Mr. Hardy, feeling that something strange was happening, ran down the steps and hurried toward them.
By the time he reached them, he had no need to ask questions.
Hubert was leaning upon the gate, crying as if his heart would break; Charley stood with his hand on his lips, as if to check the sobs from breaking out, while the tears streamed down his cheeks.
"Ethel?" Mr. Hardy asked.
Charley nodded, and then said, with a great effort, "The Indians have burned the estancia; one of the men has escaped and brought the news. We know nothing more. Perhaps she is carried off, not killed."
Mr. Hardy staggered under the sudden blow. "Carried off!" he murmured to himself. "It is worse than death."
"Yes, papa," Charley said, anxious to give his father"s thoughts a new turn. "But we will rescue her, if she is alive, wherever they may take her."
"We will, Charley; we will, my boys," Mr. Hardy said earnestly, and rousing himself at the thought. "I must go up and break it to your mother; though how I shall do so, I know not. Do you give what orders you like for collecting our friends. First, though, let us question this man. When was it?"
"Last night, signor, at eleven o"clock. I had just lain down in my hut, and I noticed that there were still lights downstairs at the house, when, all of a sudden, I heard a yell as of a thousand fiends, and I knew the Indians were upon us. I knew that it was too late to fly, but I threw myself out of the window, and lay flat by the wall, as the Indians burst in. There were eight of us, and I closed my ears to shut out the sound of the others" cries. Up at the house, too, I could hear screams and some pistol shots, and then more screams and cries. The Indians were all round, everywhere, and I dreaded lest one of them should stumble up against me. Then a sudden glare shot up, and I knew they were firing the house. The light would have shown me clearly enough, had I remained where I was; so I crawled on my stomach till I came to some potato ground a few yards off. As I lay between the rows, the plants covered me completely. In another minute or two the men"s huts were set fire to, and then I could hear a great tramping, as of horses and cattle going away in the distance. They had not all gone, for I could hear voices all night, and Indians were moving about everywhere, in search of any one who might have escaped. They came close to me several times, and I feared that they would tread on me. After a time all became quiet; but I dared not move till daylight. Then, looking about carefully, I could see no one, and I jumped up, and never stopped running until you met me."
[Ill.u.s.tration: ETHEL"S CAPTURE BY THE INDIANS.]
Mr. Hardy now went up to the house to break the sad tidings to his wife. Charley ordered eight peons to saddle horses instantly, and while they were doing so he wrote on eight leaves of his pocketbook: "The Mercers" house destroyed last night by Indians; the Mercers killed or carried off. My sister Ethel with them. For G.o.d"s sake, join us to recover them. Meet at Mercer"s as soon as possible. Send this note round to all neighbors."
One of these slips of paper was given to each peon, and they were told to ride for their lives in different directions, for that Miss Ethel was carried off by the Indians.
This was the first intimation of the tidings that had arrived, and a perfect chorus of lamentation arose from the women, and of execrations of rage from the men. Just at this moment Terence came running down from the house. "Is it true, Mister Charles? Sarah says that the mistress and Miss Maud are gone quite out of their minds, and that Miss Ethel has been killed by the Indians!"
"Killed or carried away, Terence; we do not know where to yet."
Terence was a warm-hearted fellow, and he set up a yell of lamentation which drowned the sobs and curses of the natives.
"Hush, Terence," Charley said. "We shall have time to cry for her afterward; we must be doing now."
"I will, Mister Charles; but you will let me go with you to search for her. Won"t you, now, Mister Charles?"
"Yes, Terence; I will take you with us, and leave Lopez in charge.
Send him here."
Lopez was close. He, too, was really affected at the loss of his young mistress; for Ethel, by her unvarying sweetness of temper, was a favorite with every one.
"Lopez, you will remain here in charge. We may be away two days--we may be away twenty. I know I can trust you to look after the place just as if we were here."
The _capitaz_ bowed with his hand on his heart. Even the peasants of South America preserve the grand manner and graceful carriage of their Spanish ancestors. "And now, Lopez, do you know of any of the Gauchos in this part of the country who have ever lived with the Indians, and know their country at all?"
"Martinez, one of the shepherds at Canterbury, Signor Charles, was with them for seven months; and Perez, one of Signor Jamieson"s men, was longer still."
Charles at once wrote notes asking that Perez and Martinez might accompany the expedition, and dispatched them by mounted peons.
"And now, Lopez, what amount of _charqui_ have we in store?"
"A good stock, signor; enough for fifty men for a fortnight."
Charqui is meat dried in the sun. In hot climates meat cannot be kept for many hours in its natural state. When a bullock is killed, therefore, all the meat which is not required for immediate use is cut up into thin strips, and hung up in the sun to dry. After this process it is hard and strong, and by no means palatable; but it will keep for many months, and is the general food of the people.
In large establishments it is usual to kill several animals at once, so as to lay in sufficient store of charqui to last for some time.
"Terence, go up to the house and see what biscuit there is. Lopez, get our horses saddled, and one for Terence--a good one--and give them a feed of maize. Now, Hubert, let us go up to the house, and get our carbines and pistols."
Mr. Hardy came out to meet them as they approached. "How are mamma and Maud, papa?"
"More quiet and composed now, boys. They have both gone to lie down. Maud wanted sadly to go with us, but she gave way directly. I pointed out to her that her duty was to remain here by her mother"s side. And now, Charley, what arrangements have you made?"
Charley told his father what he had done.
"That is right. And now we will be off at once. Give Terence orders to bring on the meat and biscuit in an hour"s time. Let him load a couple of horses, and bring a man with him to bring them back."
"Shall we bring any rockets, papa?"
"It is not likely that they will be of any use, Hubert; but we may as well take three or four of each sort. Roll up a poncho, boys, and fasten it on your saddles. Put plenty of ammunition in your bags; see your brandy flasks are full, and put out half a dozen bottles to go with Terence. There are six pounds of tobacco in the storeroom; let him bring them all. Hubert, take our water-skins; and look in the storeroom--there are three or four spare skins; give them to Terence, some of our friends may not have thought of bringing theirs, and the country may, for aught we know, be badly watered. And tell him to bring a dozen colored blankets with him."
In a few minutes all these things were attended to, and then, just as they were going out of the house, Sarah came up, her face swollen with crying.
"Won"t you take a cup of tea and just something to eat, sir? You"ve had nothing yet, and you will want it. It is all ready in the dining-room."
"Thank you, Sarah. You are right. Come, boys, try and make a good breakfast. We must keep up our hearts, you know, and we will bring our little woman back ere long."
Mr. Hardy spoke more cheerfully, and the boys soon, too, felt their spirits rising a little. The bustle of making preparations, the prospect of the perilous adventure before them, and the thought that they should a.s.suredly, sooner or later, come up with the Indians, all combined to give them hope. Mr. Hardy had little fear of finding the body of his child under the ruins of the Mercers"
house. The Indians never deliberately kill white women, always carrying them off; and Mr. Hardy felt confident that, unless Ethel had been accidentally killed in the a.s.sault, this was the fate which had befallen her.
A hasty meal was swallowed, and then, just as they were starting, Mrs. Hardy and Maud came out to say "Good-by," and an affecting scene occurred. Mr. Hardy and the boys kept up as well as they could, in order to inspire the mother and sister with hope during their absence, and with many promises to bring their missing one back they galloped off.
They were scarcely out of the gate, when they saw their two friends from Canterbury coming along at full gallop. Both were armed to the teeth, and evidently prepared for an expedition, They wrung the hands of Mr. Hardy and his sons.
"We ordered our horses the moment we got your note, and ate our breakfasts as they were being got ready. We made a lot of copies of your note, and sent off half a dozen men in various directions with them. Then we came on at once. Of course most of the others cannot arrive for some time yet, but we were too anxious to hear all about it to delay, and we thought that we might catch you before you started, to aid you in your first search. Have you any more certain news than you sent us?"
"None," Mr. Hardy said, and then repeated the relation of the survivor.
There was a pause when he had finished, and then Mr. Herries said:
"Well, Mr. Hardy, I need not tell you, if our dear little Ethel is alive, we will follow you till we find her, if we are a year about it."
"Thanks, thanks," Mr. Hardy said earnestly. "I feel a conviction that we shall yet recover her."
During this conversation they had been galloping rapidly toward the scene of the catastrophe, and, absorbed in their thoughts, not another word was spoken until they gained the first rise, from which they had been accustomed to see the pleasant house of the Mercers. An exclamation of rage and sorrow burst from them all, as only a portion of the chimney and a charred post or two showed where it had stood. The huts of the peons had also disappeared; the young trees and shrubs round the house were scorched up and burned by the heat to which they had been exposed, or had been broken off from the spirit of wanton mischief.
With clinched teeth, and faces pale with rage and anxiety, the party rode on past the site of the huts, scattered round which were the bodies of several of the murdered peons. They halted not until they drew rein, and leaped off in front of the house itself.
It had been built entirely of wood, and only the stumps of the corner posts remained erect. The sun had so thoroughly dried the boards of which it was constructed that it had burned like so much tinder, and the quant.i.ty of ashes that remained was very small.
Here and there, however, were uneven heaps; and in perfect silence, but with a sensation of overpowering dread, Mr. Hardy and his friends tied up their horses, and proceeded to examine these heaps, to see if they were formed by the remains of human beings.
Very carefully they turned them over, and as they did so their knowledge of the arrangements of the different rooms helped them to identify the various articles. Here was a bed, there a box of closely-packed linen, of which only the outer part was burned, the interior bursting into flames as they turned it over; here was the storeroom, with its heaps of half-burned flour where the sacks had stood.
In half an hour they were able to say with tolerable certainty that no human beings had been burned, for the bodies could not have been wholly consumed in such a speedy conflagration.