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Read books online » Fiction » The Rifle Rangers by Mayne Reid (best free e book reader txt) 📖

Book online «The Rifle Rangers by Mayne Reid (best free e book reader txt) đŸ“–Â». Author Mayne Reid



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it, I’ll tell ye myself. We overhauled a pair of the most elegant crayteurs you ever clapped eyes upon; and rich—rich as Craysus—wasn’t they, boys?”

“Oh, plenty of tin,” remarked Hillis.

“But, Captain,” continued Hennessy, “how they took on to your ‘tiger’! I thought they would have eaten the little chap, body, bones, and all.”

I was chafing with impatience to know more, but I saw that nothing worth knowing could be had in that quarter. I determined, therefore, to conceal my anxiety, and find an early opportunity to talk to Jack.

“But beyond the hacienda?” I inquired, changing the subject.

“We trailed you down stream to the cañon, where we found blood upon the rocks. Here we were at fault, when a handsome, delicate-looking lad, known somehow or other to your Jack, came up and carried us to the crossing above, where the lad gave us the slip, and we saw no more of him. We struck the hoofs again where he left us, and followed them to a small prairie on the edge of the woods, where the ground was strangely broken and trampled. There they had turned back, and we lost all trace.”

“But how, then, did you come here?”

“By accident altogether. We were striking to the nearest point on the National Road when that tall sergeant of yours dropped down upon us out of the branches of a tree.”

“Whom did you see, Jack?” I whispered to the boy, after having drawn him aside.

“I saw them all, Captain.”

“Well?”

“They asked where you were, and when I told them—”

“Well—well!”

“They appeared to wonder—”

“Well?”

“And the young ladies—”

“And the young ladies?”

“They ran round, and cried, and—”

Jack was the dove that brought the olive-branch.

“Did they say where they were going?” I inquired, after one of those sweet waking dreams.

“Yes, Captain, they are going up the country to live.”

“Where—where?”

“I could not recollect the name—it was so strange.”

“Jalapa? Orizava? Cordova? Puebla? Mexico?”

“I think it was one of them, but I cannot tell which. I have forgotten it, Captain.”

“Captain Haller!” called the voice of the major; “here a moment, if you please. These are some of the men who were going to hang you, are they not?”

Twing pointed to five of the Jarachos who had been captured in the skirmish.

“Yes,” replied I, “I think so; yet I could not swear to their identity.”

“By the crass, Major, I can swear to ivery mother’s son av thim! There isn’t a scoundhrel among thim but has given me rayzon to remimber him, iv a harty kick in the ribs might be called a rayzon. Oh! ye ugly spalpeens! kick me now, will yez?—will yez jist be plazed to trid upon the tail av my jacket?”

“Stand out here, my man,” said the major.

Chane stepped forward, and swore away the lives of the five Jarochos in less than as many minutes.

“Enough!” said the major, after the Irishman had given his testimony. “Lieutenant Claiborne,” continued he, addressing an officer the youngest in rank, “what sentence?”

“Hang!” replied the latter in a solemn voice.

“Lieutenant Hillis?”

“Hang!” was the reply.

“Lieutenant Clayley?”

“Hang!” said Clayley in a quick and emphatic tone.

“Captain Hennessy?”

“Hang them!” answered the Irishman.

“Captain Haller?”

“Have you determined, Major Twing?” I asked, intending, if possible, to mitigate this terrible sentence.

“We have no time, Captain Haller,” replied my superior, interrupting me, “nor opportunity to carry prisoners. Our army has reached Plan del Rio, and is preparing to attack the pass. An hour lost, and we may be too late for the battle. You know the result of that as well as I.”

I knew Twing’s determined character too well to offer further opposition, and the Jarochos were condemned to be hung.

The following extract from the major’s report of the affair will show how the sentence was carried out:

We killed five of them, and captured as many more, but the leader escaped. The prisoners were tried, and sentenced to be hung. They had a gallows already rigged for Captain Haller and his companions, and for want of a better we hanged them upon that.

Chapter Fifty One. A Bird’s-eye View of a Battle.

It was still only an hour by sun as we rode off from the Eagle’s Cave. At some distance I turned in my saddle and looked back. It was a singular sight, those five hanging corpses, and one not easily forgotten. What an appalling picture it must have been to their own comrades, who doubtless watched the spectacle from some distant elevation!

Motionless they hung, in all the picturesque drapery of their strange attire—draggling—dead! The pines bent slightly over, the eagle screamed as he swept past, and high in the blue air a thousand bald vultures wheeled and circled, descending at every curve.

Before we had ridden out of sight the Eagle’s Cliff was black with zopilotes, hundreds clustering upon the pines, and whetting their fetid beaks over their prey, still warm. I could not help being struck with this strange transposition of victims.

We forded the stream below, and travelled for some hours in a westerly course over a half-naked ridge. At mid-day we reached an arroyo—a clear, cool stream that gurgled along under a thick grove of the palma redonda. Here we “nooned”, stretching our bodies along the green-sward.

At sundown we rode into the pueblito (hamlet) of Jacomulco, where we had determined to pass the night. Twing levied on the alcalde for forage for “man and beast”. The horses were picketed in the plaza, while the men bivouacked by their fires—strong mounted pickets having been thrown out on the roads or tracks that led to the village.

By daybreak we were again in our saddles, and, riding across another ridge, we struck the Plan River five miles above the bridge, and commenced riding down the stream. We were still far from the water, which roared and “soughed” in the bottom of a barranca, hundreds of feet below our path.

On crossing an eminence a sight suddenly burst upon us that caused us to leap in our saddles. Directly before us, and not a mile distant, rose a high round hill like a semi-globe, and from a small tower upon its top waved the standard of Mexico.

Long lines of uniformed men girdled the tower, formed in rank. Horsemen in bright dresses galloped up and down the hill. We could see the glitter of brazen helmets, and the glancing of a thousand bayonets. The burnished howitzer flashed in the sunbeams, and we could discern the cannoniers standing by their posts. Bugles were braying and drums rolling. So near were they that we could distinguish the call. They were sounding the “long roll!”

“Halt! Great Heaven!” cried Twing, jerking his horse upon its haunches; “we are riding into the enemy’s camp! Guide,” he added, turning fiercely to Raoul, and half-drawing his sword, “what’s this?”

“The hill, Major,” replied the soldier coolly, “is ‘El Telegrafo’. It is the Mexican head-quarters, I take it.”

“And, sir, what mean you? It is not a mile distant?”

“It is ten miles, Major.”

“Ten! Why, sir, I can trace the eagle upon that flag! It is not one mile, by Heaven!”

“By the eye, true; but by the road, Major, it is what I have said—ten miles. We passed the crossing of the barranca some time ago; there is no other before we reach El Plan.”

It was true. Although within range of the enemy’s lightest metal, we were ten miles off!

A vast chasm yawned between us and them. The next moment we were upon its brink, and, wheeling sharply to the right, we trotted on as fast as the rocky road would allow us.

“O heavens! Haller, we shall be too late. Gallop!” shouted Twing, as we pressed our horses side by side.

The troop at the word sprang into a gallop. El Plan, the bridge, the hamlet, the American camp with its thousand white pyramids, all burst upon us like a flash—below, far below, lying like a map. We are still opposite El Telegrafo!

“By heavens!” cried Twing, “our camp is empty!”

A few figures only were visible, straggling among the tents: the teamster, the camp-guard, the invalid soldier.

“Look! look!”

I followed the direction indicated. Against the long ridge that rose over the camp a dark-blue line could be traced—a line of uniformed men, glistening as they moved with the sparkle of ten thousand bayonets. It wound along the hill like a bristling snake, and, heading towards El Telegrafo, disappeared for a moment behind the ridge.

A gun from the globe-shaped hill—and then another! another! another!—a roll of musketry!—drums—bugles—shouts—cheering!

“The battle’s begun!”

“We are too late!”

We were still eight miles from the scene of action. We checked up, and sat chafing in our saddles.

And now the roll of musketry became incessant, and we could hear the crack! crack! of the American rifles. And bombs hurtled and rockets hissed through the air.

The round hill was shrouded in a cloud of sulphur, and through the smoke we could see small parties creeping up from rock to rock, from bush to bush, firing as they went. We could see some tumbling back under the leaden hail that was poured upon them from above.

And then a strong band debouched from the woods below, and strained upwards, daring all danger. Up, up!—and bayonets were crossed, and sabres glistened and grew red, and wild cries filled the air. And then came a cheer, long, loud, and exulting, and under the thinning smoke thousands were seen rushing down the steep, and flinging themselves into the woods.

We knew not as yet which party it was that were thus flying. We looked at the tower in breathless suspense. The cloud was around its base, where musketry was still rolling, sending its deadly missiles after the fugitives below.

“Look! look!” cried a voice: “the Mexican flag—it is down! See! ‘the star-spangled banner!’”

The American standard was slowly unfolding itself over the blue smoke, and we could easily distinguish the stripes, and the dark square in the corner with its silvery stars; and, as if with one voice, our troops broke into a wild “Hurrah!”

In less time than you have taken in reading this account of it the battle of Cerro Gordo was lost and won.

Chapter Fifty Two. An Odd Way of Escaping from a Battle-field.

We sat on our horses, facing the globe-shaped summit of El Telegrafo, and watching our flag as it swung out from the tower.

“Look yonder! what is that?” cried an officer, pointing across the barranca.

All eyes were now turned in the direction indicated. A white line was slowly moving down the face of the opposite cliff.

“Rein back, men! rein back!” shouted Twing, as his eye rested upon the strange object. “Throw yourselves under cover of the hill!”

In a minute our whole party—dragoons, officers, and all—had galloped our horses into the bed of a dry arroyo, where we were completely screened from observation. Three or four of us, dismounting, along with Twing, crept cautiously forward to the position we had just left, and, raising our heads over the bunch-grass, looked across the chasm. We were close to its edge, and the opposite “cheek” of the barranca, a huge wall of trap-rock, about a mile horizontally distant, rose at least a thousand feet from the river bottom. Its face was almost perpendicular, with the exception of a few stairs or platforms in the basaltic strata, and from these hung out stunted palms, cedars, and dark, shapeless masses of cacti and agave.

Down this front the living line was still moving—slowly, zigzag—along narrow ledges and over jutting points, as though some white liquid or a train of gigantic insects were crawling down the precipice. The occasional flash of a bright object would have told us the nature of this strange phenomenon, had we not guessed it already. They were armed men—Mexicans—escaping from the field of battle; and in a wood upon the escarpment of the cliff we could perceive several thousands of their comrades huddled up, and waiting for an opportunity to descend. They were evidently concealed, and out of all danger from their pursuers on the other side. Indeed, the main body of the American army had already passed their position, and were moving along the Jalapa road, following

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