Лучшие романы Томаса Майна Рида / The Best of Thomas Mayne Reid

”

“A mustanger!” scornfully muttered Calhoun, but only loud enough to be heard by Louise.

“Only a mustanger!” reflected the aristocratic Poindexter, the fervour of his gratitude becoming sensibly chilled.

“For guide, you will no longer need either myself, or my lazo,” said the hunter of wild horses. “The cypress is in sight: keep straight towards it. After crossing, you will see the flag over the Fort. You may yet reach your journey’s end before night. I have no time to tarry; and must say adieu.

Satan[65 - Satan – the prince of evil forces, the enemy of God; he is also identified with the devil] himself, astride a Tartarean steed, could not have looked more like the devil than did Maurice the Mustanger, as he separated for the second time from the planter and his party. But neither his ashy envelope, nor the announcement of his humble calling, did aught to damage him in the estimation of one, whose thoughts were already predisposed in his favour – Louise Poindexter.

On hearing him declare his name – by presumption already known to her – she but more tenderly cherished the bit of cardboard, chafing against her snow-white bosom; at the same time muttering in soft pensive soliloquy, heard only by herself: —

“Maurice the mustanger! despite your sooty covering – despite your modest pretence – you have touched the heart of a Creole maiden. Mon Dieu[66 - Mon Dieu! = My God! (French)] – mon Dieu! He is too like Lucifer for me to despise him!”

Chapter 5

The Home of the Horse-Hunter

Where the Rio de Nueces[67 - the Rio de Nueces – the Nueces River in Texas and Mexico] (River of Nuts) collects its waters from a hundred tributary streams – lining the map like the limbs of a grand genealogical tree – you may look upon a land of surpassing fairness.

In some places these timbered tracts assume the aspect of the true chapparal – a thicket, rather than a forest – its principal growth being various kinds of acacia, associated with copaiva and creosote trees, with wild aloes, with eccentric shapes of cereus, cactus, and arborescent yucca.