One of the women comes along and screams into his ear...
Some of them are such devils this game even cures them.
With others, they scorch his mouth even though he's screeching with pain --
they grab hold of him and squeeze him and burn his lips and teeth
with an egg that's good and hot out of some magic hen.
The indian knows what he's in for and he gives up all hope.
If he does manage to escape them he shoots off like a hare,
but the fever makes him light-headed and they bring him down with a spear.
It's a terrible kind of fever and though I won' t argue this
nor lay claim to any wisdom we thought it must come from
the quantity of horsemeat that's eaten by those brutes.
There was a gringo boy captive -- always talking about his ship
and they drowned him in a pond for being the cause of the plague ...
His eyes were pale blue like a wall-eyed foal.
It was one of the old hags who ordered them to kill him that way,
and though he cried and pleaded there was no use resisting them -
the poor boy rolled up his eyes like a sheep under the knife.
We moved further off not to have to see such horrors.
Cruz was feeling the symptoms of the plague that was in full force,
and the idea was nagging at us to get back to our own land.
But destiny can turn against even the best of plans.
My blood runs cold to think of it ... The indian who had saved our lives
was struck down too, with an attack of fever and the plague.
When we saw how he was suffering we could have no doubts
of what his end would be and Cruz, always such a friend,
said to me, "Come on, brother, let's go and pay our debt".
We went and stayed beside him trying to help him get well:
they came to fetch him to treat him like the rest -
we protected him, and kept him from being killed.
The plague was growing worse and more and more people died:
we kept beside him doing what we could for him,
but after a few days' time his life came to its end.
The memory of it tortures me, my sorrow is reborn.
It brings the tears to my eyes -- there's no grief like this of mine ...
Cruz also was struck down very bad and never to rise again.
You can all figure for yourselves what I had to pass through.
I could do nothing except groan, and i t made my anguish worse
not to know a single prayer to help him to a good death.
The plague turned poisonous on him, poor man, he cried out with the pain.
He entrusted a young son to me that he'd left back at home –
"He's been left all on his own, poor boy" he said to me.
"If you get back, find him for me" he said again, his voice half gone.
"There were just the two of us in the world -- he's already lost his mother.
Let him know how his father died and pray God for my soul."
I held him tight against my chest overcome by the grief.
What made him suffer most was to die there in heathen land...
Suffering cruel agonies he gave up his soul to God.
On my knees beside him I prayed for him to Christ.
The light went from my eyes -- I went into a terrible swoon
I fell as if struck by lightning when I saw Cruz lying dead.
And so my brave companion died in my arms.
One who was worth so much, a man of such good sense –
he died there in the desert for his noble and compassionate heart.
And I with my own hands I myself buried him.
I prayed to God for his soul with my heart filled with pain;
and that patch of earth there was wet with the tears I shed.
I did all I could do there's no fault to reproach myself with,
nor any duty I left undone though I'd given in to grief...
His grave there is marked out by a cross I put up for him.
I went around from tent to tent and everything sickened me;
sorrow had got a hold on me, and given over to my sad thoughts,
every minute it seemed I heard Cruz calling out to me.
All we criollos -- some less, some more -- know the taste of bitterness:
the only comfort I could find for the misery I was in
was to go and throw myself on the ground beside his grave.
There I'd pass hours on end with nobody beside me,
with only God to witness me, and my thoughts fixed on
my wife and my children, my homeland, and my friend.
With such treasures taken from you, and lost in a strange land,
it's as if Time was in chains and that it's not moving on;
as if the sun stopped still to gaze at so much unhappiness.
I didn't know which way to turn, I was given over to my grief –
when lying there one day, coming from the windward side
I heard sounds of pitiful crying that caught my attention.
Groans are not unusual sounds in the tents of the savages,
because that's a life of violence where they only settle things
by spears or blows of the knife, and bolas-shots, and brute force.
There's no need to swear to it -- believe what Martin Fierro says:
in my exile there, I've seen a savage who got annoyed
cut the throat of a little girl and throw her out to the dogs.
I've witnessed deaths by torture I've seen plenty of brutal crimes,
murders and atrocities that wouldn' t enter a christian's mind:
for neither indians nor their women know such a thing as mercy exists.
I thought I'd investigate the cries that were reaching me.
I started straight away towards the spot they were coming from ...
The scene I came upon is a horror to me still.
It was a wretched woman with blood all over her,
and crying with all her heart like a Mary Magdalen ...
I saw she was a christian and that made it worse for me.
Cautiously, I crept up on the indian standing by her --
indians are always on their guard against any white man –
and I saw he was holding a lash that was wet with blood.
Later, I learnt from her just how things had been.
An indian raiding-band had come to her part of the country,
they killed her husband and carried her off prisoner.
Two years, she'd been there in that cruel captivity.
She kept beside her a little child she'd brought with her ...
The indian woman hated her and used her as a slave.
She'd have liked to make an attempt to run away –
the poor captive women have no one who'll ransom them –*
they have to stay and bear the torments until the end of their days.
From the moment she got there the indian woman, out of spite,
took pride in being cruel to her -- the indian man was a warrior,
he wore a necklace made of teeth from the christians that he'd killed.
She used to send her out to work and put her baby down nearby
shivering and crying in the early morning air,
tied up like a young lamb by its feet and its hands.
And she'd force her to toil like that, sowing, and gathering wood,
while she could see her baby crying -- and until she'd finished the tasks
the indian woman refused to let her give it milk.
When they hadn't enough work they'd lend her to another squaw.
"No one could imagine" she said, "nor ever believe
all the things a wretched woman has to bear, in captivity.
"If they see your child has grown -- as they don't know what pity is,
and they'll never take notice of pleading – and if not that it's for something else –
they take him from you and sell him, or exchange him for a horse.
"And they're barbarous, as well, in the way they bring up their own.
I'd never seen such a thing -- they bind them to a board
and rear them that way, so they make the back of their head grow flat."
(This may seem a strange thing but nobody need doubt it.
With those brutish people in their vile ignorance
it's a thing to be proud of if their head grows to a point.)
The devilish indian woman who hated her so much
started saying one day, because a sister of hers had died,
it must have been the christian woman who had cast a spell against her.
The indian took her out of sight and started threatening her
saying she had got to confess it had been sorcery,
or else he was going to punish her by beating her to death.
She wept, poor unhappy woman, but the ruthless indian
in a fury, snatched the child from out of her arms,
and made her scream with pain at the first cut of his whip.
And that brutal savage went on lashing her
every time he hit her he grew more and more furious,
and the wretched woman fended off the blows, as well as she could.
And he shouted at her, raging, You no want confess!
He knocked her down with a back-hand blow -- and to complete her agony
he cut the throat of her little child there, at her feet.
"It's not to be believed" she said, "such cruelty could exist.
No mother could have borne it that merciless brute
committed the crime calmly, right in front of my eyes.
"Christian people couldn't invent anything so horrible – "
she sobbed as she told me that inhuman fiend
tied my hands together then with the entrails of my child."
NOTE to II.8
II.8.3] ransom] captives were occasionally exchanged during a truce, if considered of enough value.
It had been her cries I'd heard in my solitude.
The moment I got to the place I took in how things were –
and when I saw the state she was in I didn't hesitate a second.
There she was, the poor captive, all covered in blood.,
with the marks of the lashes on her from head to foot
the rags she wore were torn to pieces and. showed the raw flesh through.
She lifted her eyes to heaven streaming with her tears.
Her hands were tied it was plain to see the agony she was in -
and she fixed a look on me as if asking me for help.
I can't say what it was went through my heart, at that moment.
The indian stood there haughtily with fury in his face
one look was enough for us to understand each other.
He gave a jump like a cat and gained distance from me,
and he used this advantage like a beast stalking its prey –
he loosened his bolas and waited there, crouched on guard.
And though I'd gone there from curiosity and not to look for a fight,
I knotted my horse's reins and laid hold -- you can be sure
on that weapon which can't misfire* ... and the fight to the death was on.
I could see straight off the danger I was in.
We stayed like that, not moving he watched me and I watched him:
I didn't trust the indian and he didn't trust me.
You have to keep your wits about you when an indian's crouched to spring:
in a position like that, he counts as four or five men –
he can leap like a tiger and catch you easily.
It was dangerous to go rushing in and dangerous to keep apart,
and still more dangerous to keep on waiting this way,
because some more of them might come and butcher me between the lot of them.
I've saved myself many times on the strength of being cautious:
in a pressing danger the least carelessness means death ...
If only Cruz had been alive I'd have had no need to take care.
When a man has another by him he grows in courage and strength.
fear vanishes -- he'll get out of any trap –
between us two we'd face, not one indian -- the whole tribe, if it came to that.
With things uncertain as they were and danger so close at hand,
needless to say, there could only be one way out of it –
and that was to kill the indian or else stay there stretched out myself.
And as time was passing and I had to do something soon,
seeing that he wouldn't budge I started moving, on a slant,
as if I was going to take his horse - to see if that made him go for me.
It worked -- the savage didn't wait any longer he rushed at me.
You need to sharpen your wits fighting with an indian –
he was spurred on by the fear of finding himself left on foot.
Right as he rushed in to attack he sent two bolas-shots at me.
One of them touched me on the arm -- if it had hit square, it' d have broken it –
because the bolas are made of stone and come at you like a bullet.
At the first stroke of my knife the indian curled in a ball.
He was the craftiest savage I've ever met in my wanderings --
and on top of his tricks, he was pretty good at dodging the knife.
And he could handle the bolas skilfully, the brute!
He'd pull them back smartly and hurl them at me again
sending them whistling through the air, above my head.
He was cunning, curse it! like all the indians are.
It was my good. fortune that he got blind mad as he fought ...
He'd feint with one of the bolas and hurl the other one at me.
Then, in the thick of the fight, I had a stroke of bad luck.
Just as I was on to him and he was moving back,
I tripped on my belt-cloth and I fell down flat.
The savage didn't give me time even to say my prayers.
As soon as he saw me on the ground he leapt on me like a flash ...
Hisbolas‑shot came thudding right next to my head.
The indian wouldn't shift off me even to avoid the knife,
he thought he'd finish me off there without letting me get up again
and he didn't give me enough room even to straighten out.
I tried to move, but it was useless, he wouldn't let go of me.
I was using all the strength that comes to a desperate man
but I couldn't even turn over beneath the weight of that brute.
B1essed be Almighty God! who can understand your ways?
You gave at that time, to a weak woman,
strength such as maybe even a man would not have had.
That poor woman, crying so bitterly, roused up when she saw my danger.
She ran towards us like an arrow, and forgetting her own pain
she gave a great shove to the indian that got him off the top of me.
It was this generous help from her freed me from that tight spot.
If not for her, the indian would have slaughtered me, for sure --
and her noble example made me twice as brave and strong.
As soon as I was on my feet we were at each other again:
there was no chance of a rest and the sweat was running off me -
I've never again found myself in a danger close as that.
And I didn't give him a breathing space, as you may all suppose.
I had all the more to do now, to stop the ugly brute
from hitting out with the bolas at the woman, out of rage.
In an indian's hands, the bolas are terrible, and very fast,
he can do whatever he likes with them, jumping round you like a goat ...
Silent, without saying a word, we fought on like wild beasts.
Never ever can I forget that duel in the desert we had:
I was playing for my life with that terrible enemy,
and standing there as witness a woman in distress.
The more he got enraged the calmer I was growing.
An indian’s fury won't be spent until he makes a kill …
At last, I cut one of the bolas-cords and I began to get the better of him.
He made my ribs crack with a shot from a bolas-stone, the devil,
and then as I gave a yell and went for him like a cannon-ball
the indian stepped back -- and slipped on the corpse of the little child.