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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wolf Cub, by Patrick Casey
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
-
-
-Title: The Wolf Cub
-       A Novel of Spain
-
-Author: Patrick Casey
-
-Illustrator: Terence Casey
-
-Release Date: October 21, 2012 [EBook #41126]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WOLF CUB ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by D Alexander, Mary Meehan, The Internet Archive
-(TIA) and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
-http://www.pgdp.net
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-                           THE WOLF-CUB
-
-                        _A NOVEL OF SPAIN_
-
-                   BY PATRICK and TERENCE CASEY
-
-    _WITH FRONTISPIECE BY
-    H. WESTON TAYLOR_
-
-    BOSTON
-    LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY
-    1918
-
-    _Copyright, 1918_,
-
-    BY PATRICK AND TERENCE CASEY
-
-    _All rights reserved_
-
-    Published, January, 1918
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration: "It is my officer, my parent!" whispered the young
-policeman]
-
-
-
-
-THE WOLF-CUB
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER I
-
-
-When Jacinto Quesada was yet a very little Spaniard, his father kissed
-him upon both cheeks and upon the brow, and went away on an enterprise
-of forlorn desperation.
-
-On a great rock at the brink of the village Jacinto Quesada stood with
-his weeping mother, and together they watched the somber-faced
-mountaineer hurry down the mountainside. He was bound for that hot,
-sandy No Man's Land which lies between the British outpost, Gibraltar,
-and sunburned, haggard, tragic Spain. The two dogs, Pepe and Lenchito,
-went with him. They were pointers, retrievers. For months they had been
-trained in the work they were to do. In all Spain there were no more
-likely dogs for smuggling contraband.
-
-The village, where Jacinto Quesada lived with his peasant mother, was
-but a short way below the snow-line in the wild Sierra Nevada. Behind it
-the Picacho de la Veleta lifted its craggy head; off to the northeast
-bulked snowy old "Muley Hassan" Cerro de Mulhacen, the highest peak of
-the peninsula; and all about were the bleak spires of lesser mountains,
-boulder-strewn defiles, moaning dark gorges. The village was called
-Minas de la Sierra.
-
-The mother took the little Jacinto by the hand and led him to the
-village chapel. She knelt before the dingy altar a long time. Then she
-lit a blessed candle and prayed again. And then she handed the wick
-dipped in oil to Jacinto and said:
-
-"Light a candle for thy father, tiny one."
-
-"But why should I light a candle for our Juanito, _mamacita_?"
-
-"It is that Our Lady of the Sorrows and the Great Pity will not let him
-be killed by the men of the _Guardia Civil_!"
-
-"Men do not kill unless they hate. Do the men of the Guardia Civil hate,
-then, the _pobre padre_ of me and the sweet husband of thee,
-_mamacita_?"
-
-"It is not the hate, child! The men of the Guardia Civil kill any
-breaker of the laws they discover guilty-handed. It is the way they keep
-the peace of Spain."
-
-"But our Juanito is not a lawbreaker, little mother. He is no _lagarto_,
-no lizard, no sly tricky one. He is an honest man."
-
-"Hush, _nino_! There are no honest men left in Spain. They all have
-starved to death. Thy father has become a _contrabandista_ And if it be
-the will of the good God, and if Pepe and Lenchito be shrewd to skulk
-through the shadows of night and swift to run past the policemen on
-watch, we will have sausages and _garbanzos_ to eat, and those little
-legs of thine will not be the puny reeds they are now. _Ojala!_ they
-will be round and pudgy with fat!"
-
-The men of Minas de la Sierra were all woodchoppers and
-_manzanilleros_--gatherers of the white-flowered _manzanilla_. Their
-fathers had been woodchoppers and manzanilleros before them. But too
-persistently and too long, altogether too long, had the trees been cut
-down and the manzanilla harvested. The mountains had grown sterile,
-barren, bald. Not so many cords of Spanish pine were sledded down the
-mountain slopes as on a time; not so many men burdened beneath great
-loads of manzanilla went down into the city of Granada to sell in the
-market place that which was worth good silver pesetas.
-
-There are no deer in the Sierra Nevada--neither red, fallow, nor roe.
-There are no wild boar. There is only the Spanish ibex. And what poor
-_serrano_ can provision his good wife and his _cabana_ full of lusty
-brats by hunting the Spanish ibex? He has but one weapon--the ancient
-muzzle-loading smooth-bore. And the ibex speeds like a chill glacial
-wind across the snow fields and craggy solitudes, and only a man armed
-with a cordite repeater can hope to bring him down.
-
-Soon descended the mountains only men who had turned their backs upon
-Minas de la Sierra and who thought to leave behind forever the bleak
-peaks and the wind-swept gorges and the implacable hunger. Out of every
-ten only one crawled back, beaten and bruised by the savage Spanish
-cities and the savage Spanish plains. With those of Minas de la Sierra
-who could not tear themselves away from their native rocks, these
-broken-hearted ones continued on and with them slowly starved.
-
-It was not the will of the good God that Jacinto Quesada should have fat
-pudgy legs by reason of his father's endeavors. Shrewd were the dogs,
-Pepe and Lenchito, but they were not so shrewd as were the Spanish
-police. Came a pale and stuttering _arriero_, a muleteer, up to the
-village one day. To Jacinto Quesada's mother he brought tragic news.
-
-The men of the Guardia Civil had discovered poor Juanito as he was
-unbuckling a packet of Cuban cigars from the throat of the dog Lenchito;
-they had walked him out behind a sand dune; they had made him dig a
-grave. Then they had shot down Lenchito; then they had shot down Juan
-Quesada. And then the dog and the man were kicked together into the one
-grave and sand piled on top of them both.
-
-But make no mistake, _mi señor caballero_ reader! The men of the Guardia
-Civil are not abominations of cruelty. They are not monsters, brutal and
-depraved. _Quita!_ no.
-
-There are twenty-five thousand men in the Guardia Civil; twenty thousand
-foot and five thousand cavalry. By twos, eternally by twos, they go
-through Spain, exterminating crime wherever crime shows its fanged and
-evil head.
-
-Every Spaniard is potentially a criminal. An empty belly goads him into
-lawlessness; his very nature greases his wayward feet. The Spaniard is
-by nature sullen, irascible, insolently independent, lawless. He is more
-African than European. Prick a Spaniard and a vindictive Moor bleeds.
-
-Then, whether it be his famishing hunger or lawless passion which has
-caused him to rise above the law, the Spaniard, his crime writ in red,
-flees from the police. Spain is a country of uncouth wilds. There are
-the desolate high steppes and the savage mountains; there are the tawny
-_despoblados_, which are uninhabitated wastes; there are the _marismas_,
-which are labyrinthine everglades where whole regiments may lie
-concealed.
-
-But also, in Spain, there are railroads and telegraphs, and a most
-efficient constabulary, the Guardia Civil. And, were it not for
-_Caciquismo_, all evil-doers would be speedily apprehended by the
-Guardia Civil, tried under the _alcaldes_, and incarcerated in the
-Carcel de la Corte or the Presidio of Ceuta.
-
-Caciquismo is not a tangible thing. It is a secret and sinister
-influence. It is not the Tammany of New York; it is not the Camorra of
-Naples. Yet it resembles both these corrupt edifices in its special
-Spanish way. Its instruments are prime ministers and muleteers, members
-of the _cortes_ and bullfighters, hidalgos and low-caste Gitanos.
-
-A _cacique_ may be only the mayor of a tiny hamlet; again, he may be
-privy councilor to the king. Yet high or low, he is but one of the many
-tentacles of a gigantic octopus which lays its clammy shadow athwart the
-land.
-
-It is well known that Tammany, for reasons political or otherwise,
-protected criminals. Well, even as did Tammany, so does Caciquismo. A
-Spanish criminal may be captured, tried before a magistrate and all; but
-if he be one in good standing with the caciques, never is he sent to the
-Carcel de la Corte or Ceuta. The invisible eight arms of the gigantic
-octopus uncoil and reach out, the thousand ducts along those arms open
-to spew a flood of favors and gold, and magistrate and prosecutor are
-bought and paid for, and the men of the Civil Guard who cannot be
-bought, who are incorruptible, are in the Spanish courts betrayed!
-
-Therefore, the men of the Guardia Civil are most high-handed and cruel.
-The criminal caught in the deed never reaches the Spanish jail. He is
-shot down on the spot. Bigots for justice are the men of the Guardia
-Civil!
-
-_Carajo!_ but there was wailing in Minas de la Sierra when came the news
-of Juan Quesada's death. So many men had gone away and been murdered by
-the police, and so few were left! Women who had been made widows in the
-selfsame way as Jacinto Quesada's mother came to the hut and sought to
-comfort her. But she would not be comforted. For three days she lay on
-the earthen floor of her hut and beat her hands and her head against the
-dust. Then she commenced vomiting and swooning like one sick unto death.
-
-They thought it was the cholera. The cholera was forever scaling the
-high mountains and skulking into the village in the night. A man of the
-village went for the doctor, Don Jaime de Torreblanca y Moncada. He
-lived but a few miles from Granada, and the man had to go all down the
-hills to summon him.
-
-Torreblanca y Moncada was what is called a "hard man." He was a grandee
-by birth and breeding, a hidalgo of the old granite-jawed, eagle-stern
-and eagle-haughty Spanish sort--the Cortes y Monroy sort, the Hernan de
-Soto sort. He worshipped his ancient name, his high hidalgo blood. His
-personal honor was to him more precious than life, more sacred than a
-sacrament, inviolable, consecrated.
-
-When a young man, he had married a woman of race and beauty. She had run
-off with a Gypsy picador. Don Jaime had put a Manchegan knife down his
-boot and set off after them, vowing to follow them to the end of the
-earth even, and to kill them both. But the train, in which the guilty
-ones fled, had not reached Jaen when it was wrecked, and they both were
-crushed out of all semblance to two sinful lovers.
-
-With composure and reserve, Don Jaime heard the news. He did not even
-laugh harshly or curse God for robbing him of his revenge. Only grim,
-quiet and morose, he returned to his dishonored house and to his baby
-daughter that had been robbed, sacrileged, and orphaned.
-
-He was quite a rememberable-looking man. His hair had whitened quickly
-in the years that followed; his skin, from exposure to wind and weather,
-was a deep swarth; and his eyes were gray. Not many Spaniards have gray
-eyes. The eyes of Torreblanca y Moncada were a clear, cold, agate gray.
-All in all, there was about his appearance, especially the long aquiline
-nose, the stony eyes and pointed white beard, something which seemed to
-harken back to the days of ruffs and ready swords--the days of the
-terrible Spanish infantry, the Armada, the Bigotes, the "bearded men"
-the Conquistadores.
-
-The mountaineers of Minas de la Sierra knew fear of him and awe. For
-them he had only a contemptuous eye and a bitter smile and a harsh
-imperious way. They said he had a granite boulder for a heart. But he
-was very tender with the sick.
-
-He was the sort of physician who looks upon his business of serving the
-ailing as a sacred commission from on high. He was like one who had
-taken Holy Orders with his doctor's degree. No Jesuit was more slave to
-his oaths; no Jesuit worked with more zeal for God and the Society than
-did Don Jaime for Humanity and Science. The most poverty-abased
-_labrador_, the most filthy beggar, had but to summon him, and he would
-arise from his table or his bed and ride across Spain to him who needed
-healing.
-
-He was the only physician who would journey up the mountains to Minas de
-la Sierra. It mattered not to him that there were long climbing miles of
-perilous goat-paths along howling gorges; it mattered not to him that
-the mountaineers never had money to pay him his just due. He was indeed
-a "hard man," haughty as Satanas, and grim and dour. But even as his
-personal honor was to him more precious than life, so was his
-physician's honor a covenant with Jehovah, tyrannical and imperious to
-command him.
-
-The old men of Minas were sitting under the cork-oak in the center of
-the village when the hidalgo doctor came out of the hut of the sick
-woman.
-
-"Is it not the great illness, Don Jaime?" asked one of the old men, old
-Castro. He was thinking of the dread cholera.
-
-"No. She is merely sick with despair."
-
-"Ah, that is the great illness of Spain! All Spain is sick with
-despair!"
-
-"Carajo! but you are right, my father!" answered the Senor Doctor in his
-bitter way. "Spain despairs. And why not? Spain famishes. There is no
-food for honest men to eat. And men turn dishonest, thinking by crime to
-appease their gnawing bellies. They became contrabandistas, _salteadores
-de camino_, _abigeos_, _ladrones_. And the men of the Guardia Civil take
-them out on the mountainside and murder them.
-
-"Our forefathers," he philosophized, "were refugees from the fall of
-Troy. Black was their national color; black for their lost cause. They
-should put a black stripe with the red and yellow stripes of our modern
-Spanish flag. A black stripe for despair."
-
-"_Bueno_, Don Jaime!" said the old men. One added:
-
-"We have not studied at Salamanca like you, but we know what we know.
-Every night the hungry children cry themselves to sleep. Our own
-porridge bowls are never full. We have seen our sons grow desperate. We
-have seen them one by one go away. There was Benito, my youngest. He
-became a contrabandista, and the Civil Guard murdered him. There was
-Adolpho, the son of my sister Teresa. He also went the same way. There
-was Santiago Reyes and Mateo Pacheco and Ignacio Parral. And now follows
-Juan Quesada."
-
-"What would you?" asked the Senor Doctor, with sudden brutality. "The
-Guardia Civil must keep the peace of Spain. And Spaniards must steal to
-live. It is dog eat dog. It will always be dog eat dog while men are
-Spaniards and Spaniards starve."
-
-He turned abruptly away and entered once more the hut of Jacinto
-Quesada's mother. When he came out again, he said to the women clustered
-about the door:
-
-"She is forever kissing the child Jacinto and moaning, 'My poor
-Jacintito! What will become of thee, thou pale tiny one? My poor, poor
-Jacintito!'
-
-"It is better that he should be taken away from her until she is herself
-again. His presence here only deepens her despair. I will carry him with
-me down the mountain to my _casa_ outside Granada and keep him there for
-a time. I have not much--what Spaniard is rich?--but he will be fed
-well; he will be given the same food as is given my own daughter,
-Felicidad."
-
-"Ah, Don Jaime, you have the heart of gold!" cried one woman, her eyes
-moist and tender.
-
-"The Mother of God reward you, and mend your broken heart, proud
-Torreblanca y Moncada!" cried another. And the others would have burst
-out in a full litany of praises, had not the Senor Doctor fiercely said:
-
-"Don't stand there making the monkey of me, you mountain jades! _Quita
-de ahi! Pronto!_ Get the peasants' brat into his jacket and
-_alpagartas_, and wrap him warmly in his shawl. I desire to get out of
-this accursed hole as quick as possible. It smells bad, and I itch. The
-place is lousy!"
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II
-
-
-In the great harsh fist of the hidalgo doctor Jacinto Quesada, who was
-then ten years old, put his little trembling hand and went down the
-mountains, and entered a new world.
-
-The _casa_ of Don Jaime was large, decayed, dingy, and full of lizards
-that lived between the crumbling adobe bricks. But it seemed to Jacinto
-Quesada a sumptuous palace. Besides the hidalgo doctor, there lived in
-the sumptuous palace two old servants and a pretty little girl with
-golden hair and legs round and pudgy as would have been the legs of
-Jacinto, had his father lived and prospered.
-
-In the great rooms that were so bare with poverty, the two children
-played together. The eyes of the little Jacinto, alert to see all in
-this new strangeness, had noted a peculiar thing. One day he said to
-Felicidad:
-
-"Do you love your father, the Senor Doctor?"
-
-The child knuckled her brow.
-
-"It is not the love," she said thoughtfully. "Don Jaime is a very grand
-and haughty hidalgo; it is not his desire that I should love him. But I
-fear him much!"
-
-Came a day when Felicidad was very naughty. She tore leaves from the
-huge old sheepskin-bound books in the great gloomy library, and cut them
-into paper dolls. It was Don Jaime's one delight to read and reread, in
-the long hot afternoons, those yellow-leaved, richly illuminated
-ancient volumes. Pedro, one of the old servants, informed the doctor of
-Felicidad's naughtiness. The doctor's face went ashy; he shook all over
-with rage. He brought out a short whip of horsehide, a _quirta_ such as
-_vaqueros_ use. With the quirta he lashed Felicidad's legs and back
-unmercifully.
-
-Her screams drove like knives into little Jacinto Quesada's heart. He
-was but ten years old and he was much afraid of the terrible hidalgo.
-But as the whip pitilessly descended again and again, and Felicidad
-screamed and writhed in agony, a hot anger welled up in him; he became
-desperate as only a child becomes desperate; he went mad.
-
-Screaming himself, he charged at the doctor and tore at his trousers
-with his finger nails, and tried to leap up and upon him. The quirta
-rose again and fell upon his head. Then he caught at the doctor's wrist
-and sunk his teeth into it. With bulldog tenacity he hung on, until he
-was beaten into insensibility, and his jaws forced open.
-
-Strangely, Don Jaime conceived a sort of liking for Jacinto Quesada
-after that. He took to calling him The Little Wolf of the Mountains. It
-became his wont to greet Jacinto, when he stumbled across him in the
-great bare house, with a look of savage admiration and the words:
-
-"Ah, here is the wolf-cub! And how are the fangs to-day, hungry scrawny
-one?"
-
-Upon a time, Don Jaime, his hand still in bandages, discovered Jacinto
-alone in the dusky library, bent over a quaint old account of the
-battles and triumphs of the swineherd Pizarro.
-
-"When did you learn to read, son of a mangy she-wolf?" asked the doctor
-in great surprise.
-
-"When I was but five. My mother taught me letters. She is a woman of
-honest birth and of education," answered Jacinto proudly. "When she was
-a child, she was sent to the convent of Santa Ursola in Granada."
-
-"And what do you think of this swashbuckler, Pizarro? He robbed the
-Indians of their golden suns and chalices and their silver bars, without
-morality and without ruth, did he not? But--do you think him cruel?"
-
-The boy nodded his head slowly. Then with the oldish quaintness of a
-book-bitten child, he explained:
-
-"I do think him cruel, mi senor don. But he would not have been Pizarro
-had he been soft-handed and pitiful. He led three hundred and fifty
-Spanish caballeros and four thousand Indians deep into the cordilleras.
-About him were the millions of the Inca Empire. If he had been less
-brave, less strong, less cruel, those many Peruvians would have swirled
-about him like the waters of an ocean, and engulfed him and his poor few
-Conquistadores. But he knew how to be most cruel. That was why he
-conquered. That was why he was altogether the great captain!"
-
-When first he discovered Jacinto in his library, Don Jaime had been of
-the mind to send him bundling, and to lock the door between the peasant
-boy and his precious old books. Now he turned about abruptly, said
-"Humph!" and went thoughtfully away.
-
-At last, came an arriero to take Jacinto Quesada back to Minas de la
-Sierra. She stood beside the mule upon which Jacinto mounted, the
-golden-haired little Felicidad, and held up her small fat hands for him
-to kiss. The hidalgo doctor watched his departure from the dark of the
-doorway. He looked after the great dust-cloud on the brown road for a
-long time.
-
-"The Little Wolf!" he muttered in his morose way. "He was as famished
-for knowledge as he was for food. He would have gone blind if he
-lingered in my library much longer. To see him rip the entrails out of
-Bernal Diaz's 'Cortes' and the Lives of Balboa, De Soto, Coronado--what
-a joy! He has eyes of gold for seeing things clearly--for seeing beyond
-good and evil. And he has a heart of fire, he has gusto, that Spanish
-boy! _Pizarro was cruel, but he was great, he was magnificent, because
-he was cruel!_ What a Spanish answer!
-
-"_Por los Clavos de Cristo!_ he will go far, that mountain brat! He will
-be a great realist and philosopher like Cervantes. Or he will be a great
-dramatist like Lope de Vega. Or a great poet or statesman. Or a great
-captain like the Conquistadores whose lives he studied with such gusto
-and whose strength he analyzed with such clear-sightedness!"
-
-Then Don Jaime smiled very bitterly. For the moment he had forgotten
-that his Jacinto Quesada had been born a Spaniard of the people. He
-swore a vile oath.
-
-"But no, he will be none of those things!" he said. "_Cascaras!_ I am
-becoming an old driveling fool."
-
-Don Jaime knew that God smiles sardonically upon the Spaniard of the
-people who seeks to rise in the world. He knew that, just as the United
-States is a country of unlimited opportunities, just so is Spain a
-country of opportunities limited and few. The Spaniard of the people,
-strong with heart and gusto, has but two careers open to him. By those
-two careers and those two careers only, can your ambitious Iberian
-attain to fame and fortune, and stand greatly above his countrymen.
-
-"He will become a bullfighter, perhaps!" said Don Jaime.
-
-Every man and boy in Spain is an _aficionado_, a bullfight "fan," a
-frantic bullfight "bug." The successful bullfighter, be he matador, or
-murderer of bulls, or only a _peon_ of the _cuadrilla_, is given rich
-food with which to garnish his belly; he learns how gold feels when it
-is minted into money; his photographs are purchased by romantic
-_señoritas_; and wherever he goes, he is followed by crowds of tattered
-street urchins who studiously and hopefully ape his swagger. The whole
-universe salves and butters him with admiration and envy; and he, the
-popular _picador_ or the distinguished _espada_, is in many ways more
-truly a king of Spain than is Alfonso the King. Jacinto Quesada, he of
-the heart of fire and the great gusto, might become a bullfighter.
-
-But suddenly Don Jaime remembered that the little Jacinto was a boy of
-the desolate mountains. He could never see the great bullfights of the
-cities of the plains, those great bullfights so golden with glamor.
-Hence never would be waked in him the ambition to become a bullfighter.
-
-"_Ea pucs!_" said Don Jaime with grimness. "Well, then! There is naught
-for my Jacinto to do but to become a _bandolero_!"
-
-The bandolero sells no photographs of himself; he goes houseless in the
-wind and rain; he bites upon gold coins but rarely; he is hunted
-persistently by the Spanish police. And yet, from day to day, his deeds
-have their place in the Hispanic newspapers; he is the hero of a
-thousand household stories and ballads; the people give him the fat of
-the countryside to eat; the people love him more even than once they
-loved that greatest of all bullfighters, the negro Frascuelo!
-
-"Quita!" exclaimed Don Jaime, chuckling. "God forbid!" It had struck him
-that he might live to the day when people would say in his hearing:
-"Jacinto Quesada? Ah, he is good, he is brave, he is like the very God
-Himself. Watch over him in the mountains, Mary, Queen of Angels! and
-protect him from the Guardia Civil and from treachery!" And he,
-Torreblanca y Moncada, the prophet who, years before, had seen his
-vision, would laugh and they would wonder why he laughed.
-
-A bandolero is a Spanish highwayman, a Spanish Dick Turpin, a Spanish
-Robin Hood. He is a man of a type altogether extinct in countries less
-backward than Spain. In Spain the type has persisted for five hundred
-years and still continues to persist. In Spain the type is obstinate,
-ineradicable.
-
-José Maria was a Spanish bandolero. Diego Corrientes, he who was loved
-by a duchess, was a Spanish bandolero. And Spanish bandoleros were Visco
-el Borje, Agua-Dulce, Joaquin Camargo, nicknamed El Vivillo, and
-Pernales, the blond beast of prey. The bandolero is the blight of Spain.
-But countries that have been exploited by Spaniards are also affected
-with the Spanish blight. A bandolero of Mexico is Zapata. And a Mexican
-bandolero is Pancho Villa, too.
-
-One wintry gloaming of Jacinto Quesada's thirteenth year, there entered
-Minas de la Sierra, a ruddy-haired, blue-eyed, burly man on horseback. He
-was clad in weather-worn corduroys; a week's golden stubble was on his
-broad, sunburned face; and his body smelled sourly of sweat. He guided
-his horse with his knees and heels. In both hands he held half-raised a
-Mauser carbine.
-
-The horse halted under the cork-oak, but the man did not dismount. He
-sat looking slowly from right to left, from left to right, along the
-village street. Presently he shouted:
-
-"Hola, _mis paisanos_! Why do you not come out to greet me?"
-
-With trembling and hesitation they came forth from their doorways. They
-were like so many wary brown lizards stealing out from their rocks. They
-formed a tongue-tied ring about the quiet horseman and eyed him with
-awe.
-
-"I desire food," said he shortly.
-
-"It is our wish to serve you, _maestro_," said Antonio Villarobledo,
-speaking for the rest. "You shall have the best of our poor lean
-store."
-
-Then spoke up Carlos Machado, a showy and presumptuous man.
-
-"Come to my house with me. I have a stew of lentils!"
-
-"But I have a _puchero_!" another bid. "Come with me, _Gran Caballero_."
-
-Suddenly a woman who had been hiding in her doorway ran out into the
-street, crying shrilly:
-
-"Do not listen to these selfish stingy Moors, maestro! Come with me--I
-will kill a pullet for you, the last of my lot! Come with me, I beg you,
-_caballerete_! To ask you to be my guest, I have the supreme right. My
-husband was the last man of the village to be murdered by the Guardia
-Civil!"
-
-Carlos Machado and certain others turned wrathful faces toward Juan
-Quesada's widow. But she had, indeed, the supreme right, and they dared
-make no objection when the corduroy-clad _cabalgador_ said most
-heartily:
-
-"Well spoken, woman! I will go with you. Your husband shall not have
-been murdered in vain and your pullet lived to no good purpose!"
-
-Then he laughed in the faces of the others and said with sudden
-imperiousness:
-
-"Bring your lentils and your puchero to the widow's casa, mis paisanos!
-My appetite is the most gorgeous appetite in Spain, and all you have
-will not be too much for me. Besides you will do well to fat me up, you
-Spaniards!"
-
-He dismounted and followed Jacinto Quesada's mother, giving instructions
-to certain of the villagers as to how they should water and fodder his
-horse.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III
-
-
-When his mother went out on the mountainside to catch and to kill the
-last surviving chicken, Jacinto Quesada went with her both to lend her a
-hand and to ask her a question. She held the pullet to the block and
-Jacinto raised the axe. Then, the axe poised aloft, Jacinto asked:
-
-"Who is this rough burly man to whom the people do such honor?"
-
-"He is the great Pernales!"
-
-The axe descended; blood spattered the faces of the two; the head of the
-pullet lay free from the body and still; the body flapped about in a
-manner outrageous and vile. Said Jacinto, after a moment:
-
-"Pernales, the bandolero?"
-
-"_Si, si!_ Pernales, the bandolero, him hunted forever by the men of the
-Guardia Civil!"
-
-"But why do not the men of the Guardia Civil murder him as they murdered
-our poor Juanito?"
-
-"Art thou a dullard, child! Thy father was a mere contrabandista. Thy
-father wished only to be left undisturbed by the police. He was a coward
-at heart as are most Spaniards who turn dishonest that they might eat.
-He suffered himself to be captured without a struggle; there was no
-murder in his bowels!"
-
-She swept on with true Latin eloquence and fervor:
-
-"But this Pernales! The men of the Guardia Civil fear Pernales as they
-do not fear men of your poor father's sort. He is muscled like a
-leopard; he is long of arm; he is deep-loined; and the strength of him
-is like the strength of the first Spaniard, Hispanus, the son of
-Hercules. But there is more to him than mere body strength! He is
-possessed of a strength above body strength, a strength beyond body
-strength. He is strong in his soul!
-
-"He is strong to live; he is strong to conquer; he is strong to make men
-die. The bandoleros are all like that. They are arrogant, imperious,
-absolute. They are like our ancestors, the Cristinos Viejos, the Old
-Rusty Christians, they who eradicated the Moors from Spain. They are
-like our ancestors, the Celtiberians, they who bathed in the urine of
-horses that they might grow hard and muscular, they who asked for no
-quarter in battle and who gave none.
-
-"A man to be a bandolero must have entrails of iron. This Pernales is of
-the right guts. He likes nothing better than to meet a policeman alone
-in the hills and to fight him to the death. The men of the Guardia Civil
-would capture and slay him if they could; but when they come up to him
-on the high road, he turns and gives battle with laughter and taunt,
-with ardor, strength, desperation, and ferocity! Never does he hesitate
-or falter when comes the supreme moment--the moment when his weakness
-says 'Be merciful!' and his strength says 'Kill thou, Pernales!'"
-
-His mother sped into the house, but Jacinto stood by the dripping block,
-immersed in thought.
-
-Presently Jacinto Quesada sat on his little stool in the far corner of
-the great fireplace and watched the bandolero eat. What huge teeth he
-had and how white they were! Over each mouthful the whole broad face
-worked, the lips and cheeks making a dozen grimaces, the jaws snapping
-and grinding.
-
-Every little while, the bandolero mumbled from a full mouth some
-question. He seemed much interested in the murdered Juanito. But it was
-almost as though he considered poor Juanito's death a humorous mishap;
-at certain of the widow's remarks he laughed roughly, and his laughter
-stormed through the cabana like a wind through one of the boulder-strewn
-passes overhead.
-
-An hour later he was astride his horse again and riding down the
-goat-path that dropped away from Minas de la Sierra and wound through
-the lower gorges. It is never the habit of the bandolero to linger in a
-_pueblo_ or village longer than a very short time; most sensational and
-brief and furtive are his visits.
-
-There was a fat and brilliant moon, that night. It was as though a snow
-had fallen, the heads and shoulders of the mountains were so white. Down
-into the dark moaning gorges, one could see a great distance.
-
-Pernales walked his horse very slowly, for the path led along the sheer
-of a precipice. But while he kept a vigilant eye on the way ahead, ready
-to throw himself toward the wall of the gorge should the nag stumble on
-a loose stone, or shy from the path, and plunge screaming into
-nothingness, Pernales continually cast wary quick glances toward the
-crags and boulders overhead, and continually bent his ear back the way
-he had come. It was almost as though he feared an ambush in that lonely
-perilous place. It was almost as if, at any moment, he expected men of
-the Guardia Civil to rise from behind every rock, and the command of the
-Guardia Civil to sound in his ears:
-
-"_Alto a la Guardia Civil!_"
-
-He rounded a great rock that threatened to tear from its moorings down
-into the winding gorge below. Abruptly he halted his horse and his
-carbine came up. A long tense hush. Then suddenly he exploded:
-
-"Who are you that stands beside the way?"
-
-Came the answer in a child's thin voice:
-
-"Jacinto Quesada!"
-
-Minas de la Sierra was a long distance above and far back in the
-sierras. With great surprise the bandolero recognized the child to whom
-he had waved a hand and called a laughing "á Dios" some time before.
-
-"Are you alone?" The carbine still threatened.
-
-"See for yourself, maestro! But I am altogether alone."
-
-The bandolero rode nearer. When the horse shouldered up, the little
-Jacinto was compelled to squeeze into the very crevices of the rock
-wall, so narrow was the path.
-
-From his lofty seat on the big, rawboned black horse, Pernales looked
-down at the son of the widow Quesada and measured, with his eyes, the
-boy's extreme youthfulness and preposterous lack of strength and size.
-Jacinto was only thirteen years old.
-
-What he saw altogether reassured Pernales. His blue eyes twinkled; he
-smiled; he grinned, his lips working and twitching; and at last he broke
-out in a frank and free burst of laughter.
-
-"Cascaras!" he roared, between guffaws. "How came you here, lively
-little one? Have you the sharp hoofs of the ibex to gallop you from crag
-to crag, across gorges and _gargantas_ and all? Or have you the griffon
-vulture's wings that you may fly over mountains? You are no real flesh
-and blood child! You are a sprite, a--"
-
-Jacinto Quesada, imperious with a great desire, brushed his bantering
-words aside. Trembling with eagerness, he cried:
-
-"Take me with you, Pernales! I would be a bandolero, too! Lift me up
-behind you on your horse, and I will go with you through Spain and be
-your _compañero_ and your _dorado_--your golden one, your trustworthy
-one! Take me with you, please, please, Pernales!"
-
-The bandolero did not credit his own ears. He was too astounded to
-laugh.
-
-"Hola!" he gasped. "What is this now? You, my chicken, would be a
-bandolero! And you came all the way down here to recruit with me! Por
-los Clavos de Cristo!"
-
-Then soberly and slyly, for he was beginning to see good fun in the
-little fellow:
-
-"But do you not know that it is a rule, a convention, of us good
-bandoleros to ride alone? Solitary and single-handed, we are safer and
-stronger than if a troop of cabalgadores surrounded us. There is no one
-so swift and slippery and elusive as a bandolero who rides alone, and
-no one so free from fear of treachery--he trusts no man and no man he
-dreads."
-
-"True. You understand your business, I see," said Jacinto Quesada.
-
-He was only thirteen; yet he spoke slowly, with deliberation and
-discernment and a great air of mannish profundity. He had got something
-from Don Jaime's books, this mountaineer's bantling!
-
-"But there are times," he qualified, "when even the most superb
-bandolero needs assistance in some serious and signal business. Have you
-not yourself a _dorado_, a _camarada_, who rides with you on your
-greater crimes, the Nino de Arahal? Certain folk have told me of the
-Nino; they said he shared the glory of those enterprises which made
-imperative a show of numbers and strength; do not tell me these folk
-lied! I had hoped to dispossess this camarada and dorado of yours, this
-Nino de Arahal, and to attain to the envied place down from which I
-threw him headlong!
-
-"But the Nino," he added, arrogating to himself judicial authority--"let
-us forget him! Za! he is only an insignificant frog! Your wish to ride
-unhindered and alone, of that I would speak! Maestro, when I become your
-dorado, we will ride together always, for we will commit only imposing
-and glorious crimes!"
-
-Said Pernales softly:
-
-"But how would you dispossess the Nino de Arahal?"
-
-"I would pit against the huge gorilla's head of the Little One of
-Arahal, my head of gold for thinking quick thoughts and audacious ones.
-I would displace him and replace him by my natural superiority of brain.
-But if that were not enough--Carajo! I would lock knives with him, I
-would lunge and slash and rip and stab with my _navaja_, while he tore
-and stabbed and slashed and lunged with his, until one or the other of
-us gushed out his life through his wounds and was dead!"
-
-Then it was that Pernales laughed so that the very canyon roared and
-rang. He rolled back his head; he clapped his hands to his stomach; he
-opened his mouth to its widest stretch; and he guffawed so tremendously
-that the horse beneath him staggered and almost overbalanced from the
-wall. He was Olympian in his laughter.
-
-And why not laugh? Did he not see in his mind's eye the gigantic ruffian
-nicknamed the Nino de Arahal locked with this stripling, this barefoot
-child, this suckling babe? Za! The Nino would make ten of him! _Zape!_
-The Nino would swallow him at a mouthful! It was preposterous! It was so
-funny, he cared not a peseta if he laughed himself to death!
-
-But suddenly, through his laughter, slid Jacinto Quesada's low-toned
-words:
-
-"But if he were altogether too huge and brawny for me to murder in open
-combat, then I would murder him in some hidden, treacherous way.
-Treachery is the strength of the weak who are yet strong. If there be no
-other way, the superior brain resorts to treachery for the superior
-brain is invincible. While I am still weak of body, I will not disdain
-to use treachery!
-
-"And, man, man, I warn you! Do not continue to laugh at me! You have
-laughed quite enough at me, Pernales! Cease laughing this instant!
-Quick! Straighten your face, or _Porvida_! the Manchegan knife I have
-with me, I will use on your horse. I will rip open his belly; and he,
-with you upon him, will go bounding off the path and fall head over
-heels down into the abyss!"
-
-Instantly Pernales sobered. His face set into an emotionless mask; his
-teeth clenched together with an audible click; his eyes became hard as
-blue bright pebbles. Without seeming to do so, he looked down at the
-child's hands; and true! there was in those hands a huge, flat-bladed
-dagger, a dagger of La Mancha. The child was turning it over and over,
-and studying it with a pensive interest.
-
-Deep within himself, Pernales laughed ironically at his own
-discomfiture. He could not use the carbine. Without chancing the great
-risk of sending his horse recoiling and reeling off the path, he could
-not strike down the child with a blow of his fist! And the child had but
-to turn aside his gun or dodge his hard fist, and crouch out of harm's
-way beneath the horse's barrel. Then might he strike up with the dagger,
-and the horse would make the breakneck plunge as surely as he would
-scream when stabbed.
-
-"Jacinto Quesada," said Pernales bitterly, "you have caught Pernales in
-a pretty deadfall! Use your knife; then go for the Guardia Civil and
-guide a brace of policemen to where my body lies on the bottom of the
-gorge, and there awaits you the money offered for my head! Cascaras! I
-judged you altogether too superficially; I was too contemptuous!"
-
-Quietly Jacinto Quesada put the Manchegan knife back in his belt.
-
-"I forbear to strike," said he, "since you have confessed your fault.
-Now, soberly and with due respect, give me your answer. Will you take me
-with you?"
-
-A gleam of admiration lit the eye of Pernales.
-
-"Jacinto Quesada," he said, "you are no child. You have shown
-resolution, force, finality; you are altogether masculine, altogether
-_varonil_; you are a man! Therefore, as one man to another, I say: No, I
-cannot take you with me!"
-
-Pernales now was very serious.
-
-"To be my dorado, it is not enough that you have a full-grown soul. You
-must have a full-grown body; and your body is still the puny, soft-boned
-body of a child. If you rode away with me, you of the weak body, your
-strong soul might be sacrificed to the Nino de Arahal or the Guardia
-Civil. And that--God forbid!
-
-"Let us look at this matter like two sensible Moors. Don Eduardo Miura,
-let us suppose, has a young fighting bull of extraordinary promise. At
-the _Tentaderos_ (the breeders' private bullfight, when the young bulls
-are ranked according to their merit as fighting animals), this youngster
-shows superb courage and astounding ferocity. But he is only two years
-old; and five years old must be the age of Don Eduardo's animals before
-he exhibits them in the Plaza de Toros. Does Don Eduardo make an
-exception of this unique bull, does he allow him because of his
-astounding ferocity to have a premature début in the bull-ring? Name of
-God, no! Not even if he be as magnificent with meat as the most mature
-seven-year-old!
-
-"Jacinto Quesada, quickly I have grown to love your strong soul--I have
-grown to love your strong soul too much. And that is why I say, I cannot
-take you with me. No! Porvida, no! But, if you are resentful, use your
-knife and send me whirling down into the gorge. Proceed! I care not a
-peseta what you do."
-
-Jacinto Quesada stood motionless as a rock, thinking deeply. Something
-in the boy's downcast attitude moved Pernales to pity.
-
-"Do not despair, my fire-hearted, _arrogante_ little man," he said
-presently. "I have said no; this time my no is absolute; but I shall not
-say no to you, should I pass this way again when you are more fully
-grown. Some day, I promise you, I shall again pass this way, and then if
-you are still of the mind to be my dorado, you may join out with me and
-we will murder the men of the Guardia Civil together, two sworn
-compañeros. Meanwhile, grow brawny, grow brave, grow high-handed. There
-will always be room in Spain for haughty resolute ones like you!"
-
-"I accept the promise given," said Jacinto Quesada. "And I do not ask
-you to swear to return for me--a word is enough between men. Now,
-knowing you will come back, I will compose myself and wait. A child is
-impetuous and fretful; a man is implacable yet patient."
-
-"Son of the widow Quesada," returned Pernales magnificently, "on the
-promise given and taken, let us strike hands! With a handshake, like two
-true Spaniards, we will bind the bargain."
-
-Jacinto Quesada took his hand off the hilt of his Manchegan navaja and
-gripped claws with the bandolero. A certain note of solemnity thrilled
-through the moment.
-
-The bandolero started on.
-
-"Go thou with God, compañero!" said Jacinto Quesada.
-
-"Grow big, grow strong, thou!" said the great Pernales.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV
-
-
-Jacinto Quesada grew bigger, stronger. But he suffered more with
-ambition than with growing pains. Ambition is the seed of greatness, but
-the seed cannot germinate and bourgeon without giving agony and labor to
-the soil in which it is nurtured.
-
-Pernales did not again pass that way. Three months had not intervened,
-since the promise to return had been given, when the great bandolero was
-murdered for the reward by a Gallego on a lonely hill-road in the
-Asturias--shot through the head at forty yards.
-
-Now, if never could Jacinto Quesada ride with Pernales, then by the
-Life! he would ride alone.
-
-When at last he attained to manhood, he went down the mountains, stole a
-carbine and a horse, and became a bandolero errant and free.
-
-He had hands of gold, that fire-hearted Spanish boy, for sticking up a
-troop of caballeros and their ladies out for a _merienda_ or a
-bull-baiting on the parched plains about Madrid. And he had hands of
-gold for sticking up a diligence full of notables in the savage defiles
-of the Sierra de Guadalupe or the Sierra de Gredos or the Sierra de
-Guadarrama. And he had courage and originality. Why, he was still a mere
-novice as a bandolero, an apprentice hand, a _novillero_, when he took
-it into that round, young, handsome and arrogant Spanish head of his to
-way-lay and loot the Seville-to-Madrid Express!
-
-Spanish highwaymen, you must know, are not in the habit of holding up
-passenger trains. To way-lay a lone muleteer in the mountains, to halt
-and rob a party of itinerant guitarists and dancers, or to pillage the
-_hacienda_ of a rich rural cattle breeder are the conventional things to
-do. But to hold up the Seville-to-Madrid--it is unthinkable, it is not
-the will of God! Spanish highwaymen prefer to do less spectacular deeds
-and to live to see their grandchildren.
-
-In the province of Ciudad Real, the Seville-to-Madrid Express crosses
-the river Zancura by means of a safe and modern steel cantilever bridge
-built by Le Brun, a French engineer. And a half hour before it reaches
-this steel bridge, the Seville-to-Madrid crosses another bridge, a
-bridge over a small tributary of the Zancura which is dry three fourths
-of the year. This bridge is not of steel; it is timbered. It was never
-built by Le Brun; it is flimsy, weather-worn, and liable to give under
-any unusual strain. It is called the Arroyo Seco Bridge.
-
-Here, where the Arroyo Seco lies like a great brown gutter across the
-world, are the high _parameras_ of La Mancha. There are no more desolate
-and lonely uplands in all Spain. Swarthy, sun-scorched and thirsty, they
-torture the eye with dusty dun distances and prone dun lines. You would
-think it an altogether unlikely place for a bandolero to stage a
-hold-up.
-
-And here, a hundred yards below the Arroyo Seco bridge and close beside
-the railroad track, waited Jacinto Quesada one hot, dry, windless
-afternoon. He was seated upon a small sleek mouse-colored Manchegan
-pony. He wore corduroy leggins, a sheepskin _zamarra_, and a Cordovan
-sombrero that had once been white. His dress was that of the typical
-Manchegan herdsman. He looked like any one of the hundred or more
-vaqueros who lived the wild lonely life of the cattle country
-roundabout.
-
-The Seville-to-Madrid showed in the southwest. Like a somber black snake
-it crawled slowly forward--like a black snake laggard and heavy after a
-great dinner of mice.
-
-Spanish passenger trains are altogether unlike American passenger
-trains, for American passenger trains eat up distances like the brazen
-cars of old Northern gods. The passenger trains of Spain are most
-deliberate and slow. They halt for ten minutes at every wayside station,
-for no better reason than to allow the passengers to alight, unlimber
-their legs, and smoke the eternal cigarette. They are the very crawling
-snails of the earth!
-
-Of course, the Seville-to-Madrid was an express, a through train. But
-you may be sure she was no fast train except when viewed through Spanish
-eyes. At fifteen miles the hour, morosely it crawled on. It neared the
-waiting Jacinto Quesada and, fearful of the flimsy wooden bridge beyond,
-slackened its pace to a painful glacier-slow flow.
-
-As the wheezing locomotive lumbered up, Jacinto Quesada, with knees and
-one hand, held the shuddering pony motionless beside the track. The
-other hand he raised aloft. Pointedly, his eyes turned to that upraised
-hand; then to the locomotive's cab; then significantly, to the upflung
-hand once again.
-
-The engine driver, one arm extended to the throttle, a blue-smoking
-cigarette between his lips, leaned far out the cab and looked down at
-the uplifted hand of Jacinto Quesada. In that significantly uplifted
-hand of Jacinto Quesada was an unlighted cigarette.
-
-Now, an American engineer would have passed unheeding by, with perhaps a
-curse for Jacinto Quesada as an arrant fool. Again, a French engineer
-might have called back: "It is a pleasure!" and thrown down a paper of
-matches. For, as it was plain to see, Jacinto Quesada was requesting, in
-pantomime, a spark to ignite his hopelessly dead slim cylinder of
-tobacco.
-
-But the Spanish engine driver did neither of those two things. It is not
-that the Iberians are not as polite as the French; they are more polite
-and altogether more ceremonious. Know you that in Spain, and also in
-Mexico, it is considered something of an insult to proffer a man matches
-when he requests a light of you and you yourself are smoking. It is as
-though you consider him socially beneath you, when you proffer him
-matches.
-
-The locomotive lumbered by. But the engine driver crowded forward on his
-seat; his arms worked; the whistle shrieked. And the train groaned and
-jolted, roared and banged to a full stop.
-
-Passengers telescoped themselves out of windows, some knocked all
-a-scramble by the sudden halt, others pale and frightened. Those heads
-that protruded from fortunate windows saw the engine driver clamber down
-from his high turret, a lighted cigarette in his hand. And they saw spur
-forward to meet him, the dusty vaquero, in his mouth a cigarette that
-was dead.
-
-The vaquero flung himself from his pony. He and the engine driver drew
-together. A hand of each met, became entwined. Their heads leaned close,
-the cigarettes between their teeth touching ends.
-
-Suddenly the engine driver staggered away from the vaquero, his jaw
-dropping, his cigarette falling unheeded to the ground. A huge
-long-barrelled revolver in the hand of the vaquero was nuzzling his
-umbilicus.
-
-"_Aupa!_" shouted the vaquero harshly. "Up!"
-
-Prodding his belly persistently, the vaquero followed him back, step by
-step. The engine driver was suddenly enlightened. It was all a piece of
-herdsmen's buffoonery, a monstrous practical joke!
-
-"Benito!" he roared, addressing his stoker in the cab above. "Benito,
-look down! Here is a vaquero who thinks himself a _salteador de camino_,
-a bandolero like the poor dead Pernales or that new man, Jacinto
-Quesada! _Por los Clavos de Cristo!_ what a fool's idea!"
-
-Then to the vaquero. "Don't you know I have no time for horseplay, you
-silly one, you buffoon, you? You are making yourself liable to arrest!"
-
-"I am the new man, Jacinto Quesada!" said Jacinto Quesada with
-politeness and reserve. Then, "Aupa, aupa!"
-
-"Jacinto Quesada--Almighty God!" gasped the engine driver. Only he made
-it, "_Todopoderoso Dio!_" and he groaned it out slowly.
-
-But with great alacrity he put up his hands.
-
-Then after a moment, stuttering with fright, he commenced objecting.
-
-"But caballerete--but Don Jacinto--"
-
-"What would you?"
-
-"But you cannot hold up the Seville-to-Madrid! No one ever holds up the
-Seville-to-Madrid! And besides, you are alone!"
-
-"But I am not alone," returned Jacinto Quesada.
-
-Nor was he. Out of the Arroyo Seco, a hundred yards up the track, three
-men as drab and dusty as he had poked their dishevelled heads.
-
-Shouted Quesada, "_Adelante_, mis dorados! The stew is ready, approach
-the bowl! Forward, my golden ones!"
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER V
-
-
-The Golden Ones approached at a run, showing in their hands carbines of
-no recent fashion. They were rough-bearded fellows of impetuous courage
-but of little skill or fame; reckless scapegraces whom he had picked up,
-on the plains and in the mountains, to reinforce him in this most
-pretentious and uncommon hold-up.
-
-After the consummation of the deed, they would go their ways and he his.
-Like most Spanish _bandoleros en grande_, Jacinto Quesada preferred,
-whenever he could, to keep his heels clean of confederates and
-coadjutors; he preferred to hold himself aloof and solitary. However,
-they were his compañeros for the nonce; for the nonce, they were his
-dorados, his golden, his trustworthy ones.
-
-One of them clambered up into the cab after the fireman, Benito. The
-rest, under the supervision of Jacinto Quesada, proceeded to turn inside
-out the Seville-to-Madrid.
-
-Pretentious train robberies are forever much alike. Save that those
-waylaid and despoiled were Spaniards, and Spaniards are eternally
-themselves, and their souls glow frankly and incandescently out through
-their bodies in everything they do, the hold-up of the Seville-to-Madrid
-was like an American train robbery, like a train robbery anywhere.
-
-The mail coach was first disposed of. Then the highwaymen turned their
-attention to the passengers. In a jostling, milling, frightened drove
-on the open plain to the right of the stalled coaches, the passengers
-were herded by the four taciturn workmanlike bandoleros. Then one by one
-each passenger was led forward from the rest and searched for money and
-valuables.
-
-Those who were cowardly, quaked and walked knock-kneed, their mouths
-stuttering rapid prayers. Those who were courageous but overawed,
-clenched their teeth in their lips, held their eyes pasted upon the
-bandoleros, and did silently and with utter obedience that which they
-were told to do. Those who were weak, wept. Few words were said, yet the
-faces of all were as a loudly chanted litany of dreads.
-
-Jacinto Quesada took little part in the searching; he left that to his
-journeymen. He stood aloof, his revolver in hand, his eyes studying
-pensively, as they were put to the search, the demeanor of the brave and
-the base.
-
-Many of the herded and driven and robbed wondered at this boy with no
-vestige of hair on his smooth brown cheeks. They did not know him. They
-thought Jacinto Quesada, he who had begun making such a great noise
-through Spain, one of the bearded, black-visaged, older men.
-
-First to be led forward and made to deliver was a traveler for a
-Barcelona manufactory. Then came two brokers who had been speeding about
-Spain to make contracts on the grape, olive, orange, and apricot crops.
-Then came a wine taster, one cork grower, and three cattle breeders; and
-then a troupe of Gitanos, Gypsy musicians and dancers of the
-metropolitan cafés. And these having been plucked in their proper
-sequence, there was led forward a wisp of black-clad nuns.
-
-Jacinto Quesada stepped forward and took off his hat to the nuns. He
-motioned that they should be brought back to their old places without
-suffering the sacrilege of search, and he said, "Your pardon, Ladies of
-God!"
-
-Then was led forward a foreign looking man, a globe-trotter who had been
-traveling alone. He was big, broad-shouldered, fair-haired and as
-smooth-shaven as any bullfighter. He was square of face, his jaw was a
-round resolute knob, and his eyes were blue and hinted of being quick to
-laugh. Struck by the foreign look of the man, Jacinto Quesada stepped
-forward once again and, with an air of ingenuous curiosity, asked, "You
-are a Frenchman, are you not?"
-
-It is a fact that most Spaniards mistake all foreigners for either
-Frenchmen or Englishmen. And they never can distinguish between persons
-of the two races.
-
-Answered the outlander, "I am neither, _muchacho_. I am what you
-Spaniards call a _Yanqui_, a _Norte Americano_."
-
-"Cascaras! You are one of those who gave Spain such a great beating a
-few years ago and robbed us of Cuba and the Philippines. Thorough and
-impudent salteadores de camino, you Yanquis seem to me! But sometimes it
-does a person or a country good to be beaten and robbed. Spain is the
-better for having had her buttocks soundly spanked; and the Philippines
-and Cuba--zut! they were ulcers on her flesh, and Spain is sincerely
-thankful she submitted to the surgeon's knife, now that the thing is
-done!"
-
-At the philosophical and rather elevated tone of the boy, the American
-raised his eyebrows in surprise. Yet he had traveled in Spain some
-months already, and he should have been used to Spanish logic and
-Spanish eloquence.
-
-The race of the Cristinos Viejos is an old, old race, full of salt and
-masculinity and knowledge that is not to be acquired in schools. In a
-country where any peasant will argue or exchange racy jokes with Alfonso
-and even slap him on the back in the ensuing hurly-burly of merriment,
-where a hidalgo will eat with his coachman, and a beggar light his
-cigarette from that of a bishop, how otherwise than the way Jacinto
-Quesada talked, would a man of the people talk?
-
-So this was the notorious Jacinto Quesada, he whom all Spain had
-commenced talking about! Smiling a smile of appreciation, the American
-said:
-
-"I think you are very well right about the recent war. You Spaniards are
-certainly long on common sense. But you are young to be a philosopher,
-Don Jacinto."
-
-At least, that was what he tried to say. But he was speaking in Spanish
-and he was not altogether at home in the idioms of the language.
-However, Jacinto Quesada got his meaning.
-
-He felt pleased, did Jacinto Quesada, to be called a philosopher. With a
-smile he remembered the ferocious way of thinking which had caused him,
-when a child, to seek to be the dorado of the poor dead Pernales--that
-savage philosophy which had finally moved him to become a bandolero. He
-was not nearly so impetuous and fiery and bigoted a youngster as then;
-he was more serene, more Apollonian, more pensively thoughtful.
-
-But the American was speaking. Thinking to be polite and, at the same
-time, rid his system of a sally typically American in humor, he said,
-"It is pleasant to meet a Spaniard like you!"
-
-Quesada caught the inference. He smiled, showing his clean white teeth,
-and returned, "It is pleasant to rob you, senor!"
-
-And he added, struck with surprise that a man could joke while in such
-an awkward and even perilous position, and startled by his surprise into
-admiration and wonder:
-
-"To know you, caballero, is to know why your countrymen won the recent
-war. You are a man of the great bravery; you are as brave as the very
-God Himself!"
-
-Your American is forever afraid lest he be made the butt of irony and
-ridicule, the target of satire and sarcasm. His very self-consciousness
-indicates how vulnerable he is to others' opinions of him; and his
-extreme reserve is only a cloak worn eternally to mask the weakness.
-This particular American changed countenance as he had never changed
-countenance when menaced by the bandoleros' carbines; he went white and
-cold, his eyes flashed angrily. And sharply, he exploded:
-
-"Why do you say that?"
-
-"Because you do not recoil from the rough touch of my dorados; because
-your eye fearlessly meets my eye; because you talk without falter and
-without affected ease; because you act like a man who is a man!"
-explained Jacinto Quesada with sincerity. And to clinch the argument, he
-added, Spaniard-like, "I am utterly brave myself. Do you think I cannot
-recognize men of my own kind?"
-
-The American fidgeted, blushed slightly, and smiled a very rueful smile.
-
-"But why, if I am so very brave," he countered, "did I not rebel and
-kill some of you when your men herded me out on the prairie with the
-rest, and then yanked me forward to pick my pockets? There is a Colt's
-automatic in my hip pocket, but you'll notice I have not used it!"
-
-"A brave man is not necessarily a brave fool like the hidalgo don,
-Quixote of La Mancha," returned Quesada shortly. "You Americans are a
-sentimental race."
-
-Then, turning to one of the searchers, he ordered, "Relieve the Yanqui
-caballero of the pistol that is such a temptation to him, Rafael Perez!"
-
-Presently, eager to have their turns and be done with the necessary
-formalities, pressed forward a cuadrilla of bullfighters. A few of them
-wore the ordinary street dress of men of the profession. They would be
-known anywhere in Spain for bullfighters by their broad, stiff-brimmed,
-low-crowned black hats and their black, tightly fitting clothes.
-
-The most of them were still in bull-ring costume, however. In the busy
-months of the Taurine Season, when bullfights are almost daily events
-and contracts must be fulfilled, the Brethren of the Coleta are kept
-continually on the jump--rushing precipitantly from town to town, from
-bull ring to railroad train and straightway again to bull ring--and they
-have little or no time to change from bull ring costume into street
-clothes and scarcely more time to spend in eating, sleeping, or doing
-anything else than murdering bulls. Therefore, it is a habit with
-bullfighters to railroad everywhere about the peninsula in full ring
-regalia; and one often sees these athletes speeding, gorgeously clad,
-over the desert _vegas_ or alighting at the depots of bullfight-crazy
-towns.
-
-First to come forward was the espada, the dexterous with the sword, the
-murderer of bulls, the man of death.
-
-Jacinto Quesada took one look at him, then with gusto cried, "Por los
-Clavos de Cristo! if here is not the great Morales!"
-
-"_Seguramente_, yes, I am the great Morales!" returned the matador,
-bowing in acknowledgment of the swift and hearty recognition. He wore
-pink silk stockings, gold-braided green silk breeches, waistcoat, and
-jacket, a white ruffled shirt, a crimson tie, and a black cap. He wore
-the black rosette and ribbons of the matador in his _coleta_, his
-queue--that long, thick, and sacred lock of hair all bullfighters wear
-as the time-honored insignia of their ancient profession.
-
-He was not yet thirty. He was a little below the middle height. He had a
-long body and short muscular legs. He was all iron and strength. And
-his brown Andalusian face was the typical young bull fighter's face,
-boyish, almost effeminate with its mild contours; a face made expressive
-and pleasing by eyes soft, dark, thick-lashed and very brave; a face
-that was the easily read table-of-contents of an honest, simple-souled,
-intrepid man.
-
-Jacinto Quesada's eyes smiled, and his whole face beamed, as he looked
-at him, for he recognized in this man whom he had long admired because
-of his splendid courage in the bull ring a kindred spirit.
-
-"And how are the wife and the children, Manuel?" he asked.
-
-"Most excellent in health, thank you, Jacinto! And you? And your
-family?"
-
-"Superb! But ah, Morales, what would I not give to be watching you
-killing your bulls in the Seville bull ring at this moment, instead of
-doing what I am--setting my dogs of ladrones upon you to rob you of your
-hard-earned money! Say but the word, and you will be exempted from this
-indignity!"
-
-"A thousand thanks; but no, I would rather not! It is too much honor!"
-
-"Too much honor for you, one of the three bravest men in Spain? You,
-whom I have ridden fifty miles many times to see give the _suerte de
-matar_, the stroke of death! Why, to sit in the sun and watch you
-perform, I have ventured into Seville in disguise when the men of the
-Guardia Civil were as thick about the bull ring as flea-bitten curs
-about a camp of Gitanos; and I have counted the risk nothing!"
-
-"But if I am one of the three bravest men in Spain, as you say, who are
-the others? Who is the second? Who is the third?"
-
-"The second! Can you not guess?"
-
-"Ah, _chispas_! yes. Yourself, Jacinto Quesada, of course!"
-
-"And the third?"
-
-The brow of the matador darkened with professional jealousy. Tentatively
-he asked, "You do not mean the espada, Lagartijo, do you?"
-
-"No; I do not like Lagartijo's ceremoniousness and caution; I like only
-_diestros_ of the good old charge-and-take-a-chance Sevillian school. I
-mean that Yanqui traveler over there. He is like us two; he is an
-iron-boweled man!"
-
-The bullfighter turned around and took a good look at the lone American.
-Then he slapped his breeches and jacket and invited the bearded
-salteadores to continue with the search.
-
-After the cuadrilla of bullfighters came a fat gray parish priest; then
-several tourists from Central and South America; then a pretty flight of
-rosy and demure young convent girls, bound northward under the vigilant
-watch of two prim sallow _duennas_; and then a tall blond man with a
-straw-colored mustache darkened and stiff with wax.
-
-It was palpable this man was no Spaniard. He was dressed with neatness,
-even elegance. Strangely, his face looked much older than his lithe
-athletic body. It was a sharp, clever face, but a peculiar ashy pallor
-overspread it and, about the mouth, there were hard grim lines. The nose
-was long, high-bridged, predatory. The eyes were slate-colored, small
-and bright and furtive. They had a peculiar trick of drooping at the
-outer corners, a trick that gave him a calculating and rather sinister
-look.
-
-He had been traveling with his young wife, a very lovely slip of a girl.
-Her turn was to come next. She stood at the edge of the muster of
-people, looking after her foreign-looking husband with blue eyes oddly
-eager rather than anxious. She was a golden-haired girl of the rare
-Castilian blond type. She seemed made all of gold, ivory, and rose
-petals. Among all those frightened people, she alone was without fear.
-As she stood there, looking calmly about her, she seemed altogether the
-innocent and trustful child; to all appearances she should have been
-still in some Spanish convent, sequestered and secure--not abroad in the
-world where there are bandoleros and even men of worse sorts.
-
-Her husband, the foreign-looking man, was about to be put to the search
-when, aroused by something more than curiosity, Jacinto Quesada stepped
-forward and asked brusquely, "You are a Frenchman?"
-
-"I am a Frenchman, _monseñor_."
-
-"And why, Frenchman, do you make signs with your hands to me?"
-
-With good reason Jacinto Quesada asked that question. Ever since he had
-been singled out for the search, the Frenchman, looking everywhere but
-at his hands, had been persistently making covert signals with those
-hands. First he drew two fingers down across his left cheek; then he
-made certain finger movements very like the word-spelling finger
-movements of the deaf and dumb; and finally he stroked his throat and
-Adam's apple with a certain lingering wistful care!
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI
-
-
-The pale Frenchman looked full at Jacinto Quesada, and suddenly his
-small slate-colored eyes blazed like sunlight on ice.
-
-"Do you not comprehend of the signs the meaning?" he asked sharply in
-tolerable Spanish.
-
-"No."
-
-"Nor that which I desire you to understand when I do this thing?"
-
-Impetuously he stepped forward and grasped, with his right hand, the
-right hand of Jacinto Quesada. What followed seemed only a most ardent
-handshake. Then he dropped Quesada's hand and stepped back, assuming his
-old passive pose. And only Quesada knew that there had passed between
-them another signal--he alone knew that the Frenchman, on gripping his
-hand, had tapped the wrist of that hand with his index finger twice.
-
-Rumpling his brow, the youthful bandolero consulted with himself for a
-space. Then, his face clearing, decisively he said:
-
-"No, Frenchman, your signals to me have no meaning. It is, perhaps, that
-I am not of sufficient knowledge; I am only a poor Moor of Andalusia,
-you know. But what is the message you wish to convey by your cabalistic
-signs? I am curious, senor; tell me in honest Spanish and interestedly I
-shall listen."
-
-The tall blond Frenchman laughed ruefully under his waxed mustache.
-
-"As you do not comprehend my signs," he said, "to explain to you the
-meaning would do me little good, I fear."
-
-Returned Quesada, somewhat disappointed, "You fear rightly, Frenchman!"
-
-He made a slight gesture of the hand. Two of his dorados seized the
-Frenchman and proceeded to subject him to a rough overhauling. The
-Frenchman grimaced with impotent rage and, narrowing his naturally small
-calculating eyes, watched the searchers' every move with covert anxiety.
-
-Brusque, precipitant, hasty was that search. Very easily might it have
-been more studied and thorough. But a gold watch, a few Spanish gold and
-silver peseta pieces, two rings set with diamonds and an emerald
-scarfpin were taken from him before he was liberated by the searchers.
-The rings and the scarfpin were not plucked from his hands and necktie;
-they were found deep in his pockets where he had hidden them, thinking
-perhaps, to smuggle them past the bandoleros.
-
-At that, the emerald scarfpin was but a very ordinary jimcrack and the
-diamonds of the two rings, though huge and pretentious, had the
-dishonest and glassy look of paste imitations. Though but simple Moors,
-even as they called themselves, the bandoleros were not so ingenuous as
-to be deceived by them; and they wondered greatly why he had concealed
-them with such pains. Remarked sarcastically one of the searchers, a
-certain Ignacio Garcia, addressing Quesada:
-
-"The elegant French rooster has but a thinly lined crop, maestro!"
-
-He grasped the Frenchman's elbow and swung him about-face. Then he gave
-him a shove toward the group already plucked and gutted, shouting
-harshly, "Away with you, you false jewel! Pronto!"
-
-The Frenchman hastened to merge himself into the background. Once his
-face was turned away from the bandoleros, his pebbly eyes sparkled with
-profound relief; they sparkled with inconcealable joy; and he smiled a
-superior triumphant smile.
-
-"Who comes next?" asked Jacinto Quesada, without much interest.
-
-"The beautiful young wife of the Frenchman, maestro. She, with the mouth
-that is a nest for kisses!" And Rafael Perez pointed her out.
-
-"And it please you, you may come forward, Senora Dona!" in a carefully
-softened voice called Pio Estrada, another of the searchers. Strange,
-but her youth and beauty and high hidalgo look had moved the man to a
-ruffian's attempt at courtesy and gentleness.
-
-As she made to step forward, Jacinto Quesada turned his eyes upon the
-beautiful golden-haired girl and, for the first time, gave her a special
-and particular scrutiny.
-
-"Hola!" he gasped. "What is this?"
-
-He stepped forward a step, his eyelids narrowed, his eyes gleaming; and
-he shot toward her a second look, piercing, probing. It was as though he
-were shocked and aroused, puzzled and confounded. While he looked
-eagerly and long at her, he muttered:
-
-"What a resemblance! But no--it is not a resemblance. She is she
-herself!"
-
-He moved slowly towards her as though drawn thence by an irresistible
-influence. Suddenly he called out a name!
-
-"Felicidad!"
-
-On the barren, windless plain to the right of the stalled carriages,
-they were all gathered, the bandoleros with their carbines, the
-travelers so like a herd of cattle in a _rodeo_. Those passengers,
-already searched and robbed, were in a separate group; they were
-sequestered from those not yet searched and made to deliver. No sound
-came across the everlasting flats but the low incessant chitter of the
-desert-loving wheatears, little fuzzy fat birds that live among the
-mimosa and the thorny acacia and the stunted ilex of that ugly and
-desolate Manchega veldt. Out from the main drove of passengers moved
-bravely the golden-haired girl. And then, a name was called, and the
-windless air became suddenly electric with drama.
-
-The Frenchman's young wife moved forward, seemingly unaware of Jacinto
-Quesada's call, of his now devouring gaze. Well, suddenly and all on the
-moment, she turned about-face and started swiftly for the stalled train!
-
-It was altogether unexpected. She was not the first of her sex to be
-singled out for the search; she had seen nuns and convent maids and even
-Gitanas treated by the bandoleros with a respect and courtesy that
-amounted almost to reverence; and yet, at the last instant, alarm and
-trepidation had overcome her, it seemed. She was hysterical, perhaps;
-almost insane with terror.
-
-Be that as it may, her unexpected and erratic performance caused an
-echoing panic to sweep over the other passengers. Even the bandoleros
-felt the contagion. Cursing excitedly, two of them started to pursue the
-golden-haired girl, while the third, Rafael Perez, standing near
-Quesada, raised his carbine and screamed hoarsely:
-
-"Come back here, you outrageous minx!"
-
-The crowd, momentarily free from the dread of the bandoleros, had
-commenced an insensate shouting and milling. Now, had Perez fired off
-the carbine, the whole hold-up might have ended then and there for the
-bandoleros in an inglorious headlong rout. The passengers, already out
-of thrall to the salteadores, would have risen in tumultuous,
-uncontrollable fury at this firing on a defenseless woman.
-
-But Jacinto Quesada rose to the crisis and saved the situation. Excited
-though he was, he sprung toward Perez, tore the carbine from his hands
-and, pointing it at the crowd, shouted imperiously to his men:
-
-"Back, you fools, to your stations! Guard these people. Shoot any that
-break away! And don't mind the girl! I'll bring her back--I, and no one
-else!"
-
-Presto! and the bandoleros were back in their old positions, their
-carbines sweeping the crowd. The imminent danger of stampede was
-dissipated. The discipline of dread again prevailed.
-
-Handing the carbine back to Perez, Jacinto Quesada started after the
-girl. She had fled without aim, without purpose, he thought, like a
-frightened doe that cares not where she flees so long as she flees from
-the huntsmen. Her panicky flight would do little good, however; a sort
-of trap was the stalled train, not a refuge and sanctuary.
-
-The girl was just about to open the door of one of the third-class
-coaches and fling herself therein when, all at once, she cast back a
-look, first at her tall blond mustached husband, then at Quesada.
-Strangely, her glances seemed to have become preposterously mixed. It
-was a look of dread and loathing she threw back toward her husband; and
-a look of entreaty and beseeching she sent toward the pursuing
-bandolero!
-
-With his long mountaineer's legs, Jacinto Quesada sprinted to the train.
-Hardly had the door of the third-class carriage closed behind the
-golden-haired girl than he was at that door. Open he flung it and in he
-burst.
-
-"Felicidad! Felicidad, _querida mia_, my darling! It is I,
-Jacinto--Jacinto Quesada! You have naught to fear from me. And if you
-had told me that he, the Frenchman, was your husband, I would not have
-robbed him. Porvida! everything taken already shall be given him back.
-And as for you, dear Felicidad--"
-
-She had backed herself against the door opposite. Now she came forward
-swiftly, her face paling and flushing, her lip a-quiver. It was not as
-though she were glad with sudden recognition: it was as though she were
-terribly agitated by some deadly fear. She said, in a dry expressionless
-tone:
-
-"I heard your name mentioned by some passenger as we were bundled from
-the train, Jacinto, and ah! how grateful to God I was when I first saw
-you, almost half an hour ago, standing among those ruffianly ladrones! I
-remembered the time you saved me from my father's quirta--and I needed
-you so much more, now!
-
-"All this long, long afternoon I prayed that something would
-happen--anything, anything! God of my soul! how I prayed! But even after
-I discovered you and realized that, for our childhood's sake, you would
-protect me, it took all my courage and strength to flee from the crowd
-and conceal myself here, where I could speak to you and not be spied
-upon or suspected by that evil, that terrible man!"
-
-Almost in a whisper were her words spoken, but they crashed upon Jacinto
-Quesada's brain like exploding, detonating shells. He reeled back,
-overwhelmed, staggered, knocked all to pieces. He gasped:
-
-"Por los Clavos de Cristo! what is all this?"
-
-"Ah, _Maria purissima_! He does not understand! But all, I shall tell
-him!"--and swiftly, precipitantly, the girl went on:
-
-"This Frenchman. He calls himself Jacques Ferou. He was the only one
-that was kind to me and even until two hours ago, I thought I loved him.
-We were to be married in Madrid to-night--but now--"
-
-"Then he is not already your husband! Carajo! I thought--"
-
-"No; we but eloped this morning. And now, I would not continue on with
-him; I would turn back! I am afraid--afraid!"
-
-"But tell me all from the beginning. Your words turn my brain to a
-stew!"
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VII
-
-
-Jacinto Quesada had known Felicidad's father, Don Jaime de Torreblanca y
-Moncada; he had lived in the great, cold, dingy house near Granada; he
-had tasted the secluded, lonely life of Felicidad. Therefore, she had
-but to say a few sketchy rapid sentences and he comprehended the
-beginning of everything.
-
-"Of late years, my father has become gradually poorer, Jacinto," she
-said.
-
-Quesada nodded his head understandingly. Don Jaime had never refused his
-physician's services to the poverty-stricken and wretched; and the
-poverty-stricken and wretched were always becoming sick; and the
-poverty-stricken and wretched seldom paid. Small wonder that Don Jaime's
-fortunes had fallen into decay!
-
-"My father had no money put by to keep him in his old age; but he always
-said he would sell those old beloved books of his when he became
-incapacitated, by age, for a physician's arduous toils, or when bitter
-necessity pressed him hard. You must know, Jacinto, that father's
-ancient, yellow-leafed books are worth much, much money."
-
-She went on to explain. Learned men, famous men--some of them scholarly
-descendants of noble families, others erudite plebeians with the right
-to affix a dozen initials after their names--were always coming to Don
-Jaime's house from the University of Salamanca and the Museo Provincial
-of Seville to examine those books and to write historical treatises and
-critiques from them. And it was not unusual to find one of these
-bookworms, these bibliophiles, these _hombres del todo aficionado á los
-libros_, making eager hints to purchase such of the precious dingy tomes
-as they considered within their means.
-
-Some of the books had been possessed by Don Jaime's family for hundreds
-of years; others he had come by through his godfather who was a famous
-Spanish historian and very rich; and still others he had himself
-discovered when doctoring ruined hidalgo families and the monks of
-poverty-gutted monasteries; and he had taken these finds in place of
-monetary fees. Naturally enough, therefore, he hated to part with any of
-this great treasure in books.
-
-Fearing an old age of stony poverty, however, Don Jaime at last made up
-his mind to put the books on sale. The money he might receive from
-marketing the books he planned to invest in Argentine bonds. Three
-months gone, he wrote to two great houses that deal in rare and valuable
-books; the one in London, the other in Paris.
-
-Posthaste, two months since, came to the house outside Granada, the
-buyer for the London firm. In far-away cold London, they had heard of
-Don Jaime's collection, for there was not another collection of its like
-outside of Spain. For two weeks the London book-buyer lived in the casa
-with Don Jaime and Felicidad, cataloguing and pricing the books. Some
-of the old quaint authors he rejected as of little worth, but others he
-called "glorious Golcondas" and offered Don Jaime such a sum for them
-that he was amazed, astounded. He had not expected to receive so much
-money for the whole aggregate and total of his collection.
-
-"Three weeks ago, after paying my father a fortune in bank notes,"
-continued the girl, "the English book-buyer, Senor Havelock
-Moore-Ingraham, went away, and with him, borne by a caravan of ten
-mules, went the cream and richness of my father's library.
-
-"Then came to our house this Jacques Ferou. He said he had been sent by
-the Paris house to whom my father had written. My father told him that
-he was too late to bid, that all the books of value had been sold.
-
-"At that Jacques Ferou became very downcast; he said that his firm would
-be much put out when they learned he had allowed the English company to
-bag the hares while he played the laggard. And he begged very earnestly
-for permission to look through the books, which had not been purchased,
-in the hope that the English agent had overlooked a few volumes of
-value, volumes that he might buy in order to save his face."
-
-Don Jaime gave him permission so to do. For almost a month he lived in
-the great dusky lonely house. When he was not in the library poring over
-the yellowed tomes, he wandered through the house, seeking sight of
-Felicidad. When she had her daily "hour of balcony", he would leave the
-casa and stand watching her from across the road, "playing the bear" in
-a very serious and devoted manner.
-
-"I had never had a _novio_ before," explained Felicidad, "and his eyes
-were so kind and sympathetic! It was very lonely in the great house with
-just my father and the old whining Pedro and the old childish Teresa.
-And he treated me with such consideration and reverence!
-
-"We used to meet often in the long dusky corridors, he kissing my hands
-and telling me how beautiful I was, and I liking it, yet feeling fear of
-him and all a-tremble, besides, lest my father discover us. And at
-dinner time and all through the evenings, there he would be again,
-talking with my father about 'rogue novels' and the chroniclers of the
-conquistadores, and ever looking at me with the burning eyes of love.
-
-"Two days ago, my father spoke very harshly to me, threatening me with a
-beating--he beats me even yet, you know. Old Pedro had told him that I
-had a novio--that was why he was angered at me. But he did not as yet
-suspect that my lover was Jacques Ferou.
-
-"Jacques was to leave our house for Paris in another week. I could not
-resign myself to the old loneliness in that empty gloomy house; and I
-would not suffer even one more time the indignity of a beating at my
-father's hands. So two days ago I consented to run off with Jacques
-Ferou and become his wife.
-
-"At four o'clock this morning, when it was still dark, I left my bed,
-dressed, put a few things together, and went out on my balcony. Jacques
-was waiting for me. He threw up a rope and I tied it to the iron
-railing and let myself down into his arms.
-
-"Down the road a high-powered automobile awaited us. In it we raced
-precipitantly away, for as you very well know, we had the outraged pride
-of my terrible father to fear. Before seven o'clock in the morning, we
-had fled almost as far as Jaen. Then something went wrong with the
-automobile and it would go no farther; whereupon, Jacques sent a
-_labrador_ into Jaen, who soon came back escorting a diligence pulled by
-four horses. In the diligence we set off for Castro which is on the
-railroad to Madrid. It was two hours before noon when we reached Castro,
-and the train came at noon."
-
-They were on the Seville-to-Madrid that afternoon, when suddenly
-Felicidad thought:
-
-"Has Jacques forgotten that he came to my father's house to purchase
-books--has he forgotten his matter-of-fact business in his overmastering
-love for me? He has neither paid my father for those books he selected,
-nor taken those books he selected away with him.
-
-"I questioned Jacques. He laughed. He told me not to worry about his
-business affairs. But I continued to worry; I felt already a wife's
-interest and pride in my future husband's career; and I was much afraid
-that his employers in Paris would be angered by his careless handling of
-the whole transaction.
-
-"When Jacques saw that I was still put out about him, he laughed again,
-this time heartily and long. Then suddenly he stopped laughing and,
-looking hard into my eyes, said in a cold, challenging voice:
-
-"'Suppose I should tell you, _ma chérie_, that I am not in the employ of
-a Paris book house; that my business is not at all that of a purchaser
-of rare books; and that I care for rare books not a snap of the
-fingers!'"
-
-Felicidad was thunderstruck and a little stunned. He saw the shocked
-expression on her face and thereat commenced, with a cruel malicious
-delight, to tell her other things.
-
-He had been to the United States, Mexico, Brazil, and Chile; he had been
-to Egypt, Italy, England, and Sweden. He had been to Spain more than a
-dozen times before. He had had many adventures. But, strangely, these
-adventures were all adventures in crime. He had robbed cathedrals in
-France and Spain of their valuable paintings and jewels and even of
-their statuary. He had robbed museums and private collections of the New
-World.
-
-He seemed to swell with pride, to grow with importance as he bared his
-real self thus to her. With snobbish care, he explained to her how far
-superior to ordinary criminals he was; he defined himself as one of a
-limited and ultra-clever aristocracy of thieves. It was as though he
-were showing a noble and praiseworthy side of himself hitherto
-unrevealed; it was as though he had wooed a peasant girl, while
-disguised in a most humble attire, and now lifted his vagabond's ragged
-cap to reveal a prince's crown. He said he was a member of the "White
-Wolves", an organization of French criminals who stole mostly from
-churches. He said he was a member of many other exclusive criminal
-fraternities.
-
-When from the lips of Felicidad, Jacinto Quesada heard this last, he
-ejaculated:
-
-"Carajo! So that was why, before we searched him, he made such queer
-signs to me--he was using thieves' signs, the signals of those criminal
-brotherhoods to which he belongs. He thought I, as another thief, might
-have some knowledge of that language of signs and that, out of a thief's
-respect for a thief, I might exempt him from the ordeal of the search!"
-
-"Of what do you speak now--what signs?" asked Felicidad, bewildered.
-
-Jacinto Quesada explained. Then he said, "Proceed with your story, dear
-Felicidad."
-
-Continuing, therefore, Felicidad told how Jacques Ferou, intent on
-showing how consummately clever he was at all criminal business, and not
-averse to filling his young wife with awe and fear of him, led up at
-last to the business that had brought him to Spain and to the house of
-Don Jaime de Torreblanca y Moncada.
-
-Once upon a time, he had indeed worked for the Paris book house whose
-card he had used to introduce himself to the haughty hidalgo. He had
-been hired by a very rich and very crazy bibliophile to get feloniously,
-as it was beyond even the bibliomaniac's purse, a certain precious book
-in the possession of the Paris firm; and the better to steal the ancient
-volume, he had hired himself as a clerk to them for three months.
-
-Through another clerk still in their employ--a hunchbacked fellow whom
-he had picked out, with a criminal's sure instinct, as a weakling
-inclined to dishonesty and crime of a sort--he had secured Don Jaime's
-letter offering the books for sale, before any one but his ally and
-friend, the hunchback, had a chance to see it.
-
-Now, he knew a little about rare books; so he practiced talking about
-books like a bibliophile and buyer; and very shortly, he started for
-Spain. But he traveled slowly for a certain reason.
-
-When he told her this last, Felicidad asked him:
-
-"But for what reason did you travel slowly?"
-
-Jacques Ferou looked at Felicidad in a pity that, perhaps, amounted to a
-contempt.
-
-"Why, you silly baby!" laughed he. "After all I have said, don't you
-know why it was I traveled all the way from Paris to your father's house
-in Andalusia?"
-
-"No!"
-
-At that, laughing the louder, he opened the top of his vest and put his
-hand down beneath his shirt and undershirt. Presently, from under his
-armpit, he drew out a small, mahogany-colored leather purse and let
-Felicidad look into it. Within was a roll of bills, tightly wound and
-compressed so that they took up but little space. Felicidad gasped with
-fright and horror when she saw the color of the top bank note. It was a
-bank note on the Bank of Spain for five thousand pesetas! Her father,
-the terrible Don Jaime, had been paid by the English book-buyer in
-five-thousand peseta bills!
-
-But Jacques Ferou was saying:
-
-"You know, your father mentioned offering the books to the English firm
-when he wrote that letter to Paris. Therefore, I delayed my journey to
-Spain so that I should not reach your father's house until the English
-book-buyer had paid over the money for the purchased books and had left
-with his purchases. Ma chérie, I came to Spain, not for books, but for
-this. This is the money paid to your father for his books!" And he held
-up the small mahogany-colored leather purse that had been Felicidad's
-father's.
-
-Sometime since, when with cruel, malicious delight he had started to
-tell her of his criminal operations, Felicidad had drawn away from him
-in horror. Now she started up, crying out in supreme contempt:
-
-"So you stole all the money that was to keep my father in his old age!
-Oh, you--you disgusting thief!"
-
-He saw then that he had been too open, too bold, too braggard. He tried
-to quiet and soothe her with caressing hands, with kisses. But her lips
-had become cold as ice, and they shrank away from his in profound
-loathing.
-
-They were alone in the regulation separated continental coach. She tried
-to tear herself from his arms and to throw herself from the moving
-train. Death was all she thought of at first. By allowing herself to be
-cajoled into running off with a creature who had no more decency than to
-rob the father of his all, while he stole from him also his only
-daughter, she had disgraced the high name of Torreblanca y Moncada. What
-a blow this would be at the pride of the eagle-haughty Don Jaime! He
-had never forgiven her mother for her desertion. Of a surety, never
-would he forgive Felicidad!
-
-But even as Felicidad despaired and thought of death, there had come to
-her the protector of her childhood days, Jacinto Quesada. And to him she
-now appealed, saying with the ferocity of desperation:
-
-"The leather purse is still strapped under his armpit next his skin! Go
-quickly and take it from him! You should have found it in the search;
-then I would not have had to do as I have since done. That purse
-contains the happiness of my father's old age. Tear it from that
-yellow-livered Frenchman and return it in some way to Don Jaime!"
-
-With nervous eager hands she sought to hurry Jacinto Quesada from the
-carriage. But he did not think to resist her, so glad was he to turn
-from talk to action. Then, as he dashed impetuously away, she said in a
-half-whisper, her voice breaking with sobs:
-
-"If God has intended that I should live on as the wife of a criminal, I
-will suffer my fate in silence and patience, knowing that I, in my
-waywardness, am alone to blame. But my father shall not be robbed of his
-_buena ventura_--he shall not end his days in want and misery.
-Seguramente, no! _Dios de mialma_, no!
-
-"I have dishonored Don Jaime--and Don Jaime most certainly will kill me
-if ever he sets eyes on me again--but _no lo quiera Dios_! that I should
-suffer this obscene crime against him to be committed! There is blood
-and pride in me yet--I am yet a Torreblanca y Moncada!"
-
-Half-way to the muster of people, Jacinto Quesada halted to throw back
-to her a heartening look and to call:
-
-"_Despacio!_ Softly!--gently! And watch, my Felicidad, how easy it is to
-rob the robber!"
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VIII
-
-
-High overhead a bustard sailed on slow, lazy pinions, but below, across
-the flat, tawny Manchegan plain, not a gust of desert dust whirled, not
-a buck-rabbit bounded, not a cow or bullock lumbered. Hot and large,
-empty and silent was the slow-crawling afternoon.
-
-Jacinto Quesada faced the herded people. He had been gone five minutes;
-now, in visible trepidation, they awaited the upshot of his return.
-Their eyes adhered stickily to his; they were utterly without voice.
-Suddenly, he called, "Bring up and search the Frenchman again!"
-
-_Dios hombre!_ but the thing was swiftly done. The Frenchman's protests
-went for nothing; he was mauled about, roughed and ruffed, fine-combed
-and intimately worked over. Jacinto Quesada himself was lead-hound in
-the second search. He it was who drew forth the small, mahogany-colored
-leather purse from its nook of concealment in the fellow's armpit.
-
-Looking black as thunder, Jacques Ferou retreated once again into the
-background of people. There situated, he gave vent freely to his
-exasperation and fury, muttering savagely: "Name of a name of a name of
-a name of a dog!" Also, many other choice French curses. But the more he
-cursed, the more acrimonious and virulent he became. His face went
-livid with stirred-up bile; his slate-colored eyes snapped in bitter
-resentment; he bared his long white teeth in a passionate carnivorous
-snarl of envenomed hate.
-
-But hate for whom? At first his hate was directed against no one in
-particular. Because he had lost the purse, life had suddenly changed to
-a more somber color and bitterly he detested the whole world!
-
-Then he turned his eyes upon Jacinto Quesada, thinking, for obvious
-reasons, to concentrate his spleen upon him. Jacinto Quesada caught the
-Frenchman's burning look and smiled contemptuously. That contemptuous
-smile should have infuriated the Frenchman all the more; but strangely,
-it did not! Somehow the Frenchman sensed that Jacinto Quesada was not
-the prime mover in his downfall; and, his hate still at a loss for a
-target to direct itself against, he took his eyes altogether off the
-youthful bandolero.
-
-Then _Sacre Bleu_! who was that he glimpsed out of the ends of his
-irises? Was it not Felicidad, his promised wife? She had made an
-inconspicuous, an almost clandestine exit, from the third-class coach
-wherein she had hid herself; and now she was furtively seeking to rejoin
-the muster of people. Watching her, the Frenchman saw plainly that she
-it was who had betrayed him to the bandoleros. And his whole malignant
-rancid soul bunched and crouched in his eyes, and threw toward her a
-look searing and scalding, a look of vitriolic vindictiveness.
-
-Ever since Felicidad had pushed him with impetuosity and precipitation
-from the third-class coach, telling him to go quickly and tear from the
-Frenchman the purse, Jacinto Quesada had been dominated by the will of
-the girl, doing swiftly and with utter obedience that which she had bade
-him do. He had worked in a white vacuum of action, without prejudice or
-plan of his own, without forethought. Never did he doubt but that once
-the mahogany-hued purse was taken from the Frenchman the whole wrong
-would automatically right itself. And now--what should he do with the
-purse? It would be some time before he could plan ways and means to
-return it safely to Don Jaime.
-
-Of a sudden, then, to make matters more perplexing, Jacinto discovered
-the Frenchman looking at Felicidad in that ugly and ominous way. At
-that, he ceased worrying about the mahogany-colored purse; he shoved it
-into an inside pocket of his sheepskin zamarra and straightway forgot
-it. The question of its disposal was an insignificant matter; a greater
-question bothered him. What should he do with the girl?
-
-As one wrestler closes with another, Jacinto Quesada closed with that
-great question. The while he gripped and folded it in the doughy coils
-of his brains, however, he did not stand quiet and pensive. Enough time
-already had been lost. Loudly Quesada shouted orders.
-
-One of his supernumeraries, Pio Estrada, dipped down into the dry gutter
-of the Arroyo Seco for the horses. The others, Rafael Perez and Ignacio
-Garcia, fell to prodding the herded passengers with their carbines back
-upon the train. Instantly the whole panorama took on a brisker look. At
-haphazard, into any of the coaches which presented themselves, plunged
-those boarding the train, not caring in what style they rode, or what
-comfort, so long as they soon speeded away.
-
-Pio Estrada reappeared, leading by their bridles three hairy Manchegan
-ponies. Another galvanic command from Quesada and, from the work of
-bundling the passengers aboard the train, hurriedly the other two
-salteadores detached themselves. They bustled about their ponies, roping
-upon them the weighty sacks of mail and conglomerate loot, looking to
-their curved bits and cinch-straps. With dispatch, everything was being
-prepared for a nimble get-away.
-
-The last of the waylaid passengers were crowding back into the train,
-the engine driver and his stoker were high in their cab once more and
-busily engaged in getting up steam. It needed only the word of Quesada,
-and the Manchegan ponies would be mounted, the train released on its
-way, and the hold-up of the Seville-to-Madrid consummated.
-
-Still dodging the great question of the disposal of the girl, sparring
-for time, Jacinto Quesada stole a look toward where he last had seen
-Felicidad. He started and scowled. She and the Frenchman were together.
-They were among those few not yet distributed through the various
-coaches.
-
-As the laggards milled and pushed along the line of opening and closing
-doors, along the line of compartments crowded and jammed, the Frenchman,
-Jacques Ferou, had sidled near her. He had caught her by the arm. Now,
-his tall athletic body bent forward sharply, his calculating eyes
-narrowed to mere blazing slits, the nostrils of his high predatory nose
-twitching and working, his whole ashy face working and grimacing like a
-horrible mask of rubber, he was whispering into her ear!
-
-There was no mistaking the active threat in the man's attitude; there
-was no mistaking the real and terrible fear in the girl's cowering pose.
-She made to put up her hands as if to ward off blows; she trembled like
-a tag of paper hung in the wind; and suddenly the cry that had chilled
-in her throat at his first touch, burst up through the walls of her
-lungs, and shrilled out in a terrified wail.
-
-Jacinto Quesada leaped, as though lashed, toward the two. The lumpy
-problem was smashed, by that cry, into smithereens. The great question
-demanded action. There was but one kind of action to do.
-
-Rafael Perez bulked up before him.
-
-"Give the word, maestro," said he, "and we shall signal the engineer to
-start the train."
-
-"The word is given, then!"
-
-Rafael Perez made a semaphore of his arms. Another salteador farther up
-the track repeated and relayed the signal. The locomotive whistle
-shrilled shortly once, then the bell clanged and clanged with warning
-insistence.
-
-As Quesada flung past Rafael Perez, he threw out the words:
-
-"Tell Garcia and Estrada to mount and make ready to start away, the
-moment I give the command. You wait to hold my pony for me. As was the
-plan, my pony goes unburdened by any of the sacks of stuff; but, though
-it was also the plan, I will not linger behind to cover the get-away. I
-have a new worry to trouble me. You lagartos will have to look to your
-own safety. Should we get separated, you know the pass in the mountains
-where we have planned to meet. Am I understood?"
-
-"Si, maestro!"
-
-With the emission of the waste steam through the chimney, the engine of
-the Seville-to-Madrid commenced puffing slowly; the cars began
-shuddering and groaning as though about to start. Jacques Ferou held
-open the door of a second-class coach for Felicidad. But it was already
-packed full of men and she hesitated to enter.
-
-"Come, hurry!" roughly ordered the Frenchman. "The train in another
-minute will start. You do not wish to be left behind, do you?"
-
-"But this is not our coach! The coach we rode in thus far is up
-forward." Almost it seemed as if the girl were sparring for time.
-
-"Enter, it is _no importa, señora dona_!" said, with kindness, one of
-the men within--a man in a yellow bullfighter's costume, one of the
-picadores of Morales' cuadrilla.
-
-"Yes, enter, please," spoke up another in a green costume, the great
-Morales himself. "You are most welcome here, I assure you!" And he
-reached down, seeking to help her climb aboard.
-
-"Quick, or the train will start without you!" cried another, the
-blue-eyed American. Then in English, for suddenly the train had
-commenced to bang back and forth, and he had become beside himself with
-excitement:
-
-"Make haste, girl! The accursed slow freight is about to move. Gad! here
-it goes."
-
-Just as the train puffed rapidly and, with a roar and a tremendous yank
-started off, he crowded between the knees of the cuadrilla of
-bullfighters, pushed aside Morales, and leaped through the door.
-Staggering from the precipitant leap, he made toward the girl, intending
-to lift and fling her into the moving train.
-
-A man came between them.
-
-"What do you do here?" cried this man sharply. "Back, into the coach!"
-
-The American recognized Jacinto Quesada. He tried to fling past him. A
-huge long-barreled revolver showed in the bandolero's hand.
-
-"Back, you, into your coach!" cried Quesada once again. "And you, you
-dog of a Frenchman! Quick! enter! or I will shoot you through the fat of
-your breeches!"
-
-Swiftly the Frenchman went. He dashed after the moving coach, caught up
-with it and flung himself headlong in upon the floor. Then he pulled
-himself to his feet again, went over to the open door, and banged it
-shut.
-
-The American did not budge.
-
-"But the girl!" he shouted. He drove at the bandolero. Quesada dodged
-his fist. He reversed the revolver in his hand and swiftly crashed it
-butt-first down upon the American's forehead.
-
-The American reeled back, stunned, falling. Quesada looked down the
-length of train moving up toward him; he saw another open-doored coach
-rattling near. Suddenly stooping, he tackled at the legs of the
-American, lifted him bodily into the air, and flung him back upon the
-floor of the open, moving coach. The American never knew how he boarded
-that train no more than he would had he been a soulless sack of barley!
-
-All over sweat and panting deeply, Jacinto Quesada turned to Felicidad.
-
-"Come; I must take you with me," he said to her, "to my mother in Minas
-de la Sierra. We will send back the purse to your father. We will tell
-him the true story of events. Depend upon it, my Felicidad, he will
-forgive you, he will relent. Until he does that, however, my mother will
-take care of you, and I will be your guardian angel, besides." He could
-not prevent a smile. And he added, "A sinful and thieving sort of
-guardian angel, but one strong to protect you, you may be sure of that!
-Come! Up on my horse!"
-
-He swung her up upon his Manchegan pony. Before her, he mounted. He dug
-his heels in the pony's sleek mouse-colored barrel. They started away.
-
-"Hold tight with your little hands, my Felicidad!" he remarked. "It will
-be fast riding for quite awhile."
-
-"Ah, thankfully I go with you, Jacinto!" she said, after a little,
-despite the unevenness and hardship of their fast pace. "Jacques Ferou
-whispered to me that he would show me, once we got to Madrid, how the
-Apaches, the depraved criminals of Paris, treat those women who to them
-are unfaithful!"
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IX
-
-
-After lumbering slowly across the rickety Arroyo Seco bridge, the
-Seville-to-Madrid swung eastward on its gleaming rails and pursued,
-across the desert uplands, a course parallel to that of the bandoleros.
-From the coach windows on one side, the passengers could see Rafael
-Perez, Ignacio Garcia, and Pio Estrada fleeing across the parched and
-tawny flat on their plunder-laden, loping Manchegan ponies. They were
-speeding for the distant gray and purple mountains.
-
-A jump behind these worthies and rapidly overtaking them were Jacinto
-Quesada and the golden-haired girl. Distinctly the passengers could make
-out Felicidad and her kidnaper. And the sight was as a red muleta to a
-Miura bull.
-
-A young bride stolen from her husband! A young girl abducted by
-highwaymen! That was she behind the last of the retreating
-bandoleros--see the flying green skirt, see the glint of her golden hair
-in the sun! They were taking her off with them, carrying her away into
-the savage mountains! Had there been no men among all those creatures in
-trousers scattered throughout the train--no men to rise in their
-masculinity and to sacrifice their lives if need be, but at all hazards
-to prevent this abominable crime?
-
-Women screamed, and women prayed. Hideous visions rose before their
-eyes; visions of the bandoleros in some craggy retreat shaking dice for
-possession of the girl! One of the black-clad nuns fainted outright.
-
-On its gleaming rails, the Seville-to-Madrid swerved once again. With
-distance, the fleeing horsemen grew small, smaller. They were little as
-bounding rabbits; then they were little as low-skimming birds. And then
-at last they lost themselves in the ocean of ilex and thorny acacia, the
-dun immensity of sand.
-
-The Seville-to-Madrid had been under way for a full twenty minutes and
-was nearing the steel cantilever bridge over the river Zancura, when a
-man, lurching heavily and looking very sick, picked his steps slowly and
-cautiously along the footboard on the right side of the train--that
-footboard used by the train guards in going from compartment to
-compartment of the many-coached continental-style caravan, collecting
-tickets and locking the doors between stops. The man clung to door
-knobs, window jambs and window sills. And gradually he worked forward
-along half the length of the train.
-
-At last he had progressed to a second-class coach that resounded with
-the voices of indignant and outraged men, that quivered and rang with
-bass and baritone curses in both Spanish and French. When he had closed
-in upon this coach, the man on the footboard smiled triumphantly, yanked
-open the door, and flung himself within.
-
-For a space, it was not as though he had entered a crowded coach; it was
-as though he had flung himself into a surf of rolling breakers. Masses
-of words struck him with the velocity and flying weight of charging
-masses of water. He spread his feet, braced his shoulders and chest to
-the impacting masses of words, and waited.
-
-The pounding tumulting seas crashed over him; he held his footing; they
-receded, drew back, ebbed away. Then, before the great _zipizape_ of
-words could recommence, he held up his hands for silence. Silence was
-given him. He said:
-
-"I am a Norte Americano, a Yanqui. In my country if a girl were kidnaped
-by bandits, quite well I know what we Yanquis would do. But this is
-Spain, not the United States. What are you Spaniards going to do?"
-
-"What can we do, Senor Americano?" asked one of the cuadrilla of
-bullfighters, a banderillero by his dress. "We ask you that--what can we
-do?"
-
-"Do not think it an everyday thing," spoke up the matador, Morales, "for
-blossoming girls to be stolen by Spanish highwaymen and carried off into
-the mountains. One reads about such happenings in the bizarre and
-romantic novels of the elder Dumas; but one does not think to see such
-things occur in real life.
-
-"You would search far in our country's history for a parallel to this
-outrageous crime! José Maria. Diego Corrientes, Agua-Dulce and Visco el
-Borje left our women severely alone. They were simple-souled men of the
-people, risen against oppression. Even as would any humble and pious and
-hardworking labrador, so these bandoleros en grande feared God and
-public opinion. Right well they knew they could continue to exist as
-outlaws only by reason of the favor of Spanish public opinion, not to
-speak of the favor of God. And they set the fashion for future Spanish
-outlaws. They made the conventions by which all bandoleros are supposed
-to conduct themselves to-day. The bandoleros, just before this man
-Quesada, honored those conventions. El Vivillo and Pernales committed no
-crimes against Spanish women.
-
-"Senor Americano, you may have noticed that we Spaniards accord our
-bandoleros a certain respect. Because they have been altogether
-masculine, varonil, and yet treated our womenkind with the utmost
-reverence, the bandoleros have wrung from us this esteem which amounts
-sometimes even to love.
-
-"And even this Jacinto Quesada to-day! He treated me with great
-consideration, chatting pleasantly about his love of bullfighting and
-other very human things. And he struck me as being a bandolero of the
-splendid good old sort--the José Maria, the Visco el Borje sort! Why, he
-even asked after the health of my wife, Marta, and my two little ones!
-But now! To find out that he is a renegade, a damnable turncoat from the
-old bandolero code, an inhuman wretch, a despicable rapist--_Porvida!_"
-
-Morales' boyishly rounded face flamed with anger and with a great deal
-more of shame.
-
-"In my country," said the American, "should a man abduct a girl, a posse
-would be organized at once, the criminal pursued, brought to bay, and
-made to pay with his life for the crime. The posse would be composed of
-every rich man, poor man, beggar man and thief in the community, and it
-would never rest until its work was completely done and the girl
-brought safely back to her promised husband."
-
-Three of the bullfighters spoke up at once.
-
-"A posse? We have never heard of that!"
-
-"Well, I come from the western part of the United States, and if you
-ever had lived there for even a short time, you could not be so
-blissfully ignorant. When I say a posse I mean a _posse comitatus_,
-which is a lawyer's term for the citizens who may be summoned to assist
-an officer in enforcing the law. My father was a pioneer in the State of
-California; he made his start in Inyo County mines and his millions in
-Bakersfield oil wells; and many's the story he has told me of quickly
-formed posses and their rapid, sure work. We would be forming a posse of
-a sort, if we all agreed to go after this Jacinto Quesada and bring back
-the girl."
-
-One of the two yellow-costumed picadores was on his feet, his swarthy
-face ruddy with agitation and strong emotion.
-
-"Then, in the name of Spanish womanhood, let us do that!" he cried. "I,
-Coruncho Lopez, the most superb picador in Spain, volunteer to be one of
-the posse!"
-
-"And I, Alfonso Robledo, a banderillero as great as any!"
-
-"And I--"
-
-Suddenly, those about to volunteer became tongue-tied; the whole
-cuadrilla of bullfighters looked sheepish and confused. The youthful
-matador, Manuel Morales, had stepped before them, on his face a cold and
-contemptuous scowl.
-
-"You are the peones of my cuadrilla," he said brutally, "and I am your
-maestro. You will do exactly that which I order you to do and nothing
-else! But, perhaps, you have forgotten the strict laws of discipline of
-our profession?"
-
-Shamefaced and abject, the whole cuadrilla replied at once, "Forgive us,
-maestro. We await your orders."
-
-Morales seemed to feel better after that. With the easy magnificence of
-a matador and maestro, he turned to the American.
-
-"Senor Americano," he said, "I have become a successful and renowned
-espada only after years of hard work and vigilant heed to the duties of
-my profession. And now that I am the great Morales, I am as much a slave
-to my fame as any of my peones is the slave to me. In his offices in
-Seville sits my manager, the Senor Don Arturo Guerra, signing contract
-after contract; and these contracts I must fulfill, or lose much money
-and much prestige with the _presidentes_ of bull rings and with the
-_aficionados_. Therefore, I must be discreet, circumspect, and full of
-forethought.
-
-"Senor Americano, these peones have no franchise to speak for
-themselves. They are but my thoughtless, irresponsible children. If I
-did not rule them with a hand of iron, they would be off on a thousand
-wild escapades in a month! But one of them, just now, said a very
-splendid thing. 'In the name of Spanish womanhood,' he said, 'let us
-form of ourselves a posse!'
-
-"Carajo! I am discreet, circumspect, and full of forethought as the
-great Morales should be, but my heart tells me those words are good
-words! My heart leaps with eagerness to be pursuing the despicable
-Jacinto Quesada in the name of Spanish womanhood!
-
-"What are contracts! What is money! What is prestige, fame! Senor
-Americano, join out with me, and we will chase this scoundrel up and
-down the peninsula until we have bayed him down and brought back the
-girl! If you wish it, I will command my whole cuadrilla to come with us;
-but it is my own wish, that we two go alone and unencumbered. This same
-Jacinto Quesada who stole the girl called me one of the three bravest
-men in Spain. And he named himself as the second most brave man, and you
-as the third! Let us go then, we two brave men together! Two such as we
-are equal to a posse of a dozen common men!"
-
-The blue-eyed American looked a little uncomfortable; he did not quite
-know how to take the matador's flamboyant words. But he answered,
-heartily enough:
-
-"Sure I'll join out with you! My name is Carson--John Fremont
-Carson--and here's my hand on it! But better take the whole cuadrilla
-along with us. We two may be as wonderful as you say we are, but just
-the same, numbers count, and every man can do his little bit to get back
-the girl. And now--"
-
-"In this posse I am included, too, of course!"
-
-It was the Frenchman, Jacques Ferou. He, the one to all outward
-appearances most injured and aggrieved by Jacinto Quesada's outrageous
-conduct, had played little part in the proceedings up to this moment.
-But now, his tone was very peremptory and harsh, and he looked as if he
-meant business.
-
-"Of course!"
-
-"Por los Clavos de Cristo! we can't leave you out!"
-
-The American produced a pencil and notebook.
-
-"And now," he said, "to arrange the details. There will be horses
-needed, and provisions and guides and--"
-
-"It will be mules in the mountains," said one bullfighter.
-
-"Manchegan ponies are cheap," said another.
-
-"We will need Mausers and revolvers, too," said a third. "We cannot
-conduct a man-hunt without weapons."
-
-"But how will we finance the expedition?" asked the practical Frenchman.
-"Myself, I have not a franc, what you call a peseta. And I have no means
-of replenishing my rifled pockets!"
-
-"Ah, then, it is for me to finance the expedition!" cried the matador,
-Morales. "I will telegraph to Seville when we get off at the next stop,
-and so much money will be sent me by Don Arturo, my manager, that you
-will be surprised, astounded! It is just that I should do this--I and my
-bullfighters make up the bulk of this troop; I am the most rich of you
-all."
-
-"I don't know about that," said the American dryly. "Please allow me to
-go halves with you."
-
-"Ah, I had forgotten; you Americans are all as rich as Monte Cristo. You
-and I will share the expense, then. We get off at the next stop and make
-our start after this Jacinto Quesada, do we not?"
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER X
-
-
-The two were Spaniards. They wore the uniform of the Guardia Civil, and
-they rode hairy, vigorous little police ponies. They had been in the
-saddle since daybreak, persistently pushing southward. The cobs were
-dog-weary but as steady-paced as machines of clockwork; the men were
-hunched of shoulder, heavy-headed, their faces coated with a gray-brown
-powder of dust.
-
-They drew rein atop a naked hummock in the immensity of sand and ilex
-and thorny acacia. At the hip of the younger and taller of the two was
-slung a pair of binoculars. The one, and then the other, trained these
-glasses upon the rolling, everlasting veldt and swept the horizon round,
-their scrutiny long, patient, and searching.
-
-All the long morning and the longer, more dreary afternoon, they had
-seen upon the endless despoblado only half-wild cattle and half-wild
-asses, and an occasional high-soaring falcon or an ugly, three-foot-long
-eyed-lizard. And this time was not the first time they had paused to
-peer through the binoculars; they had paused often, and then continued
-on without remark. Now, however, as he put back the glasses in their
-leather sheath, the younger policeman rather bitterly said:
-
-"There is no one abroad upon La Mancha. Not even a solitary salteador de
-camino hiding out from us of the Guardia Civil."
-
-"Yet I tell you, Miguel--most surely are they out there somewhere!"
-returned his compañero; vehemently dissenting. "How could they have
-attained, so soon, to the Sierra Morena ahead--I ask you that!"
-
-Touching their ponies with their barbed heels, they enterprised once
-more upon the long traverse. There was a terrible sun that day, a sun
-African in the ferocity of its passion. The sun glare tortured their
-eyes. It caused their lacquered three-cornered police hats, made of
-shiny patent leather, to reflect and flash like the mirrors of a
-heliograph. The men sweated until they were as dry as cinders and could
-sweat no more.
-
-In the more subdued glare of the late afternoon, the two came at length
-to the brown rolling foothills toward which they had been making
-throughout the whole hideous day. The foothills billowed away, in
-undulations rising even higher and higher, until finally they became
-part of a distant and purple alpland of massive and lofty peaks--the
-exalted spires and crags of the Sierra Morena.
-
-As their jaded ponies took doggedly the initial rise, the younger and
-taller of the two policemen--he called Miguel--drew from his breast a
-yellow paper on which was mimeographed a copy of a typewritten telegram.
-He commenced to read aloud.
-
-     The great Manuel Morales--his full cuadrilla--an American, the
-     Senor Don John Fremont Carson, and a Frenchman, name unknown. It is
-     especially important that you discover news of the American,
-     Carson; he is a millionaire and of high social position in his own
-     country. Both the American Ambassador and the Bank of Spain desire
-     to ascertain his whereabouts, his reason for carrying such a large
-     sum of money upon his person, and his purpose in setting off into
-     the wilderness. The Bank of Spain is also much interested in the
-     well-being of Manuel Morales, for he also withdrew a large account
-     by telegraph before disappearing from sight.
-
-     The nine men left the Seville-to-Madrid at Alcazar de San Juan,
-     four days ago, secured horses and enough provisions to last them a
-     week and, traveling together, rode southward towards the Sierra
-     Morena. They were well-armed, having bought carbines and automatic
-     pistols from the Jewish cacique of Alcazar, Dicenta. They told no
-     one their errand. They took no guides.
-
-     You of the Guardia Civil, find them and give them escort. Report
-     all information to me--Echegaray, _Ministro de Gobernacion_.
-
-He looked up now, the young smooth-faced policeman who had been reading,
-and turned his handsome head to gaze back over the long monotony of
-purgatorial desert. It was the words, scribbled in ink in a strong hand
-and added like a postscript or annotation to the telegraphed
-instructions, which he went on to read aloud now:
-
-     They are somewhere in Ciudad Real or Jaen. The country they are
-     traversing is lawless and sparsely-populated, a country infested
-     with ladrones, among whom the most notable is the notorious
-     Quesada.
-
-     Spain will never forgive us if any harm should come to the great
-     Morales. And we must answer to the American Ambassador should this
-     John Fremont Carson be not safeguarded. The Constabulary will
-     please give its most careful attention to the search.--Alvarez,
-     Captain-General of the Guardia Civil for the District.
-
-Putting the yellow paper back in the breast of his tight blue jacket
-faced with red, the younger policeman, Miguel, rode on up the slope
-beside his compañero?--a squat, fiercely mustached and apelike fellow.
-
-"Pascual," he asked presently, "would you know that magnificent one,
-Morales, should you meet him face to face--"
-
-"Seguramente, yes! Have I not watched him murder a thousand bulls?"
-
-Then, thoughtfully, the apelike one added:
-
-"Once we chance upon their spoor, once we scent them from afar, it
-should be a most simple matter for us of the Guardia Civil to run down
-these fools-errant of Manuel Morales. We know these plains and
-foothills; they do not. And they are a large troop and must make a great
-to-do of noise and dust whenever they move about. It is not as though we
-seek a bandolero riding alone, friend Miguel. A bandolero riding alone
-is a very fox to catch!"
-
-"Ah, that Jacinto Quesada!" ejaculated the other with boyish enthusiasm.
-"Is not he the crafty lizard, the sly tricky one? He has given us more
-work to do than any twenty other lawbreakers in Spain. If Morales and
-his fools-errant--as you call them, Pascual--conceal their movements
-but half so well as does he, we will be chasing will-o'-the-wisps for
-the next hundred years! But, by the way, Pascual, could you describe
-Jacinto Quesada to me?"
-
-The older man pondered.
-
-"That is most difficult," he said at length, chewing in a ruminating
-manner one end of his black mustache. "He is of the Sierra Nevada, this
-Quesada; he is not a native of La Mancha. Few men hereabouts could
-describe him, I think; he does not go abroad much to fiestas and wedding
-feasts, since he took to the highroads, you know. And the few folk that
-have met him since he became a bandolero have been too frightened to
-note well what he looked like. But I have been told by a paisano of his,
-a serrano of the Sierra Nevada, that he looks very much like me,
-myself!"
-
-That last was said with downright pride. The policeman, Pascual, did not
-even take trouble to conceal his vain pleasure in the thought, his
-flattered conceit in himself. He sat a little straighter in the saddle
-and, with self-conscious braggadocio, fingered his black mustache,
-looking about him fiercely the while.
-
-He was squat, broadly uncouth of shoulder, prognathous jawed--an ugly
-apelike sort. There was something bestially predatory in the simian look
-of him which the black mustache rather heightened than detracted from.
-He did not resemble any of his immediate progenitors who had been men of
-Aragon and Guardias Civiles every one. More he resembled, perhaps,
-certain Miquelets and reclaimed brigands from whose loins his line had
-originally sprung. He did not look at all like Jacinto Quesada!
-
-The youthful Civil Guard eyed the apelike Pascual a moment, and then
-derisively laughed.
-
-"That is strange," he said, with a sneer. "Certain Gypsies of my
-acquaintance have seen Quesada in the mountains and on the plains.
-Outlaws such as he often repair to the Gitanos when hard-pressed, you
-know; the Gypsies look upon them as blood-brothers, for the Gypsies are
-all thieves. And it is strange, Pascual, but these Gypsies of my
-acquaintance have told me that _I_ was the living image of Jacinto
-Quesada. He is very young, they say, little more than a boy even, and he
-is tall and smooth-shaven and handsome, indeed, very much like me!"
-
-Youthful, tall, smooth of face and very handsome was, indeed, that
-policeman called Miguel. He was lean, supple and gallant looking as a
-sword of Toledo.
-
-"Fools and children tell the truth," returned the apelike Pascual,
-quoting an old Spanish proverb. Then, barbing it with a sting of his own
-making, he added: "But Gitanos, never!"
-
-Surlily, he rode on ahead, the while the other slid down from his horse
-and ran in pursuit of his shiny leather police hat which was tumbling in
-a quick succession of flip-flops down the hill. He had knocked it from
-his own head inadvertently when, while talking, he had raised the
-binoculars to his eyes for another look back over La Mancha.
-
-After a short erratic chase, Miguel retrieved his recalcitrant
-headgear; but, strangely, he did not return immediately to the saddle.
-Instead, stooping low, he stood motionless near the place where he had
-picked up the hat, peering down as at a nugget of gold half hidden in
-the dust and grass. Then, becoming altogether inexplicable in his
-actions, he went scurrying off up the slope at a tangent, his body bent
-far forward, his head turned toward the ground, and his face sharp and
-pale with excitement and expectancy.
-
-"Caspita!" he was heard by Pascual to mutter. "Caspita!"--"Wonderful!
-Wonderful!"
-
-Every so often, he halted and stooped lower, crouching almost to the
-very ground. It was as though, each time, he discovered something of
-sober interest to him and paused to examine that something.
-
-Pascual followed him with puzzled and astounded eyes. At last, as the
-curious performance persisted, he called out, "_Dios hombre!_ what ails
-you, man?"
-
-His face flushed, his eyes smiling with triumph, the youthful and
-handsome Miguel came back to the spot where he had started his
-mysterious shadow-dance up the hillside.
-
-"Pascual Montara!" he called. "This way, quick!"
-
-As the other trotted his pony over, he pointed a finger to the ground
-before him and said, "Do you see that which I see, Pascual?"
-
-"Seguramente, yes."
-
-"What is it, then?"
-
-"Carajo, Miguel! it is only a handful of grass, plucked and left in a
-tiny hillock by some one."
-
-"Bueno! But who plucked it, then, and left it in a heap upon the
-ground?"
-
-"_Zut!_ How should I know? Who is it plucks grass, anyway?"
-
-The young policeman seemed to take joy in the rôle of Grand Inquisitor.
-He smiled a superior smile and moved on a few feet, and then again
-halted.
-
-"And this--what is this?" he demanded, pointing before him once more.
-
-"You buffoon, you--what game are you playing with me? It is only another
-hillock of plucked grass, as any fool can see!"
-
-"And this?" The Grand Inquisitor had moved on another couple of yards.
-
-"I shall call it a mountain, an it please you better. The Devil take you
-and your little hills of grass, Miguel Alvarado!"
-
-"And this?" Once again the policeman with the superior smile had moved
-on up the hillside. But this time he did not point at any hillock of
-dead herbage.
-
-"That? Why, that is only a cross made by two sticks that have fallen by
-chance one upon the other."
-
-"Which way does the longest arm point, Pascual?"
-
-"Straight up and down the slope."
-
-"_Muy bueno!_ I have pointed out everything to you, then. Chew upon what
-you have seen, Spaniard!"
-
-He returned to his horse, mounted and started on. The apelike Pascual,
-his face a study in curiosity, drew alongside.
-
-"You have asked me a lot of questions, Miguel Alvarado," he said. "Now I
-will thank you a thousand times if you will explain your great mystery
-away."
-
-"Great mystery--za! It is only because you are a lunkhead that you
-perceive any great mystery here. There are Gitanos encamped in the hills
-ahead, that is all!"
-
-"Did those hillocks of plucked grass spell out that for you?"
-
-"Yes; and the crossed sticks, also. The hillocks and the crossed sticks
-are the Gypsies' trail--what they call their patteran. They leave them
-in their wake that their brethren, who have lagged behind, may be guided
-by them to the meeting-place."
-
-"_Y pues?_" grunted Pascual. "Well, and what of that? It is a matter of
-no moment to me. But hola! why turn your horse to the right?"
-
-"I am going to the camp of the Zincali. They may have word of these men
-we seek. Should they have seen Morales and the rest upon the plains, or
-even have heard of their presence abroad, they will tell me such news as
-they have by chance acquired. Do not come with me, Pascual Montara, if
-you do not wish to."
-
-Now, it is against all orders and precedent for one of the Spanish
-constabulary to go where his fellow goes not; the men of the Guardia
-Civil hunt forever in braces. The apelike Pascual grumbled, but loyally
-he followed his arrogant and imperious camarada.
-
-Their horses topped the rise and, suddenly taking heart, entered briskly
-a tiny _barranca_ set transverse between the hilltops. It was only a
-long gully or dingle, but it was cool and reposeful with wild olive and
-algarroba trees, white buckthorn, holly and arbutus. Through gutters
-strewn with moss-overgrown boulders, edged with rhododendrons and
-overarched by oleanders, raced down the whole length of it a glad,
-loud-chattering run of water.
-
-Sighing their delight, the two surprised and pleasured policemen rode
-under an upstanding and ancient wild olive at its portal and plunged
-into the secret, beautiful place. Instantly a great flutter of
-butterflies of all sizes and colors lifted in spangled clouds about
-them.
-
-"But the Gypsies may be a great way ahead in the hills!" grumbled
-Pascual filled with a hasty but mighty desire to linger in this
-barranca, smoking cigarettes and dreaming the moments away in the cool
-of some shady tree.
-
-All on the moment, the youthful Miguel Alvarado was off his horse again.
-They were following a narrow, barely discernible trail up the canyon's
-deep long alley; along this trail he now ran, leading his pony by the
-bridle and looking ever to the left side. Soon he paused and looked back
-at Pascual Montara.
-
-"The Gitanos have pitched their tents just beyond the first turn above,"
-he announced.
-
-"Hola! Have you seen more of their sign writing in grass-ricks and
-sticks?"
-
-"Si, Pascual. Look well at the forked rod set upright in the soft loam
-to the left of the trail--one prong is broken off, the other points to
-the right. I knew, if it was here, it would be found to the left of the
-trail. It is a signpost only set up to guide night travelers. The
-Gitanos erected it here no more than an hour, or an hour and a half
-ago."
-
-Pascual grunted noncommittally. But the younger man seemed possessed of
-a strange and febrile excitement.
-
-"Let us bathe our faces and heads in the runlet," he suggested urgently.
-"It would be an error of strategy if we failed to look as gallant as
-possible when we ride into the camp of the Zincali. Besides, the Gypsy
-girls may not be overclean themselves, Pascual, but greatly they admire
-a Busno--a White-blood--with a face freshly laved and as handsome as
-yours or mine!"
-
-"Za! The Gypsy wenches are all jades and strumpets!"
-
-But he went, this surly Pascual Montara, and bathed his head in the
-brook. Puffing prodigiously, he mounted and rode on beside the other.
-Miguel Alvarado looked altogether the gay and haughty cavalier after his
-ablutions. Pascual could not help eyeing in admiration his camarada's
-lean, clean-cut youthful profile, his smooth, brown, handsome face.
-Alvarado's cheeks were tinged with red, his eyes bright and sparkling as
-though with some concealed but hopeful expectancy.
-
-"You bristle with eagerness, senor caballero of my soul!" remarked
-Pascual slyly.
-
-Miguel Alvarado shrugged his shoulders, but did not answer. Suspicion
-growing in his glance, the apelike one continued to eye him. Then, as
-if he were accusing his camarada of something rather to be ashamed of,
-he said pointedly:
-
-"It is because Gypsies are so near, that you burn and bristle--is it
-not? You are enamored of them; they captivate you with their uncouth
-glamors; towards them you are drawn, eh?
-
-"Ah, I understand now, Miguel, that which heretofore has made you seem
-mysterious in my eyes--your trick of reading cabalistic signs written in
-chalk on the stonework of bridges and the adobe of posadas and
-_providencias_; your trick of reading hillocks of grass and crosses of
-sticks placed beside the road; and your trick, too, of ordering your
-pony about in the thieves' Latin of the Gitanos. You are like so many
-other Moors of Andalusia, Miguel Alvarado. You are one of _Los del
-Aficion_--Those of the Predilection! I have guessed rightly, have I
-not?"
-
-Miguel Alvarado shrugged his shoulders once again, and smiled his
-superior smile. Lightly, he remarked, "The Gypsy wenches are like
-she-leopards, soft and caressing of movement, but free and bold of eye.
-I cannot resist the lure in their golden glances."
-
-The other snorted and spat disgustedly down into the watercourse. He
-drew a little away from Miguel Alvarado. After that, he rode on, through
-the gathering dusk, very much in the manner of a man companioned by one
-possessed of a demon--full of a certain respect but also full of reserve
-and caution. Scarcely could you say he became more at his ease, more the
-boon compañero and dorado. Was not the man he rode with one of Those of
-the Predilection?
-
-In Spain, especially in Andalusia, there has long existed a large class
-of men given over utterly to a zest for Gitanos, their ways of life,
-their dances and their songs. These admirers of the Gypsies cannot shake
-off the fascination; they follow after the wandering Roms like the
-slaves of an evil eye; they cultivate the Cales, the Black Men of Zend,
-wherever met; they delight to watch the strange obscene dances of the
-Gypsy maids that are like nothing so much as writhings of snakes in an
-ecstasy of desire. These men are Those of the Predilection.
-
-In the hushed and golden gloaming, they came at last, those two of the
-Guardia Civil, to a turning of the narrow canyon and then, beyond, to a
-Gypsy camp set in an opening among the trees. The brown tents were
-patched with rags of a hundred hues, and strings of rags, slovenly
-washed and as variegated, hung drooping and gathering smoke between the
-ridgepoles and the trees.
-
-There were seven dusty dun wagons in a wide circle, and great huddles of
-gaunt and hungry dogs lazying about, and horses, foals, and burros
-coming and going at will among the trees. From the limbs of the trees
-dangled all manner of saddles, traces, and other odds and ends of
-harness. There were three fires sending black smoke and dancing sparks
-up into the lines of washing and the overarching greenery; and there
-were a dozen men and women, and three times that many children, postured
-about the fires and beneath the wagons.
-
-"Alto à la Guardia Civil!" bellowed thunderously Pascual Montara,
-thinking to give the Gypsies a start with this dread call of the police.
-
-The men about the fires did not move. The golden-skinned sloe-eyed
-women, stooped above the pots and kettles, looked up idly. Only the
-rabble of children seemed affrighted; they scurried away, those
-tousle-headed, chocolate-brown, ragged brats, some of even five and six
-years old stark naked, and hid themselves in the black insides of the
-wagons.
-
-A young man, his shirt open to the waist, a yellow _faja_ or scarf wound
-about his middle, was busily engaged with winding a battered accordion.
-It was outlandishly sweet under his hands. Nearby, a Gypsy woman of
-seventeen nursed a new-born bantling, her breast uncovered. A slim young
-girl leaned against the trunk of an algarroba, pensively brushing the
-calf of one nut-brown leg with the toes of the other. A man, tall,
-massive and nobly upright of port, got up from beside one of the fires
-and advanced slowly toward the two policemen on the edge of the
-clearing.
-
-A red kerchief tightly bound his head, and he wore the leather slop of a
-blacksmith. He had a short, curly grizzled beard. What with his gigantic
-body, herculean shoulders, monolithic throat, and haughty, savagely
-beautiful head, he looked like some Byzantine emperor of the old Roman
-strain. He was sixty, but he had every appearance of being under
-forty-eight.
-
-Even as the colossal one approached, Miguel Alvarado caught sight of the
-slim young nut-brown girl under the algarroba tree. He went deathly
-pale. He clutched at his throat, devouring her with his gaze. His eyes
-were like two hot pulsing embers.
-
-"Go forward to meet this man, Pascual Montara," at length he stuttered.
-"His name is Pepe Flammenca. He is a Gypsy count and lords it over the
-clan encamped here. Find out what he knows of Morales and the others.
-Question him shrewdly; he may know much!"
-
-Without realizing that Miguel Alvarado was not to follow, Pascual
-pressed forward obediently. Meanwhile, the other policeman turned his
-horse in between the trees, skirted the clearing, and approached the
-spot where the Gypsy girl stood.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XI
-
-
-Dismounting, Miguel Alvarado stepped swiftly to the girl's side, threw
-his arms about her shoulder and waist, and drew her back among the trees
-and out of sight of those about the fires. She did not scream; she did
-not seem affrighted in the least. Only when he strove to kiss her, she
-put a slow but determined hand upon his forehead and pushed away his
-impetuous lips.
-
-He forebore to combat her for that which she would not give. Crushing
-her to him, he whispered triumphantly, "Ah, my Paquita, maiden of my
-soul! Did I not say rightly, when I said we should meet again?"
-
-Evidently she had not been quite certain whom he was until he spoke. For
-now, she writhed free from his arms, her face contorted with loathing
-and wrath.
-
-"So you come sweethearting again, you vile louse of a Busno! Si,
-seguramente, si--we meet again! But I met with hunger when I was a
-child, and I met hunger often since, and I like hunger the less at each
-of our meetings. The same with the cholera! The same with you!"
-
-A cold and haughty tower of ivory, she faced him. Her face was superbly
-royal with high disdain.
-
-"Go away at once or I will set our scavenger curs on you! Have I not
-warned you before this never to approach me with your treacle words of
-love, your kissing lips that turn my blood to vinegar, your caressing
-arms that make my skin shudder and creep? Go away, you itch, you
-ringworm! You are not a man; there is nothing masculine, varonil, strong
-and savage about you. All you can do is to moon and coo and sigh; you
-are a sot ever thirsty for love; you are a soft, shapeless blubber of
-passion! And how can you come near me when you know you are one of the
-order of men who murdered my brother for poisoning a few poor pigs and
-for stealing a few poor horses?--you, a man of the Guardia Civil, the
-enemy of my clan and race since time out of mind; our blight, our
-scourge!"
-
-Beneath the bite and lash of her words, beneath the scorching fire of
-her scorn-filled eyes, a lesser man than Miguel Alvarado would have
-shriveled into a smoking black cinder. But never he. Folding his arms
-across his chest, he waited in a dramatic silence while the wrack and
-tempest swept over him. Then, slowly, theatrically, he raised his arms
-above his head, and uplifted his eyes, and addressed himself to the
-serene heavens--under the circumstances, the obvious and altogether
-Spanish thing to do.
-
-"Senor Don Dios!" he apostrophized solemnly. "My soul leaps like a flame
-with love for her--I love her unto death. And she repulses me! What
-shall I do?"
-
-Go away and leave her victorious in her disdain? Not Miguel Alvarado!
-
-When Pascual Montara finished questioning the Gypsy chieftain and
-hetman, and came seeking his compañero through the trees, he found them
-together still--the hot-blooded young policeman and the lithe Paquita of
-the nut-brown legs. Miguel Alvarado had progressed some way with his
-bitterly contested love-making. But she still shrugged away from him
-when impetuously he approached too close.
-
-Having left his horse in a distant quarter of the clearing, on foot
-through the gloaming came Pascual Montara; and, glimpsing the girl in
-the shadow of the trees, he halted dead and eyed her with wonder and
-admiration. She wore a printed calico dress of deep vermilions and
-flaming saffrons, and a grass-green scarf was wound, in the Gypsy
-fashion, among her ink-black tresses. There was a string of copper coins
-upon her bosom and a bangle of copper coins upon one wrist. Her dress
-came but little more than half-way down her bare, symmetrical and richly
-polished legs, and it was open at the throat to show glimpses of her
-small brown breasts and of the swale between.
-
-Letting Miguel Alvarado talk as he willed, she stood watching him out of
-slow gloomy eyes. His elocution was fluent, full of zest, soul-moving;
-his words were gorgeous, magnificent, glowing with color and music. One
-moment he called her a baggage, a jade, a wanton, a thing of ugliness, a
-soiled and tawdry wench. The next, he called her a virgin most pure,
-most chaste, most admirable, and endowed her with every beauty and charm
-ever conceded by a lover's tongue, appraising separately and in sequence
-her features, her contours, her color, the texture of her skin, the
-fineness of her hair. With bold, splendid splashes of color and
-enunciation, he lifted her up, up from the degradation and the mire to
-which he so lately had debased her, and put her upon the apex of the
-world, erecting her upon a pedestal above all other women, his words a
-coronation, a canonization, and an apotheosis. When he had done, she
-raised a little brown hand to her mouth, and yawned prodigiously. Then
-she turned away.
-
-Pascual Montara came forward, loudly rattling the fallen leaves with his
-feet to apprise Alvarado of his nearness.
-
-"Let us be on our way," he said. "I have questioned this Pepe Flammenca
-and others of the Gypsy bucks, questioned them as though I were Fray
-Tomas de Torquemada himself! They know less of the men we seek than do
-sucking infants of sin. Come, Miguel Alvarado! It grows dark, and you
-will forget your duty to the Guardia Civil if you linger long here!"
-
-Young Alvarado flashed an angry look at him. Then, suddenly getting in
-hand, he shrugged himself calm and said:
-
-"Morales and the rest have not been here, eh? Well, let us clear our
-heels of the filth of this vile-smelling place before dark, then."
-
-Without another word, he turned his back upon the girl and went seeking
-his pony among the trees. A sibilant, softly called Gypsy word, repeated
-twice, and the horse came clattering through the underwood toward him
-like a well-trained dog.
-
-He mounted. Pascual Montara had gone striding across the clearing to
-retrieve his own animal. The girl lingered under the trees, standing as
-he had found her, her back against the trunk of an algarroba, the toes
-of one nut-brown leg scratching the calf of the other, her eyes pensive.
-
-"My Paquita," said Miguel Alvarado, sidling near her on his horse,
-"there is an ancient and massive wild olive far down at the gateway to
-this barranca. And it looks like a tall and handsome cavalier waiting
-for the moon to rise that he may have a meeting with some Gypsy girl who
-is his beloved."
-
-She looked slowly up at him, then away.
-
-"My Paquita," he persisted, "you have seen this wild olive, have you
-not?"
-
-She did not answer him.
-
-"My Paquita," he said again, "you are a Gitana. Tell me; you are wise in
-reading nature; will there be a moon clear of clouds to-morrow night?"
-
-She slipped away from the trunk of the algarroba and started off toward
-the clearing. Suddenly, she paused and looked back over one shoulder.
-She answered his questions in the order asked.
-
-"The wild olive is well-known to me, and there will be a fine moon
-to-morrow night. But there will be no meetings at the wild olive between
-you and me. I have no appetite for your caresses and kisses; I would
-hate you, did I not think too little of you. You are only a cinder in my
-eye! I have kept myself a virgin all these years for some man more bold
-and brutal and magnificent than you!"
-
-Pascual Montara had mounted his horse and was waiting in growing
-impatience.
-
-"Hola, mi compañero!" he called. "What is keeping you?"
-
-Trotting his horse out into the open space where were the three fires of
-black smoke and dancing embers, Alvarado joined him. Together the two
-policemen rode away up the shadow-haunted alleys of the steep and narrow
-barranca.
-
-With a great gusto, the Gypsy bucks assaulted their evening meal. They
-had no need of plates nor forks. Three wolfish circles of men swiftly
-formed about the three steaming pots, which had been taken off the fires
-and left standing upon the grass. The pots contained the ubiquitous
-national dish of Spain, the puchero, that most savory of stews. Into the
-pots the Gypsies dipped with their navajas--those long, wicked-looking
-clasp-knives--and with their fingers.
-
-It was like a grab-bag. In that puchero one could not know what variety
-of meat or vegetable one might pluck forth. The Gitanos went at the
-business of eating with a singular moroseness; they were like glum and
-voracious animals. When any secured a chunk of meat too large to be
-swallowed in one desperate mouthful, it was torn into more reasonable
-pieces by hands and teeth, or sawed into lengths by the ever ready
-navajas.
-
-The women and children waited wistfully apart. It was not for them to
-sit and eat until the last of the males had done. They were the weaker,
-and they must take thankfully that which was left them by the strong.
-
-One by one, the bucks got up from about the pots of puchero, licking
-their lips and reaching for papers and tobacco. The three fires had
-decayed and become mere hillocks of embers. The men formed new and more
-indolent circles about these, smoking lazily, their eyes dull and
-complacent with eating. Chattering like famished sparrows, their voices
-sharp with eagerness, the women and children fell hastily upon the
-remnants their men had left.
-
-It was about this time that a party of cabalgadores, riding hard, passed
-the massive wild olive that stood at the dingle's gateway like a
-_sereno_, like a metropolitan night policeman at the corner of a dark
-and narrow street. Keeping steadily on, they rode through the obscurity
-of the corridorlike reaches of the barranca, and swiftly drew near the
-opening among the trees and the camp of the Gypsies.
-
-Soon they glimpsed the red of firelight through the underwood, and
-caught snatches of the shrill chattering of the women and children.
-There was an undertone of music from the camp, the soft reedlike notes
-of an accordion, and suddenly a man's voice began chanting "The Song of
-Juanito Ralli":
-
-    "The false Juanito, day and night,
-      Had best with caution go,
-    The Gypsy Cales of Yeira height
-      Have sworn to lay him low.
-
-    "Throughout the night, the dusky night,
-      I prowl in silence round,
-    And with my eyes look left and right,
-      For him, the Spanish hound,
-    That with my knife I him may smite,
-      And to the vitals wound.
-
-    "I'll wash not in the limpid flood
-      The shirt which binds my frame;
-    But in Juanito Ralli's blood
-      I'll bravely wash the same."
-
-The strangers halted in the concealing underwood, drawing close
-together. Words passed in whispers; then the group of five separated.
-Three of the party moved slowly and quietly away through the trees; the
-other two waited, motionless as rock.
-
-At length, the feat in strategy was successfully accomplished. In each
-of four sectors of the palisading circle of foliage and shadows which
-surrounded the opening among the trees, there waited a man, silent and
-watchful, a carbine ready in his two hands. No one of the four
-dismounted, but suddenly one rode briskly out into the clearing.
-
-"Who is this?" cried Pepe Flammenca, starting up. "Not another
-policeman!"
-
-"No, lo quiera Dios!" quietly returned the horseman. "God forbid, no!"
-
-He halted his horse half-way to the groups about the fires. The Gypsy
-fellow with the open shirt and yellow sash had abruptly quit singing and
-playing the accordion. The very children were frightened into large-eyed
-silence.
-
-"Ah, you are one of the _Errate_, one of the Blood!" exclaimed
-Flammenca. "It is a Zincalo that speaks, a Romano, a Cale. Is it not,
-_hombre_?"
-
-"God forbid that too!" the horseman laughed shortly. "Approach, Pepe
-Flammenca, and see for yourself whom I am."
-
-There was in his voice a certain imperious note. The gigantic Gypsy
-count moved slowly forward. He peered at the brown youthful face
-beneath the broad-brimmed felt.
-
-"Jacinto Quesada!" he whispered sharply, falling back a step. He looked
-over his shoulder at his Roms scattered upon the grass. They had heard
-his sharply sibilated whisper; and an echo of that whisper had passed
-over them as each repeated the name and sat up, dramatically moved.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XII
-
-
-"What do you do here, Quesada?" asked Pepe Flammenca.
-
-Quesada ignored the question.
-
-"Tell me," he said, "how long have you been encamped in this spot?"
-
-"Four of our wagons have been here a fortnight. But three that had been
-delayed on the way joined us in this spot only this afternoon. I and my
-daughter, Paquita, came with the vanguard."
-
-"There is a singular troop of cabalgadores somewhere upon the plains,"
-remarked Quesada, studiously regarding him. "They are nine--all
-strangers to the countryside. They are led by a man known from end to
-end of Spain, the redoubtable espada, Manuel Morales. Two among them are
-outlanders; the one a Frenchman, the other an American.
-
-"I seek news of them, Count. Perchance you may have encountered them in
-traversing the high parameras of La Mancha? Perchance you may have
-entertained them with a puchero in your encampment here?"
-
-"Neither have I bespoke them nor have I had sight of them," returned
-Pepe Flammenca with great certitude.
-
-"No? But of course not! It is only four days ago that they first
-enterprised abroad. However, the wagons of your caravan that just came
-up to-day will surely have some word of them. These cabalgadores of
-Manuel Morales are an uncommon looking lot; some of them are outfitted
-in the full ring regalia of bullfighters; and the bright reds, greens
-and yellows of their costumes have caused the vaqueros and herders, who
-chanced across their path, to become puzzled and amazed and
-extravagantly talkative. Then, too, they bristle with Mausers and
-Mannlichers, and are heavily weighted with bandoleers in which
-cartridges are as thick as teeth in a man's mouth.
-
-"Small wonder, Pepe Flammenca, that tongues have wagged and legends been
-fabricated--Morales and his men are nine of the most outlandish
-cabalgadores ever seen in these parts; they are nine Quixotes, as
-fantastic looking and out of place upon La Mancha as was the Ingenious
-Gentleman himself! Myself, I had word of them borne me across the wastes
-by a dozen different arrieros, and by the hard-riding horseboys of
-certain innkeepers of my acquaintance.
-
-"It is strange, but I, and I alone, know on what business they ride. But
-then, I am the man they seek--I, Jacinto Quesada! But, Count, you are
-not making any inquiries among the men of the three wagons that joined
-you to-day. Do so at once!"
-
-"There is no need, Don Jacinto. Already I have asked questions of them."
-
-"But, man, you have not budged a foot! Carajo! do you think to trifle
-with Jacinto Quesada?"
-
-"God forbid, no!" returned the gigantic Gypsy hastily. "But I speak the
-truth, Senor Quesada--already have I made inquiries among my men for
-news of this Morales and his cabalgadores. Don Jacinto, it may surprise
-you, but others have been here no more than an hour ago seeking news of
-this selfsame Morales and his fantastic troop. They were two men of the
-Guardia Civil and--"
-
-"Hola! Two Guardias Civiles? And no more than an hour ago? When they
-left you, which way did they ride?"
-
-"Right on up the barranca--towards the mountains--and they did not stop
-for food."
-
-Jacinto Quesada, keeping the Gypsy chieftain transfixed with his eye,
-raised his voice so that it carried all through the clearing and even
-out to the shadows beyond:
-
-"Carajo! they were here, eh? Two Guardias Civiles--and they went right
-on up the barranca!"
-
-At once and silently, two of the cabalgadores waiting in the shadows
-moved off up the dark defile. It was as though they were play-actors
-hidden in the wings of a stage, and the loudly shouted words of Jacinto
-Quesada were to them an awaited signal, a cue to be immediately obeyed.
-
-"What do you desire of us, Don Jacinto?" asked Flammenca of Quesada,
-without seeming to notice his change of voice.
-
-"Food."
-
-"Sit down and eat. You are most welcome."
-
-"Do you think Jacinto Quesada will be satisfied with your leavings and
-the leavings of your brats and wenches? Besides, there is not enough
-stew left to satisfy my stomach. I have the appetite of three men."
-
-He looked at Flammenca a long moment, then added, "And again, I have a
-following of four cabalgadores who will be here shortly. Their stomachs
-must be well garnished. They have ridden hard and steadily these last
-four days."
-
-"Any you bring with you are most welcome here, Senor Quesada, my friend.
-Are not the Gypsies forever the friends of outlaws?"
-
-"One of those who will come will be a lady, a gentle highborn lady--"
-
-"Tell her to come forward out of the shadows, man! Why keep her waiting
-outside the clearing because of your foolish distrust of us? We Gypsies
-mean no treachery by you or yours, _ley tiro solloholomus opre
-lesti_--you may take your oath on that!"
-
-The two men looked at each other for a long minute. Then Jacinto
-Quesada, in perfectly good grace, turned his head and called, "Forward,
-my Felicidad!"
-
-She came forth, the golden-haired girl, riding a tobacco colored mare of
-the small but hardy Manchegan breed. She looked very proud and highborn
-and lonely, as she walked her horse slowly toward them.
-
-"You are safe from all harm here, _madama_," said Flammenca, bowing low.
-"Rest yourself and soon you will eat. My own daughter, Paquita, will
-serve you. We are your good friends even as we are the good friends of
-Jacinto Quesada."
-
-Very courteously, he helped her dismount.
-
-Just then sounded, very suddenly, the hoot of the eagle owl. It came
-from up the barranca. As it vibrated sharply between the steep high
-walls of the canyon, Flammenca turned and looked at the young
-bandolero, cocking his ears the while. Quesada, in the act of
-dismounting, paused also and listened. The sound came again, a singular
-bird note, not much the ordinary hoot of an owl, but more a growl and
-something of a gruff scream.
-
-Pepe Flammenca strode quickly to Quesada's side.
-
-"The men you sent up the canyon after the Guardias Civiles have
-returned, I see," he said. "Call them in! You are overwary of me and my
-people, Don Jacinto. Such caution is commendable in most circumstances,
-but not when you deal with the Zincali. Trust us, Quesada; we will not
-betray you! Have we not for hundreds of years been outlaws hunted like
-wolves? Do you think the men of the Guardia Civil look upon us as their
-allies? We of the Zincali are thieves, and we honor you for being a
-greater thief than we. No reward the police of Spain can offer would
-make us prove false to you and yours!"
-
-A long silence followed. Again Jacinto Quesada looked steadily into
-Flammenca's eyes and strove to read the soul of the man.
-
-"Very well!" he said at length. He raised his carbine aloft and fired it
-into the air.
-
-Briskly his three dorados, Rafael Perez, Ignacio Garcia, and Pio
-Estrada, rode into the clearing. It was noticeable then, in the light
-from the replenished fires, that no one of them was laden with the
-plunder from the hold-up of the Seville-to-Madrid. The chances were that
-they had left the telltale sacks of mail and conglomerate loot in the
-posada of some protecting cacique, or buried them between the concrete
-feet of some windmill, or cached them between the boulders in some gully
-in the foothills.
-
-The three dismounted. With gratification they shook out their
-saddle-cramped limbs. Jacinto Quesada led his own horse and that of
-Felicidad over to one of the wagons and picketed them to a wheel. As he
-did, a nut-brown chit of a girl came and stood before him.
-
-"You are that arrogant and absolute one, Jacinto Quesada!" she asked
-with rising inflection.
-
-Jacinto Quesada nodded without speaking. The Gypsy girl looked at him in
-a way that gave him a singular feeling. Boldly she measured him with her
-eyes, appraised him. Her glance was at once inquisitive, prying,
-annoying, and yet ardent and approving. She had, too, the strange slow
-stare peculiar to persons of the Gypsy race, that fixed uncouth look
-that makes one feel much as if one were being hypnotized by a serpent.
-
-"You are very young to be a bandolero," she remarked, half to herself.
-
-Once again Quesada nodded without speaking.
-
-"You are altogether unlike the bandoleros I have seen."
-
-"It is the deed, senorita," said Quesada. "The deed makes us
-bandoleros--not the length of our limbs nor the cast of our faces."
-
-"But you are very handsome!" she said. "You are as handsome as the very
-Hyperion himself!"
-
-Surprised at the ardor with which she said these words, Quesada looked
-at her with a more curious interest. Small but oddly statuesque, a
-superbly shaped figurine in her close-clinging calico dress of glowing
-vermilions and blazing saffrons, she stood with head ecstatically
-upraised toward him, her dusky eyes radiant with admiration. She
-thrilled a little toward him, her olive bosom undulating deeply and
-slowly.
-
-"Who are you, child?" he asked.
-
-"Paquita. I am the daughter of Pepe Flammenca."
-
-Without comment, he made to return to the group about the fires. But she
-stayed him with a hand upon his arm.
-
-"Tell me," she asked, panting with eagerness; "have you murdered many
-men on the mountains and on the plains?"
-
-"Carajo, no! No man have I killed as yet, though I have battled with
-many," returned Quesada, wounded in his manhood. "I am but a simple
-Moor, not a ferocious beast that lusts to slay."
-
-"But you are magnificent with pride and courage!"
-
-"I love the fierce ecstasy of the running fight, the hand-to-hand
-skirmish! But there is little cold murder, know you, in my bowels. Now,
-leave me, _ninita_!"
-
-Impatiently, he thrust her hand from his arm and started away. But she
-put herself before him, and once again uplifted her face and bathed him
-in the gaze of her ardent eyes. And she cried, her voice tremulous with
-a kind of passion:
-
-"Don Jacinto, I have never before met any one like you! You are bold and
-imperious, you are savage and mighty, but you are not weakly cruel! And
-ah, you are handsome--handsome as the very Hyperion himself!"
-
-She suddenly burst into tears and fled away. Quesada looked after her,
-perturbed, amazed, and sorely puzzled. Her conduct was altogether
-inexplicable. But the underwood hid her from further sight. He shrugged
-his shoulders as one who should say, "She is only a Gypsy, poor thing!"
-and returned to the fires. His meal awaited him.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIII
-
-
-After they had garnished their stomachs with the puchero, they sat
-brooding around the three fires, the girl, Felicidad, and Jacinto and
-his three ruffians. The Gypsy lad with the shirt open to the waist and
-the yellow sash brought out his battered accordion again and played upon
-it for their entertainment.
-
-He made it scream and exult obscenely; he made it lament like a fallen
-angel. He made it sing wild and wanton songs of Gypsy love; he made it
-chant of Gypsy treachery and Gypsy chiromancy. When you heard its
-uncouth and haunting assonances, you believed in the Evil Eye, the
-_Querelar nasula_; in the _Hokkano Baro_, the Great Trick; and even in
-the _Chiving Drao_, that sorcery by which the Gitanos cause horses to
-become sick and glandered, and swine to die as suddenly as if poisoned.
-In short, you believed all you ever had heard of the strange doings of
-the Zincali!
-
-The hours fled by. Those about the fires grew sleepy. One by one, the
-Gypsy wenches withdrew into their tents. Then the girl Paquita spoke to
-Felicidad and led her away. They lay down to sleep that night--the
-highborn young lady and the girl of common Gypsy clay--in a certain
-wagon of the Gitanos. To that wagon came Jacinto Quesada and his three
-dorados, a short time later, and upon the open sward before it, threw
-themselves, their ponchos wrapped around them to protect them from the
-night cold and dew.
-
-After breakfast next morning, Quesada talked long and earnestly with
-Pepe Flammenca.
-
-"You had best remain in camp, at least this morning," advised the Gypsy
-count. "Up above, there is going to be a great _monteria_, and there
-will be many men upon the mountains. Some one may see the Senor Don
-Jacinto and report it to the police."
-
-"It is good, friend Pepe. And the other matter?"
-
-Flammenca called aloud in the Gypsy _gerigonza_. Instantly followed a
-scene of extraordinary liveliness and interest. Flammenca, Quesada,
-Perez, Ignacio Garcia, and Estrada sat cross-legged on the grass.
-Flammenca's Gypsy lads led before them, first the horses of Quesada and
-his dorados, and then the three- and four-year-olds attached to the
-Gypsy caravan. There was a great chaffering; the various points of the
-horses were appraised enthusiastically and with minute care. It was an
-impromptu horse fair. Wherever found, whether in Spain, England, Russia,
-Hungary, or the United States, the true Gypsy is an expert _chalan_ or
-horse trader.
-
-When all the bargaining was over, Quesada and his dorados discovered
-they had not got off second best. They had acquired five new horses,
-unfatigued and glossy coated after a fortnight in the barranca. Their
-own jaded animals had come into the possession of Flammenca and his
-bucks.
-
-"It would please the young lady who rides with us," said Quesada to the
-Gypsy chieftain, "if she could change her attire for something more
-suited to the saddle."
-
-"My Paquita will attend to the matter," returned Flammenca. "Let them go
-together into one of the tents and find out whether their clothing be
-fit to barter and whether their two pretty shapes are mates."
-
-The girl, Paquita, had been hovering about Jacinto Quesada all the
-morning. At breakfast, she had anticipated his every desire, waiting on
-him with silent devotion. Continually she kept her great dusky eyes upon
-him, following him everywhere he went with a gaze abject and doglike in
-its utterness of adoration.
-
-Now, Quesada drew forth a packet of tissue papers and a pouch of
-tobacco, of a sudden and altogether unexpectedly, she stooped above him
-and seized the papers and tobacco from his hands. Looking fixedly into
-his astonished eyes, she rolled a cigarette, wetting the edges with her
-lips. Then she handed the _papelito_ to him, made a long obeisance, and
-turned away.
-
-Her father chuckled and gave her the word to take Felicidad apart and
-find her fit riding clothes. She withdrew, looking over her shoulder at
-Quesada with passionate Gypsy eyes.
-
-Sometime later, she and Felicidad came out of the tent into which they
-had vanished, and Felicidad wore a brown jacket and a brown bisected
-riding skirt, both rather the worse for wear, and Paquita was completely
-attired in Felicidad's green traveling dress. The Gypsy girl looked very
-charming in the more conventional attire, what of her nut-brown skin
-and dye-black hair against the contrasting green.
-
-She walked about the clearing with the grace of a she-leopard,
-continually smoothing the tight, revealing skirt over her hips, and
-rearranging and patting her hair which she had put up in imitation of
-Felicidad. Preening herself thus, she smiled often in a frank and
-childlike pleasure in herself. But there were no men about to admire
-her.
-
-Quesada's dorados had gone behind the wagons to currycomb and further
-polish their new horses. The Roms, every last dishevel-headed and
-swarthy-faced lad, had left the camp immediately after the conclusion of
-the horse trading. Led by Pepe Flammenca, they had stalked silently up
-the barranca, their Mausers and Mannlichers couched tenderly in their
-arms.
-
-They were bound for the heights above the barranca. There, in the
-tag-end mountains of the Sierra Morena, a great monteria, or mountain
-drive, was under way that day. Senor D. Pablo Lario de Quinones was the
-host. He was a rich Catalan who had made his millions in the cork
-industry. He had purchased two or three of the mountains for a sporting
-estate, and in one of the higher passes he had erected a shooting box.
-It was the only habitation within miles, for he had ousted the few
-native mountaineers from their landholds.
-
-Among his guests for this particular monteria were many Spanish
-notables, high and mighty ones of Letters, the State, and the Church, as
-well as several foreign ambassadors and their attachés. The Duke of
-Fernan Nuñez, the Duke of Medinaceli, the Marquis of Viana, the Conde
-de Agrela, the Marquesa de Manzanedo, Colonel Barrera and Senor D. I. L.
-de Ybarra were among the crack guns invited.
-
-Lario de Quinones had his own pack of _podencos_, or hunting dogs--a
-_recoba_ of about forty dogs. But, as is the custom of the sporting
-gentry of Spain, certain of his guests--the Duke of Fernan Nuñez, the
-Conde de Agrela, and Colonel Barrera--had brought with them their own
-packs of podencos and their own huntsmen, to reinforce De Quinones' pack
-and make the drive a more stupendous affair.
-
-Now, Pepe Flammenca and his Gypsy lads were arrant trespassers on the
-hunting grounds of the grandees. Should the mountaineers who served as
-beaters and extra huntsmen come upon them in the brushwood, they would
-thrash them unmercifully and drive them out of the mountains at the
-points of their guns. But Pepe Flammenca and his bucks were hardened and
-desperate poachers. It was their plan to skulk along the line of the
-drive and to hide themselves in thickets near the _armada_ or firing
-line of gentlemen sportsmen; and should a wounded stag come bounding
-toward their places of concealment, it would be most swiftly killed and
-most swiftly borne away to their camp.
-
-A head or two of game would not be missed, nor a rifle report away to
-one side cause much sensation in all that great to-do of the monteria.
-To drown the sound of the poachers' guns, there would be the baying and
-tinkling of bell-carrying dogs, the trumpeting of huntsmen upon their
-_caracolas_, the shooting of blank cartridges to announce that some
-game-beast had been jumped, the crashing of beaters through the thorny
-cistus, and the running reports of magazine rifles along the _rayas_ or
-open rides.
-
-After the poaching Gypsies had gone on their quest, Quesada sauntered
-down to the brook. Here, where an arcade of oleanders shaded a tiny
-white beach, he seated himself upon a huge stone above a pool. He busied
-with watching the trout in the riffles and with spying upon two water
-shrews that swam beneath the surface of the slack water, and dipped and
-dived, seeking everywhere for food. For something like half an hour,
-these velvety-black little creatures engrossed Quesada's attention.
-Then, as pebbles tinkled down near at hand, he looked up to see the girl
-Paquita coming down the bank.
-
-She seated herself beside him on one end of the stone, swinging her bare
-brown feet above the pool.
-
-"You have not said that I look very pretty in this green Spanish dress,"
-she said at length. "But that is your thought, is it not? It would not
-be difficult for me to be the proud and aristocratic lady, eh, man? But
-I would rebel if I must wear shoes! I think my sun-burnt little feet are
-prettier naked as they are!"
-
-Quesada smiled and continued to smoke his cigarette.
-
-She leaned her body against the bole of the tree behind, and clasped her
-hands behind her head, and thoughtfully regarded him. After a time, she
-said:
-
-"Tell me, caballero of my soul--tell me, have you ever loved a Gypsy
-girl, a brown, soft-cooing maiden of the Zincali who was sugar and wine
-to kiss, and velvet and Filipino silk to caress?"
-
-No, Jacinto Quesada had not.
-
-"It is not too late, intrepid one, to make amends! Any Gypsy wench would
-be most glad to have you for a lover. Even a Gypsy count's daughter,
-even the loveliest Gypsy maid in all the Spains, would not be too proud
-to cling to your kisses, Busno though you be! Don Jacinto,
-I--I--Paquita--could love you, and no trouble at all!"
-
-Persistently, he watched the water shrews in the runlet.
-
-"Am I not prettier than she?"
-
-"Of whom do you speak?"
-
-"This highborn lady, this slow-blooded and cold aristocrat--she who is
-as pale as a sickly lily, as slender and ungraceful as a growing
-boy--this Felicidad!"
-
-"I would not say she is too slender, Paquita; I would not say she is too
-pale! It is only that her sort of beauty does not please you, because it
-is not the Gypsy kind with which you are familiar."
-
-"It is not that, Don Jacinto! I have seen her unclothed, I have seen her
-costumed only in her alabaster skin. There she stood in as much
-loveliness as the Senor Don Dios had thought fit to give her. And I
-looked her up and down with a woman's eye. _Chachipe_! the wench had
-nothing of fascination and beauty about her that I have not! She is
-young, yes, and soft, yes, and smooth of skin, and somewhat gracefully
-shaped. But she is at least three years older than I, and she is no
-more a woman, no better rounded. My breasts are as fully blossomed and
-alluring! My--"
-
-"Paquita, you are indiscreet!"
-
-"Indiscreet? I, a Gypsy girl, indiscreet? Don Jacinto, we Gitanas are
-never indiscreet! A kiss or two, an errant arm about the waist, or a
-hand upon the breasts--what of that? An uncovered bosom, a shapely leg
-bared to the knee--there is little evil in that. But if you venture too
-far, if you touch upon our honor, thinking that we and honor to each
-other are strangers--Tate! you will find a dirk has nosed its way
-between your ribs!"
-
-She laughed mockingly, showing her fine white Gypsy teeth.
-
-"Am I indiscreet in speaking as I did about this girl of the Busne? Did
-I not undress and dress her with my own hands?"
-
-"But you need not tell these things to me. I think her beautiful to
-death!"
-
-"Oh, you cannot love her!"
-
-"Love her? I do not know."
-
-"Ah, but if you once turned your eyes upon poor wistful me--chachipe!
-you would soon know whether you loved me! I would make you hunger for me
-like a famished wolf, I would make your blood race and burn! When I
-danced the jota, or the Romalis, or merely moved languorously about, you
-would suffer all the thirsty bitterness of hell, all the exalted sweets
-of heaven!"
-
-Jacinto Quesada looked away.
-
-"But I do not desire to love you, Paquita."
-
-"Si, si; but ah, if you only would! Could you not love me only a
-little--you who are so proud and courageous, you who are so strong and
-absolute?"
-
-Jacinto Quesada turned his head and plunged his austere glance into her
-deep yearning eyes.
-
-"Paquita," he said, not coldly, but without any weakness of pity, "it is
-because I am strong and absolute that I cannot love you. When your eye
-caresses me with its look, your tongue with its subtle flattery, my
-masculinity rebels at the thought of being wooed by a woman; I am
-revolted, sickened! Fling your soul with the same impetuosity and
-passion to some Gypsy lad, and he may love you; but I--no, never I!"
-
-She groaned aloud, knowing full well that he spoke a primitive truth.
-But she could not help yearning toward him, her face bloodless with
-desire.
-
-Said he, "If you would but flee away from me, or shudder when your
-glance meets mine, or even treat me with disdain and coldness, perhaps
-then--who knows? But I must be the predatory one, the seeker, the
-stalker! Else I cannot love."
-
-He made as if to rise. But before he could get upon his feet, she leaped
-up and bent above him and kissed him full upon the lips. Then swiftly
-and blindly she fled.
-
-Once she had gone, Quesada did not bestir himself. He sat gazing
-morosely into the limpid tarn below his rock.
-
-From a great distance, from away up in the mountains, there dropped down
-vaguely to his ears the ringing note of a pack of hounds in full cry.
-Came also, every little while, the bark of rifles remote and far.
-Quesada gave no heed to these sounds. All through the morning, the
-mountain airs had wafted through the barranca vagrant notes of this same
-refrain.
-
-Very suddenly, however, Quesada heard, from much nearer at hand, the
-voices of men shouting and hallooing. He heard his own name called. The
-voices drew nearer. The shouting men were in the barranca itself; they
-were noisily proceeding through the rattling underwood. He heard them on
-the path above his nook by the pool, still calling his name. He did not
-lift his voice in reply, nor even turn his head. But suddenly, from the
-bushes within touch of his hand and right behind his head, a voice spoke
-out, sharply, peremptorily:
-
-"Aupa, Don Jacinto! There is no time to be lost. Already they are
-entering the gateway to this barranca!"
-
-Looking over his shoulder, Quesada saw, no more than a yard in the rear
-and peering through a hole in the bushes, an uncouth disheveled face
-like the face of a satyr or faun--the Gypsy-eyed, bronzed, and
-grizzle-bearded face of Pepe Flammenca.
-
-"Of whom do you speak?" asked the bandolero.
-
-Answered Pepe Flammenca; "Of Manuel Morales and his fantastic
-cabalgadores!"
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIV
-
-
-"We chanced to look down from a great rock on the mountain above,"
-explained Pepe Flammenca, as swiftly he and Quesada returned to the
-clearing, "and we saw them moving across the broad sallow face of the
-plain, like slow-crawling sticky flies. For quite a time we watched
-them, wondering if they would come this way. They approached across the
-high plains, making straight for the entrance to this barranca. They
-ascended the hills, and then I returned alone to warn you that they
-would be here shortly. My lads continued on without me. They will skulk
-along the fringe of the Senor Don Pablo's great monteria, and I am
-willing to swear they will not come back empty-handed."
-
-"You counted the cabalgadores--there were nine?"
-
-"Seguramente, yes. And the noses of their carbines flashed like leaping
-trout in the sun. And two wore scarlet, two yellow, and another green.
-The green one was Morales himself, yes?"
-
-Quesada nodded shortly.
-
-"They did not ride with impetuosity, you say; they rode painfully slow?
-We have still time then, friend Pepe, to make a clean get-away before
-they climb through the barranca. With but fifteen minutes' grace I will
-guarantee to show my heels to the fleetest caballeros in all the
-Spains!"
-
-They entered the clearing. Before one of the tents of many colors sat
-Felicidad like a golden-headed queen. A little court of scantily clad,
-brown-limbed Gypsy toddlers were ringed about her, engaged in lisping
-the songs of the Zincali for her entertainment. The verses sounded very
-strange coming from those soft baby lips; for the words were all of
-love, ardent and free, of murder and revenge, and of theft and
-treachery.
-
-His amber Moorish eyes liquid and softly glowing, Jacinto Quesada halted
-a few feet off, and watched her and listened. A tousle-headed urchin of
-nine, his only uniform an abbreviated and airy shirt, stepped forward
-and chanted, with gusto, "The Laws of Romany":
-
-    "O never with the Gentiles wend,
-      Nor deem their speeches true;
-    Or else, be certain in the end
-      Thy blood will lose its hue.
-
-    "There runs a swine down yonder hill,
-      As fast as e'er he can,
-    And as he runs he crieth still,
-      Come, steal me, Gypsy man.
-
-    "To blessed Jesus' holy feet
-      I'd rush to kill and slay
-    My plighted lass so fair and sweet,
-      Should she the wanton play.
-
-    "Thy sire and mother wrath and hate
-      Have vowed against me, love!
-    The first, first night that from the gate
-      We two together rove.
-
-    "The girl I love more dear than life,
-      Should other gallant woo,
-    I'd straight unsheath my dudgeon knife
-      And cut his weasand through;
-    Or he, the conqueror in the strife,
-      The same to me should do.
-
-    "O, I am not of gentle clan,
-      I'm sprung from Gypsy tree;
-    And I will be no gentleman,
-      But an Egyptian free."
-
-Felicidad looked up and flushed to a carnation color under the ardor of
-his eyes. Then, looking away, she asked, "What is it, Jacinto?"
-
-"Come, my Felicidad! The sun is already high in the sky; it will be
-thirsty-hot on the upper slopes of the mountains. Let us mount and
-ride."
-
-Pepe Flammenca had gone through the underwood seeking Rafael Perez,
-Garcia, and Pio Estrada; he found them out behind the wagons, busily
-engaged in currycombing and burnishing their new horses. Now he returned
-with the three at his heels, himself and two of Quesada's dorados
-bearing a raffle of harness in their hands and saddles on their
-shoulders, and the third leading by their halters the five barebacked
-animals.
-
-At once and swiftly, Quesada's ruffians commenced to cinch the saddles
-upon the horses. Despite haste, the work was done most efficiently.
-
-Quesada called Pepe Flammenca aside. He had become possessed of a new
-idea. He and the Gypsy chieftain put their heads together. Then Quesada
-called Rafael Perez over to them with a beckon of the hand. Perez, too,
-joined in the low-whispered zipizape of words. An impudent and fantastic
-intrigue was plotted out, then and there, by that assorted trinity. As
-they separated again, Jacinto Quesada asked with sudden doubt:
-
-"Will it be very difficult to change the appearance of Perez?"
-
-"Not for Pepe Flammenca! Am I not of the Zincali? We of the Zincali can
-make a young horse seem old and decrepit, and an old horse show as much
-fire and hauteur as an unbroken stallion! And chachipe! we can change a
-black horse to white, and a piebald one to the color of tobacco! It is
-very simple, Don Jacinto, for the Children of Egypt."
-
-"If you can make me pleasing to look at," chuckled Rafael Perez, "you
-will do wonders!"
-
-Then he and Pepe Flammenca went together into the tent of the Gypsy
-chieftain, a more imposing tent than the others. His horse thereupon was
-led back behind the wagons and its harness hung upon the limb of a tree.
-
-"Let us not tarry now. Aupa, you!" commanded Jacinto Quesada.
-
-At the command, Pio Estrada and Ignacio Garcia flung themselves upon
-their horses. Quesada stood beside the horse of Felicidad and made a cup
-of his hands. The golden-haired girl put her little foot in the cup and
-was lifted into the saddle.
-
-Then Quesada walked over to the tent of Pepe Flammenca to say a final
-word to Rafael Perez. Unaided by a mirror, Rafael Perez was shaving
-himself with care and yet with extreme haste. Pepe Flammenca sat
-cross-legged at his feet, mixing a dark stew of pigments in an
-age-blackened calabash.
-
-"I go, Rafael Perez," said Jacinto Quesada, poking his head under the
-flap. "I abandon you to your vices, and to Manuel Morales and his
-cabalgadores. Be prudent and discreet and sagacious, for henceforth you
-must enterprise single-handed and under cover. And may God go with
-thee!"
-
-"And with thee, Don Jacinto of my soul!"
-
-Quesada came back and threw himself astride his horse. "Adelante!" he
-commanded. The three men and the girl Felicidad filed slowly, on
-horseback, out of the clearing.
-
-As they proceeded up the shadow-haunted alleys of the barranca, their
-pace quickened. At a smart trot they were approaching the upper end
-when, all at once, they were confronted by a girl who lingered beside
-the way. It was Paquita--Paquita with a pink rhododendron in her
-blue-black hair.
-
-"You here, Paquita?" Quesada blurted. He was in the lead, and the girl
-disclosed herself with such surprising suddenness that she seemed a
-spirit conjured up in a blink of the eye.
-
-"I waited here to say farewell to you, senor caballero of my heart," she
-replied. He made to push by, but she put her hands on stirrup and leg,
-yearning close. And panting with eagerness, she cried:
-
-"Take me with you, Don Jacinto! For love of you I will give up wandering
-and all my other Gypsy ways! We shall have a cabana hidden somewhere in
-the mountains and secure from the Guardia Civil, and there you will
-repair to be made blissful by me! Take me with you, or I shall sicken
-and die, for I love you so ardently that I am consumed by fires within!"
-
-"For shame, girl! I am a Busno--I am of another race!"
-
-She got on tiptoe and clasped her bare arms about his waist and clung
-tenaciously, passionately.
-
-"Leave me behind then, but first--kiss me! Taste of my lips, they are as
-sweet as the sweetest! Wrap me in your arms so that I suffocate! Then
-kill me, if you will! Gladly would I die under your hands--death is
-better than to be disdained by you!"
-
-Quesada, appalled by the strength and ferocity of her passion, drew
-away. He felt shame before Felicidad. His face aflame, he cried angrily,
-"I will have nothing to do with you!" And he started on again.
-
-Very suddenly, then, her whole look changed. The ardent light fled from
-her eyes; forlornly her hands dropped to her sides; her slim girlish
-figure drooped and wilted. Most woebegone and piteous was she to see.
-And her voice a plaintive, fluttering sob, she called after him:
-
-"Little caballero of the handsome face, there is a great tree at the
-entrance to this barranca--a wild olive that stands alone and waiting
-like a young bandolero who attends in patience until the coming of
-nightfall and his brown Gypsy love. There will be a fine moon to-morrow
-night."
-
-"It is of no importa!" said Quesada, without looking back. "There shall
-be no more meetings of you and me. Go thou with God!"
-
-The girl quivered beneath the scorning words like a flame harshly blown
-upon. But suddenly she pulsed rigid; a heat sharp as pepper, bitter as
-bile, violent as the sun, coursed through her veins; her face grew ashy
-and drawn, her dusky eyes glittered like a cat's. Like a cat she was
-then, like a beautiful she-leopard wounded into a barbarous and terrible
-ferocity.
-
-"Go thou!" she screamed--"Go thou with Satanas, the foul-smelling, the
-gangrened! You are not a man; you are a putrescent sore, an ulcer, a
-leprosy! I hate you, I loathe you, and I will have your life taken from
-you some day!"
-
-She ran after him, shrilly screaming her rage. She was a virago, a
-witch-woman! She picked up a stone and flung it after him. It struck the
-horse of Felicidad upon the withers. She picked up more stones and flung
-these. And a thousand vile curses she flung also. Coming thus from a
-woman's lips, they were worse than an abomination of sound; they were a
-pollution, a hideous obscenity.
-
-Even Quesada's ruffians were appalled. For himself, Quesada was most
-glad that the horse of Felicidad was the one struck by the first stone.
-In a panic, it galloped away. She was soon out of earshot.
-
-They hurried after her.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XV
-
-
-Not at once did the girl Paquita return to the camp of the Gitanos. Her
-low broad brow clouded with sullen anger, her dusky eyes somber and
-morosely smoldering, she clambered swiftly down the rocks of the
-watercourse. In the precipitancy of her descent, in the headlong hurry
-and indecorum with which she moved through swale and sunlight and
-between boulders and clumps of rhododendron, there was yet something of
-cold decision and steadfastness to purpose. She came out, at last, on
-the tiny beach of white sand beside the pool.
-
-A red cloth on a rock caught her eye. She snatched it up and clenched it
-to her heart. It was the head-kerchief of Jacinto Quesada. When but
-lately he had sat and gloomed on that boulder above the pool, he had
-dropped it from his pocket and gone off unawares.
-
-She replaced the red headcloth upon the boulder. It lay there in a
-crumpled crimson heap, and it pulsed a little as its folds eased out. It
-looked like a dying heart.
-
-From some recess in her bosom, the girl Paquita drew forth a small
-moleskin sack on a string and shook its contents out upon the top of the
-rock. There was a looking-glass, smaller than the palm of her small
-brown hand. There was a flint and a bit of steel. There was a chunk of
-lodestone, the magnetic iron-ore which the Gypsies of Spain call _La
-Bar Lachi_ and which they claim is possessed of a thousand magical and
-miraculous properties. There were, also, a half dozen other uncouth
-Rommany charms and talismans.
-
-She propped the hand-glass upright against the crumpled head-kerchief.
-She fell to her knees before it. With an unwavering and strangely
-intense gaze, with a stark contemplation, she stared into the eyes
-reflected from the mirror.
-
-Five minutes, then ten snailed painfully by. The process of
-self-hypnosis went on. She was like one transfixed by a hooded cobra.
-Her body grew gradually rigid, and her breathing ever deeper and slower.
-At last she seemed not to breathe at all. Her eyes vacant and numbly
-fixed, she rose slowly to her feet.
-
-She crossed the tiny beach of clean white sand. She stooped with a
-fluent graceful flexure at the brim of the pool, filled her hands with
-wet sand, and slowly pressed and molded that wet sand into an uncouth
-little image of a man.
-
-The diminutive effigy she deposited upon the beach, setting it upright
-on its vaguely defined and overbroad feet. A second time, she stooped at
-the water's edge, filled her hands with sand, and again packed and
-shaped that wet sand into a squat little figure. Only this time the
-effigy bore a crude but easily perceived resemblance to a woman.
-
-She deposited the one image on the beach beside the other. She gathered
-dry leaves and scraps of tinder-rot and made two little piles of them,
-each before a tiny figurine. She returned to the boulder, swathed the
-lodestone in the red headcloth and, lodestone and cloth in hand, bore
-them back across the beach. And everything was done with extreme
-slowness, with acute and painful deliberation. She was like a
-somnambulist in a walking sleep.
-
-She fetched the flint and the steel from the boulder. She could execute,
-it seemed, only one errand at a time. She dropped to her knees above one
-of the tiny piles of dry leaves and tinder-rot, and busied herself with
-the flint and steel. So soon as the one leafy hillock commenced to burn
-bravely, she translated its flame. The other little bonfire cackled with
-a like eagerness and gusto.
-
-Stepping back from her uncouth little idols and tiny sacrificial fires,
-she undid a catch here and another catch there, and her shoulders and
-then her hips emerged from the green gown, and the gown fell in a
-swishing billow about her brown bare feet. Clad only in her olive-pale,
-satin-smooth and satin-glowing skin, she stepped out of the atoll of
-green cloth and commenced a slow and strange dance there upon the sands.
-
-It was not a dance voluptuous or obscene. It was a solemn dance of
-statuesque attitudes, and flowing flexures, and ceremonious pauses. Very
-like was it to some ritualistic dance of the sacerdotal dancing boys of
-the Cathedral of Toledo. And yet there was in it a taint of sorcery and
-demonolatry.
-
-She stooped at the water's edge to dip therein her hands. Dancing on,
-she shook a few drops of water from her finger tips down upon the
-flames. Smoke arose, a gust of smoke for each trinity of drops. The
-while her eyes remained fixed and vacant and she danced slowly, she
-chanted a sort of weird incantation in the gerigonza of the Zincali.
-
-Her voice was very low and came as with great effort. This was the
-rigmarole she chanted, translated from the Romany, which is descended
-from the Sanskrit and which it much resembles:
-
-    "To the Mountain of Olives one morning I hied,
-    _Three_ little black goats before me I spied,
-    Those _three_ little goats on _three_ cars I laid,
-    Black cheeses _three_ from their milk I made;
-    The _one_ I bestow on the lodestone of power,
-    That save me it may from all ills that lower;
-    The _second_ to Mary Padilla[1] I give,
-    And to all the witch hags about her that live;
-    The _third_ I reserve for Asmodeus[2] lame,
-    That fetch me he may whatever I name."
-
-[Footnote 1: Mary de Padilla, a notorious witch of Medieval Spain and
-mistress of Peter the Cruel of Castile (1333-1369).]
-
-[Footnote 2: Asmodeus, an evil demon. Appears in later Jewish traditions
-as "king of demons." Also Beelzebub and Apollyon. Familiarly called the
-genius of matrimonial unhappiness, or jealousy.]
-
-The rhythm of that solemn dance grew ever more sprightly. Her languor
-dropped from her like a discarded shift. Faster and faster her brown
-bare feet beat the sands. She leaped ecstatically in air. Suddenly the
-dance ended in a whirl of exaltation. Then, for a long minute, she stood
-like one petrified, like a statue sculptured in onyx, her brown arms
-upflung, her face uplifted and sublimated. And in the voice of a
-demoniac, she screamed:
-
-"Oh, _el buen Baron_! O Asmodeus the Lame! Send an evil upon the
-arrogant head of the stripling Quesada, he who tore the heart from my
-virgin breast and then ground it beneath his heel as though it were a
-ball of dung! Accursed was the salt placed in his mouth in the church
-when he was baptized, the vile Busno! He is too disdainful of me, too
-contemptuous! Send a black evil upon him and his, O Asmodeus! O
-Apollyon! By the three black little goats and the three black little
-cheeses, I invoke you!
-
-"Humble him, break his heart of arrogant cold granite by making those he
-loves most fondly fall into fevers and die like flies in a frost! Send
-an evil of hideous disease upon those about him! Make those about him
-fall ill of horrid discharges and cramps of the stomach; then weaken
-them by causing them to vomit a gray pasty whey; then turn their bodies
-to blue and purple, and then let them die within twelve or twenty-four
-hours!
-
-"Break his spirit as my father breaks the spirit of a proud black
-stallion, O Asmodeus the Lame! Do this for thy handmaid and votaress, do
-this for Caste Sonacai, known to the Busne as Paquita, the child of
-Flammenco Chorolengro, hetman of the clan of Barolengro and count of the
-people of Zend!"
-
-You must know that the Gypsies of Spain practice a magic of two kinds.
-Their magic of the first kind is compounded of pure bunkum and fraud.
-Always in public do they practice this charlatanry and upon gullible
-Gentiles whom they hope to hocus-pocus and swindle out of a few pesetas.
-When they tell a buena ventura, or fortune, by crossing the dupe's palm
-with a piece of the dupe's gold, this is the sort of arrant nonsense
-they practice. The Hokkano Baro, the Great Trick, is another of their
-thieves' devices. The Ustilar Pastesas and the Chiving Drao are still
-others. In not one of the swindling tricks mentioned do they use any
-true clairvoyancy or authentic warlockry; it is all sleight-of-hand and
-humbuggery. At this kind of magic the Gypsies laugh loudest themselves.
-
-Those who in public practice magic in order to hoodwink others, always
-practice in secret another sort of magic which they consider the true
-magic, and in which they devoutly believe. This is dogma. Did not the
-priests of ancient Egypt make magic in public to the cat-headed god
-Bast, the bull Ptah, and the lioness Sakhmi whom they despised as images
-of stone and machinery, but to whom they salaamed that the ignorant
-rabble might continue to be hoodwinked? And did not those same priests
-make magic in secret to the one true God? Thus with the Gypsies. In
-secret they practice another and second kind of sorcery which they
-believe in with a fanatic faith!
-
-And that was the kind of magic the girl Paquita practiced in secret down
-on the tiny beach by the oleander-arcaded pool. Her execration solemnly
-concluded, the beautiful and youthful dealer in the warlockry of the
-Roms became again a hot wind of action. Swiftly she ran to the pool,
-filled her cupped hands with water, and as swiftly came back again.
-
-The fires had died down into twin nests of coals. She cast no water upon
-them. What water she carried in her cupped hands, she threw upon that
-little sand image which resembled a man.
-
-Without pausing to watch the havoc she played with her handiwork, she
-repeated the action, this time throwing water upon the little effigy
-which looked vaguely like a woman. Then, her midnight-black hair falling
-about her face and her dusky eyes burning from beneath the obscuring
-oily threads with a strange sibylline fire, she crouched on her brown
-bare heels before the two sodden hillocks of sand.
-
-Now, when standing upright, the two little images of sand had seemed
-mated divinities, bound together by a common majesty. In their downfall
-and watery ruin, however, one might say that they had become
-antagonized; there was that in the way they fell which suggested a
-coldness between them, a rift, a void. In melting and crumbling, the two
-watersoaked little images had fallen gently away from each other.
-
-Paquita got up and shook back the hair from her face. Her face was
-flushed, her eyes glowing with glad triumph. She laughed long and
-arrantly.
-
-"It is written in the sands!" she exclaimed. "She will never have
-Jacinto Quesada for her bridegroom. It is written; it has been shown to
-me! Never will those two lie down together on the bed of marriage! And a
-plague--even that hideous plague I asked for--shall come upon them; a
-plague of low fevers and cramps of the stomach; a plague that shall
-color their bodies blue and purple!"
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVI
-
-
-Hypnosis is an abnormal cerebral state that soon wears off. As one who
-wakes from a sleep or a spell, the girl Paquita now stretched her arms
-wide, blinked her eyes, and looked swiftly over her shoulders and this
-way and that.
-
-Then slowly, her head bowed in thought, her brow knotted in a little
-puzzled frown, she walked to where lay rumpled on the sand her
-ocean-green Spanish gown. She slipped into it, returned, stamped into
-the beach the debris of the two images and then clambered up the rocks.
-She left the watercourse behind, and neared the camp of the Gitanos.
-
-As she came through the trees that palisaded the clearing round, she
-heard her father's voice and answering voices that she never before had
-heard. She hesitated a moment, then crept forward quietly, almost to the
-edge of the line of trees. Her body hidden by a bush, she parted the
-screening foliage with her hands and looked out as through a little
-window.
-
-Her father, Pepe Flammenca, known to the Gypsies as Flammenco
-Chorolengro, stood face to face with an oddly attired stranger and with
-him busily talked. The fantastic stranger was hardly thirty. He was a
-little below the middle height, had a long body and short muscular legs,
-and seemed all iron and strength.
-
-He wore the black rosette and ribbons of a matador in his coleta, his
-queue--that long, thick, and sacred lock of hair all bullfighters wear
-as the time-honored insignia of their ancient profession. His brown
-Andalusian face was the typical young bullfighter's face--boyish, almost
-effeminate with its mild contours. Upon his hands he wore riding gloves.
-Over the shoulders of his short, gold-braided green jacket were slung
-bandoleers crowded with cartridges. On a belt about his waist hung a
-revolver and a sheathed knife. The pink silk stockings that clad his
-legs were almost concealed by a pair of riding-boots of Cordovan
-horsehide.
-
-Addressing Pepe Flammenca, he said, "A hundred times, in the last four
-days, we have lost our way on the plains. And now we are about to
-assault the defiles and goat paths of the Sierra Morena. We must have a
-guide. You know the mountains; agree to guide us at your own price!"
-
-Behind him, standing in various attitude of attention, was a whole
-background of men in oddly assorted costumes. When he spoke, they all
-nodded assent like a Greek chorus, and remarked, "Si, si!" Evidently,
-the young matador was their spokesman.
-
-"I cannot," Pepe Flammenca answered; "I must stay here. I am the chief
-of this clan and must remain with my own people. But there is another
-Gitano somewhere about the camp. To replenish our stock of wild meat,
-the others went early away, but he and I stayed behind to look after the
-horses and foals. With my permission, he can guide you. He knows the
-Sierra Morena thoroughly. I will call him."
-
-Pepe Flammenca turned round, cupped his hands about his mouth and
-bellowed, "Aguilino!"
-
-Came forth from behind the wagons, another man whom Paquita had never
-laid eyes on before.
-
-He was clean-shaven, and brown as a mulatto. He wore the corduroy
-leggings of a Gypsy and a red-striped shirt, and in true Zincali
-fashion, his head was wrapped tightly with a red kerchief. Where his
-left eyebrow once had been, was a hideous yellow scar that curved down
-as far as the cheek bone. What with his harsh and evil features and his
-mulatto-mahogany skin, this yellow scar gave him an altogether
-villainous look. In his left hand, he held a currycomb.
-
-As the man approached, Pepe Flammenca turned to another of the strangers
-and remarked:
-
-"When you first accosted me, after dismounting, you asked me for news of
-the bandolero, Jacinto Quesada. Three times you asked me, and three
-times I gave you the same reply. I was most truthful, but you were not
-assured. You showed me a hand in which lay five gold coins. You thought
-I had clenched my tongue between my teeth for some good reason, and the
-sight of the red metal would make me loosen it. But even your tempting
-golden Alfonsos did not cause me to lie. I have not seen Jacinto Quesada
-in months, I repeat. I have had no word of him in months. Of his recent
-movements I know nothing.
-
-"But question this buck of my clan, this Aguilino! You will be assured
-of my honesty, then. I desire that. I know one of you to be Manuel
-Morales, the greatest matador in all the Spains, and I desire Manuel
-Morales to be convinced that Pepe Flammenca is no teller of lies."
-
-"I am convinced already, my friend!" interposed Morales at that. "Your
-last words convince me."
-
-But another of the strangers, a foreign-looking hombre, proved more
-cautious.
-
-"We will do what you say and question this man," he agreed in stilted
-and strongly accented Spanish. "But first let us find out whether this
-Little Eagle of yours will guide us through the mountains. That's the
-most important business."
-
-The man with the foreign accent was big, broad-shouldered, fair-haired
-and as smooth-shaven as any bullfighter. He was square of face, his jaw
-was a round resolute knob, and his eyes were blue and very steady in
-gaze. He was garbed in a dark sack suit of rather formal cut, a pair of
-tan riding boots and a peaked Manchegan sombrero; and heavily equipped
-with a belt of cartridges, a carbine and a Colt's automatic. It was the
-American, John Fremont Carson.
-
-The nine fantastic looking cabalgadores closed about the ruffianly
-Aguilino. They listened eagerly while Carson spoke to him in low
-persuasive tones. At length Aguilino commenced nodding his head, saying,
-"Si! I agree. Si! I will go with you."
-
-The tall Frenchman with the waxed mustache, Jacques Ferou, whispered
-triumphantly in Carson's ear, "We have our guide. Now let fall the name
-of Jacinto Quesada!"
-
-But the man Aguilino did not recoil at the sharp and sudden mention of
-the bandolero.
-
-"Seguramente, yes; I have heard of him often. On the plains and in the
-mountains. He is a most celebrated man. No, I have never seen him in the
-flesh. Nor have I word of his recent movements. You say that he must
-have passed this way either in the dark of last night or in the gray of
-this very morning? Ah, senores, you do not know how many barrancas there
-are that gutter these foothills! You do not know how like a shadow this
-man Jacinto Quesada is--how like a fox that skulks and dodges and keeps
-always his distance from the habitations and bivouacs of men such as we!
-Jacinto Quesada come to our camp and break bread with us? Ah, senores,
-senores, that would be too much honor!"
-
-The nine men exchanged glances of disappointment and dismay. They had
-been altogether off in their guess. Jacinto Quesada had not stopped in
-passing to hobnob with the Gypsies. He had not passed that way at all.
-The cabalgadores felt themselves like beagles who mill around and bark
-in vain braggadocio. Jacinto Quesada had shaken them off his heels.
-Neither sight nor smell of their game had they.
-
-At this disheartening stage, suddenly from the forest a nut-brown girl
-in a green dress came out and stood before them. She was round limbed
-and delicately graceful as any nymph or naiad of the glens and
-waterfalls. Her dye-black hair hung loose upon her shoulders; two spots
-of hot crimson burned on the roundness of her cheeks; and her eyes
-pulsed like fiery opals. She seemed all aflame with some strong emotion.
-In a throaty shaking voice, she cried out:
-
-"My father lies! This Aguilino whom I have never seen before--he too
-lies! Jacinto Quesada has been here, in this very spot! He came to this
-barranca in the dark of last night--he and three dorados and a tall
-ungraceful wench, pale as a sickly lily! They were given food, they were
-given shelter for the night. Then went away but two hours ago. They went
-on up the canyon!"
-
-A sharp gust of wind shrilled through the barranca, rattling among the
-trees overhead. The sky seemed suddenly to darken, the day to grow
-colder. Pepe Flammenca snarled aloud, between bared fangs, in the
-gerigonza of the Gypsies which the strangers did not understand:
-
-"You horrible flea, you maggot of the dung, you vile daughter of an
-unfaithful mother! Into my _tan_ and say not another word! For every
-word you have said, you shall pay with ten lashes of greenhide across
-your bare back!"
-
-The cabalgadores could not know what he said, but they sensed the threat
-shaking his voice. No one spoke or made a move. The girl looked at her
-father a moment with eyes like cold gloomy mountain lakes, then moved
-slowly toward the large tent of the hetman. Her lips were set in a
-disdainful and a triumphant smile.
-
-About the clearing and above her head, the trees shook and swayed as in
-an agony. Three great drops of water fell with the weight of leaden
-bullets and made slow stains upon her green gown. The dog-grass, vetch
-and darnels of the clearing lifted up and seemed to drink the air. A
-storm was approaching. Leaves whirled about like a hundred excited
-birds.
-
-Of a sudden, the girl Paquita paused near the tent to turn her head and
-fling back the words:
-
-"I have not lied! Though my father will beat me for it, I have told the
-truth! I hate Jacinto Quesada!"
-
-"Say another word, thou child of a witch-woman and a demon!" sibilated
-Pepe Flammenca in the Gypsy gerigonza, "and I will kill thee with my
-bare hands!"
-
-The girl Paquita entered the tent of her father, there to await him and
-his whip of greenhide.
-
-Suddenly and with great gusto, it began to rain. Great drops of water,
-lead-gray and heavy as shot, pelted down. The cabalgadores sought the
-cover of the trees. But the trees afforded little shelter, as the rain
-volleyed this way and that at the will of the gusts of wind, and each
-drop seemed to hold a whole cupful of icy water. In a trice, the men
-were wet to the skin.
-
-Pepe Flammenca motioned them to the tents. Manuel Morales, Jacques
-Ferou, and the American, Carson, found themselves together beneath the
-same protection of canvas and vari-colored rags.
-
-"What do you think?" asked Morales.
-
-"That she spoke the truth," returned the Frenchman. "She had on my
-Felicidad's green traveling dress. Jacinto Quesada has indeed been
-here."
-
-"But will that great bearded Gypsy beat the girl?" anxiously asked
-Carson.
-
-The tall Frenchman shrugged his shoulders.
-
-"The Zincali are a strange people, _mon Americain_!" said he. "And,
-besides, she said he is her father. Would you interpose between a father
-and his daughter?"
-
-Carson subsided into a gloomy silence and looked about the tent.
-
-"But this guide, Aguilino," continued Ferou. "He lied to us, Morales.
-Should we trust ourselves to his guidance?"
-
-"What would you?" returned Morales in Spanish fashion. "We must have a
-guide in these mountains, and there is no one else to hire. Surely, this
-Aguilino is better than no guide. We will watch him, we nine men, and
-above all, we will go on."
-
-The American motioned them into silence. He nodded over his shoulder
-toward the rear of the tent. Behind them, they saw a naked child asleep
-on a blanket between two dogs and an old hag of a Gitana crouched in a
-corner, her eyes alive and fixed unwaveringly upon them.
-
-The men remained wordless but they did not sit down. The smell of
-unwashed bodies and much-used body blankets of a sudden breathed into
-their nostrils. The tent was filthy. All at once, the three wished
-themselves out in the sweet, clean, if wet open again.
-
-"What these folk need is education," whispered Carson in Morales' ear.
-"Education can do everything!"
-
-"Education, si!" returned Morales in the same manner. "But what they
-need more is some one with a lion heart, a great golden arrogant heart,
-to lead them in the fight, to lead them up!"
-
-Jacques Ferou said nothing, but as he followed them out into the open,
-he smiled his calculating and very superior smile.
-
-Outside, the very mountains above seemed to have melted away into opaque
-sheets of driving water. The earth was sliding in brown streams from
-under their feet. The barranca boomed like a thousand drums beaten by
-mad Arabs.
-
-To make himself heard above the booming of the rain, Jacques Ferou
-cupped his hands about his mouth and screamed into the faces of the
-others: "Let us go back. Sacre, we are soaking water here!"
-
-"No!" returned the others, and they grimaced in disgust. But the rain
-fell with such outrageous passion that it was unendurable; there was
-naught to do but return within the tent.
-
-Driven to it, they sought the shelter of the tent once again, but found
-it now a very poor shelter beneath that onslaught of rain. It leaked
-like a Japanese paper umbrella. And all the time the trees ran with
-heavy tears, and the rain flooded down with a tumultuous booming and a
-morose persistency.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVII
-
-
-That night, after the storm ceased and a spell before the moon rose, a
-man of the Guardia Civil rode across hills sweetened by the rain, and
-came in a roundabout way to the ancient wild olive at the portal of the
-barranca of the Gitanos. Here he dismounted and waited like one keeping
-a tryst, smoking innumerable cigarettes and kicking up the soft loam
-impatiently. He was Miguel Alvarado.
-
-At length and on the sudden, he heard sounds as of some one coming
-toward him down the canyon through the dripping leaves. He hearkened a
-moment, then lifted his voice in a rich but gentle baritone:
-
-    "Loud sang the Spanish cavalier,
-      And thus his ditty ran:
-    God send the Gypsy lassie here,
-      And not the Gypsy man."
-
-She came to him from out the trees, the wench Paquita. She was clad in a
-dress of vermilions and yellows, those vermilions and yellows now
-bedusked by the soft light of the night. In her hair was wound a green
-scarf. And, as she approached, she sang the answering quatrain:
-
-    "At midnight, when the moon began
-      To show her silver flame,
-    There came to him no Gypsy man,
-      The Gypsy lassie came."
-
-Impulsively he ran to meet her. They were like shadows that merged
-together and became one. They trembled, they swayed; they swayed as the
-wild olive swayed in the wind of the night. They kissed long and
-ardently. Then she drew herself away, throwing her head back and holding
-him off with arms rigidly extended.
-
-"Ah, Miguel, my caballero of the impetuous lips," she sighed, "I could
-love you with all my heart and soul, but for one little thing!"
-
-"Carajo! what is that?" he asked, his voice sharp with anxiety and
-eagerness. "Have I not always been the most adoring and tender of
-lovers--aye, and the most voracious and headlong, too? Did I not hurry
-pellmell for this meeting, the moment you sent word to me by that Gypsy
-brat? What have I done to make you think dismally of me? How have I
-displeased you? Tell me; I burn to know!"
-
-She suddenly drew herself to him and clung there once again, kissing his
-lips and fondling his head with her hands. He shivered in every limb. He
-moaned in an ecstasy of delight, and pressed her to him with such
-impetuosity and gusto that it seemed as if his arms would break her body
-in two.
-
-Beneath the ardor of his greedy embrace, the girl Paquita shuddered and
-went very pale in the gloom. A scream rose in her throat but she
-smothered it, unborn. Across her shoulders, under her gaudy gown, were
-red raw furrows where her father's greenhide had bitten and seared her.
-But she made no outcry, she gave no sign, though she was as one who has
-been tortured horribly and then given up to the iron caresses of a
-terrible, crushing machine.
-
-His arms relaxed somewhat after a little, and she lay upon his neck and
-whispered:
-
-"It is not what you have done; you were always the perfect lover. It is
-what you are. You are a policeman, one of those feared and hated and
-despised by my clan. I feel shame in loving a man of the Guardia Civil;
-there is something in my Gypsy blood that makes me feel that shame. It
-is the uniform you wear, the things that it symbolizes."
-
-"We Guardias Civiles are the bravest of Spaniards. We are most brave and
-mettlesome men, every one!" returned the young policeman slowly, seeking
-to marshal his arguments in order. "Most Spanish girls are quick to love
-us if only because of our smart uniforms and gallantry and daring. And
-it is as natural for me to be a policeman as it is for you to be a
-Gitana. My father is a sergeant of the police; he has been in the
-Guardia Civil for thirty years. And all my male ancestors have been
-Guardias Civiles back to the long-ago, when they were bandoleros and
-outlaws who grew tired of being hunted and became Miquelets."
-
-"But if you were more like your ancestors, the Miquelets--ah, then I
-could love you body and soul!" breathed the girl Paquita. And she went
-on very softly:
-
-"Last night, there came to our camp in the barranca an outlaw, a
-salteador de camino. He was strong, he was magnificently strong, and he
-had a long absolute jaw and bold, proud, imperious eyes. About him, like
-an odor, hung the reek of the imposing and cruel and terrible things he
-had done.
-
-"It is natural for us Gitanas to love an outlaw; we Gitanas are outlaws
-to the core, ourselves. And he was as arrogant as a Bourbon prince, or a
-sheik of Barbary, or an Andalusian sun on a noonday; but he looked at me
-only with the eyes of contempt, granite eyes. I made the fool of myself
-by flinging my body and soul at his feet. He--"
-
-"Cascaras! what was his name?" cried Miguel Alvarado sharply. It was as
-though a knife had been plunged into his side and twisted this way and
-that.
-
-"He was the glorious bandolero, Jacinto Quesada!"
-
-"Jacinto Quesada! That swollen toad, that strutting mountebank in rags
-and tinsel, that upstart, the zascandil! Por los Clavos de Cristo! and
-you flung yourself at him?"
-
-"But he is altogether the arrogant and brave man, altogether the savage
-and magnificent one!"
-
-"Carjo! he is only a mountaineer's brat. We grew up on opposite slopes
-of the same mountain of the Sierra Nevada. His clodhopper of a father
-sold firewood to the sweet mother of me! He is uneducated; has no
-resource or originality. And he lacks entrails as well as brains! I am
-more varonil, I tell you; more impetuous with headlong daring than he.
-Were there a man such as Miguel Alvarado in the shoes of Jacinto
-Quesada, there would be things done, I wot! But I will show you what is
-what. I--"
-
-"Yes, yes, you will show me--how, when?"
-
-But to the ears of Miguel Alvarado the wind had borne sound of the to-do
-raised by an approaching horse. He hearkened to that pounding and
-clattering, looking down the sweep of foothills below the barranca. He
-saw nothing just at once. But the sounds became more distinct, drew
-nearer. Those sounds leaped toward them in great panther leaps.
-
-Suddenly a man on horseback came bounding over the hogback of a hill
-right below. He wore the tight uniform and the businesslike look of a
-man of the Guardia Civil. His policeman's three-cornered hat of shiny
-leather shimmered in the light of the newly risen moon. With the
-velocity and abandon of a French dragoon, he galloped full tilt up
-toward the barranca. And as he came, he shouted:
-
-"Hola, Miguelillo!"
-
-"It is my officer, my parent!" whispered the young policeman, and he
-swore softly in disappointment. Then, with the absolute obedience of
-only a Spanish son, he shouted back: "Here I am, Don Esteban, my father!
-What do you want of me?"
-
-The sergeant of police came up like a driving pillar of sand and
-dismounted while his horse was in full charge. Swinging his quirta, he
-advanced swiftly upon the pair. There was in him no sign of the weakness
-of age. He had a short, knife-sharp white beard, and a face as lean and
-haughty as a griffon vulture's. From his tricorn hat still hung down,
-behind his head, a sun shield of white linen cloth.
-
-"Come away with me!" he ordered peremptorily. "I have word that Jacinto
-Quesada is in the mountains near the Pass of Despenaperros. While
-there's work to do for Spanish policemen, I'll not have you playing the
-bear for the entertainment of any senorita in Spain, no matter how fine
-the moon!"
-
-He peered into the soft shade beneath the wild olive.
-
-"Aha, the maiden is with you, I see! But, zut! this is bad. She and you
-alone in this abandoned glen--has the girl no thought for what the
-people of her village will say of her?"
-
-"The girl is a Gitana!" spoke up Paquita proudly.
-
-"A Gitana! Blood of Christ! my son keeping tryst with a Gitana! Have you
-no respect for your Christian mother, you ungrateful whelp? Have you no
-pride in your policeman father and in your ancestors that have been
-keepers of the peace of Spain for a hundred years? Have you no thought
-of the uniform you wear?"
-
-The father was severely angry.
-
-"This is disgraceful, this is vile, Alvarado, my son! A Gitana, eh! Come
-away with me, at once. Come away, and no more words with this wanton
-Gypsy wench, or I shall lay my quirta across your back!"
-
-The imperious old man turned on his heel, strode away, and leaped with
-one lithe strong spring upon his horse's back. Miguel Alvarado turned
-from the girl and moved reluctantly toward his own horse. He feared his
-father too much to disobey him. He feared his father as he feared
-neither God nor the Devil. He knew his father would beat him without
-qualm or ruth at the first word or look of defiance or rebellion.
-
-Man-grown though he was, he could prove to you an acquaintance with his
-father's rawhide quirta by merely baring his young body to the waist.
-Spanish family life is the most solid and wholesome thing about Spain.
-Spanish sons and daughters respect and revere those who gave them life;
-they have been taught respect and reverence at the ends of whips. In the
-same manner, Jehovah made the Israelites love him; and who, through all
-the years of the world, have been more faithful to God than the stern
-race of Jews?
-
-"I will be here, at this wild olive, ere the waning of three nights. At
-midnight of the third night, meet me, Paquita, virgin of my soul!"
-whispered Miguel Alvarado, bending down from the saddle.
-
-"You will tell me then what you will do?" she whispered in return. "You
-will tell me then, will you not, my caballero of the impetuous lips and
-the great courage? I will remain chaste as gold, pure as a sacrament,
-for you, caballerete!"
-
-"I will prove to you that I am not unworthy of your great love, my
-little one. This Jacinto Quesada--za!"
-
-He thundered away after his proud and haughty parent.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVIII
-
-
-Up from the misty profundities of the Llanos de Jaen climbed, like slow
-obstinate flies, the nine fantastic cabalgadores of Manuel Morales.
-Also, their guide, Aguilino. They were all afoot. With them, up the
-altitudes of the pass, yearned seven pack mules, heavy and swollen with
-great panniers of provisions.
-
-The nine Quixotes and their scarred wolf of a guide had put two weeks of
-frugal living and heartbreaking toil between them and the barranca of
-Pepe Flammenca and his unwashed Gypsy clan. Right off, they had lost one
-horse and then another. The beasts had taken headers off mountainsides.
-They had consulted with their guide, the man Aguilino. He gave them to
-understand that horses were considered of very little worth in both the
-Sierra Morena and the Sierra Nevada. For a caravan of asses, they
-succeeded in bartering their horses with the arrieros, or muleteers,
-going down.
-
-Now, after two weeks, they had at last won through the rolling torrent
-of mountains called the Sierra Morena. They were inching themselves up
-the long perpendicular miles of the windy gorge of the Llanos de Jaen.
-
-The Llanos de Jaen is very narrow. One would think one could hurl a
-peseta across it, until one tried. Were it not for the chasmy gap of the
-Llanos de Jaen, the Sierra Morena and the Sierra Nevada would be one
-tremendous chain of mountains.
-
-Half-way up, a mule stumbled in turning the flank of a precipice and
-took the leap, screaming like a soul thrown headlong to Hell. The nine
-Quixotes clung to the rock wall and felt sick to their stomachs. The
-mule seemed falling for a thousand years. They did not dare to look down
-and see it strike. The mule was the one the guide Aguilino had been
-leading. Perhaps a shove from him had sent it on its way to death.
-Again, perhaps not.
-
-High above, upon the top of a glassy and steep _risco_ or overhanging
-rock, a man had moored himself with a short rope of horsehide. He was
-Jacinto Quesada. But he did not look the bandolero of the plains. Garbed
-as he was in alpagartas or rope sandals, the better to grip the
-precipitous ascents, and in sheepskin zamarra and long shawl as
-protection against the cold, he looked the true mountaineer.
-
-With the vigilant application of an eagle eying its meat circling all
-unaware beneath its lofty eyrie, Quesada had been watching the men climb
-laboriously up the sheer of the pass. Now, as the mule fell to its
-magnificent death, he nodded his head in approbation and remarked to
-himself:
-
-"Rafael Perez has finally set to work, I see! That is the first poor
-mule. But the whole seven must be disposed of, before Morales and his
-men journey far through the Sierra Nevada."
-
-The nine Quixotes did not know Quesada was perched there, far above
-them. Long ere they crawled up to the overhanging rock, he had
-disappeared completely. Yet they felt sure that somewhere beyond, among
-the snowy crags and moaning canyons of the Sierra Nevada, Quesada was
-pursuing his way with the girl Felicidad.
-
-A day prior, just before leaping the Llanos de Jaen and coming out of
-the Sierra Morena, they had stumbled, in a hollow of the hills, upon a
-mud choza that had the gloomy aspects of a hiding place for bandoleros
-and moonshiners. The peasant and his wife who lived in the hut had said
-no to all their questions. No, they had not seen Jacinto Quesada. No,
-they never had heard of him, they lived so far away in the mountains,
-senores. Don Jesu, they would not know him from the great Morales
-himself!
-
-
-But their half-witted son, a tall, shock-headed, ungainly lad, was
-struck by the appearance of the cavalcade and especially by the
-colorful, if oddly assorted trapping of Manuel Morales. Poor lad, he had
-never before seen such glorious caballeros.
-
-As the disheartened men had made to lead on their mules, he had crept to
-the offside of Morales' beast and there, hidden from the view of his
-father, he had engaged in a quick, fearful pantomime.
-
-"What is it?" queried Morales.
-
-Vehemently the feeble-minded lad had pointed on ahead, on toward the
-Llanos de Jaen and the Sierra Nevada beyond.
-
-"He has gone that way!" he whispered. "Si, Jacinto Quesada himself and a
-girl white as the snows that fall in these hills. He passed here two
-days since. Into the Nevadas, into the Nevadas, he has gone, senor
-don!"
-
-Morales believed him, believed him even more implicitly than if his mind
-had been sound. Despite the dubious looks and shakes of the head upon
-the part of the guide Aguilino, all the cabalgadores agreed that the
-poor feeble-minded fellow would be incapable of perpetrating a
-deception. With energy and ardor they had pressed on.
-
-Now, as they won to the bare-fanged wind-shrieking altitudes of the
-pass, Morales and his men felt dizzy; their stomachs churned, their
-heads were like gas-filled balloons. Sheerly below them dropped the
-narrow, profound gutter of the Llanos de Jaen. It seemed composed of
-three parts rock, standing on end, and seven parts air, giddying around
-in a stew. They drew their eyes away. They felt as if they would like to
-leave off clinging by their finger nails and slip down into the abysmal
-void.
-
-They sank down upon the uneven spaces of a granite spire that was as a
-needle for slimness. Into the north rolled away, like a gray sea of
-mist, the massive ramifying Sierra Morena. To the south and ahead bulked
-up, even more imposing of port, the lofty altitudes of the Sierra
-Nevada. It was like some long and magnificent staircase, its lower steps
-of mica schist overgrown with gum cistus, rhododendron, and broom, its
-top a dazzling flow of snow. Crags and peaks, jungled windy cuts,
-rock-bound alpine lakes, creamy knobs, and sharp obelisks saw-edged the
-sublime blue like the teeth of some titanic rake. The white melting
-heads of old Muley Hassan and the Picacho de la Veleta looked but a jump
-away, and yet with the mighty distance, the pink and purple of
-rhododendron, the white and pink of trailing arbutus and the green of
-gum cistus and broom seemed all of the same hazy blueness. It was a
-stupendous, overpowering jumble of cathedral mountains, colossal
-mountains, awful mountains.
-
-"The Sierra Nevada has a scowling look," remarked Manuel Morales. "We
-may thank the good Dios humbly and gratefully, if we come triumphant
-through those solitudes and steeps."
-
-"We must not lose another mule," said Jacques Ferou. "There are no red
-deer in the Sierra Nevada, nor wild boar, nor even mongoose. Is it not
-so? The panniers of provisions are our only salvation."
-
-"And the mules may be eaten, too, when we're hungry enough," added
-Carson grimly. "I've eaten worse meat in my day in Death Valley,
-California."
-
-Aguilino the guide heard the remarks without a quiver of his scarred
-eye.
-
-Late that afternoon, John Fremont Carson halted his mule on the eyebrow
-of a cliff and the caravan crowded together at imminent risk of one or
-more going overside. His beast had gone suddenly lame, Carson said. It
-was standing on three legs, gray head drooping, and attempting every
-little while to put down its fourth leg.
-
-"Carajo! The cattle must be shot!" said the guide Aguilino at first
-glance. "The contents of its panniers can be apportioned among the other
-mules."
-
-"Nothing doing," said Carson shortly. "We can't afford to lose a single
-mule."
-
-"You are right, monsenor," agreed Jacques Ferou. "In the Sierra Morena,
-the cabanas of the mountaineers were far between and few, and we
-succeeded in keeping our strength only by killing our meat as we went.
-Here, this Sierra Nevada seems as empty of men and wild meat as the
-deserts of French Algiers. We must save all our panniers, all our
-mules."
-
-"Let me see the lame foot!" spoke up Manuel Morales suddenly. As are
-most bullfighters, Morales was wise in horseflesh and its kindred
-species. He crouched, took the hoof between his knees and examined it
-carefully. All at once his head snapped up.
-
-"You lagarto, you lizard, you sly trick one!" he shouted at the guide.
-"What Gypsy trick is this?"
-
-He showed the mule's hoof to the others. Slightly protruding from the
-inside of that hoof was the head of a nail. It had been driven straight
-into the quick.
-
-"Come, you flea!" commanded Morales. "Get me a pair of pincers, a hammer
-with a claw--anything which will grip this nail and help to draw it
-out."
-
-The guide, glad enough to hide his discomfiture, hurried away. But in a
-moment he returned with empty hands.
-
-"Senor, we have no pincers, pliers, hammer--nothing of the kind!"
-
-The American blurted out an oath.
-
-"Think you can stump us, eh?" he said collectedly in English. And he
-borrowed the revolver of Jacques Ferou, broke it, and emptied its six
-chambers.
-
-"My automatic hasn't the leverage of your gun," he remarked to the
-Frenchman in explanation.
-
-With the steel finger guard of the revolver he sought, as he spoke, to
-get a grip on the head of the nail. But the nail had been driven in so
-far that its head just barely protruded from the surface of the hoof.
-There was no room beneath the nail-head for the slim steel of the finger
-guard.
-
-Manuel Morales shouldered him away. Taking the hoof again between his
-knees, he dug at the head of the nail with his bare fingers. It seemed a
-preposterous thing to do, but he worked with a gnawing persistency. The
-mule shivered in every member, and made hoarse, almost human sounds of
-pain. Suddenly it screamed. Morales, his round face dark with blood and
-shiny with sweat, his body hunched all in a knot, slowly drew out the
-nail between the vise of two strong bullfighter's fingers!
-
-"Now we will go on," said Carson.
-
-"And no more of your Gypsy tricks, you lagarto!" Morales warned the
-guide.
-
-Aguilino ignored the threat.
-
-"The hole is spurting black blood," he said. "Let me make a poultice to
-stop the bleeding."
-
-He gathered a handful of the stick leaves of a gum cistus which grew in
-the crevices of the cliff wall, chewed them in his mouth, then spit the
-cud into his palm and pressed it over the ragged hole left by the nail
-in the mule's hoof.
-
-Yet, for all the appearance of doing good, he seemed to handle the
-painful leg with unwarranted brutality. The mule, snorting in agony and
-anger, recoiled sharply from him toward the brink of the path. Before
-the others could realize that anything untoward was in motion, before
-ever they could leap forward to save the beast, he pressed his head and
-shoulders against the burdened animal and it tottered on the crumbling
-edge of the cliff, then went over, turning round and round like an empty
-wine cask, banging its panniers against the rock faces, kicking the air
-with frail legs, and screaming all the while frightfully.
-
-Manuel Morales caught the guide as he almost followed into the void.
-With his two strong arms, the matador lifted him bodily into the air and
-held him over the miles of emptiness.
-
-"You snake in the grass!" he swore. "We will see now with how much grace
-you take the leap yourself!"
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIX
-
-
-The guide did not squirm. He could not squirm. He was stiff with terror
-of the misty abysmal depths below. Yet, somehow, he managed to stutter:
-
-"Heart of God, senor, don't! You will lose yourselves--in these savage
-mountains--without me to guide you! You will all starve to death!
-Maestro, for the love of Mary the Pitiful, don't, don't!"
-
-There was something of truth in what the guide said. Morales put him
-back upon the path. But he said with bitterness and brooding menace, "We
-will lose no more mules. You will see to that, eh, my trustworthy man?"
-
-Aguilino worked more cleverly after that.
-
-In the dusk of the following night, Turiddu, the mule led by Morales
-himself, went over a cliff, almost dragging the matador along. There was
-no use blaming the guide, Aguilino. He had not been near the doomed ass
-during the long morning and the longer afternoon.
-
-Besides, twenty times that day the beast had come within an ace of its
-eventual finis. Since dawn, it had conducted itself in a contrary and
-restive manner; it had shied without seeming cause, reared and plunged
-forward in sudden frights, caracoled and beat the path with its hoofs,
-and whinnied, snorted, and shaken its head as though unaccountably
-irritated. It seemed a mule spirited and unrestrainably stimulated by
-an overfeeding of oats; a mule intoxicated, possessed of a demon!
-
-What had befallen Turiddu in the shadowy darkness of the prior night,
-Dios sabe! Yet the Gypsies have a jockey trick which might explain the
-whole mystery. When selling or bartering mules and borricos, they drop a
-tiny nodule of quicksilver into the long ears of the beasts.
-
-Have you ever suffered a drop of water in the ear and been unable to
-move a hand to flick it out? The nodule of quicksilver is as irritating
-as that. It is wet and never still. It frets the mules and causes them
-to liven up their paces and seem more mettlesome.
-
-Morales and his cabalgadores watched the guide with deep but
-indefensible suspicion. Vexedly they wondered and worried. Finally, in
-the next few days, they were provoked into savage anger when three more
-mules took it upon themselves to act unconventionally, and then die in
-fits, one, two, three.
-
-These mules were thoughtful and discreet to a degree. They did not leap,
-screaming, off the walls of the mountains. They expired in their tracks
-and therefore saved to the nine Quixotes the panniers strapped over
-their spines.
-
-Morales and his men became, all at once, coldly furious. The third mule
-in dying, coughed up a round, compactly pressed ball of pointed
-black-green leaves. Some one in the company had forced handfuls of
-oleander leaves down the throats of the three mules!
-
-Now, the leaves of the oleander are extremely poisonous to man and
-beast. Horses and kindred cattle have an instinct which warns them
-against eating the shrub. But man who has no strong instincts, often
-dies poisoned by the oleander's juices. It is related that several
-British soldiers during the Peninsular War cut and peeled some oleander
-branches to use as skewers for roasting meat over the campfires. Of the
-twelve men who ate that meat, seven died.
-
-Even a creature as asinine as an ass knows enough to avoid the pointed
-black-green leaves. Most mules would rather starve than even smell of
-the plant. Yet, during the nights that preceded their untimely
-taking-off, some one in the company had forced handfuls of the poisonous
-leaves down the throats of the three mules.
-
-For hours before the death, each mule had coughed. Also, each mule had
-simpered, simpered like a convent girl. Simpered is a strange word to
-use in such a case, but it describes exactly the way the mules had moved
-and worked their lips in a try to rid their stomachs of the deadly
-leaves.
-
-Of the whole caravan of seven mules that had trotted so bravely out,
-there was left now but one sorely burdened ass. The nine cabalgadores
-weighted the surviving beast with some of the provisions from the backs
-of the three poisoned mules; they encumbered their own shoulders with
-the rest; then they continued doggedly on, thinking to kill the last
-mule for meat, once the provisions upon their backs and in the panniers
-were completely exhausted.
-
-That night they bivouacked in a stony and savage ravine, and built two
-small fires, and hugged them close. It was very cold. An icy mountain
-fog or _neblina_ had crept down like a clammy gray ghost from the windy
-passes and frozen snowfields far above. One could not see much farther
-before one through the thick mist than the nose upon one's face.
-
-They wrapped their ponchos about them and shivered in the damp. A cavern
-of snarling wind-echoes and of eddying, dark shapes was the steep
-ravine. Down the length of it, the fog marched like an endless caravan
-of ghostly, silent, gray mules. The two fires, robust enough and
-certainly well attended, seemed as pale and anæmic and cold as two
-incandescents in the black heart of a mine.
-
-Without the fling of the twin fires, a man in sheepskin zamarra,
-alpagartas and voluminous mountaineer's shawl sat cross-legged on a
-large boulder and watched the men bulk before the flames, and move back
-and forth, and lie down, keeping close together for warmth. He did not
-seem to feel the icy chill of the fog; he did not seem to fear
-discovery. And yet, should the fires leap up and burn voraciously
-because of some knot braided with pitch, he would be disclosed most
-surely to the men about the flames.
-
-For days, however, he had been with them and never once had chance
-betrayed him to the men he watched. He had clung to a risco above them
-when they had climbed like slow obstinate flies out of the profundities
-of the Llanos de Jaen and plunged into the gargantas and barrancas of
-the desolate Sierra Nevada. He had hung upon their flank as a wolf hangs
-upon the flank of a gang of deer; as a podenco, or hunting dog, hangs
-upon the flank of a sounder of wild boar. While they ate, he had
-lingered near and, with a rare and pensive curiosity, had watched them
-slowly but surely exhaust the linings of their mules' panniers.
-
-Suddenly, from the boulder on which he sat as quietly as another rock,
-he lifted up his voice in a long, thin, bestial ululation. Such a somber
-and unearthly sound is made only by the Spanish she-wolf when, standing
-above the den of its brood, it gives tongue to a thousand old memories
-and desires.
-
-One of the recumbent figures about the fires lifted himself upon an
-elbow and, his face sharp, hearkened intently. Again, from the boulder,
-uprose the steely cry, mournful as a wail sent spearing aloft from
-Purgatory. From his elbow, Aguilino the guide lifted himself to his
-feet.
-
-"When you hear the she-wolf give tongue," he answered to the inquiring
-looks of the others, "you may be sure that its den and runways are near.
-The young fat cubs make fairly good meat. I will go out into the
-darkness, hearkening to the cries of the bitch, and if I am lucky, I may
-locate the brood for you. God willing, we will have an oteo, a
-wolf-drive, at dawn to-morrow!"
-
-He walked out of the radius of the firelight and went stumbling through
-the shadowy gloom. As he brushed through the white buckthorn, arbutus,
-and holly which sprouted in the more generous soil between the boulders,
-those about the fires could hear a swishing and snapping, and a
-regular-spaced crackling from the rich mould under his walking feet.
-Then all crackling and rustling ceased, and the night was darkly still.
-
-Aguilino halted at the foot of the boulder. The man in the mountaineer's
-shawl dropped down beside him.
-
-"Rafael Perez," he said, "to-morrow you must murder the last mule!"
-
-"But, Don Jacinto, I dare not! Three times already have they threatened
-my life, and they regard me forever with the most savage of looks. The
-others I do not fear so much, but that magnificent one--I tell you I
-fear Morales so that I shudder at each of his glances. The man looks
-murder. Believe me, Don Jacinto, he would shoot me like a dog should I
-make but one more move!"
-
-"Then I must finish that last mule myself. To-morrow, above the Pass of
-the Blessed Trinity, where the three roads converge into one, I will
-send down a boulder to crush out its life."
-
-"Ah, that is better, senor don! They cannot blame me if a little rock
-falls from the heights, while I walk with them through the gap. But how
-much longer must I endure their scowling looks, maestro? My life is not
-worth a peseta while I linger with that company."
-
-"They continue to eat, do they not?" said Quesada significantly.
-
-"Si, but it's no fault of mine. Don Jacinto, how could I dare send more
-than three mules toppling off the mountain walls? You yourself, maestro,
-told me to resort to the oleander leaves. Remember, it was in that
-little talk behind the granite crag? But the oleander leaves did not get
-rid of the panniers of the three poisoned beasts. These Quixotes fill
-themselves from those panniers without stint, especially the Frenchman.
-They will continue to eat for a few days--"
-
-"Hola, the Frenchman has an appetite, eh?"
-
-"Seguramente, si! But when shall I quit the distasteful presence of that
-terrible Morales?"
-
-"To-morrow at dusk, if you will have it."
-
-"A thousand thanks! But what excuses shall I give, Don Jacinto?"
-
-"Say to them that it is not the will of God that you go farther!"
-
-"Carajo, they will shoot me for it!"
-
-"Que, que! What of that? They will only cheat the Guardia Civil of
-another black rogue!"
-
-Little comforted by the words of consolation, grumbling and shaking his
-head morosely, Rafael Perez, alias Aguilino, returned to the bivouac of
-the nine fantastic ones. The other, who wore the garb of a serrano,
-hurried away through the foggy darkness, his head bent and brow
-thoughtful.
-
-The following day, as slowly they climbed one of the three roads which
-led into the mournful Pass of the Blessed Trinity, a huge boulder came
-bounding down from the granite heights, viciously leaped by John Fremont
-Carson's head and, having been deflected by a rock above, missed the
-last mule by a good dozen yards. The guide Aguilino swore in his chest,
-and no one heard him.
-
-As the sun rose to its meridian, the vertical rays, reflected from the
-stony bare-fanged walls, gave off an intense heat, and the party halted
-in a hollow that lay brown and lean between two mountains. The men
-squatted down to partake of a light noontide repast, and it was then
-that Rafael Perez approached Morales.
-
-"Caballero of my soul," he said fearfully, "I can go no farther with
-you!"
-
-"Disparate!" exclaimed Morales, jumping to his feet. "What nonsense is
-this! Hola, Ferou and you, Carson; the treacherous knave desires to
-abandon us!"
-
-The Frenchman and American crowded up.
-
-"But he cannot!" objected Ferou. "We will not let him!"
-
-"What reason have you for refusing to go farther?" asked Carson, turning
-upon the guide.
-
-"Senores," replied Aguilino with feigned humility, but no little
-trepidation; "it is not the will of God!"
-
-"It is not the will of Jacinto Quesada, you mean!" bit out the American
-with quick penetration.
-
-Aguilino shrugged his shoulders expressively.
-
-"Senores," he whined, "there are no churches in these mountains, and men
-of the good Dios come but seldom here. In these mountains, the will of
-Jacinto Quesada moves stronger than does the will of God!"
-
-"Ah!" exclaimed Morales, with sudden understanding. "So that's it, eh?"
-And his youthful face cold and grim, he lifted his automatic pistol and
-shoved it beneath the nose of the guide.
-
-"Smell of its maw, my good hombre!" he commanded metallically. "Now tell
-me whose will you will obey!"
-
-Aguilino grimaced like a frightened monkey.
-
-"Heart of God, Senor Don Manuel, I will stay, I will stay!"
-
-They went on through the hollow in the northern hills. And Aguilino
-shook his head.
-
-"It is that terrible Morales," he mumbled to himself. "Don Jacinto does
-not know him. Twice has Don Jacinto failed me this day."
-
-They went up a dark green corry that looked like the hiding place of
-savage wolves. It was a narrow bridle path, a mere tunnel hewn out of
-solid rock and overarching foliage. The afternoon drew into twilight; a
-dim fresco held beneath the plait-work of lentisk, oleanders, and
-clinging briar; and then, all at once, the corry topped its rise and
-began descending, plunging down abrupt rock faces and zigzagging about
-the mountainside like the spiral of a corkscrew. It made the spine
-tingle to think that one false step in the darkness might precipitate
-one into the unseen murmuring stream far below.
-
-They camped, that night, in a dell at the foot of the corry, not far
-from the constantly crashing stream. When they sprawled out to sleep,
-Morales and John Fremont Carson drew close on either side of Aguilino
-and carelessly dropped a leg across his legs, one from the right, the
-other from the left.
-
-But they slept too well, those self-appointed bodyguards. What with the
-fatigue poisons that had been gathering in their joints and muscles
-during the long toilsome day and the many days which had preceded it,
-they could not hope to bat one eye in sleep and keep the other warily
-winking at the mat between. Quickly they became like logs of wood,
-incapable of feeling and enterprise. And in some black cavernous hour of
-the night, Aguilino crawled out and away.
-
-They awoke in the chill dawn, and looked about them with red-rimmed
-eyes, and spoke together in husky whispers. Without a guide, they were
-like the fabled babes in the wood. They were lost completely in those
-gray, echoing, savage mountains.
-
-They breakfasted glumly and, with lightened packs upon their shoulders,
-went on. Now before them stalked no Gypsy guide; before them stalked an
-emaciated and bony specter that looked back to grimace every little
-while, and to beckon them on--the specter of Starvation!
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XX
-
-
-High on a shoulder of the Picacho de la Veleta, one late afternoon,
-stood Jacinto Quesada. It was very cold, and his mountaineer's shawl was
-drawn tightly around his throat and knotted about his middle. About and
-above him frowned the crags and snow spires and sinister precipices of
-the sierras; below, splitting the mountain like a great clean knife-cut,
-was a deep, winding pass.
-
-Quesada was morosely engaged in watching the peculiar antics of a number
-of men in a cove or pocket to one side of that pass.
-
-Inset in the pocket, under a thatched pointed roof, was a rudely carved
-figure of the Saviour hanging from a cross. The sacred effigy was
-fashioned of some white pine, with a crown of black horsehair and dabs
-of red paint, in hands and crossed feet and side, to depict bleeding
-wounds. It was a homely and stark symbol, a shrine famous in the
-mountains as the Christ of the Pass.
-
-But the men, despite that poignant reminder before them, were not
-kneeling in prayer to Heaven. They were squatting among the huge
-boulders in the ragged prickly gorse, their heads lolling on their
-chests, and their words, when they talked, coming in disjointed,
-never-finished sentences as if they were wearied and needed sleep.
-
-They were the nine fantastic cabalgadores. They were starving. For three
-days not a morsel of food had passed their lips. Theirs had been a
-complete fast from organic solids. That noon, at a mountain burnlet, for
-the last time they had drunk copiously of water. It had served to keep
-up their ebbing strength.
-
-Now, however, they were suffering all the distress and tortures of
-hunger and thirst. Their stomachs yearned, but the gastric juices were
-dry; their heads ached and at times felt heavy as shot, and at other
-times, light and dizzy. They had been compelled to sit down. They were
-still too low in the sierras to come across the tracks of snow-capering
-wild ibex and thus appease their famished stomachs. They were suffering
-an agony, hopeless and cruel.
-
-Starvation excites the imagination and causes giddying eyes to see
-illusions. It was thus with John Fremont Carson, the American. Come of
-light-headedness and fretted nerves, he had thought, all through that
-third day, that as they walked along they were companioned by a strange
-man who walked with them, now on one hand, now in the brush on the
-other.
-
-Pausing for minutes to think, losing the line of thought, beginning and
-never finishing his statements, yet somehow he communicated his fancy to
-Morales. The matador nodded; he also had seen the shawl-wrapped gliding
-figure. But the Frenchman pleaded ignorance of any such illusion.
-
-Of a sudden now, as they squatted about the shrine, aware only of the
-ceaseless gnawings of their stomachs, from up the road came the crash as
-of a falling bounding stone. It was as if some one, moving along the
-cliff above their heads, had dislodged the stone from underfoot.
-
-"It is he," said Carson, and he thought he added: "The unknown man." But
-the words died unsaid on his parched lips.
-
-Morales nodded and continued to nod, his head wagging loosely like that
-of a mechanical toy. After an appreciable interval, he said, "He is
-prowling about us like a hungry wolf."
-
-The tall, blond, mustached Frenchman seemed the strongest of all those
-once-strong men. He pulled out his large-calibered revolver. With none
-of the hesitancy of feebleness, he said:
-
-"I shall go forward. I am the only one that can walk and see straight.
-If this unknown man is truly skulking about, I shall find out what he is
-doing up there ahead."
-
-He left the pitiful cluster of men. Without any signs of dizziness or
-staggering, he walked between the boulders which bestrew the path. Bent
-sharply forward, revolver in hand, he disappeared around a turn of the
-road.
-
-Abruptly, from beside the road and very near at hand, came then, loud
-and distinct, the sharp snapping of shrub twigs. The men squatting
-before the shrine looked about dully. Out of the gorse and bramble
-beside the road stepped the man whom they had seen following them all
-that day. He wore heavy rope sandals, sheepskin zamarra, a long serape
-and pointed mountaineer's hat. He was Jacinto Quesada.
-
-Weakly the famished men reached for their weapons; but he smiled with
-friendliness and commiseration, and sat down among them.
-
-"There is no need of force, senores," he said. "I am here of my own free
-will."
-
-The starving men looked at him as they would at a ghost, hardly able to
-credit their eyes. As he spoke, Morales reached over and touched him on
-the arm.
-
-"My soul!" he exclaimed, the excitement of the discovery stimulating his
-undermined energies. "He is real--Jacinto Quesada himself!"
-
-"You are starving, senores," said the bandolero, "or else you would
-never doubt that it is I. But I prolong your agony. Eat; I have brought
-you food!"
-
-From beneath the voluminous folds of his shawl, he produced a bota or
-skin of wine and an osier basket containing cold sausages of meat, a
-chunk of goat's cheese, and some cornbread.
-
-The famished men clawed the stuff from his hands. They were too hungry
-to pause for politeness or to think of thanks. They did not even stop to
-realize how incongruous it was that he whom they had been relentlessly
-pursuing should come to them now of his own accord and bring them that
-which they so direly needed. They thought only of appeasing the gnawings
-of their stomachs which had sharpened and become suddenly overpowering
-at the sight and smell of food.
-
-They crammed fistfuls of food into their mouths and gulped the whole
-fistfuls almost without chewing. They ate without wait for words or
-breath, ravenously, like lean voracious wolves. But after a little, the
-American halted, a stout piece of bread to his lips. He looked at
-Morales with eyes that were livening with quickly returning energy.
-
-"Jacques Ferou!" he breathed.
-
-"Si," exclaimed Morales, also pausing between a mouthful. "The
-Frenchman!"
-
-"The Frenchman?" repeated Quesada, and he laughed bitterly. "Ah, he is
-well able to take care of himself; he is a very lizard for living on! He
-has not been starving like you. From the back of that last mule, ere I
-shot it from across the canon and caused it to drop off the cliff, he
-filched a loaf of bread. His distress has been even more severe than
-yours because he tempted his stomach without wholly satisfying it; but
-by nibbling secretly for the last few days at this bread, he has been
-enabled to keep fairly strong."
-
-The men, their tissues, muscles, and nerves, undergoing rapid repair
-because of the nutriment they had taken into their systems, looked
-astounded and a little incensed.
-
-"But why did he not share with us?" asked one, Baptista Monterey, a
-short thick-set banderillero in the ordinary tight-fitting black clothes
-of the profession.
-
-"The man is a French crook, a member of the clever criminal society of
-White Wolves," explained Quesada with marked patience. "From what
-Felicidad has told me about him, I have come to understand the workings
-of his evil mind. I know what he is about. You appreciate, senores, that
-Don Manuel and this Americano, Senor Carson, both withdrew large sums
-from the Bank of Spain, and that the residue of these sums is still
-upon their persons. Jacques Ferou has made up his mind to get this
-money. The man is avid for money. He means that you all should die, and
-that he shall survive you!"
-
-"But he must be starving now," objected Morales. "The bread could not
-last forever."
-
-"It lasted until yesterday evening," rejoined Quesada. "And this morning
-he accidentally cut his hand on a projecting rock. I was watching from
-the brush to one side. He sucked the blood from the cut, and that
-further strengthened him. It is odd, mis caballeros, but a man can live
-for many days by taking his own blood into his system. It is better even
-than water."
-
-"But now," persisted Morales.
-
-"Would you care to see what Ferou is doing now?"
-
-They nodded with an awakening show of eagerness.
-
-"We will bring him food anyway," said Carson.
-
-Packing the now flabby bota of wine and the few sausages and bits of
-bread and cheese which remained, they went on up the road between the
-boulders at the heels of the stalking bandolero. Twilight was
-thickening. They rounded the bend and there, where the road slanted down
-into a ferny depression, they made out before them, seated a-straddle a
-fallen tree, the Frenchman, Jacques Ferou.
-
-They watched in a kind of bewilderment. The Frenchman's gray-coated back
-was toward them, and he was bending down over the trunk. He appeared to
-be working with his hands at the trunk and carrying those hands, every
-so often, to his mouth. But it was all very vague in the thick twilight.
-
-"Chispas!" exclaimed Morales in perplexity. "What is he doing there?"
-
-"Eating the wood-grubs in that rotten tree!"
-
-The men ejaculated in wrathful resentment. Said Carson: "So that's why
-he left the camp alone!"
-
-"Si; the French pig!" from Morales. "And he would not tell us of even
-this distasteful means of satisfying our hunger and preserving our
-lives!"
-
-"Despacio!" warned Quesada in a low tone. "Softly, gently, senores. Let
-us not disturb him, but go back alone. I have a deal more to tell you
-about this man. I should prefer that he would not be near to hear."
-
-They rounded the bend and made down the road toward the shrine. As they
-went, Morales and Carson looked at one another. Then, without haste and
-very grimly, each reached into the osier basket on the American's arm
-and passed out among the men the remainder of the food.
-
-The moon rose over the hills as they approached the shrine, and a random
-shaft, plunging down the pass, lighted the white figure and bleeding
-wounds of the crucified Christ with stark and ghastly effect. The men
-squatted among the boulders in the ragged prickly gorse.
-
-"Senores," began Jacinto Quesada, "ever since you entered these
-mountains, I have been close to you. Every move you have made, I have
-watched; every unfortunate circumstance which befell you, I have
-caused. I rolled the boulder down the cliff which was meant for your
-last mule. I shot that last mule, three days ago, from the other side of
-the box canon. The day before that, I commanded the guide to leave you.
-You did not recognize Aguilino; you thought him a Gypsy; but he is my
-dorado, Rafael Perez, who helped rob you on the Seville-to-Madrid!"
-
-The men murmured their surprise at the revelation.
-
-"But why," ejaculated Morales, "why, Senor Quesada, did you do all
-this?"
-
-"In order that I might show you Jacques Ferou in his true light. Once
-you were starving, I knew the innate selfishness of the man would out.
-Then, if I could make you believe me in the matter of the Frenchman, I
-knew you must believe me in my whole story. Listen, senores, and I shall
-tell you the reason why I snatched and fled away with the girl."
-
-Quickly then, Quesada sketched to them the story told him by Felicidad.
-He ended:
-
-"You see, senores, I did not actually kidnap this old friend of my
-childhood. It was her wish. I merely took her away to save her from a
-worse evil, this filthy one, Ferou!"
-
-Strong now with the meal he had eaten and strangely elated over the
-story he just had heard, the matador sprang enthusiastically to his
-feet.
-
-"Senor Don Jacinto!" he exclaimed. "You are a bandolero of the splendid
-good old sort--the José Maria, the Visco el Borje sort! I knew it,
-caballero of my heart! You are a true Moor, chivalrous and brave!"
-
-Carson, with the canniness so characteristic of the American, was not to
-be so easily convinced. True, for the salt that he had eaten, he was
-under obligation to Jacinto Quesada. He appreciated that obligation and
-was thankful to the bandolero for what he had done for him and the
-others. But what he appreciated, probably in fuller mete than did any of
-the others, was that Quesada was a man, clearheaded, far-sighted,
-judicious, and acutely adroit.
-
-Quesada had convicted himself, by his own word, of robbing them of their
-mules and guide in order to bring them into a state of starvation. Once
-they were enfeebled by hunger and thirst, he had come to them with food.
-Naturally they were grateful. And it was while their hearts were warm
-with gratitude toward him that he had related the past incidents in a
-new phase, incriminating one of their number, the Frenchman, and very
-plausibly explaining his reasons for running off with the girl. He had
-sowed suspicion and dissension among them, what time he had placed
-himself, in the matter of Felicidad, in a good if not heroic light. It
-all seemed an ingenious, well-calculated, and bold plan.
-
-"But," objected Carson, "but may we not see the girl? Not that I doubt
-you, Senor Quesada," he added with almost Spanish politeness; "but we
-have come all this way to help Senorita Torreblanca y Moncada and it
-would greatly please us, now, to see her and to know that she is safe."
-
-"My native village of Minas de la Sierra," said Jacinto Quesada, "is
-only a night's journey farther up the Picacho de la Veleta. There
-Felicidad is staying in the cabana of my mother, and to there I shall
-be glad to guide you. Yet I warn you, senores!" He paused ominously.
-
-"What is it?" asked Carson sharply.
-
-"Something wrong with Felicidad?" from Morales.
-
-"Yesterday," said Quesada, "my mother died. She had long grieved for my
-father, but we fear it was not grief alone which killed her. We fear,
-senores," and his voice lowered--"we fear cholera!"
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXI
-
-
-The cabalgadores started in horror and a kind of personal fear.
-Explained Quesada with grave composure:
-
-"In this autumnal season of sudden weather changes, it is forever
-scaling these hills, the cholera, and skulking into the pueblos in the
-night. When the rain sweeps down, muddying our water and making howling
-torrents of the dog trails, we cannot descend the sierras for the fruits
-of the plains; we must subsist on our few scanty vegetables; and the
-impure water and the poor, changeless diet bring on the plague. When the
-sun breaks through the squalls and fogs, the abrupt alteration of damp
-and dry stony heat aggravate the conditions. Therefore, whenever one of
-us dies in this season and there is no doctor to tell us exactly why
-that one died, we instantly think of the cholera.
-
-"It was thus in my mother's case. The only doctor near here who will
-journey up these perilous goat paths and moaning gorges to help the poor
-serranos, is the hidalgo doctor, Don Jaime de Torreblanca y Moncada, a
-grandee of Spain and Felicidad's own father. We sent one of the
-villagers for him, but he was away looking for Felicidad and for his
-stolen money. And my mother died. It may be nothing, senores; it may be
-the dread cholera; but at least, mis caballeros, I have warned you."
-
-Questioningly, almost with haughty challenge, he looked at Morales. The
-matador hesitated. He glanced at his cuadrilla. Whether because of the
-privations they had suffered, or because of the pale light from the
-chance moonbeams, or because of an inconcealable revulsion and dread,
-the faces of the bullfighters looked blanched and sharply haggard. The
-matador turned for moral aid to the American.
-
-Carson was engrossed in a perplexity of thought. Was this but an
-obstacle suddenly contrived and cunningly put in their way to cause them
-to take the bandolero's word on its face value, without seeking further
-to ascertain the facts about the girl? Quesada had left himself room to
-crawl out. It might be nothing, he had said, or it might be a noxious
-pestilence. It could always prove to be nothing.
-
-"We will risk the chance," decided the American with determination. "We
-will go with you to your barrio."
-
-There was a noisy rustling and crackling of the gorse as the men
-scrambled afoot. Well, suddenly above the noise, from the
-foliage-embowered darkness up the road, exploded a voice of command:
-
-"Throw up your hands, you Jacinto Quesada!"
-
-It was the voice of the Frenchman. He stepped into the moonlight. Tall
-and blond, his ashy skin drawn tight with virulent resolution over his
-hawklike face, his slate-colored eyes showing bright as an animal's, he
-pointed his large-calibered revolver at the bandolero.
-
-Quesada obeyed with quick dispatch. Yet he found occasion to whisper to
-the others, "I have told you the truth, senores. I am altogether in your
-hands."
-
-Whether they should intervene just then or allow things to take a
-certain limited course, the American and the matador were uncertain. How
-much had the Frenchman heard? Did he know that he himself was accused of
-crime, of thievery and abduction, and of worse than crime--failure to
-share with them while they were enduring the intolerable pangs of
-starvation? Was this but a bold move to retrieve favor in their eyes?
-Carson and Morales decided, all at once to wait.
-
-Never removing the menace of the revolver, slowly Jacques Ferou drew
-near.
-
-"Carson," he instructed with biting command, "you search him. He has my
-roll of five-thousand peseta bills!"
-
-Plainly then Carson realized that the Frenchman could not have overheard
-Quesada's history of that money. This was but a presumptuous and
-shameless attempt to recover the doctor's bills!
-
-"He hasn't your money, Ferou!" objected Carson with promptitude and
-energy. "He just has told us that he turned those bills over to
-Felicidad, whose dowry they were."
-
-It was, of course, a lie. Quesada had explained quite definitely, in the
-course of his story, that he was holding the purse against an occurrence
-he dreaded. He knew, with a fearful certitude, that Doctor Torreblanca y
-Moncada must soon hear where his disgraced daughter had found refuge;
-and then would he come, stony of eye and agate of heart, to wreak
-vengeance upon her. Quesada intended to produce the bills, at that
-trying moment, in the hope that their appearance would have the effect
-of mitigating the awful anger of the haughty Don Jaime.
-
-But the Frenchman, not having overheard any of Quesada's recital,
-swallowed the bait in blissful ignorance.
-
-"Is that so?" he queried with a lift of his blond eyebrows. He leaped
-into a sudden and importunate impatience. "Let us go, let us go to my
-fiancée!" he urged. "Oh, I must see Felicidad!"
-
-Said Morales very coldly, "Jacinto Quesada is just about to lead us to
-his native pueblo where the girl is domiciled."
-
-"But I trust him not! How do we know that he will lead us aright; how do
-we know that it is not all a lie? Blue devils! he may have the very
-money on him now and be but leading us into a snare! Here you, Quesada!
-Keep up your arms! I will search you myself alone!"
-
-But Carson stepped between.
-
-"Senor Quesada has offered to guide us to his village," he said, "and
-Don Manuel, his cuadrilla and I have signified our willingness
-implicitly to trust him. You must abide by the decision of the majority.
-Ferou, put down your gun!"
-
-The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders. It was wise to obey; there were
-two and more against him. He stuck the weapon in his coat pocket.
-
-But Quesada shook his head.
-
-"I will trust him not, this Frenchman, senores. My offer was to you. If
-the Frenchman is to go along, he must go along unarmed."
-
-"_Mais non, mais non!_" expostulated the Frenchman, lapsing in his
-agitation into his native language.
-
-"_Pues y que?_" asked Morales sharply. "Why not?" And he snatched the
-revolver, with the words from Ferou's pocket.
-
-The Frenchman seemed of a temperament to blow hot and cold by turns. He
-recovered almost immediately from his first fears. He shrugged his
-athletic shoulders. A man like a gutta-percha ball he was, resilient,
-full of elasticity, rebounding when struck. Behind Morales' back, slyly
-and covertly he smiled his calculating and very superior smile.
-
-Now, following the striding long-legged figure of the bandolero, the
-nine cabalgadores pursued on and upward through the moon-shimmering
-night.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXII
-
-
-On the great rock at the brink of the village of Minas de la Sierra
-where, years before when he was yet a very little Spaniard, Jacinto
-Quesada had stood with his weeping mother and watched his father hurry
-down the mountainside on an enterprise of forlorn and fatal desperation,
-a boy in cotton knee breeches and bare brown legs, despite the mountain
-cold, stood waiting like some statue carved in basalt.
-
-Behind him, into the dull gray wash of sky, the Picacho de la Veleta
-lifted its craggy head; off to the northeast bulked snowy old Muley
-Hassan, Cerro de Mulhacen, the highest peak of the peninsula; and all
-about, just brightening with the chill light of dawn, were the bleak
-spires of lesser mountains, shadowy defiles, dark and moaning gorges.
-Nothing moved in the leaden, glacial, desolate reaches save an immense
-lammergeyer that hovered on slow wings over its high eyrie like some
-black dragon of morbid fancy.
-
-Presently, out of the gloom of a lower gorge, the shapes of men emerged
-into view and began mounting the fiber-line of goat path which curved
-and twisted and wound up to the barrio like a convoluted snake. It was
-Jacinto Quesada, leading the nine cabalgadores, weary from the long
-climb through the night.
-
-The boy began crying out at the sight. It is an odd fact that sounds
-high on mountains lose in volume, but gain in distinctness and carrying
-power. The cries of the boy that were more like the bleating of a
-helpless ewe beset by wild dogs, dropped down to the men in the gorge.
-
-"Oh, Jacinto, caballero of my soul!" he shrilled. "The mother of me, who
-waited in her last illness upon your own good mother--God rest her
-soul!--my own pobre mamacita is sick! Last night, her stomach turned
-upside down on her, and to-day her skin is blue and cold! Save her, Don
-Jacinto of my heart; save her to me, and the Holy Mother of God will
-kiss your brow with fortune!"
-
-"Hush, Gabriellito!" said Quesada tenderly, when he came up in the van.
-He gathered the boy to him, under one arm, and turned to the others. His
-young smooth brown face was priestly with pain and somberness and a
-great pity. In a grave voice, he said:
-
-"There can be no mistake, senores; it is indeed the dread cholera! Like
-the great black wings of that lammergeyer of the air, it has closed down
-about my poor pueblo."
-
-A little clatter of sound came from a yellow run of water as it
-trickled, after the old Moorish fashion, down the village street through
-an open stone gutter. In Minas de la Sierra, clinging like a
-cragmartin's nest to a ledge of the Picacho de la Veleta, there was
-naught else of sound or movement.
-
-No old men mumbled endless talk in the cold sun beneath the cork-oak in
-the center; no shawled manzanilleros strode by with panniers of the
-white-flowered manzanilla upon their backs. From the scanty forests
-above came no sound of woodchoppers, no steely ring of axe on pine.
-Tightly closed were the wooden hatches which shuttered the windows of
-the mud-and-thatch cabanas. Within, no light from the great open
-fireplaces cleaved the darkness. There was no laugh or squeal of
-children.
-
-Gabriel, the village lad, unable to restrain his nervousness and deep
-fear, hurriedly led them to the mud choza where his mother lay dying. It
-was very dark within. Strings of pimentos hung drying from the low
-rafters. There was a bed on either side of the cold fireplace. On one of
-the beds the woman was prostrated under a heap of rags.
-
-All sap seemed to be drained from her body. She was withered and
-dark-hued as a burnt match. Carson stooped and felt her wrist. The
-pulse-beat was an almost imperceptible flutter. Quesada spoke gently to
-her and, with brave effort, she answered in a whisper that was as the
-gasping of a wind through one of the boulder-strewn passes above. That
-was the _vox cholerica_. She was in the second and usually fatal stage
-of malignant cholera.
-
-They left the boy lamenting softly at the bedside of his mother.
-
-"She is a widow," said Quesada, "and all he has left in the world."
-
-Their fears a hideous certitude now, grimly they went through the dying
-village. In a nearby hut, they found an old white-haired man altogether
-dead. His muscles were oddly contracted; one arm was turned round, the
-palm of the hand out and hanging over the edge of the cornshuck tick.
-As very often happens after death through cholera, his body was not only
-still warm, but rising in temperature, burning up.
-
-It seemed poignantly lonely in there with the solitary dead. They
-stumbled out of the sour darkness.
-
-"That was Antonio Villarobledo," said Quesada; "a man who has long lived
-alone. He was almost a father to me when I was a boy."
-
-Everywhere they went in the barrio, everywhere in the cold clay cabanas,
-Death had stalked before them on bony rickety legs, a chill damp on his
-forehead, his emaciated fingers picking at the coverlets of the sick,
-shutting their eyes to desire and despair. A great illness was on the
-serranos--a foul plague that caused them to double up with stomach
-cramps and vomit a gray pasty whey; that turned their skins to blue and
-purple and swatted them off, like flies, within twelve and twenty-four
-hours.
-
-It was the scourge the nut-brown Gypsy Paquita had foreseen on the
-little white beach in the barranca. But surely she could have had no
-hand in bringing it about! Quesada had explained that the plague lifted
-its fanged and evil head wherever the water was impure, and there were
-errors in diet, and the atmosphere changed abruptly from damp to sudden
-heat and back again.
-
-Yet the wonder remains how the Gitana even could have predicted it. To
-be sure, cholera was forever sweeping the high hills. Was her magic on
-the white beach, then, only a natural supposition, a bit of logical
-deduction and reasonable ratiocination? Or did it partake of something
-more, something uncanny, impious and pagan--some real and diabolical
-warlockry? Dios hombre only knows!
-
-But John Fremont Carson, the American, thought that he understood the
-reasons for the plague.
-
-"What these folk need is education," he remarked thoughtfully to
-Morales. "Education can do everything!"
-
-It was identically what he had said amid the squalor and squall in the
-Gypsy camp.
-
-"Education, si!" returned Morales, even as he had on that occasion. "But
-what they need more is some one with a lion heart, a great golden
-arrogant heart, to lead them in the fight, to lead them up!"
-
-Jacques Ferou said nothing; but again, despite the pitiful agonies and
-shocking horrors about them, he had the flinty hardihood to smile his
-calculating and very superior smile.
-
-They came at last, in the course of their rounds, to the cabana where
-Quesada's mother had died and where the girl, Felicidad, now was living.
-They discovered her sitting up on the straw-matted bed, looking more wan
-than ever, a hot sweat beading the roots of her golden hair, her white
-febrile fingers gripping the side of the tick, and her whole ivory and
-gold form shaking like a mountain aspen with retching seizures.
-
-Quesada cried out hoarsely in shocked and fearful astonishment. He
-sprung toward her. But a cramp seemed to bind her right arm; she let go
-her clutching hold on the side of the tick, and fell back. Tenderly the
-bandolero tucked a pillow under her rich-crowned head and pulled over
-her a wolfskin from the nearby couch.
-
-They came out into the brisk clean air of the morning. Like a blow,
-dismay had struck dull the light in each man's eyes. Said Quesada
-simply:
-
-"This is the first stage of autumnal cholera. God grant that she may
-recover!"
-
-"What measures do you take to relieve the sufferers, to counteract the
-disease, to wipe out the plague?" the American wanted to know.
-
-"There is little that we can do, Senor Carson. Up here in these hills
-only the simplest remedies are available to our use. When a man is
-burning up inside and calls for water, we give him water--"
-
-"From that cesspool there?" And Carson indicated the open yellow rivulet
-coursing down the center of the uneven street.
-
-"It is all we have. Our fathers built that stone channel, ages ago, in
-the days of the Moor. What would you, Senor Americano? The nearest
-stream, other than this, is far down the goat path in the lower gorge."
-
-"Go on," said Carson with unintentional brusqueness. "When a man
-disgorges--"
-
-"We tell him to put his finger down his throat and to keep straining so
-long as a particle of undigested food shows. When his stomach is sick
-and worn from bowel evacuations, and wretched with intestinal pains, we
-put a plaster of hot mustard over his abdomen as a counter-irritant, or
-we rub his abdomen with penetrating turpentine. There is turpentine in
-the few pines that remain in the dank hollows of these hills."
-
-Carson nodded rather abstractedly. It was as if his mind were divided
-between listening to Quesada and developing along a certain line of
-reasoning. The others stood close about and heeded in perplexed wonder.
-
-"From the turpentine, also, we extract a form of aperient oil which,
-when taken in large doses, aids purging."
-
-"And the ejecta?" suggested Carson.
-
-"Oh, we cover that over with earth, or throw into a pit, or cast down
-the cliffs. When a man faints, we pour sour wine or raw mountain brandy
-down his throat. And if he would eat, we milk our goats and we brew up
-soups."
-
-"But you do not use opiates to allay pain and halt the discharges?"
-
-Quesada shook his head.
-
-"Only Doctor Torreblanca y Moncada knows how to handle that. Ah, would
-to God that the haughty Don Jaime were here! He has a heart of blood for
-all the iron of his manner. And he has hands of gold for calling the
-dying back to life!"
-
-"But why is he not here?"
-
-"I have told you, senor. The bitter old man is away looking for
-Felicidad and for his stolen money. But Don Juan," he added eagerly,
-with sudden inspiration, "perhaps you are a senor doctor, too! You
-Americanos know so much!"
-
-The American flushed with quick sharp modesty. For a breath, mentally
-but deeply, he accused himself of having talked too big. He felt almost
-as if he had been bluffing. Then the ardor and hunger of Quesada's hope
-struck him. He shook his head sadly.
-
-"I wish I were," he said with regret and genuine longing. "But all I
-know about cholera and such plagues, Jacinto, is what I learned in
-hygiene at college. I know, for instance, that what you folk do is all
-right, but not enough. You do not go in for segregation of the sick, hot
-baths, or opiates. You do not positively destroy all soiled clothes and
-rags. You bury the noisome excreta in the same ground through which
-flows your water supply, or you cast it over a cliff as a
-spawning-ground for flies. I shouldn't wonder but you bury the
-infectious dead!"
-
-"That is according to our religion," said the bandolero simply, as if
-mouthing an irrefutable answer. "The men of the good Dios have
-consecrated a certain space of earth and there our dead sleep in the
-bosom of the Church and the Espiritu Santo."
-
-Carson shrugged his broad level shoulders in a sort of helplessness,
-then asked, "Where is this cemetery?"
-
-"Above--"
-
-"Where it may infect the water ere it reaches you! Oh, you have no
-sanitation here! This is as bad as India!" He looked up and down the
-uneven street, at the huddle of cabanas to either side, in incontainable
-disrelish and vast pity.
-
-"Senor Carson," said Quesada impulsively, "you and Don Manuel and his
-cuadrilla have done a wrong in pursuing me. Down before the shrine of
-the Christ of the Pass, I showed you how sincere were my motives in
-carrying off Felicidad, how great a wrong you had done me in becoming
-sleuth-hounds of chase. But now that you are here, there is opportunity
-to right that wrong. We need your aid imperatively! Help me, Senor
-Americano!" he exhorted impassionately. "Help me and my poor serranos
-with what you know! Save Felicidad and the others! Down the pestilence!"
-
-The American retreated a step before the fervor of his plea.
-
-"But I don't know, I don't know enough!" he protested deprecatingly.
-"I'd understand how to clean up this barrio, of course; but in handling
-the disease, I'd have to work all from memory, vague memory! I'm not a
-doctor--"
-
-"Don Juan," interposed Morales, valorously stepping into the breach,
-"Senor Quesada has well said that we did him a great wrong in thus
-hounding him; here is a pressing opportunity to right that wrong. It is
-an act of Christian charity to aid the poor serranos. They are dying off
-like flies in a frost. They need you. Help them, Senor Carson; help
-them, and my cuadrilla and I will be yours to command! Whatever measures
-you find necessary to rid this pueblo of its scourge, that will we
-undertake to carry out!"
-
-"And I," exclaimed the bandolero, with an ardor deeper than any
-eagerness, "I will go down these mountains to the casa of Torreblanca y
-Moncada outside Granada. Don Jaime is almost my foster father; I lived
-in his house once, and I know every nook and cranny of it. From the
-remnants of the hidalgo doctor's library, I shall secure, to aid your
-memory, some medical book containing a full exposition of cholera. I
-shall read it and then bring you--"
-
-"You can read?"
-
-Said Quesada with a restrained but natural touch of pride, "My mother
-taught me letters when I was but five. My poor mother attended, when a
-child, the convent of Santa Ursola in Granada."
-
-With no less zeal but more earnest calmness, he went on:
-
-"What medicines the medical book tells me you shall need, I shall get
-for you from the chests and racks of the senor doctor. I shall leave
-word with old Pedro or the childish Teresa that, immediately Don Jaime
-returns, he is to come up here. All we ask, Senor Carson, all we expect,
-is that you do what good you can until the hidalgo doctor himself
-arrives. Mediante Dios, you can do much!"
-
-Intense longing, a hungry expectancy trembled beseechingly in the eyes
-of each man. They felt suddenly inferior to Carson, dependent on his
-knowledge, in sore need of his aid. He could not kill that earnest hope
-and sincere, almost pitiful trust in him. With characteristic decision,
-he exclaimed.
-
-"By gad, I'll do it!"
-
-And in Spanish fashion, Morales added, "With the help of the Dios
-hombre!"
-
-The Frenchman, listening avidly to all, only smiled once more his
-calculating and very superior smile.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIII
-
-
-Even as his father had hurried down the mountainside many years before,
-even so Jacinto Quesada wended his descending way, that morning, on an
-enterprise of forlorn desperation. He was bound for the casa of
-Torreblanca y Moncada outside Granada. He did not wait to borrow one of
-the village mules which the serranos used to sleigh their cords of pine
-down to the lower torrents and to carry their panniers of white-flowered
-manzanilla into the towns of the plains. His long mountaineer's legs
-were swifter to move and even more tireless than the slow hoofs of any
-stupid borrico. His descent proved far more rapid than had been the
-arduous climb of the nine cabalgadores.
-
-He came, in the noontide, to the boulder-strewn, gorse-whelmed pocket of
-the Christ of the Pass. He paused neither to rest nor to eat. In the
-moon of that evening, he found himself in the forested dell at the foot
-of that dark green corry which snaked over a shoulder of the sierras.
-Here in the night, almost a week before, Aguilino the guide had deserted
-Morales and his men.
-
-Quesada turned aside from his decurrent course. He broke through the
-moon-filtering brush of the dell. He waded the nearby frothing and
-echoing mountain stream. All the while, louder than the splash and chop
-of the boisterous rivulet, he ululated shrilly in the mournful manner
-of the Spanish she-wolf.
-
-Presently, from the underwood beyond, came an answering call. It was a
-singular bird note, not much the ordinary hoot of an owl, but more a
-growl and something of a gruff scream. It was the hoot of the eagle owl.
-
-Quesada pressed forward. He came out, a moment later, upon a tiny
-clearing, saffron in the moonlight. To one side stood a log hut, its
-chinks plastered with adobe. Crowded in the open doorway were three men.
-They were his dorados, Ignacio Garcia, Pio Estrada, and Rafael Perez.
-
-To judge from this, Perez had not fled so far, after all. The other two
-must have recently come up. Perez lacked altogether now the yellow scar
-that had so hideously distinguished Aguilino the guide.
-
-Quesada showed no surprise. It was as if he had thoroughly expected to
-find them there.
-
-"Hola, mis dorados!" he called, as he stepped into the clearing. "Bring
-forward one of your nags."
-
-"But the booty!" objected Rafael Perez, whilom Aguilino.
-
-"Si; the sacks of mail and jewels and money!"
-
-"Do we not go forward to the cache now," asked Garcia, "and split the
-loot between us?"
-
-"Disparate! I have no time. The plunder is cached with our cacique,
-Dionisio Almazarron, in the foothills of the Sierra Morena. Go you
-there, you three, and take it all. But alto! first get me one of your
-cobs to ride down into Granada."
-
-No one of the three men moved. Said Pio Estrada in an odd voice:
-
-"Ah, you do not care for this little treasure, eh, maestro? Times have
-been good to you in Spain. Don Jacinto has taken to enterprising abroad,
-single-handed, and accomplishing marvelous and audacious feats. It is
-true indeed that Don Jacinto is brave, brave as the very God himself!"
-
-Quesada did not understand the significance of the words, but there was
-no mistaking their intent. There was that in the tone of Estrada's voice
-and in the fact that the men still stood unmoving in the doorway, in
-sullen disobedience to his command, which spelled sedition and revolt.
-Slowly from his holster, Quesada lifted his huge long-barreled revolver.
-
-"My golden ones," he said quietly, "you do not hear well in the
-moonlight. Would you understand better the detonation of a pistol?" He
-smiled, showing his clean white teeth.
-
-The grim jest of his words, the set of his long jaw, the gleam of eyes
-and teeth and steely revolver, had a decided effect upon the men. Like
-cats frightened away by the Spanish scat, zape! they stretched their
-legs around the cabin and out of sight.
-
-Within a trice, they were back, each leading a wiry rough-coated pony.
-Quesada selected the most mettlesome and leaped into the deep saddle.
-
-"Rafael Perez," he instructed, turning partly round, "you shall remain
-here. Let the others go for the loot. You watch the road. Men of the
-Guardia Civil will be riding the hills. When I pass here again, in
-returning from Granada, I shall hoot like the eagle owl and you will
-answer in the manner of the wolf bitch. Let me know, then, if any
-policemen come this way. By this time, the affair of the
-Seville-to-Madrid must be loudly bruited abroad in Spain. I should not
-wonder if some two Guardias Civiles will ride over this corry in an
-attempt to capture me in my own village."
-
-Perez grunted in ill-concealed distaste of the task. Ignacio Garcia
-spoke out.
-
-"There are many other things loudly bruited abroad in Spain, these days,
-maestro mio!"
-
-Quesada swung completely around in the saddle to face the sullen trio.
-
-"Carajo! Do you think to trifle with Jacinto Quesada! What is all this
-muttering going on here?"
-
-Garcia shrugged his shoulders noncommittally and a bit fearfully; the
-erstwhile Aguilino remained taciturn and lowering of dark brow; but with
-a strange audacity that was almost insolence, Estrada ventured:
-
-"Oh, you will soon learn, Don Jacinto of the high hand!"
-
-Quesada cursed them angrily for the whelps of dogs; then swung round in
-the saddle, dug his heels into the horse's flanks, and headed full-tilt
-through the brush. Once back in the trampled band of heath and brambles,
-which was the road through the dell, he sped the nag at a gallop up the
-dark green corry.
-
-But topping the rise and dropping down on the other side, he reined in
-the cob the better to reconsider the sullen manner and incomprehensible
-words of his trio of dorados.
-
-"The knaves have been bitten by some foul plan," he surmised. "It is not
-that they intend to rob me of all share in the booty. Seguramente, no! I
-told them they were welcome to the entire lot. Something else is afoot,
-God knows what!"
-
-Coming out of the mournful Pass of the Blessed Trinity, some time later,
-he took that one of the three roads which diverged most sharply from the
-course pursued by the cabalgadores in climbing up. After a good time
-more, he rode through the myrtle and orange trees of the Alpujarras and,
-following the Darro, slanted down toward the Moorish city of Granada,
-gleaming white on the sides of the hills.
-
-A few miles outside the city, upon the great hasped door of the
-crumbling adobe casa of Torreblanca y Moncada, Quesada knocked
-echoingly. After an appreciable space, the little mullion window in the
-door was opened, and an old white-haired man peered out with bright
-eyes. He was Pedro, the butler.
-
-"Ah, Mother of God!" he exclaimed, a strange quavering note in his
-voice. "It is Jacinto Quesada about whom all Spain talks!"
-
-"I bring news of the little Felicidad."
-
-"God grant it is good news!"
-
-"Good and bad. She is safe in my native pueblo, but she is sick. She is
-sick of the same disease that killed off my own poor mother only a few
-days ago. It is a plague, Tio Pedro. The whole village is sick with the
-dread cholera."
-
-The old servant ejaculated in horror.
-
-"It is the hand of God, Jacintito!" he went on with warning
-sententiousness. "It is a scourge of God striking down those about you
-because of the terrible vile things you have been doing, these last
-nights, throughout the peninsula. Take heed, Jacintito mio; take heed
-ere it is too late, and all you love are dead!"
-
-There was something in the old man's words which sounded startlingly and
-disagreeably reminiscent of the three dorados, their sullenness, their
-mutterings.
-
-"Disparate!" exclaimed Quesada. "What nonsense is this? Just tell me,
-tio; is Don Jaime still away?"
-
-The white head nodded energetically behind the mullion window.
-
-"Si; seguramente, si! Ever since that affair of the Seville-to-Madrid,
-the senor doctor has been scouring the plains and hills of La Mancha for
-his stolen daughter and all his money. Ah, Don Jaime is indeed a hard
-man. God pity Felicidad when he finds her!"
-
-"I come," said Quesada brusquely, tiring of the old man's continual
-whine--"I come to get medicines from the hidalgo doctor's chest in order
-to combat the pestilence. Once Don Jaime returns, you will tell him of
-our plight."
-
-Came abruptly the grating of hastily drawn bolts; the heavy door swung
-in.
-
-"You know the house; it is yours," said old Pedro with true Spanish
-hospitality.
-
-The bandolero entered the gloom of the corridor.
-
-"I shall go to find Teresa," added Pedro, as he re-bolted the door. "We
-shall kneel, and say prayers for the repose of your mama's soul, and for
-the quick recovery of the little nina, Felicidad, and the other sick
-ones. When the senor doctor returns, I shall tell him all that you said.
-And when he rides away up the steep goat paths to your barrio, we shall
-plead with Mary, the Compassionate and the Compassionating, that his
-granite heart may soften with pity for his little daughter...."
-
-As he left the whining voice of the old butler behind him and went
-through the long echoing dusky corridors, an orientation took place
-within Jacinto Quesada. Back through the years he went; back to the day
-when, a scrawny little mountaineer's bantling, he had put his puny hand
-into the great harsh fist of the hidalgo doctor and come down the
-mountains to the decayed, lizard-haunted, and dingy casa.
-
-No longer was the muggy mansion the sumptuous palace it had seemed to
-his ten-year-old eyes. And yet every spacious poverty-bare room that he
-passed and glimpsed was quick and instant to him with memories. They
-were memories all of one sort. Memories of a pretty little girl with
-golden hair and legs round and pudgy as his own would have been, on that
-time, had his father lived and prospered. Unconsciously he found himself
-pausing in the gloom as if to catch a note of her rippling and
-infrequent laughter.
-
-The shadowy library seemed never so vast nor so gloomy as now. Most of
-the huge old sheepskin-bound books were gone. The voids in the tall
-cases, rapidly gathering dust, were as poignantly reminiscent as the
-empty chair of one that has died.
-
-The bandolero went round the walls until he came upon that which he
-sought. It was a yellow-leaved volume, lettered in Gothic type, that was
-yet not so old. It contained much data on the various forms of cholera,
-its causes, symptoms, stages, treatment, dissemination and prevention.
-
-Running his eye down the columns of print, Quesada discovered that he
-would need to carry many drugs, preparations, and aperient and
-astringent medicines. At that rate, the ancient volume would prove an
-added burden. Quickly he decided to tear the descriptive pages from the
-volume. They were all that was desired.
-
-But of a sudden, he was arrested in his vandal task. Nothing real and
-tangible halted him; only it seemed to him that the screams of a child
-were driving like knives into his heart. He remembered, then and all at
-once, that long-forgotten day when Felicidad, innocently naughty, had
-torn some of the richly illumined pages from the rare old books, and cut
-them into paper dolls, and been lashed unmercifully with a short whip of
-horsehide by her father.
-
-He saw himself, a lad of ten years, rendered desperate by her screams as
-only a child becomes desperate. He saw himself charging at the terrible
-hidalgo, screaming like a little animal, tearing at the doctor's
-trousers with his finger nails, trying to leap up and upon him. He felt
-the fall of the quirta upon his head. It was acutely stinging as in
-reality. His jaws snapped together; they snapped together just as they
-had snapped, in that dim past day, upon the doctor's wrist. And a grim
-satisfaction tingled the edges of his locked teeth. It was for all the
-world as if, again, his teeth had sunk into flesh!
-
-"Ah, you son of a mangy she-wolf!" sounded in his brain. "How's the
-wolf-cub to-day?"
-
-He looked quickly about him. There on the wall he saw that which he had
-not noticed before. A painting of the doctor--Don Jaime himself, his
-hair whitened by years and by sorrow, and his gray eyes glinting out
-from his deep swarth face like remote stars in an intolerant heaven.
-
-"Todopoderoso Dio'!" groaned Quesada, shuddering. "Pity Felicidad indeed
-when he finds her!"
-
-With a kind of desperation, in one jerk he tore the desired pages from
-the book, then hied himself quickly out of the room.
-
-"It is a haunt of ghosts!" he said almost superstitiously.
-
-He entered the doctor's laboratory. Here, from chests and racks and
-trays, he collected the relieving and remedial agents praised in the
-torn pages--opium pills, preparations of starch and laudanum, ammonia,
-salt, powdered aromatic chalk, astringents and laxatives. Down in the
-cellar, he secured some cobwebbed bottles of old brandy and clear wine.
-
-He made several trips to his shaggy pony, picketed outside in the road.
-He secured what he had gathered in the canvas packs slung from the
-saddle. He left without once meeting the aged Teresa or again bothering
-the butler, Uncle Pedro.
-
-He returned up the hills through the passes and green corries. He shoved
-the horse ahead at a persistent canter, yet such was the grade and such
-the growing leg-weariness of the cob that slow days were consumed in the
-journeying. At last, in the dim fresco of a certain nightfall, he found
-himself back in that forested dell where he had commanded Rafael Perez
-to remain on guard.
-
-But no chill ululations answered his imitations of the hoot of the eagle
-owl. He rode through the brush and across the stream. Back in the
-clearing, the door of the log cabin was swinging forlornly in the rising
-wind; within, was only dark obscurity and emptiness. Rafael Perez had
-fled with the other two!
-
-Once again Quesada recalled the sullen manner and incomprehensible words
-of the trio when he last had met them. He shook his head gloomily.
-
-"Something surely is afoot!" he murmured. "They mutter against me, they
-disobey me with impunity. The dogs of ladrones, they may have turned
-traitor! Instead of keeping an eye on the road, Perez may have put the
-Guardia Civil on my track. Porvida, it will go hard with them if such
-proves true! They'll never live to get the reward. Dios hombre, I swear
-it!"
-
-His temper sharpened and embittered by the discovery, he vented it in
-harsh kicks against his pony's flanks. The wearied nag extended itself.
-By late dawn, Quesada rode into the gorge from which the goat-path
-looped up to the empested village.
-
-Presently, as they wound through the gorge, unusual signs of alertness
-began to show in the tired cob. He lifted his head, pricked up his ears.
-He was just about to neigh when the bandolero, on the watch, leaned over
-and clamped his hand tightly upon his nostrils. From ahead, on the
-instant, breathed into Quesada's ears the neigh of recognition of
-another horse.
-
-The bandolero leaped from the saddle. With one hand firm on the muzzle
-of the pony, the other on the butt of the long-barreled revolver
-protruding from his holster, tensely he stood waiting and hearkening.
-
-Into his nostrils drifted the acrid smell of a wood fire. He heard a
-clipping staccato sound as of some one chopping faggots. He saw, some
-hundred feet ahead, a thin whitish smoke voluting up from the green tops
-of the pines and alders, and merging into the fog cloak above. There was
-a camp of men in the gorge.
-
-His vague suspicions of the three dorados congealed into quick and firm
-convictions.
-
-"It is the Guardia Civil," he surmised. And he swore; "By the Nails of
-Christ!"
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIV
-
-
-Quesada led his horse back around the bend and out of sounding distance.
-He picketed him behind a feathery smoke-plant up the side of the gorge.
-Then he stole forward toward the camp.
-
-He caught now, as he drew near, the clatter of tin as of men preparing
-breakfast, the tempting aroma of coffee, and the hot sizzle of frying
-meat. Creeping through the underwood on hands and knees, silent as a cat
-of the wilds, he came to where he could peer through an entangle of
-white buckthorn and genista, and out into a trampled space about an
-alder tree.
-
-There were two men in the trampled space. They wore the blue,
-red-trimmed uniform of the Guardia Civil.
-
-The one holding a blackened frying pan over the small blaze of faggots
-was facing toward Quesada. His uniform but poorly fitted his squat frame
-and broadly uncouth shoulders; it showed palpable signs of having been
-slept in the night before. His heavy-jawed, black-mustached face was
-sweating copiously from the hot nearness to the fire; he had tossed his
-tricorn police hat off his unkempt head and into the weeds behind; he
-looked, forsooth, more the type of brigand than ever did Quesada
-himself. He was the apelike gendarme, Pascual Montara.
-
-The other, with back toward Quesada, was busying about the wiry,
-coarse-haired ponies to one side. He was a tall man, his uniform as trim
-on his military figure as if he had not spent the night on the ground,
-and his polished three-corner hat set snugly on his head, white linen
-sun-shield behind, in thorough preparation for the day's work. As he
-currycombed and brushed the ponies, there was visible on one sleeve the
-red-braided chevron of a sergeant.
-
-"Hola, Don Esteban, mi sargento!" called Pascual at the fire. He put the
-frying pan down upon the trampled grass and lifted the coffee pot from
-its bed in the coals.
-
-The tall man turned about and, in full view to the peeping Quesada, came
-striding toward the fire. His hair, closely clipped, showed white
-beneath his hat; yet there was in him no sign of the weakness of age. He
-had a short, knife-sharp white beard, a face as lean and haughty as a
-griffon vulture's. He was Sergeant Esteban Alvarado, father of the lover
-of the Gypsy Paquita, Miguel Alvarado.
-
-The two men squatted cross-legged upon the ground opposite each other,
-and ate and drank in silence. But Montara, munching prodigiously, kept
-continually shaking his ugly head. Finally he said:
-
-"Seguramente, yes! It is the wild-goose chase."
-
-"Pascual Montara," said the old man severely, "your talk shows you
-unfaithful to your duty."
-
-"Duty, za! It is my head I use, Don Esteban. Did not the Americano tell
-us last night, from the great rock above, that the village is in the
-throes of the cholera? We cannot go into the barrio for fear of taking
-the disease, and they will not leave the pueblo for fear of spreading it
-about the countryside.
-
-"We have done our duty, mi sargento. We have found the American, the
-great Morales, and his whole cuadrilla. They are safe. And they can
-please themselves when they want to come down. Valgate Dios, it is not
-in our instructions to drag them into civilization by the hair of their
-head!"
-
-"Muy bueno. But it is in our instructions to capture and kill Jacinto
-Quesada--"
-
-"Who is not in Minas de la Sierra. I tell you, Don Esteban, that
-Americano does not lie. This is Quesada's native barrio, true; but he is
-no friend of Jacinto Quesada. Jacinto Quesada robbed him in that affair
-of the Seville-to-Madrid; for weeks he has been pursuing the Wolf
-through the sierras. He says Quesada is not in the village."
-
-The sergeant chewed his meat in silence. It was a dour silence, as if he
-refused to argue, yet was not convinced by the logic of the other.
-Beneath it, there seemed an undercurrent of imperial anger.
-
-Opening his mouth wide as he ate, Montara looked at him sharply, from
-under black bushy brows.
-
-"Must I argue as I did last night?" he asked aggressively. "You say that
-we have them all bagged, including Quesada, in this eagle's nest. But I
-say Quesada is not there. He has not been up in this barrio for months.
-He has been swinging like a pendulum back and forth across the two
-Spains. My soul, he is like ten men for being in more places than one.
-If he were up here, how can you account for that affair of the
-Despenaperros over three weeks ago?"
-
-"I must admit that," qualified the old man condescendingly. "My son
-Miguel and I were stationed in the Pass at the time. Miguelito said he
-was sure it was Quesada who stuck-up the automobile and beat to death
-the rich Englishman. The Englishman's pale wife described the bandolero.
-It was indeed Quesada. But that outrage, coming on top of the hold-up of
-the Seville-to-Madrid, must surely have caused the outlaw to seek refuge
-in his village."
-
-"But it didn't, Don Esteban. You've heard of that happening in the
-Alameda of Valladolid on a night two weeks ago. While the people, bent
-on enjoying the open-air cinema, were all gathered on the grass in the
-hot night, he appeared before the large white sheet and, pointing two
-guns at them, brazenly called out that he was Jacinto Quesada. Then,
-while the members of the civic orchestra were playing some outrageous
-gypsy tune in obedience to his command, he slipped quietly away. I
-cannot account for it myself. He gathered no gold from the crowd. But
-sacred blood! it was bold."
-
-"It was too bold for me to believe," objected Alvarado, shaking his
-head. "Tut, it is but a story of the people. They are forever building
-wonderful adventures and sentimental romances about these hungry dogs of
-bandoleros. One would think that the wolves were gentlemen and fine
-heroes, and we of the Guardia Civil only ratty red-eyed ferrets!"
-
-Pascual vehemently nodded his heavy head.
-
-"I know, I know!" he agreed heartily. "It is no longer any honor to
-wear the uniform of the police in Spain. But what think you now of my
-argument, Don Esteban? Need I recite that shocking affair of the Plaza
-de Toros of Seville? The glamorous Moors of Spain do not make up stories
-about their bandoleros robbing brave matadors in the House of God. It is
-a lizard's trick. Since Quesada stuck-up the popular espada, Lagartijo,
-in the bullfighters' chapel of Seville, all Spain has been stunned by
-the sacrilege. And that was but one short week gone--"
-
-Jacinto Quesada drew back from the entangled buckthorn and genista. His
-brow was ruffled as a mountain stream. So this was the meaning of his
-dorados' sullen insinuations! Come to think of it, even old Pedro down
-in Granada had been struck aghast at sight of him whom he had known from
-a boy.
-
-"Ah, Mother of God!" old Pedro had exclaimed, a strange quavering note
-in his voice. "It is Jacinto Quesada about whom all Spain talks!" And he
-had added, upon hearing of the plague: "It is the hand of God,
-Jacintito! It is a scourge of God striking down those about you because
-of the terrible vile things you have been doing, these last nights,
-throughout the peninsula!"
-
-Some unknown was sticking-up persons on the road and in far-off
-alamedas, and then, with bluster and insane braggadocio, announcing he
-was Jacinto Quesada! The fool had cold murder in his bowels! He had
-killed a foreigner, an Englishman. He slayed like a ferocious beast or a
-crazed man. And he had abused the sanctity of the chapel of the
-bullfighters in the Plaza de Toros of Seville. The thing was unheard of.
-It was sacrilege!
-
-"By the wounds of Christ!" swore Quesada softly. "The fellow is odious
-and detestable. And all his vile ordure is flung at my head. The
-creature is braiding a noose for my neck!"
-
-Out in the trampled space about the alder tree, the sergeant's voice had
-risen with a peremptory note.
-
-"Do not stay here, Pascual Montara! It is against all the code of the
-Guardia Civil, but zut! ride away without me, and you please. I stay
-here. Understand, hombre; I stay here! Every wolf has his lair, every
-bandolero his home. This barrio above is Quesada's home. In a week or a
-month, he must return here. I shall wait that week or that month. He can
-come only this way. When he comes this way, by the Life! I shall rid
-Spain forever of his baneful presence!"
-
-Jacinto Quesada stole back around the bend to his picketed horse. From
-behind the cantle of the saddle, he removed those canvas packs which
-contained the drugs, preparations, and liquors he had gathered at the
-doctor's casa. He unwound the reins from about a branch of the sumach
-bush and tied them loosely to the pommel of the saddle. He broke off a
-hairy flower stalk from the smoke-plant. Then, with an eye to quietude,
-carefully he led the pony down the brushy side of the gorge.
-
-Once in the dust-coated road which wound through the bottom of the
-gorge, he faced the pony down the way he had come and inserted, under
-the brows of the saddle against the spine, the setule of flower stalk.
-Immediately the animal, irritated out of his weariness, began fidgeting,
-flicking his tail, snapping his head round on either side, baring his
-long yellow teeth and crinkling again and again the skin of his back.
-
-Quesada stepped to one side. With his open hand, he struck the horse a
-resounding thwack upon the rump. The pony leaped forward, the bristle of
-flower stalk painfully rubbing his spine. Ere he could recover from the
-shock of the blow and pause to lessen the aggravating pricking under the
-saddle, Quesada snapped out his revolver and discharged it in the air
-behind him--bang, bang! Exasperated and thoroughly frightened, the horse
-fled precipitantly down the road.
-
-While the winding gutter of gorge detonated with the hoof-clatter of the
-racing horse and while the rock walls flung back and forth, like
-sounding-boards, the sharp metallic explosions of the pistol, Jacinto
-Quesada bounded up the brushy side to where, behind the feathery
-wig-plant, he had flung the canvas saddlebags.
-
-He was none too quick. Like a louder echo of the echoes sounded up the
-gorge, of a sudden, the crang of a carbine; then the thundering hoof
-beats of horses careering down at full tilt; and then the voices of men
-lunging up in the dread challenge and command of the police:
-
-"Alto a la Guardia Civil! Halt for the Civil Guard!"
-
-Quesada crouched behind the whitish-green thicket of sumach, and waited
-tense as a trigger at half-cock.
-
-Around the bend up the road drove into view like a lean racing terrier a
-wiry rough-coated pony, hoofs pounding in a quick rataplan, barrel low
-to the dust, and ears flattened sharply back. Upright in the saddle, a
-carbine across the hollow of one arm, was the tall sergeant of police,
-linen sun-shield flying straight behind like a white guidon snapping in
-a wind.
-
-"Don't shoot, Montara!" he called back from an eager keen-edged face.
-"Don't shoot till you see the hair on his neck!"
-
-"Shoot his horse!" answered a roaring shout. "Carajo! In all our lives,
-we may never get another such chance at Jacinto Quesada!"
-
-Around the bend, like a screaming projectile, lunged another pony, neck
-extended, nostrils blowing red, and the ugly policeman Montara standing
-a-tiptoe in the stirrups. Montara was like some wild Arab in a mad
-display of horsemanship. He swayed back and forth; he waved the carbine
-in one long apelike hand. Carried away by the lust of the chase, he
-shouted repeatedly from his blood-darkened countenance:
-
-"Alto a la Guardia Civil! Alto, alto! Alto a la Guardia Civil!"
-
-Ponies and riders plunged behind a huge brown boulder down the road and
-out of sight. Quesada snapped up. Active as an ape, he slung the canvas
-packs over his shoulders and leaped down the brushy side of the gorge.
-What time the stony defile echoed and reechoed with the distance-dimming
-clangor of pounding hoofs and turbulent shouts, he sped, on his long
-mountaineer's legs, up the convolutions of the goat path to the
-empested barrio.
-
-The crang of a carbine suddenly spearing aloft from down the gorge
-caused him to halt on the great rock at the brink of the village. He
-looked back. He smiled somberly.
-
-"That will be my poor horse," he remarked. "He has halted for the
-Guardia Civil!"
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXV
-
-
-To Jacinto Quesada, returned after an absence of over a week, the
-village of Minas de la Sierra wore an inexplicably strange appearance.
-Gone utterly--mud and thatch and wooden shutters--were the chozas in
-which the widowed mother of the mountain boy, Gabriel, had lain sick and
-the white-haired Villarobledo had died. Where the huts had stood were
-now only empty spans.
-
-Before the other huts had been built a covered wooden flume, as for the
-carrying off of sewage. Down the old Moorish gutter in the center of the
-uneven street coursed a clear quick stream with cold reflections and
-tiny gurgling noises that seemed to tempt one to drink.
-
-Otherwise, nothing stirred in the chill morning sunlight. No serranos
-stood in the low doorways of the cabanas or hovered about the cork-oak
-tree in the center of the barrio. The village seemed a village of the
-dead.
-
-Quesada hastened across the street, muddy and slippery from the heavy
-fog of the night prior. As he did, of a sudden from the direction of the
-little whitewashed chapel, there drifted down to his ears a continuous
-moaning and groaning. It sounded bodiless and unearthly in the thin air
-of that high altitude.
-
-He knew thereat. Carson, the American, following out his scheme of
-sanitation, had segregated the sick. The tiny village chapel had been
-converted into a hospital. Within in the painful obscurity, behind those
-apertures that were now screened against flies with flimsy calico, men
-were moving back and forth on solemn and fearful tasks.
-
-Quesada made his way into the cabana where he had left Felicidad.
-Inside, in the gloom, he found John Fremont Carson visiting the girl in
-the course of his rounds.
-
-Propped by a pillow, the golden-haired girl was sitting up in the bed.
-Her cheeks were still white as ivory; but there was a brave new light in
-her blue eyes. She was convalescing. Carson was holding for her, with
-kind concern, a bowl of vegetable soup, thin and easily digestible.
-
-Looking over the American's shoulder, she was the first to discover the
-bandolero. With glad and genuine effusiveness, in a voice that yet
-showed husky traces of the vox cholerica, she cried:
-
-"My soul! It is Jacintito come back to us!"
-
-The American got quickly afoot and shook hands warmly.
-
-"Have you brought the stuff?" he greeted solicitously.
-
-"Seguramente, si!" smiled Quesada. "And we may thank the bueno Dios that
-the senor doctor, from long tending to cholera cases, had every little
-thing we needed!"
-
-He unslung, with the words, the swollen canvas bags from his shoulders
-and placed them upon the leaf-stuffed couch to one side.
-
-With care and deep concern, Carson fingered and opened the many boxes,
-bottles, and preparations. It was as if each were some priceless jewel.
-He made odd little sounds in his throat, expressive of discovery and
-relief and infinite joy.
-
-"Here are the pages, Senor Carson, which will tell you all about the
-cholera. The book was too heavy for me to carry; I had so many other
-things; and therefore I tore these pages out bodily."
-
-The American nodded and shoved the torn pages into a pocket of his coat.
-
-"And my father?" exclaimed Felicidad. Perhaps to her, as had happened to
-Quesada himself, there was something poignantly reminiscent in this talk
-of tearing pages from one of the rare old books of the hidalgo doctor.
-
-"He is still away," answered Quesada vaguely.
-
-The American looked up sharply from uncorking one of the cobwebbed
-bottles of wine.
-
-"You left word?"
-
-Quesada nodded constrainedly, as if against his will. He could not say
-Don Jaime must soon follow him up the mountains. He could not look at
-the girl. He feared overwhelmingly for Felicidad, once her father should
-arrive. He was afraid lest his Moorish eyes might betray him.
-
-Carson mixed a narcotic of the wine and a pinch of opium, and proffered
-it to the girl.
-
-"It will relieve internal distress," he explained, "and induce
-strength-building sleep."
-
-They came out into the open--the bandolero and the American.
-
-"How many dead?" queried the former.
-
-"Only three. Villarobledo, of course; a seven-month-old baby; and the
-widowed mother of the lad, Gabriel. She died two nights ago."
-
-"Not so bad," commented Quesada hopefully.
-
-"No; but we got fully twenty sick, all stages. I must get these drugs up
-to them. They're suffering pitifully. On the way I can show you a bit of
-what we have done, and tell you the rest."
-
-He indicated the open stone bed of the old Moorish flume, as they
-followed it up the uneven street.
-
-"Notice how clear the water is? That comes from our nitration system. Up
-above, at the top of the village, we deepened the channel in one spot.
-We put a layer of large stones on the bottom of the pit, above that a
-stratum of pebbles, and on top of all, a coating of fine sand. The
-water, seeping through those straining layers, is purged of all foreign
-substances, thoroughly purified."
-
-The bandolero nodded his comprehension. They made on.
-
-"Morales and his men have proved as good as their word. With their
-hands, they cleaned the scum from every inch of that stone flume. Manuel
-himself is simply fine, a prince!" Carson added with that touch of
-familiarity which denotes the warmest appreciation.
-
-"Then we made two cut-offs from the flume," he continued. "One supplies
-that box-channel near the houses to expedite the carrying-off of sewage.
-The other is in the nature of a floodgate leading into a hole, deep as
-your neck." He smiled faintly. "Many's the time I've made a sluice of
-this order, when I was mining for gold out in California, but never
-before for this particular purpose."
-
-"And what purpose is that?"
-
-"Well, when somebody goes cold and collapsed from the cholera, we lift
-the floodgate and let the water flow into the hole. Meanwhile, we heat a
-bunch of stones in the coals of a fire. We throw the stones into the
-water and then, when the bath is at the proper temperature, we lower the
-patient gently into it. Hot baths usually give relief. In the case of
-Gabriel's mother, they helped to prolong her life. After the bath, we
-massage the limbs thoroughly to circulate the blood and take out the
-kinks of the cramps."
-
-"You have been working most arduously, Senor Carson," said Quesada.
-
-He was looking keenly at the American. Traces of fearful toil and many
-sleepless nights showed in Carson's face. His once square countenance
-was thinned into bony angles; there were heavy pouches under the eyes;
-and the eyes themselves were no longer merry, but severely, crisply
-blue.
-
-With uneasy characteristic modesty, the American fidgeted at the canvas
-packs in his hands.
-
-"Oh, yes; a trifle," he admitted reluctantly. "We've all been pretty
-busy. We had to shovel two infected cabanas over the cliff. The stream
-through the gorge carried the debris away. We've burned every rag and
-soiled bit of clothes and bedding in the pueblo. I tell you, I was
-mighty glad to help out in that task!"
-
-He took the canvas packs in one hand and felt in his pocket, with the
-other, for the torn pages Quesada had given him. He ran his eyes quickly
-over the printed words. Presently he looked up. Quesada had not spoken
-in that spell of time. He noted now a little frowning knuckle on the
-young bandolero's forehead.
-
-"You are worrying, Jacinto!" he said, sharp as an accusation.
-
-Quesada was startled.
-
-"Dios hombre!" he exclaimed. "It is but the truth."
-
-"But why? The plague? Felicidad or her father?"
-
-Quesada shook his head morosely.
-
-"It is none of these things, God forgive me, Don Juan. It is that I am
-worrying selfishly about Jacinto Quesada alone. When you mentioned the
-stream through the gorge carrying away the debris of the two infected
-cabanas, it set my mind back. I thought of the two policemen down in
-that gorge. Don Juan, they are waiting for me!"
-
-"It is not that Jacinto Quesada is afraid, surely!"
-
-"Carajo, no! I fear these Guardias Civiles no more than I fear the
-plague, and you know, senor, I do not fear the plague. The Wolf of the
-Sierras has become too long used to death to be afraid to die. But, Don
-Juan, I fear what these men say. They would kill me for crimes I have
-never done. It is not just, my friend, to be hounded for acts you never
-perpetrated. They would kill me for the crimes of some other man, a
-sneaking masquerader, a loathsome, brutal, sacrilegious creature! Mother
-of God, I worry because I do not understand!"
-
-"Worry is poison," said the American dogmatically. "Every moment you
-worry is as if you poured a glass of poison into your system. Jacinto,
-do you want to make yourself liable to the scourge?"
-
-It was a grim warning. Quesada shook his head vehemently. He could not
-answer. A scream as of intolerable agony precluded, for the moment,
-further speech. They were nearing the dingy, whitewashed, thatch-and-mud
-chapel of the village. On the heels of the awful scream, saddening their
-ears continuously, now breathed a dull low monotone of pain.
-
-They entered the sick bay. On either side, down the whole length of the
-chapel from doorway to wooden white-painted altar, was a raised platform
-of pine slabs with a slight pitch toward the central passageway between.
-Swathed in blankets side by side on the platforms, doubling up with
-cramps in arms and legs and abdomen, groaning in acute anguish, or lying
-fearfully still in stages of collapse, were fully a score of sick and
-dying--men, young and old; girls in their teens and mothers of families;
-and one little tad of a boy. He was the lad, Gabriel, who had announced
-the plague when first the party of cabalgadores had gained the village.
-
-Quesada discovered a difficulty in breathing; he felt his head reel. The
-air was close and offensive with sweaty bilious odors and the sharp
-pungent smell of turpentine. He noted two candles burning wanly upon the
-dingy altar.
-
-Carson had left him to go from sufferer to dying with the balm of his
-new-found drugs. When Morales came forward to greet him, the bandolero
-remarked:
-
-"Those candles there, friend Manuel! They add to the stifling closeness
-of the place."
-
-"They are a symbol of our religion."
-
-"I know; but there is no real need of them here. They waste the precious
-air."
-
-Morales smiled slowly.
-
-"You and I would not need the reminder of the orthodox wax candles,
-Jacinto; but these serranos lack spunk. They believe they are doomed to
-die, and die just to prove it. The burning candles typify the living
-presence of the Lord. Their yellow flames hearten some to fight to live;
-others suffer and die more patiently in their wan presence--"
-
-A hoarse exclamation upon the part of Quesada interrupted the matador.
-Quesada had noted, among the blanketed patients, one of Morales' own
-cuadrilla, the banderillero, Alfonso Robledo. Shocked and violently
-agitated, Quesada gripped the matador's arm.
-
-"But this man! How comes he sick? He is a bullfighter, a banderillo, a
-strong man, muscled like a leopard, stout of heart!"
-
-Said Morales grimly, "The pestilence respects neither strength nor
-weakness, race, profession, nor creed."
-
-One of the cuadrilla attending the sick, the picador called Coruncho
-Lopez, paused in his labors to remark:
-
-"Robledo is ill through contagion. Two nights ago, the mother of the boy
-Gabriel died. Alfonso and I carried the body down through the village to
-the lip of the gorge. Her clothes were infected."
-
-"Oh, mia mamacita!" wailed the lad, Gabriel, from his corner of the
-sick bay. "Now I am all alone in the world and sick to die!"
-
-The bandolero turned to him.
-
-"Hush, nino!" he said tenderly. "You have still Jacinto Quesada to look
-after you!"
-
-The boy quieted. Gratefully he looked up at the salteador with black
-eyes that smoldered in deep-sunken pits. When Carson, in the course of
-his rounds, offered him a preparation of cornstarch and milk to
-alleviate the pangs of his stomach, he swallowed it readily.
-
-"It is not safe to use opium in any form in the cases of children,"
-explained the American to Quesada.
-
-There was a sudden stir behind them. Coruncho Lopez, the picador, who
-had been nursing the sick, was taken with an unexpected and brutal
-seizure. He held his stomach and doubled up. In intense agony, he
-moaned, "Water, water!"
-
-Carson hurried out to draw fresh water. In the short wait the disease
-made astonishing progress on the man. His muscled frame jackknifed with
-acute cramps. By the time Carson returned with the water, his face had
-darkened to a purple hue, and the skin wrinkled up as if it would crack.
-
-They sat him upon the edge of one of the platforms, but he fell back.
-His body was all at once cold. He was in the asphyxial stage, all
-animation suspended, no beat of pulse, apparently dead.
-
-Carson held an open bottle of ammonia beneath his nose. It had no
-effect; the man was not breathing. He forced brandy down his throat, but
-the picador lay still and chilly cold. He was dead.
-
-Thus, swift and silent as the pounce of a condor, strikes the terrible
-cholera!
-
-It was almost impossible to believe that the man was dead. Only an ace
-of time before, he had moved about, so valiant to aid, so tender to
-nurse. Death had come too cruelly abrupt. It was appalling.
-
-Carson looked about in the sudden and apprehensive silence. He did not
-note the tall athletic form of the Frenchman darkening on the moment the
-doorway. His blue eyes were blunted, somber with gloom; his rugged face
-was very gray.
-
-"That proves it," Carson said. "This man got the plague from carrying
-out the contagious body of that boy's mother. There'll be no more
-carrying of dead bodies down the cliffside to cast into the stream. It
-isn't right to us to have to bear the infected dead so far; it isn't
-right to the serranos in the hills below that their stream should float
-diseased bodies and make them liable to the epidemic. With this death,
-we'll change our methods. We'll cremate the bodies, immediately below
-here, on the great rock of the village!"
-
-Mutterings of dissent, abhorrence, and strong condemnation went up from
-the men of the cuadrilla who were assisting in the hospital. Even some
-of the convalescing and slightly sick rose up in their blankets to
-express disapproval and fearful apprehension. Their religious scruples
-were shocked, outraged. Cremation was to them contrary to the practices
-of their religion.
-
-They did not know that the tenets of their religion--like the tenets of
-any professedly divine religion, or the statutes of any confessedly
-human law--were capable of drastic and remarkable innovations under the
-stress of necessity. They believed that their system of sacred services
-was without elasticity, firm and inexorable.
-
-They were only ignorant. Never had most of them heard of
-pronunciamientos, papal bulls, nuncio rescripta which, when it was not
-only fit, but expedient and profitable so to do, had changed, remolded,
-or altogether cast out certain rites and dogmas. They were not so much
-devotedly pious. They were hidebound, superstitiously fearful.
-
-Jacques Ferou, halted in the doorway, observed all with his
-slate-colored, calculating eyes. Slowly he smiled his superior and
-peculiar smile; then turned away and made for the cabanas which still
-sheltered well men. An insidious drama was afoot.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXVI
-
-
-Carson paid no heed to the mutterings all about him. Alone and
-unassisted, he swathed the body in a new clean blanket.
-
-"That will stop communication of the disease from the body to the
-bearers," he said. He surveyed the group about him. "Now, who will carry
-out the dead?"
-
-The men looked at one another. No one stepped forward to volunteer.
-
-Jacinto Quesada, standing in the background, sensed immediately, then,
-to what a stage things had come. He elbowed through the throng. Quietly
-he picked up the blanket-swathed figure.
-
-"Senor Carson," he said, as he turned around, the form of the picador
-held before him in his arms; "you are doing the correct thing. Cremation
-is the sanitary expedient."
-
-The American thanked him with his eyes. He followed Quesada out the
-doorway. They went down the uneven village street. The men of the
-cuadrilla trooped after. From the cabanas on either hand serranos,
-stirred up by the insidious Ferou, crept out like wolves stretching
-forth from their dens.
-
-Carson never looked back. He could hear the men muttering behind him; he
-realized some dark scheme was pulsing in their brains; yet he never
-looked back. He strode, at the head of all that muttering milling
-throng, down the street toward the rock.
-
-As they neared the rock, suddenly he swung about. The men stopped,
-huddled back from him.
-
-"Get wood!" he shouted. "Anything inflammable!"
-
-The men shoved forward, crowded together, and eyed him with furtive,
-wily eyes. No one moved to obey.
-
-"Go ahead, Don Juan!" shouted a voice from behind. "I'll collect the
-wood!"
-
-It was Manuel Morales, proving bigger in the emergency than any
-superstitious dread. A deep-throated muttering went up from the men. But
-his quick courageous action had robbed them, for the moment, of that
-focus of interest, anger, and insubordination which leads to mob
-violence.
-
-Carson swung round to start on again. As he did, he saw that Quesada,
-behind his back, had deposited the dead burden upon the muddy ground and
-was stooping and cupping up water from the old Moorish flume to quench
-his hot thirst.
-
-"Stop!" he cried, his voice chill with warning and terrible dread.
-"Jacinto, you are in a sweat! Don't you know that copious drinking of
-cold water while in this condition is one of the direct causes of
-cholera!"
-
-Quesada stepped back, momentarily aghast. The sweat quickened and poured
-from his brown youthful face. Suddenly he laughed.
-
-"It is no importa," he said, with returned calmness. He strode on under
-the weight of his gruesome burden.
-
-Carson followed at his heels and, at the heels of the American,
-straggled like so many famished wolves, the men of the cuadrilla and the
-serranos of the pueblo.
-
-Quesada was in haste to deposit the body upon the rock. He felt a
-strange dizziness in his head. He did not want to admit it, yet he
-feared it foretokened an attack of the pestilence. At this crucial time,
-he did not want the dizziness to show in his actions. That would
-evidence the plague. And were the men to note it, they would think it
-the hand of God striking him down for aiding in the cremation. It would
-precipitate them into some insensate and ferocious act.
-
-He held himself severely erect. There were spots dancing before his
-eyes, yet he made out that one of the cuadrilla, a short thick-set
-banderillero named Baptista Monterey, had stepped forward from the mob.
-The banderillero, his ordinary black street clothes rendering him
-inconspicuous in the mob, had been standing quietly alongside the tall
-blond Frenchman. It was Ferou himself who had shoved him forward. The
-man spoke.
-
-"You cannot burn the body, senor caballero of my heart! Cremation is a
-desecration of the earthly vessel of the soul. It is against our
-religion!"
-
-"Jacinto Quesada himself has given you the reason for the need of it,"
-returned Carson coldly. "Cremation is the sanitary expedient."
-
-"But the body belongs to the Espiritu Santo! You cannot--"
-
-"What is this, Baptista Monterey!" came a new voice, an astonished and
-wrathful voice.
-
-Quesada found himself unable to see its owner. An opaque blackness was
-fogging his eyes. But he knew that the voice belonged to Manuel Morales.
-
-"Put down the wood, Manuel!" he heard Carson say. There was a strange
-note in the American's voice, a grim metallic note. "Go away. Get more
-wood, Manuel. Leave me alone. They tell me I cannot burn the dead. They
-are rebellious. I'll show them!"
-
-Quesada gripped himself that he might bear on. There was a rushing and
-pounding of blood in his ears. The voices seemed fainting low and dim
-with distance, as if the speakers were drifting away from him.
-
-"Senor Carson," feebly he heard Morales say, "this is your affair, but I
-am stanchly behind you. When you took up this task of cleansing the
-scourge from the barrio, I said that Manuel Morales and all his
-cuadrilla would be yours to command. It is so; they _are_ yours; they
-must obey you! I go away; I leave them to you. Do with them what you
-will. Teach them!"
-
-Like the noise of a remote waterfall came to Quesada's ears a muffled
-crash. It might have been the sudden casting upon the rock of a bundle
-of faggots. He only knew, of a sudden and all at once, that he was
-reeling. The water he had drunk seemed turned to liquid fire; his
-stomach was burning up, his whole tottering frame was burning up!
-
-As from far away, he heard a shout. He could not see.
-
-"Heart of God--look! Jacinto Quesada! He is falling! He has got it, he
-has got it!"
-
-Quesada felt himself pitching forward and falling, falling, falling as
-if from one of the cinder-gray precipices of the sierras. A rush of
-sound boomed in his ears:
-
-"It is the hand of God! Aupa, aupa! It is a divine sign that we are
-right! Porvida, men! Down the sacrilegious Americano! Sweep him from the
-rock! Kill him, kill him! He must not burn our dead!"
-
-A tremendous sound seemed to burst the membranes of the bandolero's
-ears. Perhaps it was the report of an automatic. At any rate, as if a
-bullet had thudded on his own frontal bone, he felt a sudden dazzling
-crash against his forehead. He had banged down upon the rock!
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXVII
-
-
-John Fremont Carson stood upon the great rock at the brink of the
-village and surveyed, above the ugly snub nose of his automatic, the
-surge of men before him. One shot from that automatic had garroted the
-rebellion. At his feet sprawled the short thick-set form of Baptista
-Monterey, a tiny flaming crater in his right temple where a
-steel-jacketed bullet had found his life.
-
-Behind Carson lay Jacinto Quesada, stricken and spread-eagled from the
-plague. The men stood staggered and cowed before him, fascinated with
-fear and deep awe.
-
-"Quick, one of you!" exploded the American. "Carry Quesada to the sick
-bay!"
-
-There was a sudden stir among the apprehensively huddled men. The tall
-gray-suited Frenchman stepped forward,
-
-"Allow me, monsenor."
-
-With a gentle concern, astonishing from him, he rolled the long-legged
-form of the bandolero snugly in his serape and then, staggering under
-the weight, leaden with unconsciousness, started off up the uneven
-street toward the chapel.
-
-Carson flourished his automatic.
-
-"Pronto!" he yelled. "Into your huts, you serranos! You of the
-cuadrilla, back to your work in the hospital!"
-
-The men dispersed like a foggy neblina under the rays of the sun.
-
-Ferou was some distance ahead of the cuadrilla as it tramped, bowed of
-head, back up the street. Carson and Morales remained on the rock,
-busying with the fire which would cremate the remains. There was no one
-to see.
-
-The Frenchman seized the opportunity. With one hand, he reached under
-the long mountaineer's shawl that swathed Quesada's body; he reached
-into the inside pocket of the sheepskin zamarra. He drew forth a small
-mahogany-colored leather purse. That purse had once been his own.
-
-Without bothering to open it, he thrust it into a pocket of his gray
-tweed suit. He knew. Within, in that small mahogany-colored leather
-purse, was the tightly wound roll of five-thousand peseta bills he had
-stolen from Don Jaime de Torreblanca y Moncada!
-
-When Carson hurried up, a short spell later, to tend to Quesada, Ferou
-was awaiting him in the hospital, apparent anxiety upon his ashy-hued
-face.
-
-"Monsenor Carson," he said deferentially, "to-day must have taught you a
-lesson. It is not wise that these bullfighters and serranos should be
-armed. They might rise again. I would some advice give you. Collect all
-the arms in the barrio and keep them under your own hand."
-
-The suggestion met with accord from the American. Readily he could see
-its precautionary value against future rebellion.
-
-"Just a little, and I'll be finished doing all I can for Jacinto; then
-I'll be with you."
-
-Together they made a round of the cabanas. They requisitioned ancient
-muzzle-loading smooth-bores, Mannlichers, Mauser carbines, revolvers,
-old-fashioned pistols, and guns with muzzles wide as the mouth of a
-French horn. In Quesada's choza, where Felicidad slept and hourly gained
-strength, they found a modern smokeless breech-loading hunting gun, a
-cordite repeater.
-
-They were tireless and microscopically thorough in the search. Despite
-the mutterings and scowls of the serranos, they seized every instrument
-which might be used as a weapon of offense. They collected Manchegan
-knives, navajas, razors, and even alpenstocks and shovels. Against the
-cork-oak tree in the center of the pueblo street, they made a heap of
-the conglomeration.
-
-They had circled back to the hospital, and Ferou had entered to disarm
-the members of the cuadrilla therein, when Carson, following at his
-heels, made a sudden clutch at the jamb of the door.
-
-"Hola!" exclaimed Morales, just then coming up behind from the cremation
-rock at the brink of the pueblo. "Sacred blood, what's the matter, Don
-Juan!"
-
-Ferou slewed swiftly round. Both men, the one within, the other without
-the chapel, eyed the American in the doorway. There was a strange,
-almost hopeful expectancy in the slate-colored eyes of the Frenchman; in
-the dark thick-lashed eyes of the matador a terrible voiceless dread.
-
-Carson drew himself up. It was a visible effort. His angular face looked
-grayly haggard; his lips were drawn tight over his teeth.
-
-"It is nothing," he said slowly. "I feel a little faint, that's all. I
-guess the excitement of this morning has upset me. It will soon pass
-off."
-
-"You must lie down, mi camarada," said Morales gently but firmly. "You
-have not slept in two nights--since the night when that boy's mother
-died, and last night when Robledo of my cuadrilla slapped under. You
-need rest. You have been doing the work of three men, of thirty men,
-tending Felicidad, doctoring in here, directing and administering to
-all. You must lie down."
-
-The American made to stagger through into the sick bay; but Morales
-stopped him with a steadying hand upon his shoulder.
-
-"Not here," he advised softly. "We are overcrowded already. Besides, for
-you to lie in this atmosphere, would make you more liable to the plague.
-Come to Quesada's cabana. Felicidad is feeling quite strong to-day.
-There is an unused couch there. Felicidad will see that you want for
-nothing."
-
-"But Quesada--"
-
-"I will take care of him. Jacinto is a brave man; he has the will to
-live. Everything in my power I shall do, Don Juan, to see that he does
-live."
-
-With one shaking hand, Carson fumbled in his pocket. He finally drew out
-a number of yellow printed leaves that had been torn from a book.
-
-"Here are the instructions of what to do," he said wearily.
-
-Morales took the yellow illumined pages. His honest Andalusian face was
-grave with an intenseness of sincerity.
-
-"Senor Carson," he said almost formally, "everything you have done, I
-will attempt to do. You may rest easily in the knowledge and conviction
-that I am carrying forward all that you planned. Your methods have
-proved good methods. There have been deaths, true; but never, in an
-epidemic of cholera, have I known so few deceases, so many recoveries.
-Steadfastly, with fortitude and without deviation, with a stout heart
-and an iron hand, I shall put through your modern sanitary methods.
-Senor, I will even cremate the dead!"
-
-It was enough. Guided and aided by the matador, Carson stumbled down the
-uneven street toward Quesada's cabana. The Frenchman looked after the
-two, through the chapel doorway, and smiled his calculating and very
-superior smile.
-
-When Morales returned, Ferou pointed out the heaped-up scramble of
-weapons under the cork-oak tree and explained what he and Carson had
-been about.
-
-"If the Senor Americano thought it a good plan," said Morales with
-promptitude and decision, "I will go through with it. My word has been
-given in promise. Whatever Don Juan started, that shall I attempt to
-finish."
-
-He entered the hospital. Within, what remained of his cuadrilla were
-watching and nursing the sick. They were now only three. Of the others,
-the banderillero, Baptista Monterey, had been killed in the rebellion on
-the rock; Coruncho Lopez, the picador, was dead from the plague; and
-another banderillero, Alfonso Robledo, was still numbered among the
-blanketed patients on the platforms.
-
-"Here, you peones," said Morales to the three. "Take off your guns and
-knives! It is the order of the Senor Carson."
-
-The bullfighters darted quick glances at one another. They were nervous
-and suspicious. Why did the matador want them to disarm? What did he
-purpose doing, once he had them unarmed--punish them for their
-participation in that morning's rebellion? They feared to disobey the
-matador, yet they feared more the intent behind the command. They
-hesitated.
-
-"Shed your own weapons, Don Manuel," suggested the insidious Ferou in a
-whisper. "Then the men will understand that it is a general order which
-applies to all, without favoritism."
-
-"Dios hombre!" exclaimed Morales, growing irritated. "Must I coax my
-peones to obey the command of their own matador?"
-
-"It is not that, Don Manuel. These men are only poor silly Spaniards who
-do not understand. They are afraid of your reason for thus asking them
-to disarm. If you discard your weapons, they will realize there is
-nothing to fear. They will follow suit. And you will have set the peones
-the example, like a true matador!"
-
-"Disparate!" ejaculated Morales. "What nonsense!" But just the same,
-realizing that it was the simplest way to attain the end in view, he
-removed from about his waist the belt on which were suspended a revolver
-and sheathed knife.
-
-Readily then the three bullfighters emulated his example. And Jacques
-Ferou carried all the weapons to the pile beneath the cork-oak tree.
-Outside and beyond eyeshot, he saw fit to indulge, once more, in his
-exasperating smile.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXVIII
-
-
-Chill and damp took turns about with rock-glare and sudden heat to aid
-and abet their deadly ally, the cholera. Thick neblinas, dank mists, and
-wispy rains cloaked the sierras, night and morning; the noonday sun
-broke through and refracted its rays with intense heat from stony gorge
-and crag; easterly gales or levantes swept down from the pinnacles and
-drove all away with dense snowstorms, abrupt and blinding, violent and
-icy; and all the while, inside the four mud walls of cabana and chapel,
-the barrio continued to retch and writhe in the grasp of the vomit.
-
-Felicidad was showing signs of slow but evident improvement. Within the
-hospital, there was hope for Quesada's recovery, but imminent danger of
-a relapse and speedy death.
-
-The bandolero was languishing in the third reactive stage of malignant
-cholera. There had come to him a surcease of the agonizing symptoms. No
-longer was there any want of pulse; his skin had returned to its almost
-normal hue; his body was once more warm. It was too warm. He was burning
-up with a kind of typhoid fever that kept him on his back and affected
-his brain.
-
-He had weird dreams and horrible vagaries. Always was he the hounded
-victim of a terrible mistake. Pursued relentlessly by two beagles of the
-Guardia Civil, he saw himself, in one fancy, seeking sanctuary in a
-monastery. Under the irrevocable seal of confession, his past crimes
-were forgiven him. He went from monastery to seminary where he achieved
-in all piety the sacrament of Holy Orders.
-
-Garbed in black chasuble, he imagined himself saying Mass, one day, when
-a tall, lean-faced, white-haired sergeant of police entered. As he
-turned from the golden pyx, containing the Host, and raised his arms in
-a Dominus Vobiscum, straight through the lungs the policeman shot him.
-Like Thomas à Becket of old, he pictured himself falling wounded to
-death upon the stainless cloth of the altar!
-
-Carson was suffering, meanwhile, all the agonies he so often had
-witnessed and so intrepidly had tried to assuage. He had caught the
-cholera. The excitement of that crucial time upon the rock had
-over-stirred and heated him, and made of his body a hot forcing place
-for the virulent micro-organisms of the plague.
-
-Ere he could be removed from Quesada's cabana to the sick bay, he was
-enduring all the intolerable tortures of purgatory. With that firm
-unshakable courage of the great-souled woman, Felicidad had offered,
-then, to watch over him and to nurse him back to life.
-
-Alone of all the directing geniuses, only Manuel Morales and Jacques
-Ferou were left upstanding upon their two feet. Even the three
-bullfighters, who had been so helpful to aid, were stretched out on the
-platforms in the hospital, sick and wretched and wholly impotent.
-
-The work had settled down to a fearful routine. More than once Morales
-fairly cleared the hospital of healed and dead, only to find, as he
-breathed a sigh of relief, that new cases were falling and filling the
-sick bay to overflowing and pouring out into the cabanas. There had been
-some hundred souls in the pueblo. There still lingered fourscore.
-
-There came a day when the boy whose mother had died and who had wailed
-in a corner of the chapel, sunk through a slow process of harrowing
-ravages into the algid stage of the scourge. Morales carried out the
-little fellow. The boy was chattering with subnormal cold. Morales
-immersed him in the steaming bathing pool.
-
-Later, returned to the sick bay, in making an incision with a penknife
-to inject into one of the boy's lesser veins a solution of salt, the
-knife slipped beneath the matador's grasp and cut his own hand. He gave
-the cut no attention. He did not even bother to bind it up. Coming out
-into the open, to lift the lower floodgate which would allow the
-infected water to sluice out, he plunged the wounded member full into
-the hot pool.
-
-He was surprised but no whit frightened when, an hour later, a painful
-throbbing began to chase up and down his arm from that open gash in his
-hand. He attempted quickly to close the cut by packing it with a little
-salt. Then, shrugging his shoulders with incomprehension, fearlessly he
-sought to forget about it. He busied himself doling out to his many
-querulous patients copious doses of aperient and astringent medicines.
-
-By nightfall, he was stretched in the hospital, prostrated from the
-plague. The change in him was at once inconceivable and appalling. The
-man that in the morning had been so strong with firmness of spirit,
-fortitude of soul, and a large enveloping tenderness of heart, was now
-cramped with griping, unendurable pangs and as weak of pulse, voice, and
-body as an old, old man.
-
-From having served so many sick, Morales knew what he needed. He called
-for a mild opiate.
-
-Jacques Ferou approached the end of the platform. Save for two
-convalescing serranos with matted hair and irregular features who were
-now acting, perforce, as nurses, Ferou was the only able-bodied man in
-the hospital.
-
-The Frenchman watched the sufferings of the matador with small, bright
-slaty eyes. The trick of the eyelids, drooping at the outer corners,
-lent him a calculating sinister aspect. He curled one spike of his
-straw-colored mustache.
-
-"I will give you the opiate, monsenor, but you must pay for it! You must
-pay five hundred pesetas!"
-
-Morales attempted to sit up. But he could not sit up.
-
-"Wounds of Christ!" he gasped in a husky whisper. "What is this--a fancy
-or some mistake of my ears? Has the disease touched my brain? Tell me,
-tell me, Senor Ferou!" he almost supplicated.
-
-"It is neither the mistake nor the fancy," returned the Frenchman in
-coldly even tones. "It is merely that you are a rich man, Monsenor
-Morales, and that you can afford to pay. These others are only hungry
-serranos and underpaid bullfighters. Even Quesada there, with his
-feverish imaginings, is but a poor hounded thief. He has no money."
-
-As if he were about to smile at some choice recollection, the nostrils
-of his high predatory nose twitched, the hard grim lines about his mouth
-momentarily widened and deepened. But he did not smile. In a voice that
-sounded to the matador like pulsing chill points of steel, he went on:
-
-"But you, Monsenor Morales; you withdrew a large sum by wire from the
-Bank of Spain. It was when we first started on this little expedition,
-and it was so much money we were indeed astounded. Dicenta, the Jewish
-cacique of Alcazar de San Juan, cashed that order for you in many peseta
-bills. Most of those bills you still have on your person. I could take
-them away from you with a little force; but I prefer to give you their
-value in narcotics, medicines, and soups. Sacre, monsenor, life must be
-worth more to you than any money, eh?"
-
-The black eyes of the matador, deep-sunken from the quick ravages of the
-disease, blazed up at Ferou as if they would sear and brand his ashy
-face. Slowly as he looked, clamping his strong white teeth together with
-the effort, Morales straightened out his contracted right arm and felt,
-beneath the blanket, for the revolver at his waist.
-
-An astounded look that changed in a rush to one of stupefied dismay
-staggered his eyes. The revolver was gone! There was not even sheathed
-knife or belt!
-
-Ferou watched the matador's eyes, his lids continuing to droop with
-pitiless analytical scrutiny. Significantly he tapped the heavy
-revolver that hung at his own belt. And he laughed, a thin chill laugh.
-
-"You forget, monsenor. I am the only man armed in the barrio. It was at
-my suggestion that Senor Carson went about disarming the serranos. It
-was at my whisper, when your cuadrilla hesitated to shed their weapons,
-that you angrily threw off your own belt and gun. I have hidden them
-all!"
-
-He threw up his sharp cinder-hued face in an accession of pride. Just
-as, on the Seville-to-Madrid, he had acted with Felicidad, so now he
-seemed to swell with pride, to grow and strut with importance, as he
-bared thus his real repulsive self to Morales.
-
-"Monsenor," he exclaimed, "you do not know me; but the French police
-have long dreaded me as an adept and fearsome criminal. I am a White
-Wolf of Paris. I use my brain. I do not conceive and carry forward a
-plan in the one breath. I lay strings long in advance, and then, when
-the time is fit and proper, parbleu! I jerk.
-
-"Ah, you understand, I see! It is thus now. I am ruler here. I am the
-only man armed in the village. What I say--"
-
-Came an abrupt and alarming interruption from down the slant of the
-platform. Quesada sat rigidly up. His forehead pouring sweat, his eyes
-stark in his head, his hands clutching his chest, in a frightful voice
-he cried out:
-
-"No, no! I never did it. Kill me if you will, but by the Life, you must
-believe me! It was some other man ... some other man!..."
-
-His voice fainted away. With the exertion of shouting, with the fear of
-his grisly fancies, his face darkened with congested blood. Completely
-exhausted, he fell back upon the platform.
-
-It was as if the interruption had come to strengthen the argument of
-Jacques Ferou. Overwhelmingly thereat Morales saw how powerless he was.
-Quesada was out of his mind; John Fremont Carson was on the rack of the
-plague; even the peones of his cuadrilla, who obedient to his command
-might have aided him, were stretched out on either hand, sick and
-helpless. The matador was completely at the mercy of the Frenchman.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIX
-
-
-One of the uncouth serranos bent over Quesada. To mitigate the fever, he
-poured some concoction down his burning throat.
-
-Morales' tossing head came to an abrupt stop on the pillow. A sudden
-hope bourgeoned in his distracted eyes. He was like a man falling down a
-cliffside, clutching madly at an adnascent shrub. His eyes glowed from
-their deep sockets like pulsing coals. Here was help in his hour of
-need. His eyes seemed fairly to devour the serrano.
-
-Ferou, watching all, bent sharply toward him.
-
-"But you forgot again, monsenor!" he whispered. "You have burned their
-dead! You have transgressed the teachings of their religion, walked
-roughshod over all their superstitious dreads. They are my men, heart
-and soul!
-
-"Ah, Morales, I have told you, I lay the strings of my plots long in
-advance! It was I who gathered these serranos and egged them on at that
-rebellion on the rock. I have whispered to them in the long nights. They
-believe all your sanitary methods are tricks of the devil which have
-aided, rather than lessened the ravages of the plague. The fact that the
-cholera has stricken you and Quesada and Carson is to them as a sign
-from on high. With the death of you three, they look for the lifting of
-the scourge. Sooner than aid your recovery, they would poison you!"
-
-A fit of retching, sudden and violent, seized Morales. Ferou moved away.
-When Morales recovered from the griping vice of the fit, the Frenchman
-was proffering a cup of some darkish mixture to the convalescing
-banderillero on the matador's left hand.
-
-"Here, Alfonso Robledo," he said quite loudly. "Drink this narcotic, and
-you will sleep like a babe. It is only fine old brandy with a pinch of
-opium."
-
-It was just the mild form of opiate Morales craved. Ferou looked over at
-the matador with the words. He was tormenting Morales with the
-afflictions of a Tantalus. He went down the lane between the platforms,
-most solicitously dosing each sufferer in turn.
-
-Behind the Frenchman's back, surreptitiously, the banderillero Alfonso
-Robledo proffered his opiate to Morales. Morales shook his head.
-
-"I thank you a thousand times, my son," he said in a feeble husky
-whisper; "but it is not right that I should rob you of that which your
-debilitated system needs. We are both sick men."
-
-"But I am recovering, growing stronger hourly. Maestro, you have just
-slapped down!" The banderillero became quietly yet earnestly
-impassioned. "Ah, it breaks my heart to see my brave espada so weak! I
-want to help. Should you die through sacrifice to me, I will not care to
-live! I am only a peon of your cuadrilla; you are the great matador. My
-loss will not be felt! Take it, take it, please, Don Manuel of my soul!"
-
-Morales hesitated. But only for a trice.
-
-"No," he decided with heroic stubbornness. "This Frenchman can't have
-so black a heart. Seguramente, no! He is but teasing me to test my
-caliber. If I must, rather than rob you, Alfonso, I shall pay the hawk!"
-
-"Eh?" broke in the thin nasal voice of Ferou. Unaware, he had returned
-and overheard Morales' words. "And you have changed your mind, Don
-Manuel? You are willing to pay? That is good! Now let me see; what was
-it you wanted?"
-
-"I think your joke a little cruel, Senor Ferou. I would have you give me
-a mild opiate."
-
-"Ah, yes; brandy and an opium pill. That will cost you now just one
-thousand pesetas! This wait, which you think such a cruel joke, Monsenor
-Morales, has cost you precisely five hundred pesetas more!"
-
-The man was altogether inhuman.
-
-"You hawk, you vulture of the slime, you blood-leech!" execrated Morales
-in a furious voice that shook through his lungs like a hoarse wind. "I
-shall rot in hell before ever I put one centesimo into your filthy
-claws!"
-
-The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders. His face was stiff and livid with
-restrained bile.
-
-"I leave you now, Don Manuel," he said with acid politeness, "to visit
-that other Eldorado, Senor Carson. Perhaps mon Americain won't think so
-much of his peseta bills. And who knows? Perhaps the great espada will
-also change his mind by the time I return!"
-
-At the door, he turned and called out bitingly to the two sullen
-serranos:
-
-"You will see, mis paisanos, that Monsenor Morales, who burned your
-dead, will want for everything and get nothing! When he changes his
-mind, one of you may come for me!"
-
-He smiled toward Morales his peculiar aggravating smile; then, twisting
-the spikes of his straw mustache, swaggered out the doorway.
-
-There was a soft thud up near the altar at the end of one platform. The
-mountain boy, Gabriel, had rolled off upon the ground. On discolored
-hands and knees quaking from the disease, he came creeping with stealthy
-quietude and laborious feebleness down the passageway. Half-tilted
-between rigid teeth, he held a tin cup containing a preparation in wine
-of powdered aromatic chalk.
-
-He had achieved half the length of the runway when, on the sudden, one
-of the serranos discovered him. The fellow roughly swung the boy up
-under one arm. The contents of the tin cup was spilled. The boy began a
-frenzied squirming and kicking. In a tumult of febrile revolt and
-piteous pleading, he wailed:
-
-"Let me go, let me go to him--to Don Manuel of my heart! He is good, he
-is brave, he is like the very God Himself! He is sick only because he
-helped me and the knife slipped! Ah, Diego Lerida, I have known you
-since I was born. Won't you let me go, won't you let me give him
-something to ease the pain? He did the same for the wife of you, ere the
-good Dios called her. Only a little chalk, Tio Diego, only a little
-chalk and wine.
-
-"No? You won't let me go! Then may Satanas claim you for a gnat of a
-dunghill--you and all your vile spawn! And may the Christ and His
-Compassionate Mother bring hope and health to my own brave espada--"
-
-Came a hoarse shout from Morales: "Hola, my brave little golden one! I
-drink to you, Gabriellito!"
-
-And accepting the lesser of the two sacrifices, Morales lifted from
-between the banderillero and himself the cup containing the partly
-finished brandy, and quaffed it down in one great draught.
-
-He was none too soon. With an oath of commingled surprise, anger and
-dismay, the second serrano leaped forward and lunged at the matador. He
-only succeeded in knocking the empty cup from Morales' hand.
-
-Save then for the feverish Quesada and those who slept under the
-influence of narcotics or the cold pall of death, the whole sick bay
-chortled with nightmare hoarseness at the frustrated and suddenly
-apprehensive serranos.
-
-The hours snailed by. While Manuel Morales tossed and mumbled in painful
-slumber, the mountain boy watched him steadily from down the lane of
-blanketed figures. There was in his unblinking, deep-socketed eyes that
-highest emotion one can exercise toward another human being. Morales had
-called him his dorado, his brave little golden one! In his eyes was a
-reverence that amounted to venerating love, wistful adoration!
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXX
-
-
-It was a strangely assorted trio. Over the lip of the great rock on the
-brink of the village of Minas de la Sierra extended the athletic
-shoulders and sharp ashy face of Jacques Ferou, lying flat on his
-stomach. Below in the gorge at the foot of the corkscrew goat path,
-straining their necks backward and looking up, were the two Guardias
-Civiles, Pascual Montara and Sergeant Esteban Alvarado. All three were
-deeply absorbed in a distance-spanning conversation.
-
-"That Americain lied!" the Frenchman was shouting down with heated
-earnestness. "Jacinto Quesada is himself in this village. He has been
-sick with the great illness and with a mad fever, too; but this morning
-his head is once more his own, and he is repairing rapidly in strength.
-He is here, I tell you!"
-
-"Muy bueno!" shouted back the old sergeant with glad resolution. "We
-will come up for him immediately!"
-
-"Non, non, mi sargento! There is the pestilence to fear, and there is
-also my revolver which barks no, no!"
-
-"What would you, then?" asked sullenly that apelike one, Montara.
-
-Now, so thoroughly were the trio engrossed in the matter of words, that
-their minds were completely monopolized and all other perceptions were
-excluded from their senses. They did not hear the clatter of a horse's
-hoofs approaching up the gorge. When that clatter abruptly ceased, their
-unheeding ears received no sensation of change or difference.
-
-They did not know that, five yards behind the policeman, concealed from
-above by the leafy branches of pines and alders and from the guardsmen
-ahead by a thick underwood of tall buckthorn and entangled genista, a
-horseman had halted and now, leaning his two hands upon the pommel of
-the saddle, was observing them attentively.
-
-He was quite a rememberable-looking man. His hair was white; his skin
-from exposure to wind and weather was a deep swarth; and his eyes were
-gray. Not many Spaniards have gray eyes. The eyes of Don Jaime de
-Torreblanca y Moncada were a clear, cold, agate-gray. All in all, there
-was about his appearance, especially the long aquiline nose, the stony
-eyes and pointed white beard, something which seemed to hearken back to
-the days of ruffs and ready swords--the days of the terrible Spanish
-infantry, the Armada, the Bigotes, the "Bearded Men," the
-Conquistadores.
-
-He strained his eyes through the greeny plait above him. Suddenly, as he
-glimpsed the man sprawled on the great rock, his narrow face blanched as
-if gutted of blood; a look of savage ferocity leaped into his eyes; and
-his hand strayed back to the heavy horse pistol slung from the saddle.
-
-But abruptly his reaching hand stopped. A few random words of the trio's
-conversation had impinged upon his ears and aroused his curiosity.
-
-"There is something foul going forward here!" he breathed vehemently. "I
-shall listen. Of what use to snap off the snake's head, now and
-impetuously? Let him bare his fangs. With cold patience, even as the
-Christ waits for his Judgment Day, I will wait for my moment of
-vengeance on this creature!"
-
-Don Jaime was a grandee of Spain, one entitled to wear his hat in the
-presence of his monarch. Well now, as he applied his ear to the
-conversation, his stony eyes filled with a profundity of contempt that
-none but a grandee could plumb. Carajo! this was no ordinary
-conversation he was overhearing. It was the bartering for money of the
-living body of a man!
-
-Shouted down Ferou, repeating the last question of Montara:
-
-"What would I, what would I have you do? Oh, a very little, monsenores
-policemen--I would merely have you attend to the simple matter of my
-reward. I will do all the rest. For the reward, I will deliver Quesada
-up to you--I will deliver him walking upon his own two legs, so you will
-not have to touch his infectious clothes. It is good, what? And you will
-give me the reward of ten thousand pesetas, eh?"
-
-"When you have done all that you say you will do," returned the old
-sergeant, sternly noncommittal, "then, and not before, shall you have
-earned the ten thousand pesetas. But you need have no fears for the
-money! When I shoot down this sacrilegious swollen toad of a Quesada, I
-shall make my report to headquarters at Getafe. Your name--"
-
-"It is Jacques Ferou."
-
-"I will remember, Senor Don Jacques Ferou. You shall be given all due
-credit. In two weeks' time from the day you deliver Jacinto Quesada to
-us, you can collect the reward by presenting yourself at Getafe. Most
-certainly, Spain shall consider herself the best off in the bargain!"
-
-"Tres bien!" exclaimed the Frenchman, lapsing with emotion into his
-native tongue; then recovering: "It is good. I agree."
-
-"When may we expect you with the heretical dog?" asked Montara.
-
-"To-morrow at noon. When this great rock is hot with midday glare, I
-will force him out here, my gun nuzzling his back. You policemen can
-shoot him from below."
-
-Vigorously the old sergeant nodded his polished tricorn hat.
-
-"Muy bueno!" he approved heartily. Then in adieu: "Go thou thy way with
-God!"
-
-"Always at the feet of the Guardia Civil who keep the peace of Spain,"
-ended the man on the rock, after the fashion of Spanish courtesy. He
-withdrew from view, thereupon, much as a turtle's head withdraws from
-view between its carapax and plastron shells.
-
-Don Jaime crashed his rawboned old horse through the tall buckthorn and
-entangled genista.
-
-"Alto a la Guardia Civil!" thundered Montara, springing back and jerking
-his carbine to his shoulder.
-
-"Down, you apelike one!" commanded the aged sergeant. "Can't you see? It
-is the hidalgo doctor, Don Jaime de Torreblanca y Moncada!" And he swept
-his tricorn hat off his close-clipped white head.
-
-Don Jaime reined in his horse to a quick stop. He disdained altogether
-the mortified Montara. He looked down at the bared white head, the
-knife-sharp white beard, and the lean and haughty face of the aged
-sergeant.
-
-It was, then, as if he looked down upon a singular edition of himself.
-Don Jaime was a grandee by birth and breeding, and these things amount
-in Spain; but the old sergeant was no less grand with adamantine
-adhesion to principle, with eagle-sternness and eagle-haughtiness. They
-eyed each other with mutual recognition and respect. They were both of
-the same old Spanish imperial school, unforgiving of injury, inexorable
-to avenge.
-
-Said the doctor, "Peace be to you, mi sargento."
-
-"And to you peace, Don Jaime of my soul."
-
-"But what is this scheme I hear you hatching?"
-
-"It is a way we have of keeping the peace of Spain."
-
-"Cannot you drag down the Wolf-Cub without the aid of this blood-hound,
-Ferou?"
-
-"We of the Guardia Civil are not podencos that can drag down the Wolf in
-the open. Senor Don Dios! we have tried and each time failed!"
-
-"But the man Ferou is a human leech! Oh, I overheard your secret talk. I
-tell you, the Frenchman sucks life-blood for money!"
-
-"It is thief catch thief, Don Jaime. The Wolf-Cub, Quesada, is a cancer
-in the side of Spain. And Spain must be healed. We will loose the leech
-to suck this evil cancer from the side of Spain!"
-
-"You are hatching a snake's egg, mi gran caballero. The fruit of it
-shall stink in the nostrils of all brave Moors! You may take your oath
-on that, Don Esteban! I for one will be no party to it!"
-
-"No lo quiera Dios! God forbid, proud Torreblanca y Moncada, that we of
-the police should expect your aid! You have a higher call. Up in Minas
-de la Sierra, there is wailing and much sickness--ah, so many men have
-slapped under and died, and so many more suffer in earthly purgatory!"
-
-"Sea como Dios quiera!" muttered Don Jaime. "God's will be done!"
-
-The sergeant looked up at him, old eyes alive with strange fervor.
-
-"They say of you, Don Jaime--si, and of me, too!--that we have granite
-boulders for hearts. But I know. Arrogante Torreblanca y Moncada is very
-tender with the sick. He has hands of gold for calling one back to life
-and for closing softly the lids of the dying. Vaya, mi gran hidalgo
-doctor! Go thou in the companionship of the sublime Christ and Mary, the
-All Compassionate!"
-
-He stepped to one side. Don Jaime bade him a courteous adieu. Then, with
-all the hauteur of one riding an Arabian barb, sitting rigid in the
-saddle, the senor doctor loped his rawboned old nag up the winding goat
-path toward the barrio.
-
-The policeman looked after him. Pascual Montara chewed fiercely the
-ends of his black mustache. He muttered:
-
-"To-morrow at noon. When that great rock is hot with midday glare, this
-hombre Jacques Ferou will force the Sacrilegious One out upon the
-brink."
-
-"Carajo, yes!" grimly agreed the old sergeant. "And we of the Guardia
-Civil will shoot him from below!"
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXI
-
-
-A man wasted from disease sat, all this while, in the morning sunlight
-on a chair tilted back against one whitewashed wall of the village
-chapel. His young haggard face was screwed up, and he frowned through
-Moorish amber eyes toward where, some distance below, the Frenchman
-sprawled on the great rock at the brink of the village. He could not
-account for the unseemly posture and gesticulating hands and head of the
-Frenchman.
-
-No word of Ferou's bartering reached him. He lacked even one clue to the
-strange and absorbing business going forward. He did not know that the
-waiting members of the Guardia Civil had advanced up the gorge and now,
-out of sight, down at the foot of the goat path, were making
-cold-blooded arrangement with the Frenchman for the delivery of his own
-living body!
-
-Quesada lacked the strength which would urge him boldly to investigate.
-And he was too weak to concentrate his mind, for any length of time, on
-an apparently unsolvable problem. He shrugged aside his perplexity,
-after a little, and sunk back into that trick of strategic plotting so
-natural to the feeble in body but strong in spirit.
-
-Twisting his head about, he looked through the doorway into the
-hospital. Within, in that fetid moaning place where lay the sick
-Morales, there were no attending serranos; they had finished their
-rounds for the nonce. Below on the great rock, the engrossing and
-unaccountable business had every appearance of engaging Ferou for some
-time. The way was clear.
-
-Quesada thumped down his tilted chair and walked on weakly rickety legs
-to where, near the cork-oak tree in the center of the uneven street, a
-number of the villagers were brewing a puchero in a great iron pot.
-
-"Come, mis paisanos!" he said in a voice surprisingly commanding for one
-so enervated from disease. "Ladle out to me a bowl of the stew."
-
-"We have no orders to refuse you, Don Jacinto," answered one of the men
-obsequiously. "We only mind that Morales and the Americano should get
-none."
-
-The bandolero snorted, but held his peace. He took the steaming earthen
-bowl proffered him; then quaking like one palsied, exerting a deal of
-effort so as not to spill a drop of the precious haricot, he slowly
-retraced his steps toward the sick bay.
-
-Here he glanced back over one shoulder. The serranos had returned to the
-business of stirring the puchero; they were not watching him. In he
-staggered, through the chapel doorway, to share the soup of the stew
-with the sick matador, Manuel Morales.
-
-Minutes clicked by--a good ten minutes.
-
-Within the cabana where Carson convalesced, Felicidad was sitting in a
-chair at the American's bedside, her golden head nodding with
-drowsiness, when the _blut_ of approaching feet on the earthen floor
-startled her into alertness. She saw the slim gray-suited form of the
-Frenchman darkening the doorway. Her blue eyes widened and filled with
-apprehension and deep abhorrence. She shuddered involuntarily and shrunk
-back in the chair.
-
-But Ferou only bowed in mock respect.
-
-"Senor Carson," he addressed the American, "my serranos are stewing, out
-in the street, a fine savory ragout of meat and lentils. Would you care
-for some of the soup? It would be very strength-giving."
-
-Carson, his angular hollow-cheeked face white as the pillow pressed
-about it, made no answering movement of head or mouth. With eyes
-deep-sunken and chilly blue as high mountain lakes, he looked up at the
-Frenchman unblinkingly.
-
-"It will be very simple, monsenor," continued Ferou suavely, the hard
-lines deepening about his mouth in a grim smile. "All you have to do is
-to give me one of your five-thousand peseta bills! Since yesterday, the
-price of lentils and meat has soared on these mountains. But to you who
-are so rich, that is no importa. Only five thousand pesetas for a bowl
-of soup!"
-
-All at once, like an unexpectedly loosed avalanche, the girl was on her
-feet, her blue eyes coldly ablaze like points of steel.
-
-"You--you thief! You know he has left only one bill of five thousand
-pesetas! You have taken all the others! Oh, you rapacious hawk, you
-vile, vile vulture!" she cried out, shuddering with horrid remembrance
-and a sudden increase of detestation. "You would rob him of his all,
-everything! You would have him end his days in want and misery, just
-like the pobre padre of me!"
-
-The Frenchman did not wither beneath her scorn. He shoved his sharp
-blond head nearer her. And his face livid with stirred-up bile, his
-slate-colored eyes narrowed to mere blazing slits, he bared his long
-white teeth in a passionate carnivorous snarl of envenomed hate.
-
-"You baggage, you treacherous snake! I'll show you what! When I get done
-my work in this barrio, you'll go with me. Mon Dieu, I'll show you how
-an Apache Parisien treats one such as you!"
-
-The movement was unexpected. Sudden as the sweep of a hawk, he bent his
-tall athletic body forward sharply and made a grab at her wrist!
-
-She recoiled from him. The nostrils of his high predatory nose twitching
-and working, his whole ashy face working and grimacing with fury like a
-horrible mask of rubber, he leaped after her. She sidled along the edge
-of the bed. Trembling in every limb like a terrorized doe, she retreated
-out the doorway.
-
-Bent sharply forward, bounding from spot to spot like a leopard, the
-Frenchman followed.
-
-The American attempted to lift his head from the pillow. He fell back
-like a load of lead. He worked his hands together and groaned aloud at
-his helplessness.
-
-Came a sudden clatter of horse's hoofs out in the village; then the loud
-shaking voice of a man:
-
-"Alto! Halt, you nameless wench! You have soiled my honor, profaned my
-name, defiled my blood! Heart of God, you must die!"
-
-It was not the voice of the Frenchman. It was the voice of Don Jaime de
-Torreblanca y Moncada. The terrible doctor had come!
-
-Sitting stark upright upon his horse on the great rock at the brink of
-the village, his narrow face a cinder-gray, Don Jaime was leveling his
-huge horse-pistol at the backing form of the golden-haired girl!
-
-"Ha!" exclaimed the Frenchman, his eyes lighting up like sunlight on
-ice, his grimacing face wreathing into an outrageous smile. "It is the
-haughty hidalgo come to wipe out his dishonor in the blood of ma chérie
-Felicidad!"
-
-With a laugh that was worse than brutal, that was pitiless and fiendish
-at such a time, he sprung back into the dark shelter of the doorway.
-
-The frail slip of a girl was left, unaided and alone, to face the
-avenger.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXII
-
-
-Attracted by the vibrant loud outcry of the terrible doctor, Jacinto
-Quesada put down the earthen bowl of stew, left the bedside of the sick
-Morales, and showed himself in the doorway of the hospital. With
-weakness his rickety legs tottered under him; with weakness the world
-reeled and swam before his eyes. He shaded his eyes with a pale and
-unsteady hand and peered out into the cold sunlight.
-
-He understood the threat. Down at the end of the uneven street, on the
-great rock at the brink of the village, bulked Calamity on horseback!
-
-Quesada clutched at the jamb of the door. Shaking like a tag of paper in
-an ugly wind, for an intolerable moment he clung there. Then all at
-once, in a blind broken-legged stagger, out into the street he lurched.
-
-With every leaden stride, he seemed to gather to his need what scattered
-rags and tatters of strength he yet possessed. His legs straightened
-under him somewhat; his heavy toppling shoulders came up.
-
-On the sudden, he slewed completely round. Back the way he had come,
-back toward the sick bay, he pitched.
-
-But again and all on a sudden, he halted. He threw his arms aloft, he
-lifted drawn face to the cold gray sky. Hoarsely he cried out:
-
-"Give me strength! Senor Don Dios, give me strength to do that which I
-now must do!"
-
-On he sped back toward the hospital. And his feet pounded down and up,
-down and up without infirmity, without numb and leaden shuffle. Gone
-were the staggering lurch, the sagging shoulders, the rolling giddying
-head. Gone utterly all the various stigmata of disease-engendered
-weakness!
-
-He was like a man who, suddenly overwhelmed by an ocean of water, casts
-off his clogging garments and strikes out nimbly and heartily. He was
-altogether a new man, agile to move, galvanically energized. He was
-mighty with an unwonted strength.
-
-It was not a body strength. It was a strength above body strength, a
-strength beyond body strength. It was that strength secreted deep down
-but seldom drawn upon, that strength which lifts some men up and steels
-them to their endeavors in moments of prodigious stress. It was that
-epic strength which makes of weaklings, cold-eyed and high-handed
-heroes!
-
-Something must be done to thwart the granite will of the implacable Don
-Jaime. There was need for a man. There was no time to lose.
-
-Quick as an ape, Quesada bounded through the hospital doorway. Down the
-runway between the platforms and the dying men, he dashed. At the end of
-the smelly place, near the dingy altar, he halted. There, on the slant
-of the pine slabs, lay the disease-wasted form of little Gabriel, the
-mountain boy.
-
-He bent over the pitifully sick child. Carefully, round and round the
-puny little body, he swathed the tossed and crumpled blanket. Then up in
-his two arms he lifted the blanketed boy and bore him back along the
-runway, out the hospital door.
-
-The child rested his head like an infant in Quesada's neck; he raised to
-the gaunt face of the bandolero, two dull and feebly wondering eyes. A
-great pity smote Quesada. Convulsively his arms tightened about the boy.
-He felt suddenly weak, almost unmanned. For the moment he could not
-continue on.
-
-He put his mouth close to the cradled head of the boy.
-
-"Ah, forgive me, nino of my soul!" he whispered fervently. "I do not
-desire to be brutal. I desire only to save our good Felicidad from cruel
-death at her father's hands."
-
-Gabriel smuggled his arm about the bandolero's neck. It was a mute but
-trustful answer. Quesada looked over one shoulder to call back through
-the doorway:
-
-"Alfonso Robledo! You can walk. Lend a hand here, man! Follow me!"
-
-Then down the long uneven street he ran, the blanketed form of Gabriel
-borne before him in his tight but tender arms.
-
-Everything was happening with breathless velocity, in a rush, in hardly
-an appreciable flicker of time.
-
-As Quesada went by, from deep in the shadowy doorways of their cabanas,
-the mountaineers of Minas de la Sierra peered forth at him. They were
-like so many beady-eyed lizards in so many dark crevices. At the first
-rustle of danger they had hid themselves.
-
-No sound came from the huts. But once Quesada had put them behind two by
-two, there breathed up, from each cabana, an aghast whisper:
-
-"Ah, God in Heaven! There goes Jacinto Quesada, and our own little
-Gabriel in the two brave arms of him! And Alfonso--Alfonso Robledo
-tottering after! What would they? Turn the hidalgo doctor from his
-terrible purpose? Ave Maria Purissima!"
-
-Where trivial anxieties talk and gesticulate, there great anxieties
-stand dumb and make no sign.
-
-Thus with the two principals in the on-sweeping tragedy. Mute and
-motionless as boulders of basalt, they stood transfixed against that
-steely background of cold sky and glacial desolate mountains--the one
-bulking high on horseback like some black-browed Destroying Angel, the
-other petrified below him in the street, a pale flower of a girl.
-
-They did not hear the whispers from the cabanas, those whispers that
-were like the murmurings which come with the inchoation of a great storm
-or an earthquake. They did not see Quesada swinging fast down the
-street, the blanketed form of Gabriel in his arms and the sick
-bullfighter, swathed Indian-like in another blanket, lurching and
-tottering behind him. They had ears and eyes only for the grim and
-calamitous business at hand.
-
-Poor Felicidad! For a long unendurable interval, stupefied by the shock
-of the hidalgo's sudden coming, she stood terrorized and iced with
-dismay. Then the appalling desperation of her extremity struck home to
-her. A violent tremor shook through her ivory and gold form, her
-strength ebbed away, her knees gave under her, and she began to fall.
-
-But no! Out of her memory leaped like scalding vitriol the words with
-which Don Jaime had greeted her.
-
-"Halt, you nameless wench!"
-
-And, from deep in her being, rushed forth to hearten and uphold her a
-new, surprising reserve of strength and courage. With an unconscious but
-fine little movement of hauteur, she drew herself erect.
-
-He had called her a nameless wench. Well, she would show this harsh
-hidalgo there was blood and pride in her yet. She would show him she
-knew how to die bravely, proudly--aye, in a manner wholly befitting a
-Torreblanca y Moncada!
-
-The golden head, that was so rare in one Castilian, lifted up. Up she
-gazed at the avenger out of fearless and scornful blue eyes.
-
-For a vehement moment, an emphatic quivering trice, over the long
-glittering barrel of the horse-pistol, Don Jaime answered her gaze.
-
-Za, he knew the jade! She had soiled his honor, profaned his name,
-defiled his blood! She had run off with a creature who had no more
-decency than to rob the father of all his money, while he stole from him
-also his only child! Name of God! how he despised her!
-
-Like was he, then, to that morose and vindictive Jehovah of the ancient
-Jews. His hand tightened on the heavy butt. There was, in the cold
-stillness, the sharp click of an old-fashioned pistol being cocked!
-
-Harshly the sound cracked against the ears of Jacinto Quesada. His
-running body lurched forward in a desperate spurt. He stumbled against
-the startled nag. He held up in his arms to the doctor the blanketed
-form of Gabriel. And hoarsely he cried out:
-
-"God forbid, Don Jaime! Wait--for the love of Our Lady of Pity, wait!
-You are a physician, and we are sick here. We are sick with the dread
-cholera, sick unto death. Your first duty is to us. You must help us. We
-need you, urgently, woefully--"
-
-Again everything was happening with breathless velocity, in a rush, in
-hardly an appreciable flicker of time. Quesada's voice rose almost to a
-scream:
-
-"Turn your eyes upon this dying boy, Torreblanca y Moncada! Look at the
-glassy eyes, the deep eye pits! Look at the cheek bones bursting through
-the paper-dry skin! Have pity on him, Don Jaime. Eleven years old,
-innocent as a babe at the breast, and yet wrinkled and wan and all
-crumpled in a heap like a disease-riddled old man!
-
-"Ah, Blood of Christ, Don Jaime, you are no Barbary savage to turn away
-from the outreaching hands of a dying child! You are a priest of the
-body, a servant of mankind! Your first duty is to this mortally sick
-child, to all the mortally sick in this village. After that, if you
-must, you may kill!"
-
-Quesada trembled violently with the ardor and hunger of his entreaty.
-The dark-eyed, pasty-faced Gabriel shook in his uplifted arms like a
-poor played-out doll of rags. An end of the blanket slipped from about
-the boy's shoulder, dragged free from him, fell in a heap upon the rock.
-Aloft to the doctor, Quesada held the little fellow stark naked in the
-full light of day!
-
-Quesada fell to his knees, clawed frantically for the blanket. The child
-lifted slow deep-sunken eyes to the stony eyes of the grandee, as if
-dimly wondering what it was all about.
-
-Quesada raised one end of the blanket to enwrap the boy, then suddenly
-hesitated. He had appealed to the honor of the physician. Well he knew
-how dear was that professional honor to Don Jaime!
-
-Don Jaime was the sort of physician who looks upon his business of
-serving the ailing as a sacred commission from on high. He was like one
-who had taken Holy Orders with his doctor's degree. No Jesuit was more
-slave to his oaths; no Jesuit worked with more zeal for God and the
-Society than did Don Jaime for Humanity and Science.
-
-Quesada thought, now, to essay farther. With the little fellow standing
-upon his own reedlike legs and clinging desperately to him, the
-bandolero lifted his gaunt face to the granite face of the hidalgo. In a
-low patient voice, he said:
-
-"Would you let this poor child endure all the agonies of purgatory and
-wretchedly die, while you carry out your cruel scheme of vengeance? Look
-at him, Don Jaime! Give heed to the legs that are like walking-sticks,
-the poor thin wrists, the bony little neck, the body limp as a soaking
-dish towel!
-
-"Have pity on him, Don Jaime--you who know what it is to suffer! The
-Senor Don Dios has been far more cruel to him than ever He has been to
-you! Not a month gone. He took the child's widowed mother from him; she
-was one of the first to be claimed by the plague. Now the poor baby is
-all alone in the world!"
-
-Quesada swathed the boy in the blanket. Cradling him tenderly in his
-arms, he got quietly to his feet. He waited.
-
-Don Jaime hesitated. The horse-pistol shook violently in his hand. His
-agate eyes softened.
-
-Then, all at once, an appalling change swept over Don Jaime. Deep in the
-crypts and catacombs of his brain, old rankling memories stirred--old
-painful and dolorous memories got up, and walked about, and paraded back
-and forth in somber procession. He could have screamed, so tortured was
-he that moment!
-
-Why should he, the grievously outraged one, show pity? Why should he
-turn aside from his scheme of vengeance to succor this dying child,
-these wretched people? Once before had he been robbed when he sought
-revenge for a mortal wrong. This jade's mother had run off with a gypsy
-picador. And though the hand of God had intervened in that elopement as
-a sublime instrument of vengeance, always had he regretted, through the
-dreary and bitter years, that his own hand had not slain the mother of
-Felicidad.
-
-Not another time would he suffer himself to be turned aside. He was like
-that awful Jehovah of the Jews! He would be revenged up to the hilt,
-paid back in full!
-
-He tore his eyes from the piteous face of the boy Gabriel. He freshened
-his grip on the horse-pistol, lifted it up. Slowly over the level of it
-he eyed the waiting girl.
-
-Rose suddenly a shout from Quesada:
-
-"Take the boy away, Alfonso Robledo! He is only a peasant's sniveling
-cub, a mountaineer's orphan brat! What cares the grandee of Spain for
-our little Gabriel? Take him away; the hidalgo Don Jaime will have none
-of him! Let him die!"
-
-Robledo tottered forward. He took the blanketed child in his arms.
-Turning about, slowly back toward the hospital he made.
-
-Quesada lifted his haggard face. With a contempt biting and goading in
-its virulence, he cried:
-
-"Proceed, proud Torreblanca y Moncada! You have your high knightly honor
-to defend, your name and blood to purge! Shoot!"
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXIII
-
-
-Now it may have been because of the miraculous interposition of the
-Espiritu Santo, or it may have been by reason of the sudden and brutal
-exposure; but all at once, as he was borne away in the arms of Robledo,
-the boy Gabriel took an abrupt turn for the worse--a cruel cramping fit
-seized him in its formidable vise!
-
-Violent spasms shook and threw him about like a tossed beanbag; his
-teeth clenched together with the paralysis of lockjaw; his legs and arms
-knotted up and flung out again as if they would tear themselves apart
-from his body. All in a trice, and ere Robledo could prevent, he writhed
-out of the bullfighter's grasp and fell rolling and squirming upon the
-ground, his fingers clawing at the yellow earth.
-
-Blind to everything else, screaming his fear and horror, Quesada leaped
-toward him. But some one bulked before the bandolero, blocked his way,
-dashed head-bent for the boy's side.
-
-That some one held in his hand an instrument of gleaming silver,
-needle-sharp at one end. He dropped to his knees beside the pitifully
-contorted Gabriel. He shoved the needle point into the boy's knotted arm
-above the wrist; gave it a quick jab. That some one was the hidalgo
-doctor, Don Jaime!
-
-Once the hypodermic injection acted on the spinal cord and the medulla
-oblongata, the spasms would be checked, quieted, allayed. But there
-must be a circulation of blood. Too slow, altogether too slow, was the
-blood trickling through the lad's veins. He was sinking fast.
-
-With swift harsh hands, Don Jaime rubbed desperately the boy's arms,
-legs and spine. But Gabriel's pulse was dying; rapidly his skin was
-turning to a blue tinge; like dew chilling to frost, the surface of his
-body was freezing icily. The injection of morphia failed to impact on
-the nerve centers. It was without effect.
-
-On a sudden the little fellow kicked out, then lay rigid as one who
-stiffens in the petrifying clutch of death. All the breath had fled his
-nostrils. He was in the asphyxial stage of the cholera.
-
-Don Jaime, kneeling beside the collapsed form, tore with his harsh hands
-at jaw and brow to force open the vised mouth. Between the boy's
-clenching teeth, he wedged the blunt end of the silver syringe. Then he
-strove to force air into the sunken empty lungs. He strove brusquely yet
-carefully, as one strives over a drowning man. He lifted the reedlike
-arms above the boy's head, then back to his sides and up again.
-
-He worked feverishly, he worked heroically. He reached for the black
-leather box he had thrown behind him. The broken straps on that box
-showed where it had been torn with sudden violence from the cantle of
-his saddle.
-
-Quesada hastened to aid his groping hand. He picked up the box and held
-it open.
-
-"Ammonia!" snapped the doctor. "Hold it to his nose!"
-
-Quesada withdrew from the box a labeled blue bottle. As Don Jaime worked
-the puny arms up and down with a certain circumspect precision, Quesada
-held the pungent salts beneath the slightly fluttering nostrils.
-
-"Build a fire! Heat water!" Don Jaime exploded, never ceasing his
-labors. "Quick! We must give the boy a hot bath to circulate the blood
-and save him from dying!"
-
-"We have a fire going night and day," returned Quesada. "We have only to
-remove the heated stones to the bathing pool."
-
-"Where is it, this pool? Lead the way!"
-
-The haughty doctor leaped afoot. He had no thought but for the urgent
-business at hand. He was a thrall to grim and importunate necessity.
-Even as his personal honor was to him more precious than life, so was
-his physician's honor a covenant with Jehovah, tyrannical and imperious
-to command him.
-
-Quesada, flinging his rickety legs wide apart, went swaying and
-floundering up the uneven street. Don Jaime followed after the
-bandolero, the little Gabriel in his own hidalgo arms.
-
-The heat of the bath circulated the lad's blood. By slow degrees, he
-drew out of the chill collapse. Don Jaime wrapped him snug in a blanket.
-Once again, in his own hidalgo arms, the grandee doctor carried the boy
-back to the sick bay.
-
-As he entered that fetid moaning place, a kind of shiver trembled
-through Don Jaime. He made along the runway between the platforms of
-tossing, groaning, and emaciated sick, his gray eyes darting from side
-to side. At the upper end of the chapel, near the dingy altar, he laid
-the boy down.
-
-What of the hot bath and resultant circulation of blood, the injection
-of morphia was now at last achieving its purpose. No sooner had the poor
-lad touched the pine slabs than he passed blissfully into the dwelling
-place of sleep.
-
-Don Jaime looked down the two platforms of blanketed sick. Slowly and
-gloomily he shook his white head. He turned to Quesada following doglike
-after him. His narrow face was a cinder-gray.
-
-"You have spoken aright, son of a mangy she-wolf," he said. "I came nigh
-to forgetting my duty. I am a priest of the body. My first duty is to
-the suffering and dying here! After that--"
-
-He paused ominously. He looked about as if in search of something. Of a
-sudden his roving eyes became focused, riveted; they flashed like
-cressets of fire. Through the hospital doorway, out into the cold
-sunlight he gazed.
-
-He saw Felicidad down the village street. From the spell of terror and
-despair she was only then recovering. She glanced quickly about her. It
-was as if she had been away on a long journey and was astounded now to
-find everything as it had been before. She shuddered visibly like one
-starting to life who had been dead for intolerable moments.
-
-Lip quivering but head held with a quiet proud demeanor, she turned
-toward the cabana wherein the American lay. As she entered the low
-doorway Jacques Ferou, lurking in the dark, sidled past her and out.
-
-The Frenchman's whole malignant soul was bunched and crouched in his
-eyes. He threw after the golden form of the girl a look searing and
-blasting. It was as if, now that the vengeance of the hidalgo had failed
-him, he would kill the girl himself with that one glare from his slaty
-eyes.
-
-Don Jaime's lips clicked together. Looking piercingly through the
-doorway, his agate eyes lunged like sharp knives at the venomous
-Frenchman and the white trembling girl. In a voice chill as a glacial
-wind, he spoke.
-
-"After I have fulfilled here my duty to the sick," he said--"after that,
-by the Life, I slay!"
-
-He would say no more. His lips tightened into a line thin and grim as if
-chiseled in stone.
-
-He went down and up the line of platforms, dosing each sufferer in turn.
-To some he gave stimulants and astringents; to those in the more severe
-stages of the disease, he doled out opiates.
-
-He went from cabana to choza outside, bringing brandy and nutritive food
-to the convalescing. He was leaving the choza of one villager when
-Quesada, dogging his steps, plucked him by the sleeve.
-
-"You have seen, senor don hidalgo?" asked the bandolero. "The Frenchman
-Ferou is up here, also."
-
-"I know," nodded Don Jaime austerely. "He is wherever trouble is. He is
-the scum that gathers where things are filthy, an abomination to be
-squashed under the heel! Za!" he ended, with profound loathing. "He is a
-human leech!"
-
-Quickly then, as they approached the next cabana, he related with
-characteristic frankness and bitter contempt, all he had seen and heard
-that morning in the gorge at the foot of the goat path.
-
-Quesada showed little surprise. What could one expect from the French
-vulture!
-
-But what did surprise him not a little was to find, upon putting his
-hand inside his sheepskin zamarra, that the small mahogany-colored
-leather purse of the doctor was no longer there. Carajo! what had become
-of the purse and money of Don Jaime?
-
-"It is that Frenchman!" he quickly surmised. "Don Jaime, he has stolen
-your money for a second time! I took the purse from him in that affair
-of the Seville-to-Madrid; I was holding all those five thousand peseta
-bills for you, my senor doctor; but while I was down sick and knew
-nothing, the French ferret must have gone through my pockets!"
-
-Don Jaime only grunted.
-
-They entered the obscurity of the next cabana. Within, Felicidad was
-sitting at the bedside of the convalescing American, explaining all that
-had occurred. At their appearance, she abruptly quieted.
-
-Pointing to the American upon the leaf-stuffed couch, Quesada explained
-in a few sketchy sentences just who Carson was and all he had done. Then
-the bandolero told how Ferou had charged Carson for the medicines so
-vital to his recovery and even for the bare necessities of life.
-
-"The Frenchman is a plunderer, an extortioner, Don Jaime. He charged
-prices, exorbitant prices. He robbed this man of all his ready money.
-Senor Don Dios, it was outrageous, detestable! There was no need of
-prices; the man was down on his back, helpless, well-nigh dead; there
-was no need of prices of any kind. But what could we do? In all the
-barrio, Ferou was the only one armed."
-
-The hidalgo doctor lifted Carson's heavy hand to feel his pulse. He said
-no word. He never once looked toward Felicidad who had arisen to her
-feet and stepped to one side.
-
-Yet Quesada knew. In this expose of Ferou's execrable character, it was
-plain by comparison that the Frenchman had artfully cajoled Felicidad
-and then used her as a cat's-paw to pluck golden chestnuts out of the
-fire. The girl had been duped and ensnared by the creature's wiles. Even
-to the adamantine mind of the senor doctor, the blow and blot of his
-daughter's conduct must inevitably pall before the odiousness of the
-Frenchman's villainy.
-
-But again Don Jaime said no word. He only prescribed a certain diet for
-Carson. Without so much as a softening glance toward the pale and
-fearful girl, he marched out of the cabana, his boots clamping down in
-firm measured strides.
-
-They returned to the hospital only to find Gabriel suffering, once more,
-in the grip of the plague. To ease the poor lad's griping pangs and
-still the heart-tearing cries for his dead mother, the senor doctor
-dropped a few beads of chloroform down his throat.
-
-"Do not despair, my precious little man!" encouraged Morales, in a husky
-voice, from his place down the platform. "Have a high fearless heart,
-and the great Torreblanca will yet pull you through."
-
-With an utterness of gratitude at having won such inspiriting words
-from the matador whom he so venerated, the boy thanked Morales with
-black eyes that were smoldering great coals in their deep pits.
-
-Don Jaime turned to Quesada. Morales had tossed off the upper end of his
-blanket and the hidalgo had suddenly noticed the gold-braided green
-jacket about the matador's torso. With that characteristic frankness of
-his which so often sounded brutal and coarse, he queried:
-
-"Who is this hombre in gold-tinsel and green that has such faith in the
-ability and concoctions of Torreblanca y Moncada?"
-
-"Que, que!" exclaimed the bandolero, distinctly surprised. "What, what!
-Does not the senor doctor know?"
-
-But the doctor did not even remember having seen the man in the
-excitement of his first rounds.
-
-"That is Morales, the bravest espada in all the Spains!"
-
-"Morales? Manuel Morales, that great murderer of bulls, that supremely
-dexterous one with the sword? And here!"
-
-Don Jaime went at once to the side of the wanly smiling matador.
-
-"My Manuel Morales," he said with earnestness, "all Spain mourns for its
-lost pastime while you lie helpless here. We must quickly get you well.
-But valgame Dios! no poor few remedies of mine will work the miracle
-half so speedily as that own brave golden Moorish heart of you!"
-
-Interposed Quesada quietly:
-
-"Jacques Ferou robbed our Manuel, too. And you know the great Morales,
-Don Jaime! He would rather starve than play the mouse to this hawk. Yet
-he had to pay!
-
-"Ah, Torreblanca y Moncada," he added with rising vehemence, "this
-hombre Ferou, is a human bloodsucker, as you say! He is a greedy, foul
-buzzard!"
-
-Don Jaime snapped erect. A portentous gleam was in his stony eyes.
-
-"He robbed Manuel Morales, too!" he exclaimed. "That's enough; not
-another word! We will give the creature short shrift! Carajo! I have a
-plan."
-
-Quesada and Morales looked about to see that no henchman of Ferou had
-chanced to overhear. The doctor understood their wary glances. He
-lowered his voice.
-
-"All the short jump up the goat path," he said in even tones, "ever
-since this morning when I heard the French ringworm's conversation in
-the gorge, I have been formulating this plan. And it is a good plan; it
-will attain many ends at the one time. It will blight the treacherous
-plot of Ferou, save you from the Guardia Civil, Quesada, and in the same
-breath win back for me my stolen money! Ah, it is almost divine in its
-justice! Mediante Dios--God willing, I will use it as another instrument
-of my vengeance!"
-
-Quesada gasped.
-
-"You mean to kill the French leech? But my senor doctor, in the whole
-pueblo, Jacques Ferou is the only man armed! No lo quiera Dios, Don
-Jaime! God forbid, yet I fear he will slay you first!"
-
-"I have a horse-pistol," said the physician with grave significance.
-"Yet I do not mean to sully these hidalgo hands of mine by killing him
-myself. Seguramente, no! He shall die, but from no bullet of mine!"
-
-He shook his white head slowly as if fixing something definite in his
-mind.
-
-"To-morrow noon," he added imperiously. "To-morrow noon, he shall die!"
-
-It was the selfsame hour Ferou himself had bargained with the Guardias
-Civiles for the killing of Quesada!
-
-Don Jaime would say no more. He was as arrogantly enigmatic as the very
-God Himself!
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXIV
-
-
-Don Jaime worked that day. That night he slaved. About eventide Alfonso
-Robledo, the banderillero who so bravely had seconded Quesada that
-morning, suffered all at once a severe relapse. Perhaps it came from the
-overheating excitement of that crucial time upon the rock; perhaps the
-abrupt exposure in that intrepid try to avert Felicidad's cruel and
-barbarous fate, had brought it on; at any rate and all on a sudden, his
-weakened body began writhing in an agony of cramps.
-
-There was nothing else for it. The hidalgo doctor gave the bullfighter a
-hypodermic injection of morphia. The paroxysms lessened, altogether
-ceased. The eyelids of the banderillero rolled down heavily, and he
-slumped into a deep stertorous sleep.
-
-That reawakened in Don Jaime the Fear. He made once more a round of the
-hospital. He went from choza to cabana outside, seeking new cases. Where
-a man could not sleep or a woman persisted in moaning, he administered
-narcotics.
-
-When morning dawned through wisps of rain, the long night of taxing and
-intolerable work showed plainly in the doctor. His narrow face looked
-thin and long as a ferule; the cheek bones were high, the aquiline nose
-never more imperious. What with all the coffee he had drunk like a good
-Moor, to accelerate the action of his brain and steady the movement of
-his hand, his skin seemed tinged to a deeper swarth.
-
-Quesada awoke early and with a renewed strength. He brewed for the
-grandee another pot of fresh aromatic coffee.
-
-Don Jaime had gone down behind the cabanas to release his hobbled old
-skate of a horse and lead him to water. When he returned, his huge
-horse-pistol was strapped to his waist.
-
-He quaffed two cups of the coffee in quick succession. He stained, with
-marked and aloof indifference, his usually immaculate white point of a
-beard. Then, without a word, with feruled face determined and grim, he
-returned into the hospital to his urgent ministry.
-
-It was coming noon. Quesada was sunning himself before the hospital,
-according to his daily wont, when Ferou appeared around one mud wall
-with the suddenness of a jack-in-the-box.
-
-In his right hand the Frenchman showed a revolver. He pointed the
-revolver at Quesada. With a politeness that seemed more deadly than the
-gleam of the gun, he said:
-
-"You will arise, Senor Don Jacinto. You will do all that which I tell
-you to do. Aupa!"
-
-The chair, tilted against the mud wall, banged down upon its forlegs.
-Quesada got to his feet.
-
-"March forward past me. Now stop. It is good, my brave bandolero. Now,
-with me behind you, march toward that great rock on the brink of the
-pueblo!"
-
-Everything was happening as the doctor had foretold. The tall Frenchman
-nudged Quesada with the muzzle of the revolver in the small of his
-back. They started on. And then, all at once, from the gloom of the
-chapel behind them, came the galvanic voice of the hidalgo:
-
-"Alto! Drop that gun, you French leech!"
-
-Quesada did not dare turn round. But Ferou, his blond lids fluttering
-with stupendous surprise, gave a quick glance back over his shoulder. He
-saw the hidalgo doctor standing in the low doorway, the huge
-horse-pistol leveled in one harsh fist, his eyes gleaming like quartz in
-the sun.
-
-The Frenchman gave a precipitant leap to one side. He was quick as an
-ape. He slewed round, his revolver lifted.
-
-An explosion burst from the pistol of the doctor. Ferou's revolver
-dropped to the mud. He clutched his right wrist. It was trickling blood
-from where a bullet had creased the flesh like a branding wire.
-
-"Quesada!" cracked the thin lips of Don Jaime. "Pick up that revolver.
-You, Ferou, march in here!" He menaced the Frenchman with that huge gun
-which was loaded and ready for more quick work.
-
-Quesada turned round, thereat, and lifted from the mud the Frenchman's
-revolver. He shook off the clinging silt and pointed it at Ferou. His
-ashy face working like a monkey's with abrupt and nervous apprehension,
-the Frenchman marched into the hospital.
-
-Once inside, in the runway between the blanketed figures of plague
-sufferers, Don Jaime snapped out a terse and inexplicable command. Ferou
-thought himself the only one that understood its purpose. A shuddering
-fit seized him. He knew that, in the receptacles beneath his armpits,
-were concealed the small mahogany-colored leather purse he had taken
-from Quesada and the peseta bills he had pitilessly mulcted out of
-Carson and Morales. He thought that the doctor was searching for them.
-
-"Undress!" repeated the hidalgo.
-
-The Frenchman's slate-colored eyes fluttered about. He saw Quesada
-threatening him with his own revolver. There was no help for it. With
-fingers suddenly thick and clumsy with nervousness, he began to unbutton
-his gray tweeds.
-
-"And you, too, Quesada!" ended the doctor. "Give the Frenchman's
-revolver into the keeping of Morales, and undress, too!"
-
-Quesada did not at all understand. He saw Morales sitting up, as if
-prepared to lend aid, a pillow bolstering his back. He passed the
-Frenchman's revolver into the hands of the matador. Then bewildered but
-blindly obedient, he began to doff his alpagartas, rough corduroys, and
-sheepskin zamarra.
-
-The Frenchman stood forth in his nether garments, a tall, quaking and
-almost ludicrous figure. He watched Quesada, a nameless fear sharpening
-his slate-colored eyes.
-
-"Hand over the money, Senor Ferou," said Don Jaime with frosty
-politeness; then explosively: "All of it! Pronto!"
-
-The eyes of the Frenchman flashed like the eyes of a ferocious animal
-about to be robbed of its meat. But quickly he got himself in hand; the
-baleful gleam dulled. He shot a questioning glance toward the disrobing
-bandolero. Perhaps this thing he sensed and dreaded was only a grisly
-figment of his imagination. Perhaps, after all, the doctor only wanted
-the money. It were wise to obey.
-
-With an astonishing readiness, he produced, from the receptacles
-cunningly prepared beneath his armpits, the purse of the doctor and the
-bills belonging to Morales and Carson.
-
-Don Jaime did not wait to open the purse and inspect its contents. He
-shoved the wallet into his pocket. He cast the roll of loose bills upon
-the platform beside Morales.
-
-"They belong to you and the American. You can take what is due you and
-return the others to Senor Carson. But hola! let the division go till
-later!"
-
-He kicked the gray tweeds of Ferou over the hard-tamped earth floor
-toward Quesada.
-
-"Put them on," he commanded bluntly.
-
-The bandolero nodded, though as yet he did not comprehend the whyfore of
-it all. With dispatch, he commenced to garb himself in the tweeds of the
-Frenchman which, despite the hard usage of the last few weeks, still
-showed the ineradicable signs of good material.
-
-"You, Ferou!" the doctor bit out. "You don the clothes of Quesada!"
-
-The growing nameless fear in Ferou's brain bourgeoned, at that command,
-into noisome bloom. His jaw slacked and began an incontrollable
-quivering. His eyes glittered in a pasty sweating face.
-
-"Mais non, mais non!" he cried, lapsing in his extremity into his
-native tongue. "Not that, monsieur! You cannot demand that! The clothes,
-they are dirty, foul!"
-
-It was only the subterfuge of a time of dire peril. His eyes darted
-wildly about. They sought Morales. Morales had been very tender with the
-sick. Perhaps--
-
-But Morales was leveling his own revolver at him with a hand only a
-trifle less steady than that of the doctor. His face, parchment-dry and
-sunken of flesh from the ravages of disease, was forbidding with grim
-determination.
-
-"Put them on!" persisted Don Jaime.
-
-Solemnly then and very laboriously, with jaw still quivering and shaking
-hands, Ferou dressed in the sheepskin zamarra, rough corduroys, and
-alpagartas of the bandolero. Don Jaime himself clapped upon Ferou's
-blond head the high-pointed hat of Quesada.
-
-"Now, march!" he exploded. "March toward that great rock on the brink of
-the village!"
-
-All the Frenchman's dismal fears became quick and instant. He was sure
-now! The nostrils of his predatory nose twitching and working, his whole
-pasty face working and grimacing, with unrestrainable fear, like a
-horrible mask of rubber, he groveled on his knees and held out his two
-arms to the doctor in abject supplication.
-
-"Mercy, Don Jaime! Mon Dieu, you would not have me shot like a dog!"
-
-"March!" the hidalgo insisted. His voice rang with metallic timbre; his
-gray eyes flashed as if they were bits of flint upon which steel had
-struck. He shoved the muzzle of his pistol against the Frenchman's
-chest.
-
-Ferou stumbled to his feet and backed out the doorway. The doctor
-followed him step by step. Quesada, a great light coruscating in his
-brain, recovered the revolver from the bedridden Morales and bounded out
-in the wake of the two.
-
-Thus, the Frenchman retreating before the importunate muzzle of the
-senor doctor's pistol, Quesada following after, they went down the muddy
-street toward that great rock which glared, in the noontide sunlight, on
-the brink of the village.
-
-Once the Frenchman paused. Imploringly, he lifted his still bleeding
-right hand.
-
-"Monsenor!" he cried. "For the love of Christ, monsenor--"
-
-Came the sharp click of a pistol being cocked. Then, like a sharper echo
-of it, the command of the doctor.
-
-"March!"
-
-A mad notion to turn and run for it seized Ferou. But no! They would
-shoot him down ere he could take ten steps. They were too close.
-
-The police, on the other hand, would be far below, in the gorge. Maybe
-their carbines would miss. There was always hope.
-
-He backed out upon the hot glaring rock.
-
-Came a yell from the hidalgo, sounding shrill and bodiless in the thin
-air, and carrying back and far away in ringing echoes:
-
-"Hola, mis Guardias Civiles! Jacinto Quesada--he is here!"
-
-An answering shout spiraled up from the deeps of the gorge. Then, on
-the heels of it, one long slithering shaft of sound. The crang of a
-carbine!
-
-Ferou threw up his arms and, his face black with congested blood, half
-spilled forward as if he had been struck by a blow between the
-shoulders. He swayed back and forth on the balls of his feet, caught
-himself, hung still for intolerable moments. Then, as is usually the
-case with a man killed by a bullet, he tottered backward, slipped on the
-crumbling lip of the rock and went over, clutching with white clawing
-hands at the brink, twisting, turning, and shrieking--shrieking for
-minutes afterward, shrieking hideously!
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXV
-
-
-Doctor Torreblanca Y Moncada strategically overcame the trouble
-engendered by cremation. He had the serranos burn whole trees and from
-the ashes, by percolation through water, produce a leaching of lye.
-Then, a goodly distance from the water supply coursing through the old
-Moorish flume, on the lip of the gorge where a void had been left by the
-dismantling of the two infected cabanas, he had the men of the pueblo
-dig a deep pit. Therein he purposed burying the dead in sheets of the
-burning alkali.
-
-On the morning following that on which poetic justice had come to Ferou,
-he approached Quesada, who was superintending the work of digging the
-pit. Save for a certain wolfish gauntness, the bandolero was almost
-himself.
-
-"Jacinto," he said, "do you feel hardy enough, my haggard one, to
-journey down these hills to my casa near Granada?"
-
-The Moorish oblong eyes of the bandolero showed surprise and a shade of
-fear.
-
-"I am easily strong enough by now, Don Jaime. But--"
-
-"Is it the police you fear? They rode away immediately after the killing
-of Ferou."
-
-Quesada shook his head.
-
-"I am frank with you, my hidalgo doctor. Should I absent myself from the
-barrio, I would fear for Felicidad of the gold hair and heart of fire!"
-
-With his cold gray eyes, the grandee looked at Quesada and through and
-through him. As if mouthing some religious dogma, he returned haughtily:
-
-"You know, son of a mangy she-wolf, that no man can halt a Torreblanca y
-Moncada once he says, I will! Ea pues! It is thus with my vengeance. The
-ancient name of my house, the blood of my veins, must be cleared of all
-tainture! Felicidad must die!"
-
-"God preserve you, Don Jaime! You are still the soul of granite,
-unforgiving and unsparing even though your stolen money is all returned
-to you now, and your daughter's disgrace altogether wiped out by the
-death of the French poodle!"
-
-The hidalgo laughed harshly. He refused in his lordly pride to argue.
-Cleverly he countered:
-
-"And you, Jacintito; you are still the Wolf-Cub, ever leaping to the
-jade's defense as you did when you were only a bantling!
-
-"But it is not because I wish to be rid of you that I ask you to
-journey," he went on. "You have reminded me that I am a priest of the
-body. It is of my profession I speak. I need medicines. The supply is
-nearly exhausted."
-
-"But I carted up such a lot, fully four canvas packs!"
-
-"I know. But mi gran espada Manuel and the Senor Carson, both
-well-meaning but untutored, made extravagant inroads on the treasures
-you brought. And hearing from old Tio Pedro that you had stocked
-yourself so well, I rode extra light to make speed."
-
-"Yet things are going better now," objected Quesada. "There are fewer
-deaths and more recoveries."
-
-"Thank God for that! But one can never tell. The present even tone of
-the weather may suddenly change and cause the scourge to redouble its
-havoc. I must not run short."
-
-"That is true," nodded Quesada. Yet it was evident that he still
-hesitated to go for fear of leaving Felicidad unassisted and helpless
-before the cold implacable wrath of her father.
-
-Said Don Jaime, commencing to offer inducements, plainly weakening
-before the obstinacy of the bandolero:
-
-"If you will go, Jacinto, you may take my horse. No other has ridden him
-in over ten years. He will carry you well, though only at a snail's
-pace."
-
-Quesada realized what that offer meant.
-
-"I will take the horse," he agreed. "That horse of yours shall be as a
-bond given in hand to me, Don Jaime, that you will remain here and stay
-your vengeance until I return!"
-
-"My vengeance? Well, like the Judgment Day of Christ, that can wait!"
-
-"Is it a promise?"
-
-"It is a promise!"
-
-"Vaya, Don Jaime!"
-
-"Con Dios, Jacintito!"
-
-Garbed in the once elegant clothes of the dead Frenchman, even to his
-slouch traveling hat, Quesada sat deep in the doctor's saddle and
-carefully guided the old rawboned nag down the loops of the goat path.
-
-He kept a wary eye out for the policemen. The Guardias Civiles might
-chance to be lingering on in the gorge. But the trampled space about the
-alder tree was wholly deserted; the ashes from the breakfast fire of the
-day before were being rapidly dissipated by the draughty wind.
-
-He pushed on down. Crackling over the fallen leaves in the gorges,
-clattering along the stony hogbacks and ridges, he came, in the waning
-afternoon, to the boulder-strewn pocket of the Christ of the Pass. And
-suddenly from below, louder than the ring of his horse's hoofs, there
-echoed up to him a sharp sound like the report of a pistol.
-
-Come of long outlawry, Quesada was circumspectly cautious. The report
-might have exploded near at hand; the chances were that, with the odd
-carrying knack of sounds high on mountains, it had echoed, clear and
-distinct, from far away. But he would take no chances.
-
-The ragged prickly gorse and huge boulders, which bestrewed the pass
-about the foot of the cross, furnished unusual hiding places. He
-dismounted hastily, tied his horse behind a sumach bush and, behind a
-tall boulder, hid himself.
-
-Twilight deepened quickly into full dark night. It was gruesome waiting
-there beneath the pale white figure of the Saviour, with its crown of
-black horsehair and red-painted wounds. Save for the wind sweeping
-through the pass with little shrill noises, nothing stirred or sounded
-in the long defile.
-
-After a little, Quesada conquered his vague apprehensions sufficiently
-to sup upon the cold sausages, dry bread, and bota of wine which he had
-had the forethought to sling to the cantle of his saddle. Then it was on
-again, through the dark night and the savage uncouth pass, in haste to
-accomplish his errand for the doctor.
-
-A piece of moon came up and shot long pale slithers of light down the
-rock walls. Ahead, in the sudden wan light, he made out the bent and
-bundled figure of an old, shawl-wrapped peasant woman. She was coming
-toward him up the gorge. She seemed making little catching sounds, as if
-softly weeping.
-
-"A Dios, mother," he greeted, as he rode past.
-
-She gave him neither answer nor notice. Her few wisps of white hair
-streaming in disarray from under her flat worsted cap, she went by,
-sobbing quietly, as if utterly oblivious of his presence.
-
-Quesada looked after her bent form and shook his head commiseratingly.
-
-"Ah, there has been some little domestic trouble in her cabana this
-night!" he remarked to himself. "And she is going on, the poor creature,
-to seek strength and consolation from the lonely Christ of the Pass. It
-is the way they have in these desolate hills--Hola! What's the matter,
-my bony Pegasus!"
-
-The nag beneath him, suddenly shying, had come to a dead stop, and now
-was shivering in every limb. They had just rounded the bend which
-portaled the pass. Leaping afoot in the stirrups, Quesada gazed over the
-lifted frightened head of the horse. Ahead in the open road and
-shapeless in the vague moonlight, he saw something lying still and
-black!
-
-Ever wary of ambush, resultant from long outlawry, he sprung out of the
-saddle and getting the horse by the bridle, shoved him violently back
-into the shadow of the spur. For an intolerable fraction of time, he
-peered round the bend and watched.
-
-The black shapeless huddle in the road never moved. Was it some animal,
-sleeping or dead? He crept forward cautiously, Ferou's old revolver in
-hand. He put out his fingers toward the vague outline of it. He touched
-soft cloth, he touched a yielding mass. Wounds of Christ! it was the
-body of a man!
-
-His hand jerked back in superstitious fear. The man did not move; he was
-lying on his face. Quesada put out his hand again and touched the still
-thing with a braver and more prying touch. All at once he turned it
-over.
-
-Stark in the moonlight showed a short knife-sharp white beard, a
-fine-chiseled imperious nose, and a swarthy face, lean and haughty as a
-griffon vulture's! The revolver fell from his palsied hand.
-
-"Sangre de Cristo!" his dry lips fluttered. "It is Don Jaime himself!"
-
-But no! Don Jaime could not be here. Had he not left the hidalgo doctor,
-that every morning, in the village above in the sierras?
-
-A grave calmness came upon him then, and a questing thoroughness. Who
-was the man? Somehow his features seemed familiar. Was it only because
-of that striking resemblance to Don Jaime?
-
-He noticed, all at once, that there was visible on the body, under the
-powdering of dust from the road, a kind of red-edged blue jacket. On one
-sleeve was a single red chevron, and to one side, almost hidden in the
-dust, the shimmer of a patent leather hat. With a stifled gasp,
-recognition leaped full-fledged into his brain. The man was Senor Don
-Esteban Alvarado, the aged sergeant of the Guardia Civil!
-
-No more than a few weeks before, Quesada had seen the sergeant in the
-gorge below Minas de la Sierra, dominant with life and lording it over
-the apelike policeman Montara. To find the sergeant now only a still
-black huddle in the road was a distinct shock to the bandolero. He knew
-that just the day before either the sergeant or Montara had shot Ferou.
-
-Almost incredulous, Quesada felt the body for signs of life. But the
-sergeant was dead. His body was not what one could call warm, yet
-neither was it cold with that soft stickiness so instinctively repulsive
-to the living touch. The sergeant had been killed only a short time
-before. A caking of dust on the torso of his jacket showed where the
-blood had oozed from a bullet wound in the chest, and quickly dried.
-
-"It was that shot I heard!" the bandolero surmised. "But who killed him?
-And why?"
-
-Of the sudden, he remembered the old woman who had passed him in the
-road, crying softly to herself. He bounded back around the bend. But in
-the intervening jiffy of time, the shadows of the defile had swallowed
-her from sight.
-
-"She is the sergeant's poor old wife," he said to himself. "She must
-have come upon him, slain like a dog in the road. I knew Don Esteban,
-his wife, and son lived in these hills. Now the poor old woman is gone
-to pray before the Christ of the Pass for the eternal welfare of his
-departed soul. May it rest in peace!"
-
-He came back to the black huddle, still profoundly puzzled as to whom
-had done the killing. He turned the body over into that posture in which
-he had found it. He retrieved his fallen revolver.
-
-He was about to mount and ride on, when abruptly he halted, one foot in
-the stirrup. An enlightening but bitter thought had suddenly shocked his
-brain.
-
-For a long time now, crimes had been committed which he never had a hand
-in, but which in every case had been laid at his door. Automobiles had
-been held up, toreros' chapels invaded, men robbed and even killed by a
-young man described as Jacinto Quesada when, all the time, Quesada
-himself had been quarantined in Minas de la Sierra.
-
-There was a sinister purpose, a foul plan underlying the criminal's
-habit of masquerading and posing as Jacinto Quesada. Behind the
-personality of Quesada, he was cloaking his own identity and committing
-crimes without a suspicion pointing toward himself. What could be more
-probable than that this same criminal had killed the old policeman?
-
-"It was that masquerader!" the bandolero exclaimed to the night. And he
-swore: "By the Nails of Christ!"
-
-He circled by the prone body in the road, his horse nervous and
-quivering with instinctive fright. He kicked the nag into a brisk
-canter. He sought thus in action to quiet the thoughts which now were
-bothering his brain. He pursued the descent.
-
-But the turgid thoughts would not be stifled. They fluttered in his head
-like the pale moonbeams on the rock walls. They filled him with gloom as
-profound as the shadow-haunted deeps of the narrow way.
-
-He, Jacinto Quesada, had discovered the corpse. Was that not strange,
-portentous? It seemed to him now as if the hand of God were
-foreshadowing, in this grisly discovery, some tragic misfortune about to
-befall him. The masquerader had committed the crime of blood. Well, the
-penalty for it would strike most surely upon Quesada's head! Of that, he
-felt superstitiously certain!
-
-He made the sign of the horned hand in an attempt to avert the impending
-evil. But no use. His mind would not still, nor would the misgivings
-die. He reined in the nag.
-
-"There is but one thing for me to do," he announced to himself. "I must
-return to the side of the corpse, and kneel and say a prayer for his
-soul in purgatory. A mere word of requiescat is not enough. He was mine
-enemy in life; I must show complete Christian forgiveness toward him,
-now that he is dead. That alone will prevent a curse from falling upon
-me!"
-
-He was kneeling in prayer beside the dead sergeant and had reached the
-words: "May his soul, and all the souls of the faithful departed,
-through the mercy of God, rest in peace," when, all at once from down
-the road, his ears were assailed by a startling sound--the hoof beats of
-approaching horses!
-
-Hastily he made the sign of the cross and got to his feet. Dragging his
-horse by the bridle after him, he concealed both nag and himself
-completely in the deep shadowy elbow of the spur.
-
-Came to him then, on the vagrant breaths of the night wind, the sound of
-voices. They were men's voices, loud above the steady hoofbeats of the
-horses, as if raised in some wordy contention:
-
-"But I tell you, Pascual Montara, the Wolf-Cub is not dead!"
-
-"And I tell you, mi capitan, Quesada is dead! Right now, were you not my
-superior officer, I should be on my way down to Getafe to file Don
-Esteban's report."
-
-"You say the sargento, Don Esteban, has returned to his home in these
-mountains?"
-
-"Si; seguramente, si! His work is accomplished. After killing the
-Wolf-Cub, Quesada, is he not entitled to a good rest? Test the truth of
-my statement, el capitan; ask his son, young Miguel there, if his father
-does not live in these hills."
-
-"It is most certainly true, mi Capitan Guevara," answered a new voice.
-"I myself was born and raised in a portilla of the Picacho de la
-Veleta."
-
-"Za, this is the wild-goose chase!" exclaimed the raucous voice of
-Montara. "This is the wild-goose chase, I tell you--this chase after a
-man already dead! Down in Getafe by now, ten thousand pesetas should be
-awaiting the Frenchman as a reward for having brought about the killing
-of Jacinto Quesada."
-
-"And that was when, you say?"
-
-"I have told you twenty times. It was but yesterday."
-
-"Then answer me this, apelike one! I have asked it of you a hundred
-times before. How is it that the diligence from Granada to Montefrio was
-held up only last night and the bandolero announced that he was Jacinto
-Quesada himself? He fled into these hills, and we hot after him!"
-
-The men of the Guardia Civil usually ride in pairs; but this was a troop
-of the Guardia Civil, an extraordinary troop. Peering around the spur,
-Quesada made out eleven uniformed men riding smartly toward him through
-the dim moonlight.
-
-One was, of course, that apelike policeman, Pascual Montara, whom
-Quesada last had seen in the gorge below Minas de la Sierra with Don
-Esteban. It appeared, from the tenor of the conversation, that Montara
-had been on his way down to headquarters to file the sergeant's report
-of Quesada's death when he had been met on the road by the troop and
-turned back by the order of the captain.
-
-Quesada well knew this captain as one Luis Guevara. Eight others he
-recognized as gendarmes with whom he had had an occasional brush. The
-eleventh was the dead man's son, Miguel Alvarado, youthful, tall,
-smoothly brown of face, and as subtle and gallant-looking in the vague
-moonlight as a sword of Toledo.
-
-Now, such a large body of the Guardia Civil could be seldom seen on the
-main-traveled highroads, let alone in the gorge-pierced sierras of the
-Nevada. Something untoward was afoot. But it was not the mysterious
-murder of the old sergeant which had called them together. Not one of
-the approaching policemen had discovered as yet, close to the entrance
-of the pass, that huddle lying still and black in the road. They did not
-know Don Esteban was dead.
-
-They were riding after Jacinto Quesada, whom Montara believed he had
-killed, for a crime that Jacinto Quesada himself was positive he never
-had committed!
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXVI
-
-
-The party of policemen discovered, all at once, the body in the road.
-Hastily, from their huddling, quivering horses, they dismounted. They
-turned the body over. With amazement and deep consternation, they saw
-that it was one of themselves, the haughty sergeant of police, Senor Don
-Esteban Alvarado!
-
-Miguel, the dead man's son, stood over his father's body.
-
-"It is that Jacinto Quesada!" he said, terribly moved. "He has come upon
-my poor old father alone in the road, and he has killed him without
-ruth. By the Wounds of Christ!" he swore, lifting his right hand to
-heaven--"I will seek out this murderer; I will hound him down; at last,
-remorselessly, I will kill him! I have taken my oath."
-
-In the thick shadow of the bend, Jacinto Quesada smiled bitterly to
-himself. Just as he had forecasted, just so had matters shaped
-themselves. He was blamed for the crime of another!
-
-But the captain, Luis Guevara, was speaking:
-
-"This proves that Montara is mistaken--the Wolf-Cub is still alive! As
-you say, mi pobre Miguel, without ruth he has killed your father, an
-old, honored, and brave member of the police!
-
-"Carajo! Only once before, in the case of that traveling Englishman, has
-Quesada killed a man. His conscience will be more disturbed by this
-atrocity than by his usual crimes. Surely now, after this vile deed of
-blood, will he seek out a priest and beg forgiveness of God!
-
-"Pronto, mis camaradas! Don Esteban has not been long dead. If we ride
-to the nearest church, we may be in time to capture Quesada while he
-makes his confession!"
-
-"But there are few men of the cloth in these hills, and fewer churches,"
-objected Miguel Alvarado. "I know; I was born in the portilla above this
-pass. My old mother still lives there."
-
-"You do not think that Quesada is a heretic, despite his sacrilegious
-abuse of the bullfighters' chapel of Seville!"
-
-Miguel shook his head.
-
-"No. I think that he will go, straightway, to the shrine of the Christ
-of the Pass. It is but a little way on, in a lonely pocket of this
-gorge. For miles around serranos, burdened by sins, kneel before the
-shrine, and pray, and beg absolution or ease of mind."
-
-"Muy bueno!" said the captain. "We will go at once to this shrine and
-wait there, in ambush, for Jacinto Quesada to come and confess his sin.
-We will listen, and then we will kill him!"
-
-There was a creaking of leather as the men leaped into the saddles.
-Quesada shrunk back into the dark elbow of the jutting bend. He pressed
-the nervous horse in against the rock wall. To still any outcry he vised
-his hand over the trembling nostrils of the animal. He waited, hardly
-daring to breathe.
-
-The gendarmes, following the lead of the captain, filed into the pass
-and looking straight ahead, unsuspecting the dark, went by him almost
-within arm's length.
-
-He waited until they had all gone on, and the shadows of the pass had
-engulfed them. Then he did not dodge around the bend and pursue the
-decurrent way he had been going. He was seized with an unreasoning and
-irresistible impulse to follow the troop and witness whatever might be
-the outcome of their expedition to the shrine. Loosening but not
-removing his hand from the horse's nostrils, he stalked a goodly
-distance behind the party like a quiet long-legged shadow.
-
-As they neared the boulder-hedged pocket which sheltered the shrine, a
-whisper sibilated through the ranks of the policemen. Some one was
-kneeling before the cross!
-
-Noiselessly the gendarmes halted, dismounted, quickly hobbled their
-horses with the long reins, and crept stealthily forward between the
-boulders and the ragged prickly shrubbery. Quesada followed, a safe
-distance behind.
-
-But it was only the old white-haired wife of Don Esteban who knelt
-before the pale figure of the Christ, with its crown of black horsehair
-and red-painted wounds. As he crept nearer, behind the police and
-between the weeds and rocks, Quesada heard her voice. In quavering
-tones, she was speaking aloud. She was confessing that she was the
-murderer of her husband, Sergeant Esteban Alvarado!
-
-Thinking herself alone before the moon-white effigy of the crucified
-Saviour, in an anguish of soul, she was pouring out the whole pitiful
-story. For some time, she had been tortured by a harrowing secret. Her
-son, the darling of her life, although a member of the Guardia Civil
-like his father, was also a base poseur and highwayman!
-
-It was his infamous plan to doff the policeman's uniform and steal out
-at night dressed to resemble the bandolero, Jacinto Quesada. Then, his
-crimes consummated, he would put the uniform on again. That honored
-uniform and the fact that all his crimes were laid, successfully and
-invariably, at the door of Jacinto Quesada, kept suspicion from resting
-upon him.
-
-It had smote her with desolation to discover that her son was a stealthy
-outlaw. Since that long-ago time when her ancestors had been reclaimed
-from brigandage and become Miquelets, no one in her family ever again
-had turned criminal. They had all been policemen.
-
-Her husband, the haughty Don Esteban, was fiercely proud of the record
-of his family of policemen. It had harassed her poor old soul, filled
-her with overwhelming terror lest Don Esteban should discover the
-perfidy of his only son. Pride of house and long years as an officer of
-the Guardia Civil had made him unforgiving of crime, unsparing and
-inexorable to mete out justice even to his own kith and kin.
-
-That afternoon, after a lengthy absence on police duty, Don Esteban had
-come home for an interval of rest. He had just parted from Pascual
-Montara, he said, who was to take his report down to Getafe. Between
-them, the morning prior, they had killed the Wolf of the Sierras,
-Jacinto Quesada!
-
-The old mother, aghast lest by mistake he had killed his own son
-masquerading as Quesada, had thereupon, in distracted fear and wild
-grief, blurted out the whole truth.
-
-The righteous indignation and awful rage of the old sergeant knew no
-bounds. Solemnly he swore that he would have his son's life for this
-outrageous conduct. She had pleaded with him, wept and prayed. But he
-had cast her from him and gone out into the twilight to hound down the
-son.
-
-She had followed him down the mountainside, insane with fear for the
-life of her only child. He had discovered her and commanded her to go
-back. But she crept after him, stifling her sobs.
-
-As he reached the road and the slice of moon came out in the sky, she
-saw him take out a revolver and examine it to see that it was loaded and
-ready for use. She heard, on top of this, the clatter of an approaching
-horse. It was Quesada mounted on the doctor's nag. But she did not know.
-She thought it was her son, her pobre Miguelito, returning home to pay
-her a visit between duties!
-
-Carried beyond herself by the sudden crystallizing of all her fears, she
-had dashed out upon her husband and struggled with him to wrest the
-revolver from his hands. The stern sergeant had forgot himself then. He
-went mad with a barbarous fury. He rained blows upon her old
-tear-stained face. Even did he try to choke her.
-
-But her terror lent her strength superhuman. She clung to him, pulled
-and wrenched at the revolver. She was like some tigress fighting for her
-young.
-
-All at once, there was a sharp hideous explosion. Don Esteban slumped
-like a burst balloon in her arms. He clutched his chest, made a gurgling
-sound in his throat, slipped to the ground, rolled over, and was dead!
-
-Now, in a terrible turmoil of soul, she cast her gnarled workworn hands
-out to that compassionating Figure on the Cross.
-
-"Dios hombre, what shall I do, what shall I do?" she cried. "I have
-suffered in the last few hours all the torments of the damned, like a
-soul lost a thousand years in purgatory! Oh, what shall I do? Lord and
-Saviour, Pitiful One, I do not seek forgiveness. I want to repay, I want
-to atone! I want to die myself!..."
-
-Her voice fainted away. She got to her feet at last. Muttering feverish
-prayers, weeping like a soft rain, swaying and stumbling, she made up
-the path.
-
-The policemen shivered out of their state of suspended animation. They
-recovered their wits; their dead eyes glinted. Savagely, they turned to
-look at the man among them who had caused the whole pitiful tragedy--the
-son of the dead sergeant and the poor old heartbroken mother, the
-masquerader and the traitor, Miguel Alvarado!
-
-He was gone.
-
-Seeking him, they dashed wildly among the boulders and bushes. They beat
-the ragged gorse with their carbines. They called loudly one to
-another. Suddenly, into the wan moonlight, stepped forth Jacinto
-Quesada.
-
-"You seek Miguel Alvarado?" he asked.
-
-"Heart of God, yes!"
-
-"Then come with me."
-
-They did not recognize Quesada. Not only because of the pallor of the
-moonlight, but more because he was garbed in the gray tweeds and foreign
-slouch hat of the Frenchman. He led them down the path to where they had
-hobbled their horses.
-
-Here, supine in the weeds and bound hand and foot, lay the policeman,
-young Miguel. In the midst of his mother's pitiful confession, he had
-crept back down the road and, just about to mount his horse and ride
-away, had been captured by Quesada.
-
-"Oh, Paquita, maiden of my soul!" he was wailing. "I am undone--undone!
-Your love has robbed me of my father, and broken the poor old heart of
-the mamacita of me!"
-
-Quesada started visibly.
-
-"What is that!" he exclaimed. "You speak of Paquita, daughter of Pepe
-Flammenca?"
-
-"I speak and dream of her always! I love her--God, yes! And she told me
-she adored Jacinto Quesada because he was a bandolero; she told me she
-despised my uniform. I thought to emulate Quesada and thus win her love.
-But I have only caused the death of my old father and brought sorrow and
-heartbreak to my poor old mother in her last years. Ah, Senor Don Jesu,
-pity me!"
-
-But there was that in the glint of the eyes of the clustered policemen
-which spelled death for Miguel Alvarado. He was a traitor to all the
-ethics of the Guardia Civil. He had dishonored and defiled the uniform
-they wore. He was a wolf in sheep's clothing. More; he was a shepherd
-dog turned poacher, depredator, wolf!
-
-"He must die!" said the captain.
-
-"Seguramente, yes! And we all must bind ourselves to keep the matter
-secret."
-
-The captain nodded grimly. "This is an affair of honor between us of the
-Guardia Civil." He turned sharply upon Quesada.
-
-"Hombre, you are the only outsider. Will you swear to tell no one, to
-lock all you have heard this night in your own breast?"
-
-Quesada evaded taking the oath of secrecy. Why should he, the Wolf of
-the Sierras, make covenant with the podencos of the Guardia Civil?
-Besides, a higher emotion stirred him. In his unknowable Spanish soul,
-he was moved to pity for Miguel Alvarado.
-
-"Mi capitan," he said, "if you kill this man, you will do a wrong. He is
-young; he has youth and true penitence to help him reform. It is a
-terrible lesson he has received this night. He is the dupe of a woman, a
-wench of the Gitano--"
-
-"A plague on the yellow witch!" muttered Montara.
-
-"Senores," Quesada appealed to them, "you cannot right what is now an
-irreparable wrong, you cannot bring Don Esteban back to life. Would you
-rob the poor old mother, then, of her only paltry happiness and hope?
-
-"Heed me, you of the Guardia Civil! This man has outraged Jacinto
-Quesada more than he has you. Yet I know that if Jacinto Quesada were to
-have this Alvarado's fate in his hands, to-night, he would let him go!"
-
-He had done what he could. He moved off to where he had tied his horse
-to a bush. The policemen conversed together in low tones. As he mounted,
-Captain Guevara exclaimed:
-
-"But who are you that you tell us all this?"
-
-He kicked his nag and started away. Through the moon-filtering dark, he
-flung back, "Jacinto Quesada!"
-
-Ere they could recover from their stupefaction, he was only a clattering
-noise in the night.
-
-He was circling, presently, by the dead body of the old sergeant in the
-road. Of a sudden, a volley of rifle reports detonated between the rock
-walls behind him.
-
-"That will be Miguel Alvarado," he said gloomily. He shook his head.
-"Ah, Paquita!" he exclaimed to the night, "you have exacted a fearful
-payment for my rash scorn of you--you have killed two men, this night,
-and broken the heart of a poor old woman!"
-
-He rode thoughtfully on.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXVII
-
-
-Laden with medicinal supplies, Quesada returned to Minas de la Sierra.
-He found the American walking about on his own two legs and able, at a
-pinch, to lend a hand to the doctor. Morales, attenuated but rapidly
-repairing in strength, occupied the bandolero's old chair tilted against
-one mud wall of the sick bay. For long hours the matador thus sat in the
-crisp sunlight and held a-straddle on his knees the slowly recovering,
-oddly wrinkled little Gabriel. Like some sweet Sister of Mercy,
-Felicidad moved solicitously among the convalescing serranos, two pale
-roses of health constantly mantling her smooth ivory cheeks.
-
-The bane was lifting. A period of continuous mild warmth, free of
-neblinas and snowstorms and icy blasts, had assisted and incalculably
-sustained the efforts of the hidalgo doctor in driving the pestilence
-from the pueblo.
-
-Ensued more days of sun sparkle, more nights clear as crystal, and the
-hospital at last was empty. Announced Don Jaime thereupon:
-
-"The barrio must endure five more days of quarantine. We must make sure
-the plague is snuffed out, buried. There must be no new cases."
-
-Two days passed. Then three. No man slapped under. They entered upon the
-fourth.
-
-The scourge was being weighed in a hair-fine balance. It was a deciding
-interval. It was a terrific time of waiting, and dread and hungry
-longing that tried the blood and iron of every man.
-
-Quesada, shaking with the contagious apprehension, buttonholed the
-American as he came out of the cabanas after completing some mission for
-the doctor.
-
-"How goes it, Senor Carson?"
-
-"All right so far. But gad, it's tough! It wasn't so bad when they were
-dying. These days when there are no stricken, and the sick bay is empty,
-and each man watches the next in fear lest he should succumb--that's
-maddening!"
-
-They talked jerkily. Quesada wanted to forget the trial of waiting, to
-ease his mind of the down-bearing strain. To change the subject, he
-said:
-
-"I have learned something. About the man who was sticking-up persons and
-saying he was I, Jacinto Quesada. He was a member of the Guardia Civil
-named Miguel Alvarado. Down by the shrine of Christ of the Pass, his own
-kind, the Guardia Civil, shot him to death."
-
-The American understood. When Quesada first had returned to the village
-poisoned with worry at what he had overheard from the policemen then
-waiting in the gorge, he had told Carson the beginning of the story of
-the masquerader. Now, at hearing its tragic end, Carson merely nodded.
-All the while, as he listened, he eyed Don Jaime with fearful anxiety as
-the physician moved in and out from choza to cabana.
-
-The racking strain--the long torture of work and travail of
-waiting--showed plainly in the hidalgo doctor,--in the high cheek bones
-almost bursting through the deep swarth skin, in the thinly chiseled
-nose and the gray eyes that seemed crystallized to a hard quartz. He was
-working arduously, Don Jaime--prodigiously, epically, like a true son of
-Hispanus, that first Spaniard sprung from the loins of Hercules!
-
-Hardly daring to breathe, the barrio entered upon the fifth and occult
-day. Twenty-four hours more of immunity from disease, and the tension
-would be over, the iron clutch of the quarantine lifted.
-
-Night shut down, black, breathing, full of the nameless. Groups
-collected. The suspense was on them like thumbscrews.
-
-Dawn came slowly, a leaden wash, Don Jaime went his final rounds.
-
-No man had stuck his toes toward heaven; in the night, no man had gone
-under from the plague. The grip of the horror was broken!
-
-"Infected Minas de la Sierra is once again clean and whole," announced
-Don Jaime. And he breathed fervently: "Thank God!"
-
-The final requiem had been said. The last to waste away and wear forever
-the cold cerement of death was the banderillero, Alfonso Robledo, who so
-ably had seconded Quesada in halting, for the while, Don Jaime's cruel
-vengeance. That had been six days gone.
-
-The pale gold sun hung high in the heavens like an eucharistic wafer
-emblematic of victory over disease and death. It was noon of that Day
-Resurgent. Now that the slavish and heroic labor was over for Don Jaime,
-the great good accomplished, he quietly got his horse prepared for the
-return to his lizard-haunted, gloomy, and lonely casa outside Granada.
-
-Mounted and ready, he paused on the great rock at the brink of the
-village to bid the thankful serranos a saturnine adieu. All the while,
-unwaveringly, his gray quartz eyes remained fixed on the certain cabana
-which had been given over to Felicidad. And then, as loudly the
-villagers chorused their gratitude and well-wishes, that eventuated
-which Don Jaime knew would surely eventuate.
-
-Her low white brow knuckled with perplexity, Felicidad appeared in the
-doorway of the cabana. The hullaballoo had bewildered and attracted her.
-
-"Felicidad!"
-
-As if drawn and irresistibly compelled by the electric fluid of some
-hypnotic influence, slow as in a trance, Felicidad moved toward the
-avenger. Watching her, Don Jaime's thin-edged ferule of a face slowly
-iced into rigid and pitiless lines.
-
-Yet, deep in his heart, the great passions that once had made Don Jaime
-so formidable--those classic passions of ire and resentment--like hard
-but friable rock had been slowly worn away. Too often, altogether too
-often, had his wrathful hand been stayed. Time and his prodigious
-struggle with the plague had combined to crush and crumble to bits the
-fury in his rock-ribbed soul.
-
-No longer was he strong with faith in the righteousness of his cause. He
-was only moved, now, by a determination to fulfill his solemn word, to
-live up to the oath he had sworn. Pride alone possessed him. He was
-being swept along toward a damnation of crime by the momentum of an
-inexorable pride!
-
-He himself felt the weakness, the blight. In an open confession that
-showed forth his inward doubt, in a heart-poignant appeal to Heaven
-beseeching leniency for that awful thing he felt he now must do, he
-cried out:
-
-"Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord; but the bleeding wounds of Christ
-and the thorn-pierced heart of His Most Virgin Mother shall intercede
-for my grievously sinning soul on the Day of Judgment!"
-
-He raised the heavy horse-pistol.
-
-The serranos fell from about him like flung chaff. The spittle dried in
-their mouths; they could not speak. They were blind of eye, and blind
-and black of brain as to what to do.
-
-The scene was much as before. On the great rock of the village, Don
-Jaime sat rigid in the saddle like some black-browed Destroying Angel
-and menaced, with his huge pistol, the pale trembling lily of a girl.
-
-But this time it was not Quesada who intervened. The bandolero long had
-brooded upon the coming of this inevitable moment; yet now, when
-ultimately it had struck, the moment found him standing off to one side
-and a good twenty feet from the great rock where bulked up Don Jaime.
-Ere the bandolero could interpose himself to obstruct Don Jaime's will,
-ere he could dash forward to shoulder the perilous rebuttal, came
-interposition from an unexpected and astonishing source. Stepped forward
-the American, John Fremont Carson!
-
-Big, broad-shouldered, and wornly angular of face, Carson stepped
-before the agitated girl, wholly between her and the threat of the
-leveled gun. He lifted dauntless blue eyes to her Hebraic Jehovah of a
-father.
-
-"Senor Don Jaime, you have no longer the right to seek retribution on
-Felicidad," he said with quiet but positive defiance. "Ere you can
-retaliate on her, you must deal with me. She is now my affianced bride!"
-
-Don Jaime's jaw sagged; an astounded gleam zig-zagged across the hard
-quartz of his eyes. But quickly came to his aid the iron composure of
-the hidalgo. Without lowering the pistol, he turned eagle-sharp white
-head and stony eyes to look down frigidly at the square-jawed American
-facing him in the street. With a forced politeness, he returned:
-
-"In Spain, know you, Senor Americano, one must ask the father for the
-hand of his daughter. Should the father agree, the consent of the girl
-follows as a matter of course. We are very hidebound in these
-conventions, we Moors; no other ways command honor. The plighted word of
-a mere chit of a girl--Dios hombre! who would think of respecting that!"
-
-He laughed harshly.
-
-"Grandee of Spain," answered Carson in the same lofty Spanish manner as
-that used by the father, "in my country, should a man desire a girl, he
-asks that girl in marriage; if the girl reciprocates, they bother asking
-by-your-leave of no one else. Neither man nor American woman would
-consider for a moment allowing a parent to select the companion and
-helpmate of a lifetime.
-
-"This is not America; this is Spain. I know that, hidalgo doctor; and
-whenever I can, I try to obey Spain's laws of conduct. I would have
-sought your agreement and your blessing but for one good reason.
-Felicidad is no longer your daughter! Because you believe she has
-dishonored your ancient name, you have publicly disclaimed her as a
-Torreblanca y Moncada.
-
-"Good God, man!" Carson exclaimed, the untenable and even outrageous
-incongruity of the doctor's position suddenly hitting him like the smash
-of a bludgeon. "How can _you_ contend for a father's rights over
-Felicidad after the harsh and cruel way you have used her! Why, at this
-very moment, you seek her life!"
-
-That struck home. A murderous gleam leaped into Don Jaime's eyes. His
-eyes blazed like chips of glass.
-
-"Senor Americano," he said huskily, in shaking voice, "do you not know
-that you are very rash? I am armed and ready; I look at you and see no
-weapon in your hands. Do you think that a Torreblanca y Moncada will
-long endure a quarrel in words? I warn you, my cheeky one! Cease
-challenging my prerogatives! Else shall you provoke me to kill you!"
-
-It was more than a threat. Don Jaime de Torreblanca y Moncada, grandee
-by birth and breeding, hidalgo of the old granite-jawed, eagle-stern and
-eagle-haughty Spanish sort, trained the huge horse-pistol, with the
-words, upon the square-jawed American facing him in the street!
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXVIII
-
-
-It exasperated and incensed Carson--this high-handed attempt of the
-hidalgo to gag and stop his mouth, to cow and overawe his soul.
-
-He did not bother now to temper or anyway mollify his words. Bluntly,
-boldly, he asserted:
-
-"I know your sort of man, Don Jaime! We have them in my country--the
-Kentuckians, for instance! You do not really desire to kill Felicidad.
-Your pride goads you, but your heart is no longer in the work. And now
-you are more pleased than chagrined that I have stepped forth as her
-champion--you think to satisfy your pride by working up enough venom
-against me to bump me off and let the matter end there!
-
-"I'll take my chances, proud hidalgo. I'll fight you every move until
-bitten by your lead. But you are not going, as you say, to wage much
-longer this war in words. Very soon you are either going to get hot
-enough to plug me, or you are going to throw up the sponge! Oh, I know
-your sort! You'll do one or the other. But one thing you will not
-do--you will not allow yourself to be made ridiculous!"
-
-Don Jaime was staggered. The American's talk was a talk strange and
-utterly new to him. John Fremont Carson fought him with weapons that he
-had not known existed.
-
-Don Jaime lowered the heavy horse-pistol to his knee. A spirit of
-sardonic deviltry entered into him. He would worst this cheeky American
-on his own ground! His lips curling half in smile, half in sneer, a
-strange light in his eyes, he said:
-
-"Senor Americano, I will combat you and crush you with your own kind of
-weapon. I will vanquish you with words--with one question! But it must
-be understood, for the nonce, that I possess unqualifiedly and
-absolutely the right to speak as Felicidad's father."
-
-The American nodded, a kind of bewildered wonder crowding his eyes.
-
-"For the nonce, that prerogative is yours," he agreed.
-
-"Bueno! Then straightway I challenge you to prove yourself of fit birth
-to be Felicidad's husband! This is Spain, senor. I speak now as a
-Spanish father. More; I am a hidalgo, and I speak for my daughter who is
-the daughter of a hidalgo of Spain! She has an inheritance of blood and
-pride which you cannot gainsay, but which you must equal if you would
-marry her!"
-
-Dan Jaime spoke with a Latin fluency of exposition, in a rushing torrent
-of words. His eyes sparkled like vitreous slag.
-
-"Look you, my cheeky one! No man of common birth may hope to aspire to
-my daughter. We Spanish grandees are a feudal race, caste-bound and
-arrogant of birth. Perhaps you do not understand the true color of the
-situation, eh? Then know you that even in Spain there are not more than
-a score of men who are my equal in seignior blood and ancient knightly
-name!
-
-"Now, for any one outside this aristocratic circle to yearn and quest
-for my daughter's hand would be a sun-daring presumption. Take this
-Manuel Morales, for an instance." Momentarily his eyes leaped up the
-street to where the matador stood, his wasted form propped against the
-mud wall of the hospital.
-
-"Morales is the hero of the peninsula, as you know--a popular idol, a
-famous and distinguished man. Royalties and hidalgos ask after his
-health, greet him by name and with handshake. He is the most renowned of
-modern bullfighters. And he is a rich man--richer far than are most
-grandees; for much, much gold has come to him along with his
-well-deserved success.
-
-"Yet never would Morales dare to look for a wife among blooded folk!
-Indeed, should he be so mad as to presume so far, the hidalgo whom he
-thus affronted would kill him without ruth, as for a deadly grievance.
-And at once that hidalgo would be acquitted of all wrong by the public
-opinion of Spain. Aye, though Morales is the idol of all Spaniards!
-
-"That is right and as it should be; for when all is said, he is only a
-bullfighter. And bullfighters have no social standing; they are not men
-of birth nor breeding; they are a low caste. Ask Morales himself. Even
-now he is nodding agreement to my every word!"
-
-Carson did not trouble to turn his head to gain corroboration of the
-doctor's statement from the matador up the street. He realized already
-the poser Don Jaime was soon to spring. He eyed the haughty hidalgo
-fixedly, a peculiar smile slowly parting his lips.
-
-"And Quesada," Don Jaime swept on--"Jacinto Quesada is in the same case
-as Morales. My words apply to him as much as they do to any bullfighter.
-Not because he is the Wolf of the Sierras, a bandolero and outlaw.
-Seguramente, no! But only because he is of common birth."
-
-Don Jaime paused. He looked down at the American. The half-smile had
-altogether fled his lips. His lips were palpably sneering.
-
-"Now as to yourself, my cheeky one!" he said with biting sharpness. "It
-is often said that the Americans are a nation of _canaille_. Can you
-prove yourself worthy of the daughter of a Spanish hidalgo and grandee?
-I ask you that. I wait for your answer."
-
-"You ask me to prove to you that I am not of common birth?"
-
-Don Jaime nodded vigorously. Caspita! this was indeed a trump card! All
-the venom of his embittered spirit showed.
-
-"You cannot prove that, eh? Then it is true, is it not, that the
-Americans are a nation of--"
-
-"One moment, Don Jaime. Your Spanish royalty is the keystone, the
-fountainhead, of Spanish society, is it not? Alfonso, your king, is as
-good and better an aristocrat than any of his hidalgos--"
-
-"There are some that would dispute you there. Myself, I know my line is
-older! My ancestors--"
-
-The American was broadly smiling.
-
-"You will admit, however, that Alfonso is of uncommon birth?"
-
-"Seguramente, yes! Is he not my master and lord!"
-
-"Well, then! I was born in the same year as Alfonso, 1886. He was the
-son of a king; I the son of an American millionaire. Because Alfonso was
-such a high and mighty infant, his birth was a long-heralded public
-affair. And so was mine. When I was born, the newspapers of America
-remarked that here was no common birth. In long articles they compared
-it to the birth of Alfonso, citing statistics to show the principalities
-in mines and manufactories I would rule, the kingly revenues that would
-pour annually into my coffers of state.
-
-"Alfonso's actual birth was marked by great pomp and a certain ceremony.
-To prove that he was truly the son of his royal mother, that everything
-was aboveboard and as it should be, in the room with the queen, when
-Alfonso first put in an appearance, were a round dozen and more
-hidalgos--"
-
-"That is our Spanish custom when royal infants are born."
-
-"Just so. A very uncommon birth! Well, with my mother, when first I put
-in an appearance, were a round dozen doctors and nurses of all kinds,
-trained and practical, wet and dry! Quite an uncommon birth, too, don't
-you think?"
-
-What could Don Jaime do? Carson had worsted him signally. The grim drama
-had become almost a comedy, a farce!
-
-Don Jaime feared longer to persist. It would not do for him to be made
-ridiculous and laughable.
-
-All at once he lifted his head and looked beyond Carson, beyond
-Felicidad. In a great voice, he called out:
-
-"Put up your gun, Quesada! I am a wineskin squeezed dry; I am empty of
-all words and all passions; I am done! Put up your gun, you Wolf-Cub
-you, and I will put up mine! I had meant to beat you to the first
-shot--to kill Felicidad and then have you kill me! But now--Carajo, I am
-done!"
-
-Like mechanical toys on clockwork pivots, every man and woman within
-sound of the doctor's great voice, turned simultaneously to look for
-Quesada.
-
-There, twenty feet away, stood the wolfishly gaunt bandolero, a revolver
-in his right hand trained rigidly on Don Jaime! That revolver had once
-been Jacques Ferou's!
-
-Not before had John Fremont Carson noticed the revolver in Quesada's
-hand. He was taken completely by surprise. Little had he realized how
-close to black tragedy had been the drama in which he had enacted so
-prominent a part!
-
-In the American's eyes, in the eyes of every man there present, the
-hidalgo on horseback loomed up, then and on the sudden, with a new and
-imposing dignity, a rare nobility and magnificence. Don Jaime alone had
-known of the imminent threat of Quesada's revolver. All the while he had
-striven to attain his vengeance, all that while Don Jaime had trusted
-his life to a hair. Quesada had him covered. The mere press of a finger
-on the trigger, and Don Jaime would have toppled out of the saddle--a
-dead man!
-
-Quesada had thought Don Jaime all unaware. Now, for the first time, he
-comprehended the sublime insolence of the hidalgo's persistency. Abashed
-and shamefaced, he lowered the revolver and shoved it back into his
-belt.
-
-Don Jaime lifted the horse-pistol from his knee and slipped it into the
-holster slung from the saddle. Then, without another word and without
-even a glance toward his daughter, he turned the old nag's head about
-and went deliberately down the goat path.
-
-He never once looked round. But his back seemed not quite so rigid nor
-his old white head so erect. All at once there were about the
-unmistakable signs of an old, old man. And in the slow pace of the
-faithful nag, there seemed something that wanted to linger yet was urged
-on by pride, inexorable and pitiless.
-
-"Oh, mi pobre padre!" wailed Felicidad after him. "His heart breaks and
-he is lonely! And there is only old whining Pedro and the childish
-Teresa to welcome him back to the gloomy casa!"
-
-Save for the creaking of the saddle, the soft pad-pad of the horse's
-hoof-falls, nothing answered from down the goat path. For the first time
-then, in all that intolerable eternity of death and disease and lusting
-vengeance, Felicidad wilted in a swoon to the ground.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXIX
-
-
-"By gad!" exclaimed Carson, leaping to the side of Felicidad and lifting
-her tenderly in his arms. "There will yet be a wedding down in the casa
-of Torreblanca y Moncada outside Granada! Come, Jacinto; lend us your
-aid. Get horses! We must overtake the hidalgo doctor!"
-
-"There are no horses in Minas de la Sierra," returned Quesada. "There
-are only mules and borricos which the serranos use to sleigh their cords
-of pine down to the lower torrents, and to carry their panniers of white
-manzanilla into the towns."
-
-"Anything!" urged the American. Felicidad in his arms was showing signs
-of recovering consciousness. "Mules, borricos, anything upon which we
-can ride!"
-
-"Muy bueno," assented Quesada readily. "It is very good, and I will go
-along with you. They say Jacinto Quesada is dead; I can ride the roads
-with impunity. And the roads are paved with gold for such as I!"
-
-"I will go also," volunteered Morales--"I, and what remains of my
-cuadrilla. In his offices down in Seville sits my manager, the Senor Don
-Arturo Guerra, signing contract after contract; and these contracts I
-must soon fulfill, or lose much money and much prestige with the
-presidentes of the bull rings and the aficionados of Spain."
-
-"Hola, mis serranos!" called Quesada. "Fetch forth your beasts. The
-caballeros would look at them and pay you well in golden notes on the
-Bank of Spain!"
-
-A little later, the cavalcade wound down the loops of the goat path. In
-all the pueblo, there had proved to be only three burden-bearing
-animals--two mules and one ass. However, Morales' cuadrilla had been
-depleted by the loss through the plague of Alfonso Robledo and Coruncho
-Lopez, and the death in the rebellion of the banderillero, Baptista
-Monterey; so the party managed, by doubling up, to make shift.
-
-There were altogether seven of them. Morales and the three surviving men
-of the cuadrilla paired off on the two mules. Felicidad, still pale from
-her faint and pensive with longing, jogged behind Carson on the crupper
-of the sturdy sure-footed ass.
-
-Quesada laughed when they begged him also to mount one of the mules.
-
-"It would be too much for the animal. And besides," he added with a
-return of his old pride, "I am the Wolf of the Sierras. My long
-mountaineer's legs are swifter to move now and even more tireless than
-the slow hoofs of any stupid borrico. Hold your peace, mis camaradas.
-Ere nightfall, you shall see!"
-
-Accoutred in the neat gray tweeds and slouch hat of the deceased
-Frenchman, he led the way with swinging strides. Long after they had
-disappeared down the gorge, the mountain boy Gabriel, yellow of skin and
-oddly wrinkled of face, stood on the rock at the brink of the village
-and sought to follow them with his wistful eyes.
-
-The cavalcade convoluted through the gorges. Never once did they sight
-the senor doctor. Mounted as he was on the nag, slow with age yet
-swifter-paced than the ambling donkeys, the hidalgo had easily put dust
-and distance between them, and buried himself in the lower passes.
-
-They came, in the due course of nights and days, to the mournful Pass of
-the Blessed Trinity. There were three diverging roads leading out and
-down from it. Quesada, many yards in the lead, waited until the
-cavalcade overtook him. Then pointing to that dusty road which snaked
-most sweepingly to the left, he said:
-
-"Felicidad will now recognize the way. That road winds through the
-Alpujarras and directly down into Granada. For myself, I bid thee
-adios!"
-
-Felicidad exclaimed in surprise and deep disappointment:
-
-"You are going to desolate us, Jacintito, by absenting yourself?"
-
-"And you are not going to help us assault the hidalgo doctor's casa with
-bell and book and ring?" from Morales.
-
-Said the American with quiet appeal, "I intended you for my best man,
-Jacinto."
-
-But to all Quesada shook his head in dissent.
-
-"Down in Getafe," he returned, "there are ten thousand pesetas awaiting
-me--the reward for my own death!"
-
-"But that affair of the Christ of the Pass!" exclaimed Carson. "You
-there proclaimed yourself to the police as still alive. The Guardia
-Civil must know now that Montara and the dead sergeant made a mistake.
-They may even guess it was Ferou that was killed. To go to Getafe, after
-all this, will be to put your head into a noose!"
-
-Quesada smiled grimly.
-
-"But they may have taken me for a rank impostor. They may have thought
-me some serrano friend of the Alvarados who, overhearing the old
-mother's story and lacking ingenuity, announced myself as Jacinto
-Quesada just to dumbfound the police and save poor Miguel."
-
-"Hardly likely," remarked Carson drily.
-
-"Ea pues!" exclaimed Quesada. "Well, then! How about the fact that the
-honor of the Guardia Civil was jeopardized by young Alvarado's treachery
-and that, before my very eyes, Capitan Luis Guevara and his troop swore
-themselves to secrecy? Senor Carson, you do not know the Spanish police
-as do I. Even as Don Jaime and Sargento Esteban Alvarado thought more of
-their personal honor than they did of the lives of their offspring, even
-and just so do the Guardia Civil think more of their honor and good name
-than they do of capturing a mere bandolero, of keeping secure the peace
-of Spain!
-
-"That troop of police has not told headquarters. I am even taking the
-chance that Montara filed his report as if nothing had happened that
-night at the shrine. Getafe will not know of my resurrection until I
-play this little trick. For the interval, I am Monsenor Jacques Ferou!"
-
-"It is a coup!" enthused Morales.
-
-"But a tremendously risky one," qualified the American dubiously. "You
-stand to win ten thousand pesetas, Quesada, but you stand by far longer
-odds to lose your life. For what do you need money so badly, Jacinto,
-that you should stake red alfonsos against your precious neck?"
-
-"Am I not forever risking everything to gain mere gold?" countered
-Quesada. "But carajo! that is not my reason. I have a higher incentive."
-
-His gaunt face became priestly with a sudden somber tenderness.
-
-"Up in Minas de la Sierra," he went on, "there is a mountaineer's orphan
-bantling with heart of fire and soul of gold. To-day he dreams to be a
-great man of Spain. But the God of Spain smiles derisively upon a son of
-the people who would seek to rise above his fellows. Spain is a country
-of limited opportunities. Here there are only two careers open for a son
-of the soil. My little mountain brat may become a bullfighter, a gran
-espada like our Manuel; or he may become a bandolero like me. There is
-naught else for him. I know, Senor Carson; I have lived Spain myself!
-
-"Up here in these desolate hills, my lad is too far removed from the
-cities of the plains. Never will he see the brutal savage encounter of
-bull and man; never will be waked in him the glamour and ambition for
-the blood and sand of the arena. Never will he be a bullfighter!
-
-"But carajo! never shall he be a bandolero! I, Jacinto Quesada, say it!
-I will not have him go houseless in the wind and rain, forever hounded
-by the podencos of the Guardia Civil. By the Nails of Christ, no!"
-
-"What would you then, Jacinto?" asked Felicidad with the quick sympathy
-of a woman.
-
-Interposed the matador with a sudden deep interest: "Of what child do
-you speak, Quesada?"
-
-"Of the boy Gabriel! Half of the blood money shall be used to send him
-to the great University of Salamanca! I will make our little Gabriel a
-superb senor doctor like Felicidad's own haughty father, Don Jaime!"
-
-"I will put an equal amount to the furtherance of the noble project!"
-Morales pledged himself enthusiastically.
-
-"But the other half, Quesada?" questioned Carson with characteristic
-acuteness. "What do you purpose doing with the remaining five thousand
-pesetas?"
-
-"I have a plan wherewith to use them," returned Quesada evasively.
-
-He started away. He would say no more. Waving his hand to them in adieu,
-he called back:
-
-"Go thou with God, my friends. The orange trees of the Alpujarras are in
-white and fragrant bloom. To thee, Senor Carson, and to mia camarista
-Felicidad, I wish all the blessings of God on thy new and great
-happiness!"
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-A week later, a wolfishly gaunt man in gray tweeds and slouch traveling
-hat invaded the headquarters of the Guardia Civil at Getafe and
-presented himself before the desk sergeant.
-
-"I am Monsenor Jacques Ferou," he said. "I come to claim the reward for
-the killing, up in Minas de la Sierra, of the bandolero, Jacinto
-Quesada."
-
-The desk sergeant was very glad to meet Senor Ferou. He shook his hand
-warmly. He knew from the foreign swagger of his clothes that the man was
-an outlander. As with all Spaniards, he had two guesses as to the
-country of the stranger's nativity. From the man's name then and swarthy
-complexion, he decided, by some unaccountable quirk of the mind, that he
-was an Englishman!
-
-To secure the authority and money, he dispatched one of the policemen
-waiting in the room to the office of the Ministro de Gobernacion.
-Meanwhile, making conversation, he politely inquired whether Senor Ferou
-liked the country.
-
-"Si; I like Spain very much," the pseudo-Englishman returned, smiling
-pleasantly. "I have made many good friends here, and Dios sabe! perhaps
-a few poor enemies. I shall remain here for some time."
-
-"That was a very brave thing you did up in the Sierra Nevadas. Jacinto
-Quesada has long harassed and terrorized us poor Moors. All Spain thanks
-you and feels you well merit the reward. But have you any plans for the
-spending of all those pesetas?"
-
-"I have two plans. One is to aid a protege of mine, a motherless little
-child; the other to pay the costs of a certain fete. There is going to
-be a wedding over in the foothills of the Sierra Morena. It is to be a
-wedding among the gypsies. You know how costly and lavish are the
-marital feasts of the Zincali. They celebrate for two weeks,
-hand-running, just like the Jews of Barbary. You see, sargento mio, I am
-to marry a girl of the Gitano, one Paquita, daughter of Pepe Flammenca,
-count of a gypsy clan!"
-
-"Ah!" exclaimed the sergeant, his face wrinkling into a broad smile.
-"Most certainly are you English both eccentric and adventurous! But you
-seek your love in such strange places! Do not our white, soft-eyed maids
-of Andalusia captivate you?"
-
-"They do not," returned the man in the gray tweeds with vehemence. "When
-your Andalusian virgins caress me with languishing looks and their
-tongues drip liquid flattery and love, my masculinity rebels at the
-thought of being wooed by a woman. You know we Englishmen joy in being
-the seeker, the stalker, the predatory one!"
-
-"Eh, eh! This Gitana treated you with disdain, what? She fled from you,
-was cold to your kisses, took on as if you were a dust-mote in her eye,
-no? Perhaps she even prodded a knife between your ribs--it is a way they
-have, these soft brown leopards of the Zincali!"
-
-"She did more than that. She stabbed at my pride. She made love to
-another man, a sad fool, whom she had imitate and ape me just to show
-how little importa I was--"
-
-The policeman returned, just then, holding in his hand two five-thousand
-peseta bills and a receipt to be signed. The man in the gray tweeds
-affixed his name with a flourish. Then the sergeant handed him the bills
-and although his eyes were greedy, he politely said:
-
-"Go thou with God, my brave Englishman, and may Heaven bless your coming
-happiness."
-
-He looked after the man as he went out the door, and sighed heavily.
-
-"Ah, I knew them well when I was young, the brown maidens of the
-Zincali! They are wine to kiss and soft silk to caress, but the very
-tigers when aroused. But I am getting on now--getting on and too old for
-such thoughts!"
-
-He looked down at the receipt in his hand. He started.
-
-"Dios hombre!" he ejaculated.
-
-The policemen crowded around him. But he had recovered.
-
-"It is nothing," he said.
-
-He went back to his desk. There, for a long time, slyly and secretly he
-eyed the receipt the man had given him. Upon it was written:
-
-"Received payment, Jacinto Quesada."
-
-Very stealthily, the desk sergeant tore the paper into a thousand little
-bits.
-
-
-THE END
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wolf Cub, by Patrick Casey
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