The Adventurers. Gustave Aimard
abandoning the country which, like other emigrants, they fancied had been so ungrateful to them.
Often during the passage the young Count had felt his courage flag, and his faith in the future abandon him, when thinking of the life of struggles and trials that awaited him in America. But Valentine, by his inexhaustible gaiety, his incredible store of anecdotes, and his incessant sallies, always succeeded in smoothing the wrinkles from the brow of his companion, who, with his habitual carelessness and want of energy, allowed himself to sink under that occult influence of Valentine which remoulded him, without his cognizance, and gradually made a new man of him.
Such was the state of mind in which our two personages found themselves when the packet boat cast anchor in the roads of Valparaiso. Valentine, with his imperturbable assurance, doubted of nothing: he was persuaded that the people he was about to have to do with were very much beneath him in intelligence, and that he could manage very well to attain the double object which he aimed at. The Count entirely depended upon his foster brother for finding for him the woman he loved, and whom he had come so far to seek. As to retrieving his fortune, he did not even dream of that.
Valparaiso – Valley of Paradise – so named probably by antiphrasis, for it is the filthiest and ugliest city of Spanish America – is nothing but a depot for foreigners, whom commercial interests do not call into Chili. Our young men only remained there long enough to equip themselves in the costume of the country; that is to say, to assume the Panama hat, the poncho, and polenas; then, each armed with two double-barrelled pistols, a rifle, and a long knife in his belt, they left the port, and, mounted on excellent horses, took their course towards Santiago, on the evening preceding the day on which the execution we have described in the preceding chapter was to take place. The weather was magnificent; – the rays of a burning sun rendered the very dust golden, and made the stones of the road shine like jewels.
"Ah!" said Valentine, as soon as they found themselves upon the superb road which leads to the capital of Chili; "it does one good to breathe the air of the land —caramba, as they say here. Well, now, here we are in this boasted America, and now we must set about collecting our harvest of gold."
"And Doña Rosario?" said his foster brother, in a melancholy tone.
"Oh! we shall have found her within a fortnight," replied Valentine, with astounding confidence.
With these consolatory words, he animated his horse with the spur, and the distance before them rapidly diminished.
CHAPTER VI
THE LINDA.1
The night was gloomy; no star glittered in the heavens; the moon, concealed by clouds, only spread a wan, pale light, which, when it disappeared, rendered the darkness the denser. The streets were deserted; but at regular intervals the furtive steps of the serenos, who alone watched at this hour, were audible.
The two men whom we have seen upon the Plaza Mayor, bearing away the wounded man, walked for a long time, loaded with their strange burthen, stopping at the least noise, and concealing themselves in the depths of a doorway, or in the angle of a street, to allow the serenos to pass, as they would be sure to require a reason for their being in the streets at that unusual hour. Since the discovery of the conspiracy, orders had been given that at eleven o'clock every citizen should be within doors. After many turnings and windings, the strangers stopped in the street El Mercado, one of the most secluded and narrow in Santiago. They appeared to be expected, for a door was opened at the sound of their steps, and a woman, dressed in white, and holding a candle, the light of which she shaded with her left hand, appeared on the threshold. The two men stopped, and one of them, taking a steel from his pocket, struck the flint so as to produce as few sparks as possible. At this signal – for it evidently was one – the woman extinguished the light, saying with a loud voice, but as if speaking to herself —
"Dios proteja a Chile (May God protect Chili)!"
"Dios lo ha protegido (God has protected it)," the man with the flint and steel replied, as he replaced his utensils in his pocket.
The woman uttered a cry of joy, which her prudence suddenly repressed.
"Come in, come in," she said in a low voice; and in an instant the two men were beside her.
"Is he alive?" she asked, with intense anxiety.
"He is alive," one of the strangers laconically replied.
"In Heaven's name, come in!" she exclaimed.
The bearers, guided by the woman, who had relighted her candle, disappeared in the house, the door of which was immediately and softly closed after them. All the houses of Santiago are alike, with respect to their internal arrangements. To describe one is to describe all. A wide doorway, ornamented with pilasters, leads to the patio, or great entrance court, at the end of which is the principal apartment, generally the dining room. On each side are bed chambers, reception rooms, and cabinets for labour or study. Behind these apartments is the huerta, or garden, laid out with taste, ornamented with fountains, and planted with orange trees, citron trees, pomegranates, limes, cedars, and palm trees, which grow with incredible luxuriance. Behind the garden is the corral– a vast enclosure appropriated to horses and carriages.
The house into which we have introduced the reader, only differed from the others in the princely luxury of its furniture, which seemed to indicate that its inhabitant was a person of importance. The two men, still preceded by the woman, who served them as guide, entered a little room, whose window opened on the garden. They laid their burthen down upon a bed, and retired without speaking a word, but bowing respectfully.
The woman remained for a moment motionless, listening to the sound of their retreating footsteps; and when all was silent, she sprang with a bound towards the door, the bolts of which she fastened with an impetuous gesture; then, returning and placing herself beside the wounded man, she fixed upon him a long and melancholy look.
This woman, though really thirty-five years of age, appeared to be scarcely more than five-and-twenty. She was of an extraordinary, but a strange style of beauty; it attracted attention, commanded admiration, but created an instinctive repulsion. In spite of the majestic splendour of her graceful form, the elegance of her carriage, the freedom of her motions, full of voluptuous ease, – in spite of the purity of the lines of her fair face, slightly tinged by the warm rays of an American sun, which the magnificent tresses of her black hair beautifully enframed, her large black eyes, ornamented with long velvety lashes, and crowned by perfectly-arched brows, her straight nose, with its mobile and rosy nostrils, her little mouth, whose blood-red lips contrasted admirably with her pearl-white teeth – in spite of all these rich endowments, there was in this splendid creature something fatal, which chilled the heart as you contemplated her. Her searching glance, the satirical smile, which almost always contracted the corners of her lips, the slight wrinkle, which formed a harsh, deep line along her white brow – everything about her, even to the melodious sound of her voice, with its strongly-accentuated pitch, destroyed sympathy, and produced a feeling of hatred, rather than respect.
Alone in that chamber, dimly lighted by one flickering taper, in that calm and silent night, face to face with that pale, bleeding man, whom she contemplated with stern, contracted brows, she resembled, with her long, black hair falling in disorder from her shoulders on to her white robe, a Thessalian witch, preparing herself to accomplish some terrible and mysterious work.
The stranger was a man of, at most, forty-five years of age, of lofty stature, strongly built, and well proportioned. His features were handsome, his brow noble, and the expression of his countenance proud, but frank and resolute.
The woman remained for a considerable time in mute contemplation. Her bosom heaved, her brows became more and more contracted, and she appeared to watch the too slow progress of the return to sensibility of the man her emissaries had saved from death. At length words forced their way through her compressed lips, and she murmured in a low, broken voice, —
"Here he is, then; this time, at least, he is in my power! Will he consent to answer me? Oh! perhaps I had better have left him to die."
She paused to breathe a deep, broken sigh, but almost immediately continued:
This word, which has no equivalent in English or French, is in the Spanish language the highest expression of physical beauty in woman.