Wood Rangers: The Trappers of Sonora

“It is not enough to have remained a prisoner,” said Diaz, “you must meet your fate; the conquered must obey the conqueror – come!”

As Diaz ceased speaking, the Spanish nobleman, armed with the pride which never deserted him, approached the pyramid with a firm step. Pepé had rejoined his two companions.

Don Estevan’s looks, as he advanced, displayed a dauntless composure equally removed from bravado or weakness – which won a glance of admiration from his three enemies – all of them excellent judges of courage.

Fabian rose and stepped forward to meet his noble prisoner. A few paces behind, Diaz also advanced – his head bowed low, and his mind oppressed by gloomy thoughts. Everything in the manner of the conquerors convinced him that, on this occasion, right would be on the side of power.

“My Lord of Mediana,” said Fabian, as, with head uncovered, he paused a few steps in advance of the noble Spaniard who had approached him, “you perceive that I recognise you, and you also know who I am.”

The Duke de Armada remained upright and motionless without responding to his nephew’s courtesy.

“I am entitled to keep my head covered in the presence of the King of Spain; I shall use that privilege with you,” he replied; “also I claim the right of remaining silent when I think proper, and shall now exercise that right if it please you.”

Notwithstanding this haughty reply, the younger son of the Medianas could not but remember how he, a trembling and weeping child, had, twenty years before, in the castle of Elanchovi quailed beneath the glance of the man whom he now presumed to judge.

The timid eaglet had now become the eagle, which, in its turn, held the prey in its powerful talons.

The glances of the two Medianas crossed like two swords, and Diaz contemplated, with mingled astonishment and respect, the adopted son of the gambusino Arellanos, suddenly transformed and raised above the humble sphere in which he had for an instant known him.

The adventurer awaited the solution of this enigma. Fabian armed himself with a pride which equalled that of the Duke de Armada.

“As you will,” said he, “yet it might be prudent to remember, that here the right claimed by power is not an empty boast.”

“It is true,” replied Don Antonio, who, notwithstanding his apparent resignation, trembled with rage and despair at the total failure of his hopes. “I ought not to forget that you are doubtless inclined to profit by this right. I shall answer your question then when I tell you that I am aware of but one fact concerning you, which is that some demon has inspired you continually to cast some impediment in the way of the object I pursue – I know – ”

Here rage stifled his utterance.

The impetuous young man listened with a changing countenance to the words uttered by the assassin of his mother, and whom he even now suspected was the murderer of his adopted father.

Truly it is the heroism of moderation, at which those who do not know the slight value attached to human life in the deserts, cannot be sufficiently astonished – for here law cannot touch the offender – but the short space of time which had elapsed since Fabian joined Bois-Rose was sufficient, under the gentle influence of the old hunter, to calm his feelings immeasurably.

He was no longer the young man whose fiery passions were the instruments of a vengeance to which he yielded blindly. He had learnt that power should go hand in hand with justice, and may often be combined with mercy.

This was the secret of a moderation, hitherto so opposed to his temperament. It was not, however, difficult to trace, in the changing expression of his countenance, the efforts he had been compelled to make to impose a restraint upon his anger.

On his side, the Spanish noble concealed his passion under the mask of silence.

“So then,” resumed Fabian, “you know nothing more of me? You are not acquainted either with my name or rank? I am nothing more to you than what I seem?”

“An assassin, perhaps!” replied Mediana, turning his back to Fabian to show that he did not wish to reply to his question.

During the dialogue which had taken place between these two men of the same blood, and of equally unconquerable nature, the wood-rangers had remained at some distance.

“Approach,” said Fabian to the ex-carabinier, “and say,” added he, with forced calmness, “what you know of me to this man whose lips have dared to apply to me a name which he only deserves.”

If any doubt could still have remained upon Don Estevan’s mind with regard to the intentions of those into whose hands he had fallen, that doubt must have disappeared when he beheld the gloomy air with which Pepé came forward in obedience to Fabian’s command.

The visible exertion he made to repress the rancorous feelings which the sight of the Spanish noble aroused in him, filled the latter with a sad presentiment.

A shudder passed through the frame of Don Estevan, but he did not lower his eyes, and by the aid of his invincible pride, he waited with apparent calmness until Pepé began to speak.

“Carramba!” exclaimed the latter in a tone which he tried in vain to render agreeable. “It was certainly worth while to send me to catch sea-fish upon the borders of the Mediterranean, so that, at the end of my journey, I might, three thousand leagues from Spain, fall in with the nephew whose mother you murdered. I don’t know whether Don Fabian de Mediana is inclined to pardon you, but for my part,” added he, striking the ground with the butt end of his rifle, “I have sworn that I will not do so.”

Fabian directed a haughty glance towards Pepé, as though to command his submission; then addressing himself to the Spaniard:

“My Lord of Mediana, you are not now in the presence of assassins, but of judges, and Pepé will not forget it.”

“Before judges!” cried Don Antonio; “my peers only possess the right of judgment, and I do not recognise as such a malefactor escaped from jail and a beggarly usurper who has assumed a title to which he has no right. I do not acknowledge here any other Mediana than myself, and have therefore no reply to make.”

“Nevertheless I must constitute myself your judge,” said Fabian, “yet believe me I shall be an impartial one, since I take as a witness that God whose sun shines upon us, when I swear that I no longer entertain any feelings of animosity or hatred against you.”

There was so much truth in the manner with which Fabian pronounced these words, that, for an instant, Don Estevan’s countenance lost its expression of gloomy defiance, and was even lit up by a ray of hope, for the Duke de Armada recollected that he stood face to face with the heir for whom, in his pride, he had once mourned. It was therefore in a less severe tone that he asked —

“Of what crime am I then accused?”

“You are about to hear,” replied Fabian.

Chapter Fifty

Lynch Law

On the frontiers of the America there exists a terrible law, yet it is not this clause alone which renders it so – “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, blood for blood.” The application of this law is evident in all the ways of Providence, to those who observe the course of events here below. “He who kills by the sword shall perish by the sword,” says the gospel.

But the law of the desert is terrible by reason of the majesty with which it is invested, or claims to be invested.

This law is terrible in common with all laws of blood, and the more so, since those who have recourse to it usurp a power which does not belong to them, inasmuch as the injured party constitutes himself judge of his own cause, and executes the sentence which he himself has pronounced.

Such is the so-called “Lynch law.”

In the central parts of America, white men as well as Indians execute this law with cruel severity against each other. Civilised communities adopt it in a mitigated form as applied to capital punishment, but the untutored inhabitants of the desert continue to practise it with the same rigour which belonged to the first ages of mankind.

And may we not here make the remark, that the similitude of feeling on this point, between the white man and the savages, casts a stain upon the former which for his own honour he should endeavour to wipe out?

Society has provided laws for the protection of all men. The man who amongst us should assume the right of judgment, and take the law into his own hands, would thus violate it, and fall under the jurisdiction of those whom society has appointed to try, and to condemn.

We are not without a hope that at some future time, as civilisation advances, men will allow that they who deprive a culprit of that life which none can recall, commit an act of sacrilege in defiance of those divine laws which govern the universe and take precedence of all human decrees.

A time will come, we would fain believe, when our laws may spare the life of a guilty man, and suffer him to atone for his errors or his crimes by repentance. Such a law would respect the life which can never be restored; and while another exists which casts an irretrievable stain upon our honour, there would be a law of restoration capable of raising the man sanctified by repentance to the dignity which punishment would have prevented his attaining.

“There is more joy in heaven,” says the gospel, “over a sinner who repents, than a righteous man made perfect.” Why then are not human laws a counterpart of these divine decrees?

Now, however, liberty is the only boon which society confers upon him whose misfortunes or whose crimes have deprived him of it.

Misfortunes did we not say? Is there not in truth a law which assimilates the criminal with the upright though insolvent debtor, and compels him to the same fate in prison?

So much for this subject. Let us now return to the lynch law of the desert. It was before a tribunal without appeal, and in the presence of self-constituted judges, that Don Antonio de Mediana was about to appear. A court assembled in a city, with all its imposing adjuncts, could not have surpassed in solemnity the assizes which at this moment were convoked in the desert, where three men represented human justice armed with all its terrors!

We have described the singular and fantastic aspect presented by the spot, in which this scene was to be enacted. In truth, the sombre mountains, veiled in mist, the mysterious subterranean sounds, the long tufts of human hair agitated by every breath of wind, the skeleton of the Indian horse exposed to view, all combined to endue the place with a strange unearthly appearance in the eyes of the prisoner, so that he almost believed himself under the influence of some horrible dream.