The Guerilla Chief, and Other Tales

Indeed, I had not doubted it from the first – at least, not after discovering who was their leader. The wounded Jarocho had told me that most of the guerillos commanded by Rayas, were no better than brigands; and that such honest fellows as himself, who had been forced to join it, would all return to their homes, after the breaking up of the Mexican army by the defeat of Cerro Gordo.

What I now saw was no longer Rayas’ guerillas, but a remnant of it – or rather the individuals of that organisation, who had been his bandit associates before the breaking out of the war.

There were in all between twenty and thirty of these patriotic brigands; and from the opportunity I now had of scanning the faces of such as were near me, I can justly affirm that a more ferocious set of ruffians I never beheld – to the full as picturesque, and evidently as pitiless, as their Italian brethren of the Abruzzi.

On their march they observed a sort of rude order – riding two and two – though this formation was forced upon them by the necessity of the narrow path, rather than from any control of their leader.

Where the road at intervals ran through openings, the ranks were broken at will; and the troop would get clumped together, to string out again on re-entering the chapparal path.

For myself, I was guarded by a brace of morose wretches, as I have said, one riding on each side of me; and both armed with long naked blades; which, had I shown the slightest sign of attempting to escape, would have been thrust into me without either reluctance or remorse.

But there was no chance even to make the attempt. I was strapped to the stirrups, with my hands firmly bound behind my back; and lest the steed, on which they had mounted me, should stray from the track, the lazo of one of my keepers was passed through the bitt-ring of the bridle, and then attached to the tree of the robber’s own saddle.

In this manner was our march conducted – the route being towards Orizava. There was no mistaking the direction: for the snow-capped summit of the great “Citlapetel” was right before our faces – piercing up into a sky of cloudless azure.

From the top of a ridge which we crossed, shortly after coming out of the timber, I discovered that we were yet at no great distance from Cerro Gordo itself; so near, that on glancing back – for we were now riding away from it – I could see the American flag upon “El Telegrafo,” and could even distinguish the stars and stripes!

My chase after the riderless horse had carried me several miles from Corral Falso; but I had been all the while riding back in the direction of the battle-field – in a line nearly parallel to the main road, over which my troop had been travelling. It was only on re-entering the timber that the chase had conducted me in a different direction – southward, towards Orizava.

I could now understand how I had fallen into the hands of Rayas and his robbers.

After the battle, these worthies had lingered in the neighbourhood of the field – for what purpose I knew not then – plunder, I supposed – and this was, no doubt, the explanation, so far as most of them were concerned. Their chief, however, had a different object; one which, ere long, I was enabled to comprehend.

The character of the country around Cerro Gordo – a labyrinth of cañons and barrancos– covered with a thick growth of tangled chapparal, rendered their remaining near the field of their defeat an easy matter – unattended with danger. They knew the pursuit had passed up the main road to Jalapa; and there was not the remotest chance of their being followed across country.

They had accomplished whatever purpose had kept them near the field; and they were now en route for some more distant scene of action.

I had been actually riding after them– on that headlong chase which carried me into the midst of their improvised ambuscade!

As a prisoner, my position lay in the rear – only one or two files of the cuadrilla riding behind me.

I could see Rayas in front, at the head of his band.

I wondered he did not hang back for the purpose of taunting me with his triumphant speeches. I could only account for his not doing so, by the supposition that he was a man of patience, and that my hour of torture had not arrived.

That I should have to suffer some fearful indignity, in all likelihood, and the loss of my life, I felt certain. What had occurred between myself and the brigand chief, had established a relationship that must end in the ruin of one or the other; and it was clear that I was to be the victim. It needed not that hideous grin with which he had regarded me, on becoming his prisoner – nor the jovial style in which he talked of a revanche, – to assure me that for this mild term I might substitute the phrase – “Deadly revenge!”

He had promised his associates a spectacle on their arrival at La Rinconada. I had no doubt, that in that spectacle I was myself to be the prominent figure; or at all events the chief sufferer.

I had been riding for some time, absorbed in meditations, that I need not pronounce painful. Circumstanced as I was, they could not be pleasant. It was only in an occasional and involuntary glance, that my eyes had rested upon Rayas, at the head of his cuadrilla.

I had not noticed a peculiar personage riding by his side. This arose from the fact, that the individual in question was of shorter stature than the other salteadores, by nearly the head, and therefore hidden from my view by the bodies of the brigands habitually interposed between us.

After cresting the ridge above mentioned, and commencing the descent on its opposite side, I could command a better view of those in front; and then it was that the individual, riding alongside of Rayas, attracted my attention. Not only attracted it, but fixed it, to the exclusion of every other thought – even the reflections I had been hitherto indulging in, upon my own unfortunate situation.

At the first glance I had mistaken the companion of the robber chief for a man, or a boy closely approximating to manhood. There was a man’s hat upon the head – the usual low-crowned, broad-brimmed sombrero. Moreover, the style of equitation was that of a man – a leg on each side of the saddle.

It was only at the second glance that my gaze became fixed – only after perceiving, by the long plaits of hair hanging down to the croup of the saddle – along with some peculiarities of shape and costume – that the companion of the robber chief was a woman!

There was nothing in the discovery to cause me surprise. Both the hat on the head, and the mode —à la Duchesse de Berri– in which the woman was mounted, were sights that could be seen any day upon the roads of Mexico, or in the streets of its cities. Both were but the common fashions of the country.

What fixed my attention was the fact, that I fancied I knew the woman – or rather girl, as she appeared to be – that I had seen her before!

It was only the back of the head and shoulders I was yet permitted to see; but there was sufficient idiosyncracy about these, to beget within me a vague idea of identification.

I had hardly time to enter into the field of conjecture, when a slight turn in the path brought the faces of the leading riders en profile to my view; among others, that of the girl.

A shot through the heart could not have been more painful, or caused me to start more abruptly, than the sight of that face.

“Lola Vergara!”

Story 1, Chapter XXII

Dark Suspicions

I cannot describe the painful impression produced upon me, at seeing the Jarocha in such strange companionship.

At first I was inclined to disbelieve the evidence of my eyes, and to think that I was being cheated by a resemblance.

But as the path turned into a second zigzag, more abrupt than the first, the profile became a quarter-face portrait; and there was no chance for me to avoid the conviction that Lola Vergara was riding alongside Ramon Rayas!

A countenance like hers was not common. It was too beautiful to have had a counterpart, even in that land of lovely graces.

Besides, I now recognised the dress, the same worn by the Jarocha when I had last seen her, some six hours before, with only the addition of the sombrero, which had been donned, no doubt, as a protection against the hot beams of a tropical sun.

I had just time to assure myself of the identity of the girl; when the road, having reached the bottom of the hill, turned straight again; and from that time till the cuadrilla came to a halt, I could only catch occasional glimpses, either of the robber captain, or of the fair equestrian moving onward by his side.

Though no longer privileged with a fair view either of Ramon Rayas or Lola Vergara, the painful impression produced by their juxtaposition continued to harrass my soul; and during the half hour that intervened before arriving at the halting-place of the brigands, I gave myself up to reflections and conjectures imbued with the extreme of bitterness.

My first thought, put in the shape of a mental interrogatory, was, whether the Jarocha was a consenting party to the companionship in which I now saw her?

The position, such as it was, looked more than suspicious. Her dread of Rayas, loudly expressed on the preceding night, might, after all, have been nothing more than hypocrisy; nay, it might have been real, and yet it might have resulted in the association now before my eyes!

I had seen enough of women to convince me, that terror is too often the true weapon by which their affections may be assailed and conquered; and that the possession of absolute power may turn their hate, if not into love, at least into a feeling near akin to it.

I remembered some expressions in reference to Rayas, that, on the night before, had fallen from the lips of Lola Vergara. To me they had been unintelligible at the time, though producing a vague sense of doubt, about the honesty as to her declared antipathy to the man.

These were now recalled, with, as I fancied, a clearer comprehension of their import.

In fine, why should she be there, riding by his side, voluntarily: for there was no appearance of compulsion; but rather of complaisance.

No! I should not say that. The glimpse I had had of her face did not give me that idea. On the contrary, I saw, or fancied that I saw a pale cheek, a downcast glance, and a sorrowful expression of countenance.

I was not certain of this; I would have given much to have been assured of it; and my intent gaze was directed to this end, when the straightening of the road, and the interposition of the salteadores, cut short my investigation.

The fancy that she looked sad – in keeping with her name of Dolores – was some consolation; which enabled me, with a certain tranquillity of mind, to sustain that forced traverse through the chapparal in the companionship of the salteadores.

There was one circumstance that surprised while it pained me as well. Why did Lola not look round?