III. – THE GENTLEMEN OF THE ROAD

We will for the moment quit the mesón of San Juan, and proceed about two leagues further on, where certain persons, with whom the reader must form an acquaintance, are assembled.

Hardly one hundred and fifty yards beyond the mesón the road begins to grow narrower; the mountains approach, as if wishful to shake hands, and that so abruptly and unexpectedly, that they form all at once a narrow and long gorge, which is known throughout the country as the barranca del mal paso.

After passing through this gorge, the scenery leaves its abrupt and savage aspect to resume a smiling character; the road widens again; a charming valley, intersected by a stream, presents itself to sight; and on all sides the eye surveys a deliciously accidented horizon.

On either side of the barranca begin impenetrable forests, through which a road can only be cut axe in hand, unless the traveller has a deep knowledge of the narrow and almost invisible paths which lead into the interior with innumerable twinings.

We must ask the reader to follow us to one of the most hidden and least known resorts in this forest.

In the centre of a vast clearing, where burned a cedar eighty feet in height, emitting incessant sparks, some twenty men in sordid garments – a horrible medley of luxury and indigence – with faces in which crime was written in capital letters, but all armed to the teeth, were assembled in groups of three or four each, drinking, eating, smoking, and singing.

Not far from them, their horses, saddled and ready to mount at the first signal, were eating their provender of alfalfa and climbing peas; while, on the edge of the covert, four or five men, motionless as bronze statues, were attentively surveying the surrounding country.

A little on one side, two men, seated on low stools, were talking and puffing in each other's faces enormous volleys of smoke. The first and elder of the two appeared about eight-and-twenty years of age; his long, light hair fell in heavy curls on his shoulders; his features were effeminate; but his aquiline nose, his bright blue eyes, and narrow forehead, imparted to his face a character of baseness and cold cruelty. He wore the splendid costume of the Mexican hacenderos, and was carelessly playing with the trigger of a splendid silver-mounted American rifle.

His companion offered a striking contrast to him: while the first was tall, well built, and endowed with pleasing manners, the second was short, stumpy, heavy, and repulsive in face, gestures, and even in language. The richness of his attire only seemed to render more striking the hideousness imprinted as an indelible stigma on this odious person. Everything announced in him the prowling jackal, that possesses all the ferocity of the lion, but none of that animal's nobility or courage.

The clearing we have described was one of the principal haunts of the Vulture, that terrible bandit who, at the time we write of, was ravaging the state of Guadalajara. The men collected in it formed his band, and the two men we have just introduced were, the first, El Buitre himself; the second, El Garrucholo, his lieutenant and dearest friend.

At the moment we bring them on the stage, these two interesting personages were engaged, as we shall see, in a confidential conversation. We may observe that, strangely enough, this conversation was not held in Spanish, but in English.

"Hem!" El Garrucholo said, as he inhaled a mouthful of smoke, which he immediately sent forth again from his mouth and nostrils. "What do you find so disagreeable in our profession, John? For my part, I consider it delightful. These worthy Mexicans are gentle as lambs; they allow themselves to be plundered with unequalled patience; and you will agree with me, my dear fellow, that we gain more by cutting the buttons from their calzoneras than by easing the richest gentleman down there."

"All that is possible, my friend," El Buitre answered, throwing away his cigarette with a gesture of impatience. "I do not assert the contrary. Assuredly the profit is large, and the risk nothing, I grant; but – "

"Well, why do you stop? Go on."

"In a word, I was not born for such a trade."

El Garrucholo gave vent to a hearty laugh.

"That's where the shoe galls you, then?" he said, with a shrug of his shoulders. "You are mad, comrade: every man is born for the trade he carries on, especially when he chose it himself."

"Would you assert by that – ?"

"What I say I mean. When I picked you up in Mexico, under the arcades of the Plaza Mayor, with a dagger buried in your breast up to the hilt, and not a real in your pockets, I should have done better, deuce take me, to let you die like a masterless dog, instead of curing you; at least, I should not have heard such nonsense from you."

"Why did you not do so? At any rate I should have died without dishonouring an honourable name."

"Deuce take the honourable name, and the man who bears it! My dear fellow, you annoy me by your ridiculous pretensions; you forget, with your mania for nobility, that you are only a foundling."

El Buitre frowned and seized his lieutenant's arm.

"Enough on that subject, Red Blood; you know that I have already warned you that I would not suffer any jesting on that head."

"Bah! What's the odds about being a foundling? A man ought not to feel annoyed at that; it is one of those accidents for which the most honest fellow cannot be responsible."

"You are my friend, Red Blood; or, at least, seem to be so."

"In your turn, my noble Mr. John Stanley," the bandit sharply interrupted him, "do not express such doubts about me; they grieve and insult me more than I can express. I am attached to you as the blade of my bowie-knife is to the hilt I am yours, body and soul. I have only that one virtue, if it be one; so pray do not strip me of it."

El Buitre remained silent for a moment, and then continued in a conciliating voice, —

"I am wrong. Pardon me, brother; in truth, I have had sufficient proofs of your friendship to have no right to doubt it. Still it seems to me so strange, that I at times ask myself how it comes that you, Red Blood, who hate humanity in a mass – you to whom nothing is respectable or sacred – feel for me a friendship which rises to the most complete abnegation and the most utter weakness. That appears to me so extraordinary, that I would give much to hold the solution of the problem."

"You are an ass, John!" the bandit replied in a mocking tone. "What is the use of telling you why I love you? You would not understand me. Suffice it for you to know that it is so. Do you believe me, then, a perfect ferocious brute, incapable of generous instincts?"

"I do not say that."

"You think it, which comes to the same thing. But it is of no matter to me: I dispense you from gratitude; you may even hate me, and I should not care. I do not love you for yourself, but for myself. But suppose we talk of something else, if you are agreeable?"

"I wish nothing better, for I see that I should lose as much time in trying to draw a good reason from you as in washing a blackamoor white."

"Ta, ta, ta! You are an ass, I repeat. But let me alone; if a certain thing I am now scheming succeed, we shall soon bury El Buitre to bring John Stanley to life again."

The salteador quivered.

"May Heaven hear you!" he exclaimed involuntarily.

"You had better appeal to the other place if you wish to succeed," the bandit said with a grin; "but you trust to me. Soon, I hope, we shall so completely change our skins that fellows will be very clever who recognise us. Look ye, John: in, this world all that is needful is to take the ball on the bound and turn with the wind."

"I confess, my good fellow, that I do not understand a syllable of what you are saying to me."

"Eh! What do you want to understand for? You never were the worse off for leaving me to guide you. Two words are as good as a thousand. Before long we shall turn our coats, and change, not the trade we carry on so agreeably, but the name under which we do it, to assume one better sounding and more lofty. Look there!" he added, pointing sarcastically at his comrades. "What an imposing collection of honest fellows we shall restore to circulation under our auspices! Will it not be magnificent, after having so long plundered individuals, to become suddenly the defenders of a nation to the prejudice of the government?"

"Yes," El Buitre said thoughtfully, "I have always dreamed – "

"Of carrying on our trade on a grand scale, eh? You were right: there is nothing like doing things properly, if you wish to be held in estimation. Well, be at ease; I will procure that pleasure. At any rate, if luck desert you, you will have the advantage of being shot instead of being hanged or garotted, and that is a consolation."

"Yes," El Buitre said quickly; "in that way a man dies like a gentleman."

"And is not dishonoured, I allow. Ah! The filibusters of old were lucky fellows; they conquered empires, and handed down their names to posterity, the exploits of the hero easily causing the crimes of the bandit to be forgotten."

"Will you never be serious?"

"I am only too much so, on the contrary; for, as you see, although you did not confide in me, I am preparing you a place by the side of the Cortez, the Almagros, and Pizarros, whose glory has so long prevented you sleeping."

"You may jest, Red Blood," the salteador said with an accent of profound emotion; "but if, as I suppose, you appreciate my character at its true value, you know that I only seek one thing – to regenerate these unhappy races, whom a brutalising subjection has plunged during so many centuries into a degrading barbarism."

"You only wish for the welfare of humanity of course," the bandit said with an ironical laugh. "We should not be worthy sons of Uncle Sam, that land of liberty and theoretical philanthropy, did we not dream of the amelioration of society. That is the reason why, while biding our time, we have become of our private authority redressers of wrong, and gentlemen of the road – a charming trade, I may remark parenthetically, and which we carry on conscientiously."

"Go to the deuce, you inexplicable scamp!" the young man exclaimed in a passion. "Shall I never know how to speak or how to deal with you?"