"Eels!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.es the gaucho.

"Eels! Surely you're jesting?" queries the incredulous youth.

"No, indeed," is the hurried rejoinder. "I only wish it were a jest.

It's not, but a dire, dangerous earnest. _Santissima_!" he cries out, in addition, as a shock like that of a galvanic battery causes him to shake in his saddle, "that's a _lightning eel_, for sure! They're all round us, in scores, hundreds, thousands! Spur your horses! Force them forward, anyway! On out of the water! A moment wasted, and we're lost!"

While speaking, he digs the spurs into his own animal, with his voice also urging it onward; they doing the same.

But spur and shout as they may, the terrified quadrupeds can scarce be got to stir from the spot where first attacked by the electric eels.

For it is by these they are a.s.sailed, though Gaspar has given them a slightly different name.

And just as he has said, the slippery creatures seem to be all around them, coiling about the horses' legs, brushing against their bellies, at intervals using the powerful, though invisible, weapon with which Nature has provided them; while the scared quadrupeds, instead of dashing onward to get clear of the danger, only pitch and plunge about, at intervals standing at rest, as if benumbed, or shaking as though struck by palsy--all three of them, breathing hard and loud, the smoke issuing from their nostrils, with froth which falls in flakes, whitening the water below.

Their riders are not much less alarmed: they too sensibly feeling themselves affected by the magnetic influence. For the subtle current pa.s.sing through the bodies of their horses, in like manner, and almost simultaneously enters their own. All now aware that they are in real danger, are using their utmost efforts to get out of it by spurring, shouting to their animals, and beating them with whatever they can lay their hands on.

It is a desperate strife, a contest between them and the quadrupeds, as they strive to force the latter forward, and from out of the perilous place. Fortunately, it does not last long, or the end would be fatal.

After a short time, two of the three succeeded in reaching the bank: these Gaspar and Cypriano; the gaucho, as he feels himself on firm ground, crying out:--

"Thank the Lord for our deliverance!"

But scarce has the thanksgiving pa.s.sed his lips, when, turning face towards the stream, he sees what brings the pallor back into his cheeks, and a trembling throughout his frame, as if he were still under the battery of the electric eels. Ludwig, lagging behind, from being less able to manage his mount, is yet several yards from the sh.o.r.e, and what is worse, not drawing any nearer to it. Instead, his horse seems stuck fast in the mud, and is making no effort to advance; but totters on his limbs as though about to lose them! And the youth appears to have lost all control not only of the animal but himself; all energy to act, sitting lollingly in his saddle, as if torpid, or half-asleep!

At a glance Gaspar perceives his danger, knowing it of no common kind.

Both horse and rider are as powerless to leave that spot, as if held upon it in the loop of a _lazo_, with its other end clutched in the hands of a giant.

But a _lazo_ may also release them; and at this thought occurring to him opportunely, the gaucho plucks his own from the horn of his _recado_, and with a wind or two around his head, casts its running noose over that of the imperilled youth. It drops down over his shoulders, settling around both his arms, and tightening upon them, as Gaspar, with a half wheel of his horse, starts off up the sloping acclivity. In another instant, Ludwig is jerked clean out of his saddle, and falls with a splash upon the water. Not to sink below its surface, however; but be drawn lightly along it, till he is hoisted high, though not dry, upon the bank.

But the gaucho's work is still unfinished; the horse has yet to be rescued from his dangerous situation; a task, even more difficult than releasing his rider. For all, it is not beyond the skill of Gaspar, nor the strength of his own animal. Hastily unloosing his long, plaited rope from the body of the boy, and readjusting the loop, he again flings it forth; this time aiming to take in, not the head of Ludwig horse, but the pommel and cantle of his high-back saddle. And just as aimed, so the noose is seen to fall, embracing both. For Gaspar knows how to cast a la.s.so, and his horse how to act when it is cast; the well-trained animal, soon as he sees the uplifted arm go down again, sheering round without any guidance of rein, and galloping off in the opposite direction.

In the present case, his strength proves sufficient for the demand made upon it, though this is great; and the debilitated animal in the water, which can do nought to help itself, is dragged to the dry land nearly as much dead as alive.

But all are saved, horses as well as riders. The unseen, but dangerous, monsters are deprived of the prey they had come so near making capture of; and Gaspar again, even more fervently than before, cries out in grat.i.tude--

"Thank the Lord for our deliverance!"

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE.

UNDER THE CAROB TREES.

An attack by electric eels, however ludicrous the thing may seem, is not so looked upon by those whose ill luck it has been to experience it.

That these slippery creatures possess a most dangerous power, and know how to exert it, there is ample evidence in the accounts given of them by many a truthful traveller.

More than enough of it have had our heroes; for while escaping with their lives, they have not got off altogether scatheless--neither themselves, nor their horses. For, though now beyond reach of their mysterious a.s.sailants, the latter stand cowering and quivering, evidently disabled for that day, at least. To continue the journey upon them, while they are in this condition, is plainly impossible. But their riders do not think of it; they, too, feeling enfeebled--Ludwig actually ill. For the electricity still affects them all, and it may be some time before their veins will be freed from its influence.

_Nolens volens_, for a time they must stay where they are, however they may chafe at this fresh halt--as before, a forced one. But the gaucho, with spirits ever buoyant, puts the best face upon it, saying, "After all, we won't lose so much time. By this, our horses would have been pretty well done up, anyhow, after such a hard day's work, floundering through so much mud and crossing so many streams. Even without this little bit of a bother, we'd have had to stop soon somewhere to rest them. And what better place than here? Besides, as you see, the sun's wearing well down, and it's only a question of three or four hours at most. We can make that up by an earlier start, and a big day's journey, to-morrow; when it's to be hoped we'll meet with no such obstructions as have beset us to-day."

Gaspar is not using arguments; for no one wishes to dispute with him.

Only speaking words of comfort; more especially addressing them to Cypriano, who is, as ever, the impatient one. But he, as the gaucho himself, sees the impossibility of proceeding further, till they and their animals have had a spell of rest.

For the purpose of obtaining this, they go in search of a suitable camping-place; which they soon find within a grove of _algarobias_, at some three or four hundred yards' distance from the ford. The trees cover the sides of a little mound, or hillock; none growing upon its summit, which is a gra.s.sy glade. And as the dust has either not settled on it, or been washed off by the rain, the herbage is clean and green, so too the foliage of the trees overshadowing it.

"The very place for a comfortable camp," says Gaspar, after inspecting it--the others agreeing with him to the echo.

Having returned to the ford for their horses, and led them up to the chosen ground, they are proceeding to strip the animals of their respective caparisons, when, lo! the _alparejas_, and other things, which were attached to the croup of Ludwig's saddle, and should still be on it, are not there! All are gone--shaken off, no doubt, while the animal was plunging about in the stream--and with as little uncertainty now lying amidst the mud at its bottom.

As in these very saddle-bags was carried their commissariat--_yerba, charqui_, maize-bread, onions, and everything, and as over the cantle-peak hung their kettle, skillet, _mates_ and _bombillas_, the loss is a lamentable one; in short, leaving them without a morsel to eat, or a vessel to cook with, had they comestibles ever so abundant!

At first they talk of going back to the ford, and making search for the lost chattels. But it ends only in talk; they have had enough of that crossing-place, so dangerously beset by those _demonios_, as Gaspar in his anger dubs the electric eels. For though his courage is as that of a lion, he does not desire to make further acquaintance with the mysterious monsters. Besides, there is no knowing in what particular spot the things were dropped; this also deterring them from any attempt to enter upon a search. The stream at its crossing-place is quite a hundred yards in width, and by this time the articles of metal, as the heavily-weighted saddle-bags, will have settled down below the surface, perhaps trampled into its slimy bed by the horse himself in his convulsive struggles. To seek them now would be like looking for a needle in a stack of straw. So the idea is abandoned; and for this night they must resign themselves to going supperless.

Fortunately, none of the three feels a-hungered; their dinner being as yet undigested. Besides, Gaspar is not without hope that something may turn up to reprovision them, ere the sun goes down. Just possible, the soldier-cranes may come back to the ford, and their fishing, so that another, with full crop, may fall within the loop of his _lazo_.

Having kindled a fire--not for cooking purposes, but to dry their ponchos, and other apparel saturated in the crossing of the stream--they first spread everything out; hanging them on improvised clothes-horses, constructed of _cana brava_--a brake of which skirts the adjacent stream. Then, overcome with fatigue, and still suffering from the effects of the animal electricity, they stretch themselves alongside the fire, trusting to time for their recovery.

Nor trust they in vain. For, sooner than expected, the volatile fluid-- or whatever it may be--pa.s.ses out of their veins, and their nervous strength returns; even Ludwig saying he is himself again, though he is not quite so yet.

And their animals also undergo a like rapid recovery, from browsing on the leaves and bean-pods of the _algarobias_; a provender relished by all pampas horses, as horned cattle, and nourishing to both. More than this, the fruit of this valuable tree when ripe, is fit food for man himself, and so used in several of the Argentine States.

This fact suggesting itself to Gaspar--as he lies watching the horses plucking off the long siliques, and greedily devouring them--he says:--

"We can make a meal on the _algarobia_ beans, if nothing better's to be had. And for me, it wouldn't be the first time by scores. In some parts where I've travelled, they grind them like maize, and bake a very fair sort of bread out of their meal."

"Why, Gaspar!" exclaims Ludwig, recalling some facts of which he had heard his father speak, "you talk as if you had travelled in the Holy Land, and in New Testament times! These very trees, or others of a similar genus, are the ones whose fruit was eaten by Saint John the Baptist. You remember that pa.s.sage, where it is said: 'his meat was locusts and wild honey.' Some think the locusts he ate were the insects of that name; and it may be so, since they are also eaten by Arabs, and certain other tribes of Asiatic and African people. But, for my part, I believe the beans of the 'locust tree' are meant; which, like this, is a species of acacia that the Arabs call _carob_; evidently the root from which we take our word _algarobia_."

Gaspar listens, both patiently and pleased, to this learned dissertation. For he is rejoiced to perceive, that the thoughts of his young companion are beginning to find some abstraction and forgetfulness, of that upon which they have been so long sadly dwelling.

Cypriano, too, appears to take an interest in the subject of discourse; and to encourage it the gaucho rejoins, in gleeful tones:

"Well, Senor Ludwig; I don't know much about those far-away countries you speak of, for I've not had any great deal of schooling. But I do know, that _algarobia_ beans are not such bad eating; that is if properly prepared for it. In the States of Santiago and Tuc.u.man, which are the places I spoke of having travelled through, the people almost live on them; rich and poor, man as well as beast. And we may be glad to make breakfast on them, if not supper; though I still trust something more dainty may drop upon us. I'm not so hopeful as to expect manna, like that which rained down upon Moses; but there's many an eatable thing to be had in this Chaco wilderness, too--for those who know how to look for it. _Ay Dios_!" he adds, after a pause, with his eyes turned towards the ford, "those long-legged gentry don't seem to care about coming back there. No doubt, the screams of that fellow I throttled have frightened them off for good. So I suppose we must give the birds up, for this night anyhow. Just possible, in the morning they'll be as hungry as ourselves, and pay their fishing-ground a very early visit."

Saying this, the gaucho relapses into silence, the others also ceasing to converse. They all feel a certain lethargy, which calls for repose; and for a while all three lie without speaking a word, their heads resting on their _recados_--the only sound heard being the "crump-crump"

of their horses' teeth grinding the _algarobia_ pods into pulp.

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX.

A CHAT ABOUT ELECTRIC EELS.

The silence of the camp is not of long continuance; Gaspar being the first to break it. For the gaucho, having a stronger stomach, and consequently a quicker digestion than the others, feels some incipient sensations of hunger.

"I only wish," he says, "we could get hold of one of the brutes that battered us so in the stream. If we could, it would furnish us with a supper fit for a king."

"What!" exclaims Ludwig, raising his head in surprise, "one of the electric eels? Is it that you're speaking of, Gaspar?"

"Ay, _senorito_; just that."

"Surely you wouldn't eat _it_, would you?"