by a number of torches. Ruperto's party had arrived. Guided by the flashes they saw running along the sides of the precipice, the latter soon discovered the nest, and the truth was revealed to them.
The arrival of Ruperto and his comrades was a great comfort to the Americans, for now nothing would be more easy than to reach the nest. Four powerful adventurers, armed with axes, glided along the side of the precipice to the foot of the tree, which they began felling with hurried strokes, while John Davis, and the men with him, threw their reatas round the top branches of the tree, and gradually drew it towards them. The tree began gracefully bending, and at length lay on the side of the barranca, without receiving any very serious shock.
John Davis immediately entered the nest, and drawing his knife from his belt, bent over the body of the Jaguar, and put the blade to the young man's lips. There was a moment of profound anxiety for these men; their silence was so complete, that the beating of their hearts might be heard. They stood with their eyes obstinately fixed on the American, daring scarcely to breathe, and, as it were, hanging on his lips. At length John rose, and placed the knife near a torch; the blade was slightly tarnished.
"He lives, brothers, he lives!" he shouted.
At these news the Border Rifles broke out into such a howl of joy and happiness, that the nightbirds, startled in their gloomy hiding places, rose on all sides, and began flying heavily backwards and forwards, while uttering discordant and deafening cries. But this was not all: the next point was to get the Jaguar out of the precipice, and let him down into the gorge. We have said that the two bodies were closely intertwined. The adventurers felt but slender sympathy for Captain Melendez, the primary cause of the catastrophe, which had so nearly proved fatal to the Jaguar; hence they were not at all eager to assure themselves whether he were dead or alive; and when the moment arrived to find means for conveying the body of their Chief into the barranca, a very serious and stormy discussion arose on the subject of the Mexican officer. The majority of the adventurers were of opinion that the easiest way of separating the two bodies was by cutting off the Captain's arms, and throwing his body into the abyss, to serve as food for wild beasts. Those who were more excited talked about stabbing him at once, so as to make quite sure that he did not recover. Some even had seized their knives and machetes to carry out this resolution, but John Davis suddenly interfered.
"Stop!" he shouted, eagerly, "the Jaguar lives; he is still your Chief, so leave him to treat this man as he thinks proper. Who knows whether the life of this officer may not be more valuable to us than his death?"
The adventurers were not easily induced to spare the Captain, and adhered for a while to their proposal of stabbing him, after cutting off his arms. Still, owing to the influence he enjoyed with the band, Davis succeeded in making them listen to reason, and they began arranging how to get the bodies down.
CHAPTER IV.
TWO ENEMIES
In the great work of creation, God indubitably most profoundly set the seal of his omnipotence in the heart of forests. The ocean, despite its immense extent, offers sailors only a despairing monotony, or sudden upheavals, which fill the mind with a secret and invincible terror. The mountains which stud the globe, and elevate to immense heights their serrated peaks, covered with eternal snow, only inspire terror, and represent to the astonished eyes of the tourist a terrific maze of chaos and travailing nature.
But when you reach the verge of one of those splendid oases of verdure which are called virgin forests, you undergo involuntarily an impression of religious contemplation and gentle melancholy at the sight of these thousand arches of foliage, intertwined like the ceiling of an old Gothic church, in which the moss-clad trunks of centennial oaks represent the clustered columns, rising at one spot only a few feet from the ground, at others soaring to the skies.
Then, animated by the purer air, breathing with the full power of the lungs, attracted and fascinated by the mobile and infinite perspectives that open out on all sides – feeling the movement easier on the soft carpet of soil and dust accumulated by departed ages, the traveller's step grows freer, his glance more piercing, and his hand more firm, and he begins sighing for the hazardous and masculine life of the desert. The further he proceeds beneath these shifting shadows, while life is as noisy all around as a rising tide, the more does the freshness which circulates through the foliage purify the blood, and strengthen the limbs; and he comprehends more and more the irresistible attractions of the forest, and the religious love the wood rangers have for it.
Men habituated to a desert life are never willing to quit it again; for they understand all its voices, have sounded all its mysteries, and to them the forest is a world which they love much as the sailor does the sea. When a glowing sun enlivens the wild and picturesque landscape, when the glistening snow on the far-off peaks stands out like a silver ribbon above the masses of verdure, when the birds twitter among the leaves, the insects buzz on the grass, and the wild beasts in their unknown lairs, add their solemn sounds to the concert; – at such a moment all invites reverie and contemplation, and the wood rangers feel themselves the nearer to God, because they are the further from man.
These bold explorers of the desert are picked men, and powerfully built, kept constantly in movement, and forced each second into a contest with the obstacles that incessantly arise before them. No danger terrifies them, no difficulty arrests them; perils they brave, difficulties they surmount as if in sport; for, hurled by the divine will beyond the pale of common law, their existence is only a succession of strange incidents and feverish adventures, which cause them to live a century in a few moments.
The hesitation of the Border Rifles was short; for these half-savage men, an obstacle to be overcome could only prove a stimulus for their minds, so fertile in resources.
The two wounded men, securely fastened on cross pieces of wood by reatas, were let down in turn to the bottom of the precipice, and laid on the bank of a small stream, which ran noiselessly through this plain, forming the most capricious windings. John Davis, fearing some outbreak on the part of his angry comrades, himself undertook to let the Captain down, in order to be certain that no accident would happen to him.
When the wounded men had been removed from the eagle's nest, which had so miraculously saved them, the adventurers glided along the cliff with singular address and rapidity, and the whole band was soon collected on the bank of the stream. As is frequently the case in a mountainous country, the bottom of the barranca was a rather wide prairie, sheltered between two lofty hills, which enclosed it on the right and left, thus forming a species of gorge, which, at the spot where the fight took place, was really a gulf of great depth.
John Davis, without losing a moment, lavished on the Jaguar all the attention his state demanded; while Ruperto, though much against the grain, did the same for the Mexican Captain, by the American's peremptory orders.
During the various events we have described, the whole night had slipped away, and the sun rose at the moment the adventurers completed their perilous descent. The country then resumed its real aspect, and what had appeared by the flickering light of the torches a desolate and arid desert, became a charming and smiling landscape.
The sun has enormous power over the human organisation: it not only dispels those sombre phantoms which are produced by the darkness, but also revives the mind and restores to the body its elasticity and vigour, which have been neutralised by the piercing cold of night. With day, hope and joy returned to the heart of the adventurers; a joy rendered more lively still by the sight of the cases hurled over the previous night by the Mexicans, and which, though crushed by their fall, had lost none of their precious contents. Hence, the heroic courage and devotion of the Mexicans had no other result than allowing them to die bravely at their posts, for their sacrifice had not obtained the anticipated result.
The prairie soon assumed a lively aspect, to which it certainly was not accustomed; the adventurers lit fires, erected jacals, and the camp was formed
