



Produced by Camille Bernard & Marc D'Hooghe at
http://www.freeliterature.org





THE FREEBOOTERS.

A Story of the Texan War.

BY

GUSTAVE AIMARD,

AUTHOR OF "BORDER RIFLES," "THE INDIAN SCOUT," ETC.

LONDON:

WARD AND LOCK,

158, FLEET STREET.

MDCCCLXI.




PREFACE.


Apart from the thrilling interest of Aimard's new story, which I
herewith offer to English readers, I think it will be accepted with
greater satisfaction, as being an historical record of the last great
contest in which the North Americans were engaged. As at the present
moment everything is eagerly devoured that may tend to throw light on
the impending struggle between North and South, I believe that the story
of "THE FREEBOOTERS," which is rigorously true in its details, will
enable my readers to form a correct opinion of the character of the
Southerners.

The series, of which this volume forms a second link, will be completed
in a third volume, to be called "THE WHITE SCALPER," which contains an
elaborate account of the liberation of Texas, and the memorable battle
of San Jacinto, together with personal adventures of the most
extraordinary character.

L.W.

7, DRAYTON TERRACE,

WEST BROMPTON.




CONTENTS.


     I. FRAY ANTONIO
     II. INDIAN DIPLOMACY
     III. DOWN THE PRECIPICE
     IV. TWO ENEMIES
     V. GENERAL RUBIO
     VI. THE HUNTER'S COUNCIL
     VII. AN OLD FRIEND
     VIII. QUONIAM'S RETURN
     IX. HOSPITALITY
     X. THE LARCH-TREE HACIENDA
     XI. A METAMORPHOSIS
     XII. THE SUMMONS
     XIII. THE SIEGE
     XIV. THE PROPOSAL
     XV. A THUNDERBOLT
     XVI. THE CONSPIRATORS
     XVII. THE SPY
     XVIII. THE PULQUERIA
     XIX. AT SEA
     XX. THE PRIZE
     XXI. A STRANGE LEGEND
     XXII. THE SURPRISE
     XXIII. EL SALTO DEL FRAYLE
     XXIV. THE LANDING
     XXV. FORWARD!




CHAPTER I.

FRAY ANTONIO.


All the wood rangers have noticed, with reference to the immense virgin
forests which still cover a considerable extent of the soil of the New
World, that, to the man who attempts to penetrate into one of these
mysterious retreats which the hand of man has not yet deformed, and
which preserve intact the sublime stamp which Deity has imprinted on
them, the first steps offer almost insurmountable difficulties, which
are gradually smoothed down more and more, and after a little while
almost entirely disappear. It is as if Nature had desired to defend by a
belt of thorns and spikes the mysterious shades of these aged forests,
in which her most secret arcana are carried out.

Many times, during our wanderings in America, we were in a position to
appreciate the correctness of the remark we have just made: this
singular arrangement of the forests, surrounded, as it were, by a
rampart of parasitic plants entangled one in the other, and thrusting in
every direction their shoots full of incredible sap, seemed a problem
which offered a certain degree of interest from various points of view,
and especially from that of science.

It is evident to us that the circulation of the air favours the
development of vegetation. The air which circulates freely round a large
extent of ground covered with lofty trees, and is driven by the various
breezes that agitate the atmosphere, penetrates to a certain depth into
the clumps of trees it surrounds, and consequently supplies nourishment
to all the parasitical shrubs vegetation presents to it. But, on
reaching a certain depth under the covert, the air, less frequently
renewed, no longer supplies carbonic acid to all the vegetation that
covers the soil, and which, through the absence of that aliment, pines
away and dies.

This is so true, that those accidents of soil which permit the air a
more active circulation in certain spots, such as the bed of a torrent
or a gorge between two eminences, the entrance of which is open to the
prevailing wind, favour the development of a more luxuriant vegetation
than in flat places.

It is more than probable that Fray Antonio[1] made none of the
reflections with which we begin this chapter, while he stepped silently
and quietly through the trees, leaving the man who had helped him, and
probably saved his life, to struggle as he could with the crowd of
Redskins who attacked him, and against whom he would indubitably have
great difficulty in defending him.

Fray Antonio was no coward; far from it: in several critical
circumstances he had displayed true bravery; but he was a man to whom
the existence he led offered enormous advantages and incalculable
delights. Life seemed to him good, and he did all in his power to spend
it jolly and free from care. Hence, through respect for himself, he was
extremely prudent, only facing danger when it was absolutely necessary;
but at such times, like all men driven into a corner, he became terrible
and really dangerous to those who, in one way or the other, had provoked
in him this explosion of passion.

In Mexico, and generally throughout Spanish America, as the clergy are
only recruited from the poorest class of the population, their ranks
contain men of gross ignorance, and for the most part of more than
doubtful morality. The religious orders, which form nearly one-third of
the population, living nearly independent of all subjection and control,
receive among them people of all sorts, for whom the religious dress
they don is a cloak behind which they give way with perfect liberty to
their vices, of which the most venial are indubitably indolence, luxury,
and intoxication.

Enjoying a great credit with the civilized Indian population, and
greatly respected by them, the monks impudently abuse that halo of
sanctity which surrounds them, in order to shamefully plunder these poor
people under the slightest excuses.

Indeed, blackguardism and demoralisation have attained such a pitch in
these unhappy countries, which are old and decrepit without ever having
been young, that the conduct of the monks, offensive it may seem in the
sight of Europeans, has nothing at all extraordinary for those among
whom they live.

Far from us the thought of leading it to be supposed that among the
Mexican clergy, and even the monks we have so decried, there are not men
worthy of the gown they wear, and convinced of the sanctity of their
mission; we have, indeed, known many of that character; but
unfortunately they form so insignificant a minority, that they must be
regarded as the exception.

Fray Antonio was assuredly no better or worse than the other monks whose
gown he wore; but, unluckily for him, for some time past fatality
appeared to have vented its spite on him, and mixed him up, despite his
firm will, in events, not only opposed to his character but to his
habits, which led him into a multitude of tribulations each more
disagreeable than the other, and which were beginning to make him
consider that life extremely bitter, which he had hitherto found so
pleasant.

The atrocious mystification of which John Davis had rendered the poor
monk a victim, had especially spread a gloomy haze over his hitherto so
gay mind; a sad despondency had seized upon him; and it was with a heavy
and uncertain step that he fled through the forest, although, excited by
the sounds of combat that still reached his ear, he made haste to get
off, through fear of falling into the hands of the Redskins, if they
proved the victors.

Night surprised poor Fray Antonio ere he had reached the skirt of this
forest, which seemed to him interminable. Naturally anything but
hard-working, and not at all used to desert life, the monk found himself
greatly embarrassed when he saw the sun disappear on the horizon in a
mist of purple and gold, and the darkness almost instantaneously cover
the earth. Unarmed, without means of lighting a fire, half-dead with
hunger and alarm, the monk took a long glance of despair around him,