Chapter Twenty Four.
Caught in a Dust-Storm
At the crisis described, the Indian party is no longer travelling upon the Pilcomayo’s bank, nor near it. They have parted from it at a point where the river makes one of its grand curves, and are now crossing the neck of the peninsula embraced within its windings. This isthmus is in width at least twenty miles, and of a character altogether different from the land lying along the river’s edge. In short, a sterile, treeless expanse, or “travesia” – for such there are in the Chaco – not barren because of infertility in the soil, but from the want of water to fertilise it. Withal, it is inundated at certain periods of the year by the river’s overflow, but in the dry season parched by the rays of a tropical sun. Its surface is then covered with a white efflorescence, which resembles a heavy hoar frost; this, called salitré, being a sort of impure saltpetre, left after the evaporation and subsidence of the floods.
They have entered this cheerless waste, and are about midway across it, when the cry of alarm is heard; he who gave utterance to it being older than the others, and credited with greater knowledge of things. That which had caught his attention, eliciting the cry, is but a phenomenon of Nature, though not one of an ordinary kind; still, not so rare in the region of the Chaco; since all of them have more than once witnessed it. But the thing itself is not yet apparent save to him who has shouted, and this only by the slightest sign giving portent of its approach. For it is, in truth, a storm.
Even after the alarmist has given out his warning note, and stands on his horse’s hips, gazing off in a certain direction, the others, looking the same way, can perceive nothing to account for his strange behaviour. Neither upon the earth, nor in the heavens, does there appear anything that should not be there. The sun is coursing through a cloudless sky, and the plain, far as eye can reach, is without animate object upon it; neither bird nor beast having its home in the salitré. Nothing observable on that wide, cheerless waste, save the shadows of themselves and their horses, cast in dark silhouette across the hoary expanse, and greatly elongated; for it is late in the afternoon, and the sun almost down to the horizon.
“What is it?” asks Aguara, the first to speak, addressing himself to the Indian who gave out the cry. “You appear to apprehend danger?”
“And danger there is, chief,” returns the other. “Look yonder!” He points to the level line between earth and sky, in the direction towards which they are travelling. “Do you not see something?”
“No, nothing.”
“Not that brown-coloured stripe just showing along the sky’s edge, low, as if it rested on the ground?”
“Ah, yes; I see that. Only a little mist over the river, I should say.”
“Not that, chief. It’s a cloud, and one of a sort to be dreaded. See! it’s rising higher, and, it I’m not mistaken, will ere long cover the whole sky.”
“But what do you make of it? To me it looks like smoke.”
“No; it isn’t that either. There’s nothing out that way to make fire – neither grass nor trees; therefore, it can’t be smoke.”
“What, then? You appear to know!”
“I do. ’Tis dust.”
“Dust! A drove of wild horses? Or may they be mounted? Ah! you think it’s a party of Guaycurus?”
“No, indeed. But something we may dread as much – ay, more – than them. If my eyes don’t deceive me, that’s a tormenta.”
“Ha!” exclaims the young cacique, at length comprehending. “A tormenta, you think it is?”
The others of the band mechanically mutter the same word, in like tones of apprehension. For although slow to perceive the sign, even yet but slightly perceptible, all of them have had experience of the danger.
“I do, chief,” answers he interrogated. “Am now sure of it.”
While they are still speaking it – the cloud – mounts higher against the blue background of sky, as also becomes more extended along the line of the horizon. Its colour, too, has sensibly changed, now presenting a dun yellowish appearance, like that mixture of smoke and mist known as a “London fog.” But it is somewhat brighter, as though it hung over, half-concealing and smothering, the flames of some grand conflagration.
And as they continue regarding it, red corruscations begin to shoot through its opaque mass, which they can tell to be flashes of lightning. Yet all this while, upon the spot where they have pulled up the sun is shining serenely, and the air still and tranquil as if gale or breeze had never disturbed it!
But it is a stillness abnormal, unnatural, accompanied by a scorching heat, with an atmosphere so close as to threaten suffocation.
This, however, lasts but a short while. For in less than ten minutes after the cloud was first descried, a wind reaches them blowing directly from it at first, in puffs and gusts, but cold as though laden with sleet, and so strong as to sweep several of them from the backs of their horses. Soon after all is darkness above and around them. Darkness as of night; for the dust has drifted over the sun, and its disc is no longer visible – having disappeared as in a total eclipse, but far more suddenly.
It is too late for them to retreat to any place of shelter, were one ever so near, which there is not. And well know they the danger of being caught in that exposed spot; so well that the scene now exhibited in their ranks is one of fright and confusion.
Terrified exclamations are sent up on all sides, but only one voice of warning, this from him who had first descried the cloud.
“From your horses!” he calls out, “take shelter behind them, and cover your faces with your jergas! If you don’t you’ll be blinded outright.”
His counsel acts as a command; though it is not needed, all of them, as himself, sensible of the approaching peril. In a trice they have dropped to the ground, and plucking the pieces of skins which serve them as saddles, from the backs of their horses, muffle up their faces as admonished. Then each clutching the halter of his own, and holding it so as to prevent the animal changing position, they await the onslaught of the storm.
Meanwhile, Aguara has not been inactive. Instead of having seized the pony’s bridle-rein, he has passed round to the rear of the troop, leading his captive along with him; for the wind strikes them in front. There in the lee of all, better sheltered, he dismounts, flings his arms around the unresisting girl, and sets her afoot upon the ground. He does all this gently, as though he were a friend or brother! For he has not lost hope he may yet win her heart.
“Star of my life,” he says to her, speaking in the Tovas tongue, which she slightly understands. “As you see we’re in some danger, but it will soon pass. Meanwhile, we must take steps to guard against it. So, please to lie down, and this will protect you.”
While speaking, he takes the plumed cloak from his shoulders and spreads it over those of the captive, at the same time covering her head with it, as if it were a hood. Then he gently urges her to lie on the ground.
To all she submits mechanically, and without offering opposition; though she little cares about the dust-storm – whether it blind or altogether destroy her.
Soon after it is on and over them in all its fury, causing their horses to cower and kick, many screaming in affright or from the pain they have to endure. For not only does the tormenta carry dust with it, but sand, sticks, and stones, some of the latter so large and sharp as often to inflict severe wounds. Something besides in that now assailing them; which sweeping across the salitral has lifted the sulphureous efflorescence, that beats into their eyes bitter and blinding as the smoke of tobacco. But for having muffled up their faces, more than one of the party would leave that spot sightless, if not smothered outright.
For nearly an hour the tempest continues, the wind roaring in their ears, and the dust and gravel clouting against their naked skins, now and then a sharp angled pebble lacerating them. At times the blast is so strong they have difficulty in keeping their places; still more in holding their horses to windward. And all the while there is lightning and thunder, the last loud and rolling continuously. At length the wind, still keenly cold, is accompanied by a sleety rain, which pours upon them in torrents, chill as if coming direct from the snowy slopes of the Cordilleras – as in all likelihood it does.
They know that this is a sign of the tormenta approaching its end, which soon after arrives; terminating almost as abruptly as it had begun. The dust disappears from the sky, that which has settled on the ground now covering its surface with a thick coating of mud – converted into this by the rain – while the sun again shines forth in all its glory, in a sky bright and serene as if cloud had never crossed it!
The tormenta is over, or has passed on to another part of the great Chaco plain.
And now the Tovas youths, their naked skins well washed by the shower, and glistening like bronze fresh from the furnace – some of them, however, bleeding from the scratches they have received – spring upon their feet, re-adjust the jergas on the backs of their horses, and once more remount.
Then their young chief, by the side of the captive girl, having returned to his place at their head, they forsake that spot of painful experience, and continue their journey so unexpectedly interrupted.
Chapter Twenty Five.
A Rush for Shelter
It is scarce necessary to say, that the storm that over took the Indian party was the same of which the barometer-tree had given warning to Gaspar and his young companions. But although many a long league separated the Indians from those following upon their trail, and it would take the latter at least another day to reach the spot where the former had met the tormenta, both were beset by it within less than half-an-hour of the same time. The Indians first, of course, since it came from the quarter towards which all were travelling, and therefore in the teeth of pursuers as pursued.
But the trackers were not called upon to sustain its shock, as those they were tracking up. Instead of its coming upon them in an exposed situation, before its first puffs became felt they were safe out of harm’s way, having found shelter within the interior of a cavern. It was this Gaspar alluded to when saying, he knew of a place that would give them an asylum. For the gaucho had been twice over this ground before – once on a hunting excursion in the company of his late master; and once at an earlier period of his life on an expedition of less pleasant remembrance, when, as a captive himself, he was carried up the Pilcomayo by a party of Guaycuru Indians, from whom he was fortunate in making escape.
His knowledge of the cave’s locality, however, was not obtained during his former and forced visit to the district they are now traversing; but in that made along with the hunter-naturalist; who, partly out of curiosity, but more for geological investigation, had entered and explored it.
“It’s by the bank of a little arroyo that runs into the Pilcomayo, some three or four miles above the big river. And, as I take it, not much further from where we are now. But we must make a cross-cut to reach it in the quickest time.”
This Gaspar says as they part from the barometer-tree. Following out his intention he heads his horse towards the open plain, and forsakes the Indian trail, the others following his lead.
They now go in full gallop, fast as their horses can carry them; for they have no longer any doubts about the coming on of a tormenta. The forecast given them by the flowers of the üinay is gradually being made good by what they see – a dun yellowish cloud rising against the horizon ahead. The gaucho well understands the sign, soon as he sees this recognising it as the dreaded dust-storm.
It approaches them just as it had done the Indians. First the atmosphere becoming close and hot as the interior of an oven; then suddenly changing to cold, with gusts of wind, and the sky darkening as though the sun were eclipsed.
But, unlike the others, they are not exposed to the full fury of the blast; neither are they in danger of being blinded by the sulphureous dust, nor pelted with sticks and stones. Before the storm has thus developed itself they reach the crest of the cliff overhanging the arroyo; and urging their horses down a sloping path remembered by Gaspar, they get upon the edge of the stream itself. Then, turning up it, and pressing on for another hundred yards, they arrive at the cavern’s mouth, just as the first puff of the chilly wind sweeps down the deep rut-like valley through which the arroyo runs.
“In time!” exclaims the gaucho. “Thanks to the Virgin, we’re in time! with not a second to spare,” he adds, dismounting, and leading his horse into the arching entrance, the others doing the same.
Once inside, however, they do not give way to inaction; for Gaspar well knows they are not yet out of danger.
“Come, muchachos,” he cries to them, soon as they have disposed of their animals, “there’s something more to be done before we can call ourselves safe. A tormenta’s not a thing to be trifled with. There isn’t corner or cranny in this cave the dust wouldn’t reach to. It could find its way into a corked bottle, I believe. Carramba! there it comes!”
The last words are spoken as a whiff of icy wind, now blowing furiously down the ravine, turns into the cavern’s mouth, bringing with it both dust and dry leaves.
For a moment the gaucho stands in the entrance gazing out; the others doing likewise. Little can they see; for the darkness is now almost opaque, save at intervals, when the ravine is lit up by jets of forked and sheet lightning. But much do they hear; the loud bellowing of wind, the roaring of thunder, and the almost continuous crashing of trees, whose branches break off as though they were but brittle glass. And the stream which courses past close to the cave’s mouth, now a tiny mulct, will soon be a raging, foaming torrent, as Gaspar well knows.
They stay not to see that, nor aught else. They have other work before them – the something of which the gaucho spoke, and to which he now hastily turns, crying out —
“Your ponchos, my lads! Get them, quick! We must close up the entrance with them, otherwise we’ll stand a good chance of being smothered. Vaya!”
Neither needs urging to haste. Young as they are, they too have had experience of a tormenta. More than once they have witnessed it, remembering how in their house, near Assuncion, it drove the dust through the keyholes of me doors, finding its way into every crack and crevice, making ridges across the floor, just as snow in northern lands – of which, however, they know nothing, save from what they have read, or been told by one who will tell them of such things no more.
In a few seconds’ time, three ponchos – for each possesses one – are snatched from the cantles of their saddles, and as speedily spread across the entrance of the cave – just covering it, with not an inch to spare. With like speed and dexterity, they join them together, in a rough but firm stitching done by the nimble fingers of the gaucho – his thread a strip of thong, and for needle the sharp terminal spine of the pita plant – one of which he finds growing near by. They attach them at top by their knife blades stuck into seams of the stratified rock, and at bottom by stones laid along the border; these heavy enough to keep them in place against the strongest gust of wind.
All this done, they breathe freely, now feeling secure; and after a last look at the screen to assure himself of its being reliable, the gaucho turns to his companions, quietly remarking, “Now, muchachos, I fancy we need have no more fear of Mr Tormenta.”
Chapter Twenty Six.
An Unwelcome Intruder
As they are now in the midst of amorphous darkness, it might be imagined nothing could be done but keep their place, or go groping idly about. Not so, however. Gaspar has no intention of letting the time pass in such an unprofitable manner; instead, he at once resumes speech, and along with it action.
“Now, young masters,” he says, making a movement towards the place where they had left their horses, “since we are shut up here, I don’t see why we shouldn’t make ourselves as comfortable as we can under the circumstances; and the best way to begin will be with what’s usually the winding up of a day’s work – that’s supper. Our bit of rough riding has given me the appetite of a wolf, and I feel as if I could eat one red-raw. Suppose we have another set-to at the shoulder of mutton? What say you, señoritos?”
They answer in the affirmative, both being as hungry as himself.
“We sha’n’t have to eat in darkness either,” he proceeds. “Luckily, I’ve brought with me a bit of candle – best wax at that. A costly affair it was when whole; being one of a pair I had to pay for when my poor mother died, to be used at her funeral, and for which the rascally padres charged me five pesos a-piece – because consecrated, as they called out. As they stood me so much, I thought I might as well save the stumps; which I did, and have got one of them here. Starting out, it occurred to me we might some time need it, as you see we do now; so I slipped it into my saddle-bags.”
While speaking, he has moved on to his horse, and got beside him without much straying; for his former visit to the cavern has made him familiar with its topography, and he could go anywhere through it without a glimmer of light to guide him. Plunging his hand into his ample alparejas, and rummaging about for a short while, he gets hold of the bit of unburnt candle – souvenir of a melancholy ceremony, which, however, he had long ceased to mourn over, since his mother has been dead for many years.
He has drawn it out; removed the scrap of buckskin in which it was wrapped; and with flint and steel is proceeding to strike a light, when a sound reaches his ears that causes him to suspend operations, and stand intently listening for its repetition.
Simultaneously has it been heard by the other two, as also by the three horses; these last, on hearing it, showing their affright by a series of snorts, while they dance about over the floor of the cavern. For it is a sound which, heard in any part of tropical America, whether on sunlit plain or in shady forest, strikes terror to the heart of all who hear it, be it man, bird, or beast. No living creature in that land but dreads the cry of the jaguar.
“El tigre!” exclaims Gaspar in a subdued tone, his voice half-drowned by a second roar from the great feline, this time louder and more prolonged.
“Where is it?” they ask one another hurriedly, and in whispers, fearing to speak out. For loud as is the creature’s voice as it reverberates through the hollow cavity, what with the bellowing of the wind and the trampling of their horses’ hoofs on the hard rock, it is impossible to tell whence it came, and whether the jaguar be outside the cavern or within. About this there is a difference of opinion among them, but only for an instant – all three agreeing, as for the third time the terrifying note is sounded. Then they believe it to have come from outside. But again they as quickly differ, at hearing a fourth repetition of it; this as certainly seeming to have been uttered inside the cavern. Once more changing their minds, when, for the fifth time, the beast gives out its grand roar; since along with it they hear another sound as of some heavy body hurling itself against the screen of spread ponchos, too solid to be mistaken for a puff of wind. Beyond doubt, it is the tiger seeking admittance to the cave!
Though but a few minutes have elapsed since its first fierce note fell upon their ears, they have not stood idly listening. Instead, all three have groped the way to their horses, got hold of their guns, and returned to take stand near the entrance. Gaspar, moreover, has lit the stump of candle, and stuck it upon a projecting point of rock; for he knows the tigre, like other cats, can see in the darkness, and would thus have the advantage of them.
Soon again it treats them to another bit of trumpeting, this time more angrily intoned, as if demanding shelter from the storm, and no doubt as much surprised as puzzled at the strange obstruction debarring entrance to the cave – in all likelihood its lair.
They have stationed themselves in a line facing the screen, and with guns cocked stand ready to fire at the beast, should it persist in its intention to enter. But now, with the light shining upon the ponchos, they see what appears to be its body pressing against these from the outside, though quickly withdrawn, as if the creature recoiled from a thing that awes while perplexing it.
“Hadn’t we better fire at it through the ponchos? Some one of us may hit it.”
Cypriano makes the suggestion.
“No,” dissents Gaspar, “we might all miss that way; and if we did, ’twould drive the tigre mad, and then – ”
He is interrupted by another cry from the jaguar; this a fierce scream, showing the animal already maddened enough, or, at all events, madly impatient, and determined no longer to endure exclusion from the cave. For while still continuing that cry, it bounds up against the screen, plucking the knives from their places, tossing off the stones, and laying the entrance open. A gust of wind entering blows out the candle, and all is again darkness. But not silence; for there are noises close to where they stand, which they know must proceed from the jaguar, though different from its former utterances, and to them quite incomprehensible – a succession of growls, snorts, and coughs, as if the beast were being suffocated; while at the same time a heavy body seems to be tumbling and struggling over the floor of the cavern!
“By Saint Jago!” cries Gaspar, first to comprehend what it means, “the brute’s caught in our ponchos! He’s bagged – smothered up! Fire into him! Aim where you hear the noise. Tira!”
At the word, their three guns go off together; and then, to make sure, another shot additional from the double barrelled piece of Cypriano; Ludwig’s gun being the rifle that belonged to his father, found where the latter had fallen.
And sure work have their shots made of it. For as they stand in the darkness listening, they hear neither growl, nor snort, nor coughing; but, instead, only the wailing of wind and the rumbling of thunder.
“Dead as a door-nail!” pronounces Gaspar, feeling his way to where he had stuck the bit of bees’-wax, and once more setting it alight. Then returning towards the entrance, he sees that he has in everything rightly conjectured. For there, enveloped in the ponchos, with its claws stuck fast into the close-woven fabric of wool, lies the great spotted cat – not at full stretch, but doubled up into a shapeless lump, as it had worked itself in its efforts to get free! Though all their shots had hit it, some of the bullets passing through its body, a quivering throughout its frame tells that life is not yet extinct. But it is extinguished instantly after, by Gaspar laying hold of one of the knives, and giving el tigre the coup de grâce by a cut across its throat; as he does so, saying —
“That’s for your impudence – intruding yourself on three hungry travellers about sitting down to supper!”