Perhaps I was mistaken about the voice?
I listened to hear it again. Not long was I kept waiting. Once more it was raised; not, as before, in words addressed to the salteadores who surrounded me, but to myself.
Ho, cavallero ! cried the robber chief, coming up to the spot where I stood, and speaking in a tone of triumphant exultation; you are welcome among us the more especially as I owe you a revanche for the little bit of service you did me last night. If I am not mistaken, it is to your bullet I am indebted for this.
As the brigand spoke, he threw back upon his shoulders the closed folds of his manga , exposing his right arm to my view. I saw that it was carried in a sling, and that the hand, protruding beyond the scarf that supported it, was wrapped in cotton rags, that were stained with blotches of dry blood!
My memory needed no further refreshing. No wonder that the bandits voice had fallen upon my ears with a familiar sound. It was the same I had heard only the night before, giving utterance to that hideous threat of which I had hindered the fulfilment the same that had cried, Die, Calros Vergara!
No additional explanation was required. I stood in the presence of Ramon Rayas!
How feel you now? continued the robber, in a taunting tone, not unmingled with fierce bitterness. Don Quixote of the modern time! You, the protector of female innocence! Ha! ha! ha!
Ah, cried he, turning round, and fixing his eyes upon my beautiful horse held captive, like myself, by half a score of lazos. Por Dios ! You have the advantage of La Manchas knight in your mount. A steed fit for a salteador! He will suit me, as if he had been foaled on purpose.
Ho there, Santucho! he cried out to one of his band, who was holding Moro by the bridle-rein. Off with that stupid saddle, and replace it with my own. I just wanted such a horse. Thank you, Señor Americano ! You
can have mine in exchange; and you will be the more welcome to him since you have only one more ride to make before making that great leap that will launch you into the gulf of eternity! Ha! ha! ha!
To this series of taunting speeches I offered no reply. Words of mine would have been idle as the murmurings of the wind. I knew it; and withheld them.
Into your saddles, leperos ! cried the brigand, thus familiarly addressing himself to his subordinates. Bring your prisoner along with you. Strap him tightly to the horse. Have a care he dont escape! If he do you shall dearly rue your negligence, besides losing the pleasure of a spectacle which I shall provide for you after we arrive at the Rinconada .
Rayas leaped upon the back of my own brave steed, which chafed, discontented, under the clumsy caparison of the Mexican saddle; but more so when mounted by one whom he seemed to recognise as the enemy of his master.
For myself I was roughly pitched upon the back of the brigands horse; and, after being securely tied, hands behind, and legs to the stirrup-leathers, I was conducted from the ground, a brace of brigands riding, one on either side, and guarding me with a vigilance that forbade me to indulge in the slightest hope of escape.
Story 1, Chapter XXI Robbers En Route
chapparalNo longer under the gloomy shadow of the great trees, I had a better view of the band, and could see that they were genuine salteadores .
Indeed, I had not doubted it from the first at least, not after discovering who was their leader. The wounded Jarocho had told me that most of the guerillos commanded by Rayas, were no better than brigands; and that such honest fellows as himself, who had been forced to join it, would all return to their homes, after the breaking up of the Mexican army by the defeat of Cerro Gordo.
What I now saw was no longer Rayas guerillas , but a remnant of it or rather the individuals of that organisation, who had been his bandit associates before the breaking out of the war.
There were in all between twenty and thirty of these patriotic brigands; and from the opportunity I now had of scanning the faces of such as were near me, I can justly affirm that a more ferocious set of ruffians I never beheld to the full as picturesque, and evidently as pitiless, as their Italian brethren of the Abruzzi.
On their march they observed a sort of rude order riding two and two though this formation was forced upon them by the necessity of the narrow path, rather than from any control of their leader.
Where the road at intervals ran through openings, the ranks were broken at will; and the troop would get clumped together, to string out again on re-entering the chapparal path.
For myself, I was guarded by a brace of morose wretches, as I have said, one riding on each side of me; and both armed with long naked blades; which, had I shown the slightest sign of attempting to escape, would have been thrust into me without either reluctance or remorse.
But there was no chance even to make the attempt. I was strapped to the stirrups, with my hands firmly bound behind my back; and lest the steed, on which they had mounted me, should stray from the track, the lazo of one of my keepers was passed through the bitt-ring of the bridle, and then attached to the tree of the robbers own saddle.