Chapter XIX: The Way to Treat the Redskins

"Montoro! I say, Montoro, I have news for thee."

"Out with it then," came the answer from our friend, who was once more engaged in his occupation of eight years before at Veragua. Houses were built there for a colony that was never founded, and now Montoro and his companions were building houses on the island of Cuba, with a very fair prospect of inhabiting them.

Only one chief had offered any determined resistance to the invaders, and even his followers were not numerous enough to excite much anxiety. He had fled from his native land of Hispaniola to escape the Spanish rule, and now he was brought to bay, and compelled to make a final effort for independence. It had just been decided to send out a party against him, strong enough, as Velasquez put it, "To conquer the rebel once for all, and have done with it."

"And I am to be one of the party," said Juan de Cabrera, excitedly. "And if you choose you also are to have a hand in catching this Hatuey, and helping to make him an example."

"He is that already," replied Montoro gravely. "Would that the poor sheep, his countrymen, knew how to profit by it."

"By my faith," exclaimed Cabrera impatiently, "you are a queer fellow, Diego. Wouldst thou then that these 'poor sheep,' who are as a hundred to one of us, should know their strength, and shoot us down like vermin in a barn?"

Montoro flung down the great wooden hammer with which he had been driving stakes, and came forward, his face set with mingled sternness and sorrow.

"Ay, truly, Juan de Cabrera, less would it shame me that the heathen should thus treat us, than to know that we Christians have acted that hideous part towards them. Hast thou heard of the late campaign in Trinidad, where our countrymen have burnt alive in cold blood--to save trouble!--nigh upon two hundred men and women, and innocent babes scarcely more helpless than their kind and gentle-natured fathers? How shall Spanish tears or Spanish blood, thinkest thou, ever wash out that foul stain?"

Juan de Cabrera turned away for a moment, for he had no answer ready. When he turned round again he said, with an assumption of flippancy he was for once far from feeling,--

"Ah, well, I have not heard this shady tale before, and I don't suppose that it has lost any of its shadows by coming through thy lips. Doubtless it was but a toss up whether our brethren should be killed, or should kill."

"Not so," said Montoro, sternly. "Juan Bono hath confessed, himself, that the unhappy creatures whom he thus repaid had been as fathers and mothers to him, and to all his party; but he had been sent to make slaves, and he made them the more readily by burning part of the population before resistance was dreamt of."

He stopped abruptly, and stooped to pick up his tool. Then once more raising his eyes to his companion's face, he said slowly and quietly--

"That is all; but a ghastly all; and I would to God that the heathen had shot me ere I heard it."

There was a long silence after this ere Cabrera ventured once more to ask--

"But, Diego, for all this thou wilt join us, wilt thou not? Even for the sake of thine own feelings thou shouldst do so to help in the promotion of fair play."

"If I were the Governor himself," said Montoro hastily, "I should exert myself in vain for justice where this unfortunate Hatuey is concerned. He has been as a king in his own land, and now we dare to proclaim him a rebel because he proves himself a patriot, and in the face of despair fights for his country and his people's liberty. No; I will have nought to do with 'catching' this noble-hearted heathen Cacique, and aiding to throw him into slavery."

Cabrera cast a keen, furtive glance at his companion at the utterance of that last word. Evidently, although Diego had heard that horrible Trinidad news, he had not yet heard of the doom pronounced against the troublesomely desperate Cacique of Hispaniola, when he should be once safely caught in the hands of the Cuban governor. As for Don Juan de Cabrera, he had no inclination to give the information. To turn the subject, he said after a short pause--

"Well then, friend Diego, if thou comest not with us, what is it thou hast a mind to? Something nobler, I trust, than wood-cutting, as though thou wert born a boor in a German forest rather than a Spanish nobleman."

"I feel little inclined to boast just now of my Spanish birthright, I can tell thee," said Montoro heavily. "But to answer thy question--Ay; I have other plans on hand than my present employment. I accompany Las Casas on his progress of pacification through the island, and we hope great things from our efforts, both for the natives and the colony."

Cabrera's shoulders went up in a slight shrug, almost in spite of himself.

"It is to be hoped that you and the clerigo have picked your associates carefully for your peaceful expedition," he said, with a touch of scorn. "Otherwise I fear me there may chance some rubs to your tender consciences ere it is accomplished."

"Little danger," answered Montoro, confidently, adding with a smile, "for we have, as you say, chosen our companions with due thought. You see, we have not invited you."

Juan de Cabrera laughed.

"Thanks for the compliment, my friend. I would a hundred-fold rather be found guilty of too much impetuosity, than of a calm, cold-blooded calculation."

The smile died out of Montoro's face as he now exclaimed hotly--

"It is easy at all times for men to sneer at right and justice, and to clothe evil with grand words. In Spain our impetuosity has been a sword in the hand of honour; why is it here a weapon that would be disdained even by the paid tool of an assassin? But there, Juan, I but waste my breath on thee. This is no true impetuosity, no true impulsive daring, that robs and massacres the harmless peoples of these lands; but rather is it the base, despicable, grovelling fruit of cold-blooded reckonings of ounces of gold against lives. By heaven, I--"

"There, there, Toro," interrupted the light-hearted cavalier, with unusual quietness of manner, "do not spend thy eloquence upon an unworthy mortal like me. And for thy solace learn that, although methinks thou and the clerigo draw the line too fine, I loathe some of our doings out here well-nigh as greatly as thou canst do thyself. But adios, for my party will be starting on the Hatuey hunt without me if I do not hasten."

So saying, the gay adventurer departed with an air as jaunty as though he were bound for one of the Court tournaments of Spain, to be rewarded by winning kingly smiles and his lady's scarf. And shortly after his friend Montoro de Diego, with Las Casas, departed on their Cuban tour, accompanied by a number of armed followers, who were intended, by their formidable appearance, to ensure unbroken peace, not to win it after battle. But unhappily Juan de Cabrera's prognostications proved truer than Diego's hopes.

"Well, comrade," said a soldier to a companion at the evening halt of the first day's march; "well, comrade, thou hast then recovered health and strength in time to have another try for fortune; at any rate for such flimsy fragments as our present soft-hearted leaders will permit us to accept. For my part, I had fain that I had been rather sent off after the rebel Cacique. There will be more pickings to be gathered up there I doubt, than we shall be able to find baskets for in this direction. But as for saving souls--"

"As for saving souls," interrupted the man addressed in a deep, fierce tone; "as for that matter, Guzman, we will save our own souls by clearing God's earth of these vile, idol-serving vermin. Joshua was sent forth of old, as Father Gonzalo saith, to rid the world of the heathen, and so have we the like mission now. And for one Andrea Botello will obey."

Guzman stared.

"My faith, Botello, let not the noble Señor Diego hear thee speak thus, or thou wilt most assuredly get ordered back to the settlement again!"

But Botello's eyes blazed with a yet fiercer fire, and his brow grew blacker, as he muttered:

"Against those who have a mission from on high, man's orders avail nought. The commands to slay and destroy, and leave not one remaining, have come to me from authority, supreme e'en over the Governor Velasquez himself. Speak not to me of orders!"

"Nay, then, that will I not," murmured Guzman to himself, as he went off to more cheerful companions. "I will spend no more words on thee, friend Botello," he continued in soliloquy, "so long as it appears that the remnants of thy late fever are yet burning in thy veins. It might chance thou wouldst find thou hadst an order to stick thy poniard into me."

A few minutes later the prudent soldier was consulting with some friends, whether a warning hint respecting Botello's aspirations should not be given to their priest commander.

"But say, then," laughed another, "what need to trouble the good clerigo for nought? What can one man's moody fancies do of harm, with so many against him on the other side?"

"Umph, no," said another, somewhat less confidently; "_if_ all the rest are on the other side; but one fanatic can make an army of disciples, if his feelings be but strong enough."

"Just so," was the off-hand reply. "If they be strong enough, but not if they be the half-delirious fancies of a sick man, who ought still to be in his bed at St. Jago yonder, instead of travelling with us. But come on, let's hurry up to that party of redskins over there; they seem well laden, and for my part I prefer to dine on their providing than on my own, or that of our commanders. They treat us better."

The whole of the little expedition, including Las Casas and Montoro, appeared to be of the same way of thinking, to judge by the way the hospitable and kind-hearted Indians were soon surrounded. Whether owing to the absence of newspapers and telegrams in those days, or to the hopes of the poor inhabitants of the New World that kindness would gain kindness, at any rate in their own case, cannot now be said; but while the refugee Cacique, who had fled from the barbarities of the Spaniards on his own island, was being hunted down in one part of Cuba, in another the gentle, courteous natives were treating their invaders with the most true-hearted friendliness.

"They must, verily, be worse than the tigers of the forests who harm these simple creatures!" exclaimed Montoro one day, as a number of Indians hastened to the new encampment with the farewell offerings of fruit, rice, cooked food, and various little presents as tokens of peace and good-will, accepting smiles for thanks with inborn graciousness.

Las Casas smiled at his friend's ardour.

"I feel now," he said joyously, "that I can afford to smile, for all things here are going forward as I would wish. The natives are learning that there are at least some amongst the white men who have a knowledge of right and wrong. And for these with us, Montoro, thinkest thou not that they have begun to find it pleasant to continue in well-doing, and to awaken smiles instead of tears? For myself, I do hope so, I confess."

"And I," assented Montoro earnestly. "I do believe, my father, that thy noble example has reaped at length the good fruit it has so long merited."

The two friends passed on, nor marked a pallid-faced, fierce-eyed man, who had stood near them, and now muttered between his teeth, gazing after the clerigo:

"Tremble, thou Saul, who wouldst spare Agag, and the chief of the spoil, when thou shouldst destroy! Guard thyself, lest the vengeance that falls upon the enemies of the Cross encompass thee also, as were meet."