Stoneheart: A Romance. Gustave Aimard
am I?" he exclaimed, endeavouring to make out his position.
But the moon, hidden by clouds, gave forth no ray; the wind began to roar like thunder; the branches of the trees crashed against each other, and, from the depths of the wilderness, the growlings of the wild beast began to mingle their deep notes with the sharper howling of the wild cats.
Don Torribio strained his eyes in vain efforts to penetrate the darkness around him. At last he approached his horse, which was stretched on the ground, and drawing its breath with difficulty. Moved with pity for the faithful companion of so many adventures, he stooped down, removed his pistols from the holsters to his belt, and taking from the saddle, where it was slung, a gourd filled with rum, began to wash the eyes, nostrils, and mouth of the panting animal. Half an hour's persistence seemed to restore life to the horse. He got on his legs, and, with his natural instinct, soon discovered a neighbouring rill, at which he slaked his thirst.
"All is not yet lost," muttered Don Torribio; "after all, I may make my escape hence."
But a deep roar resounded at a short distance, repeated immediately afterwards in four different directions.
The horse's coat stood on end; and Don Torribio felt a cold shudder run through his veins.
"Curse upon it!" he exclaimed; "I have stumbled upon a drinking place for panthers! What is to be done?"
He stooped, and found the confirmation of his fears in the footprints stamped in the muddy borders of the rill.
Just at this moment he saw, at ten paces from him, two eyes, glimmering like burning coals, fixed upon him with strange intensity.
Don Torribio was a man of well-tried courage. Many a time, before the eyes of his comrades, he had performed deeds of wonderful temerity; but now, alone in the darkness, and surrounded by savage animals, he felt himself overcome by deadly terror: his chest heaved, and his breath came and went with difficulty through his set teeth; a cold sweat broke out on his limbs, and he was on the point of dropping.
But this fit of terror did not last above a minute. By a violent effort of his will, he collected himself, and calling all his energy to his aid, prepared for a desperate struggle, in which he knew he must succumb; yet, preserving that instinct of self-preservation and hope which is seldom utterly extinguished in man, he determined to defend his life to the last moment.
Just then his horse, with a snort of horrible fear, bounded away, and made his escape on to the plain.
"So much the better," muttered Don Torribio; "perhaps the poor brute's speed may save him."
A frightful concert of yells and howling broke out in all parts of the forest at the flight of the horse, and mighty shadows, indistinguishable in the darkness, bounded past Don Torribio.
He smiled bitterly.
"Aha!" said he; "Shall I stand here to be devoured, without attempting to escape? ¡Vive Dios! It would be the act of a fool! Come, I am not eaten yet: I will go."
A violent gust of wind here cleared the heaven of clouds, and for some minutes the wan light of the moon lit up the wild spot, in which Don Torribio found himself.
A few paces off, the Rio del Norte ran between two steep banks; on all sides, and far away in the distance, the dense masses of the virgin forest extended themselves. A chaos of rocks piled on each other in inextricable confusion, from whose fissures rose clumps of trees overgrown with entangled creepers drooping in fantastic garlands, pushed its ramifications to the verge of the river; the soil, composed of sand and the detritus always abounding in the forests of America, crumbled under the footstep.
Then Don Torribio knew where he was: at least fifteen leagues from the nearest inhabited spot. He was entangled in the first spurs of an immense forest – the only one throughout the country of the Apaches which the hardy pioneers of civilization had not yet dared to explore, such mysterious horrors seemed concealed in its dark recesses.
Don Torribio took no pains to inquire how his headlong course had brought him to this dreaded region. Danger so frightful that it claimed the exertion of all his powers, hung too directly over his head for him to waste time in speculating on anything save the manner of extricating himself.
At this side, the limpid steam we have mentioned issued from a rock; its banks, impressed with numberless footprints of wild beasts, clearly indicating that the spot was a favourite drinking place, when, at sunset, they left their lairs to seek their food and quench their thirst. And as a further living proof of the fact, two magnificent jaguars, male and female, had at that very moment stopped at its border, and were watching with restless eyes the gambols of their young.
"So," said Don Torribio to himself, "here are pleasant neighbours;" and he mechanically cast his eyes on the other side.
An immense panther, crouched on a rock in the attitude of a cat on the watch, had fixed on him two eyeballs glowing like carbuncle.
Don Torribio, according to the custom in South America, never left home without his weapons. His carbine, of great price, was of remarkable accuracy, and by a providential chance, had not been broken when he fell with his horse. He had placed it as he rose against a rock beside him: he stretched out his arm, and seized it.
"Good!" said he, with a grim smile; "The struggle will cost them dear, at all events."
He shouldered the weapon; but at the moment he was about to fire, a plaintive caterwauling causing him to raise his eyes, he saw a dozen of catamounts and tiger cats of immense size perched in the branches above him, while a number of wolves crept stealthily up and dropped down in the bushes behind him. Poised on the summits of the surrounding rocks, a tribe of vultures, bald buzzards, and urubus, with half closed eyes, seemed to be expecting the moment to seize their share of the quarry.
With one bound, Don Torribio threw himself on to an angle of the rock, and from thence, by aid of his hands and knees, he contrived, in the course of a minute or two, to drag himself with enormous difficulty, to a kind of terrace, about twenty feet above the ground. Here he felt himself in comparative security for a time.
The horrible concert performed by the denizens of the forest, attracted one after another by the keenness of their scent, increased in volume with every minute, and had now reached such a pitch, that it drowned the roar of the wind which was raging through the ravines and clearings.
The moon had disappeared behind the clouds, and Don Torribio was once more enveloped in darkness. But if he could no longer distinguish the wild beasts, he knew they were there: he smelt their odour; he saw their eyes flashing through the obscurity; and their yells, nearing him more and more, made him feel that the last spark of hope would soon be extinguished for ever.
Firmly planting his feet on the ground and leaning a little forward to secure his aim, he drew a revolver, and fired six shots in rapid succession at the tiger cats. Six howls of agony, and the noise produced by falling from branch to branch, immediately followed. Six of the beasts were killed or wounded.
Nothing more horrible can be conceived than the uproar caused by this unexpected onslaught. The wolves threw themselves yelling on the victims, which they began to devour eagerly, disputing their booty with the vultures and zopilotes, who also claimed their share.
Suddenly there was a strange rustling amongst the leaves and branches of the trees. A body, of indistinguishable shape, shot through the air, and alighted growling on the platform. Don Torribio, clutching his rifle, dealt the animal a terrific blow with the butt on the skull, and the brute rolled howling from the top of the rock to the bottom.
And now his ears were stunned by the uproar arising from a dreadful combat, a few feet below him, between the jaguars and tiger cats on one side, and the panther which had attacked them. Fascinated by the terrible danger to which he was exposed, Don Torribio, forgetful of the evil consequences to him that might ensue, fired two pistol shots into the mass of foes tearing and rushing at each other's throats at his feet.
Thereupon a strange thing occurred: all these animals, natural enemies to each other, seemed to comprehend that it would be better to unite against man, their common foe, than waste their strength in strife among themselves. Suddenly ceasing from the terrible combat in which they were