Читать книгу Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea - James O. Brayman - Страница 12

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The following thrilling narrative is from a translation in Sharpe's Magazine. A captain in the Mexican insurgent army is giving an account of a meditated night attack upon a hacienda situated in the Cordilleras, and occupied by a large force of Spanish soldiers. After a variety of details, he continues:

"Having arrived at the hacienda unperceived, thanks for the obscurity of a moonless night, we came to a halt under some large trees, at some distance from the building, and I rode forward from my troop, in order to reconnoitre the place. The hacienda, so far as I could see in gliding across, formed a huge, massive parallelogram, strengthened by enormous buttresses of hewn stone. Along this chasm, the walls of the hacienda almost formed the continuation of another perpendicular one, chiselled by nature herself in the rocks, to the bottom of which the eye could not penetrate, for the mists, which incessantly boiled up from below, did not allow it to measure their awful depth. This place was known, in the country, by the name of 'the Voladero.'"

"I had explored all sides of the building except this, when I know not what scruple of military honor incited me to continue my ride along the ravine which protected the rear of the hacienda. Between the walls and the precipice, there was a narrow pathway about six feet wide; by day, the passage would have been dangerous; but, by night, it was a perilous enterprize. The walls of the farm took an extensive sweep, the path crept round their entire basement, and to follow it to the end, in the darkness, only two paces from the edge of a perpendicular chasm, was no very easy task, even for as practiced a horseman as myself. Nevertheless, I did not hesitate, but boldly urged my horse between the walls of the farm-house and the abyss of the Voladero. I had got over half the distance without accident, when, all of a sudden, my horse neighed aloud. This neigh made me shudder. I had just reached a pass where the ground was but just wide enough for the four legs of a horse, and it was impossible to retrace my steps."

"'Hallo!' I exclaimed aloud, at the risk of betraying myself, which was even less dangerous than encountering a horseman in front of me on such a road. 'There is a Christian passing along the ravine! Keep back,'"

"It was too late. At that moment, a man on horseback passed round one of the buttresses which here and there obstructed this accursed pathway He advanced toward me. I trembled in my saddle; my forehead bathed in a cold sweat."

"'For the love of God! can you not return?' I exclaimed, terrified at the fearful situation in which we both were placed."

"'Impossible!' replied the horseman."

"I recommended my soul to God. To turn our horses round for want of room, to back them along the path we had traversed, or even to dismount from them--these were three impossibilities, which placed us both in presence of a fearful doom. Between two horsemen so placed upon this fearful path, had they been father and son, one of them must inevitably have become the prey of the abyss. But a few seconds had passed, and we were already face to face--the unknown and myself. Our horses were head to head, and their nostrils, dilated with terror, mingled together their fiery breathing. Both of us halted in a dead silence. Above was the smooth and lofty wall of the hacienda; on the other side, but three feet distant from the wall, opened the horrible gulf. Was it an enemy I had before my eyes? The love of my country, which boiled, at that period, in my young bosom, led me to hope it was."

"'Are you for Mexico and the Insurgents?' I exclaimed in a moment of excitement, ready to spring upon the unknown horseman, if he answered me in the negative."

"'Mexico e Insurgente--that is my password, replied the cavalier. 'I am the Colonel Garduno.'"

"'I am the Captain Castanos.'"

"Our acquaintance was of long standing; and, but for mutual agitation, we should have had no need to exchange our names. The colonel had left us two days since, at the head of the detachment, which we supposed to be either prisoners, or cut off, for he had not been seen to return to the camp."

"'Well, colonel,' I exclaimed, 'I am sorry you are not a Spaniard; for, you perceive, that one of us must yield the pathway to the other."

"Our horses had the bridle on their necks, and I put my hands to the holsters of my saddle to draw out my pistols."

"'I see it so plainly,' returned the colonel, with alarming coolness, 'that I should already have blown out the brains of your horse, but for the fear lest mine, in a moment of terror, should precipitate me with yourself, to the bottom of the abyss.'"

"I remarked, in fact, that the colonel already held his pistols in his hands. We both maintained almost profound silence. Our horses felt the danger like ourselves, and remained as immovable as if their feet were nailed to the ground. My excitement had entirely subsided. 'What are we going to do?' I demanded of the colonel."

"'Draw lots which of the two shall leap into the ravine.'"

"It was, in truth, the sole means of resolving the difficulty. 'There are, nevertheless, some precautions to take,' said the Colonel."

"'He who shall be condemned by the lot, shall retire backward. It will be but a feeble chance of escape for him, I admit; but, in short, there is a chance, and especially one in favor of the winner,'"

"'You cling not to life, then?' I cried out, terrified at the sang-froid with which this proposition was put to me."

"'I cling to life more than yourself,' sharply replied the colonel, 'for I have a mortal outrage to avenge. But the time is fast slipping away. Are you ready to proceed to draw the last lottery at which one of us will ever exist?"

"How were we to proceed to this drawing by lot? By means of the wet finger, like infants; or by head and tail, like the school boys? Both ways were impracticable. Our hands imprudently stretched out over the heads of our frightened horses, might cause them to give a fatal start. Should we toss up a piece of coin, the night was too dark to enable us to distinguish which side fell upward. The colonel bethought him of an expedient, of which I never should have dreamed."

"'Listen to me, captain,' said the colonel, to whom I had communicated my perplexities. 'I have another way. The terror which our horses feel, makes them draw every moment a burning breath. The first of us two whose horse shall neigh,--"

"'Wins!' I exclaimed, hastily."

"'Not so; shall be looser. I know that you are a countryman, and, as such, you can do whatever you please with your horse. As to myself, who, but last year, wore a gown of a theological student, I fear your equestrian prowess. You may be able to make your horse neigh: to hinder him from doing so, is a very different matter.'"

"We waited in deep and anxious silence until the voice of one of our horses should break forth. The silence lasted for a minute--for an age! It was my horse who neighed the first. The colonel gave no external manifestation of his joy; but, no doubt, he thanked God to the very bottom of his heart."

"'You will allow me a minute to make my peace with heaven?' I said, with falling voice."

"'Will five minutes be sufficient?'"

"'It will,' I replied."

"The colonel pulled out his watch. I addressed toward the heavens, brilliant with stars, which I thought I was looking to for the last time, an intense and burning prayer."

"'It is time,' said the colonel."

"I answered nothing, and, with a firm hand, gathered up the bridle of my horse, and drew it within my fingers, which were agitated by a nervous tremor."

"'Yet one moment more,' I said to the colonel, for I have need of all my coolness to carry into execution the fearful manoeuver which I am about to commence."

"'Granted,' replied Garduno."

"My education, as I have told you, had been in the country. My childhood, and part of my earliest youth, had almost been passed on horseback. I may say, without flattering myself, that if there was any one in the world capable of executing this equestrian feat, it was myself. I rallied myself with an almost supernatural effort, and succeeded in recovering my entire self-possession, in the very face of death. Taking it at the worst, I had already braved it too often to be any longer alarmed at it. From that instant, I dared to hope afresh."

"As soon as my horse felt, for the first time since my rencounter with the colonel, the bit compressing his mouth, I perceived that he trembled beneath me. I strengthened myself firmly on my stirrups, to make the terrified animal understand that his master no longer trembled. I held him up with bridle and the hams, as every good horseman does in a dangerous passage, and, with the bridle, the body, and the spur, together, succeeded in backing him a few paces. His head was already a greater distance from that of the horse of the colonel, who encouraged me all he could with his voice. This done, I let the poor, trembling brute, who obeyed me in spite of his terror, repose for a few moments, and then recommenced the same manoeuver. All on a sudden, I felt his hind legs give way under me. A horrible shudder ran through my whole frame. I closed my eyes, as if about to roll to the bottom of the abyss, and I gave to my body a violent impulse on the side next to the hacienda, the surface of which offered not a single projection, not a tuft of weeds to check my descent. This sudden movement joined to the desperate struggles of my horse, was the salvation of my life. He had sprung up again on his legs, which seemed ready to fall from under him, so desperately did I feel them tremble."

"I had succeeded in reaching between the brink of the precipice and the wall of the building, a spot some few inches broader. A few more would have enabled me to turn him round; but to attempt it here would have been fatal, and I dared not venture. I sought to resume my backward progress, step by step. Twice the horse threw himself on his hind legs, and fell down upon the same spot. It was in vain to urge him anew, either with voice, bridle, or spur; the animal obstinately refused to take a single step in the rear. Nevertheless, I did not feel my courage yet exhausted, for I had no desire to die. One last, solitary chance of safety, suddenly appeared to me, like a flash of light, and I resolved to employ it. Through the fastening of my boot, and in reach of my hand, was placed a sharp and keen knife, which I drew forth from its sheath. With my left hand I began caressing the mane of my horse, all the while letting him hear my voice. The poor animal replied to my caresses by a plaintive neighing; then, not to alarm him abruptly, my hand followed, by little and little, the curve of his nervous neck, and finally rested upon the spot where the last of the vertebrae unites itself with the cranium. The horse trembled; but I calmed him with my voice. When I felt his very life, so to speak, palpitate in his brain beneath my fingers, and leaned over toward the wall, my feet gently slid from the stirrups, and, with one vigorous blow, I buried the pointed blade of my knife in the seat of the vital principle. The animal fell as if thunderstruck, without a single motion; and, for myself, with my knees almost as high as my chin, I found myself a horseback across a corpse! I was saved! I uttered a triumphant cry, which was responded to by the colonel, and which the abyss re-echoed with a hollow sound, as if it felt that its prey had escaped from it. I quitted the saddle, sat down between the wall and the body of my horse, and vigorously pushed with my feet against the carcass of the wretched animal, which rolled down into the abyss. I then arose, and cleared, at a few bounds, the distance which separated the place where I was from the plain; and, under the irresistible reaction of the terror which I had long repressed, I sank into a swoon upon the ground. When I reopened my eyes, the colonel was by my side."