In Search of the Castaways; or the Children of Captain Grant

CHAPTER XIX THE RED WOLVES

NIGHT came, but the orb of night was in­vis­ible to the in­hab­itants of the earth, for she was just in her first quar­ter. The dim light of the stars was all that il­lu­mined the plain. The wa­ters of the Guami­ni ran silent­ly, like a sheet of oil over a sur­face of mar­ble. Birds, quadrupeds, and rep­tiles were rest­ing mo­tion­less af­ter the fa­tigues of the day, and the si­lence of the desert brood­ed over the far-​spread­ing Pam­pas.

Gle­nar­van, Robert, and Thal­cave, had fol­lowed the com­mon ex­am­ple, and lay in pro­found slum­ber on their soft couch of lucerne. The worn-​out hors­es had stretched them­selves full length on the ground, ex­cept Thaou­ka, who slept stand­ing, true to his high blood, proud in re­pose as in ac­tion, and ready to start at his mas­ter’s call. Ab­so­lute si­lence reigned with­in the in­clo­sure, over which the dy­ing em­bers of the fire shed a fit­ful light.

How­ev­er, the In­di­an’s sleep did not last long; for about ten o’clock he woke, sat up, and turned his ear to­ward the plain, lis­ten­ing in­tent­ly, with half-​closed eyes. An un­easy look be­gan to de­pict it­self on his usu­al­ly im­pas­sive face. Had he caught scent of some par­ty of In­di­an ma­raud­ers, or of jaguars, wa­ter tigers, and oth­er ter­ri­ble an­imals that haunt the neigh­bor­hood of rivers? Ap­par­ent­ly it was the lat­ter, for he threw a rapid glance on the com­bustible ma­te­ri­als heaped up in the in­clo­sure, and the ex­pres­sion of anx­iety on his coun­te­nance seemed to deep­en. This was not sur­pris­ing, as the whole pile of AL­FA­FARES would soon burn out and could on­ly ward off the at­tacks of wild beasts for a brief in­ter­val.

There was noth­ing to be done in the cir­cum­stances but wait; and wait he did, in a half-​re­cum­bent pos­ture, his head lean­ing on his hands, and his el­bows on his knees, like a man roused sud­den­ly from his night’s sleep.

A whole hour passed, and any­one ex­cept Thal­cave would have lain down again on his couch, re­as­sured by the si­lence round him. But where a stranger would have sus­pect­ed noth­ing, the sharp­ened sens­es of the In­di­an de­tect­ed the ap­proach of dan­ger.

As he was thus watch­ing and lis­ten­ing, Thaou­ka gave a low neigh, and stretched his nos­trils to­ward the en­trance of the RA­MA­DA.

This star­tled the Patag­oni­an, and made him rise to his feet at once.

“Thaou­ka scents an en­emy,” he said to him­self, go­ing to­ward the open­ing, to make care­ful sur­vey of the plains.

Si­lence still pre­vailed, but not tran­quil­li­ty; for Thal­cave caught a glimpse of shad­ows mov­ing noise­less­ly over the tufts of CUR­RA-​MAM­MEL. Here and there lu­mi­nous spots ap­peared, dy­ing out and rekin­dling con­stant­ly, in all di­rec­tions, like fan­tas­tic lights danc­ing over the sur­face of an im­mense la­goon. An in­ex­pe­ri­enced eye might have mis­tak­en them for fire­flies, which shine at night in many parts of the Pam­pas; but Thal­cave was not de­ceived; he knew the en­emies he had to deal with, and lost no time in load­ing his car­bine and tak­ing up his post in front of the fence.

He did not wait long, for a strange cry–a con­fused sound of bark­ing and howl­ing–broke over the Pam­pas, fol­lowed next in­stant by the re­port of the car­bine, which made the up­roar a hun­dred times worse.

Gle­nar­van and Robert woke in alarm, and start­ed to their feet in­stant­ly.

“What is it?” ex­claimed Robert.

“Is it the In­di­ans?” asked Gle­nar­van.

“No,” replied Thal­cave, “the AGUARAS.”

“AGUARAS?” said Robert, look­ing in­quir­ing­ly at Gle­nar­van.

“Yes,” replied Gle­nar­van, “the red wolves of the Pam­pas.”

They seized their weapons at once, and sta­tioned them­selves be­side the Patag­oni­an, who point­ed to­ward the plain from whence the yelling re­sound­ed.

Robert drew back in­vol­un­tar­ily.

“You are not afraid of wolves, my boy?” said Gle­nar­van.

“No, my Lord,” said the lad in a firm tone, “and more­over, be­side you I am afraid of noth­ing.”

“So much the bet­ter. These AGUARAS are not very formidable ei­ther; and if it were not for their num­ber I should not give them a thought.”

“Nev­er mind; we are all well armed; let them come.”

“We’ll cer­tain­ly give them a warm re­cep­tion,” re­joined Gle­nar­van.

His Lord­ship on­ly spoke thus to re­as­sure the child, for a se­cret ter­ror filled him at the sight of this le­gion of blood­thirsty an­imals let loose on them at mid­night.

There might pos­si­bly be some hun­dreds, and what could three men do, even armed to the teeth, against such a mul­ti­tude?

As soon as Thal­cave said the word AGUARA, Gle­nar­van knew that he meant the red wolf, for this is the name giv­en to it by the Pam­pas In­di­ans. This vo­ra­cious an­imal, called by nat­ural­ists the _Ca­nis ju­ba­tus_, is in shape like a large dog, and has the head of a fox. Its fur is a red­dish-​cin­na­mon col­or, and there is a black mane all down the back. It is a strong, nim­ble an­imal, gen­er­al­ly in­hab­it­ing marshy places, and pur­su­ing aquat­ic an­imals by swim­ming, prowl­ing about by night and sleep­ing dur­ing the day. Its at­tacks are par­tic­ular­ly dread­ed at the ES­TANCIAS, or sheep sta­tions, as it of­ten com­mits con­sid­er­able rav­ages, car­ry­ing off the finest of the flock. Singly, the AGUARA is not much to be feared; but they gen­er­al­ly go in im­mense packs, and one had bet­ter have to deal with a jaguar or cougar than with them.

Both from the noise of the howl­ing and the mul­ti­tude of shad­ows leap­ing about, Gle­nar­van had a pret­ty good idea of the num­ber of the wolves, and he knew they had scent­ed a good meal of hu­man flesh or horse flesh, and none of them would go back to their dens with­out a share. It was cer­tain­ly a very alarm­ing sit­ua­tion to be in.

The as­sailants were grad­ual­ly draw­ing clos­er. The hors­es dis­played signs of the liveli­est ter­ror, with the ex­cep­tion of Thaou­ka, who stamped his foot, and tried to break loose and get out. His mas­ter could on­ly calm him by keep­ing up a low, con­tin­uous whis­tle.

Gle­nar­van and Robert had post­ed them­selves so as to de­fend the open­ing of the RA­MA­DA. They were just go­ing to fire in­to the near­est ranks of the wolves when Thal­cave low­ered their weapons.

“What does Thal­cave mean?” asked Robert.

“He for­bids our fir­ing.”

“And why?”

“Per­haps he thinks it is not the right time.”

But this was not the In­di­an’s rea­son, and so Gle­nar­van saw when he lift­ed the pow­der-​flask, showed him it was near­ly emp­ty.

“What’s wrong?” asked Robert.

“We must hus­band our am­mu­ni­tion,” was the re­ply. “To-​day’s shoot­ing has cost us dear, and we are short of pow­der and shot. We can’t fire more than twen­ty times.”

The boy made no re­ply, and Gle­nar­van asked him if he was fright­ened.

“No, my Lord,” he said.

“That’s right,” re­turned Gle­nar­van.

A fresh re­port re­sound­ed that in­stant. Thal­cave had made short work of one as­sailant more au­da­cious than the rest, and the in­fu­ri­at­ed pack had re­treat­ed to with­in a hun­dred steps of the in­clo­sure.

On a sign from the In­di­an Gle­nar­van took his place, while Thal­cave went back in­to the in­clo­sure and gath­ered up all the dried grass and AL­FA­FARES, and, in­deed, all the com­bustibles he could rake to­geth­er, and made a pile of them at the en­trance. In­to this he flung one of the still-​glow­ing em­bers, and soon the bright flames shot up in­to the dark night. Gle­nar­van could now get a good glimpse of his an­tag­onists, and saw that it was im­pos­si­ble to ex­ag­ger­ate their num­bers or their fury. The bar­ri­er of fire just raised by Thal­cave had re­dou­bled their anger, though it had cut off their ap­proach. Sev­er­al of them, how­ev­er, urged on by the hind­most ranks, pushed for­ward in­to the very flames, and burned their paws for their pains.

From time to time an­oth­er shot had to be fired, notwith­stand­ing the fire, to keep off the howl­ing pack, and in the course of an hour fif­teen dead an­imals lay stretched on the prairie.

The sit­ua­tion of the be­sieged was, rel­ative­ly speak­ing, less dan­ger­ous now. As long as the pow­der last­ed and the bar­ri­er of fire burned on, there was no fear of be­ing over­mas­tered. But what was to be done af­ter­ward, when both means of de­fense failed at once?

Gle­nar­van’s heart swelled as he looked at Robert. He for­got him­self in think­ing of this poor child, as he saw him show­ing a courage so far above his years. Robert was pale, but he kept his gun steady, and stood with firm foot ready to meet the at­tacks of the in­fu­ri­at­ed wolves.

How­ev­er, af­ter Gle­nar­van had calm­ly sur­veyed the ac­tu­al state of af­fairs, he de­ter­mined to bring things to a cri­sis.

“In an hour’s time,” he said, “we shall nei­ther have pow­der nor fire. It will nev­er do to wait till then be­fore we set­tle what to do.”

Ac­cord­ing­ly, he went up to Thal­cave, and tried to talk to him by the help of the few Span­ish words his mem­ory could muster, though their con­ver­sa­tion was of­ten in­ter­rupt­ed by one or the oth­er hav­ing to fire a shot.

It was no easy task for the two men to un­der­stand each oth­er, but, most for­tu­nate­ly, Gle­nar­van knew a great deal of the pe­cu­liar­ities of the red wolf; oth­er­wise he could nev­er have in­ter­pret­ed the In­di­an’s words and ges­tures.

As it was, ful­ly a quar­ter of an hour elapsed be­fore he could get any an­swer from Thal­cave to tell Robert in re­ply to his in­quiry.

“What does he say?”

“He says that at any price we must hold out till day­break. The AGUARA on­ly prowls about at night, and goes back to his lair with the first streak of dawn. It is a cow­ard­ly beast, that loves the dark­ness and dreads the light–an owl on four feet.”

“Very well, let us de­fend our­selves, then, till morn­ing.”

“Yes, my boy, and with knife-​thrusts, when gun and shots fail.”

Al­ready Thal­cave had set the ex­am­ple, for when­ev­er a wolf came too near the burn­ing pile, the long arm of the Patag­oni­an dashed through the flames and came out again red­dened with blood.

But very soon this means of de­fense would be at an end. About two o’clock, Thal­cave flung his last arm­ful of com­bustibles in­to the fire, and bare­ly enough pow­der re­mained to load a gun five times.

Gle­nar­van threw a sor­row­ful glance round him. He thought of the lad stand­ing there, and of his com­pan­ions and those left be­hind, whom he loved so dear­ly.

Robert was silent. Per­haps the dan­ger seemed less im­mi­nent to his imag­ina­tion. But Gle­nar­van thought for him, and pic­tured to him­self the hor­ri­ble fate that seemed to await him in­evitably. Quite over­come by his emo­tion, he took the child in his arms, and strain­ing him con­vul­sive­ly to his heart, pressed his lips on his fore­head, while tears he could not re­strain streamed down his cheeks.

Robert looked up in­to his face with a smile, and said, “I am not fright­ened.”

“No, my child, no! and you are right. In two hours day­break will come, and we shall be saved. Bra­vo, Thal­cave! my brave Patag­oni­an! Bra­vo!” he added as the In­di­an that mo­ment lev­eled two enor­mous beasts who en­deav­ored to leap across the bar­ri­er of flames.

But the fire was fast dy­ing out, and the DE­NOUE­MENT of the ter­ri­ble dra­ma was ap­proach­ing. The flames got low­er and low­er. Once more the shad­ows of night fell on the prairie, and the glar­ing eyes of the wolves glowed like phos­pho­res­cent balls in the dark­ness. A few min­utes longer, and the whole pack would be in the in­clo­sure.

Thal­cave load­ed his car­bine for the last time, killed one more enor­mous mon­ster, and then fold­ed his arms. His head sank on his chest, and he ap­peared buried in deep thought. Was he plan­ning some dar­ing, im­pos­si­ble, mad at­tempt to re­pulse the in­fu­ri­at­ed horde? Gle­nar­van did not ven­ture to ask.

At this very mo­ment the wolves be­gan to change their tac­tics. The deaf­en­ing howls sud­den­ly ceased: they seemed to be go­ing away. Gloomy si­lence spread over the prairie, and made Robert ex­claim:

“They’re gone!”

But Thal­cave, guess­ing his mean­ing, shook his head. He knew they would nev­er re­lin­quish their sure prey till day­break made them has­ten back to their dens.

Still, their plan of at­tack had ev­ident­ly been al­tered. They no longer at­tempt­ed to force the en­trance, but their new ma­neu­vers on­ly height­ened the dan­ger.

They had gone round the RA­MA­DA, as by com­mon con­sent, and were try­ing to get in on the op­po­site side.

The next minute they heard their claws at­tack­ing the molder­ing wood, and al­ready formidable paws and hun­gry, sav­age jaws had found their way through the pal­ings. The ter­ri­fied hors­es broke loose from their hal­ters and ran about the in­clo­sure, mad with fear.

Gle­nar­van put his arms round the young lad, and re­solved to de­fend him as long as his life held out. Pos­si­bly he might have made a use­less at­tempt at flight when his eye fell on Thal­cave.

The In­di­an had been stalk­ing about the RA­MA­DA like a stag, when he sud­den­ly stopped short, and go­ing up to his horse, who was trem­bling with im­pa­tience, be­gan to sad­dle him with the most scrupu­lous care, with­out for­get­ting a sin­gle strap or buck­le. He seemed no longer to dis­turb him­self in the least about the wolves out­side, though their yells had re­dou­bled in in­ten­si­ty. A dark sus­pi­cion crossed Gle­nar­van’s mind as he watched him.

“He is go­ing to desert us,” he ex­claimed at last, as he saw him seize the reins, as if prepar­ing to mount.

“He! nev­er!” replied Robert. In­stead of de­sert­ing them, the truth was that the In­di­an was go­ing to try and save his friends by sac­ri­fic­ing him­self.

Thaou­ka was ready, and stood champ­ing his bit. He reared up, and his splen­did eyes flashed fire; he un­der­stood his mas­ter.

But just as the Patag­oni­an caught hold of the horse’s mane, Gle­nar­van seized his arm with a con­vul­sive grip, and said, point­ing to the open prairie.

“You are go­ing away?”

V. IV Verne

“Yes,” replied the In­di­an, un­der­stand­ing his ges­ture. Then he said a few words in Span­ish, which meant: “_Thaou­ka; good horse; quick; will draw all the wolves away af­ter him_.”

“Oh, Thal­cave,” ex­claimed Gle­nar­van.

“Quick, quick!” replied the In­di­an, while Gle­nar­van said, in a bro­ken, ag­itat­ed voice to Robert:

“Robert, my child, do you hear him? He wants to sac­ri­fice him­self for us. He wants to rush away over the Pam­pas, and turn off the wolves from us by at­tract­ing them to him­self.”

“Friend Thal­cave,” re­turned Robert, throw­ing him­self at the feet of the Patag­oni­an, “friend Thal­cave, don’t leave us!”

“No,” said Gle­nar­van, “he shall not leave us.”

And turn­ing to­ward the In­di­an, he said, point­ing to the fright­ened hors­es, “Let us go to­geth­er.”

“No,” replied Thal­cave, catch­ing his mean­ing. “Bad beasts; fright­ened; Thaou­ka, good horse.”

“Be it so then!” re­turned Gle­nar­van. “Thal­cave will not leave you, Robert. He teach­es me what I must do. It is for me to go, and for him to stay by you.”

Then seiz­ing Thaou­ka’s bri­dle, he said, “I am go­ing, Thal­cave, not you.”

“No,” replied the Patag­oni­an qui­et­ly.

“I am,” ex­claimed Gle­nar­van, snatch­ing the bri­dle out of his hands. “I, my­self! Save this boy, Thal­cave! I com­mit him to you.”

Gle­nar­van was so ex­cit­ed that he mixed up En­glish words with his Span­ish. But what mat­tered the lan­guage at such a ter­ri­ble mo­ment. A ges­ture was enough. The two men un­der­stood each oth­er.

How­ev­er, Thal­cave would not give in, and though ev­ery in­stant’s de­lay but in­creased the dan­ger, the dis­cus­sion con­tin­ued.

Nei­ther Gle­nar­van nor Thal­cave ap­peared in­clined to yield. The In­di­an had dragged his com­pan­ion to­wards the en­trance of the RA­MA­DA, and showed him the prairie, mak­ing him un­der­stand that now was the time when it was clear from the wolves; but that not a mo­ment was to be lost, for should this ma­neu­ver not suc­ceed, it would on­ly ren­der the sit­ua­tion of those left be­hind more des­per­ate. and that he knew his horse well enough to be able to trust his won­der­ful light­ness and swift­ness to save them all. But Gle­nar­van was blind and ob­sti­nate, and de­ter­mined to sac­ri­fice him­self at all haz­ards, when sud­den­ly he felt him­self vi­olent­ly pushed back. Thaou­ka pranced up, and reared him­self bolt up­right on his hind legs, and made a bound over the bar­ri­er of fire, while a clear, young voice called out:

“God save you, my lord.”

But be­fore ei­ther Thal­cave or Gle­nar­van could get more than a glimpse of the boy, hold­ing on fast by Thaou­ka’s mane, he was out of sight.

“Robert! oh you un­for­tu­nate boy,” cried Gle­nar­van.

But even Thal­cave did not catch the words, for his voice was drowned in the fright­ful up­roar made by the wolves, who had dashed off at a tremen­dous speed on the track of the horse.

Thal­cave and Gle­nar­van rushed out of the RA­MA­DA. Al­ready the plain had re­cov­ered its tran­quil­li­ty, and all that could be seen of the red wolves was a mov­ing line far away in the dis­tant dark­ness.

Gle­nar­van sank pros­trate on the ground, and clasped his hands de­spair­ing­ly. He looked at Thal­cave, who smiled with his ac­cus­tomed calm­ness, and said:

“Thaou­ka, good horse. Brave boy. He will save him­self!”

“And sup­pose he falls?” said Gle­nar­van.

“He’ll not fall.”

But notwith­stand­ing Thal­cave’s as­sur­ances, poor Gle­nar­van spent the rest of the night in tor­tur­ing anx­iety. He seemed quite in­sen­si­ble now to the dan­ger they had es­caped through the de­par­ture of the wolves, and would have has­tened im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter Robert if the In­di­an had not kept him back by mak­ing him un­der­stand the im­pos­si­bil­ity of their hors­es over­tak­ing Thaou­ka; and al­so that boy and horse had out­dis­tanced the wolves long since, and that it would be use­less go­ing to look for them till day­light.

At four o’clock morn­ing be­gan to dawn. A pale glim­mer ap­peared in the hori­zon, and pearly drops of dew lay thick on the plain and on the tall grass, al­ready stirred by the breath of day.

The time for start­ing had ar­rived.

“Now!” cried Thal­cave, “come.”

Gle­nar­van made no re­ply, but took Robert’s horse and sprung in­to the sad­dle. Next minute both men were gal­lop­ing at full speed to­ward the west, in the line in which their com­pan­ions ought to be ad­vanc­ing. They dashed along at a prodi­gious rate for a full hour, dread­ing ev­ery minute to come across the man­gled corpse of Robert. Gle­nar­van had torn the flanks of his horse with his spurs in his mad haste, when at last gun-​shots were heard in the dis­tance at reg­ular in­ter­vals, as if fired as a sig­nal.

“There they are!” ex­claimed Gle­nar­van; and both he and the In­di­an urged on their steeds to a still quick­er pace, till in a few min­utes more they came up to the lit­tle de­tach­ment con­duct­ed by Pa­ganel. A cry broke from Gle­nar­van’s lips, for Robert was there, alive and well, still mount­ed on the su­perb Thaou­ka, who neighed loud­ly with de­light at the sight of his mas­ter.

“Oh, my child, my child!” cried Gle­nar­van, with in­de­scrib­able ten­der­ness in his tone.

Both he and Robert leaped to the ground, and flung them­selves in­to each oth­er’s arms. Then the In­di­an hugged the brave boy in his arms.

“He is alive, he is alive,” re­peat­ed Gle­nar­van again and again.

“Yes,” replied Robert; “and thanks to Thaou­ka.”

This great recog­ni­tion of his fa­vorite’s ser­vices was whol­ly un­ex­pect­ed by the In­di­an, who was talk­ing to him that minute, ca­ress­ing and speak­ing to him, as if hu­man blood flowed in the veins of the proud crea­ture. Then turn­ing to Pa­ganel, he point­ed to Robert, and said, “A brave!” and em­ploy­ing the In­di­an metaphor, he added, “his spurs did not trem­ble!”

But Gle­nar­van put his arms round the boy and said, “Why wouldn’t you let me or Thal­cave run the risk of this last chance of de­liv­er­ance, my son?”

“My lord,” replied the boy in tones of grat­itude, “wasn’t it my place to do it? Thal­cave has saved my life al­ready, and you– you are go­ing to save my fa­ther.”