



Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




The Guerilla Chief
And other Tales
By Mayne Reid
Published by George Routledge and Sons Ltd. London.
This edition dated 1884.

The Guerilla Chief, by Mayne Reid.

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THE GUERILLA CHIEF, BY MAYNE REID.

Story 1, Chapter I.

CERRO GORDO.

"_Agua! por amor Dios, agua--aguita_!"  (Water! for the love of God, a
little water!)

I heard these words, as I lay in my tent, on the field of Cerro Gordo.

It was the night after the battle bearing this name--fought between the
American and Mexican armies in the month of April, 1847.

The routed regiments of Santa Anna--saving some four thousand men
captured upon the ground--had sought safety in flight, the greater body
taking the main road to Jalapa, pursued by our victorious troops; while
a large number, having sprawled down the almost perpendicular cliff that
overhangs the "Rio del Plan" escaped, unperceived and unpursued, into
the wild chapparals that cover the _piedmont_ of Perote.

Among these last was the _lame_ tyrant himself, or rather should I say,
_at their head leading the retreat_.  This has always been his favourite
position at the close of a battle that has gone against him; and a score
of such defeats can be recorded.

I could have captured him on that day but for the cowardice of a colonel
who had command over me and mine.  I alone, of all the American army,
saw Santa Anna making his escape from the field, and in such a direction
that I could without difficulty have intercepted his retreat.  With the
strength of a corporal's guard, I could have taken both him and his
glittering staff; but even this number of men was denied me, and _nolens
volens_ was I constrained to forego the pleasure of taking prisoner this
truculent tyrant, and hanging him to the nearest tree, which, as God is
my judge, I should most certainly have done.  Through the imbecility of
my superior officer, I lost the chance of a triumph calculated to have
given me considerable fame; while Mexico missed finding an avenger.

Strictly speaking, I was not _in_ the engagement of Cerro Gordo.  My
orders on that day--or rather those of the spruce colonel who commanded
me--were to guard a battery of mountain howitzers, that had been dragged
to the top of the cliff overlooking El plan--not that already mentioned
as the field of battle, and which was occupied by the enemy, but the
equally precipitous height on the opposite side of the river.

From early daylight until the Mexicans gave way, we kept firing at them
across the stupendous chasm that lay between us, doing them no great
damage, unless they were frightened by the whizz of an occasional
rocket, which our artillerist, Ripley--now a second-rate Secesh
general--succeeded in sending into their midst.

As to ourselves and the battery, there was no more danger of either
being assaulted by the enemy than there was of our being whisked over
the cliff by the tail of a comet.  There was not a Mexican soldier on
our side of the _barranca_; and as to any of them crossing over to us,
they could only have performed the feat in a balloon, or by making a
circuitous march of nearly a dozen miles.

For all this security, our stick-to-the-text colonel held close to the
little battery of howitzers; and would not have moved ten paces from it
to have accomplished the capture of the whole Mexican army.

Perfectly satisfied, from the "lights with which we had been furnished,"
that there was no danger to our battery, and chafing at the ill-luck
that had placed me so far away from the ground where laurels were
growing, and where others were in the act of reaping them, I lost all
interest in Ripley and his popguns; and straying along the summit of the
cliff, I sat me down upon its edge.

A yucca stood stiffly out from the brow of the precipice.  It was the
tree-yucca, and a huge bole of bayonet-shaped leaves crowning its
corrugated trunk shaded a spot of grass-covered turf, on the very edge
of the escarpment.

Had I not scaled the Andes, I might have hesitated to trust myself