Part 11 (1/2)
”Pity if it be,” rejoins Don Estevan, yielding to what appears the general sentiment. ”And to think that one word at Arispe would make all well. My own brother-in-law, Colonel Requenes, in command there with a regiment of lancers--they of Zacatecas. In less than half an hour they could be in the saddle, and hastening to our relief. _Ay Dios_! if we can't communicate with them we are lost--surely lost!”
At this, Robert Tresillian says, interrogatively:
”I wonder how many of our people could find the way back to Arispe?”
Without altogether comprehending what he means, several numbers are mentioned in a guessing way, according to the estimate of each. Pedro Vicente thinks at least thirty could,--certainly all the _arrieros_ and _vaqueros_.
”What is your idea, Don Roberto?” at length asks the senior partner.
”That all of those who know the way back be mustered, and two taken from them by lot, who will run the risk of pa.s.sing the Indian sentries. If they succeed, then all may be saved; if on the contrary, it will be but to lose their lives a little sooner. I propose that all submit to the lottery--all who are unmarried.”
”I agree with the Senor Tresillian,” here puts in the _gambusino_.
”Some of us must contrive to get past them at whatever risk. For my part, I'm willing to be one, with any other.”
The generous proposal is received with applause, but not accepted,--it would not be fair; and in fine it is agreed upon, that fate shall determine who shall be the pair to run the proposed risk--the ceremony for deciding it to take place on the morrow.
In the morning it comes off soon as breakfast is eaten. All known to be eligible are summoned together on a spot of ground apart, and told the purport of their being so a.s.sembled. No one objects, or tries to evade the dangerous conscription; instead, there are even some who, like Vicente, would volunteer for the duty.
For is not one of the _duenos_--the brave Englishman and his son, there present--both offering themselves as candidates like any of the common men?
No volunteering, then, is allowed; fortune alone permitted to decide on whom shall be the forlorn hope.
The quaint lottery, though awe-inspiring, occupies but a brief s.p.a.ce of time. Against the number of men who are to take part in it, a like number of _pinon-nuts_ have been counted out, and dropped into a deep-crowned _sombrero_. Two of the nuts have been already stained with gunpowder, the others left in their natural colour; but no one by the feel could tell which was which. The black ones are to be the _prizes_.
The men stand in a ring round Don Estevan, with another who is among the exempt in the centre. These hold the hat, into which one after another, stepping from the circle, led forward blindfolded, inserts his hand, and draws out a nut. If white, he goes clear; but long before the white ones are exhausted the two blacks are taken up, which brings the ceremony to an abrupt end, that deciding all.
They who have drawn the _prizes_ are a muleteer and a cattle drover, both brave fellows. They had need be, for this very night they will have to run the gauntlet of life and death, perhaps ere the morrow's sun to be no more.
CHAPTER TWENTY.
A FATAL FAILURE.
It is a day of anxious solicitude. If the night turn out a dark one, the messengers whom fate has chosen for the perilous enterprise are to set out on their errand. They know it is to be a moonless one, but for all, in the diaphanous atmosphere of that upland plateau, it may be too clear to make the pa.s.sing of the Indian sentinels at all possible.
The afternoon begets hope: a bank of heavy clouds is seen rising along the western sky, which, rolling higher and higher, brings on a downpour of rain. It is of short continuance, however--over before sunset, the clouds again dispersing. Then the darkness comes down, but for a long time only in a glimmering of grey, the stars in grand sheen making it almost as clear if there was moonlight.
The sentinels can be seen in their old places like a row of dark stakes, conspicuous against the green turf on which they are stationed. They are at short distances apart, and every now and then forms are observed moving from one to the other, as if to keep them continuously on the alert.
So thus, nigh up to the hour of midnight, and the miners begin to despair of their messengers being able to pa.s.s out--at least, on this night.
But soon, to their satisfaction, something shows itself promising a different result. The surface of the lake has suddenly turned white, as if under a covering of snow. It is fog. Through the heated atmosphere the lately-fallen rain is rising in vapour, and within its misty shroud it envelopes not only the lake, but the plain around its edges. It rolls over the line of savage watchers, on up between the jaws of the chine, till in its damp clammy film it embraces the bodies of those who are waiting above.
”Now's your time, _muchachos_!” says Don Estevan, addressing himself to those who are to adventure. ”There could not be a better opportunity; if they can't be pa.s.sed now, they never can.”
The two men are there ready, and equipped for the undertaking. Young fellows both, with a brave look, and no sign of quailing or desire to back out. Each carries a small wallet of provisions strapped to his person, with a pistol in his belt, but no other arms or accoutrements to enc.u.mber them. In subtleness and activity, more than mere physical force, lie their chances of success.
A shaking of hands with such of their old comrades as are near, farewells exchanged when they pa.s.s over the parapet of loose stones to commence the descent, with many a ”_va con Dios_!” sent after them in accents of earnest prayerfulness. Then follows an interregnum of profound silence, during which time they at the ravine's head listen with keenest anxiety.