands and knees. On reaching the first barricades, he held out his hands to an invisible hand, which hoisted him over the wall.

"Well, Pedrito?"

"We shall be attacked, major, within an hour."

"Is it an assault?"

"Yes; the Indians are afraid of being poisoned like rats, and hence wish to come to an end."

"What is to be done?"

"We must die."

"By Jupiter! That's fine advice."

"We may still try – "