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<h3>Chapter Ninety Two.</h3> <h4>Gabriella Gonzales.</h4> “Puez, Señor!” commenced the Mexican, “your comrades tell me, you have been campaigning down below on the Rio Grande.” “Quite true—I have.” “Then you know something of our Mexican frontier life—how for the last half century we have been harassed by the Indios bravos—our ranchos given to the flames—our grand haciendas plundered and laid waste—our very towns attacked—many of them pillaged, destroyed, and now lying in ruins.” “I have heard of these devastations. Down in Texas, I have myself been an eye-witness to a similar condition of things.” “Ah! true, señor. Down there—in Tejas and Tamaulipas—things, I have heard, are bad enough. Carrai! here in New Mexico they are ten times worse. There they have the Comanches and Lipanos. Here we have an enemy on every side. On the east Caygüa and Comanche, on the west the Apache and Navajo. On the south our country is harassed by the Wolf and Mezcalero Apachés, on the north by their kindred, the Jicarillas; while, now and then, it pleases our present allies the Utahs, to ornament their shields with the scalps of our people, and their wigwams with the fairest of our women. Carrambo! señor! a happy country ours, is it not?” The ironically bitter speech was intended for a reflection, rather than an interrogation, and therefore needed no reply. I made none. “Puez, amigo!” continued the Mexican, “I need hardly tell you that there is scarce a family on the Rio del Norte—from Taos to El Paso—that has not good cause to lament this unhappy condition of things; scarce one that has not personally suffered, from the inroads of the savages. I might speak of houses pillaged and burnt; of maize-fields laid waste to feed the horses of the roving marauder; of sheep and cattle driven off to desert fastnesses; bah! what are all these? What signify such trifling misfortunes, compared with that other calamity, which almost every family in the land may lament—the loss of one or more of its members—wife, daughter, sister, child—borne off into hopeless bandage, to satisfy the will, or gratify the lust, of a merciless barbarian?” “A fearful state of affairs!” “Ay señor! Even the bride has been snatched off, from before the altar—from the arms of the bridegroom fondly clasping, and before he has had time to caress her! Ay de mi, cavallero! Truly can I say that: it has been my own story.” “Yours?” “Yes—mine. You ask me for souvenirs. There is one that will cling to me for life!” The Mexican pointed to his mutilated limb. “Carrambo!” continued he, “that is nothing. There is another wound here—here in my heart. It was received at the same time; and will last equally as long—only a thousand times more painful.” These words were accompanied by a gesture. The speaker placed his hand over his heart, and held it there to the end of his speech—as if to still the sad sigh, that I could see swelling within his bosom. His countenance, habitually cheerful—almost comic in its expression—had assumed an air of concentrated anguish. It was easy to divine that he had been the victim of some cruel outrage. My curiosity had become fully aroused; and I felt an eager desire to hear a tale, which, though beyond doubt painful, could not be otherwise than one of romantic interest. “Your lameness, then, had something to do with the story of your blighted love? You say that both misfortunes happened to you at the same time!” My interrogatives were intended to arouse him from the reverie into which he had fallen. I was successful; and the recital was continued. “True, señor—both came together; but you shall hear all. It is not often I speak of the affair, though it is seldom out of my thoughts, I have tried to forget it. Carrambo! how could I, with a thing like that constantly recalling it to my memory?” The speaker again pointed to his deformed foot with a smile of bitter significance. “Por Dios, cavallero! I think of it often enough; but just now more than common. Their presence—” he nodded towards the lovers, whose forms were just visible in the grey twilight, “the happiness I see reminds me of my own misery. More especially does she recall the misfortune to my memory—this wild huntress who has had misfortunes of her own. But beyond that, señor, though you may think it strange, your conpaisana is wonderfully like what she was.” “Like whom?” “Ah! señor, I have not told you? She that I loved with all the love in my heart—the beautiful Gabriella Gonzales.” Men of the Spanish race—however humble their social rank—are gifted with a certain eloquence; and in this case passion was lending poetry to the speech. No wonder I became deeply interested in the tale, and longed to hear more of Gabriella Gonzales. “En verdad,” continued the Mexican, after a pause, “there are many things in the character of your countrywoman to remind me of my lost love—even in her looks. Gabriella, like her, was beautiful. Perhaps your comrade yonder might not think her so beautiful as the huntress; but that is natural. In my mind Gabriella was everything. She had Indian blood in her veins: we all have in these parts, though we boast of our pure Spanish descent. No matter; Gabriella was white enough—to my eyes white as the lily that sparkles upon the surface of the lagoon. Like yonder maiden, she inherited from her ancestors a free daring spirit. She feared neither our Indian enemies, nor danger of any kind—Por Dios! Not she.” “Of course she loved you?” “Ah! that truly did she—else why should she have consented to marry me? What was I? A poor cibolero—at times a hunter and trapper of beavers, just as I am now? I was possessed of nothing but my horse and traps; whiles he—Carrambo! señor, proud ricos pretended to her hand!” It is possible that my countenance may have expressed incredulity. It was difficult to conceive how the diminutive Mexican—as he appeared just then in my eyes—could have won the love of such a grand belle as he was describing Gabriella to be. Still was he not altogether unhandsome; and in earlier life—before his great misfortune had befallen him—he might have been gifted with some personal graces. High qualities, I had heard of his possessing—among others courage beyond question or suspicion; and in those frontier regions—accursed by the continual encroachment of Indian warfare, and where human life is every day in danger—that is a quality of the first class—esteemed by all, but by none more than those who stand most in need of protection—the women. Often there as elsewhere—more often than elsewhere—does courage take precedence of mere personal appearance, and boldness wins the smile of beauty. It was possible that the possession of this quality on the part of Pedro Archilete had influenced the heart of the fair Gabriella. This might explain her preference. The Mexican must have partially divined my thoughts, as was proved by the speech that followed. “Yes, amigo! more than one rich haciendado would have been only too happy to have married Gabriella; and yet she consented to become my wife, though I was just as I am now. May be a little better looking than at this time; though I can’t say that I ever passed for an Apollo. No—no—señor. It was not my good looks that won the heart of the girl.” “Your good qualities?” “Not much to boast of, cavallero. True, in my youth, I had the name of being the best horseman in our village—the best rastreador—the most skilful trapper. I could ‘tail the bull,’ ‘run the cock,’ and pick up a girl’s ribbon at full gallop—perhaps a little more adroitly than my competitors; but I think it was something else that first gained me the young girl’s esteem. I had the good fortune once to save her life—when, by her own imprudence, she had gone out too far from the village, and was attacked by a grizzly bear. Ay de mi! It mattered not. Poor niña! She might as well have perished then, by the monster’s claws. She met her death from worse monsters—a death far more horrible; but you shall hear.” “Go on! From what you have disclosed, I am painfully interested in your tale.” <hr /></div> <div class="bodytext"> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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