The White Scalper: A Story of the Texan WarAimard, Gustave
History
The White Scalper: A Story of the Texan War
Aimard, Gustave
Texas -- History -- Revolution, 1835-1836 -- Fiction; Western stories
"Announce us; No Eusebio, we follow you."
The servant turned to obey, but the rastreros had long ago announced the
hunter's return to his mother, by rushing madly into the house, hence
the lady appeared in the doorway at the moment when the three men
prepared to enter. At the moment when we meet Doña Garillas again, she
was no longer the young and charming woman, with such pure and soft
beauty, whom we saw in the prologue of the "Trappers;" eight years had
pasted over her; eight long years of agony, alarm, and grief. She was
still young and lovely, it is true, but this beauty had ripened beneath
the burning blast of adversity. Her pale forehead and calm features won
that expression of crushing resignation which the old sculptor succeeded
in rendering on the admirable bust of Melancholy. When she saw her son
her eyes sparkled, but that was all.
"Caballero," she said, in a gentle and melodious voice as she smiled on
the Canadian, "enter this modest abode, where you have been impatiently
expected for a long time. Although our hearth be small, we always keep a
nook for a friend."
"Señora," the hunter replied with a bow, "your reception overcomes me
with joy. I trust I shall prove deserving of the kindness you show me."
They entered the rancho, whose interior corresponded exactly with the
exterior. A candil, suspended from a beam, illumined a rather large
room, the furniture of which consisted merely of a few equipals, two
butacas, and a chiffonier, all clumsily made with the hatchet. On the
white-washed walls hung four of those coloured engravings with which
Parisian commerce inundates both hemispheres. The first represented
Napoleon at the St. Bernard; the second, Iturbide, that Mexican general
who was for six months emperor, and died, like Murat, shot by his own
subjects; the third, our Saviour on the cross between the two thieves;
and the fourth, Nuestra-Señora-de-los-Dolores. Before the last two hung
lamps that burned night and day.
During our lengthened wanderings we have been enabled to discover a
singular fact; it is, that in Asia, America, Africa, and the heart of
Polynesia, among the most savage tribes the name of Napoleon the First
has not only penetrated, but is venerated like a god; and I even found
his portrait among the Botocudos, that untameable horde hidden in the
forests of Brazil. What is the magic influence exerted on humanity by
this extraordinary man? It is vain to seek the solution of this problem,
vain to try to discover by what remarkable concourse of events the name
of the great Emperor penetrated beneath the grand domes of foliage,
where all the rumours of civilization expire without an echo.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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