The Rover of the Andes: A Tale of Adventure on South America. Robert Michael Ballantyne
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of Chili, or the wretched levies of Peru, they are always prepared, for plunder—ready to make hay while the sun shines. I only hope, Senhor Armstrong, that—but come, let us advance and see before the sun sets.”
Turning abruptly as he spoke, the man mounted his mule and rode briskly up the winding road, followed by the Indian girl and our Englishman.
At the second turning of the road they reached a spot where an opening in the hills revealed the level country below, stretching away into illimitable distance.
As had been anticipated, they here came upon the mills they were in quest of. The Peruvian reined up abruptly and looked back.
“I feared as much,” he said in a low tone as the Englishman rode forward.
Rendered anxious by the man’s manner, Lawrence Armstrong sprang from his mule and pushed forward, but suddenly stopped and stood with clasped hands and a gaze of agony.
For there stood the ruins of his early home—where his mother had died while he was yet a child, where his father had made a fortune, which, in his desolation, he had failed to enjoy, and where he finally died, leaving his possessions to his only child.
The troops had visited the spot, fired no doubt with patriotic fervour and knowing its owner to be wealthy. They had sacked the place, feasted on the provisions, drunk the wines, smashed up, by way of pleasantry, all the valuables that were too heavy to carry away, and, finally, setting fire to the place, had marched off to other fields of “glory.”
It was a tremendous blow to poor Lawrence, coming as he did fresh from college in a peaceful land, and full of the reminiscences of childhood.
Sitting down on a broken wall, he bowed his head and wept bitterly—though silently—while the Peruvian, quietly retiring with the Indian girl, left him alone.
The first paroxysm of grief over, young Armstrong rose, and began sadly to wander about the ruins. It had been an extensive structure, fitted with all the most approved appliances of mechanism which wealth could purchase. These now helped to enhance the wild aspect of the wreck, for iron girders had been twisted by the action of fire into snake-like convolutions in some places, while, in others, their ends stuck out fantastically from the blackened walls. Beautiful furniture had been smashed up to furnish firewood for the cooking of the meal with which the heroic troops had refreshed themselves before leaving, while a number of broken wine-bottles at the side of a rosewood writing-desk with an empty bottle on the top of it and heaps of stones and pebbles around, suggested the idea that the warriors had mingled light amusement with sterner business. The roofs of most of the buildings had fallen in; the window-frames, where spared by the fire, had been torn out; and a pianoforte, which lay on its back on the grass, showed evidence of having undergone an examination of its internal arrangements, with the aid of the butt-ends of muskets.
“And this is the result of war!” muttered the young man, at last breaking silence.
“Only one phase of it,” replied a voice at his side, in tones of exceeding bitterness; “you must imagine a few corpses of slaughtered men and women and children, if you would have a perfect picture of war.”
The speaker was the Peruvian, who had quietly approached to say that if they wished to reach the next resting-place before dark it was necessary to proceed without delay.
“But perhaps,” he added, “you do not intend to go further. No doubt this was to have been the end of your journey had all been well. It can scarcely, I fear, be the end of it now. I do not wish to intrude upon your sorrows, Mr Armstrong, but my business will not admit of delay. I must push on, yet I would not do so without expressing my profound sympathy, and offering to aid you if it lies in my power.”
There was a tone and look about the man which awoke a feeling of gratitude and confidence in the forlorn youth’s heart.
“You are very kind,” he said, “but it is not in the power of man to help me. As your business is urgent you had better go and leave me. I thank you for the sympathy you express—yet stay. You cannot advance much further to-night, why not encamp here? There used to be a small hut or out-house not far-off, in which my father spent much of his leisure. Perhaps the—the—”
“Patriots!” suggested the Peruvian.
“The scoundrels,” said Lawrence, “may have spared or overlooked it. The hut would furnish shelter enough, and we have provisions with us.”
After a moment’s reflection the Peruvian assented to this proposal, and, leaving the ruins together, they returned to the road, where they found the Indian girl holding the youth’s mule as well as that of her companion.
Hastening forward, Lawrence apologised for having in the agitation of the moment allowed his mule to run loose.
“But I forgot,” he added, “of course you do not understand English.”
“Try Spanish,” suggested the Peruvian, “she knows a little of that.”
“Unfortunately I have forgotten the little that I had picked up here when a boy,” returned Lawrence, as he mounted, “if I can manage to ask for food and lodging in that tongue, it is all that I can do.”
They soon reached an opening in the bushes at the roadside, and, at the further end of a natural glade or track, observed a small wooden hut thatched with rushes. Towards this young Armstrong led the way.
He was evidently much affected, for his lips were compressed, and he gave no heed to a remark made by his companion. Entering the hut, he stood for some time looking silently round.
It was but a poor place with bare walls; a carpenter’s bench in one corner, near to it a smith’s forge, one or two chairs, and a few tools;—not much to interest a stranger but to Lawrence full of tender associations.
“It was here,” he said in tones of deepest pathos, “that my father showed me how to handle tools, and my mother taught me to read from the Word of God.”
Looking at his companions he observed that the large dark eyes of the Indian girl were fixed on him with an expression of unmistakable sympathy. He felt grateful at the moment, for to most men sympathy is sweet when unobtrusively offered whether it come from rich or poor—civilised or savage.
“Come, this will do,” said the Peruvian, looking round, “if you will kindle a fire on the forge, Senhor Armstrong, Manuela will arrange a sleeping chamber for herself in the closet I see there, while I look after the beasts.”
He spoke in cheering tones, which had the effect of rousing the poor youth somewhat from his despondency.
“Well, then,” he replied, “let us to work, and it is but just, as we are to sup together, and you know my name, that I should be put on an equal footing with yourself—”
“Impossible!” interrupted the other, with a slight curl of his moustache, “for as I am only six feet one, and you are at least six feet four, we can never be on an equal footing.”
“Nay, but I referred to names, not to inches. Pray, by what name shall I call you?”
“Pedro,” returned the Spaniard. “I am known by several names in these parts—some of them complimentary, others the reverse, according as I am referred to by friends or foes. Men often speak of me as a confirmed rover because of my wandering tendencies, but I’m not particular and will answer to any name you choose, so long as it is politely uttered. The one I prefer is Pedro.”
He went out as he spoke to look after the mules, while Lawrence set about kindling a small fire and otherwise making preparations for supper.
The Indian girl, Manuela, with that prompt and humble obedience characteristic of the race to which she belonged, had gone at once into the little closet which her companion had pointed out, and was by that time busily arranging it as a sleeping chamber for the night.
Chapter Two.
Compact with the New Friend and Discovery of an Old One
Keeping the fire low in order to prevent its being seen by any of the wandering bands of patriots—alias soldiers, alias banditti—who might