Читать книгу The Adventurers - Gustave Aimard - Страница 7

Table of Contents

Towards the end of the year 1450, Chili was invaded by Prince Sinchiroca, afterwards Inca, who gained possession of the valley of Mapocho, then called Promocaces, that is to say, the place of dancing and rejoicing. The Peruvian government, however, was never able to establish itself in the country, on account of the armed opposition of the Promocians, then encamped between the rivers Rapel and Maulé. Hence, though the historian Garcilasso de la Vega may place the limits of the territory conquered by the Incas upon the river Maulé, everything proves they were upon the Rapel, for, near the confluence of the Cachapeul with the Tingerica, which from this point takes the name of Rapel, start the ruins of an ancient Peruvian fortress, constructed exactly like those of Callao and Asseray, in the province of Quito. These fortresses served to mark the frontier.

The Spanish conqueror, Don Pedro de Valdivia, founded, on the 24th of February, 1541, the city of Santiago in a delightful position upon the left bank of the Rio Mapocho, at the entrance of a plain a hundred miles in extent, bounded by the Rio Parahuel, and the mountain of El Pardo, which has an elevation of not less than four thousand feet. This plain, which is also bathed by the Rio Maypo, forms a natural reservoir, in which the light soil brought down from the neighbouring heights has found a level, and created one of the richest territories of the New World.

Santiago, which at a later period became the capital of Chili, is one of the finest cities in Spanish America. Its streets are broad, built in straight lines, and refreshed by acequias; or rivulets of clear and limpid water; while the houses, built of adobes, only one story high, on account of the earthquakes so frequent in this country, are vast, airy, and well situated. It possesses a great number of monuments, the most remarkable of which are the stone bridge of five arches, thrown over the Mapocho, and the Tajamar, or breakwater, formed of two brick walls, the interior one of which is filled with earth, and serves to protect the inhabitants from inundations. The Cordilleras, with their eternally snow-crowned summits, although eighty miles distant from the city, appear suspended over it, and present an aspect of the most majestic and imposing kind.

On the 5th of May, 1835, towards ten o'clock in the evening, stifling heat oppressed the city; there was not a breath in the air, or a cloud in the heavens. Santiago, generally so joyous at this hour of the night, when beams from black eyes and smiles from rosy lips are seen at every balcony, and each window seems to challenge the passer-by with the twanging of sambecuejas, and snatches of Creole songs, appeared plunged in the deepest sadness. The balconies and the windows were filled, it is true, with the heads of men and women, packed together as closely as possible, but the expression of every face was serious, every look was thoughtful and uneasy: no smile, no joy could be witnessed; but on all sides were sorrowful brows, pale cheeks, and eyes filled with tears.

Here and there in the streets numerous groups were stationed in the middle of the causeway, or upon the steps of the doors, conversing in a low voice, but with great vivacity. At every instant, orderly officers left the government palace, and galloped off in various directions. Detachments of troops quitted their barracks, and marched, with drums beating, to the Plaza Mayor, where they formed in line, passing silently amidst the terrified inhabitants. The Plaza Mayor on this evening afforded an exceptional appearance. Torches, waved about by individuals mixed with the crowd, threw their red dull reflections upon the assembled people, who seemed to be in expectation of some great event.

But among all these people assembled on one spot, and whose number increased every second, not a cry, not a word could be heard. Only, at intervals, there arose a nameless murmur—a noise of the sea before a tempest—the whisper of a whole anxious people—the hoarse fury of a storm lashing all these oppressed breasts. The clock of the cathedral heavily and slowly struck ten.

Scarce had the serenos, according to custom, chanted the hour, ere military commands were heard, and the crowd violently driven back in all directions, with cries and oaths, accompanied by blows from gunstocks, divided in two nearly equal parts, leaving between them a wide, free space. At this moment arose the sounds of religious chants, murmured in a low, monotonous tone, and a long procession of monks debouched upon the square. These monks all belonged to the order of the Brothers of Mercy. They walked slowly in two lines, with their hoods pulled down over their faces, their arms crossed upon their breasts, their heads hanging down, and chanting the De Profundis. In the middle of them ten penitents each bore an open coffin. Then came a squadron of cavalry, preceding a battalion of militiamen, in the centre of which body, ten men, bare headed, with their arms bound behind them, were conducted, each riding with his face toward the tail of a donkey, whose bridle was held by a monk of the order of Mercy; a detachment of lancers came immediately after, and closed this lugubrious procession.

At the cry of halt, given by the commander of the troops drawn up upon the Plaza, the monks separated to the right and left, without interrupting their funeral chant, and the condemned remained alone in the middle of the space left free for them. These men were patriots, who had attempted to overthrow the established government, in order to substitute another, the more broad and democratic basis of which would be, as they thought, in better accordance with ideas of progress and the welfare of the nation. These patriots belonged to the first families of the country.

The population of Santiago viewed with sullen despair the death of the men whom they considered as martyrs. It is even probable that a rising in their favour would have taken place, if General Don Poncho Bustamente, the minister at war, had not drawn out a military force capable of imposing upon the most determined, and obliging them to be silent spectators of the execution of men whom they could not save, but whom they entertained a fierce hope of avenging at a future day.

The condemned alighted; they piously knelt, and confessed themselves to the monks of Mercy nearest to them, whilst a platoon of fifty soldiers took up a position within twenty paces of them. When their confession was completed, they rose up bravely, and taking each other by the hand, ranged themselves in a single line in front of the soldiers appointed to put them to death. In spite, however, of the great numbers of troops assembled on the Plaza, an ominous fermentation prevailed among the people. The crowd rocked about in all directions. Murmurs of sinister augury and curses, pronounced aloud against the agents of power, seemed to remind the latter that they had better finish the affair at once, if they did not wish to have their victims torn from their hands.

General Bustamente, who calmly and stoically presided over this dismal ceremony, smiled with disdain at this expression of popular disapprobation. He waved his sword over his head and commanded "right about face," which was executed with the rapidity of lightning. The troops faced the insurgents on all sides; the front rank pointing their muskets at the citizens crowded together before them, whilst the others appeared to take aim at the balconies encumbered with people. This was followed by so dead a silence, that not a word was lost of the sentence read by the proper officer to the patriots—a sentence which condemned them to be shot as traitors, or accomplices in a conspiracy designed to overthrow the constituted government, and plunge their country into anarchy.

The conspirators listened to their sentence with silent firmness; but when the officer, who trembled in every limb, had finished reading it, they all cried, as with one voice,

"Viva la Patria! Viva la Libertad!"

The General gave a signal, and a loud rolling of the drums drowned the voices of the condemned. A discharge of musketry resounded like a clap of thunder, and the ten martyrs fell, once again shouting their cry of liberty, a cry doomed to find an echo in the hearts of their terrified compatriots.

The troops filed off, with shouldered arms, ensigns flying, and band at their head, past the dead bodies, and regained their barracks. When the General had disappeared with his escort, and the troops had left the Plaza, the people rushed in a mass towards the spot where the martyrs of their cause lay in a confused heap. Every one wished to offer them a last farewell, and to swear over their bodies to avenge them, or to fall in their turn.

At length, by degrees, the crowd became less compact, the groups dispersed, the last torches were extinguished, and the spot where, scarce an hour before, an awful drama had been accomplished, was left completely deserted. A considerable time elapsed before any noise disturbed the solemn silence which brooded over the Plaza Mayor.

Suddenly, a heavy sigh escaped from the heap of bodies, and a pale head, disfigured by the blood and dirt which stained it, arose slowly from this human slaughterhouse, pushing aside with difficulty the carcasses which had covered it. The victim, who, by a miracle, survived this bloody hecatomb, cast an anxious look around him, and passing his hand over his brow, which was bathed in a dark perspiration, said vehemently—

"My God! my God! grant me strength to live, that I may avenge myself and my country!"

Then, with incredible courage, this man, too weak from the blood he had lost, and was still losing, to stand, or to escape by walking away, began to crawl along upon his hands and knees, leaving behind him a long wet track, and directing his course towards the cathedral. At every yard he stopped to take breath, and to place his hands upon his wounds, which motion rendered more painful. Scarce had he left the centre of the Plaza and its horrid sacrifice fifty paces behind him, and that with immense difficulty, when, from a street which opened just before him, issued two men, who advanced with hasty steps towards him.

"Oh!" the unhappy man cried, in utter despair, "I am lost! I am lost! Heaven is not just!"—And he fainted.

The two men, on coming up to him, stopped with great surprise; they leant over him, and examined him with care and in an anxious manner.

"Well?" said one of them, at the end of a minute or two.

"He is alive!" the other replied, in a tone of conviction.

Without uttering another word, they rolled up the wounded man in a poncho, lifted him on their shoulders, and disappeared in the gloomy depths of the street by which they had come, and which led to the Canadilla suburb.