Chapter 10 THE GUAYCURUS.

* * *

The vast territory of Brazil is even at the present time inhabited by numerous Indian tribes, spread over the sombre forests and the vast deserts which cover that country.

Of these nations, two especially hold an important place in the history of the aboriginal races of Brazil; these are the Payagoas and the Guaycurus.

The latter most particularly occupy our attention.

After having exchanged with the marquis the few words which we have reported, Don Diogo advanced alone, and without arms, towards the Indian, who was boldly stationed across the path, and who regarded him as he approached without making the slightest movement.

These two men, although of a common origin, and both descended from the aboriginal race, and from the first owners of the soil which they trod, offered, nevertheless, two quite distinct types, and formed the most complete contrast.

The Guaycurus, painted as a warrior, proudly draped in his poncho, boldly sitting on his horse-as untamed as himself-his flashing eye firmly fixed on the man who advanced towards him, whilst a smile of proud disdain played upon his lips, would have well represented in the eyes of an observer the type of that powerful race, confident in its right and in its power, which, since the first day of its discovery, has sworn an implacable hatred to the whites; has retreated step by step before them, without ever having turned their back; and which has resolved to perish rather than submit to an odious yoke and a dishonourable servitude.

The captain, on the contrary-less vigorously built, embarrassed in his exact and artificial costume, bearing on his features the indelible mark of the servitude to which he had submitted, constrained in his posture, replacing haughtiness by effrontery, and only fixing by stealth a saturnine look on his adversary-represented the bastard type of that race to which he had ceased to belong, and the costumes of which he had repudiated, to adopt without understanding them, those of his conquerors, instinctively feeling his inferiority, and submitting, perhaps unknown to himself, to the magnetic influence of that nature which was so strong because it was free.

"Who are you, dog?" said the Guaycurus, harshly, casting on him a look of contempt; "You who bear the garments of a slave?"

"I am as you are, a son of this land," answered the captain, in a morose tone, "only more happy than you; my eyes are open to the true faith."

"Do not employ your lying tongue in sounding your own praises. It ill becomes you to me," answered the warrior, "to boast of the sweetness of slavery."

"Are you then come, crossing my route, to insult me?" said the captain, with an ill-suppressed accent of rage. "My arm is long, and my patience short."

The warrior made a gesture of disdain.

"Who would dare to flatter himself to frighten Tarou Niom?" said he.

"I know you; I know that you are famed in your nation for your courage in combat and your wisdom in council. Cease, then, from vain romancing and bombast."

"A fool sometimes gives good counsel," was the warrior's repartee; "what you say is just. Let us come, then, to the real subject of this interview. I wait while you explain."

"Why have you not reported to the palefaces the message with which I charged you for them?"

"I am no more the slave of the whites than you."

"And notwithstanding that warning, they continue to march in advance?"

"You see it is so."

"These men are mad."

"They by no means share that opinion. More sensible than you, without fearing you, they do not scorn you."

"Is it not the greatest insult they can offer us, to dare to invade our territory?"

"They do not invade your territory."

"You are a dog with a forked tongue. The palefaces have no occasion to traverse our country."

"You have not the right to hinder the passage of peaceable citizens through your country."

"If we have not that right, we take it. The Guaycurus are the only masters of these territories."

"Listen to me," said Diogo, "that the truth may penetrate to your heart."

"Speak; am I not here to listen to you?"

"We have no intention of penetrating any further into your country; we only wish to pass."

"Aha! And what do you call the country to which you are going?" pursued the chief.

"The country of the Frentones."

"The Frentones are the allies of my nation; to enter on their territory is to enter on ours. We will not suffer this violation. Go and rejoin him who has sent you, and tell him that Tarou Niom consents to allow him to go, on condition that he will immediately turn his horse's head towards the north."

The captain remained unmoved.

"Do you not understand me?" asked the warrior, with violence; "On that condition alone can you hope to escape, every one of you, from death or slavery. Go!"

"It is useless," answered the captain; "the white chief will not consent to return before having definitively accomplished the object of his journey."

"What interest induces this man to stake his life?"

"I do not know; that is not my affair."

"Good; so, notwithstanding all that I may say to him, he will continue to advance?"

"I am convinced of it."

"Very well, he shall die."

"Is it, then, war that you desire?"

"No, it is vengeance. The whites are not our enemies; they are wild beasts that we kill."

"Take care, chief; the struggle between us will be serious, I warn you."

"So much the better; it is a long time since my sons have met an enemy worthy of their courage."

"This conversation is now useless; allow me to return to my people."

"Go, then; I have no more, indeed, to say to you. Remember, that it is the obstinacy of your master that calls down upon his head the misfortunes that will fall upon it."

"I thank you for the information; chief, I will profit by it, be sure of that," said Diogo, with irony.

The Guaycurus smiled without answering, and, burying his spurs in the flanks of his horse, disappeared almost instantly in the high grass.

The captain rejoined the marquis, who was waiting with impatience the result of the interview.

"Well," cried he, as soon as Don Diogo had made his appearance.

"What I foresaw has happened," answered the Indian.

"Which is-"

"That these Guaycurus will not, under any pretext, allow us to place our foot on their territory."

"Indeed!"

"They order us to retrace our steps; they are resolved not to give us a passage."

"We shall force one for ourselves by passing over their corpses," haughtily cried the marquis.

"I doubt it, your Excellency. No one individually is capable of successfully contending against ten enemies."

"Do you, then, think them so numerous?"

"I have understated it; it is not ten, but a hundred, that I should have said."

"You seek to frighten me, Diogo?"

"What use would it be, your Excellency? I know that nothing I could say to you would succeed in persuading you, it would be but wasting precious time."

"Then it is you who are afraid," cried the marquis.

The Indian, at this undeserved insult, turned pale in the manner of the men of his race; that is to say, his countenance assumed a tint of dull white; his eyes flushed with blood, and a convulsive trembling agitated all his limbs.

"What you say not only is not generous, your Excellency," he answered, "but is inappropriate at this moment. Why insult a man who for the last hour has endured uncomplainingly, on the part of your enemy, deadly insults?"

"But at all events," resumed Don Roque, in a more gentle voice, "our position is intolerable. We cannot remain here thus; how are we to escape from the difficulty in which we are?"

"That, your Excellency, is what I am thinking of. An immediate attack from the Guaycurus is not what concerns me at the present moment. I know their manner of fighting; they must have at the present moment an interest in sparing us-for why? I cannot yet decide, but I shall soon know."

"What makes you suppose that?"

"The obstinacy with which they try to persuade us to return, instead of assailing us unawares."

"What do you intend to do?"

"At first, to study the plans of the enemy, my lord, and, if God gives me aid I shall succeed, I swear, in discovering those plans."

"Be assured, that if we succeed in defeating their projects, and in escaping from our enemies, the recompense I shall give you will be equivalent to the service you render me."

"It is useless to speak of reward to a dead man, and I consider myself so," answered the captain.

"Always that thought!" said the young man.

"Yes, always, your Excellency, but do not concern yourself. Knowing that I cannot escape the fate which threatens me, I will try all that is humanly possible to postpone the inevitable catastrophe. That ought to reassure you."

"Not much," said the marquis with a smile.

"Only, your Excellency, I repeat, I want all my liberty of action."

"I have given you my word, as a gentleman."

"And I have accepted it, my lord. The war we are now commencing has nothing in common with those which, they tell me, you are accustomed to make in Europe. We have in face of us enemies whose principal weapon is trickery; it is only then by showing ourselves more keen and more subtle than they, that we shall succeed in conquering them, if it is possible for us-which I do not believe-to obtain that result."

"Once for all, I promise to give you the most perfect liberty, strange and singular as appear to me the dispositions you judge it necessary to take."

"That is speaking like a wise man; courage! Who knows? Perhaps God may deign to work a miracle."

"I thank you for at last giving me a ray of hope, Diogo," said the marquis, "as it is not a commodity of which you are a prodigal."

"We are men, to whom it is necessary to speak frankly, to put ourselves on our guard, my lord, and not timid children, whom it is necessary to deceive. Now," he added, "if you have no objection, we must encamp for the night."

"What! Stop already!" cried the young man.

"What a pity!" cried the Indian, "That this expedition should be doomed to end so badly! I could have given you some lessons, my lord, which would have made you, in time, one of the most skilful trappers of the Brazilian woods."

Notwithstanding the critical situation in which he was, the marquis could not forbear laughing at this outburst of the worthy captain.

"Never mind," answered he, "do not deprive me of your lessons. Perhaps they will be of use."

"With the favour of God, my lord; listen to me, then. This is what we ought to do."

"I am all attention."

"We ought not to penetrate any farther into the desert before having some positive information as to the movement of our enemies. This information I alone can obtain, by mixing with them and introducing myself into their villages. Do you understand me, my lord?"

"Pretty well; one thing alone in what you have told me remains doubtful."

"What is it?"

"You intend yourself to go and seek news."

"Just so; such is my intention."

"Do you not think that will be very imprudent? You risk being discovered."

"True, and if that should happen, my fate is decided. What would you, my lord? There is a risk to run, but by no other means of acting. However perilous such an expedition may be, it is not so much so as you may suppose, for a man who, like me, belongs to the Indian race and naturally knows the habits of the men he wishes to deceive."

While the marquis and the captain thus talked together, the caravan continued to advance slowly through the inextricable meanderings of a narrow path, traced with difficulty by the passage of wild beasts.

Silence the most complete reigned in the desert, which the foot of man appeared never to have trodden since the time of its discovery.

Meanwhile the half-caste hunters and the soldados da conquista, aroused by the unexpected presence before them of the Guaycurus chief, put themselves on their guard; they only advanced according to the Spanish expression, "with the beard on the shoulder," eye and ear on the watch, finger on the trigger of their fusils, ready to fire at the least alarm.

The caravan thus attained the hill on which Don Diogo proposed to encamp. The Indian-with that infallible glance which a long experience gives, and which is possessed only by men inured by years of life in the desert, so varied and so full of unforeseen dangers-had admirably chosen the only spot where it was possible to establish a camp which could resist a sudden attack of the enemy.

This hill formed an advance post of one of the largest rivers of the plain. Its steep sides were without verdure, its summit alone was covered with a thick wood. On the side next to the river the hill, which was almost perpendicular, was insurmountable, and only accessible by the desert for a space of ten yards at the most.

The marquis congratulated Don Diogo on the sagacity with which he had chosen this position-

"However," added he, "I cannot help asking myself whether it is necessary for a single night to establish ourselves on the summit of such a fortress."

"If we had but to remain there but a single night," answered the Indian, "I should not have given myself the trouble of choosing this place, but the information we have to obtain will take us some time, and we may remain here a few days."

"Remain a few days here!" cried the marquis.

"I cannot say positively. Perhaps we may set out again tomorrow. That will depend upon circumstances. Although our position may not be good, still it depends a little upon us not to make it worse."

"You are always right, my friend," answered the young man; "let us camp then since you wish it."

The captain then left the marquis, and proceeded to give all necessary orders.

The Brazilians first occupied themselves in securing the most important things-that is to say, the food and the munitions of war; then, this care taken, they installed the camp on the edge of the platform of the hill. They then formed a rampart of trunks of trees, interlaced one in the other. Behind this first rampart the waggons and carts were fastened in the form of a St. Andrew's cross.

According to the express orders of the captain, the trees which were necessary for the fortifications had to be felled; the others remaining standing were not only to give shade to the Brazilians, but also to serve for defence in case of assault, and moreover, to prevent the Indians reckoning them, and thus knowing the number of enemies whom they had to attack.

* * *