"Alas," cried the hacendero in accents of horror, "what name is that you have uttered?"
"The name of the man in whose clutches you are at this very moment."
"What! the Tigercat? That redoubtable bandit, whose numberless crimes have shocked the land for so long; that man who seems endowed with a diabolical power to accomplish the atrocious deeds with which he incessantly sullies himself; – is that monster near us?"
"He is; and I warn you to be prudent, for perhaps he hears you at this moment, although invisible to your eyes and mine."
"What do I care?" energetically exclaimed Don Pedro. "Away with caution, since we are once in the power of this demon; he is a man devoid of pity, and my life is no longer my own."
"What do you know about it, Señor Don Pedro de Luna?" answered a mocking voice.
The hacendero trembled, and recoiled a step, uttering a stifled cry.
The Tigercat, bounding with the agility of the animal from which he took his name, had leaped upon the summit of an elevated rock which overhung the pathway some distance off, and now dropped lightly on the ground two paces from Don Pedro.
There was an instant of terrible silence. The two men, thus placed face to face, their eyes flashing, their lips compressed with rage, examined each other with ardent curiosity. It was the first time the hacendero had seen the terrible partisan, the fame of whose thirst for blood had reached the most ignorant villagers in the land, and who for thirty years had spread terror over the Mexican frontiers.
We will give, in a few words, the portrait of this man, who is destined to play an important part in our history.
The Tigercat was a species of Colossus, six feet high; his broad shoulders and limbs, from which the muscles stood out in marble rigidity, showed that, though long past the prime of life, his strength still existed in all its integrity; his long locks, white as the snows on Coatepec, fell in disorder on his shoulders, and mingled with the grizzly beard that covered his breast. His forehead was broad and open; he had the eye of the eagle, under the brows of the lion; his whole person offered, in a word, a complete type of the man of the desert, – grand, strong, majestic, and implacable. Although his skin was stained by every inclemency of weather till it had almost acquired the colour of brick, it was nevertheless easy to recognise, in the clearly defined lines of his face, that this man belonged to the race of whites.
His dress lay midway between that of the Mexican and of the redskin; for although he wore the zarapé, his mitasses, in two pieces, worked with hairs attached here and there, and his moccasins of different colours, embroidered with porcupine quills and ornamented with glass beads and hawks' bells, showed his preference for the Indians, to whose customs, by the by, he seemed to have entirely adapted his mode of life.
A large scalping knife, a hatchet, a bullet bag, and powder horn, were slung from a girdle of wild beast's skin, drawn tightly above his hips.
One thing must not be forgotten, – a singularity in a white man, – a white-headed eagle's plume was placed above his right ear, as if this man arrogated to himself the dignity of chief of an Indian tribe.
Lastly, he held in his hand a magnificent American rifle, damaskeened, and most skilfully inlaid with silver.
Such is the physical portrait of the man to whom white hunters and redskins had given the name of Tigercat; a name he deserved in every respect, if hearsay had not belied him, and if only half the stories reported of him were true.
As to the character of this strange being, we will abstain from dwelling upon it for the present. We are persuaded the scenes which follow will enable us to appreciate it correctly.
Although struck with surprise at the apparition – as sudden as it was unexpected – of the dreaded freebooter, Don Pedro was not long in recalling his presence of mind.
"You appear to know me much better than I know you," replied he coolly; "but if half the things I have heard reported about you be true, I can only expect, on your part, treatment similar to that which all unhappy persons encounter who fall into your hands."
The Tigercat smiled sarcastically.
"And do you not dread this treatment?" he asked.
"For myself, personally, no!" answered Don Pedro disdainfully.
"But," continued the freebooter, with a glance towards the wounded lady, "for the young girl?"
The hacendero trembled; a livid pallor overspread his features.
"You cannot mean what you are saying," was his answer; "for the honour of humanity, I will not think so. The Apaches themselves, fierce as they are, feel their rage vanish before the feebleness of woman."
"Have I not among the dwellers in cities the reputation of being fiercer than the fierce Apaches, – even than the very beasts?"
"Let us end this," replied Don Pedro haughtily; "since I have been fool enough, in spite of repeated warnings, to place myself in your hands, dispose of me as you think fit; but deliver me from the torture I undergo in conversing with you."
The Tigercat frowned; he struck the ground forcibly with the butt of his rifle, muttering some unintelligible words; but, by an extreme effort of his will, his features instantaneously resumed their habitual imperturbability, every trace of emotion vanished from his voice, and he answered, in the calmest tone:
"In beginning the conversation, about which you seem to care so little, caballero, I said to you, 'What do you know about it?'"
"Well?" said the hacendero, surprised and overcome, in spite of his efforts, by the strange change in the dreaded speaker.
"Well," replied the latter, "I repeat the phrase, not, as you may suppose, in mockery, but simply to elicit your frank opinion of me."
"That opinion can be of little value to you, I presume."
"More than you may imagine. But why these words? Answer me!"
The hacendero remained mute for a time. The Tigercat, his eyes fixed steadily upon him, watched him attentively.
As to the hunter who had been almost forced to consent to serve Don Pedro de Luna as guide, his astonishment was extreme. Believing himself to be thoroughly acquainted with the character of the freebooter, he could not understand the scene at all, and inwardly asked himself what this feigned courtesy of the Tigercat would end in.
Don Pedro himself argued quite differently on the bandit's sentiments; right or wrong, he fancied he had perceived an accent of sad sincerity in the tone in which the last words had been addressed to him.
"Since you absolutely desire it," said he, "I will reply frankly: I believe your heart to be not so cruel as you would have it supposed; and I imagine that this conviction, which you inwardly possess, makes you extremely unhappy; for, notwithstanding the barbarous acts with which they reproach you, other crimes have entered your thoughts, before the execution of which you have recoiled, in spite of the pitiless ferocity they attribute to you."
The Tigercat seemed about to speak.
"Do not interrupt me," continued the hacendero hastily; "I know that I am treading upon a volcano; but you have my promise to speak frankly, and, willing or not willing, you must hear me to the end. Most of mankind are the architects of their own fortunes in this world; you have not escaped the common lot. Gifted with an energetic character, with vivid passions, you have not sought to overcome these passions; you have suffered yourself to be overcome by them, and thus, fall after fall, you have reached that depth in which you are now lost; and yet all good feeling is not utterly dead in you."
A smile of contempt flickered over the lips of the old man.
"Do not smile at me," the hacendero went on; "the very question you have put proves my assertion. Leading in the wilderness the life of the plundering savage, hating society, which has cast you off, you still hanker after the opinion the world forms of you. And why? Because that sentiment of justice, which God has planted in the hearts of all, revolts in you