Tales and Sketches.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 36, 30 September 1871, Page 16

Tales and Sketches.

A NIGHT ATTACK. [From Chambers's Journal.] If, reader, you are robust and young, and have a taste for hard work, and that agreeable process usually termed 'roughing it,' go to South America, invest in land—not near the large towns, where your yearly gains will be swallowed up in the dissipations of a week ; but become a pioneer, and seek the fertile plains on the Indian frontier, and you will be indulged to the very top of your bent; for there the labor of your own hands must raise the roof which shelters you, and all your vigilance and courage will be required to live under it in safety. It is needless to say that you must dispense with the luxuries of life, for even the necessaries will not be given. Bread itself will become a memory of the past, and ship's biscuit a very present and hard reality. Each day you will find it imperative to ' return to your muttons' for dinner, and that meal will probably have been preceded by the appe-tite-inspiring occupation of killing and cooking the meat in question. Deer, ostrich, and wild-horses there are in plenty to gallop after, with dogs, rifle, or lasso ; or the excitement may be pleasingly varied, and a just appreciation of your quarry's sensations arrived at, by becoming the pursued yourself; for the Indians, your pursuers, esteem most highly ' a white devil hunt'—the scarcity of the animal adding, as is natural, a pleasurable zest to these true lovers of sport. Nature, too, in her wildest and loneliest aspect will there meet you face to face. You may journey for days, weeks, or months, scorched by the sun, and beguiled by the mirage, over plains seemingly vast and measureless as Eternity itself; and may learn a wholesome lesson, seldom acquired in cities, of your own powerless insignificance. There, too —strangest sight of all —you will see, and wonder at the sunsets; for his brilliant majesty there makes no lingering twilight, but dives rapidly, 'one unclouded blaze of living light,' behind the horizon, as though hotly pursued by the goddess of night, who, gathering his mantel into a ball, has hurled it, and just missed him, as he disappeared. And now a hush falls upon everything — broken, perhaps, by the jaguar's scream as he rises from his couch in the tall grass, and begins his nightly prowl in search of prey; or a troop of wild mares may sweep by with tossing manes, and forms shadowy in the dim light, their hoofs beating out a sound like dull thunder on the springy turf. It is at this hour that the most potent of blue-devils yclept home-sickness enters in and takes possession of the unhardened exile; and surely he does his work. First, he instils thoughts of home, kith and kin, bright fires and pretty faces, memories of pleasant gatherings and genial sports; next, he institutes a comparison (odious indeed), and bids you think upon your present toil by clay, and uneasy, danger-hunted sleep by night; then having prepared you for his concluding effort, which is to renderyou utterly and ridiculously miserable, he pours into your scarcely resisting mind a sea of longings, the tide setting strongly in the direction of a return (which he will parenthetically remind you is impossible) to the scenes and happiness of former days. I think I was in a fair way of plunging into the third stage, and becoming one of the demon's most promising patients, one evening as I watched the sunset;' but then, you see, I was young, and as ..yet without much experience of the Avild life of a South American sheep-farmer near the Indian frontier. I had but lately come out from England to join Dick Merton, my former chum and protector at a public school, and my fast friend always. Our joint and very modest capital had been invested in a league of land, bought for an old song on account of its defective title (it was claimed, with some thousands besides, by the Pampa Indians, who made entry upon it—gave notice to quit by brandishing lances at us —and levied a distress upon our horses, and upon us too, in the most European and legal manner) ; also in a few sheep, having the lathy appearance, and almost the speed, of greyhounds ; and lastly, in the materials for our house, of which, as we had ourselves been the architects, builders, and clerks of the work, we were not a little proud. It was built of sunbaked bricks, and consisted of one tolerably large room, with a flat roof and parapet, accessible from the inside by means of a ladder. Around it, at about thirty yards' distance, we had dug a deep dry ditch, crossed by a drawbridge, and intended as a protection against surprise by our enterprising neighbors the Indians. The latter dusky gentlemen had hitherto behaved themselves very much as such, and had confined their throat-cutting propensities to certain stray sheep, instead of gratifying them at the expense of the owners. But ugly tales were still told of their doings round about us —of white men taken whilst riding in sight of home, and tortured; of cattle driven off, and sheep speared in very wantonness of mischief —which were not reassuring, and which caused us to keep a particularly sharp look-out, especially when, as now, the Indian moon (their favorite time of attack) gave light enough to point the way to plunder, but not to guide the aim of the defenders.

Dick Merton, changed indeed since the days when his word was law among a select circle of Pall Mall dandies, lounged up to where I was standing. His costume was simple in the extreme, and consisted merely of a sufficiently aged pair of leather unmentionables, and a red flannel shirt—the whole being surmounted and relieved by a very long black beard, and a very short but equally black pipe; but through rough attire and surroundings, the indefinable je ne sais quoi of gentility was as clearly recognisable as when he was sowing his rather extensive crop of wild-oats upon home soil, andH.before that memorable Derby, which in-

duced him, after settling with duns of every description, from fashionable tradesmen to ' honorable' welchers, to embark himself and the leavings of his property, and dwell among sheep and savages, until he could return with fresh grist to carry on the civilised mill. . ' Can you see anything stirring in the camp ? said he as he came up. ' Those horses are making a confounded row in the corral. I saw Johnson the Yankee this morning, and he said that Indians had crossed the river; and he guessed we'd better keep our wits well iled, that the dusky varmin didn't look in when we warn't ready for visitors.' Now, horses were our surest safeguards against surprise. Dogs we had too, but they roused us up so frequently by barking at nothing more formidable than a stray deer or fox, that—reminded of the gentleman whose amusement it was to cry 'Wolf!'—we lost all faith in them; but our little half-wild Pampa horses had a truer instinct, and their warnings, given by stamping upon the ground, were not to be disregarded with safety. ' I can make out some objects moving about half a mile to the southward,' said I, after a long look-out on the plains. 'They are mounted men, by Jove!' exclaimed my companion: ' and riding hard this way too. —Stand here with your rifle, Alfred, while I slip cartridges into the others. At that pace they will be here directly.' And so they were. Almost before Dick had reached my side again, two ' Guachos,' their usually swarthy faces livid with fear, sprung from their horses, which, covered with blood, sweat, and foam, shewed how sharp had been the ride, and rushed over the drawbridge. They told us, as soon as terror would allow them, that three hundred Indians were in hot pursuit, and woidd soon be on the spot, and besought us for the love of the Yirgin, to give them shelter, as to ride out again into the camp upon their foundered horses would be certain death.

Dick, rather to my surprise, for I did not then know what distinguished liars the natives as a rule are, calmly lit his pipe, and then ordered our visitors, in a somewhat doubtful Spanish idiom, to ' make themselves scarce.' ' Unless,' he said politely, ' you can tell a plain tale, senores, without lies, vamos 1 [be off], ' and adios' [God be with you]. Upon this we learned, after much crossquestioning, that they had been to buy horses (' To steal them more likely,' interjected Dick) at the station of a rich Spaniard, Don Eamon Garcia, who lived about four leagues from us; and that when they reached the top of a gentle rise in the ground, and had a view of the house, they had seen, to their horror and dismay, a large body of the dreaded Indians, who were attacking —for they heard shots —Don Eamon's estancia.

'Whereupon,' said the spokesman, with teeth chattering, ' we rode hard to your abode, well knowing that the brave Englishmen would not deliver us up; but let us mount your fleetest horses, senores, and ride for life. Soon they will be here ; and who can withstand the fierce bravos ?

' If this be true,' said Dick, turning to me — ' and I believe it is, for these cowardly scoundrels' faces are proof that they have seen something —the sooner we prepare to fight the better. Of course, they were not attacking Ramon's place : he has'a fort strong enough to resist a thousand of them, and plenty of men and arms as well. Most likely, they made a dash to carry off any one who might be strolling at a distance from the house, or to drive off the horses; and it's equally likely that we shall have them here soon, where there's a better chance for a night attack. In any event we must be prepared for them. Naturally, we can't run away, and leave all we have in the world to be destroyed, as these valiant gentlemen propose. My chum's calmness infused confidence into me, and, though dreadfully nervous —for it was my first fight, and a kind of internal fluttering sensation warned me that, like Yiola, I ' lacked something of a man'—l set about our preparations with a good show of self-posses-sion.

The natives —both the late arrivals and our own two men, who had often bosted of what they meant to do and had already done in the way of fighting Indians —were quite useless. They besought us pitiously to flee, and so hampered us, that Dick's patience evaporated, and having lavished a series of hearty kicks among them, he consigned them, forcibly to nether and more sultry regions, kindly offering horses for that or any other journey they might wish to make. They dare not, however, ricle away even from the coming danger; and presently, to our great relief and delight, we saw them scramble through the ditch, and into our solitary field of maize, where, as we learned afterwards, they lay concealed, with their faces buried in the ground, like ostriches, until the storm should blow over.

Our preparations were very simple —a box of cartridges was opened (for we were provided with those inestimable peace and life preservers, breech-loading rifles) and placed ready to hand, together with a bottle of whisky and a jar of water ; the door and window, our weakest points, were secured as strong as possible ; and then sheltering our bodies behind, the parapet, we peered cautiously over, and strained our eyes to get the first glimpse of an enemy. Nothing is so daunting as suspense to a young campaigner, and I felt my heart thumping against my ribs with excitement, and a sort of nervous dread that I should not play a man's part in the struggle we expected. But Dick's voice, calm, low, and with a slight drawl in it, reassured me. ' Now, look here, Alfred, my boy,' he said ; ' if we have to fight keep cool, and do as I tell you. Eeach your hand over here —that's right; I like to feel you gripe like that. Now remember to aim steadily, as though you were winning a cup in the rifle corps at home ; and don't show yourself more than you can help, for, though these beggars have only a few muskets and pistols in the shape of firearms,

they can shoot pretty straight if you stand still enough for a long sight. Their great point will be to force the door, but we can soon stop that if you are steady with your shots ; and they can't fire the bricks.—Do you see anything ?' ' There something dark on the ground near the corral,' I answered: 'it seems nearer than it was.'

'An Indian, sure enough, and the ball's going to commence.' As he said this, Dick's rifle rung out in the silence of the night,_and I saw a splinter fly white in the moonlight, about a foot above the dark object, which thereupon started up with a cry and fled. Then we heard the galloping of horse, and about one hundred Indians rode into view, and breaking into twos and threes, circled round us within shot —waving spears and shouting as though the whole company of fallen angels had met to lament their change of circumstances chorally. ' Don't shoot! This is all a feint. \ And my superior's warning came just in time, for a dusky cloud of men sprang out from the ditch (how they could have got in without our having observed them, was puzzling to me), and rushed, lance in hand, against the door. Well for us that its fastenings were secure, and that Ave had not been tempted to throw away shots by the first demonstration. Bang! bang! went our rifles, and I saw with a devilish feeling of pleasure that the man I had covered fell back with a hoarse yell. ' Don't hurry, but in with your cartridges,' I heard next; and both fire again together. This was too much for them —they halted, wavered one moment, and then disappeared as if by magic—our rapid system of firing having completely discomfited them. ' Down with you!' and I felt myself pulled suddenly under the parapet, in time to hear the bullets from the cavalry outside the ditch sing over our heads. 'So far so good,' was Dick's comment. ' Take a drop of whisky, and watch the next move.'

The moon was now nearly over, but that was not so much against us, the night beingclear and starlight enough to see a man at ten paces. We could hear the trampling of horses' feet, and guttural sounds of talking, and guessed that a council of war was being held. Suddenly a spark appeared about two hundred yards from the house —for they had fired our haystack —and grew rapidly into a flame. Brighter and brighter it became, and lit up the scene —which was one of those men do not easily forget —as with the glare of the noonday sun. Grouped round the flame, and out of range, were our foes —their swarthy skins and snaky hair glistened in the firelight; and they brandished lances, and screamed with delight at the destruction they had caused.

Dogs were barking, and the horses in the corral neighing shrilly and rearing with terror —some fighting desperately to escape. I looked at my companion's face ; it was very pale and the expression decidedly ugly. ' Look!' he said hoarsely. ' Here comes an ambassador. Gfood Heaven! look!' I turned with astonishment; but the sickening sight I saw fully accounted for Dick's excitement and rage. A nearly naked Indian was boldly advancing towards us, and bearing before him a burden, which effectually secured, as he meant it to do, his immunity from our shots. A beautiful white girl of about seventeen was lying helpless in his arms. Her hands were bound behind her back, and masses of coal-black hair encircled a face shewing deadly terror and horror in every feature, and drooped nearly to the ground over the savage's arm. Her dress, torn from one white shoulder, shewed how hard had been the first ineffectual struggle against her captors. As the Indian crossed the ditch (they had cut the rope which held up the clraAvbridge in the fir.it attack) with his burden, Dick with a deep groan recognised her. ' It is Bosita, Don Ramon's daughter,' he broke out. ' I love her, Alfred, and will save her or die with her. — Listen !' he continued hurriclly. ' This rascal has come to make some proposal to us. Keep your eye on him; and the moment you get a fair chance, fire at him. If you kill her it is the better fate. When I hear the shot I will throw open the window (which I can do more easily than the door), and try for a rescue. But for Heaven's sake don't leave the roof: our only hope is in your being able to keep off the others, who will rush from the ditch. — Good-bye.' And he was down the ladder before I could speak, leaving his hat cunningly adjusted above the parapet. Poor Dick ! All his coolness and sang-froid had vanished now ! I myself was not in a pleasant predicament. To carry out his half-mad scheme involved my running a terrible risk of shooting my friend's sweetheart, which at any other time would have appeared impossible; but when I read the agony and loathing in the poor girl's eyes, I braced my nerves, set my teeth, laid my rifle ready, and inwardly swore that no trembling of my hand should mar her deliverance. And now the savage, a truculent-looking brute, raised his voice, and demanded in broken Spanish a surrender. He threatened us with all the tortures his ingenious fraternity are so justly proud of having invented, in case of obstinacy, and bid us look upon his captive, for that she, too, should suffer for us. As he said this, he grasped the girl's hair brutally, and raised her head. With a sudden spring of pain and fright, she threw herself out of his arms, and fell to the ground. His time and mine had come. As he stooped, my bullet laid him dead by the side of his intended victim. Dick made his rush from the window, and the Indians theirs from the ditch, as he had predicted; but as Rosita was rather nearer to the house than the ditch, he managed to reach her first, and was retreating with her in his arms. And now all depended upon me. My first shot, aimed at the foremost of the assailants, missed him clean ; and before I could seize the other rifle, he had

made a vigorous thrust at Dick, who, encumbered as he was, was quite helpless. The lance passed through Rosita's dress, luckily without injury to the wearer; and as the savage drew back for a cooler and surer thrust, I had the inexpressible pleasure of lodging a bullet in his body, which effectually prevented any further lance-exercise from him. Then I heard a heavy fall in the room below; Dick had thrown his burden clean through the open window, at the risk of breaking a limb, and turning, found himself engaged hand to hand with a dozen Indians. He set his back against the wall, and drew his revolver with his right hand, receiving as he did so a spearthrust through his left arm ; but his and my revolver, fortunately reserved until now, played among the attacking party, and a man was dropping at every shot; so they drew off. Dick managed with a great effort to drag himself through the window, and then fainted away from loss of blood and exhaustion; and when I ran down the ladder to make fast the window again I found him comfortably reclining with his head in Rosita's lap, the latter having been stunned by her unceremonious entry. But I could not stay to help here; my post was on the roof. I hurried up the ladder, noticing for the first time that I had myself suffered in the scrimage to the extent of a slight fleshwound from a bullet. The fight was over. Throughout the remainder of the night, the Indians lingered about, and stole most of the horses and some sheep, but they had not pluck again to encounter the deadly breech-loaders, Seldom, indeed, had such a severe lesson been taught them ; and when the glorious sun rose (never sight more welcome), we saw them ride beaten off the field, bearing with them five of the slain : six other corpses were lying in front of the window, where the fiercest struggle had been, and two more were afterwards found, who had crawled into the ditch like wild animals to die. We learned from the pretty Rosita whose gratitude was most touching, that she had been captured whilst walking in the orange-garden near her father's house, a short time before we were attacked. ' You, noble caballeros,' she said, ' have preserved me from death, and from what is far worse. God will reward you, for I can never.' I think Dick, however, was of a different opinion ; at all events, he has always seemed remarkably satisfied with the reward he persuaded her to make him. Some years have passed since that eventful night. Dick and Rosita are living at Don Ramon's estancia, that worthy old gentleman having departed this life shortly after their marriage. I, too, am with them as a partner in the land, flocks, and herds, of which we have a goodly quantity; and whenever the increasing stock of little Dicks and Rositas ask me, as they invariably do of an evening, to tell them a story, I know that nothing less will content them than a full, true, and particular account of the night attack.