CHAPTER IV.
The Duel.—Awful Death of the Murderer.
We leaped ashore. The pilot tied the "dingy" to the bank, and led the advance. We soon reached the village. All was quiet there. The greater part of the inhabitants were still in their hammocks under the verandas of their cabins, but they saluted the pilot as he approached with the greeting of an old acquaintance. After replying briefly to the questions that were put to him, Ventura asked where Campos was. He pointed to Calros, and explained why he had come thither. This news was welcomed with enthusiasm by the idle and pugnacious peasants; but in a diversion in which there was so much interest, the greatest secresy must be employed, and every one rivaled his neighbor in discretion. The hut of Campos was noiselessly approached, and he was found inside stretched in his hammock. I could not help admiring the rare command of countenance which this man showed when he saw the pilot, whom he believed to be lying at that moment at the bottom of the neighboring river. He rose quietly, looked at us with a disdainful curiosity, and did not appear to be moved at seeing Calros.
"Who put you on my traces?" he asked of the Jarocho.
"Tia Josefa," was the reply. "It was by her order I came here from Manantial."
"A word is enough to the wise," answered Campos. "It is well; I am ready for you."
The conditions of the duel were immediately discussed, with a calmness and dignity which I did not expect in two such adversaries. Neither Calros nor the pilot deigned to make the slightest allusion to the events of last night. It was a duel to the death which was to be fought, and at such a solemn moment all recrimination was reckoned silly and trifling. The place of meeting was mutually agreed on; and Campos left to procure his seconds, while we directed our steps thither. I walked behind Calros, silent and sorrowful.
"Whatever happen," said he to me, in a low voice, "whether I fall or remain alive, in any case, you will have no message to deliver to her from me."
After walking about half an hour on a footpath that ran at right angles with the river, we arrived at the edge of one of those marshy ponds so common in certain parts of Mexico. On one side was a clump of trees, and on the other rose lofty hillocks of fine moving sand, which was gradually filling up the lagoon by its ceaseless shifting. We there waited the arrival of Campos and his seconds. Calros strode over the ground, a prey to feverish anxiety, for the Jarocho was not one of those lackadaisical lovers who rush out of life the first check they receive. The ground measured, and the situation chosen, the antagonists stood face to face. The signal was given; and I heard, with a beating heart, the clash of the two swords. I had turned my head away; but, hearing a cry of rage, I was drawn irresistibly to cast a look upon the combatants. A man had run to the top of one of the sand hills; he brandished the stump of a machete, and blood was trickling down his side: this was Campos. His flight had been so sudden and rapid that his adversary was still immovable in his place. One of his seconds approached to hand him a sword in the place of the one that had been broken, but he came too late. Exhausted by the effort he had made in clambering up the hill, Campos staggered and fell upon the sand. For a moment we thought he would have kept himself on the mound, but the movable substance rolled away from beneath him, and the unhappy wretch, after struggling fearfully for a few moments, rolled down into the marsh, and was ingulfed alive in an avalanche of sand.
Nothing now remained but to secure the flight of Calros. We left in all haste the scene of action, and arrived at the boat before the alcalde of the village had detached a single alguazil in pursuit. Aided by the current, the light skiff glided like an arrow down the stream, the trees and rocks seeming to fly behind us. After a two hours' row, we reached the mouth of the river, and landed under the willows which overshadowed the pilot's abode. We required his services no farther, and therefore bade him adieu. Before parting, he tried to induce Calros to stay with him.
"I was looking out for a brave and resolute fellow to make a man of him like myself. I have found one in you. The sea-shore is preferable to the woods. It is to enrich the dweller on the coast that the norther blows three months every year. Remain with me; you will be rich in that time."
But a complete dejection now possessed the mind of the Jarocho; he shook his head moodily in token of refusal.
"Well, I am sorry for it," said the pilot." I shall always miss a comrade who can handle an oar as well as a machete. We two could have done a good stroke of business together. Good-by, then; every one must follow his destiny."
We parted, and I accompanied Calros to the hut where he had left his horse. Some wood-cutters, during my absence, had found my hack a short way off in the woods.
"I must bid you farewell here," said Calros. "You will soon see your native land, and I—"
He left the sentence unfinished; I finished it in thought, and pressed him to return to Manantial. I attempted also, but in vain, to prove to Calros that his despair was at least premature.
"The words of the pilot," he replied, "agree but too well with a voice that has been incessantly calling to me, 'Sacramenta never loved you.'"
"But," I answered, "if you intend to bid an eternal farewell to your mother and the village in which Sacramenta lives, why did you refuse the offer of the pilot? Your life would then have some definite aim." "That's of no consequence. The Jarocho is born to live free and independent. A bamboo hut, the woods and the river, a gun and nets, are all that is necessary for him, and these I shall find every where. Farewell, Señor; don't tell any body that you saw me weep like a woman."
Pulling his hat over his eyes, Calros gave the spur to his horse. It was not without a lively sympathy that I followed with my eye the retiring figure of one whose exalted passion and adventurous humor had shown the character of the Jarocho in the most pleasing light. I had to gain Vera Cruz on foot this time, as my horse had lost both saddle and bridle. I dragged him along, however, with a halter behind me. Oppressed by heat and thirst, I stopped at a hut by the way-side, and the host accepted of the poor brute in compensation for the refreshment with which he had supplied me.
Two days afterward I embarked on board the good ship Congress for the United States. I could not leave Mexico without regret, for the society to be found in that country had for me all the attraction of a romance, with every particular of which I had a strong desire to become acquainted.
THE END.