The Treasure of Pearls: A Romance of Adventures in California

CHAPTER VII.

A WAKING NIGHTMARE

"Aye, strangers, and no jokers! But to my tale. Captain, in the first place your Indian hireling has done his work well. He slew the don – the youngster, I opine – and, as for the damsel, why I have had her on my arm this half hour, till the storm forced me to cache her!"

"Aha! Good!" said the captain, rubbing his hands on his nearly roasted knees. "Albeit, I am sorry that the girl escaped. I'd as lief marry the aunt to obtain the Miranda Hacienda, as wed the lass and be saddled with the old lady."

"Well, she's next to dead. The Apache worried them sore, so that they have had no food."

"And he? Did you pay him, as I suggested?"

"I followed him up to administer the dose of lead, but I was anticipated. Some strangers, I tell you, are roaming the desert, and blew a tunnel through his head."

"And Pepillo?" questioned Ricardo.

"Either lying perdu till the storm abates, or gratified with the same pill. It is a deuce of a heavy gun to carry a bullet so large and so true."

"An American rifle?" queried the captain, uneasily, whilst Gladsden, patting his gun silently, so conveyed to it the flattering fear with which its prowess had inspired the depredators.

"It is this way," went on Ignacio, who saw that all eyes were bent on him. "I struck the broad trail of the don and the Apache. I heard a shot of an unknown piece, so I alighted, hoppled my mule, and, making a circuit, entered the thicket afoot, going slow because of my spurs."

"Soon I came to a sort of glade, where a big tree stump stands. There the Indian had sent an arrow through don José, and there the unknown had sent a heavy bullet through him. All was quiet. No sign of the young man, their guide. But the señorita, the heiress, lay as one dead at the stump. I felt no pulse. Her eyes were closed. I took her up and made for my mule, but, either I had missed my mark or had strayed. No mule. Then, believing he would come here, since he has a sneaking affection for your horses, captain, I tried to carry the girl on my own way hither. She was light as a feather, but the thorns are a veritable net to catch hummingbirds, and then, again, the storm about to break! Faith, I hid her in a hollow tree, and hastened on. But I was overtaken by the rain, and am as tattered as a lepero!"

"And Pepillo?"

"He was never born to be drowned in the deluge upon us," answered lieutenant Ignacio, with no superabundance of fraternal affection, as he sat at the fire, and overhauled the rent raiment. "We will fish for him and the girl, in the day."

"But if she was spent, she will die of starvation," remarked Matasiete, with a spark of humanity or of affection.

"Pshaw! As you say, you can, in the character of don Aníbal de Luna, marry the old lady and so obtain the property; besides, I left my flask of aguardiente (firewater, or whiskey) in her cold pit, and that's meat and drink, eh, gentlemen?"

A silence ensued, the others having nodded a double tribute to his gallantry and the potency of raw spirits.

"I do not like the young man being out of your view," said Matasiete, who had a small, carping spirit, "If he should not meet Pepillo and Farruco – "

"Crawled off with an arrow in him to die in the bushes," was the reply. "That Apache is one of the poisoners, you know, and nothing that will not cure a rattlesnake bite, will subdue the venom of his wounds. A good riddance whoever perforated his skull! And here's his health," holding up a horn of spirits on high as though he divined the actual whereabouts of the avenger of don José de Miranda.

"There is Farruco still to come in," said the captain, yawning.

"Pah! He's under a stone like an iguana! If he eludes the rain as cleverly as he does the leaden hail when we attack a caravan, methinks he will turn up in the day as dry as the core of a miser's heart."

Meanwhile, the storm, which had but inadequately manifested its power in the heralding blow and pour, now swept across the plain and buffeted the tower. It began to rock, and the sentries, who set discipline at defiance and had come into the shelter, were half afraid that they had not taken the wiser course. Whatever their terror below, that of Gladsden would have been more justifiable, for the loose stones atop were moved at each gust, and some fell, both within and without. The prospect of the lightning bolt flinging him scathed to the death, amid ruins, upon the knot of robbers, was quite within reasonable surmise.

He wrapped his gun up beside him, so that its steel should not attract the flame that seemed, when it played within his nook, to linger upon him, and expected the worst between the two perils.

All at once, splitting the rolling thunder in its higher key, a frightened voice cried out, "The horses! There is a stampede!"

Notwithstanding the pouring rain, half a dozen of the bandits rushed out. But almost instantly returning, they gladly reported that the agitation among the horses was caused, not so much by their fright at the lightning, as by the mad gambols of Ignacio's mule, which, running into the group tethered on the leeward of the tower, was plying tooth and hoof in order to range himself near the horse to which he had taken one of those devoted fancies not uncommon among the hybrids. Instead of their forming a mass, rounded in shape, their tails outward, to meet the rain, they half encircled the tower, accommodating themselves to the wind, which was shifting to the southeast.

"The old tower holds firm," said Ignacio, his mouth full of beef, as he plied a needle and fine deer's sinew for thread in the reparation of his leggings.

"Only the gale shakes out a tooth of the old hag's head," said his neighbour, on whom sundry fragments of the crumble had fallen.

"Ha!" ejaculated don Matasiete, abruptly, as he clapped his long hand to his head, and then clutched the object which had struck him there, and then rolled into the ashes. He had pulled it forth with amazing alacrity. "Since when has this tower been built with cartridges?"

"What!" was the general cry, as all, like the speaker, looked upward.

"I tell you that this fell on my head. If it rains more of the like we must dash out the fire, or we'll be blown higher than the eagle flies!"

Every man had drawn a weapon. Their ignorance of meteorology might be great or little, but cartridges do not come with Mexican rain often enough to be calmly accepted without an inquisition.

"The strangers!" cried the captain, prudently backing towards the wall at the point furthest from the ladder's end. "Have they come in among us?"

"Stuff! What man in his lightness of heart would leap thus into the wolf's throat?"

"That's all very well put, Ricardo," rejoined the leader. "But they may have preceded you, and not known that this is our lair. Just climb up and see if, by any chance, we are receiving uninvited guests."

Ricardo, who was singled out, was a burly rogue, but he did not accept this order. On the contrary he made a wry face and thrust his cheek out with his tongue, which signified "go and do it yourself." This incipient mutiny was clearly contagious, for all the bandits returned their commander's interrogative look with another, defiant, stupid, or complacent, pursuant to their natures.

Any child could have drawn the inference that the quarter whence cartridges were showered might logically be expected to furnish a gun or two. The figurative language of the western man ranking a packet of lead and ball, or arrows, as the case varies of its being a white or a red man who sends the message, as an equivalent for a challenge to mortal combat – each bandit so interpreted the accident.

"Poltroons!" cried Matasiete. "Is there room, save on the platform itself, for a troop of men? And would one man stand amid the lightning on this rocking tower top! I tell you, if there is a man there it will be in the nook where the ladder is suspended. One man! Well, where are my brave fighting cocks now?"

One man, armed with such a gun as that cartridge of unusual calibre promised, could very easily defend even that despicable nook against a whole coop of gamecocks. So the hesitation to climb the ladder rather augmented than diminished.

"Poltroons, eh?" observed Ignacio, to whom the incident perhaps came in harmony with some project of his own. "If it is nothing uncommon to go and see what owl has alighted in the tower top – an owl whose eggs are cartridges, by the way – why don't you show your superior courage? Show your hardly-too-often-distinguished daring, Captain, by going up and wringing the neck of the fowl of evil omen yourself."

"G – go myself?" repeated Matasiete, whilst the robbers grinned more or less audibly.

"Yes, go yourself," returned the impudent lieutenant, "the more particularly as now that you have no impediment to seize the property of don José de Miranda, you are going to marry richly and settle down as a farming gentleman, and will have no more opportunities of exhibiting your gallantry. Yes, go yourself! And, moreover, be quick about it, or the strangers, whoever they may be, may come down in impatience at your neglect of your duty of host and demand an account of your reluctant hospitality, face to beard, themselves."

Matasiete did not number that defect among his of the sanguine dog who perpetually lets go the substance to snap at the shadow. Whatever the brilliancy of the prospect of obtaining the estate of Miranda, at present that of losing the command of the salteadores was more at hand. Besides, best knowing what valuables were sewn up in the hem of his dress, or contained in his money belt, in case, by robbers' law, judged a coward, and kicked out from their punctilious midst, stripped to the skin, this property would be lost to him, the captain made an effort.

"Then I will show you that I never set a command which I would not have executed myself!" spoken with a tremor, but loudly, to daunt the object aimed at above. "I will mount, and not a cartridge, but the corpse of anyone who has ventured to pry into our secrets, will shortly come hustling down among ye!"

He made one bound to the ladder, put his knife between his teeth, to prevent them chattering as much as to have the blade handy, and ascended briskly with his long legs at the start.

It would be unjust to say that Gladsden, who had heard all this scene, without caring to lean over and witness it lest the gleam of his eyes, reflecting the fire rays, should betray him and draw a pistol shot, was daunted by either the words of the redoubtable robber or his approach. Any one man, or two or three, come to that, caused him no apprehension, for he had all the advantages of position. But, after repulsing them, how could he hope to hold out a long time without food or drink?

An idea of subterfuge had struck him, which was only feasible to a seaman.

We observed that Matasiete had mounted the ladder briskly "at the start." It is true. But, when he had some twenty feet yet of the ascent to make, his action grew less commendable. He even framed an address, in appeal, to be uttered in a whisper only loud enough for the unknown occupant of the turret niche, full of promises or threats if he would only keep quiet, and allow the investigator to return uninjured and state there was an absence of ground for the alarm he had himself unfortunately originated.

In the meantime the Englishman, attributing the slowness of this upcomer's movement to his cowardice, believed he would be only too glad to find no occasion for his long stay at the top of the ladder.

So he thrust his head out of the gap before mentioned, and examined the metal arm socketed in the wall. It was not iron, but bronze, full three feet long to the hook, a little thicker than the thumb. It was planted solidly in a horizontal direction.

Without further reflection, hearing the respiration of captain Matasiete, who had been goaded on by the whisperings ascending of his men beginning to criticise his halt, Gladsden noiselessly pushed his legs out, bent forward, seized the bronze bar with both hands with that grip which enables the sailor to defy the squall to dislodge him from the yard, and hung stiffly at arm's length over the void.

If the Mexican saw him in looking out of the window by one of the less frequent electrical flashes, he intended to kick him under the jaw, reenter, convert the body into a rampart, and fight whilst there was a shot in the barrel, or till he had a chance to claim Ignacio's safeguard. The lieutenant could but be grateful to a man who removed his superior in his favour, and, moreover, brought him a fortune.

He had no more than assumed this trying position, being drenched to the skin at the very first instant of exposure, before Matasiete at last, with many misgivings pulling at his toes, lifted his head above the flooring, and, with indescribable joy, saw there was no one there.

"Well, Captain?" was the half-ironical inquiry from below.

"There is no one, you asses!" was the polite reply, in a gleeful tone.

Gladsden sighed in relief as deep as the captain's.

"Stand from under!" added the latter, putting his knife in its sheath. "I am coming down."

The Englishman was saved!

He prepared to return within his nook. The imminent danger was over. The rain was unpleasant, and the uneasiness of horses beneath him, which he heard whinnying as if they scented him, as was probable, offered the chance of exciting the curiosity of a Mexican, who would infallibly descry him if he looked up outside. So he wished to cut short the feeling of fatigue which already attacked his wrists and shoulders. But, at the first movement, what he believed a mere fancy was confirmed as fact: the bar was set with an unalterable firmness which spoke volumes for the mason of old, but the metal, in which too much copper had been alloyed, or deteriorated by the weather, was slowly bending, arching over the abyss!

No time was there to spare. He began by shifting his grip, moving one hand inwards and bringing the outer up to it, to overcome the curve in the rod. He looked to the socket to make sure that it still held, when his anxious eyes met another pair in the very gap. They were the Mexican robber's!

Matasiete had smelt the powder, at least, he had, in a final and idle sweeping round of the visual ray, perceived the gun of the Englishman, which he had, nevertheless, concealed with unusual and creditable care in the angle of floor and wall.

Now, Matasiete placidly leaning on the sill of the window, so to call it, fixed his ferocious eyes on Gladsden, gleaming with delight at having so complete a chance to avenge on another his companions' taunts of cowardice.

"The owl!" he said ironically.

"You devil!" returned Gladsden, in English, for in such critical moments a man does not display his linguistical acquirements.

Devil, indeed! Matasiete drew his knife and slowly leaned outward in order to slash the poor wretch's fingers to anticipate their relaxing the grasp on the overdrooping bar.

The other made an offer to let go with one hand in the hope to get at a pistol to blow out the fiend's brains at a snap shot, but the impossibility of the feat was immediately so impressed upon him, that he grasped with a double hold once more in deeper desperation.

"Oh! Any death but this waking nightmare!" he ejaculated, as a kind of prayer.

Before his fingers should be pinched by his own weight, between the metal and the brickwork, he thought, by a final spurt of strength, to leap up and seize the grinning demon.

"No, you don't!" cried the captain, guessing his aim, and leaning well out over him, gleaming steel in hand, "Thou shalt die like a dog."

He lifted his arm to strike. Gladsden shuddered in his anguish – his grasp did not relax, rather was it cramped, but he was thrust by his body coming sidewise to the wall, from that direction, and slid thus perforce to the end of the bar downwards. He closed his eyes not to see the knife and fiendish eyes, not to hear the devilish laugh, when a sharp shot resounded below, a bullet shrieked beside his tingling ear, and louder than the cry which the feeling of falling through space wrung from the brave man, seemed the shriek of captain Matasiete, "creased" through the prominent nose.

Gladsden descended, like a rock loosened from a sierra summit, upon the plain below. Instead of the solid earth, however, he fell upon a warm yielding substance – the backs of a couple of horses. Clutching the mane of one at random – not the one on which he had landed, and of which he all but broke the back and so left paralysed – he was instantly carried away by the frightened steed.

Behind him, as he was borne helter-skelter over the prairie, converted into a shallow lake, he heard the clamour of the Mexicans startled by the shot, and later by a stampede in reality of their horses. It seemed to him, stunned in a measure though he was, that in the thick of the swarm of quadrupeds madly in flight like his own, but in another direction, there was a figure, black and bowing its head between its steed's ears, with a white object across the saddlebow.

But it was a mere glimpse! A new Mazeppa, he went careering on an unchained thunderbolt over the prairie, whilst the old Tower quivered in a fresh onset of the tempest.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE "LITTLE JOKER."

There rode a charming little sailing vessel in Guaymas Port. It flew the Chilian flag, was about a hundred and twenty tons register, and was named La Burlonilla, or "Little Joker," which might be interpreted innocently, or as a tacit allusion to the pea used in "thimblerig." She was so coquettish, so fine of run, so light and buoyant, and yet carried a good spread of sail, that the experienced Gladsden reckoned she would do her twelve knots an hour without shipping enough water to drown the purser's cat. But there seemed to be some mystery attending the ownership. The shipkeeper allowed no one to inspect her closely, far less to board her, even threatening our Englishman with a blunderbuss. He heard at the Heaven-and-Liberty Tavern that she was consigned to don Stefano Garcia, kinsman of the general Garcia, mixed up with the intrigues of Santa Anna, a rich merchant-banker, and hide dealer. It was easy to make his acquaintance by constituting him his banker, for a remittance of a goodly amount which came on, via New York and Mexico, just when he most wanted funds to enable him to ascertain what truth dwelt in Pepillo's story.

Besides, as an old resident of Sonora, he was just the man to help him to find the relict of the bandolero of captain Matasiete, though the reason for this search he took care not to impart to señor Garcia.

With an affability which was even noticeably extreme, don Stefano accepted the double trust, and begged his new client to come out to his villa soon and dine with him – a pleasant habitude with bankers all the world over.

Gladsden accepted the invitation. During the dinner – not bad for the place – the guest learnt that the goleta commanded a fancy price, say, twenty thousand dollars, and then would only be sold – not hired – if the owner, a capricious Chilian, rejoicing in the numerous and sonorous appellatives of don Aníbal Cristobal de Luna y Almagro de Cortes, had not changed his intention of living upland on an estate which would shortly become his through a marital alliance.

After the repast, five or six friends of the host came in, and among them the bearer of the long titles, just taxing our pen again.

In token of pretensions to be regarded as an unofficial, but all the more important representative of Chili, this dignitary wore a rich costume trimmed with gold, an immense cocked hat, after the style borne by Nelson's enemies who were admirals at Trafalgar, bullion epaulettes that covered his upper arms, high boots coming up over the knee, not to mention a colossal sabre. Under this accoutrement, nevertheless, Gladsden thought no stranger was displayed; and, in fact, before he spoke, he recognised the individual who had grinned at him, like Quasimodo at Claude Frollo, dangling from the cathedral turret, out of the gaplike window of the Indian tower. The master of the Little Joker, the Chilian agent, was the captain of the Upper Sonora ravagers – Matasiete himself. The crease across his nose was an additional token.

Spite of his emotion, the Englishman hoped he had not betrayed the act of quick identification, all the more as don Aníbal, etc., making no sign of recognition, turned to chatting with the others without paying the foreigner any more heed. From a glance which he intercepted between the banker and the pretended Chilian, Gladsden was soon of the impression that there was a complete understanding there. He even jumped to the conclusion that the stranger in the Heaven-and-Liberty Tavern had been instructed to volunteer the hint that had caused our ever imprudent Briton to form acquaintance with the robber's banker.

"They are a deeper set than I imagined," thought he. "The rogue is a pirate on land and sea. When there is no revolution in Mexico, and the authorities attend a little to police matters, our salteador takes a summersault aboard his dainty craft, and goes slaving, pirating, or, at the least, pearl fishing. If these guests are out of the same cask, by George! I am going to pass a pleasant evening!"

But there arose no question of the sale of the Burlonilla, or of anything connected with business. That was put off till the morrow, after the Spanish-American custom.

But there did come up a topic of general interest – gaming. The American-Hispanics are inveterate gamblers; it is their dominant passion. After having chatted and drank, amid the consumption of innumerable cigars, someone proposed a monte, a suggestion thrown out only to be caught at a bound with enthusiasm.

Other friends of don Stefano had dropped in, so that the Englishman found more than a corporal's guard arrayed against him. The collection now was composed of upwards of a score.

A table happened to have the orthodox green cloth upon it, where the social "tiger" is prone to roam: new cards, sealed, of course, were brought in, and the sport began.

Without being positively a player, Mr. Gladsden had the blood in his veins of his grandfather, who was a noted card player, a contemporary of Fox and Selwyn. Besides, he understood that he might offend if he stood aloof.

The stakes were, at the outset, moderate, but gradually swelling, they soon attained staggering proportions, some of the points running up to a hundred and even a hundred and fifty ounces. The consequence was that in less than a couple of hours almost all the tilters were cleaned out, and had to become mere lookers-on. At midnight chance – if it were chance – arranged it that only two players were facing each other: don Aníbal of the Cortes Family, as he called himself at present, and Mr. Gladsden. The gallery, as the surrounding bystanders of a game are styled, cooped the pair in so that the European could not easily have withdrawn. All the time the master of the goleta had been a loser, and the Englishman having been luck favoured, was on the contrary supplied with considerable funds, which elicited many a covetous glance.

"Why!" ejaculated the pretended Chilian, with admirably feigned surprise, "We two are left facing one another."

"So we are!" returned Mr. Gladsden, thinking, with all the possible mischances, he was more agreeably placed here vis-à-vis with the gentleman of the night, than clinging on a bar outside the top of a tower fifty feet high.