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-The Project Gutenberg eBook of Chata and Chinita, by Louise Palmer Heaven
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you
-will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
-using this eBook.
-
-Title: Chata and Chinita
-
-Author: Louise Palmer Heaven
-
-Release Date: January 12, 2021 [eBook #64269]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-Produced by: KD Weeks, Nick Wall and the Online Distributed Proofreading
-             Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
-             images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
-
-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHATA AND CHINITA ***
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-                          Transcriber’s Note:
-
-This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects.
-Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_.
-
-Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please
-see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding
-the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation.
-
-                           CHATA AND CHINITA
-
-                               =A Novel=
-
-                                   BY
-                          LOUISE PALMER HEAVEN
-
-[Illustration]
-
-                                 BOSTON
-                            ROBERTS BROTHERS
-                                  1889
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-                           _Copyright, 1889_,
-                        BY LOUISE PALMER HEAVEN.
-
-                                  ---
-
-                         _All rights reserved._
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-                          =University Press:=
-                    JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.
-
-
-
-
-                           CHATA AND CHINITA.
-
-                               ----------
-
-                                   I.
-
-
-On an evening in May, some forty years ago, Tio Pedro, the _portero_, or
-gate-keeper, of Tres Hermanos, had loosened the iron bolts that held
-back the great doors against the massive stone walls, and was about to
-close the hacienda buildings for the night, when a traveller, humbly
-dressed in a shabby suit of buff leather, urged his weary mule up the
-road from the village, and pulling off his wide sombrero of woven grass,
-asked in the name of God for food and shelter.
-
-Pedro glanced at him sourly enough from beneath his broad felt-hat, gay
-with a silver cord and heavy tassels. The last rays of the setting sun
-flashed in his eyes, allowing him but an uncertain glimpse of the dark
-face of the stranger, though the shabby and forlorn aspect of both man
-and beast were sufficiently apparent to warn him from forcing an
-appearance of courtesy, and he muttered, grumblingly,—
-
-“Pass in! Pass in! See you not I am in a hurry? God save us! Am I to
-stand all night waiting on your lordship? Another moment, friend, and
-the gate would have been shut. By my patron saint,” he added in a lower
-tone, “it would have been small grief to me to have turned the key upon
-thee and thy beast. By thy looks, Tia Selsa’s mud hut for thee, and the
-shade of a mesquite for thy mule, would have suited all needs well
-enough. But since it is the will of the saints that thou comest here,
-why get thee in.”
-
-“Eheu!” ejaculated a woman who stood by, “what makes thee so spiteful
-to-night, Tio Pedro, as if the bit and sup were to be of thy providing?
-Thou knowest well enough that Doña Isabel herself has given orders that
-no wayfarer shall be turned from her door!”
-
-“Get thee to the hand-mill, gossip!” cried the gatekeeper, angrily.
-“This new-comer will add a handful of corn to thy stint for grinding; he
-has a mouth for a _gordo_, believe me.”
-
-The woman, thus reminded of her duty, hurried away amid the laughter of
-the idlers, who, lounging against the outer walls or upon the stone
-benches in the wide archway, exchanged quips and jests with Pedro, one
-by one presently sauntering away to the different courtyards within the
-hacienda walls or to their own homes in the grass-thatched village,
-above which the great building rose at once overshadowingly and
-protectingly.
-
-The stranger, thus doubtfully welcomed, urged his mule across the
-threshold, throwing, as he entered, keen glances around the wide space
-between the two arches, and beyond into the dim court; and especially
-upon the rows of stuffed animals ranged on the walls, and upon the
-enormous snakes pendent on either side the inner doorway, twining in
-hideous folds above it, and even encircling the tawdry image of the
-Virgin and child by which the arch was surmounted. These trophies,
-brought in by the husbandmen and shepherds and prepared with no
-unskilful hands, gave a grim aspect to the entrance of a house where
-unstinted hospitality was dispensed, the sight of whose welcoming walls
-cheered the wayfarer across many a weary league,—it being the only
-habitation of importance to be seen on the extensive plain that lay
-within the wide circle of hills which on either hand lay blue and sombre
-in the distance. For a few moments, indeed, the western peaks had been
-lighted up by the effulgence of the declining sun; the last rays
-streamed into the vestibule as the traveller entered, then were suddenly
-withdrawn, and the gray chill which fell upon the valley deepened to
-actual duskiness in the court to which he penetrated.
-
-Careless glances followed him, as he rode across the broad flagging,
-picking his way among the lounging herdsmen, who, leaning across their
-horses, were recounting the adventures of the day or leisurely
-unsaddling. He looked around him for a few moments, as if uncertain
-where to go; but each one was too busy with his own affairs to pay any
-attention to so humble a wayfarer. Nor, indeed, did he seem to care that
-they should; on the contrary, he pulled his hat still further over his
-brows, and with his dingy striped blanket thrown crosswise over his
-shoulder and almost muffling his face, followed presently a confused
-noise of horses and men, which indicated where the stables stood, and
-disappeared within a narrow doorway leading to an inner court.
-
-Meanwhile, Tio Pedro, his hands on the gate, still stood exchanging the
-last words of banter and gossip, idly delaying the moment of final
-closure. Of all those human beings gathered there, perhaps no one of
-them appreciated the magnificent and solemn grandeur by which they were
-surrounded any more than did the cattle that lowed in the distance, or
-the horses that ran whinnying to the stone walls of the enclosures,
-snuffing eagerly the cool night air that came down from the hills, over
-the clear stream which rippled under the shadow of the cottonwood trees,
-across the broad fields of springing corn and ripening wheat, and
-through the deep green of the plantations of chile and beans and the
-scented orchards of mingled fruits of the temperate and torrid zones.
-For miles it thus traversed the unparalleled fertility of the Bajio,
-that Egypt of Mexico, which feeds the thousands who toil in her barren
-hills for silver or who watch the herds that gather a precarious
-subsistence upon her waterless plains, and which gives the revenues of
-princes to its lordly proprietors, who scatter them with lavish hands in
-distant cities and countries, and with smiling mockery dole the scant
-necessities of life to the toiling thousands who live and die upon the
-soil.
-
-Many are these fertile expanses, which, entered upon through some deep
-and rugged defile, lie like amphitheatres inclosed by jagged and massive
-walls of brescia and porphyry, that rise in a thousand grotesque shapes
-above their bases of green,—at a near view showing all the varying
-shades of gray, yellow, and brown, and in the distance deep purples and
-blues, which blend into the clear azure of the sky. One of the most
-beautiful of such spots is that in which lay the hacienda or estates of
-the family of Garcia, and one of the most marvellously rich; for there
-even the very rocks yield a tribute, the mine of the Three Brothers—the
-“Tres Hermanos”—being one of those which at the Conquest had been given
-as a reward to the daring adventurer Don Geronimo Garcia. It was
-surrounded by rich lands, which unheeded by the earliest proprietors,
-later yielded the most important returns to their descendants. But at
-the time our story opens, the mines and mills of Tres Hermanos, though
-they added a picturesque element to the landscape, had become a source
-of perplexity and loss,—still remaining, however, in the opinion of
-their owners, a proud adjunct to the vast stretches of field and orchard
-which encircled them.
-
-The mines themselves lay in the scarred mountain against which the
-reduction-works stood, a dingy mass of low-built houses and high adobe
-walls, from the midst of which ascended the great chimney, whence clouds
-of sulphurous smoke often rose in a black column against the sky. These
-buildings made a striking contrast to the great house, which formed the
-nucleus of the agricultural interests and was the chief residence of the
-proprietors, and whose lofty walls rose proudly, forming one side of the
-massive adobe square, which was broken at one corner by a box-towered
-church and on another by a flour-mill. The wheels of this mill were
-turned in the rainy season by the rapid waters of a mountain stream,
-which lower down passed through the beautiful garden, the trees of which
-waved above the fourth corner of the walls,—flowing on, to be almost
-lost amid the slums and refuse of the reduction-works a half-mile away,
-and during the nine dry months of the year leaving a chasm of loose
-stones and yellow sand to mark its course. Along the banks were
-scattered the huts of workmen, though, with strange perversity, the
-greater number had clustered together on a sandy declivity almost in
-front of the great house, discarding the convenience of nearness to wood
-and water,—the men, perhaps, as well as the women, preferring to be
-where all the varied life of the great house might pass before their
-eyes, while custom made pleasant to its inmates the nearness of the
-squalid village, with its throngs of bare-footed, half nude, and wholly
-unkempt inhabitants.
-
-These few words of description have perhaps delayed us no longer than
-Tio Pedro lingered at his task of closing the great doors for the night,
-leaving however a little postern ajar, by which the tardy work-people
-passed in and out, and at which the children boisterously played
-hide-and-seek (that game of childhood in all ages and climes); and
-meanwhile, as has been said, the traveller found and took his way to the
-stables. Before entering, he paused a moment to pull the red
-handkerchief that bound his head still further over his bushy black
-brows, and to readjust his hat, and then went into the court upon which
-the stalls opened. Finding none vacant in which to place his mule, he
-tethered it in a corner of the crowded yard; and then, with many
-reverences and excuses, such as rancheros or villagers are apt to use,
-asked a feed of barley and an armful of straw from the “major-domo,” who
-was giving out the rations for the night.
-
-“All in good time! All in good time, friend,” answered this functionary,
-pompously but not unkindly. “He who would gather manna must wait
-patiently till it falls.”
-
-“But I have a _real_ which I will gladly give,” interrupted the
-ranchero. “Your grace must not think I presume to beg of your bounty.
-I—”
-
-“Tut! tut!” interrupted the major-domo; “dost think we are shop-keepers
-or Jews here at Tres Hermanos? Keep thy _real_ for the first beggar who
-asks an alms;” and he drew himself up as proudly as if all the grain and
-fodder he dispensed were his own personal property. “But,” he added,
-with a curiosity that came perhaps from the plebeian suspicion
-inseparable from his stewardship, “hast thou come far to-day? Thy beast
-seems weary,—though as far as that goes it would not need a long stretch
-to tire such a knock-kneed brute.”
-
-“I come from Las Vigas,” answered the traveller, doffing his hat at
-these dubious remarks, as though they were highly complimentary. “Saving
-your grace’s presence, the mule is a trusty brute, and served my father
-before me; but like your servant, he is unused to long journeys,—this
-being the first time we have been so far from our birthplace. Santo
-Niño, but the world is great! Since noon have my eyes been fixed upon
-the magnificence of your grace’s dwelling-place, and, by my faith, I
-began to think it one of the enchanted palaces my neighbor Pablo
-Arteaga, who travels to Guadalajara, and I know not where, to buy and
-sell earthenware, tells of!”
-
-The major-domo laughed, not displeased with the homage paid to his
-person and supposed importance, and suffering himself to be amused by
-the villager’s unusual garrulity. Las Vigas he knew of as a tiny village
-perched among the cliffs of the defile leading from Guanapila, whence
-fat turkeys were taken to market on feast-days, when its few inhabitants
-went down to hear Mass, and to turn an honest penny. They were a
-harmless people, these poor villagers, and he felt a glow of charity as
-if warmed by some personal gift, as he said, “Take a fair share of
-barley and straw for thy beast, and when thou hast given it to him,
-follow me into the kitchen, and thou shalt not lack a tortilla, nor
-frijoles and chile wherewith to season it.”
-
-“May your grace live a thousand years!” began the villager, when the
-major-domo interrupted him.
-
-“What is thy name? So bold a traveller must needs have a name.”
-
-“Surely,” answered the villager, gravely, “and Holy Church gave it to
-me. Juan—Juan Planillos, at your service.”
-
-The major-domo started, laid his hand on the knife in his belt, then
-withdrew it and laughed. “Truly a redoubtable name,” he exclaimed; then,
-as they passed into another court over which the red light of charcoal
-fires cast a lurid glare, illuminating fantastically the groups of men
-who were crouching in various attitudes in the wide corridors, awaiting
-or discussing their suppers, “I hope thou wilt prove more peaceful than
-thy namesake: a very devil they say is he.”
-
-The villager looked at him stupidly, and then with interest at the women
-who were doling from steaming shallow brown basins the rations of beans
-and pork with red pepper,—a generous portion of which, at a sign from
-the major-domo, was handed to the stranger, who looked around for a
-convenient spot to crouch and eat it.
-
-The major-domo turned away abruptly, muttering, “Juan Planillos! Juan
-Planillos! a good name to hang by. What animals these rancheros are!
-Evidently he has never heard of the man that they say even Santa Anna
-himself is afraid of. Well, well, Doña Isabel, I have obeyed your
-commands! What can be the reason of this caprice for knowing the name
-and business of every one who enters her gates? In the old time every
-one might come and go unquestioned; but now I must describe the height
-and breadth, the sound of the voice, the length of the nose even, of
-every outcast that passes by.”
-
-He disappeared within another of the seemingly endless range of courts,
-perhaps to discharge his duty of reporter, and certainly a little later,
-in company with other employees of the estate, to partake of an ample
-supper, and recount to Señor Sanchez the administrador, with many
-variations reflecting greatly on his own wit and the countryman’s
-stupidity, the interview he had held with the traveller from Las Vigas.
-Any variation in the daily record of a country life is hailed with
-pleasure, however trifling in itself it may be; and even Doña Feliz, the
-administrador’s grave mother, listened with a smile, and did not disdain
-to repeat the tale in her visit to her lady, Doña Isabel, which
-according to her usual custom she made before retiring for the night.
-
-The apartments occupied by the administrador and his family were a part
-of those which had been appropriated to the use of the proprietors and
-rulers of this circle of homes within a home, which we have attempted to
-describe. The staircase by which they were reached rose, indeed, from an
-inferior court, but they were connected on the second floor by a
-gallery; and thus the inhabitants of either had immediate access to the
-other, although the privacy of the ruling family was most rigidly
-respected; while at the same time its members were saved from the
-oppression of utter isolation which their separation from the more
-occupied portions of the building might have entailed. This was now the
-more necessary, as one by one the gentlemen of the family had, for
-various reasons or pretexts, gone to the cities of the republic, where
-they spent the revenues produced by the hacienda in expensive living,
-and Doña Isabel Garcia de Garcia,—still young, still eminently
-attractive, though a widow of ten years standing,—was left with her
-young daughters, not only to represent the family and dispense the
-hospitality of Tres Hermanos, but to bear the burden of its management.
-
-She was a woman who, perhaps, would scarcely be commiserated in this
-position. She was not, like most of her countrywomen, soft, indolent,
-and amiable, a creature who loves rather than commands. A searching gaze
-into the depths of her dark eyes would discover fires which seldom leapt
-within the glance of a casual observer. Seemingly cold, impassive, grave
-beyond her years, Doña Isabel wielded a power as absolute over her
-domains as ever did veritable queen over the most devoted subjects. Yet
-this woman, who was so rich, so powerful, upon the eve on which her
-bounty had welcomed an unknown pauper to her roof, was less at ease,
-more harassed, more burdened, as she stood upon her balcony looking out
-upon the vast extent and variety of her possessions, than the poorest
-peon who daily toiled in her fields.
-
-Her daughters were asleep, or reading with their governess; her
-servants were scattered, completing the tasks of the day; behind her
-stretched the long range of apartments throughout which, with little
-attention to order, were scattered rich articles of furniture,—a grand
-piano, glittering mirrors, valuable paintings, bedsteads of bronze
-hung with rich curtains, services of silver for toilette and
-table,—indiscriminately mixed with rush-bottomed chairs of home
-manufacture, tawdry wooden images of saints, waxen and clay figures
-more grotesque than beautiful, the whole being faintly illumined by
-the flicker of a few candles in rich silver holders, black from
-neglect. Doña Isabel stood with her back to them all, caring for
-nothing, heeding nothing, not even the sense of utter weariness and
-desolation which presently like a chill swept through the vast
-apartments, and issuing thence, enwrapped her as with a garment.
-
-She leaned against the stone coping of the window. Her tall, slender
-figure, draped in black, was sharply outlined against the wall, which
-began to grow white in the moonlight; her profile, perfect as that of a
-Greek statue unsharpened by Time yet firm as Destiny, was reflected in
-unwavering lines as she stood motionless, her eyes turned upon the walls
-of the reduction-works, her thoughts penetrating beyond them and
-concentrating themselves on one whom she had herself placed within,—who,
-successful beyond her hopes in the task for which she had selected him,
-yet baffled and harassed her, and had planted a thorn in her side, which
-at any cost must be plucked thence, must be utterly destroyed.
-
-The hour was still an early one, though where such primitive customs
-prevailed it might well seem late to her when she left the balcony and
-retired to her room, which was somewhat separated from those of the
-other members of the family, though within immediate call. Soothed by
-the cool air of the night, the peace that brooded over village and
-plain, the solemn presence of the everlasting hills,—those voiceless
-influences of Nature which she had inbreathed, rather than observed,—her
-health and vigor triumphed over care, and she slept.
-
-
-
-
-                                  II.
-
-Meanwhile, the moon had risen and was flooding the broad roofs and
-various courts of the great buildings with a silvery brilliancy, which
-contrasted sharply with the inky shadows cast by moving creatures or
-solid wall or massive column. While it was early in the evening, the
-sound of voices was heard, mingling later with the monotonous minor
-tones of those half-playful, half-pathetic airs so dear to the ear and
-heart of the Mexican peasantry; but as night approached, silence
-gradually fell upon the scene, broken only by the mutter or snore of
-some heavy sleeper, or the stamping of the horses and mules in their
-stalls.
-
-The new-comer Juan Planillos, who had joined readily in jest and
-song,—though his wit was scarce bright enough, it seemed, to attract
-attention to the speaker (while absolute silence certainly would have
-done so),—at length, following the example of those around him, sought
-the shaded side of the corridor, and wrapping himself in his striped
-blanket lay down a little apart from the others, and was soon fast
-asleep.
-
-Men who are accustomed to rise before or with the dawn sleep heavily,
-seldom stirring in that deep lethargy which at midnight falls like a
-spell on weary man and beast; yet it was precisely at that hour that
-Juan Planillos, like a man who had composed himself to sleep with a
-definite purpose to arise at a specified time, uncovered his face,
-raised himself on his elbow, and glancing first at the sky (reading the
-position of the moon and stars), threw then a keen glance at the
-prostrate figures around him. The very dogs—of which, lean and mongrel
-curs, there were many—like the men, fearing the malefic influences of
-the rays of the moon, had retired under benches, and into the farthest
-corners, and upon every living creature profound oblivion had fallen.
-
-It was some minutes before Planillos could thoroughly satisfy himself on
-this point, but that accomplished, he rose to his feet, leaving the
-sandals that he had worn upon the brick floor, and with extreme care
-pushing open the door near which he had taken the precaution to station
-himself, passed into the first and larger court, which he had entered
-upon reaching the hacienda. As he had evidently expected, he found this
-court entirely deserted, although in the vaulted archway at the farther
-side he divined that the gate-keeper lay upon his sheepskin in the
-little alcove beside the great door, of which he was the guardian.
-
-As he stepped into this courtyard, Juan Planillos paused to draw upon
-his feet a pair of thin boots of yellow leather, so soft and pliable
-that they woke no echo from the solid paving, and still keeping in the
-shadow, he crossed noiselessly to a door set deep in a carved arch of
-stone, and like one accustomed to its rude and heavy fastenings, deftly
-undid the latch and looked into the court upon which opened the private
-apartments of the family of Garcia. He stood there in the shadow of the
-doorway, still dressed, it is true, in the ranchero’s suit,—a soiled
-linen shirt open at the throat, over which was a short jacket of stained
-yellow leather, while trousers of the same, opening upon the outside of
-the leg to the middle of the thigh, over loose drawers of white cotton,
-were bound at the waist by a scarf of silk which had once been bright
-red; his blanket covered one shoulder; his brows were still circled by
-the handkerchief, but he had pushed back the slouching hat, and the face
-which he thrust forward as he looked eagerly around had undergone some
-strange transformation, which made it totally unlike that of the stolid
-mixed-breed villager who had talked with the major-domo a few hours
-before. Even the features of the face seemed changed, the heavy
-fleshiness of the ranchero had given place to the refinement and
-keenness of the cavalier. The bushy brows were unbent, there was
-intelligence and vivacity in his dark eyes, a half-mocking, half-anxious
-smile upon his lips, which utterly changed the dull and ignorant
-expression, and of the same flesh and blood made an absolutely new
-creation.
-
-It was not curiosity that lighted the eyes as they glanced lingeringly
-around, scanning the low chairs and tables scattered through the
-corridor, resting upon the rose-entwined columns that supported it, and
-then upon the fountain in the centre of the court, which threw a slender
-column in the moonlight, and fell like a thousand gems into the basin
-which overflowed and refreshed a vast variety of flowering shrubs that
-encircled it. It was rather a look of pleased recognition, followed by a
-sarcastic smile, as if he scorned a paradise so peaceful. There was
-indeed in every movement of his well-knit figure, in the clutch of his
-small but sinewy hand upon the door, something that indicated that the
-saddle and sword were more fitting to his robust physique and fiery
-nature than the delights of a lady’s bower.
-
-Nevertheless, he was about to enter, and had indeed made a hasty
-movement toward the staircase that led to the upper rooms, when an
-unexpected sound arrested him. Planillos drew back into the shadow and
-listened eagerly, scarce crediting the evidence of his senses; gradually
-he fell upon his knees, covering himself with his dingy blanket,
-transforming himself into a dull clod of humanity, which under cover of
-the black shadows would escape observation except of the most jealous
-and critical eye. Yet this apparent clod was for the time all eyes and
-ears. Presently the sound he had heard, a light tap on the outer door,
-was repeated; a shrill call like that of a wild bird—doubtless a
-pre-arranged signal—sounded, and in intense astonishment he waited
-breathlessly for what should further happen.
-
-Evidently the gate-keeper was not unprepared, for the first wild note
-caused him to raise his head sleepily, and at the second he staggered
-from his alcove, muttering an imprecation, and fumbling in his girdle
-for the key of the postern. He glanced around warily, even going softly
-to places where the shadows fell most darkly; but finding no one,
-returned, and with deft fingers proceeded to push back noiselessly the
-bolts of the small door set in a panel of the massive one which closed
-the wide entrance. It creaked slowly upon its hinges, so lightly that
-even a bird would not have stirred in its slumbers, and a man cautiously
-entered. He had spurs upon his heels, and after effecting his entrance
-stooped to remove them, and Planillos had time and opportunity to see
-that he was not one of Pedro Gomez’s associates,—not one of the common
-people.
-
-The midnight visitor was tall and slender, the latter though, it would
-seem, from the incomplete development of youth, rather than from
-delicacy of race. The long white hand that unbuckled his spurs was
-supple and large; his whole frame was modelled in more generous
-proportions than are usually seen in the descendants of the Aztecs or
-their conquerors.
-
-“Ingles,” thought Planillos, using a term which is indiscriminately
-applied to English or Americans. “A man I dare vow it would be hard to
-deal with in fair fight!”
-
-But evidently the Englishman, or American, was not there with any idea
-of contest; a pistol gleamed in his belt, but its absence would have
-been more noticeable than its presence,—it was worn as a matter of
-course. For so young a man, in that country where every cavalier native
-or foreign affected an abundance of ornament, his dress was singularly
-plain,—black throughout, even to the wide hat that shaded his face, the
-youthful bloom of which was heightened rather than injured by the
-superficial bronze imparted by a tropical sun.
-
-Planillos had time to observe all this. Evidently the late-comer knew
-his ground, and had but little fear of discovery. “A bold fellow,”
-thought the watcher, “and fair indeed should be the Dulcinea for whom he
-ventures so much. It must be the niece of Don Rafael, or perhaps the
-governess—did I hear she was young?”
-
-But further speculation was arrested by the movements of the stranger,
-who, after a moment’s parley with Pedro, came noiselessly but directly
-toward the door near which Planillos was lying.
-
-Once within it, he paused to listen. Planillos expected him to make some
-signal, and to see him joined by a veiled figure in the corridor, but to
-his unbounded amazement and rage the intruder passed swiftly by the
-fountain, under the great trees of bitter-scented oleanders and cloying
-jasmine, and sprang lightly up the steps leading to the private
-apartments. His foot was on the corridor, when Planillos, light as a
-cat, leaped up the steep stair. His head had just reached the level of
-the floor above, when with an absolute fury of rage he caught the
-glimpse of a fair young face in the moonlight, and beheld the American
-in the embrace of a beautiful girl. Instinct, rather than recognition,
-revealed to his initiated mind the young heiress, Herlinda Garcia.
-Absolutely paralyzed by astonishment and rage, for one moment dumb,
-almost blinded, in the next he saw the closing of a heavy door divide
-from his sight the lovers whom he was too late to separate.
-
-Too late? No! one blow from his dagger upon that closed door, one cry
-throughout the sleeping house and the life of the man who had stolen
-within would not be worth a moment’s purchase! It required all his
-strength of will, a full realization of his own position, to prevent
-Planillos from shouting aloud, from rushing to the door of Doña Isabel,
-to beat upon it and cry, “Up! up! look to your daughter! See if there be
-any shame like hers! see how your own child tramples upon the honor of
-which you have so proudly boasted!”
-
-But he restrained himself, panting like a wild animal mad with
-excitement. The thought of a more perfect, a more personal revenge
-leaped into his mind, and silenced the cry that rose to his lips,—held
-him from rushing down to plunge his dagger into the heart of the false
-doorkeeper, completely obliterated even the remembrance of the purpose
-for which he had ventured into a place deemed so sacred, so secure! and
-sustained him through the long hour of waiting, the horrible intentness
-of his purpose each moment growing more fixed, more definitely pitiless.
-
-For some time he stood rooted to the spot upon which he had made the
-discovery which had so maddened him, but at last he crouched in the
-shadow at the foot of the staircase; and scarcely had he done so, when
-the man for whom he waited appeared at the top. He saw him wave his
-hand, he even caught his whispered words, so acute were his senses:
-“Never fear, my Herlinda, all will be well. I will protect you, my love!
-In another week at most all this will be at an end. I shall be free to
-come and go as I will!”
-
-“Free as air!” thought the man lying in the shadow, with grim humor,
-even as he grasped his dagger. Crouching beneath his blanket he had
-drawn from his brows the red kerchief. The veins stood black and swollen
-upon his temples as the foreigner, waving a last farewell, descended the
-stairs. He passed with drooping head, breathing at the moment a deep
-sigh, within a hand’s breadth of an incarnate fiend.
-
-Ah, devoted youth! had thy guardian angel veiled her face that night?
-Oh, if but at the last moment thy light foot would wake the echoes and
-rouse the sleepers, already muttering in their dreams, as if conscious
-that the dawn was near. But nothing happened; the whole world seemed
-wrapped in oblivion as he bent over the gate-keeper, and with some
-familiar touch aroused him. He stooped to put on his spurs, as Pedro
-opened the postern, and instantly stepped forth, while the gate-keeper
-proceeded to replace the fastenings. But as the man turned nervously,
-with the sensation of an unexpected presence near him, he was absolutely
-paralyzed with dismay. A livid face, in which were set eyes of lurid
-blackness, looked down upon him with satanic rage. The bulk that towered
-over him seemed colossal. “Mercy! mercy!” he ejaculated. “By all the
-saints I swear—”
-
-“Let me pass!” hissed Planillos in a voice scarce above a whisper, but
-which in its intensity sounded in the ears of Pedro like thunder.
-“Villain, let me pass!” and he cast from him the terrified gate-keeper
-as though he were a child, and rushed out upon the sandy slope which lay
-between the great house and the village. He was not a moment too soon.
-In the dim light he caught sight of the lithe figure of the foreigner,
-as he passed rapidly over the rough ground skirting the village, the
-better to escape the notice of the dogs, which, tired with baying the
-moon, had at last sunk to uneasy slumbers.
-
-Planillos looked toward the moon, and cursed its rapid waning. The light
-grew so faint he could scarce keep the young man in sight, as he
-approached a tree where a dark horse was tied, which neighed as he drew
-near. Planillos clutched his dagger closer; would the pursued spring
-into his saddle, and thus escape, at least for that night? On the
-contrary, he lingered, leaning against his horse, his eyes fixed on the
-white walls of the house he had left. All unconscious of danger, he
-stood in the full strength of manhood, with the serene influences of
-Nature around him, his mind so rapt and tranced that even had his
-pursuer taken no precaution in making his approach from shrub to shrub,
-concealing his person as much as possible, he would probably have
-reached his victim unnoticed. Within call slept scores of fellow-men;
-behind him, scarce half a mile away, rose the walls and chimneys of his
-whilom home; not ten minutes before he had said, “I shall be as safe on
-the road as in your arms, my love!” He was absolutely unconscious of his
-surroundings, lost in a blissful reverie, when with irresistible force
-he was hurled to the ground; a frightful blow fell upon his side,—the
-heavens grew dark above him. Conscious, yet dumb, he staggered to his
-feet, only to be again precipitated to the earth; the dagger that at the
-moment of attack had been thrust into his bosom, was buried to the hilt;
-the blood gushed forth, and with a deep groan he expired.
-
-All was over in a few moments of time. John Ashley’s soul, with all its
-sins, had been hurled into the presence of its Judge. The self-appointed
-avenger staggered, gasping, against the tree; an almost superhuman
-effort had brought a terrible exhaustion. Every muscle and nerve
-quivered; he could scarcely stand. Yet thrusting from him with his foot
-the dead body, he thirsted still for blood. “If I could but return and
-kill that villain Pedro,” he hissed; “if his accursed soul could but
-follow to purgatory this one I have already sent! But, bah! a later day
-will answer for the dog! Ah, I am so spent a child might hold me; but,”
-looking toward the mountains, “this horse is fresh and fleet. I shall be
-safe enough when the first beam of the morning sun touches your lover’s
-lips, Herlinda.”
-
-The assassin glanced from his victim toward the house he had left, with
-a muttered imprecation; then, trembling still from his tremendous
-exertions, he approached the steed, which, unable to break the lariat by
-which it had been fastened, was straining and plunging, half-maddened,
-after the confusion of the struggle, by the smell of blood already
-rising on the air.
-
-Planillos possessed that wonderfully magnetic power over the brute
-creation which is as potent as it is rare, and which on this occasion
-within a few moments completely dominated and calmed the fright and fury
-of the powerful animal, which he presently mounted, and which—though man
-and horse shook with the violence of excitement and conflict—he managed
-with the ease that denoted constant practice and superb horsemanship.
-With a last glance at the murdered man, whom the darkness that precedes
-the dawn scarce allowed him to distinguish from the shrubs around, he
-put spurs to the restive steed, and galloped rapidly away.
-
-
-
-
-                                  III.
-
-
-It is not to be supposed that this bloody deed occurred entirely
-unsuspected. Pedro, the gate-keeper, lay half-stunned upon the stones
-where he had been cast by the man who called himself Planillos, and
-listened with strained ears to every sound. No indication of a struggle
-reached him, but his horrified imagination formed innumerable pictures
-of treacherous violence, in which one or the other of the men who had
-left him figured as the victim. He dared give no alarm; indeed, at first
-he was so unnerved by terror that he could neither stir nor speak. At
-length, after what appeared to him hours but was in reality only a few
-minutes, he heard the shrill neigh of the horse and the sound of rearing
-and plunging, followed by the dull thud of retreating footsteps and
-shrill whistles in challenge and answer from the watchmen upon the
-hacienda roof, who, however, took no further steps toward investigating
-what they supposed to be a drunken brawl which had taken place, almost
-out of hearing and quite out of sight, and which therefore, as they
-conceived, could in no wise endanger the safety or peace of the
-hacienda.
-
-Their signals, however, served to arouse Pedro, who shaking in every
-limb, his brain reeling, his heart bursting with apprehension, crawled
-to the postern, and after many abortive efforts managed to secure the
-bolts. He then staggered to the alcove in which he slept, and searching
-beneath the sheepskin mat which served for his bed, found a small flask
-of _aguardiente_, and taking a deep draught of the fiery liquor, little
-by little recovered his outward composure.
-
-For that night, however, sleep no more visited his eyes; and he spent
-the hour before dawn in making to himself wild excuses for his treason,
-in wilder projects for flight, and in mentally recapitulating his sins
-and preparing himself for death; so it can readily be imagined that it
-was a haggard and distraught countenance that he thrust forth from the
-postern at dawn, when with the first streak of light came a crowd of
-excited villagers to the gate, to beat upon it wildly, and with hoarse
-groans and cries to announce that Don Juan had been found murdered under
-a mesquite tree.
-
-“Impossible! Ye are mad! Anselmo, thou art drunk, raving!” stammered
-forth the gate-keeper. “Don Juan is is at the reduction-works!”
-
-“Thou liest!” cried an excited villager; “he is in purgatory. God help
-him! Holy angels and all saints pray for him!”
-
-“Ave Maria! Mother of Sorrows, by the five wounds of thy Son, intercede
-for him!” cried a chorus of women, wringing their hands and
-gesticulating distractedly.
-
-“Open the gate, Pedro!” demanded the throng without, by this time almost
-equalled by that within, through which the administrador, Don Rafael
-Sanchez, was seen forcing his way, holding high the great keys of the
-main door. He was a small man, with a pale but determined face, before
-whom the crowd fell back, ceasing for a moment their incoherent
-lamentations, while he assisted Pedro to unlock and throw open the
-doors.
-
-“Good heavens, man, are you mad?” he exclaimed, as Pedro darted from his
-side and rushed toward the group of rancheros, who, bearing between them
-a recumbent form, were slowly approaching the hacienda. “Ah! ah, that is
-right,” as he saw that Pedro, with imperative gestures and a few
-expressive words, had induced the bearers to turn and proceed with the
-body toward the reduction-works; “better there than here. What could
-have induced him to roam about at night? I have told him a score of
-times his foolhardiness would be the death of him;” and with these and
-similar ejaculations Don Rafael hastened to join the throng which were
-soon pouring into the gates of the reduction-works.
-
-Meanwhile from within the great house came the cries of women, above
-which rose one piercing shriek; but few were there to hear it, for in
-wild excitement men, women, and children followed the corpse across the
-valley and thronged the gates of the works which were closed in their
-faces, or surrounded with gaping looks, wild gesticulations, and
-meaningless inquiries, the tree beneath which the murdered man had been
-found, thus completely obliterating the signs of the struggle and flight
-of the murderer even while most eagerly seeking them.
-
-John Ashley had been an alien and a heretic. No longer ago than
-yesterday there had been many a lip to murmur at his foreign ways. In
-all the history of the mining works never had there been known a master
-so exacting with the laborer, so rigorous with the dishonest, so harsh
-with the careless; yet he had been withal as generous and just as he was
-severe. The people had been ready to murmur, yet in their secret hearts
-they had respected and even loved the young _Americano_, who knew how to
-govern them, and to gain from them a fair amount of work for a fair and
-promptly paid wage; and who, from a half ruinous, ill-managed source of
-vexation and loss, was surely but slowly evolving order and the promise
-of prosperity.
-
-The bearers and the crowd of laborers belonging to the reduction-works
-were admitted with their burden, and as they passed into the large and
-scantily-furnished room which John Ashley had called his own, they
-reverently pulled off their wide, ragged straw hats, and many a lip
-moved in prayer as the people, for a moment awed into silence, crowded
-around to view the corpse, which had been laid upon a low narrow bed
-with the striped blanket of a laborer thrown over it. As the coarse
-covering was thrown back, a woful sight was seen. The form of a man
-scarce past boyhood, drenched from breast to feet in blood, yet still
-beautiful in its perfect symmetry. The tall lithe figure, the straight
-features, the downy beard shading cheeks and lips of adolescent
-softness, the long lashes of the eyelids now closed forever, and the
-fair curls resting upon the marble brow, all showed how comely he had
-been. The women burst into fresh lamentations, the men muttered threats
-of vengeance. But who was the murderer? Ay, there was the mystery.
-
-“He has a mother far off across the sea,” said a woman, brokenly.
-
-“Ay, and sisters,” added another; “he bade us remember them when we
-drank to his health on his saint’s day. ‘In my country we keep
-birthdays,’ he said (I suppose, poor gentleman, he meant the saints had
-never learned his barbarous tongue); and then he laughed. ‘But saint’s
-day or birthday, it is all the same; I’m twenty-three to-day.’”
-
-“Yes, ’twas twenty-three he said,” confirmed another; “and do you
-remember how he reddened and laughed when I told him he was old enough
-to think of wedding?”
-
-“But vexed enough,” added another, “when I repeated our old proverb,
-‘Who goes far to marry, goes to deceive or be deceived.’ I meant no ill,
-but he turned on me like a hornet. But, poor young fellow, all his quick
-tempers are over now; he’ll be quiet enough till the Judgment day—cursed
-be the hand that struck him!”
-
-“Come, come!” suddenly broke in Don Rafael, “no more of this chatter;
-clear the room for the Señor Alcalde,” and with much important bustle
-and portentous gravity the official in question entered. He had in fact
-been one of the first to hasten to the scene of the murder, for the time
-forgetting the dignity of his position, of which in his ragged
-_frazada_, his battered straw hat, and unkempt locks, there was little
-to remind either himself or his fellow villagers. However, on the
-alcalde being called for, he immediately dropped his _rôle_ of idle
-gazer, and proceeded with the most stately formality to the
-reduction-works. After viewing the dead body, he made most copious notes
-of the supposed manner of assassination, which were chiefly remarkable
-in differing entirely from the reality; and he gave profuse orders for
-the following of the murderer or murderers, delivering at the same time
-to Don Rafael Sanchez the effects of the deceased, for safe keeping and
-ultimate transmission to the relatives, meanwhile delivering himself of
-many sapient remarks, to the great edification of his hearers.
-
-It appeared upon examination of various persons connected with the
-reduction-works that the young American had been in the habit of riding
-forth at night, sometimes attended by a servant, but often alone,
-spending hours of the beautiful moonlight in exploring the deep cañons
-of the mountains, having, seemingly, a peculiar love for their wild
-solitudes and an utter disregard of danger. More than once when he had
-ventured forth alone, the gate-keeper or clerk had remonstrated, but he
-had laughed at their fears; and in fact it was the mere habit of caution
-that had suggested them, the whole country being at that time remarkably
-free from marauders, and the idea that John Ashley—almost a stranger, so
-courteous, so well liked by inferiors, as well as by those who called
-themselves his equals or superiors—should have a personal enemy had
-never entered the mind of even the most suspicious. But for once the
-cowards were justified; the brave man had fallen, the days of his young
-and daring life were ended.
-
-The alcalde and Don Rafael were eloquent in grave encomiums of his worth
-and regret for his folly, as they at last left the reduction-works
-together. They had agreed that a letter must be written to the American
-consul in the city of Mexico, with full particulars, and that he should
-be asked to communicate the sad event to the family of the deceased; but
-as several days, or even weeks, must necessarily elapse before he could
-be heard from, it was decided that the murdered man should be buried
-upon the following day. To wait longer was both useless and unusual. And
-so, these matters being satisfactorily arranged, the alcalde and
-administrador, both perhaps ready for breakfast, parted.
-
-The latter at the gate of the hacienda met the major-domo, who whispered
-to him mysteriously, and finally led him to the courtyard, where the
-forsaken mule was munching his fodder. A pair of sandals lay there.
-Pedro, had he wished, could have shown a striped blanket and hat that he
-had picked up near the gateway and concealed; but the mule and sandals
-were patent to all.
-
-“Well, what then?” cried Don Rafael, impatiently, when he had minutely
-inspected them, turning the sandals with his foot as he stared at the
-animal.
-
-“Oh, nothing,” answered the major-domo; “I am perhaps a fool, but the
-ranchero is gone.”
-
-Don Rafael started—fell into a deep study—turned away—came back, and
-laid his hand upon the major-domo’s arm. This was the first suggestion
-that had been advanced of the possibility of the murderer having sought
-his victim from within the walls of the great house. “_Silencio!_” he
-said; “what matters it to us how the man died? There is more in this
-than behooves you or me to meddle with.”
-
-The two men looked at each other. “Why disturb the Señora Doña Isabel
-with such matters? The American is dead. The ranchero can be nothing to
-her,” said Don Rafael, sententiously. “He who gives testimony unasked
-brings suspicion upon himself. No, no! leave the matter to his
-countrymen; they have a consul here who has nothing to do but inquire
-into such matters.”
-
-“True, true! and one might as well hope to find again the wildbird
-escaped from its cage, as to see that Juan Planillos! God save us! if he
-was indeed the true Juan Planillos!” and the mystified major-domo
-actually turned pale at the thought. “They say he is more devil than
-man; that would explain how he got out of the hacienda, for Pedro Gomez
-swears he let no man pass, either out or in.”
-
-Don Rafael had his own private opinion about that, and of whom the
-disguised visitor might be. Yet why should he have attacked the
-American? Had Ashley too been within the walls,—and for what purpose?
-These questions were full of deep and startling import, and again
-impressing upon his subordinate that endless trouble might be avoided by
-a discreet silence, he walked thoughtfully away, those vague suspicions
-and conjectures taking definite shape in his mind. He went to the gate
-with some design of warily questioning Pedro, but the man was not there;
-for once, friend or foe might go in or out unnoticed. But it was a day
-of disorder, and Don Rafael could readily divine the excuse for the
-gate-keeper’s neglect of duty. Remembering that he had not broken his
-fast that day, he went to his own rooms for the morning chocolate; and
-from thence he presently saw Pedro emerge from the opposite court, and
-with bowed head and reluctant steps repair to his wonted post. Don
-Rafael Sanchez knew his countrymen, especially those of the lower class,
-too well to hasten to him and ply him with inquiries as he longed to do.
-He knew too well the value of patience, and more than once had found it
-golden. Rita, his young wife, had come to him, and through her tears and
-ejaculations was relating the account of the murder the servants had
-brought to her, which was as wild and improbable as the reality had
-been, though not more ghastly, when a servant entered with a hasty
-message from Doña Isabel.
-
-
-
-
-                                  IV.
-
-
-While the discovery of the murder had caused this wild excitement
-outside the walls of the hacienda, a far different scene was being
-enacted within. Mademoiselle La Croix, the governess of the two sisters
-Herlinda and Carmen Garcia, had arisen early, leaving her youngest
-charge asleep, and, hurriedly donning her dressing-gown, hastened to the
-adjoining apartment, where Herlinda was enjoying that deep sleep which
-comes to young and healthy natures with the dawn, rounding and
-completing the hours of perfect rest, which youthful activity both of
-body and mind so imperatively demands.
-
-A beautiful girl, between fifteen and sixteen, in her perfect
-development of figure, as well as in the pure olive tints of her
-complexion, revealing her Castilian descent,—Herlinda Garcia lay upon
-the white pillows shaded by a canopy of lace, one arm thrown above her
-head, the other, bare to the elbow, thrown across a bosom that rose and
-fell with each breath she drew, with the regularity of perfect content.
-Yet she opened her eyes with a start, and uttered an exclamation of
-alarm, as Mademoiselle La Croix lightly touched her, saying half
-petulantly, as she turned away, “Oh, Mademoiselle, why have you wakened
-me? I was so happy just then! I was dreaming of John!”
-
-She spoke the English name with an indescribable accent of tenderness,
-but Mademoiselle La Croix repeated it after her almost sharply.
-
-“John! yes,” she said, “it is no wonder he is always in your thoughts;
-as for me, Heaven knows what will happen to me! I am sure, had I known—”
-and the Frenchwoman paused, to wipe a tear from her eye.
-
-“Ah, yes, it was thoughtless, cruel of us!” interrupted Herlinda,
-penitently, yet scarcely able to repress a smile as her glance fell upon
-the gayly flowered dressing-gown which formed an incongruous wrapping
-for the thin, bony figure of the governess; “but, dear Mademoiselle,
-nothing worse than a dismissal can happen to you, and you know John has
-promised—”
-
-The governess drew herself up with portentous dignity. “Mademoiselle
-wanders from the point,” she interrupted; “it is of herself only I was
-thinking. This state of affairs must be brought to a close,” she added
-solemnly, after a pause. “At all risks, Herlinda, John must claim you.”
-
-“So he knows, so I tell him,” answered Herlinda, suddenly wide awake,
-and ceasing the pretty yawns and stretchings with which she had
-endeavored to banish her drowsiness. “Oh, Mademoiselle,” a shade of
-apprehension passing over her face, “I have done wrong, very wrong. My
-mother will never forgive me!”
-
-“Absurd!” ejaculated the governess. “Doña Isabel, like every one else in
-the world, must submit to the inevitable.”
-
-“So John said; but, Mademoiselle, neither you nor John know my mother,
-nor my people. She will never forgive: in her place, I would never
-forgive!”
-
-“And yet you dared!” cried Mademoiselle La Croix, looking at the young
-girl with new admiration at the courage which stimulated her own.
-“Truly, you Mexicans are a strange people, so generous in many things,
-so blind and obstinate in others. Well, well! you shall find, Herlinda,
-I too can be brave. If I were a coward, I should say, wait until I am
-safely away; but I am no coward,” added the little woman, drawing her
-figure to its full height and expanding her nostrils,—“I am ready to
-face the storm with you.”
-
-“Yes, yes!” said the young girl, hurriedly and abstractedly. “What,” she
-added, rising in her bed, and grasping the bronze pillar at the head,
-“what is that I hear? What a confusion of voices!” She turned deadly
-pale, and her white-robed figure shook beneath the long loose tresses of
-her coal-black hair. “My God! Mademoiselle, I hear his name!”
-
-The governess too grew pale, though she began incoherently to reassure
-the young lady, who remained kneeling in the bed as if petrified, her
-hands clasped to her breast, her eyes strained, listening intently, as
-through the thick walls came the dull murmur of many voices. Like waves
-they seemed to surge and beat against the solid stones, and the vague
-roar forced itself into the words, “Don Juan! Ashley!”
-
-Although a moment’s reflection would have reminded her that a hundred
-other events, rather than that of his death, might have brought the
-people there to call upon the name of their master, one of those flashes
-of intuition which appear magnetic revealed to Herlinda the awful truth,
-even before it was borne to her outward ear by the shrill voice of a
-woman, crying through the corridor, “God of my life! Don Juan is killed!
-murdered! murdered!” She even stopped to knock upon the door and
-reiterate the words, in the half-horrified, half-pleasurable excitement
-the vulgar often feel in communicating dreadful and unexpected news; but
-a wild shriek from within suddenly checked her outcry, and chilled her
-blood.
-
-“Fool that I am! I should have remembered,” she muttered. “Paqua told me
-there was certainly love between those two; she saw the glance he threw
-on the young Señorita in church one day. But that was months ago, and
-she certainly is to marry Don Vicente.”
-
-At that moment a middle-aged, plainly-dressed woman, with the blue and
-white reboso so commonly worn thrown over her head, entered the
-corridor. Her figure was so commanding, the glance of her eyes so
-impressive, that even in her haste she lost none of her habitual
-dignity. The woman turned away, glad to escape with the reproof, “Cease
-your clamor, Refugio! What! is your news so pressing that you must needs
-frighten your young mistress with it? Go, go! Doña Isabel will be little
-likely to be pleased with your zeal.”
-
-The woman hastened away, and Doña Feliz, waiting until she had
-disappeared, laid her hand upon the door of Herlinda’s chamber, which
-like those of many sleeping apartments in the house opened directly upon
-the upper corridor, its massive thickness and strength being looked upon
-as more than sufficient to repel any danger which could in the wildest
-probability reach it from the well guarded interior of the fort-like
-building.
-
-As Doña Feliz touched the latch, the door was opened by the affrighted
-governess, who had anticipated the entrance of Doña Isabel. The respite
-unnerved her, and she threw herself half fainting in a chair, as
-Herlinda seized the new-comer by the shoulders, gasping forth, “Feliz,
-Feliz, tell me! tell me it is not true! He is not dead! dead! dead!” her
-voice rising to a shriek.
-
-“Hush! hush, Herlinda! O God, my child, what can this be to thee?” Doña
-Feliz shuddered as she spoke. She glanced at the closed window; the
-walls she knew to be a yard in thickness, yet she wished them double,
-lest a sound of these wild ravings should escape.
-
-“Feliz, you dare not tell me!—then it is true! he is murdered! lost,
-lost to me forever!” The young girl slipped like water through the arms
-that would have clasped her, crouching upon the floor, wringing her
-hands, tearless, voiceless, after her last despairing words. Feliz
-attempted to raise her, but in vain.
-
-Carmen, aroused by the sounds of distress, appeared in the doorway which
-connected the two rooms. “Back! go back!” cried Doña Feliz, and the
-child frightened and whimpering, withdrew. Feliz turned to the
-governess,—the deep dejection of her attitude struck her; and at that
-moment Doña Isabel appeared.
-
-“Herlinda,” she began, “this is sad news; but remember—” she paused,
-looked with stern disapprobation, then her superb self-possession giving
-way, she rushed to her daughter and clasped her arm. “Rise! rise!” she
-cried; “this excess of emotion shames you and me. This is folly. Rise, I
-say! He could never have been anything, child, to thee!”
-
-Herlinda did not move, she did not even look up. She had always feared
-her mother; had trembled at her slightest word of blame; had been like
-wax under her hand. Yet now she was as marble; her hands had dropped on
-her lap; she was rigid to the touch; only the deep moans that burst from
-her white lips proved that she lived.
-
-The attitude was expressive of such utter despair that it was of itself
-a revelation; and presently the moans formed themselves into words: “My
-God! my God! I am undone! he is dead! he is dead!”
-
-The words bore a terrible significance to the listeners. Doña Isabel
-turned her eyes upon Feliz, and read upon her face the thought that had
-forced its way to her own mind. Her face paled; she dropped her
-daughter’s arm and drew back. The act itself was an accusation. Perhaps
-the girl felt it so. She suddenly wrung her hands distractedly, and
-sprang to her feet, exclaiming, “My husband! my husband! Let me go to
-him! he cannot be dead! he is not dead!”
-
-The words “My husband” fell like a thunderbolt among them. Herlinda had
-rushed to the door, but Doña Feliz caught her in her strong arms, and
-forced her back. “Tell us what you mean!” she ejaculated; while the
-frightened governess plucked her by the sleeve, reiterating again and
-again, “Pardon! pardon! entreat your mother’s pardon!”
-
-But the terrible turn affairs had taken had driven the thought of
-pardon, or the need of it, from her mind. “I tell you I am his wife! Ah,
-you think that cannot be, but it is true; the Irish priest married us
-four months ago in Las Parras. Let me go, Feliz, let me go! I am his
-wife!”
-
-“This is madness!” interrupted Doña Isabel, in a voice of such
-preternatural calmness that her daughter turned as if awestricken to
-look at her. “Unhappy girl, you cannot have been that man’s wife. You
-have been betrayed! Child! child! the house of Garcia is disgraced!”
-
-A chill fell upon the governess, yet she spoke sharply, almost pertly:
-“Not disgraced by Herlinda, Madame. She was indeed married to John
-Ashley, in the parish church of Las Parras, by the missionary priest,
-Father Magauley.”
-
-The long, slow glance of incredulity changing into deepest scorn which
-Doña Isabel turned upon the governess seemed to scorch, to wither her.
-She actually cowered beneath it, faltering forth entreaties for pardon,
-rather, be it said to her honor, for the unhappy Herlinda than for
-herself. Meanwhile, with lightning rapidity, the events of the last few
-months passed through the mind of Doña Isabel. Yes, yes, it had been
-possible; there had been opportunity for this base work. Her eyes
-clouded, her breast heaved; had she held a weapon in her hand, the
-intense passion that possessed her might have sought a method more
-powerful than words in finding for itself expression. As it was, she
-turned away, sick at heart, her brain afire. Doña Feliz had placed a
-strong, firm hand over Herlinda’s lips. “It is useless,” she said in a
-voice like Fate. “You will never see him again.”
-
-Herlinda comprehended that those words but expressed the unspoken fiat
-of her mother. She shuddered and groaned. “Mother! mother!” she said
-faintly, “he loved me. I loved him so, mother! Mother, I have spoken the
-truth; Mademoiselle will tell you all; I was indeed his wife.”
-
-Doña Isabel would not trust herself to look at her daughter. She dared
-not, so strong at that moment was her resentment of her daring, so deep
-the shame of its consequences. “Vile woman!” she said to the governess,
-in low, penetrating tones of concentrated passion; “you who have avowed
-yourself the accomplice of yon dead villain, tell me all. Let me know
-whether you were simply treacherously ignorant, or treacherously base.
-Silence, Herlinda! nor dare in my presence shed one tear for the wretch
-who betrayed you.”
-
-But her commands were unheeded. The present anguish overcame the habits
-and fears of a whole life,—as, alas! a passionate love had once before
-done. But then she had been under the domination of her lover, and had
-been separated from the mother, whose very shadow would have deterred
-and prevented her. Now, even the deep severity of that mother’s voice
-fell on unheeding ears. Though tears came not, piteous groans, mingled
-with the name of her love, burst from the heart of the wretched girl,
-who leaned like a broken lily upon the breast of Doña Feliz, who from
-the moment that Herlinda had declared herself a wife gazed upon her with
-looks of deep compassion, alternating with those of anxious curiosity
-toward Doña Isabel, whose every glance she had learned to interpret. She
-was a woman of great intelligence, yet it appeared to her as though Doña
-Isabel, who was queen and absolute mistress on her own domain, had but
-to speak the word and set her daughter in any position she might claim.
-The supremacy of the Garcias was her creed,—that by which she had lived;
-was it to be contradicted now?
-
-“Tell me all,” reiterated Doña Isabel, in the concentrated voice of deep
-and terrible passion, as the cowering governess vainly strove to frame
-words that might least offend. “How did this treachery occur? Where and
-how did you give that fellow opportunity to compass his base designs?”
-
-Herlinda started; she would have spoken, but Doña Feliz restrained her
-by the strong pressure of her arm; and the faltering voice of the
-governess attempted some explanation and justification of an event,
-which, almost unparalleled in Mexico, could not have been foreseen
-perhaps even by the jealous care of the most anxious mother.
-
-“This is all I have to tell,” she stammered. “You remember you sent us
-to Las Parras six months ago, just after you had refused your daughter’s
-hand to John Ashley, and promised it to Vicente Gonzales. We remained
-there in exile nearly two months. Herlinda was wretched. What was there
-to console or enliven her in that miserable village? Separated from her
-sister, from you, Madame, whom she deeply loved even while she feared,
-what had she to do but nurse her grief and despair, which grew daily
-stronger on the food of tears and solitude? At first she was too proud
-to speak to me of that which caused her sleepless nights and unhappy
-days. But my looks must have expressed the pity I felt. She threw
-herself into my arms one day, and sobbed out her sad tale upon my bosom.
-She had spoken to this Ashley but a few times, and then in your
-presence, Madame; but in your country the eye seems the messenger of
-love. She declared that she could not live, she would not, were she
-separated from John Ashley; that the day of her marriage with Vicente
-Gonzales should be the day of her death.”
-
-“To the point,” interrupted Doña Isabel in an icy tone. “I had heard all
-this. Even in John Ashley’s very presence Herlinda had forgotten her
-dignity and mine. This is not what I would know.”
-
-“But it leads to it, Madame,” cried the governess, deprecatingly, “for
-while I was in the state of mingled pity and perplexity caused by
-Herlinda’s words, a message was brought to me that John Ashley was at
-the door. I went to speak to him. Yielding to his entreaties, I even
-allowed him to see Herlinda. How could I guess it was to urge a course
-which only the most remarkable combination of events could have made
-possible?”
-
-“Intrigante,” muttered Doña Isabel, bitterly.
-
-“You,” continued the governess, piqued and emboldened by the adjective,
-“angered by the sight of him as you passed the reduction-works, had
-yourself invented a pretext for sending him to San Marcos. You could not
-well dismiss him altogether from a position he filled so well. He might,
-you thought, reveal the reason.”
-
-“Deal not with my motives,” interrupted the lady haughtily. “It is true
-I sent him to San Marcos. And what then?”
-
-“Then, by chance, he learned what here no servant had dared to tell
-him,—the name of the village to which Herlinda had been sent, so near
-your own hacienda, too, that he had never once suspected it. And there
-he met a countryman. These English, Irish, Americans,—they are all bound
-together by a common language; and he, this poor priest, entirely
-ignorant of Spanish, coldly received even by his clerical brethren, was
-glad to spend a few days in a trip with Ashley; and as they rode
-together over the thirty leagues of mountain and valley between San
-Marcos and Las Parras, he formed a great liking for the pleasant youth,
-and beyond gently rallying him, made no opposition to staying over a
-night in the village, and joining him in holy matrimony to the woman of
-his choice, whom he imagined to be a poor but pretty peasant, so modest
-were our surroundings.”
-
-Doña Isabel’s face darkened. “Hasten! hasten!” she muttered. “I see it
-all; deluded, unhappy girl.”
-
-“Unhappy, yes!” cried the governess. “Prophetic were the tears that
-coursed over her cheeks, as she went with me to the chapel in the early
-morning, and there in the presence of a few peasants who had never seen
-her before, or failed to recognize her under the dingy reboso she wore,
-was married to the young American.”
-
-“Ignorant imbeciles!” ejaculated Doña Isabel, but so low that no one
-distinctly caught her words. “And this _marriage_ as you call it, in
-what language was it performed?”
-
-“Oh, in English,” answered Mademoiselle La Croix, readily. “The priest
-knew no other. Immediately after the ceremony the bell sounded, the
-groom and bride separated, the people streamed in, and Holy Mass was
-celebrated, thus consecrating the marriage. Reassure yourself, Doña
-Isabel, all was right; the good priest gave a certificate in due form,
-which doubtless will be found among John Ashley’s papers.”
-
-In spite of the stony yet furious gaze with which Doña Isabel had
-listened to these particulars, the governess had gathered confidence as
-she proceeded, and ended with a feeling that the most jealous doubter
-must be convinced, the most inveterate opponent silenced.
-
-But far otherwise was the effect of her narrative upon Doña Isabel; she
-had been deceived by her own daughter, befooled by her hirelings. Her
-keen intelligence declared to her at once the fatal irregularity of the
-ceremony. It indeed vindicated the purity of Herlinda, but could it save
-her from dishonor? Thoughts of vague yet terrible meaning tormented her.
-The horrors of a past day returned with fresh complications to menace
-and torture her; and even had it been possible at that moment for her by
-one word to prove her daughter the honorable widow of John Ashley, it
-would have caused her a thousand pangs to have uttered it; and could one
-single word have brought him to life, she would have condemned herself
-to perpetual dumbness. A frenzy of shame and baffled intents possessed
-her. But her thoughts were not of these. She knew that this marriage as
-it stood was void; it met the requirements of neither Church nor State.
-Yet—yet—yet—there were possibilities: her family were powerful, her
-wealth was great.
-
-Doña Feliz watched her with deep, inquiring eyes. Her child stood there,
-a voiceless pleader, her utter abandonment of grief appealing to the
-heart of the mother; but between them was an impregnable wall of pride
-and a cloud of possibilities which confused and distracted her. She came
-to no determination, made no resolve, but clasping her hands over her
-eyes, stood as if a gulf had opened in her path,—from which she could
-not turn, and over which she dared not pass. Slowly, at last, she
-dropped her arms, resumed her usual aspect of composure, and passed from
-the room. For some moments the little group she had left remained
-motionless. A profound stillness reigned throughout the house. Time
-itself seemed arrested, and the one word breathed through the silence
-seemed to describe the whole world to those within the walls,—“dead!
-dead! dead!”
-
-
-
-
-                                   V.
-
-
-As Doña Isabel Garcia turned from her daughter’s apartment, she stepped
-into a corridor flooded with the dazzling sunshine of a perfect morning,
-and as she passed on in her long black dress, the heavily beamed roof
-interposing between her uncovered head and the clear and shining blue of
-the sky, there was something almost terrible in the stony gaze with
-which she met the glance of the woman-servant who hurried after her to
-know if she would as usual break her fast in the little arbor near the
-fountain. It terrified the woman, who drew back with a muttered “Pardon,
-Señora!” as the lady swept by her, and entered her own chamber.
-
-The volcano of feeling which surged within her burst forth, not in sobs
-and cries, not in passionate interjections, but in the tones of absolute
-horror in which she uttered the two names that had severally been to her
-the dearest upon earth,—“Leon!” and “Herlinda!” and which at that moment
-were equally synonymous of all most terrible, most dreaded, and were the
-most powerful factors amid the love, the honor, the pride, the passions
-and prejudices which controlled her being.
-
-For a time she stood in the centre of her apartment, striking
-unconsciously with her clenched hand upon her breast blows that at
-another time would have been keenly felt, but the swelling emotions
-within rendered her insensible to mere bodily pain. Indeed, as the
-moments passed it brought a certain relief; and as her walking to and
-fro brought her at last in front of the window which opened upon the
-broad prospect to the west, she paused, and looked long and fixedly
-toward the reduction-works, as if her vision could penetrate the stone
-walls, and read the mind which had perished with the man who lay
-murdered within them.
-
-As she stood thus, she presently became aware that a sound which she had
-heard without heeding,—as one ignores passing vibrations upon the air,
-that bring no special echo of the life of which we are active, conscious
-parts,—was persistently striving to make itself heard; and with an
-effort she turned to the door, upon which fell another timid knock, and
-bade the suppliant enter; for the very echo of his knocking proclaimed a
-suppliant. She started as her eyes fell upon the haggard face of Pedro
-the gate-keeper.
-
-He entered almost stealthily, closing the door softly behind him.
-“Señora,” he whispered, coming up to her quite closely, extending his
-hands in a deprecating way, “Señora, by the golden keys of my patron, I
-swear to you I was powerless. Don Juan told me he had your Grace’s own
-authority; he told me they were married!”
-
-Doña Isabel started. In the same sentence the man had so skilfully
-mingled truth and falsehood that even she was deceived. By representing
-to his mistress that Ashley had used her name to gain entrance to the
-hacienda, he had hoped to divert her anger from himself,—and what matter
-though it fell unjustly upon the dead man? But in fact the second phrase
-of the sentence, “He told me they were married,” was what struck most
-keenly upon the ear of Doña Isabel, and chilled her very blood. How
-much, then, did this servant know? How far was she in his power? Until
-that moment she had not known—had not suspected—that the murdered man
-and the murderer had been within the walls of the hacienda buildings.
-This knowledge but confirmed her intuitions! Partly to learn facts which
-might guide her, and partly to gain time, she looked with her coldest,
-most petrifying gaze upon the man, and asked him what he meant, and bade
-him tell her all, even as he would confess to the priest, for so only he
-might hope to escape her most severe displeasure.
-
-As she spoke, she had glided behind him and slipped the bolt of the
-door, and stood before the solid slab of unpolished but time-darkened
-cedar, a very monument of wrath. Pedro trembled more than ever, but was
-not for that the less consistent in his tale of mingled truth and
-falsehood. He had begun it with the name “The Señorita Herlinda,” but
-Doña Isabel stopped him with a portentous frown.
-
-“Her name,” she said, “my daughter’s name need not be mentioned. She
-knows nothing of the woman John Ashley came here to see, if there is
-one; the Señorita Herlinda has nothing to do with her, nor with your
-tale. Proceed.”
-
-Pedro, not so deeply versed in the dissimulation of the higher class as
-was Doña Isabel in that of the lower, looked at her a moment in utter
-incredulity. He learned nothing from her impassive face, but with the
-quickwittedness of his race divined that one of the many dark-eyed
-damsels who served in the house was to be considered the cause of
-Ashley’s midnight visits. In that light, his own breach of trust seemed
-more venial. Unconsciously, he shaped his story to that end, and even
-took to himself a sort of comfort in feigning to believe, what in his
-heart he knew to be an assumption—whether merely verbal or actual he
-knew not—of Doña Isabel.
-
-The arguments by which he had been induced by Ashley to open the doors
-of the hacienda for his midnight admittance he would have dwelt on at
-some length, but Doña Isabel stopped him. “Tell me only of what happened
-last night,” she said; and in a low whisper he obeyed, shuddering as he
-spoke of the man whom he had admitted under the guise of a peasant, and
-who had rushed out to encounter the devoted American, as a madman or
-wild beast might rush upon its prey.
-
-At his description, eloquent in its brevity, Doña Isabel for a moment
-lost her calmness; her face dropped upon her hands; her figure shrank
-together.
-
-“Pedro!” she murmured, “Pedro! you knew him? You are certain?” she
-continued in a low, eager voice.
-
-“Certain, Señora! Should I be likely to be mistaken? I, who have held
-him upon my knees a thousand times; who first taught him to ride; who
-saw him when—”
-
-Doña Isabel stopped the enumeration with a gesture. She paused a moment
-in deep thought; then she extended her hand, and the man bent over it,
-not daring to touch it, but reverently, as if it were that of a queen or
-a saint.
-
-“Silence, Pedro!” she said. “Silence! One word, and the law would be
-upon him,—though God knows there should be no law to avenge these false
-Americans, who respect neither authority nor hospitality, and would take
-our very country from us. Pedro, this deed must not bring fresh
-disaster; ’t was a mistake; but as you live, as I pardon you the share
-you bore in it, keep silence!”
-
-The words were not an entreaty; they were a command. Doña Isabel
-understood too well the ascendency which as lords of the soil the
-Garcias held over all who had been born and bred on their estates, to
-take the false step of lessening it by any act of weakness. She
-comprehended that that very ascendency had led him to open the gates to
-the declared husband of Herlinda—ay! as to her lover he would have
-opened them. It was the _house_ of Garcia he served, as represented by
-the individual possessing the dominant influence of the hour. As
-occasion offered, he and his associates would have favored the interests
-of any member in affairs of love, believing the intrigue the natural
-pleasure of youth, and conceiving it presumption to impugn the actions
-of one of the seigneurial family.
-
-Doña Isabel became, at this time, when the terrible consequences of his
-levity overpowered him, the controlling power, and with absolute genius
-in a few words, admitting nothing, explaining nothing, offering no
-reward, she made the conscience-stricken man the keeper of the honor of
-the powerful house of which he was but the veriest minion.
-
-
-Within the hour, while the people still thronged the walls of the
-reduction-works, Doña Feliz left the great house. The few who witnessed
-her departure were accustomed to the peremptory commands of the Señora
-Doña Isabel and the instant obedience of her confidential servant, and
-had as little speculation in their minds as in the gaze with which they
-followed the carriage and its outriders,—yet murmured a few words of
-pity for those who, after the horror of the tragedy, would lose the
-sombre splendor of the rites which must necessarily follow.
-
-Upon the next day, John Ashley, carried in procession by the entire
-population of men, women, and children of Tres Hermanos, excepting only
-the immediate family of Doña Isabel and Pedro the gate-keeper, was borne
-across the wide valley, up the bleak hillside, and laid in a corner of
-the low-walled, unkempt graveyard, among the lowly dead of the _plebe_.
-
-Not a sound escaped Herlinda, as from the windows of her mother’s room
-she watched the funeral procession. She had intuitively guessed the time
-it would issue from the gates of the reduction-works, and her mother
-placed no restraint upon her movements. Through the clear atmosphere of
-the May day she could perfectly distinguish the form, ay the very
-features of her beloved, as he lay stretched upon a wide board
-surrounded by flowering boughs, his fair curls resting upon the
-greenery, his hands clasped upon his breast.
-
-To steady their steps perhaps, rather than from any religious custom,
-the people sang one of those minor airs peculiar to the country, and
-which are at once so sad and shrill that the piercing wail reached even
-so far as the great house,—a weird accompaniment to the swaying of the
-ghostly white lengths of candles borne in scores of hands, and the pale
-flames of which burned colorless in the brilliant sunshine.
-
-Strangely impressive, even to an indifferent eye, might well have been
-that scene; the slow march of Death and Woe across the smiling fields,
-blotting the clear radiance of the cloudless sky, and awesome then even
-to a careless ear that wail of agony. Mademoiselle La Croix burst into
-tears and threw herself upon the floor. Doña Isabel, deadly pale,
-covered her eyes with a hand as cold and white as snow. Herlinda sank
-upon her knees with parted lips and straining eyes to watch the form
-upborne before that dark and sinuous procession; but when it became lost
-to view amid the throng which encircled the open grave, she fell prone
-to the floor with such a moan as only woe itself can utter,—a moan that
-seemed the outburst of a maddened brain and a bursting heart.
-
-That night instead of lamentation the sounds of festivity began to be
-heard, and days of revelry among the peasants followed the hours of
-horror and gloom which had for a brief period prevailed. In the midst of
-them Doña Feliz returned to the hacienda. Wherever her journey had led
-her it had outwardly been unimportant, and drew but little comment from
-the men who had attended her, and was speedily forgotten. She herself
-gave no description of it, nor volunteered any information as to its
-object or result. Even to Doña Isabel, who raised inquiring eyes to the
-face of her emissary as she entered her private room, she said, briefly,
-“No, there is no record; absolutely none.”
-
-Doña Isabel sank back in her chair with a deep-drawn breath as if some
-mighty tension, both of mind and body, had suddenly relaxed. She had
-herself sought in vain through the papers of Ashley for proofs of the
-alleged marriage with Herlinda, and Feliz had scanned the public records
-with vigilant eyes. Part of these records had in some _pronunciamiento_
-been destroyed by fire, but the book containing those of the date she
-sought was intact. The names of John Ashley and Herlinda Garcia did not
-appear therein; the marriage, if marriage there had been, was
-unrecorded, and as secret as it was illegal. Conscience was satisfied,
-and Doña Isabel was content to be passive. Why bring danger upon one
-still infinitely dear to her? The heart of Doña Isabel turned cold at
-the thought. Why rouse a scandal which could so easily be avoided? Why
-strive to legalize a marriage which could but bring ridicule upon
-herself, and shame and contempt upon Herlinda?
-
-That day, for the first time in many, Doña Isabel could force a smile to
-her lip; for even for policy it had not been possible for her to smile
-before. She was by nature neither cold nor cruel, but she had been
-brought up in the midst of petty intrigues, of violent passions and
-narrow prejudices; and while she had scorned them, they had moulded her
-mind,—as the constant wearing of rock upon rock forms the hollow in the
-one, and rounds the jagged surface of the other. What would have been
-monstrous to her youth became natural to her middle age. She had
-suffered and striven. Was it not the common lot of woman? What more
-natural than that her daughter should do the same? And what more natural
-than that the mother should raise her who had fallen?—for fallen indeed,
-in spite of the ceremony of marriage, would the world think Herlinda.
-But why should the world know? She pitied her daughter, even as a woman
-pities another in travail; yet she looked to the future, she shrank from
-the complexities of the present; and so silently, relentlessly, shaping
-her course, ignoring circumstance, she, like a goddess making a law unto
-herself, thus unflinchingly ordered the destiny of her child. Could she
-herself have divined the various motives that influenced her? Nay, no
-more perhaps than the circumstances which will be developed in this tale
-may make clear the love, the woman’s purity, the high-born lady’s pride,
-that all combined to bid her ignore the marriage, which, though
-irregular, had evidently been made in good faith; and for which, in
-spite of open malice or secret innuendo, the power and influence of her
-family could have won the Pope’s sanction, and so silenced the
-cavillings if not the gossip of the world.
-
-
-
-
-                                  VI.
-
-
-And thus in that remote hacienda—a little world in itself, with all the
-mingled elements of wealth and poverty, and all those subtile
-differences of caste and character which form society, in circles small
-as well as great—began a drama, which to the initiated was of deep and
-absorbing interest. To the common mind despair and agony can have no
-existence if they do not declare themselves in groans and tears, and to
-such Herlinda’s deep pallor and her silence revealed nothing; but there
-were a few who watched in solemn apprehension, feeling hers to be like
-the intense and sulphurous calm with which Nature awaits the coming of
-the tempest.
-
-But there were indeed few who saw in her any change other than the
-events and anxieties of the time rendered natural. At first indeed there
-had been whispers in corners, and half-pitying, half-fearful shrugs and
-glances; but almost from the day of Ashley’s burial a new and fearful
-cause of public interest drew attention from Herlinda, from her pallor
-and her wide-eyed gaze of horror, to the consideration of a more
-personal anxiety.
-
-The common people declared that from the night of the murder, death,
-unsatisfied with one victim, had hovered over the hacienda. The rains
-which should have fallen after the long dry winter, with cleansing and
-copious force, flooding the ravines and carrying away the accumulated
-impurities of months, had but moistened and stirred the infected mud of
-the stagnant water-courses and set loose the fevers which lingered in
-their depths. Years afterward the peasants dated many a widowhood and
-orphanage from those plague-stricken weeks. There was one death or more
-in every hut, and even the great house did not escape its quota of
-victims. One after another, members of the families of the clerks and
-officers succumbed,—the major-domo of the courts among the first, and
-then Mademoiselle La Croix, who indeed, it was afterward observed, had
-from the first sickened and fallen into a dejection, from which it was
-almost impossible she should rally. The governess was the object of the
-most devoted care even from the usually cold and stately Doña Isabel,
-while the panic-stricken Herlinda, careless of her own danger, bent over
-her with agonized and fruitless efforts to recall the waning life, or
-soothe the parting and remorseful soul.
-
-But in all that terrible time this was the only event that seemed to
-touch or rouse her; for the rest, one might have thought those dreadful
-days but the ordinary calendar of Herlinda’s life. Indeed, it is to be
-supposed that they suited so well the desolation of her spirit, and that
-they presented so congruous a setting to her melancholy, that it became
-merged and absorbed as it were in her surroundings, and so was
-unperceived, save as the fitting humor of a time when ease and mirth
-would have been an insult to the general woe.
-
-Doña Isabel had announced her intention of replacing the director of the
-reduction-works; but time went on, and in the general consternation
-produced by the epidemic nothing was done. There was much sickness at
-the works; many of the most experienced hands died; and one day when the
-clerk in charge was at the crisis of the fever, the men who were not
-incapacitated from illness went by common consent to the _tienda_ to
-stupefy themselves with fiery native brandy; and Doña Isabel, who was
-fearlessly passing from one poor hovel to another, aiding the village
-doctress and the priest in their offices, ordered the mules to be taken
-from the _tortas_, and the stamps to be stopped. Thus, as the masses
-half mixed lay upon the floors, they gradually dried and hardened; and
-as the great stone wheels ceased to turn in the beds of broken ores, so
-for years upon years they remained, and the works at Tres Hermanos
-gradually fell into ruin,—a fit haunt for the ghost which, as years went
-by, was said to haunt their shades. But this was long afterward, when
-the memory of the handsome and hapless youth had become almost as a
-myth, mingled with the thousand tales of blood which the fluctuating
-fortunes of years of international and civil war made as common as they
-were terrible.
-
-This fertile spot until now had been singularly free from the terror and
-disorder that had affected the greater part of the country; and though
-sharing the excitement of party feeling, the actual demands of strife
-had never invaded it. But quick upon the typhoid, when the peasants who
-had been spared began to think of repairing their half-ruined hovels,
-many of them were summoned away with scant ceremony. Don Julian Garcia
-appeared at the hacienda, his uniform glittering with gold braid,
-buttons, and lace, the trappings of his horse more gorgeous even than
-his own dress. He was raising a troop to join his old commander, Santa
-Anna, who had returned in triumph to the land from which he had been
-banished, to lead the arms of his countrymen against the foreign foe,
-which already had begun its victorious march within the sacred borders
-of their country. In a word, the American War had begun, and involved
-all factions in one common cause, giving a rallying cry to leaders of
-every party, to which even the most ignorant among the people responded
-with intuitive and unquestioning ardor.
-
-Don Julian was uncertain in his politics, but not in his hatreds. He
-heard the tale of the murder of the American with complacency; the
-taking off of one of the heretics seemed to him natural enough,—it was
-scarcely worth a second thought, certainly not a pause in his work of
-collecting troops. If Isabel, he commented, had writhed under wounded
-patriotism as he had done, the American would never have had an
-opportunity of finding so honorable a service in which to die. Evidently
-the grudge of some bold patriot, this. What would you? Mexicans were
-neither sticks nor stones!
-
-Herlinda heard and trembled; a faint hope, a half-formed resolve, had
-wakened in her breast when she had heard of the arrival of Don Julian.
-He was a distant cousin, a man of some influence in the family. She
-remembered him as more frank and genial than others of her kindred. An
-impulse to break the seal of silence came over her, as she heard his
-voice ringing through the courts and the clank of his spurs upon the
-stairs; but it was checked by the first distinct utterance of his lips,
-which, like all that followed, was a denunciation of the perfidious, the
-insatiable, the licentious and heretical Americans. For the first time,
-to the indifference with which she had regarded the desirability of
-establishing her position as the acknowledged wife of Ashley was added a
-sensation of fear. What had been in her mind an undefined and incomplete
-idea of the anger and scorn which the knowledge of her daring would
-cause among her family connections, became now a terrifying dread as the
-impetuous but unrepented act assumed the proportions of treason. The
-words which at the first opportunity she would have spoken died upon her
-lips, and she became once more hopeless, impassive, unresisting, cold,
-waiting what time and fate should bring.
-
-And time passed on unflinchingly, and fate was unrelenting. Carmen,
-after a slight attack of fever, had been sent to some relative in
-Guanapila, and there she still remained. Doña Isabel’s household
-consisted only of herself, Herlinda, and the aged priest her cousin Don
-Francisco de Sales, who though in his dotage still at long intervals
-read Mass in the chapel, baptized infants, and muttered prayers over the
-dying or dead, not the less sincere because he who breathed them himself
-stood so far within the shadow of the tomb. The old man was kindly in
-his senility, and spent long hours dozing in the chair of the
-confessional, while penitents whispered in his ear their faults and
-sins, for which they never failed to obtain absolution, little imagining
-that the placid mind of the old man, even when by chance he was awake,
-dwelt far more upon the scenes of his youth than the follies and
-wickednesses of the present. Sometimes he babbled harmlessly of days
-long past, even of sights and doings far from clerical; but the priestly
-habit was second nature, and even if he heeded the confidences reposed
-in him, in his weakest moments they never escaped his lips. To him
-Herlinda was free to go and disburden her mind, complying with the
-regulations of her Church, and seeking relief to her troubled soul. To
-him, too, Doña Isabel resorted; and these two women with their tales of
-woe, which as often as repeated escaped his memory, roused faintly
-within his heart an echo of the pain which he uneasily and confusedly
-remembered dwelt in the world, from which he was gliding into the peace
-beyond.
-
-Sometimes at the table, or as he sat with them in the corridor,—the
-priest in the sunshine, they in the shade,—he looked at them with
-puzzled inquiry in his gaze, which changed to mild satisfaction at some
-caress or fond word; for this gentle old man was tenderly beloved, with
-a sort of superstitious reverence. Even Doña Isabel attributed a special
-sanctity to his blessing, looking upon him as an automaton of the
-Church, which without consciousness of its own would—certain springs of
-emotion being touched—respond with admonition or blessing, fraught with
-all the authority of the Supreme Power. Doña Isabel, as a devout
-Romanist, had ever been scrupulous in the observances of her Church,
-submitting to the spiritual functions of the clergy absolutely, while
-she detested and openly protested against their licentiousness and
-greed, as also their pernicious interference in worldly affairs.
-Therefore throughout her life, and especially during her widowhood, she
-had studiously avoided the more popular clergy, and had sought the
-oracle of duty through some clod of humanity, who, though dull, should
-be at least free from vices,—choosing by preference one of her own
-family to be the repository of her secrets and the judge of her motives
-and actions. Unconsciously to herself, while outwardly and even to her
-own conscience fulfilling the requirements of her Church, she had
-interpreted them by her own will, which, in justice let it be said, had
-often proved a wise and loyal one; in a word, Doña Isabel Garcia, with
-exceptional powers within her grasp, had skilfully and astutely freed
-herself from those trammels which might at the present crisis have
-forced her into a diametrically opposite course from that which she had
-determined to pursue, or would at least have forced her to acknowledge
-to her own mind the doubtful nature of deeds that she now suffered
-herself to look upon as meritorious. For years, unconsciously, her will
-had imbued the judgments of her spiritual adviser, as the Padre
-Francisco was called, and it was not to be supposed that she should
-cavil now, when with complacent alacrity he echoed yea to her yea, and
-nay to her nay,—and as she left him, sank back into his chair with a
-faint wonder at her tale, to forget it in his next slumber, or until
-recalled to him by the anguished outpourings of Herlinda, for whom he
-found no words of guidance other than those which throughout his life he
-had given to young maidens in distress, the commendable ones, “Do as
-your mother directs;” though, as he listened to her words, the tears
-would pour down his cheeks, and pitying phrases fall from his trembling
-lips. Poor Herlinda would be comforted for a moment by his simple human
-sympathy,—even weeping perhaps, for at such times the blessed relief of
-tears was given her,—yet found in her darkness no light, either human or
-divine.
-
-Had Mademoiselle La Croix lived, Herlinda would doubtless have received
-from her the impetus to throw herself upon the pity and protection of
-her cousin Don Julian, which in spite of his prejudices he could
-scarcely have refused; for the governess, though she was at first
-stunned and terrified by the knowledge of the invalidity of the
-marriage, was no coward, and would have braved much to reinstate the
-girl she had through compassion—and, she had with a pang been obliged to
-own, through cupidity—aided to bring into a false position. But she had
-scarcely recovered her bewildered senses, the more bewildered by the
-incomprehensible calm of Doña Isabel, when she was attacked by the
-fever,—to which she succumbed a month before the appearance of the
-doughty warrior, whose blustering fierceness would not have appalled her
-or deterred her from urging Herlinda to lay before him the matter, whose
-vital importance the stunned young creature failed to comprehend.
-
-Later it burst upon her, but it was then too late,—Don Julian had
-marched away with his troops. She was alone,—no help, no counsellor
-near. Alone? Ah, no! there were human creatures near, who could behold
-and suspect and shake the head. Herlinda awoke to the shame of her
-position, as a bird in a net, striving to fly, first learns its danger.
-O God! where should she fly? Were these careless, laughing women as
-unconscious as they seemed? Where might she hide herself from these
-languid, soft eyes, which suddenly might become hard and cruel with
-intelligence? Herlinda drew her reboso around her, and with flushing
-cheek traversed the shadiest corridors in her necessary passages from
-room to room, her eyes, large with apprehension, burning beneath her
-downcast lids. Every day she grew more restless, more beautiful. She
-walked for hours in the walled garden, which the servants never entered.
-They began to whisper, forgetting the gossip of months before, that the
-chances of war were secretly stealing the gayety and buoyancy of
-Herlinda’s youth, by keeping from her side the playmate of her
-childhood, her lover Vicente Gonzales. Feliz smiled when a garrulous
-servant spoke thus one day, but ten minutes later entered the room of
-Doña Isabel.
-
-The next morning it was known that the Señorita Herlinda was to have
-change, was to go to the capital, that Mecca of all Mexicans. Doña
-Isabel and Feliz were to accompany her. The clerks and overseers
-wondered, and shook their heads wisely. They had heard wild tales of the
-political factions which rendered the city unsafe to woman as to man;
-Santa Anna’s brief dictatorship had ended in trouble. Still, in that
-remote district nothing was known with certainty, and these bucolic
-minds were not given to many conjectures upon the motives or movements
-of their superiors. If anything could arouse surprise, it was the fact
-that the ladies were not to travel by private carriage, as had been the
-custom of the Garcias from time immemorial, attended by a numerous
-escort of armed rancheros; but being driven to the nearest post where
-the public diligence was to be met, were to proceed by it most
-unostentatiously upon their way. This aroused far more discussion than
-the fact of the journey itself; though it was unanimously agreed that if
-Doña Isabel could force herself to depart from the accustomed dignity of
-the family, and indeed preserve a slight incognito upon the road, her
-chances of making the journey in safety would be greatly increased.
-
-Her resolve once made it was acted upon instantly, no time being allowed
-for news of her departure to spread abroad and to give the bandits who
-infested the road opportunity to plan the _plajio_, or carrying off, of
-so rich a prize as Doña Isabel Garcia and her daughter would have
-proved. And thus, early one November morning,—when the whole earth was
-covered with the fresh greenness called into growth by the rainy season
-which had just passed, and the azure of a cloudless sky hung its perfect
-arch above the valley, seeming to rest upon the crown-like circlet of
-the surrounding hills,—Herlinda passed through the crowd of dependents
-who, as usual on such occasions, gathered at the gates to see the
-travellers off. Doña Isabel, who was with her, was affable, smiling and
-nodding to the men, and murmuring farewell words to the nearest women;
-but Herlinda was silent, and it was not until she was seated in the
-carriage that she threw back the reboso which she had drawn to her very
-eyes, revealing her face, which was deadly pale. As she gazed
-lingeringly around, half sadly, half haughtily, with the proud curve of
-the lip (though it quivered) which made all the more striking her
-general resemblance to her beautiful mother, a thrill, they knew not of
-what or why, ran through the throng. For a moment there was a profound
-silence, in the midst of which the aged priest raised his hand in
-blessing. Suddenly a flash of memory, a gleam of inspiration, came over
-him; he turned aside the hand of Doña Isabel, which had been extended in
-farewell, and laid his own upon the bowed head of her daughter. “Fear
-not, my daughter,” he said, “thou art blessed. Though I shall see thee
-no more, my blessing, and the blessing of God, shall be with thee.”
-
-The old man turned away, leaning heavily upon Doña Rita, the wife of the
-administrador, who led him tenderly away, and a few minutes later he was
-sitting smiling at her side, while without were heard the farewell cries
-of the women. “May God go with you, Niña! May you soon return! Adios,
-Niña! more beautiful than our patron saint! Adios, and joy be with
-thee!” And in the midst of such good wishes, as Herlinda still leaned
-from the window, a smile upon her lip, her hand waving a farewell, the
-carriage drove away and the people dispersed; leaving Pedro, the
-gate-keeper, standing motionless in the shadow of the great door-post,
-his eyes riveted on the sands at his feet, but seeing still the glance
-of agony, of warning, of entreaty, which had darted from Herlinda’s
-eyes, and seemed to scorch his own.
-
-
-
-
-                                  VII.
-
-
-Upon the death of Mademoiselle La Croix, or rather perhaps from the time
-of her return to the hacienda after her ineffectual quest, Doña Feliz
-had virtually become the duenna of Herlinda. Not that such an office was
-formally recognized or required in the seclusion of Tres Hermanos, but
-it was nevertheless true that Herlinda had seldom found herself alone,
-even in the walled garden. Though she paced its narrow paths without
-companionship, she had been aware that her mother or Doña Feliz lingered
-near; and it was this consciousness that had steeled her outwardly, and
-forced her to restrain the passionate despair that under other
-circumstances would have burst forth to relieve the tension of mind and
-brain. When she at last roused from the apathy of despair, her days
-became periods of speechless agony, but sometimes at night, when she had
-believed that Feliz—who, since Carmen’s departure, had occupied the
-adjacent room—was asleep, for a few brief moments she had yielded to the
-demands of her grief, and given way to sobs and tears, to throw herself
-finally prostrate before the little altar, where she kept the lamp
-constantly burning before the Mother of Sorrows. Thence Feliz at times
-had raised her, and led her to her bed,—chill, unresisting, more dead
-than alive, yet putting aside the arm that would have supported her, and
-by mute gestures entreating to be left to her misery.
-
-Fortunately for her reason, there were times when in utter exhaustion
-Herlinda had slept heavily and awoke refreshed,—and this had occurred a
-night or two after she had learned, by a few decisive words from her
-mother, of her imminent removal from Tres Hermanos. She had retired
-early, and awoke to find the soft and brilliant moonlight flooding her
-chamber. Every article in the room was visible; their shadows fell black
-upon the tiled floor, and the lamp before the altar burned pale. A
-profound stillness reigned. Herlinda raised herself on her pillow, and
-looked around her. The scene was weird and ghostly, and she presently
-became aware that she was utterly alone. She listened intently,—not the
-echo of a breath from the next room. Her heart leaped; for a moment its
-pulsations perplexed her; another, and she had moved noiselessly from
-her bed and crossed the room. She glanced into that adjoining. That too
-was flooded in moonlight, which shone full upon the bed. Yes, it was
-empty. Doña Feliz had doubtless been called to some sick person; she had
-left Herlinda sleeping, thinking that at that hour of the night there
-could be no danger in leaving her for a brief half hour alone.
-
-In an instant these thoughts darted through Herlinda’s mind, followed by
-a project that of late she had much dwelt upon, but had believed
-impossible of realization. With trembling hands she took from her
-wardrobe a dress of some soft dark stuff, and a black and gray reboso,
-and put them on. Without pausing a moment for thought that might deter
-her, she glided from the room, crossed the corridor, and descended the
-stairs, taking the same direction in which Ashley had gone to his death.
-She paused too at the gate, to do as he had done; for she touched the
-sleeping Pedro lightly upon the shoulder, at the same instant uttering
-his name.
-
-The man started from his sleep affrighted,—too much affrighted to cry
-out; for like most haciendas, Tres Hermanos had its ghost. From time to
-time the apparition of a weeping woman was seen by those about to die.
-Had she come to him now? His tongue clove to the roof of his mouth; he
-shook in every limb. The moonlight shone full in the court, but the
-archway was in shade: who or what was this that stood beside him,
-extending a white arm from its dark robes, and touching him with one
-slight finger? A repetition of his name restored him to his senses, and
-he staggered to his feet, muttering, “Señorita! My Señorita, for God’s
-sake why are you here? You will be seen! You will be recognized!”
-
-“‘In the night all cats are gray,’” she answered, with one of those
-proverbs as natural to the lips of a Mexican as the breath they draw.
-“No one would distinguish me in this light from any of the servants; but
-still my words must be brief, for my absence from my room may be
-discovered. Pedro, I have a work to do; it has been in my mind all this
-time. You, you can help me!”
-
-She clasped her hands; he thought she looked at the door, and the idea
-darted into his mind that she contemplated escape, or that she had a mad
-desire to throw herself upon her lover’s grave and die there.
-
-“Niña! Niña, of my life!” he said imploringly, using the form of address
-one might employ to a child, or some dearly loved elder, still
-dependent. “Go back to your chamber, I beg and implore! How can I do
-anything for you? How can Pedro, so worthless, so vile, do anything?”
-
-The adjectives he applied to himself were sincere enough, for Pedro had
-never ceased to reproach himself for his share in the tragedy which, in
-spite of Doña Isabel’s words, he had never really ceased to believe
-concerned Herlinda, though he had striven for his own peace of mind, as
-well as in loyalty to the Garcias, to affect a contrary opinion, until
-this moment, when his young mistress’s appearance and appeal rendered
-self-deception no longer possible. Again and again he reiterated, “What
-can the miserable Pedro do for you?”
-
-Apparently with an instinct of concealment, Herlinda had crouched upon
-the stones, and as the man stood before her she raised her face and
-gazed at him with her dark eyes. How large they looked in the uncertain
-light! how the young face quivered and was convulsed, as her lips
-parted! Pedro, with an inward shrinking, expected her to demand of him
-the name of Ashley’s murderer; but the thought of vengeance, if it ever
-crossed her mind, was far from it at that moment. “Yes, yes, there is
-perhaps something you can do for me,” she said. “Men are able to do so
-much, while we poor women can only fold our hands, and wait and suffer.
-I thought differently once, though. John used to laugh at what he called
-our idle ways; he said women were made to act as well as men. But what
-can I do? What could any woman do in my place? Nothing! nothing!
-nothing!”
-
-Pedro was silent. He knew well how powerless, what a mere chattel or
-toy, was a young woman of his people. It seemed, too, quite natural and
-right to him. In this particular case the mother was acting with
-incomparable severity, but she was within her right. Even while he
-pitied the child, it did not enter his mind to counsel her to combat her
-mother’s will. He only repeated mechanically, “What can I do? What would
-you have your servant do?”
-
-“Not so hard a thing,” she said with a sob in her voice; “even a woman,
-had I one for my friend, could do this thing for me; and yet it is all I
-have to ask in the world. Just a little pity for my child, Pedro!” She
-rose to her feet suddenly, and spoke rapidly. “Pedro, they say that I
-was not truly married; they say my beautiful, golden-haired husband, my
-angel of light, deceived me. It is false, Pedro! all false! But they say
-the world will not believe me, and so I must go away; and my child, like
-an offspring of shame, must be born in secret, and I must submit. It
-will be taken from me, and I must submit. There is no help! no help!”
-
-She spoke in a kind of frenzy, and her excitement communicated itself to
-Pedro. He understood, far better than she could, the motives of Doña
-Isabel; he did not condemn her, neither did he attempt to justify her to
-her daughter. He only muttered again in his stoical way, “What can I
-do?”
-
-Herlinda accepted the words as they were meant, as an offer of devotion,
-of service. “Pedro, you can do much,” she said rapidly. “You can watch
-over my child. Years hence, when I come to ask it, you can give me news
-of it. Ah, they think when they take my child from me, it will be as
-dead to me; but Pedro,” she added in an eager whisper, “I have found
-what they will do. Never mind how I learned it. They will bring my child
-here,—here, where only the peasants will ask a few useless questions,
-where there will be no person of influence to interfere. Yes, it will be
-brought here, and—forgotten! But Pedro, promise me you will watch for
-it, you will protect it. Promise! promise! promise!”
-
-Pedro was startled, but not incredulous. This would not be the first
-child that had been found at the hacienda doors, left to the charity of
-the señoras; more than one half-grown boy, of whose parents no one knew
-anything, loitered in the courts, and even the maid who served Doña
-Isabel was a foundling of this class.
-
-“But how shall I know,” he stammered, after he had satisfied her with
-the promise she desired. “True enough, it may be brought here, but how
-shall I know?”
-
-Herlinda scarcely heeded his words. She was busy in taking a small
-reliquary from her neck. It was square, made of pale blue silk, and in
-no way remarkable. “See, I will put this around its neck,” she said. “No
-one will dare remove a reliquary. There is a bit of the true cross in
-it. It will keep evil away; it will bring good fortune. The first day I
-wore it I met John; and” she added, nervously fingering the jewel at her
-ear, “take this, Pedro. The other I will put in the reliquary, with a
-prayer to San Federigo. When you see the strange child that will come
-here, look for these signs, and as you hope for mercy hereafter, guard
-the child that bears them.”
-
-She had placed in his hand a flat earring of quaint filagree work, one
-of the marvels of rude and almost barbaric workmanship that the untaught
-goldsmiths of the haciendas produce. Pedro would have returned it to
-her, swearing by all he held sacred to do her will; but some sound had
-startled her. She slipped the reliquary into her bosom, drew her scarf
-around her, and glided away. He saw her pass the small doorway like a
-spectre. He could scarcely believe that she had been there at all, that
-she had actually spoken to him. He crossed himself as he lost sight of
-her, and looked in a dazed way at the earring in his palm.
-
-“Would to God,” he muttered, “I had told Doña Isabel all the truth, as I
-meant to, when I went to her from the dead man’s side. Why did I not
-tell her plainly I knew her daughter Herlinda to be the woman Ashley had
-come here to meet,—would she have dared then to say she was not his
-wife? Fool that I was! I myself doubted. What, doubt that sweet angel!
-Beast! imbecile!” and Pedro flung his striped blanket from him with a
-gesture of disgust. “And now, what would be the use, though I should
-trumpet abroad the whole matter? No, my hour has passed. Doña Isabel
-must work her will; I will not fail her, for only by being true can I
-serve her daughter. But who knows?—Herlinda may be deceived; her fears
-may have turned her brain. Yet all the same I will keep this token;” and
-he looked at the earring reverently, then placed it in his wallet. Two
-days later, when she left Tres Hermanos and he saw its fellow in
-Herlinda’s ear, he caught the momentary glance in her dark eye, and
-stood transfixed.
-
-Pedro Gomez hitherto had been a careless, idle, rollicking fellow;
-thenceforward he became grave, watchful, and crafty,—the change which,
-had there been keen observers near, all might have noticed in the
-outward man being as nothing to that from the specious fellow whom
-Ashley had found it an easy matter to bribe, to the conscience-stricken
-man who stood at the gates of the great hacienda of the Garcias,
-cognizant of its conflicting interests, and sworn to guard them; his
-crafty mind inclining to Doña Isabel and the cause she represented, his
-heart yearning over the erring daughter.
-
-
-
-
-                                 VIII.
-
-
-Though Herlinda Garcia had forced a smile to her lips as she left,
-perhaps forever, the house where she was born, as the carriage was
-driven rapidly across the fertile valley her eyes remained fixed with
-melancholy, even despairing, intensity upon the walls wherein she had
-learned in her brief experience of life much that combines to make up
-the sum of woman’s wretchedness.
-
-Herlinda had ever been an imaginative child, even before she had
-attained the age of seven years, at which she had been taught to
-consider herself a reasoning, responsible being; she had been conscious
-of vague feelings and desires, which had in a measure separated her from
-her family and the people who surrounded her, and had set her in sullen
-opposition to the aimless and inane occupations which served to while
-away days that her eager nature longed to fill with action. Though she
-had not been conscious of any especial direction into which she would
-have thrown her energies, she had been most keenly conscious that she
-possessed them, and early rebelled against the petty tasks that curbed
-and strove to stifle them,—such tasks as the embroidering of capes and
-stoles, or drawing of threads from fine linen, to be replaced with
-intricate stitches of needle-work, to form the decoration of altar
-cloths, or the garments of the waxen Lady of Sorrows above the altar in
-the chapel, or of the Virgin of Guadalupe in the great _sala_,—as she
-did also against the endless repetition of prayers, for which she
-needlessly turned the leaves of her well-thumbed breviary. How she had
-longed for freedom to run with the peasant children over the fields! How
-many hours she had hung over the iron railing of her mother’s balcony,
-and gazed upon the far hills, and wondered what sort of world lay in the
-blue beyond them.
-
-Sometimes Herlinda had attempted to talk to Vicente Gonzales of these
-things when he came from the city, privileged as the son of an old
-friend, and the scion of a wealthy and influential family, to form an
-early intimacy with the pretty child, whom later he would meet but in
-her mother’s presence with all the restrictions of Spanish etiquette.
-She had always liked the proud, handsome boy, but he was far slower in
-mental development than she, and could only laugh at her fancies. And so
-as they grew older, and he in secret grew more fond, she had become
-indifferent, restlessly longing for an expansion of her contracted and
-aimless existence, yet finding no promise in the prospects of war and
-political strife which began to allure Gonzales, and in which she could
-not hope to take part,—and to sit a spectator was not in the nature of
-Herlinda. Her mother delighted to watch the fray, to counsel and direct.
-It was perhaps this trait in Doña Isabel’s character that, while it had
-awakened her daughter’s admiration, had chafed and fretted her, checking
-the natural expression of her lively and energetic spirit, even as the
-cold and stately dignity of her manner repressed the affections which
-lay ardent within her, waiting but the magnetic touch of a responsive
-nature.
-
-Such an one had not been found within her home; all were cold,
-preoccupied, absorbed in the every-day affairs of life. Sometimes, when
-by chance Herlinda had caught a glimpse of the repressed inner nature of
-Doña Feliz, the mother of the administrador, she had felt for a moment
-drawn toward her; but although all her life she had lived beneath the
-same roof with her, there had occurred no special circumstance to draw
-them into intimacy, or in any way lessen the barrier that difference in
-age and position raised between them,—for perhaps in no part of the
-world are the subtle differences of caste so clearly recognized and so
-closely observed as in those little worlds, the Mexican _haciendas de
-campo_.
-
-Sometimes, in her unhappiest moods, when her unrest had become actual
-pain and resolved itself into a vague but real feeling of grief,
-Herlinda had thought of her father, in her heart striving to idealize
-what was but an uncertain memory of an elderly, formal-mannered man,
-handsome according to the type of his race,—sharp-featured, eagle-eyed,
-but small of stature, with small effeminate hands which Herlinda could
-remember she used to kiss, in the respectful salutation with which she
-had been taught to greet him. He had died when Herlinda was eight years
-old, just after the second daughter, Carmen, was born; and though Doña
-Isabel seldom mentioned him, it was understood that she had loved him
-deeply, and for his sake lived the life of semi-isolation which her age,
-her beauty, her talents, and wealth seemed to combine to render an
-unnatural choice. As she grew older, Herlinda began to wonder, and
-sometimes repine, at this utter separation from the world of which in a
-hurried visit to the city of Guanapila she had once caught a glimpse.
-Especially was this the case after the arrival of Mademoiselle La Croix,
-who was lost in wonder that any one should voluntarily resign herself to
-exile even in so lovely a spot; and although she opened for Herlinda a
-new world in the studies to which she directed her, they had been rather
-of an imaginative than a logical kind, and stimulated those faculties
-which should rather have been repressed, while personally the governess
-had answered no need in the frank yet repressed and struggling nature of
-her pupil.
-
-These had been the conditions under which Herlinda had met John Ashley,
-and we know with what result. As the tiny stream rushes into the river
-and is carried away by its force, their waters mingling
-indistinguishably, so the mind, the very soul of Herlinda had felt the
-power of that perfect sympathy which, in the few short words uttered in
-the pauses of a dance (for they had first met at Guanapila) and the
-expressive glances of his eyes, she believed herself to have found in
-the mind and heart of the alien,—a man in her mother’s employ, one whom
-ordinarily she would have treated with perfect politeness, but would
-have thought of as set as far apart from her own life as though they
-were beings of a separate order of creation. The fact that he was a
-handsome young man would primarily have had no effect upon Herlinda,
-though undoubtedly it served to render to her mind more natural and
-delightful the ascendency which, in spite of all obstacles, he rapidly
-gained over her entire nature.
-
-Needless is it for us to analyze the mind and character of Ashley. It is
-certain he loved Herlinda passionately, and in the opposition of Doña
-Isabel to his suit saw but irrational prejudice and mediæval tyranny.
-His entire freedom from sordid motives, and his fears of the
-consequences of delay,—knowing as he did of the desired engagement
-between Herlinda and the young Vicente Gonzales,—justified to his mind a
-course which the canons of honor would have forbidden, but of the
-legality of which he certainly had had no question, the intricacies and
-delicacies of marriage laws having engaged no share in the attention of
-a somewhat adventurous youth.
-
-This very heedlessness and activity of John Ashley’s nature had formed
-an especial charm to Herlinda; she would have shrunk from and pondered
-over a more cautious nature,—perhaps would have ended in loving, but she
-never would have cast aside all the traditions of her youth. All her
-life she had been like a bird in the cage. For a brief space she had
-seen the wide expanse of the sky opening above her, she had fluttered
-upward; but death had struck her down to darkness,—death, which had
-pierced the strong and loving one who would have guided and protected
-her! She moaned, and turned her face to the corner of the carriage. An
-arm stole around her; it was that of Doña Feliz.
-
-
-
-
-                                  IX.
-
-
-The pale dawn, creeping over the hills behind which the sun was still
-hidden, revealing to the accustomed sight of Doña Feliz a narrow,
-irregular street of adobe hovels; a tiny church with a square tower,
-where the swallows were sleepily chirping; around and behind, stray
-trees and patches of gardens; upon the waste of sand, where cacti and
-dusty sagebrush grew, up to the hills where the pines began, a road of
-yellow sand, winding like a sinuous serpent over all; two or three early
-loiterers, with eyes turned toward the diligence, which thus early was
-making its way from the night’s resting place toward the distant
-city,—such was the scene upon which the trusted servant and friend of
-the Garcias looked on a morning early in November. She was standing in
-the low gateway that gave entrance to a garden overgrown with weeds and
-vines. These vines spread from the fig and orange trees, and half
-covered the ruinous walls of a house which had once, where the
-surroundings were so humble, ranked as an elegant mansion, and which
-indeed had served in years gone by as a temporary retreat, small but
-attractive, for such of the family of Garcia as desired a few days’
-retirement from their accustomed pursuits. Here the ladies had wandered
-amid the flowers, and sat under the arbors where the purple grapes
-clustered, and honeysuckle and jessamine mingled their rich odors; and
-the gentlemen had smoked their cigarettes in luxurious ease, or sallied
-forth to shoot the golden plover in its season, or hunt the deer amid
-the surrounding hills. This had in fact been a _quinta_, or pleasure
-resort, but since the days of revolutions and bandits it had been
-utterly abandoned to the rats and owls, or to the nominal care of the
-ragged brood who huddled together in the half-ruinous kitchen; and here
-the romance of Herlinda’s life had been enacted.
-
-When Doña Isabel Garcia had desired to send her daughter from the
-hacienda of Tres Hermanos, in order to remove her from the neighborhood
-of Ashley and give her the benefit of change, she had at first been
-sadly perplexed where to send her. Should she go to her relatives in the
-city, it was possible that her dejected mien and unguarded words might
-give them a suspicion of the truth,—and Doña Isabel detested gossip,
-particularly family gossip; besides, she looked upon Herlinda’s marriage
-with Vicente Gonzales as certain, and dreaded lest the faintest rumor of
-the young girl’s attachment should reach his ears, and awaken in him the
-slumbering demon of jealousy,—which, though it might rouse the young
-soldier as a lover to fresh ardor only, might incite him later as her
-husband to a tyranny which the mind of Herlinda was ill disposed to
-bear. In this dilemma the house at Las Parras had occurred to her. Once
-in her own girlhood she had visited the place, and she remembered it as
-a most charming sylvan retreat; and although she knew it to be situated
-in the outskirts of a small hamlet scarce worthy of the name of village,
-and that it had been abandoned for years, its isolation and abandonment
-at that juncture precisely constituted its attractions; and thither,
-under the care of Don Rafael the administrador and of Mademoiselle La
-Croix, Herlinda had been sent. Precautions had been taken to baffle the
-inquiries of Ashley as to their route and destination, which, as has
-been said, an accident revealed to him just when his mind was most
-strongly excited by the mystery which his disposition and training, as
-well as his love, led him passionately to resent. Hither, too, when a
-new and still more important need had risen, Herlinda had been brought.
-
-Doña Isabel had been unaffectedly shocked, when, after a tortuous
-journey by diligence in order to evade conjecture as to their
-destination, they had at nightfall arrived at this deserted mansion, and
-had passed through the narrow door-way set in the high stone-wall that
-surrounded the garden, and had looked upon its tangled masses of half
-tropic vegetation, and entered the ruin, to find that only three or four
-small rooms opening upon the vineyard were habitable. But in these few
-rooms they and their secret were safe,—safe as if buried in the caves of
-the earth. Herlinda looked around her for familiar faces, but all she
-saw were strange to her. Doña Isabel had guarded against recognition of
-Herlinda, and even her own identity was disguised. To the women and the
-old man who performed the work of the kitchen and went the necessary
-errands, but who were rigidly excluded from the private rooms, she was
-known only as a friend of Doña Isabel Garcia,—one Doña Carlota, whose
-family name awoke no interest or inquiry.
-
-After satisfying her hungry anxiety to catch a glimpse of the servants,
-and finding them strangers, Herlinda made no further effort to encounter
-them. She was very ill after arrival, and it is doubtful whether the
-attendants—dull, apathetic creatures—ever saw her face plainly from the
-day she entered the house until that of which we speak, when Doña Feliz
-stood in the low doorway in the garden wall, and looked toward the
-diligence which appeared indistinctly, a moving monster in the distance.
-She glanced back occasionally, half impatiently, half sorrowfully, to
-the house. Through the open door of it presently glided Doña Isabel. Her
-head was bent, her olive cheeks were deadly pale, and she shivered as
-with cold as she stepped out into the dusk of early morning,—or rather
-late night, for it was an hour when not a creature around the place was
-stirring, not even the birds; a wide-eyed cat stared at her as she
-passed down the narrow walk, and she shrank even from its gaze. She held
-something under her black reboso, which upon reaching Feliz she passed
-to her with averted eyes.
-
-“Take it,” she said; “Herlinda is asleep. We trust you, Feliz. I in my
-shame, she in her despair, we give this child to you, never to ask it of
-you again, never to know whether it lives or dies.”
-
-The passionless composure with which she said these words, the absolute
-freedom from any tone of vindictiveness, gave to them the accent of
-perfect trust. There was nothing of cruelty, nothing of hesitancy in the
-tone or words or manner with which Doña Isabel Garcia laid in the arms
-of Feliz a new-born sleeping infant, and thus separated herself and her
-family from the fate which with absolute confidence she placed in the
-hands of the statuesque, cold-faced woman who stood there to receive it.
-
-But with the child in her arms a great change swept over the face of
-Feliz. One could not have told at a glance whether it was loathing and
-resentment, or an agony of pity, that convulsed her features, or all
-combined. “My words are all said,” she murmured. “Herlinda is, you say,
-resigned. Oh, Doña Isabel, Doña Isabel, you will rue this hour! I do
-your will; do not you blame or accuse me in the future!”
-
-The diligence had driven through the village. To the astonishment of the
-idlers it stopped before the wall that circled the half-ruined _quinta_;
-a woman stepped through the doorway, and was helped to her seat. She had
-evidently been expected by the driver. They would have been still more
-surprised had they also seen the lady who waved a white hand at parting,
-and who turned back into the garden with a deep-drawn sigh of relief,
-followed by a groan that seemed to rend and distort the lips through
-which it came, and which she vainly strove to keep from trembling as she
-entered the house, and answered the call of her awakened daughter.
-
-What can I say of the scene that followed? What that will awaken pity,
-unstained with blame, for that poor creature, so powerless in that land
-that her sisters, in others more blessed, perhaps, find it impossible to
-put themselves in imagination in her place even for a single moment? But
-the captive slave can writhe; woman, the pampered toy, may weep: and
-where woman was both (for even in Mexico a new era is dawning on her),
-she could struggle and despair and die,—but, as Herlinda knew too well,
-in youth at least she could not assert her womanhood, and make or mar
-her own destiny. In such a land, in such a cause, what champion would
-arise to beat down the iron laws of custom which manacled and crushed
-her? Not one!
-
-
-
-
-                                   X.
-
-
-One day Pedro Gomez, half-sleeping half-meditating as he sat on the
-stone bench beneath the hanging serpents that garnished the vestibule of
-Tres Hermanos, thought he saw a ghost upon the stairs which led from one
-corner of the wide court into which he had glanced, to the corridor of
-the upper floor. An apparition of Doña Feliz, he thought, had passed up
-them; and with ready superstition he decided in his own mind that some
-evil had befallen her in her journeyings. He was so disturbed by this
-idea that a few moments later, as her son Don Rafael passed through the
-vestibule, he ventured to stop him and tell him what he had seen;
-whereat Don Rafael burst into a loud laugh.
-
-“What, do you not know,” he said, “that my mother has returned? Ah, I
-remember you were at Mass this morning. She came over from the
-post-house on donkey-back. A wonderful woman is my mother; but she knew
-we had need of her, and she came none too soon. I opened the door to her
-myself;” and Don Rafael hastened to his own apartments, where it was
-understood Doña Rita his wife hourly awaited the pangs of motherhood,
-and left Pedro gazing after him in open-mouthed astonishment.
-
-In the first place nothing had been heard of the probability of the
-return of Doña Feliz; in the second, the manner of her return was
-unprecedented. She was a woman of some consequence at the hacienda. It
-was an almost incredible thing that under any circumstances she should
-arrive unexpectedly at the diligence post, and ride a league upon a
-donkey’s back like the wife of a laborer. And thirdly it was a miracle
-that he Pedro had himself gone to Mass that morning,—he could not
-remember how it had come about,—and that discovering his absence from
-the gate Don Rafael had himself performed his functions, and had not
-soundly rated him for his unseasonable devotion; for Don Rafael was not
-a man to confound the claims of spiritual and secular duties.
-
-Pedro Gomez did not put the matter to himself in precisely these words;
-nevertheless it haunted and puzzled him, and kept him in an unusual
-state of abstraction,—which perhaps accounted for the fact that later in
-the day, just at high-noon, when the men were afield and the women busy
-in their huts, and Pedro had ample leisure for his siesta, he was
-suddenly aroused by a voice that seemed to fall from the skies.
-Springing to his feet, he almost struck against a powerful black horse,
-which was reined in the doorway; and dazzled by the sun, and confused by
-the unexpected encounter, he gazed stupidly into the face of a man who
-was bending toward him, his broad hat pushed back from a mass of
-coal-black hair, his white teeth exposed by the laugh that lighted up
-his whole face as he exclaimed,—
-
-“Here, brother! here is a good handful for thee! I found it on the road
-yonder. _Caramba!_ my horse nearly stepped on it! Do people in these
-parts scatter such seeds about? I fancy the crop would be but a poor one
-if they did, and I saw a good growth of little ones in the village
-yonder. Well, well! I have no use for such treasure; I freely bestow it
-on thee,”—and with a dexterous movement the stranger placed a bundle,
-wrapped in a tattered scarf, in the hands of the astounded Pedro, and
-without waiting question or thanks, whichever he might have expected,
-put spurs to his horse and galloped across the dusty plain.
-
-Twice that day had Pedro Gomez been left, as he would have said,
-open-mouthed. Almost unconscious of what he did, he stood there watching
-the cloud of dust in which the horse and rider disappeared, until he
-felt himself pulled by the sleeve, and a sharp voice asked, “In the name
-of the Blessed, Tio, what have you there? Ay, Holy Babe! it is a child!”
-
-A faint cry from the bundle confirmed these words; a tiny pink fist
-thrust out gave assurance to the eyes.
-
-Pedro Gomez, strong man as he was, trembled in every limb, and sank on a
-seat breathless; but even in his agitation he resisted the efforts of
-his niece to unwrap the child.
-
-“Let it be,” he said; “I will myself look at this gift which the Saints
-have sent me.”
-
-With trembling hands he undid its wrappings. The babe was crying
-lustily; red, grimacing, struggling, it was still a pretty child,—a girl
-only a few days old. Around its neck, under the little dress of white
-linen, was a silken cord. Pedro drew it forth, certain of what he should
-find. Florencia pounced upon the blue reliquary eagerly. “Let us open
-it,” she said; “perhaps we shall find something to tell us where the
-babe comes from, and whose it is.”
-
-“Nonsense!” said Pedro, decidedly; “what should we find in it but scraps
-of paper scribbled with prayers? And who would open a reliquary?”
-
-Florencia looked down abashed, for she was a good daughter of the
-Church, and had been taught to reverence such things.
-
-“No, no, girl! run to the village and bring a woman who can nourish this
-starving creature;” and as the girl flew to execute her commission,
-Pedro completed his examination of the child.
-
-It was clothed in linen, finer than rancheros use even in their gala
-attire, and the red flannel with white spots, called _bayeta_, was of
-the softest to be procured; but beyond this there was nothing to
-indicate the class to which the child belonged. Upon a slip of paper
-pinned to its bosom was written the name _Maria Dolores_ (what more
-natural than that such a child should bear the name, and be placed under
-the protection of the Mother of Sorrows?), and upon the reverse was
-“Señora Doña Isabel Garcia.” Was this to commend the waif to the care or
-attention of that powerful lady? Pedro rather chose to think it a
-warning against her. “What! place the bird before the hawk?” With a grim
-smile he thrust the paper into his bosom. Doña Isabel was he knew not
-where,—later would be time enough to think of her; meanwhile, here were
-all the women and children, all the old men, and halt and lame of the
-village, trooping up to see this waif, which in such an unusual manner
-had been dropped into the gate-keeper’s horny palms.
-
-Some of the women laughed; all the men joked Pedro when they saw the
-child, though a yellow nimbus of hair around its head and the fineness
-of its clothing puzzled them.
-
-Pedro had hastily thrust the slip of paper into his breast, scarce
-knowing why he did so; for though some instinct as powerful as if it
-were a living voice that spoke, urged him to secrete the child, to rush
-away with it into the fastnesses of the mountains, rather than to render
-it to Doña Isabel, he did not doubt for a moment that she herself had
-provided for its mysterious appearance at the hacienda, that it might be
-received as a waif, and cared for by Doña Feliz as her representative.
-
-These thoughts flashed through his mind, and he heard again Herlinda’s
-despairing cry: “Watch for my child! Protect it! protect it!” Was it
-possible that she had actually known that this disposition would be made
-of her child? Involuntarily his arms closed around it, and he clasped it
-to his broad breast, looking defiantly around.
-
-“Tush, Pedro, give it to me!” cried one stout matron, longing to take
-the little creature to her motherly breast. “What know you of nursing
-infants? A drop of mother’s milk would be more welcome to it than all
-thy dry hugs. Ah, here comes the Señor Administrador,” and the crowd
-opened to admit the passage of Don Rafael, who attracted by the
-commotion had hastened to the spot in no small anger, ordering the crowd
-to disperse; but he was greeted with an incomprehensible chorus of which
-he only heard the one word “baby,” and exclaimed in indignation,—
-
-“And is this the way to show your delight, when the poor woman is at the
-point of death perhaps? Get you gone, and it will be time enough to make
-this hubbub when it comes.”
-
-The women burst out laughing, the men grinned from ear to ear, and the
-children fell into ecstasies of delight. Don Rafael was naturally
-thinking of the expected addition to his own family, and was enraged at
-what he supposed to be a premature manifestation of sympathy. Pedro
-alone was grave, and stepping back pointed to the infant, which was now
-quiet upon the bosom of Refugio, her volunteer nurse. “This is the child
-they speak of, Señor,” he said, and in a few words related the manner in
-which it had been delivered to him.
-
-If he had expected to see any consciousness or confusion upon the face
-of Don Rafael, he must certainly have been disappointed, for there was
-simply the frankest and most perfect amazement, as he turned to the
-woman who had stepped out a little from the crowd and held the infant
-toward him. He saw at a glance that it was no Indian child,—the
-whiteness of its skin, the fineness of its garments, above all the
-yellow nimbus of hair, already curling in tiny rings around the little
-head, struck him with wonder. He crossed himself, and ejaculated a pious
-“Heaven help us!” and touched the child’s cheek with the tip of his
-finger, and turned its face from its nurse’s dusky breast in a very
-genuine amaze, which Pedro watched jealously. The child cried sleepily,
-and nestled under the reboso which the woman drew over it, hushing it in
-her arms, murmuring caressingly, as her own child tugged at her
-skirts,—“There, there, sleep little one, sleep! nothing shall harm thee;
-sleep, _Chinita_, sleep!”
-
-But the little waif—whose soft curls had suggested the pet name—was not
-yet to slumber; for at that moment Doña Feliz appeared. Pedro noticed as
-she crossed the courtyard that she was extremely pale. Some of the women
-rushed toward her with voluble accounts of the beauty of the child and
-the fineness of its garments. She smiled wearily, and turned from them
-to look at the foundling. A flush spread over her face as she examined
-it, not reddening but deepening its clear olive tint. She looked at
-Rafael searchingly, at Pedro questioningly. He muttered over his
-thrice-told tale. “Was there no word, no paper?” she said, but waited
-for no answer. “This is no plebeian child, Rafael. What shall we do with
-it? Doña Isabel is not here, perhaps will not be here for years!”
-
-There was a buzz of astonishment, for this was the first intimation of
-Doña Isabel’s intended length of absence. In the midst of it Pedro had
-taken the sleeping child from Refugio’s somewhat reluctant arm, and
-wrapping it in a scarf taken from his niece’s shoulders, had laid it on
-the sheepskin in the alcove in which he usually slept. This tacit
-appropriation perhaps settled the fate of the infant; still Doña Feliz
-looked at her son uneasily, and he rubbed his hands in perplexity. “Of
-all the days in the year for a babe like this to be left here,” he said,
-“when, the Saints willing, I am to have one of my own! No, no, mother,
-Rita would never consent.”
-
-“Consent to what?” she answered almost testily. “What! Because this
-foundling chances to be white, would you have your wife adopt it as her
-own, when after so many years of prayer Heaven has sent her a child? No,
-no, Rafael, it would be madness!”
-
-“There is no need,” interpolated Pedro, with a half-savage eagerness,
-and with a look which, strangely combined of indignation and relief,
-should have struck dumb the woman who thus to the mind of the
-gate-keeper was revealed as the incarnation of deceit,—“there is no
-need. I will keep the child; ‘without father or mother or a dog to bark
-for me,’ who can care for it better? Here are Refugio and Teresa and
-Florencia will nurse it for me. It will want for nothing.” A chorus of
-voices answered him: “We will all be its mother.”—“Give it to me when it
-cries, and I will nurse it.”—“The Saints will reward thee, Pedro!”—in
-the midst of which, in answer to a call from above, Doña Feliz hastened
-away, saying, “Nothing could be better for the present. Come, Rafael,
-you are wanted. I will write to Doña Isabel, Pedro; she will doubtless
-do something when you are tired of it. There is, for example, the asylum
-at Guanapila.”
-
-Pedro gazed after her blankly. In spite of that momentary flush on the
-face, Doña Feliz had seemed as open as the day. He never ceased
-thereafter to look upon her in indignant admiration and fear. Her
-slightest word was like a spell upon him. Pedro was of a mind to
-propitiate demons, rather than worship angels. There was something to
-his mind demoniacal in this Doña Feliz.
-
-Half an hour after she had ascended the stairs, and the idlers had
-dispersed to chatter over this event, leaving the new-found babe to its
-needed slumber, the woman who acted the part of midwife to Doña Rita ran
-down to the gate where Pedro and his niece were standing, to tell them
-that there was a babe, a girl, born to the wife of the administrador. A
-boy, who was lounging near, rushed off to ring the church bell, for this
-was a long-wished-for event; but before the first stroke fell on the
-air, the voice of Doña Feliz was heard from the window: “Silence!
-Silence! there are two. No bells, no bells!”
-
-Two! Doña Rita still in peril! The midwife rushed back to her post. The
-door was locked, and there was a momentary delay in opening it. “Where
-have you been,” said Doña Feliz severely, “almost a half an hour away?”
-
-The woman stared at her in amaze,—the time had flown! Yes, there was the
-evidence,—a second infant in the lap of Doña Feliz, puny, wizened. She
-dressed it quickly, asking no assistance, ordering the woman sharply to
-the side of Doña Rita.
-
-“A thousand pities,” said Don Rafael as he looked at it, “that it is not
-a boy!” Then as the thought struck him, he laughed softly: “Ay, perhaps
-it is for luck,—instead of the three kings, who always bring death, we
-have the three _Marias_.”
-
-Doña Rita had heard something of the foundling, and smiled faintly.
-“Thank God they were not all born of one mother,” she said. “Ay! give me
-my first-born here;” and with the tiny creature resting upon her arm,
-and the second presently lying near, Doña Rita sank to sleep.
-
-
-
-
-                                  XI.
-
-
-Though the three Marias, as Don Rafael had called them, thus entered
-upon life, or at least into that of the hacienda of Tres Hermanos,
-almost simultaneously, except at their baptism they found nothing in
-common. On that occasion, a few days later than that of which we have
-written, the aged priest, in the name of the Trinity, severally blessed
-Fiorentina, Rosario, and Dolores,—each name as was customary being
-joined to that of the virgin Queen of Heaven; but as they left the
-church their paths separated as widely as their stations differed.
-Dolores, for whom in vain—were it designed to subdue or chasten her—was
-chosen so sad a name, was taken to the dusky little hut, a few rods from
-the gate, that was, when he chose to claim it, Pedro’s home, and there
-cared for by his niece Florencia with an uncertain and somewhat
-fractious tenderness, and nourished at the breast of whomsoever happened
-to be at hand. She passed through babyhood, losing her prettiness with
-the golden tinge of her hair, and as she grew older looking with
-wide-opened eyes out from a tangle of dark elf-locks, which explained
-the survival of her baby pet-name Chinita, or “little curly one.”
-
-Meanwhile the two children at the great house were seldom seen below
-stairs, so cherished and guarded was their infancy. Rosario grew a
-sturdy, robust little creature, with straight shining brown hair, drawn
-back, as soon as its length would permit, from her clear olive temples,
-in two tight braids, leaving prominent the straight dark eye-brows that
-defined her low forehead. Long curling lashes shaded her large black
-eyes,—true Mexican eyes, in which the vivacity of the Spaniard and the
-dreamy indolence of the Aztec mingled, producing in youth a bewitching
-expression perhaps unequalled in any other admixture of races. She had,
-too, the full cheeks, of which later in life the bones would be proved
-too high, and the slightly prominent formation of jaw, where the lips,
-too full for beauty, closed over perfect teeth of dazzling whiteness.
-Rosario was indeed a beauty, according to the standard of her country;
-and Florentina so closely followed the same type, that she should have
-been the same, but there was a certain lack of vividness in her coloring
-which beside her sister gave her prettiness the appearance of a dimly
-reflected light. Rosario was strong, vivid, dominant; Florentina, sweet,
-unobtrusive, spirituelle,—though they had no such fine word at Tres
-Hermanos for a quality they recognized, but could not classify; and so
-it came about, as time went on, and Rosario romped and played and was
-scolded and kissed, reproved and admired, that Florentina grew like a
-fragrant plant in the corner of a garden, which receives, it is true,
-its due meed of dew and sunshine, but is unnoticed, either for praise or
-blame, except when some chance passer-by breathes its sweet perfume, and
-glances down in wonder, as sometimes strangers did at Florentina. In the
-family, ignoring the fine name they had chosen for her, they called her
-little “snub-nose,”—Chata,—not reproachfully, but with the caressing
-accent which renders the nicknames of the Spanish untranslatable in any
-other tongue.
-
-So time passed on until the children were four years old. The little
-Chinita made her home at the gateway rather than at the hut with
-Florencia, who by this time had married and had children of her own, and
-indeed felt no slight jealousy at the open preference her uncle showed
-for his foundling. For Pedro was a man of no vices, and his food and
-clothing cost him little; so in some by-corner a goodly hoard of
-sixpences and dollars was accumulating, doubtless, for the ultimate
-benefit of the tiny witch who clambered on his knees, pulled his hair,
-and ate the choicest bits from his basin unreproved; who thrust out her
-foot or her tongue at any of the rancheros who spoke to her, or with
-equally little reason fondled and kissed them; and who at the sight of
-the administrador or clerk or Doña Feliz, shrank beneath Pedro’s striped
-blanket, peeping out from its folds with half-terrified, half-defiant
-eyes, which softened into admiration as Doña Rita and her children
-passed by.
-
-They also in their turn used to look at her with wonder, she was so
-different from the score or more of half-naked, brown little figures
-that lolled on the sand or in the doorways of the huts, or crept in to
-Mass to stare at them with wide-opened black eyes. They used to pass
-these very conscious of their stiffly-starched pink skirts, their
-shining rebosos, and thin little slippers of colored satin. But though
-this wild little elf crouching by Pedro’s side was as dirty and as
-unkempt as the other ranchero children, they vaguely felt that she was a
-creature to talk to, to play with, not to dazzle with Sunday finery,—for
-even so young do minds begin to reason.
-
-As for Chinita, after the rare occasions when she saw the children of
-the administrador, she tormented Pedro with questions. “What sort of a
-hut did they live in? What did they eat? Where did their pretty pink
-dresses come from?”
-
-This last question Pedro answered by sending by the first woman who went
-to the next village for a wonderful flowered muslin, in which to her
-immense delight Chinita for a day glittered like a rainbow, but which
-the dust and grime soon reduced to a level with the more sombre tatters
-in which she usually appeared. When these were at their worst, Doña
-Feliz sometimes stopped a moment to look at her and throw a reproving
-glance at Pedro; but she never spoke to him of the child either for good
-or ill.
-
-One day, however,—it was the day, they remembered afterward, on which
-the Padre Francisco celebrated Mass for the last time,—the two little
-girls accompanied by their mother and followed by their nurse went to
-the church in new frocks of deep purple, most wonderful to see. Chinita
-could not keep her eyes off them, though Rosario frowned majestically,
-drawing her black eyebrows together and even slyly shaking a finger half
-covered with little rings of tinsel and bright-colored stones. But the
-other child, the little Chata, covertly smiled at her as she half
-guiltily turned her gaze from the saint before whose shrine she was
-kneeling; and that smile had so much of kindliness, curiosity,
-invitation in it that Chinita on the instant formed a desperate
-resolution, and determined at once to carry it through.
-
-Now, it had happened that from her earliest infancy Pedro had forbidden
-her to be taken, or later to go, into the court upon which the
-apartments of the administrador opened. Everywhere else,—even into the
-stables where the horses and mules, for all Pedro’s confidence, might
-have kicked or trodden her; to the courtyard where the duck-pond was; to
-the kitchen, where more than once she had stumbled over a pot of boiling
-black beans—anywhere, everywhere, might she go except to the small court
-which lay just back of the principal and most extensive one. How often
-had Chinita crossed the first, and in the very act of peeping through
-the doorway of the second had been snatched back by Pedro and carried
-kicking and screaming, tugging at his black hair and beard, back to the
-snake-hung vestibule to be terrified by some grim tale into submission;
-or on occasion had even been shut up in the hut to nurse Florencia’s
-baby,—if nursing it could be called, where the heavy, fat lump of infant
-mortality was set upon the ragged skirt of the other rebellious infant,
-to pin her to her mother earth. Florencia perhaps resented this mode of
-punishment more than either of the victims, for they began with screams
-and generally ended by amicably falling asleep,—the straight coarse
-locks of the little Indian mingling with the brown curls, still tinged
-with gold and reddened at the tips by the sun, of the fairer-skinned
-girl.
-
-Upon this day, Chinita in her small mind resolved there should be no
-loitering at the doorway; and scarcely had the two demure little maidens
-passed into the inner court and followed their mother up the stairway,
-when she darted in and looked eagerly around. There was nothing terrible
-there at all,—an open door upon the lower floor showing the brick floor
-of a dining-room, where a long table set for a meal stood, and a boy was
-moving about in sandalled feet making ready for the mid-day dinner.
-There was a great earthen jar of water sunk a little in the floor of a
-far corner, and some chairs scattered about. A picture of the Virgin of
-Guadalupe, under which was a small vessel of holy water, met her eyes as
-she glanced in. She turned away disappointed and went to another door,
-that of a sitting-room, as bare and uninviting as the dining-room, but
-with an altar at one end, above which stood a figure of Mary with the
-infant Jesus in her arms. Even the saints in the church were not so
-gorgeous as this. Chinita gazed in admiration and delight; if she could
-have taken the waxen babe from the mother’s arms she would have sat down
-then and there in utter absorption and forgetfulness. As it was, she
-crossed herself and ran out among the flower-pots in the courtyard and
-anxiously looked up. Yes, there leaning over the railings of the
-corridor were those she sought. At sight of her Rosario screamed with
-delight, her budding aristocratic scruples yielding at once to the
-charms of novelty. Chata waved her hand and smiled, both running eagerly
-to descend the stairs and grasp their new play-fellow.
-
-“What is your name?” asked both in a breath. “Why are you always with
-Pedro, at the gate? Who is your mother, and why have you got such funny
-hair? Who combs it for you? Doesn’t it hurt?”
-
-Chinita answered this last question with a rueful grimace, at the same
-time putting one dirty little finger on Rosario’s coral necklace,—a
-liberty which that damsel resented with a sharp slap, which was
-instantly returned with interest, much to Rosario’s surprise and Chata’s
-dismay.
-
-At the cry which Rosario uttered, following it up with sobs and
-lamentations, both Doña Feliz and Doña Rita appeared. Rosario flew to
-her mother. “Oh, the naughty cat! the bad, wicked girl! she scratched
-me! she slapped me!” she cried, between her sobs.
-
-Chata followed her sister, still keeping Chinita’s hand, which she had
-caught in the fray. “Poor Rosario! poor little sister,” she said
-pityingly; “but, _Mamacita_, just look where Rosa slapped the poor
-pretty Chinita,” and she softly smoothed the cheek which Chinita
-sullenly strove to turn away.
-
-“Why, it is that wretched little foundling of Pedro’s!” cried Doña Rita,
-indignantly, as she wiped Rosario’s streaming cheeks. “Get you gone, you
-fierce little tigress! Chata, let go her hand; she will scratch you, she
-may bite you next.”
-
-“Oh, no,” cooed Chata, quite in the ear of the ragged little fury beside
-her; while Doña Feliz, who had been silent, placed her fingers under the
-chin of the little waif, and lifted her face to her gaze. “Be not angry
-at a children’s quarrel,” she said; “they will be all the better friends
-for it later.”
-
-“But I don’t wish them to be friends,” cried Doña Rita,—though the
-absolute separation of classes rendered intimate association possible
-and common between them which neither detracted from the dignity of the
-one caste, nor was likely to arouse emulation in the other. “What a
-wild, savage little fox! No, no, my lamb, she shall not come near thee
-again!”
-
-But the mother’s lamb was of another mind, for suddenly she stopped
-crying, pulled the new-comer’s ragged skirt, and said, “Come along, I’ll
-show you my little fishes;” and in another moment, to Doña Rita’s
-amazement and Doña Feliz’s quiet amusement, the three children were
-leaning together, chatting and laughing, over the edge of the stone
-basin in the centre of the court.
-
-In the midst of their play, a sudden fancy seized Doña Feliz. Catching
-up a towel that lay at hand, she half-playfully, half-commandingly
-caught the elf-like child and washed her face. What a smooth soft skin,
-what delicately pencilled brows appeared! how red was the bow of that
-perfect little mouth! Doña Rita sighed for very envy; Doña Feliz held
-the little face in her hands, and looked at it intently. But Chinita,
-already rebellious at the water and towel, absolutely resented this; and
-in spite of the cries of the children she broke away and ran from the
-courtyard, arriving breathless at the knees of Pedro, to cover herself
-with the grimy folds of his blanket.
-
-Little by little he drew from her what had passed, comforting her though
-he made no audible comment; and an hour later Doña Feliz, catching sight
-of the child, wondered how it had been possible for her to get her face
-so dirty in so short a time, though a suspicion of the truth soon caused
-her to smile gravely. While Chinita had been telling her adventures,
-Pedro had drawn his grimy fingers tenderly over her cheeks, in this way
-at once resenting Doña Feliz’s interference, curiosity, interest,
-whatever it was, and manifesting his sympathy with the aggrieved one.
-Nor did he scold the child for her intrusion to the court, or forbid her
-to go again; and when after some days of hesitation, anger, and
-irresistible attraction she found her way thither, she wore on her neck
-a string of coral beads which made Rosario cry out with envy, and which
-Chata regarded with wide-eyed and solemn admiration.
-
-
-
-
-                                  XII.
-
-
-The acquaintance thus unpromisingly begun among the three children grew
-apace. At first, Chinita’s visits were as infrequent as Pedro’s
-watchfulness and Doña Rita’s antipathy to the foundling could render
-them, although neither openly interfered,—Pedro, for reasons best known
-to himself, and Doña Rita out of respect to her mother-in-law, who she
-saw, in her undemonstrative and quiet way, seemed inclined to regard the
-child with an interest differing from that with which she favored the
-children of the herdsmen and laborers. Doña Feliz seldom gave Chinita
-anything, even in the way of sweets, with which on special festival days
-she sometimes regaled the others; but in the chill days of the rainy
-season, or when the norther blew, she it was who chid her if she ran
-barefooted across the courts, or left her shoulders and head uncovered,
-and who set all the children to string wonderful beads of amber and red
-and yellow, placing the painted gourd which contained them close to the
-brasier of glowing coals, so that the shivering little creature might
-benefit by its warmth.
-
-Not that the waif was neglected, according to the customs of Pedro’s
-people,—indeed he was lavish to her of all sorts of rural finery. But
-where all children ran barefoot, where none wore more clothing than a
-chemise, a skirt, and the inevitable reboso (a long striped scarf of
-flexible cotton), and in a clime where this was usually more than
-sufficient for protection, it did not occur either to Florencia or Pedro
-to provide more against those few bitter days, when it seemed quite
-natural to shiver, perhaps grow ill, and to mutter against the bad
-weather; and so, very often the child he would have given his life to
-shelter had run a thousand risks of wind and weather, which custom had
-inured her to, and a robust constitution defied.
-
-Still Chinita was glad of shelter and warmth, though like others, she
-bore the lack of them stoically, and at first in the bad weather went to
-the administrador’s for such comforts, as much as from the attraction
-which Rosario’s spiteful fondness and Chata’s soft friendliness offered;
-while so it chanced that she was suffered to go and come as the dogs
-did, sometimes caressed, sometimes greeted with a sharp word, often
-enough unnoticed except by Chata, who looked for the visit each day,
-never forgetting to save in anticipation a tiny bit of the preserved
-fruit she had been given at dinner, or a handful of nuts. These
-offerings of affection often proved efficacious in soothing the
-irritation caused by Rosario’s uncertain moods. Yet it was to Rosario
-that this perverse little creature attached herself; with her she
-romped, and chased butterflies in the garden; with her she laughed and
-quarrelled; and Chata looked on the two with a precocious benignity
-pretty to see, leaning often upon Doña Feliz’s lap, and, with a quaint
-little way she had, smoothing down with one little finger the tip of her
-tiny nose which obstinately turned skyward, giving just the suggestion
-of sauciness to features which otherwise would have been inanely
-uncharacteristic.
-
-Doña Rita was of opinion that all that was necessary in the education of
-girls was to teach them to hem so neatly that the stitches should not
-show in the finest cambric, and to make conserves of various
-sorts,—adding, by way of accomplishment, instruction in the drawing of
-threads and the working of insertions in many and quaint designs, or the
-modelling of fruits and figures in wax, to be used in the wonderful
-mimic representation of the scene of the birth of the Saviour made at
-Christmas. But Doña Feliz held more liberal views, and much as she
-esteemed accomplishments, considered them of inferior value to the arts
-of reading and writing, which she had herself acquired with infinite
-difficulty, at the pain of disobedience to well-beloved parents.
-
-Reading and writing, according to Feliz’s father, were inventions of the
-arch-enemy, dangerous to men, and fatal to the weaker sex. What could a
-woman use writing for, asked he, but to correspond with lovers,—when she
-should only know of the existence of such beings when one was presented
-as her future husband, by a wise and discreet father. What could a woman
-desire to read but her prayers?—and those she should know by heart. In
-vain, therefore, had been Feliz’s appeal to be taught to read and write.
-At last she and the Señorita Isabel had puzzled out the forbidden lore
-together, both copying portions of stolen letters, or the crabbed
-manuscripts in which special prayers to patron saints were written, thus
-acquiring an exquisite caligraphy, and learning the meanings of words as
-they noticed them appear and reappear in the copies of prayers they knew
-by heart. By a similar process the art of reading printing was
-acquired,—all in secret, all with trembling and fear. Isabel, much
-assisted by Feliz, who was older and had sooner begun her task, had
-successfully concealed her knowledge until it could be revealed with
-safety; and great was the indignation and surprise of Feliz’s father,
-when on her wedding day the bride took up the pen and signed her
-marriage contract, instead of affixing the decorous cross which had been
-expected of her,—while the groom, too, was perhaps not over pleased to
-find himself the husband of a wife of such high acquirements.
-
-But these acquirements, added to her natural penetration, had been
-powerful factors in the life of Doña Feliz. Her husband had been weak
-and inefficient, yet had through her tact retained throughout his life
-the management of the Garcia estates: in which he had been succeeded by
-his son, a man of more character, which perhaps the preponderating
-influence of his mother as much overshadowed as it had sustained and
-lent a deceptive brilliancy to that of his father, who, like many a man
-who goes to his grave respected and admired, had shone from a reflected
-light as unsuspected and unappreciated as it was unobtrusive and
-unfaltering.
-
-Doña Feliz had all her life, in her quiet, self-assured way, ruled in
-her household,—in her husband’s time because he had accepted her
-opinions and acted upon them, unconscious that they were not his own;
-while now by her son she was deferred to from the habitual respect a
-Mexican yields to his mother, and from the steadfast admiration with
-which from infancy he had recognized her talents. Thus, it is not an
-exaggeration to say that Don Rafael, whatever might have been his
-temptations to do otherwise, invariably identified himself in thought as
-well as act with the mother to whom he felt he owed all that was strong
-or fortunate or to be desired, not only in his station, but in mind or
-person. Therefore it was not to be expected that he would interfere when
-Doña Rita complained to him that his mother made Rosario cry by keeping
-her poring over the mysteries of the alphabet, and that Chata inked her
-fingers and frocks over vain endeavors to form the bow-letters at a
-required angle, and that both would be better employed with the needle.
-And indeed Don Rafael thought it a pretty sight, when he came upon his
-mother seated in her low chair, with the two sisters before her,
-Rosario’s mouth forming a fluted circle as she ejaculated “Oh!” in a
-desperate attempt at “O,” and Chata following the lines painfully with
-one fat forefinger, her eyes almost touching the book,—no dainty primer
-with prettily colored pictures, but a certain red-bound volume of
-“Letters of a Mother,” containing advice and admonition as alarming as
-the long and abstruse words in which they were conveyed.
-
-With all her inattention and impatience, Rosario learned her tasks with
-a rapidity which roused the pride of her mother’s heart; but Chata, in
-those early years, stumbled wofully on the road to learning. At
-lesson-time Chinita, not a whit less grimy than of old, used to hasten
-to crouch down behind her victimized little patroness, and sometimes
-whisper impatiently in her ear, sometimes give her a sly tweak of the
-hair, when her impatience grew beyond bounds, and at others vociferate
-the word with startling force and suddenness; until one day it occurred
-to Doña Feliz, who had made no effort to teach her anything, and had
-often been oblivious of her very presence, that this little elf-locked
-rancherita was her aptest pupil. That day, when the others unwillingly
-seated themselves to their copy-books, she watched the gate-keeper’s
-child, and saw her write the words she had set for her little pupils
-upon the brick floor with a piece of charcoal taken from the kitchen,
-then covertly wipe them off with the hem of her skirt.
-
-Doña Feliz was touched. Here was a child of five doing what she herself
-at fifteen had painfully acquired. She did not pause to think that what
-with her had been the result of deep thought, was here but parrot-like
-though effective imitation. She took away the charcoal from the child’s
-blackened fingers, bade her stand at the table, and gave her pen and
-ink.
-
-After the lesson Chinita flew rather than ran across the court, leaving
-Rosario and Chata astounded and offended that she would not play, and
-thrust into Pedro’s hand a piece of dirty paper covered with cabalistic
-characters. She had already confided to him that she could read, and had
-even once spelled out to him a scrap of printed paper which had come in
-his way, amazing him by her knowledge; but now that she could write, a
-veritable superstitious awe of this elfish child befell him.
-
-That evening Pedro stole into the church, and lighted two long candles
-before the image of the Virgin. Were they an offering of thanks for a
-miracle performed, or a bribe against evil? The man went back to his
-post thoughtful, his breast swelling with pride, his head bowed in
-apprehension. He never had heard that those the gods love die young, yet
-something of such a fear oppressed him,—though as he found Chinita in
-flagrant disgrace with Florencia because she had drunk the last drop of
-thin corn-gruel which the woman had saved for her uncle’s supper, he had
-reasonable ground for believing that the healthful perversity of her
-animal spirits and moral nature might counteract the malefic effect of
-mental precocity; and as he was thirsty that night, so might have been
-interpreted the muttered “A dry joke this!” with which he looked into
-the empty jar, and swallowed his tough tortillas and goatmilk cheese.
-
-“Ay! but Florencia is cross to poor Chinita,” whispered this astute
-little damsel, seizing the opportunity to creep up behind him when he
-was not looking, of stealing a brown arm around his neck, and
-interposing her shock of curls between his mouth and the morsel he
-destined for it. “Who has poor Chinita to love her but Pedro, good
-Pedro?” And so Pedro’s anger was charmed away, even as he thought evil
-might be turned from his wilful charge by the faint glow of the two
-feeble candles he had lighted. Were her coaxing ways as evanescent, as
-little to be relied on, as their flicker? Ay, Chinita!
-
-
-
-
-                                 XIII.
-
-
-These few years of which the flight has been thus briefly noted, had
-wrought a subtle change in the appearance of Tres Hermanos as well as in
-the life of its inhabitants. Gradually there came over it that almost
-indescribable suggestion of absenteeism which falls upon a dwelling when
-there is death within, and which is wholly different from the careless
-untidiness of a house temporarily closed. True, there was movement still
-at Tres Hermanos,—people came and went, the fields were tilled, the
-herds of horses roamed upon the hillside, the cattle lowed in the
-pastures, the village wore its accustomed appearance of squalid plenty,
-the children played at every doorway, the same numbers of heavily-laden
-mules passed in at the house-gates, the granaries were as richly
-stored,—and yet, even to the casual observer, there was a lack. At
-first, one would attribute it wholly to the pile of deserted buildings
-to the west. No smoke ever issued from the tall stack of the
-reduction-works; the lizards ran unmolested upon the walls, which
-already had crumbled in a place or two, affording entrance to a few
-adventurous goats, which browsed upon the herbage that sprang up in the
-court, and even around the great stones in the reduction-sheds. But
-turning the eyes from these, there was something desolate in the
-appearance of the great house itself. The upper windows opening upon the
-country were always closed, dust gathered in the balcony where Doña
-Isabel had been wont to stand, and a rose, which had long striven
-against neglect, waved its slender tendrils disconsolately in the
-evening breeze. Some one pathetically calls a closed window the dropped
-eyelid of a house; and so seemed those barred shutters of cedar, upon
-which beat the last rays of the setting sun.
-
-The great event of the American War had despoiled Tres Hermanos of many
-of its young men. Others had from time to time been drawn into the
-broils that followed, and which had been augmented by the dictatorship
-of Santa Anna; yet the estate itself had escaped invasion. Its great
-storehouses of grain remained intact, its fields were untrodden by the
-horses of soldiery either hostile or friendly; but a change menaced
-it,—a hoarse murmur as of the sea seemed to gather and break against the
-bulwark of mountains that environed it. News of the great events of the
-day penetrated the remote valley, and with them vague apprehensions and
-disquiet. Even the laborers in the fields felt the oppression of the
-storm which was raging without, and which threatened to break upon them.
-Their hearts quaked; they knew not what an hour might bring forth. For
-the first time they realized that the great events which had been
-transpiring, and were still in progress beyond their cordon of hills,
-meant more to them than food for gossip, or an attraction to some idle
-boy to whom army life meant a frolic and freedom from work.
-
-These events had followed one another in such rapid succession, and were
-seemingly so contradictory, that to the onlooker they appeared
-irrational, childish, even traitorous. But in truth they were the vague,
-blind outstretchings of a people groping for self-government, for a
-liberty and peace which they were both by nature and training as yet
-unprepared to enjoy. The thraldom of Spain had left them madly impatient
-of fetters, yet they clung to the stake to which they had been chained.
-Were the prop called King or President, an individual rather than
-abstruse principles was demanded to uphold them. This it was which in
-the chaos that followed the war with the United States led them to
-recall the man whom they had exiled,—the man who had failed them in
-their greatest need, yet whose unaccountable ascendency over the minds
-of the masses led them to turn to him again as a deliverer, and whose
-triumphant march through the land intensified a thousand times the
-prevailing misery. As one of the historians of Mexico says of Santa
-Anna,—
-
-  “On his lips had been heard the words of brotherhood and
-  reconciliation. The majority had believed in them, because they
-  thought that in the solitude of exile the experience of years and the
-  spectacle of his afflicted country must have purified and instructed
-  the man. It is impossible to say whether his was hypocrisy or a flash
-  of good faith; but certain it is he deceived those who believed, and
-  silenced those who had no faith in his words, and none can imagine the
-  days of distress and mourning which followed.
-
-  “His term of office was to last a year; his promises were to redeem
-  his nation from the yoke of slavery, to announce a code of wise and
-  just measures which should insure its happiness and prosperity. A
-  hopeless task, perhaps, in the midst of a nation distracted by years
-  of foreign and civil wars; but at least an attempt was possible. But
-  when once the sweets of power were tasted, all sense of honor and
-  patriotism was lost in the intoxication of personal ambition. Beguiled
-  by promises of protection of their interests, so often and so
-  violently assailed by the Liberal and Conservative parties, the clergy
-  and their adherents in all parts of the Republic secured the passage
-  of an Act which declared him perpetual ruler, with the title of Serene
-  Highness, with his will as his only law, and his caprices his only
-  standard.”
-
-Those not lost in the inconceivable stupor which the deadly upas in
-their midst cast far and near, opened wide eyes of amaze. A trumpet cry
-rang through the land! Liberals and Conservatives, even the less bigoted
-of the clerical party, sprang to arms. The entire nation, grieving and
-reduced to misery by the loss of ninety thousand men who had been
-dragged from their homes to support the pomp and power of the tyrant, to
-become a prey upon the land, and upon the helpless families of whom they
-should naturally have been the support, had refused long to be dazzled
-by the spectacle of military pomp, or to be beguiled by the _fiestas_
-and processions which in every town and village made the administration
-one that appeared a prolonged carnival and madness. These continued
-insults to the public misery; the daily proscriptions of men who dared
-to raise the voice or write a line against the Dictator or his senseless
-policy; the oppressions of the army; the cold, cruel, implacable
-espionage which made life unendurable,—these wrought quickly their
-inevitable consequences among a people accustomed to disorder and
-revolutions, and who in their blind, irrational way longed for liberty.
-Disgust and detestation of the dictatorship became general. As suddenly
-as it had sprung into being it was met and crushed. Rebellions sprang up
-on every hand; the populace rose in mass; the statues of Santa Anna were
-thrown down in the streets, his portraits stoned; the houses of his
-adherents were sacked, their carriages destroyed. The popular fury
-culminated in the practical measure of the promulgation of the plan of
-Ayutla, which condemned to perpetual exile the ambitious demagogue who
-had disappointed and betrayed all parties, mocking with cruel levity his
-country’s woes, and which declared for the establishment of a Republic
-based upon the broadest platform of civil rights. Gomez Farias gave form
-to this act; but Ignacio Comonfort became its soul when he proclaimed it
-in Acapulco, and in the almost inaccessible recesses of the South raised
-the standard of a rebellion, which rapidly extending throughout the land
-hurled from its pedestal the idol of clay, that for a brief moment had
-been taken for gold, to place in its stead a new favorite.
-
-Then another exile returned to his country, heralded by neither trumpets
-nor acclamations. Calm, astute, watchful, he took his place amid the
-revolutionary forces; but without seeming effort, from a follower he
-became a leader. His was the brain that was to develop from the
-imperfect plan of Ayutla liberties more daring and precious than men had
-learned to dream of to that hour. Comonfort the last President was the
-figure toward which all eyes turned; but behind him stood the quiet,
-insignificant Indian, successful general now, Benito Juarez, shaping the
-destinies of those who ignored or despised him.
-
-Comonfort was daring, impulsive, utterly devoid of physical fear; a man
-of action, prone to plunge into difficulties, yet ready to compromise
-where he could not fight, antagonistic to the temporal power of the
-Church, yet superstitiously bound by its traditions, he was at once the
-initiator and the enemy of reform. Finding himself in triumphant
-opposition to the clergy, he recklessly attacked their most cherished
-institutions; to open a passage for his troops he threw down their
-finest convent; to pay his soldiery he levied upon their treasures. Yet
-he trembled before their denunciations,—upon one day sending the bishop
-into exile; on the next, he cowered before the meanest priest who
-threatened him with the Virgin’s ire. The terrors of excommunication
-unnerved him. Scared by his own audacity; unable to quell the storm he
-had roused; viewing with dismay the reaction that his ill-considered
-boldness had created in the minds of a people dominated by ghostly
-fears, even while they groaned under the material oppressions of
-priestcraft; led beyond his depth by unscrupulous counsellors, or by
-those who like Juarez had ideas beyond the epoch in which he
-lived,—Comonfort, while he maintained a kingly state, looked forth upon
-the new aspect of distraction which his country wore, and vainly sought
-a method of compromise to evoke order from chaos. He who had dared all
-physical dangers shrank before a revolution of sentiment. His
-vacillating demeanor—above all his conciliations of the clergy whom he
-had so short a time before defied—awoke distrust on every hand.
-
-
-Such was the political aspect, so far as known at Tres Hermanos, upon
-the eve when the first straggling band of soldiery crossed the peaceful
-valley, and its doors opened to receive the first of those armed guests,
-which in the near future were to become so numerous and so dreaded.
-
-In one far corner of the great house there was a little balcony with its
-high iron railing; and behind it, scarce reaching to its top, stood two
-children on tip-toe, looking with wide eyes upon the glory of the
-purpling mountains, and then with mundane curiosity dropping them upon
-the more homely attractions within hearing as well as sight. And upon
-that special afternoon in October these chanced to be of a somewhat
-unusual character; for across the plain rode one of those predatory
-bands, which in those wild days sprang up like magic even in the most
-isolated regions,—the arid mountains and the fertile plains alike
-furnishing their quota of material, which blindly, ignorantly, but for
-that none the less furiously, became sacrifices to the ambition of a
-score or more contesting chiefs. Yet amid the cupidity,
-unscrupulousness, and barbarity of these chiefs still lingered the
-spirit of liberty, which though drenched in blood, and bound down by
-ecclesiastical as well as military despotism, was yet to rise
-triumphant, perhaps after its years of long struggle stronger, purer,
-holier than the world before had known it.
-
-But license rather than liberty seemed to animate those wild spirits
-who, invigorated after a long day’s march by the sight of a halting
-place, urged their steeds with wild shouts and blows with the flat side
-of their sabres, as well as with applications from their clanking spurs,
-across the plain, where scattered at intervals might be seen the
-laggards of the party, chiefly women, on mule or donkey back, with their
-cooking implements hanging from the panniers upon which they squatted in
-security and comfort, nursing their babies or quieting the more
-fractious older children, as the animals they rode paced quietly on or
-broke into a jog-trot at their own wills.
-
-It was a cause of great excitement and delight to the children in the
-balcony to see the soldiers—most of them still arrayed in their ranchero
-dress of buff leather, but some of them resplendent in blue-and-red
-cloth, with stripes of gilt upon their arms and caps—stop at the huts
-along the principal street or lane of the village, and laughingly take
-possession, bidding Trinita and Francisca and Florencia, and the rest of
-them, to go or stay as it pleased them. Some of the women were
-frightened and began to cry and bewail, but others found acquaintances
-among the new arrivals; and there was much laughing and talking, in the
-midst of which two personages who appeared to be the leaders of the
-party, and who were followed by a dozen or more companions and servants,
-rode up to the hacienda gates, and one, scarcely pausing for an answer
-from the astonished Pedro whom he saluted by name, rode into the
-courtyard, whither he was followed by the gate-keeper, who with stoical
-calm yet evident amazement saluted him as Don Vicente; and holding his
-stirrup as he dismounted added in a low voice,—
-
-“The Saints defend us, Don Vicente! The sight of you is like rain in
-May,—it will bless the whole year! Heaven grant your followers leave
-untouched the harvest of new maize! Don Rafael would go out of his
-senses if it were broached and trampled on by this rabble,—begging your
-Grace’s pardon a thousand times!”
-
-Don Vicente, as the young man was called, laughed as he stamped his feet
-on the brick pavement until his spurs and the chains and buttons on his
-riding suit clanked again,—though he looked half sadly, half furtively
-around.
-
-“Have no fear, Pedro good friend, the men have their orders. The
-General, José Ramirez, is not to be trifled with;” and he glanced at his
-companion, a man older than himself, but still in the prime of life, who
-had also dismounted and was shaking hands with Don Rafael, with many
-polite expressions of pleasure at meeting the courageous and prudent
-administrador of Tres Hermanos.
-
-These compliments were returned with rather pallid lips by Don Rafael,
-who however upon being recognized by Don Vicente, who advanced to
-embrace him with the cordiality of a friend, though with something of
-the condescension of a superior, regained his composure with the
-rapidity natural to a man who having fancied himself in some peril finds
-himself under the protection of a powerful and generous patron. He
-hastened in the name of Doña Isabel to place everything the hacienda
-contained at the disposal of the visitors, making a mental reservation
-of the new maize and sundry fine horses that happened to be in the
-courtyards.
-
-Chinita, who had pushed her way through the crowd of children and
-half-grown idlers that had been attracted to the court, and were gazing
-in silent and opened-mouthed wonderment and admiration at the imposing
-personage called the General José Ramirez, was so absorbed in the
-contemplation of his half-military, half-equestrian bravery of riding
-trousers of stamped leather trimmed with silver buttons, and wide felt
-hat gorgeous with gold and silver cords and lace, his epauletted jacket,
-and scarlet sash bristling with silver-handled pistols and stilletto,
-that she took no heed when a servant came to lead away the charger upon
-which the object of her admiration had been mounted, and so narrowly
-escaped being knocked down and trampled upon.
-
-“Have a care thou!” cried Don Vicente, as he sprang forward and clutched
-the child by the arm, drawing her out of danger, while a score of
-voices—the General’s perhaps the most indifferent among them—reiterated
-epithets of abuse to the servant and admonition to the child. In the
-midst of the commotion, Don Rafael conducted the two officers to rooms
-which were hastily assigned them.
-
-As they disappeared, Chinita’s eyes followed them. She was not
-especially grateful for her escape: it was not the first time she had
-been snatched from beneath the feet of a restive horse; the incident was
-natural enough to her, and perhaps for this reason her rescuer was not
-specially interesting to her mind. Somewhat to her disgust, an hour
-later, when she had managed to steal unobserved into the supper-room,
-where she crouched in a corner, she saw Rosario and Chata from their
-seats at their mother’s side regarding the young officer with amiable
-smiles,—Rosario with infantile coquetry, drooping her long lashes
-demurely over her soft dreamy black eyes; and Chata, with her orbs of a
-nondescript gray, frankly though coyly taking in every detail of his
-face and dress, while they averted themselves as if startled or repelled
-from the dark countenance of his companion. It might have been thought
-that Doña Feliz shared her dread, for more than once she looked at the
-General with an expression of perplexity and aversion, as he lightly
-entertained Doña Rita with an account of his family and his own
-exploits,—topics strangely chosen for a Mexican, but which seemed
-natural rather than egotistical when lightly and wittily expatiated upon
-by this gay soldier of fortune.
-
-Meanwhile, Don Vicente Gonzales was talking in a low voice to Doña
-Feliz. He ate little and drank only some water mixed with red wine,
-while Don Rafael and the General Ramirez partook freely of more generous
-stimulants, growing more talkative as the evening advanced; and at last,
-as the ladies rose from the table, and Doña Rita went with the children
-to the upper rooms, the two walked away together to inspect the horses
-and talk of the grand reforms initiated by Comonfort, which in reality
-had but filled the country with discontent and bloodshed. The poison of
-personal ambition was working in the new President slowly—as it had done
-more rapidly in his renowned predecessor Santa Anna—the change from the
-patriot to the demagogue. He who had talked and worked and fought for
-the liberties of Mexico, dallied with the chains he should have broken.
-
-
-
-
-                                  XIV.
-
-
-As Don Rafael in an unwonted state of complacency, which drew the
-anxious eyes of his mother upon him, disappeared with his jovial guest
-the General, the younger officer, Don Vicente Gonzales, drew a long
-breath of relief, and at a sign from Doña Feliz followed her to the
-window, with the half-sombre, half-expectant air of one who is about to
-speak of past events with an old and tried friend; and throwing himself
-into a chair, he turned his face toward her with the air and gesture
-which says more plainly than words, “What have you to tell, or ask? We
-are alone; let us exchange confidences.”
-
-In truth they were not quite alone. Chinita had half-sulkily,
-half-defiantly, crept after Doña Feliz, and had sunk down in her usual
-crouching attitude within the shadow of the wall. She would have
-preferred to follow Don Rafael and the General in their rounds, but she
-knew that was impracticable; Pedro would have stopped her at the gate,
-and sent her to Florencia, or kept her close beside him,—and so even the
-inferior pleasure of seeing and listening to the less attractive
-stranger would have been denied her. Chinita was an imaginative child;
-she used sometimes to stand upon the balcony with Chata, and gaze and
-gaze far away into the blue which seemed to lie beyond the farthest
-hills, and wonder vaguely what strange creatures lived there. Sometimes
-her wild imagination pictured such uncouth monsters, such terrifying
-shapes, that she herself was seized with nervous tremblings, and Chata
-and Rosario would clasp each other and cry out in fright; but oftener
-she peopled that world with cavaliers such as she had occasionally seen,
-and stately dames such as she imagined Doña Isabel and the niña Herlinda
-must be,—for the accidental mention of those names was as potent as
-would have been the smoke of opium to fill her brain with dreams. By the
-sight of Don José Ramirez in his picturesque apparel, part of these
-vague dreams seemed realized; and even the quiet figure of Don Vicente
-and the sound of his stranger voice had the charm of novelty. She placed
-herself where she could best see his face, with infantile philosophy
-contenting herself with the next best where the actual pleasure desired
-was unattainable. She was very quiet, for she had naturally the Indian
-stealthiness of movement, and she had besides a vague instinct that her
-presence upon the corridor might be forbidden. Still she did not feel
-herself in any sense an intruder; she felt as a petted animal may be
-supposed to do, that she had a perfect right in any spot from which she
-was not driven.
-
-But as Doña Feliz and the new-comer were long silent, she became
-impatient, and half-resolved to settle herself to sleep there and then.
-She had drawn her feet under her, covering them with the ragged edges of
-her skirt, and drawing her scarf over her head and shoulders, tightly
-over the arms which clasped her knee, looked out as from a little tent,
-and instead of sleeping became gradually absorbed in the contemplation
-of the face and figure which, when seen beside those of the dashing
-Ramirez, had appeared gloomy and insignificant. The young man was
-dressed in black; the close-fitting riding trousers, the short round
-jacket, the wide hat, which now lay on the ground beside him, being
-relieved only by a scanty supply of silver buttons,—a contrast to the
-usual lavishness of a young cavalier; and in its severe outlines and its
-expression of gloom, his face, as he sat in the moonlight, was in entire
-harmony with his dress. How rigid looked the clear-cut profile against
-the dead whiteness of the column against which it rested, his
-close-cropped head framed in black, his youthful brow corrugated in
-painful thought. Suddenly he lifted the dark eyes which had rested upon
-Doña Feliz, and turned them on the fountain which was splashing within
-the circle of flowering plants and murmured:—
-
-“I feel as though in a dream. Is it possible I am here, and she is gone,
-gone forever? How often I have seen her by the side of the fountain,
-raising herself upon the jutting stone-work to pluck the red geraniums
-and place them in her hair! Even when I was a boy her pretty unstudied
-ways delighted me,—and Herlinda as naturally as she breathed acted her
-dainty coquetries. And to fancy now that all that grace and beauty is
-lost to me, to the world, forever! that she is sacrificed—buried!”
-
-He spoke bitterly and sighed, yet with that tone of renunciation which
-more completely than to death itself, marks the voices of the children
-of the Church of Rome as they yield their loved ones to her cloisters.
-It was in the voice of Doña Feliz, as she presently replied,—
-
-“It seems indeed a strange destiny for so bright a life; but against the
-call of religion we cannot murmur, Vicente. Many and great have been the
-sins of the Garcias. May Herlinda’s prayers, her vigils, her tears
-condone them!” She crossed herself and sighed heavily.
-
-“I cannot accept even the inevitable so calmly,” cried the young man in
-sudden passion. “I loved her from a child; I never had a thought but for
-her! She was promised me when we were boy and girl! She used to tease
-me, saying she hated me, and then with a soft glance of her dark eyes
-disarmed my anger. She would thrust me from her with her tiny foot, and
-then draw me to her with one slender finger hooked in the dangling chain
-of a jacket button, and laughingly promise to be good, breaking her word
-the next moment. She would taunt me when I sprang toward her in alarm as
-she leaped from the fountain parapet, and in turn would cry out in
-agonies of fright as I hung from the highest boughs of the garden trees,
-or when I dashed by her on the back of a half-broken horse, stopping him
-or throwing him perhaps on his haunches, with one turn of the cruel bit.
-Through all her vagaries I loved her, and perhaps the more because of
-them; and I fancied she loved me. Even later, when she had grown more
-formal and I more ardent, I believed that her coy repulses were but
-maiden arts to win me on.”
-
-“I always told Doña Isabel,” interrupted Feliz, “that such freedom of
-intercourse between youth and maiden would but lead to weariness on one
-side or the other. But she was a hater of old customs. She said there
-was more danger in two glances exchanged from the pavement and the
-balcony than in hours of such youthful chat and frolic.”
-
-“Yet this freedom was designed to bind our hearts together,” said
-Vicente. “The wish of Doña Isabel’s heart for years was to see us one
-day man and wife. Yet she changed as suddenly—more suddenly and
-completely than Herlinda did. What is the secret? Is not Tres Hermanos
-productive enough to provide dowers for two daughters? Is all this to be
-centred on Carmen? Rich men have immured their daughters in convents to
-leave their wealth undivided. Can it be that Doña Isabel—”
-
-“Be silent!” interrupted Doña Feliz, as she might have done to a foolish
-child. “Let us talk no more of Herlinda, Vicente; it makes my heart
-sore, and can but torture thine.”
-
-“No, it relieves me; it soothes me,” cried Vicente. “I have longed to
-come here to talk to you. Doña Isabel is unapproachable. She has
-relapsed once more into the icy impenetrability that characterized her
-in that terrible time so many years ago. I can just remember—”
-
-“Let the dead rest,” cried Doña Feliz, sharply. “That is a forbidden
-subject in Doña Isabel’s house. You are her guest.”
-
-Vicente accepted the reproof with a shrug of his shoulders, and Doña
-Feliz added, as if at once to turn his thoughts and afford the sympathy
-he craved, “Talk to me then, if you will, of Herlinda. Do you know where
-she is now?”
-
-“Yes, in Lagos, in that dreariest of prisons the convent of Our Lady of
-Tribulation. Think you Maria Santisima can desire such scourgings, such
-long fastings, such interminable vigils as they say are practised there?
-God grant the scoffers are right, and that the reputed self-immolations
-are but imaginings,—tales of the priests to attract richer offerings to
-the Church shrine. When I saw it, it was groaning beneath vessels of
-gold and silver and wreaths of jewels. Oh, Feliz! Feliz! higher and
-heavier than the treasures they pile on their altars are the woes these
-monks and nuns accumulate upon our devoted country!”
-
-Doña Feliz glanced around warily, but an expression of genuine
-acquiescence gleamed from her eyes.
-
-“You are where I have always hoped to see you,” she said in a low tone;
-“but beware of a too indiscriminate zeal. They say Comonfort himself has
-been too hasty, must draw back—retract—”
-
-“Retract!” cried Vicente. “Never! Down, I say, with these tyrants in
-priestly garments,—these robbers in the guise of saints! The land is
-overrun with them; their dwellings rise in hundreds in the sunlight of
-prosperity, and the hovels of the poor are covered in the darkness of
-their oppressions. The finest lands, the richest mines, the wealth of
-whole families have passed into their cunning and grasping hands. There
-is no right, either temporal or spiritual, but is controlled by them.
-Better let us be lost eternally than be saved by such a clergy. What,
-saved by bull-baiters, cock-fighters, the deluders of the widow and
-orphan, the oppressors of the poor!”
-
-“You are bitter and unjust,” interrupted Doña Feliz; “remember, too, the
-base ministers of the Church take nothing from the sanctity of her
-ordinances.”
-
-“So be it,” answered Vicente. “Perhaps,” he added, with a short laugh,
-“you think I have lost my senses. No, no; but my personal loss has
-quickened my sense of public wrongs. In losing Herlinda, I lost all that
-held me to the past,—old superstitions, old deceptions. The idle boyish
-life died then, and up sprang the discontented, far-seeing, turbulent
-new spirit which spurns old dogmas, breaks old chains, and cries for
-freedom.”
-
-Vicente had risen to his feet; his face lighted with enthusiasm; his
-pain was for a moment forgotten. The listening child felt a glow at her
-heart, though his words were as Greek to her. Doña Feliz thrilled with a
-purer, more reasonable longing for that liberty which as a child she had
-heard proclaimed, but which had flitted mockingly above her country,
-refusing to touch its ground. Her enthusiasm kindled at that of the
-young man, though his sprung from bitterness. How many enthusiasms own
-the same origin! Sweetness and content produce no frantic
-dissatisfactions, no daring aims, no conquering endeavors.
-
-“You belie yourself,” she said, after a pause. “It is not merely the
-bitterness of your heart which has made you a patriot. The needs, the
-wrongs, the aspirations of the time have aroused you. Had Herlinda been
-yours, you still must have listened to those voices. With such men as
-you at his call, Comonfort should not falter. The cause he espoused must
-triumph.”
-
-“Humph!” muttered Vicente, doubtfully, while Feliz, with a sudden qualm
-at her outspoken approbation of measures subversive of an authority that
-her training had made her believe sanctioned by heaven cried:—
-
-“Ave Maria Santisima! what have I said? In blaming, in casting reproach
-upon the clergy, am I not casting mud upon our Holy Mother the Church?”
-
-“Feliz!” cried Vicente, impatiently, “that question too asks Comonfort.
-Such irrational fears as these are the real foes of progress; and so
-deeply are old prejudices and superstitions rooted, that they find a
-place in every heart; no matter how powerful the intellect, how clear
-the comprehension of the political situation, how scrupulous or
-unscrupulous the conscience, the same ghostly fears hang over all. What
-spells have those monks with their oppressions and their shameless lives
-thrown over us that we have been wax in their hands? Think of your own
-father,—a man of parts, generous, lofty-minded, but a fanatic. He
-shunned the monté table, the bull-fight, and all such costly sports as
-the _hacenderos_ love; he almost lived in the Church. But that could not
-keep misfortune from his door: his cattle died; his horses were driven
-away in the revolution; his fields were devastated; and he was forced to
-borrow money on his lands. And to whom should he look but the
-clergy,—who so eager to lend, who so suave and kind as they? And when he
-was in the snare, who so pitiless in winding it around and about him,
-strangling, withering his life?”
-
-“But, Vicente,” said Feliz, in a hard, embittered voice, “in our lot
-there was a show of justice. If you would have a more unmitigated use of
-pitiless craft, think of the fate of your own cousin Inez.”
-
-The child within the shadow of the wall was listening breathlessly. Her
-innate rebellion against all authority made her quick to grasp the
-situation; a secret detestation of the coarse-handed, loud-voiced
-village priest who had succeeded Padre Francisco at Tres Hermanos
-quickened her apprehension. She looked at Vicente with glistening eyes.
-“Ah, well I remember poor Inez,” he said; “forced by her father to
-become a nun, that at his death he might win pardon for his soul by
-satisfying the greed of his councillors, she implored, wept, raved, fell
-into imbecility, and died; and her sad story, penetrating even the
-thickness of convent walls, was blackened by the assertion that she was
-possessed of devils foul and unclean,—she, the whitest, purest soul that
-ever stood before the gates of heaven.”
-
-His voice choked; he was silent and sank again into his chair. “And
-Comonfort,” he muttered presently, “strives to conciliate wretches such
-as these. He is a man, Feliz, who with all his courage believes a poor
-compromise better than a long fight. Ah, the world believes Mexicans
-savage, unappeasable, blood-thirsty. How can they be otherwise with
-these blind leaders who precipitate them into those ditches which they
-fondly hope will prove roads to liberty and peace!”
-
-Feliz looked at him with disquietude. “What, Vicente,” she said, “are
-you a man to be blown about by every wind,—a mere ordinary revolutionist
-seeking a new chief for each fresh battle?”
-
-Vicente flushed at the insinuation. “One cause and a _thousand_ chiefs
-if need be,” he said. “But there is now a man in Mexico, Feliz, who must
-inevitably become the head of this movement,—who, like the cause, will
-remain the same through all mischances. To-day he is the friend of
-Comonfort, but who knows? To-morrow—”
-
-“He may be his enemy,” ejaculated Feliz. “I wonder if in all this land
-there can be found one man who can be faithful!”
-
-“To-morrow,” said Vicente, completing his sentence, “he may be the
-friend and leader of all the lovers of freedom in Mexico; and if so,
-_my_ leader. I have talked with that man, and he sees to the farthest
-ramifications of this great canker that is eating out the very vitals of
-our land. You will hear of him soon, Feliz, if you have not done so
-already. His name is Benito Juarez.”
-
-Feliz smiled. “What, that Indian?” she said. “It is a new thing for a
-gentleman of pure Spanish blood to choose such a leader. Ah, Vicente,
-you disappoint me! It must be this Ramirez, who has in his every
-movement the air of a guerilla, a free-fighter, who has infected you.”
-
-“No,” answered Vicente, sullenly, “Ramirez has no influence over me;
-only the fortune of war has thrown us together,—a blustering fellow on
-the surface, but so deep, so astute, that none can fathom him. He is not
-the man I could make my friend.”
-
-“Where does he come from?” asked Doña Feliz with interest. “There is
-something familiar to me in his voice or expression.”
-
-“A mere fancy on your part,” answered Vicente; “just such a fancy as
-makes me glance at him sometimes as he rides silent at my side, and with
-a sudden start clap my hand upon my sword. I have an instinctive dread
-of him,—not a fear, but such a dread as I have of a deadly reptile. I
-wonder,” he added gloomily, “if it is to be my fate to take his life.”
-
-Feliz shuddered. Chinita’s eyes flashed.
-
-“And yet once I saved him, when we were fighting against the guerillas
-of Ortiz. He was caught in a defile of the mountains; four assailants
-dashed upon him at once with exultant cries; and though he fought
-gallantly, had I not rushed to the rescue he must have been killed
-there. Together we beat the villains off, and he fancies he owes me some
-thanks; and perhaps too I have some kindness for the man I saved,—and
-yet there are times when I cannot trust myself to look upon him.”
-
-“Strange! strange indeed!” said Doña Feliz, musingly. “I have heard his
-name before. Is he not the man who stopped the train of wagons by which
-the merchants of Guanapila were despatching funds to make their foreign
-payments, and who took fifty thousand dollars or more to pay his
-troops?”
-
-“The same,” answered Vicente; “and those troops were reinforced by a
-chain-gang he had released the day before,—vile miscreants every one. We
-quarrelled over each of these acts; but he laughed us all—the merchants,
-the government, myself—into good-humor again. He is one of those
-anomalies one detests, and admires,—crafty, daring, licentious,
-superstitious, yielding, cruel, all in turn and when least expected. He
-will rob a city with one hand, and feed the poor or enrich a church with
-the other. But here he comes!”
-
-The man thus spoken of was, indeed, crossing the court with Don Rafael,
-who seemed to reel slightly in his walk, and was laughing and talking
-volubly. “Yes, yes,” he was saying, as he came within hearing, “you are
-right, Señor Don José; the herd of brood mares of Tres Hermanos is the
-finest in the country. There are more than a hundred well-broken horses
-in the pasture, besides scores upon scores that no man has crossed. I
-sent a hundred and fifty to Don Julian a month ago. Doña Isabel
-begrudges nothing to the cause of liberty.”
-
-“Then I will take the other hundred to-morrow,” said Ramirez, lightly.
-Don Rafael stared at him blankly. There was something in the General’s
-face that almost sobered him. The countenance of Gonzales darkened.
-
-“Believe me, Señor Comonfort shall know of your goodwill, and that of
-the excellent lady Doña Isabel,” continued Ramirez, suavely. “She will
-lose nothing by the complacency of her administrador,” and as he spoke,
-he smiled half indulgently, half contemptuously, upon Don Rafael.
-
-“You promised me that here at least no seizures should be made,”
-exclaimed Don Vicente, in a low indignant voice, hot with the thought
-that even the men he had himself mustered and commanded were so utterly
-under the spell of Ramirez that upon any disagreement they were likely
-to shift their allegiance,—for those free companies were even less to be
-depended upon than the easily rebellious regulars.
-
-“There have been no seizures, nor will there be,” answered the General,
-laughing. “Don Rafael and I have been talking together as friends and
-brothers; he has told me of his amiable family, and I him of my footsore
-troops.”
-
-Vicente, silenced but enraged, glared upon Ramirez as he bade farewell
-to Doña Feliz. As he took her hand, he bent and lightly kissed it. The
-action was a common one,—Doña Feliz scarcely noticed it; her eyes rested
-upon her son, who shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, his
-garrulity checked, his gaze confused and alarmed.
-
-“We shall be gone at daybreak. You will be glad to be rid of us,” the
-General said laughingly; “yet we are innocent folk, and would do you no
-harm. Hark! how sweetly our followers are singing,”—and, indeed, the
-plaintive notes of a love ditty faintly floated on the air. “My adieus
-to the Señora de Sanchez and her lovely children.”
-
-While the General spoke thus, with many low bows and formal words of
-parting, he was quite in the shadow of the wall. Doña Feliz could scarce
-see his face, but Chinita’s eyes never left it. As he turned away, a sob
-rose in her throat; but for a sudden fear, she would have darted after
-him. Her blood seemed afire. There was something in the very atmosphere
-stirred by this man that roused her wild nature, even as the advent of
-its fellow casts an admonishing scent upon the air breathed by some
-savage beast.
-
-Don Rafael stole away to bed, but Don Vicente and Doña Feliz continued
-their interrupted conversation far into the night. Chinita sat in the
-same place, and slumbered fitfully, and dreamed. All through her dreams
-sounded the voice of the General Ramirez; all through her dreams
-Gonzales followed him, with hand upon his sword.
-
-It was near morning, when at last the child awoke, chilled and stiff,
-and found herself alone in the corridor. The moon had sunk, and only the
-faint light of the stars shone on the vast and silent building; but she
-was not afraid. She was used to dropping asleep, as did others of the
-peasant class, where best it suited her, and at best her softest bed was
-a sheep-skin. She sleepily crept to the most sheltered part of the
-corridor and slept again. But the stony pillow invited to no lengthy
-repose; and when the dawn broke, the sound of movement in the outer
-court quickly roused her, and she ran out just in time to see the
-officers hastily swallowing their chocolate, while Don Rafael, Pedro,
-and a crowd of laborers, shivering in their _jorongos_, were looking on,
-while the sumpter mules were being laden. At the village, the camp women
-were already making their shrill adieus, taking their departure upon
-sorry beasts, laden with screeching chickens, grunting young pigs, and
-handfuls of rice, coffee, chile, or whatever edibles they had been able
-to filch or beg, tied in scraps of cloth and hung from their wide
-panniers, where the children were perched at imminent risk of losing
-their balance and breaking their brown necks. It was not known, however,
-that such accidents had ever happened, and the women jogged merrily
-away, to fall into the rear when outstripped by their better mounted
-lords.
-
-Don Rafael wore a gloomy face. A squad of soldiers had already been
-despatched for the horses; his own herders were lassooing them in the
-pastures, and they were presently driven past the hacienda gates,
-plunging and snorting. He felt that had he not in Doña Isabel’s name
-yielded them, they would have been forcibly seized; yet his conscience
-troubled him. The night before he had drunk too much; the wine had
-strangely affected him,—he had been maudlin and garrulous. These were
-times when no prudent man should talk unnecessarily, and especially to
-such a listener as the adventurer General José Ramirez.
-
-The neighing and whinnying of the horses, the hollow ringing of their
-unshod hoofs upon the road-way, the shouts of the men, the shrill voices
-of the women, all combined to fill the air with unwonted sounds, and
-brought the family of the administrador early from their beds. As
-Vicente Gonzales, after shaking hands coldly with Don Rafael, rode away
-at the head of his band, he half turned in his saddle to glance at Doña
-Isabel’s balcony. At the rear of the house, a faint glow was beginning
-to steal up the sky and touch the tops of the trees which rose above the
-garden wall, and tinge with opal the square towers of the church; he
-remembered the good Padre Francisco, and piously breathed a prayer for
-his soul. The drooping rose on the balcony of what he knew to be Doña
-Isabel’s chamber seemed the very emblem of death and desolation. With a
-sigh he pulled his hat over his eyes and rode on; but the General, José
-Ramirez, who had been longer in his adieus, caught sight of Doña Rita in
-the corner balcony, leaning over her two half-dressed children. Their
-two heads were close together, their laughing faces side by side, their
-four eyes making points of dancing light behind the black bars of the
-balcony railing.
-
-Don José Ramirez was in a gentle mood; a sudden impulse seized him to
-turn his horse and ride close to the building, turning his eyes
-searchingly upon the children. Both coquettishly turned their faces
-away. Rosario covered her eyes with her fingers, glancing coyly through
-them; then kissing the tips of the other hand, opened them lightly above
-him in an imaginary shower of kisses. No goddess could have sprinkled
-them more deftly than did this infantine coquette.
-
-Ramirez answered the salute laughingly, then turned away with a frown on
-his brow. The slight delay had left him behind the troop, amid the dust
-of the restive horses. Yet he made no haste to escape the inconvenience,
-but yielding for the moment to some absorbing thought rode slowly. The
-voice of a child suddenly caused him to arrest his horse with an
-ungentle hand. He looked around him with a start,—an object indistinctly
-seen under a mesquite tree caused his heart to bound. The blood left his
-cheek, he shook in his saddle. His horse, as startled as he, bounded in
-the air, and trembled in every limb. A moment later and José Ramirez
-laughed aloud. His name was repeated. “What do you there, child?” he
-cried; “thou art a witch, and hast frightened my horse. And by my patron
-saint,” he added in a lower tone, “I was startled myself!”
-
-Chinita the foundling came forward calmly, though her skirt was in
-tatters, and her draggled scarf scarce covered her shoulders; but there
-was an air about her as if she had been dressed in imperial robes. “Ah!”
-she said quite calmly, “it is the smell of the blood that has startled
-your horse; they say no animal passes here without shying and plunging,
-since the American was killed!”
-
-Ramirez glanced around him with wild eyes. “Oh, you cannot see him now,”
-cried the child; “that happened long ago. No, no, there is nothing here
-that will hurt you. Why do you look at me like that? It is not I—a poor
-little girl—who could injure you, but men like those,” and she pointed
-to the columns of soldiers whose bayonets were glistening in the rising
-sun. Her eye seemed to single out Gonzales, though he was beyond her
-vision. The thought of Ramirez perchance followed hers, yet he only sat
-and stared at her, his eyes fixed, his body shrunken and bowed.
-
-“See here,” she said slowly, raising herself on tiptoe, and with eager
-hand drawing something from beneath her clothing, “I have a charm of
-jet: Pedro put it on my neck when I was a baby. It will ward off the
-evil eye. Take it; wear it. An old man gave it to Pedro on his
-death-bed; he had been a soldier, a highwayman; he had fought many
-battles, killed many men, yet had never had a wound! Take it!” She took
-from her neck a tiny bit of jet, hanging from a hempen string, and
-thrust it into his hand.
-
-Ramirez was astounded. He looked upon her as a vision from another
-world,—he who was accustomed to outbursts of strange eloquence, even
-from the lips of unclothed children amid those untutored peasantry. She
-seemed to him a thing of witchcraft. His eyes fixed themselves on the
-child’s face as if fascinated; he saw it grimy, vivacious, beautiful but
-weird, tempting, mysterious. No angel, he felt, had stopped him on his
-way. He took the charm mechanically, and the child, with a joyous yet
-mocking laugh, fled away. He roused as from a spell, called after her,
-tossed the charm into the air, and caught it again, and called once
-more, but she neither answered nor stopped. He gazed around him once
-again. A superstitious awe, akin to terror, crept over him; he
-shuddered, thrust the talisman into his belt, and put spurs to his
-horse.
-
-That day, for the most part, he rode alone, and when for a time he
-joined Gonzales, he was silent; silent, too, was his companion, and
-neither one nor the other divined the thoughts of the man who rode at
-his side.
-
-
-
-
-                                  XV.
-
-
-Years passed. The nine days’ feast of the Blessed Virgin, one of the
-most charming of all the year, was being celebrated with unusual pomp in
-the church at Tres Hermanos. Since the death of Padre Francisco, no
-priest had been regularly stationed there; but at the expense of Doña
-Isabel, one had been sent there to remain through the nine days sacred
-to Mary, and the people gave their whole time to devotional exercises,
-much to the neglect of the usual hacienda work. The crops in the fields
-were untended, while the men crowded to Mass in the morning, and spent
-their afternoons at the tavern-shop playing monté and drinking pulque;
-while the women and children streamed in and out of the church,—the
-women to witness the offering of flowers upon the altar, the children to
-lay them there, happy once in the year to be chief in the service of the
-beautiful Queen of Heaven. For though the image above the altar was
-blackened by time and defaced by many a scar, the robes were brilliant,
-and glittered with variously colored jewels of glass; the crown was
-untarnished, and the little yellow babe in the mother’s arms appealed to
-the strong maternal sentiment which lies deep in the heart of every
-Mexican woman.
-
-Upon the first day of the feast not one female child of the many who
-lived within the hacienda limits was absent from the church; and they
-were so many that the proud mothers, who had spent no little of their
-time and substance in arraying them, were fain to crowd the aisles and
-doorways, or stand craning their necks without, hoping to catch a
-glimpse of the high altar, as the crowd surged to and fro, making way
-for the tiny representatives of womanhood, who claimed right of entrance
-from their very powerlessness and innocence. Quaint and ludicrous looked
-these little creatures, mincing daintily into the church, their
-wide-spread crinolines expanding skirts stiffly starched, and rustling
-audibly under brilliant tunics of flowered muslin or purple and green
-stuffs. These dresses were an exact imitation in material and style of
-the gala attire of the mothers. The full skirts swept the ground, and
-over the curiously embroidered linen chemise which formed the bodice was
-thrown the ever-present reboso, or scarf of shimmering tints. The
-well-oiled black locks of these miniature _rancheras_ were drawn back
-tightly from the low foreheads,—the long, smooth braids fastened and
-adorned by knots of bright ribbon, and crowned with flowers of domestic
-manufacture, their glaring hues and fantastic shapes contrasting
-strangely with the masses of beauty and fragrance that each child
-clasped to her bosom. In spite of its incongruities, a fantastic and
-pleasant sight was offered; and Doña Rita, looking around her with the
-eye of a devotee, doubted whether any more pleasing could be devised for
-God or man.
-
-Within the sacred walls of her temple at least, the Church of Rome is
-consistent in declaring that in her eyes her children are all equal; and
-upon that springtime afternoon at Tres Hermanos, among a throng of
-plebeian children from the village, knelt the daughters of the
-administrador; and side by side were Doña Rita and a woman from whose
-contact, as she met her on the court the day before, she had drawn back
-her skirt, lest it should be polluted by the mere touch of so foul a
-creature.
-
-Rosario and Chata (as Florentina was so constantly called that her
-baptismal name was almost unknown) had already laid their wreaths of
-pink Castillian roses upon the altar, and were demurely telling their
-beads, when a startling vision passed them.
-
-It was Chinita, literally begarlanded with flowers,—wild-roses, pale and
-delicate, long tendrils of jessamine, and masses of faint yellow cups of
-the cactus, and scarlet verbenas, dusty and coarse, yet offering a
-dazzling contrast of color to the snowy pyramid of lily-shaped blossoms,
-hacked from the summit of a palm, which she bore proudly upon one
-shoulder; while from the other hung her blue reboso in the guise of a
-bag filled with ferns and grasses brought from coverts few others knew
-of. The flowers made a glorious display as they were laid about the
-altar, for there was not room for half upon it. The breath of the fields
-and woodlands rushed over the church, almost overpowering the smell of
-the incense, and there were smiles on many faces and wide-eyed glances
-of admiration and surprise as Chinita descended to take her place among
-the congregation.
-
-Five Mays had come and gone since she had stood under the fateful tree,
-and given the jet amulet to the cavalier who had so roused and
-fascinated her imagination; but whatever may have been its effect upon
-its new possessor, its loss had certainly wrought no ill upon Chinita.
-Though not yet fourteen years of age, she was fast attaining the
-development of womanhood, and her mind as well as person showed a rare
-precocity even in that land where the change from childhood to womanhood
-seems almost instantaneous. But there was no coyness, as there was no
-assumption of womanly ways in this tall, straight young creature, whose
-only toil was to carry the water-jar from the fountain to Florencia’s
-hut, perhaps twice in the day,—and who did it sometimes laughingly,
-sometimes grudgingly as the humor seized her, but always spilling half
-the burden with which she left the fountain before she lifted it from
-her shoulder and set it in the hollow worn in the mud floor of the hut,
-escaping with a laugh from Florencia’s scolding, and hurrying out to her
-old pursuits, now grown more various, more daring, more perplexing, more
-vexatious to all with whom she came in contact.
-
-A thousand times had it been upon the lips of Doña Rita to forbid the
-entrance in her house of the foundling to distract the minds of Rosario
-and Chata by her wild pranks; but aside from the fact that Doña Rita was
-of a constitutionally indolent nature, averse even to the use of many
-words and still more to energetic action, the child was a constant
-source of interest. She carried into the quiet rooms a sense of freedom
-and expansion, as though she brought with her the breezes and sunlight
-in which she delighted to wander. She had too a powerful ally in Doña
-Feliz, who kept a watchful eye upon her; and though she never, like her
-daughter-in-law or the children, made a pet and plaything of the waif,
-yet she was always the first to notice if she looked less well than
-usual, or to set Pedro on his guard if her wanderings were too far
-afield, or her absences too long.
-
-Upon this day as Chinita turned from the altar, while others smiled, a
-frown contracted the brow of Doña Feliz, as for the first time perhaps
-she realized that this gypsy-like child was in physique a woman. She had
-chosen to wear a dress of bright green woollen stuff,—far from becoming
-to the olive tint of her skin, but by some accident cut to fit the lithe
-figure which already outlined, though imperfectly, the graces of early
-womanhood. The short armless jacket was fashioned after the child’s own
-fancy, and opened over a chemise which was a mass of drawn work and
-embroidery; her skirts outspread all others, yet the flowing drapery
-could not wholly conceal the small brown feet which, as the custom was,
-were stockingless and cased in heelless slippers of some fine black
-stuff,—more an ornament than a protection. But Chinita’s crowning glory
-were the rows of many-colored worthless glass beads, mingled with
-strings of corals and dark and irregular pearls, that hung around her
-neck and festooned the front of her jacket. This dazzling vision, with
-the inevitable soiled reboso thrown lightly over one shoulder, came down
-from the altar and through the aisle of the church, smiling in supreme
-content, not because of the glorious tribute of flowers she had plucked
-and offered, nor with pride at her own appearance, gorgeous as she
-believed it to be, but because of the delightful effect she supposed
-both would leave on her aristocratic playmates; and much amazed was she
-as she neared them to see Chata’s expressive nose assume an elevation of
-unapproachable dignity, while Rosario’s indignation took the form of an
-aggressive pinch, so deftly given that Chinita’s shrill interjection
-seemed as unaccountable as the glory of her apparel.
-
-Chinita in some consternation sank on her knees, her green skirt rising
-in folds around her, reminding Chata irresistibly of a huge butterfly
-which she had that very morning seen settle upon a verdant pomegranate
-bush. How she longed to extinguish Chinita’s glories as she had done
-those of the insect, by a cast of her reboso. There was no malice in her
-thought, though perhaps a trifle of envy, for she too loved brilliant
-colors. She could not restrain a titter as she thought what Chinita’s
-vexation would be; and with a face glowing with anger and eyes filled
-with reproach, Pedro’s foster-child sailed haughtily past the sisters
-while the untrained choir were singing hymns of rejoicing, with that
-inimitable undertone of pathos natural in the voices of the Aztecs, and
-the censers of incense were still swinging, and left the church,—longing
-to rush back and to trample under foot the flowers she had so joyously
-gathered, longing to tear off the fine clothes and adornments she had so
-proudly donned. She pushed angrily past a peasant boy in tattered cotton
-garments and coarse sombrero of woven grass, who was the slave of her
-caprices, who had toiled in her service all day and upon whom she had
-smiled when she entered the church, yet whom she now thrust aside in
-rage as she left it, with a “Out of my way, stupid! What art thou
-staring at? Thou art like blind Tomas, with his eyes open all day long,
-yet seeing nothing.”
-
-“A pretty one thou,” cried the boy, angrily. “Dost suppose I am a
-rabbit, to care for nothing but green? Bah! thou art uglier in thy gay
-skirts than in thy old ones of red-and-white flannel!”
-
-But the girl had not lingered to listen to his taunts. She flew rather
-than ran to her hut, which on account of the service in the church was
-deserted. A crowd of ragged urchins who had taken up the cry of her
-flouted swain, followed her, jeering and hooting, to the door which she
-slammed in their faces. Not that they bore her any ill will; but the
-sight of Chinita in her fine clothes, ruffling and fluttering like an
-enraged peacock, was irresistibly exciting to the youths whom her lofty
-disdain usually held in the cowed and submissive state of awe-stricken
-admiration.
-
-Chinita, scarcely understanding her own miserable disappointment and
-anger, began to disembarrass herself of her finery, flinging each
-article from her with contempt, until she stood in the coarse red
-white-spotted skirt, with a broad band of light green above the
-hips,—which formed her ordinary apparel. As she stood panting, two great
-tears rolling down her cheeks and two others as large hanging upon her
-long, black lashes, she saw the door gently pushed open and before, with
-an angry exclamation, she could reach it, a little brown head was thrust
-in.
-
-“Go away!” cried Chinita, imperatively. “Thou hast been told not to come
-here. Thy mother will have thee whipped, and I shall be glad, and I will
-laugh! yes, I will laugh and laugh!” and she proceeded to do so
-sardonically on the instant, gazing down with a glance of contemptuous
-fury, which for the moment was tragically genuine, upon the little brown
-countenance lifted to her own somewhat apprehensively, yet with a
-mischievous daring in the dark eyes that lighted it.
-
-Chinita, with a child’s freedom and in the forgetfulness of anger, had
-used the “thou” of equality in addressing her visitor; yet so natural
-and irresistible are class distinctions in Mexico, that she held open
-the door with some deference for the daughter of the administrador to
-enter, and caught up her scarf to throw over her head and bare
-shoulders, as was but seemly in the presence of a superior however
-young. That done, however, they were but two children together, two
-wilful playmates for the moment at variance.
-
-“Now, then! Be not angry, Chinita!” laughed Chata, looking around her
-with great satisfaction. “What good fortune that thou art here alone! I
-slipped by the gate when Pedro was busy talking, and Rosario was making
-my mother and _mamagrande_ to fear dying of laughter by mimicking thee,
-Chinita; and so they never missed me when I darted away to seek thee,
-Sanchica.”
-
-“And thou hadst better go back,” cried Chinita, grimly, more piqued at
-being the cause of laughter than pleased at Chata’s penetration; for in
-choosing her green gown she had had in her mind the habit of green cloth
-sent by the Duchess to Sancho Panza’s rustic daughter, and had teased
-and wheedled Pedro into buying her holiday dress of that color,—because
-when they were reading the story together Chata had called her Sanchica
-and herself the Duchess, and for many a day they had acted together such
-a little comedy as even Cervantes never dreamed of, in which they had
-seemed to live in quite another world than that actually around them.
-The tale of the “Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance” was a strange
-text-book for children; yet in it they had contrived to put together the
-letters learned in the breviary, and with their two heads close bent
-over the page, these two, as years passed on, had spelled out first the
-story, then later an inkling of the wit, the fancy, the philosophy which
-lay deep between the two leathern covers that inclosed the entire
-secular literature that the house of Don Rafael afforded.
-
-There were, indeed, shelves of quaint volumes in the darkened rooms into
-which Chata sometimes peeped when Doña Feliz left a door ajar; but so
-great was her awe that she would not have disturbed an atom of dust, and
-scarce dared to breathe lest the deep stillness of those dusky rooms
-should be broken by ghostly voices. But Chinita, less scrupulous, had
-more than once, quite unsuspected, passed what were to her delightful
-though grewsome hours in those echoing shades, and with the bare data of
-a few names had repeopled them in imagination with those long dead and
-gone, as well as with the figure of that stately Doña Isabel, who still
-lived in some far-off city,—mourning rebelliously, it was whispered,
-over the beautiful daughter shut from her sight by the walls of a
-convent, yet who with seemingly pitiless indifference had consigned the
-equally beautiful younger Carmen to a loveless marriage; for the latter
-had married an elderly widower, and who could believe it might be from
-choice? Chinita heard perhaps more of these things than any one, for she
-was free to run in and out of every hut, as well as the house of the
-administrador; and with her quick intelligence, her lively imagination,
-and that faculty which with one drop of Indian blood seems to pervade
-the entire being,—the faculty of astute and silent assimilation of every
-glance and hint,—she was in her apparent ignorance and childishness
-storing thoughts and preparing deductions, which lay as deep from any
-human eye as the volcanic fires that in the depths of some vine-clad
-mountain may at any moment burst forth, to amaze and terrify and
-overwhelm.
-
-But Chinita was brooding over no secret thoughts as she began to smile,
-though unwillingly and half wrathfully, as Chata eagerly declared how
-well the green dress had transformed her into a veritable Sanchica, and
-how stupid she herself had been not to guess from the first what her
-clever playmate had meant; then she laughed again as she thought of the
-billowy green in which Chinita had knelt, and the half-appeased
-masquerader was vexed anew, and sat sullenly on the edge of the adobe
-shelf that served as a bedstead, and tugged viciously at the knots of
-ribbon in the rebellious hair which she had vainly striven to confine in
-seemly tresses. She shook back the wild locks, which once free sprang
-into a thousand rings and tendrils, and looking at Chata irefully from
-between them, exclaimed,—
-
-“You laugh at me always! You are a baby; you read in the book, and yet
-you know nothing. If I were rich like you, I would not be silent and
-puny and weak as you are. I would be strong and beautiful, and a woman
-as Rosario is; and I would know everything,—yes, as much as the Padre
-Comacho, and more; and I would be great and proud, as they say the
-Señora Doña Isabel is!”
-
-“But,” cried Chata, flushing with astonishment and some anger, “how can
-I be beautiful and strong and like a grown woman at will? My grandmother
-says it is well I am still a child, while Rosario is almost a woman; and
-I do not mind being little, no, nor even that my nose turns back to run
-away, as you say, from my mouth every time I open it; but it is growing
-more courageous, I know,”—and she gave the doubtful member an
-encouraging pull. “I do not mind all this in the least, while my father
-and my grandmother love me; but my mother and you and every one else
-look only at Rosario, and talk only of her—” and her lip trembled.
-
-“But do I talk _to_ Rosario?” asked Chinita, much mollified. “Do I ever
-tell her my dreams, and all the fine things I see and hear, when I
-wander off in the fields and by the river, and up into the dark cañons
-of the hills? And,” she added in an eager whisper, “shall I ever tell
-her about the American’s ghost when I see him?”
-
-“Bah! you will never see him,” ejaculated Chata, contemptuously, though
-she glanced over her shoulder with a sudden start. “There is no such
-thing. I asked my grandmother about it yesterday, and she says it is all
-wicked nonsense. There could have been no American to be murdered, for
-she remembers nothing about it.”
-
-“Oh!” ejaculated Chinita, significantly, and she laughed. “Then it is no
-use for me to tell you where he is buried. If there was no American, he
-could not have a grave.”
-
-“Yet you have found it!” cried Chata, in intense excitement, for the
-story, more or less veracious, that had often been told her of the
-murder of the American years before, and the return of his ghost from
-time to time to haunt the spot accursed by his unavenged blood, had
-taken a strong hold upon her imagination. “Oh, Chinita! did you go, as
-you said you would, among the graves on the hillside? Did you go?”
-
-“Why, yes, I did go,” answered Chinita, slowly, winding her arms around
-her knees, as she leaned from her high perch, her brown face almost
-touching that of the smaller child, who still stood before her. “But I
-sha’n’t tell you anything more, so you may as well go home. Ah, I think
-I hear them calling you,” and she straightened herself up as if to
-listen.
-
-“No! no! no!” cried Chata in an agony of impatience, “I will not go till
-you tell me. I _will_ know! Oh, Chinita, if I were but like you, and
-could run about at will, over the fields and up the hills!” The tears
-rose to her eyes as she spoke,—poor little captive, in her stolen moment
-of liberty feeling in her soul the iron of bondage to custom or
-necessity.
-
-“Well, then,” said Chinita, deliberately, prolonging the impatience of
-her supplicant, while the tears in the dark gray eyes lifted to her own
-moved her, “I went through the cornfield. I drove Pepé back when he
-wanted to go with me. Oh, how afraid that big boy is of me! Yes, I went
-through the corn,—oh, it is so high, so high, I thought it was the very
-wood where Don Quixote and Sancho Panza met the robbers; but I was not
-afraid. And then I came to the beanfield, and oh, _niña_! I meant to go
-again this very day, and bring an armful of the sweet blossoms to Our
-Lady, and I forgot it!” clasping her hands penitently.
-
-“And well for thee that thou didst,” exclaimed Chata, “or a pretty
-rating my father would have given thee! He says it is enough to make the
-Blessed Virgin vexed for a year to see the good food-blossoms wasted,
-when there are millions of flowers God only meant for her and the bees.
-But, Chinita, I would I were a bee, to make thee cry as I wish! Thou art
-slower than ever to-day. Tell me, tell me, what didst thou next?”
-
-“Well, did I not tell you I came to the beanfield,—what should I do but
-go through it?” remonstrated Chinita; “and then I walked under the
-willows. Ah, if you could only once walk under the willows, _niña_! it
-is like heaven in the green shade by the clear water, and there are
-great brakes of rushes, with the birds skimming over them. I saw among
-them a stork standing on one leg, and he had in his mouth a little
-striped snake, yellow and scarlet and black, which so wriggled and
-twisted! Ah, and I saw, besides, little fish in the shallow water, and—”
-
-Chata sighed. She had unconsciously sunk upon the mud floor; her eyes
-opened wide, as if in imagination she saw all those things of which,
-though she was set in the very heart of Nature, her bodily eyes had
-caught no glimpse. How in her heart of hearts the sheltered, cloistered
-daughter of the administrador envied the wild foster-child of the
-gate-keeper, who was so free, and from whom the woods and fields could
-keep no secrets! “Go on!” she whispered, and Chinita said, in a sort of
-recitative,—
-
-“Yes, I went on and on, not very long by the water’s edge, though I
-loved it, but up the little path through the stones and the thorny
-cacti. Oh, but they were full of yellow blossoms, and they smelled so
-sweet; but they were full of prickles too, and as I went up the steep
-hillside they caught my reboso every minute, and when I stood among the
-graves my hands were tingling and smarting, and I was half blind and
-stumbling. I was so tired, oh, so tired! and I sat down and rubbed my
-hands in the sand. It was very still there; it seemed to me that a
-little wind was always singing, but perhaps it was the dry grass
-rustling; but as I bent down to listen, I fell asleep, and when I woke
-up the sun was no higher in the sky than the width of my hand, and I had
-no time to look for anything.”
-
-“Ah, stupid creature!” cried Chata, after a moment’s silent
-disappointment. “Why did you not tell me so before? I must be missed. I
-shall be scolded,” and in a sudden panic she rose to her feet and turned
-to the door.
-
-“Stay! stay!” cried Chinita, eager to give her news, as she saw Chata
-about to fly. “Though I did not look, I found something. Oh, yes, in
-black letters, so big and clear!”
-
-Chata returned precipitately. “Letters—what letters?” she cried.
-
-“Big black letters, J and U and A and N; and the letters for the
-American name—how do they say it? Ash— Yes, Ashley—it is not hard—and
-that he was born in the United States, and murdered here in May,—yes, I
-forget the figures, but I counted up; it was just fourteen years ago,
-upon the 13th of this very month. It was all written out upon a little
-wooden cross, which had fallen face down upon the grave I fell asleep
-upon. I might have looked for it a hundred years and not have found it,
-but I had scraped away the sand from it to rub my hands. It is thick and
-heavy; I could scarcely turn it over to read the words,—but they are
-there. You may tell Doña Feliz there was an American.”
-
-“No, I shall say nothing,” said Chata, dreamily. “She likes not to hear
-of murder or of ghosts. Ah, the poor American! why does his spirit stay
-here? This is not purgatory. Ah, can it be he cannot rest because he
-died upon the 13th?—the unlucky number, my mother says.”
-
-“Let us make it lucky,” said Chinita, daringly. “Let us say thirteen
-Aves and thirteen Pater Nosters for his soul.”
-
-But Chata shook her head doubtfully, and started violently as a servant
-maid, grimy and ragged like all her clan, and panting with haste, thrust
-open the door, exclaiming,—
-
-“_Niña_ of my soul, your lady mother declares you are dead. Doña Feliz
-has searched all the house, and is wringing her hands with grief. Don
-Rafael has seized Pedro by the collar, and is mad with rage because he
-swears you have not passed the gate; and here I find you, with your
-white frock all stained with dirt, and that beggar brat filling your
-ears with her mad tales. The Saints defend us! Sometime the witch will
-fly off—as she came—no one knows where. But you, _niña_, come, come
-away!” and the excited woman dragged the truant reluctantly away; while
-Chinita, thrusting her tongue into her cheek, received the epithets of
-“beggar brat” and “witch” with a contempt which the gesture only, rather
-than any words, fluent as she was in plebeian repartee, could at that
-moment adequately express.
-
-
-
-
-                                  XVI.
-
-
-Though Chinita as was usual was made the scapegoat for Chata’s
-fault,—Doña Rita averring that the girl possessed an irresistible power
-for evil over her own innocent children,—Chata on this occasion felt
-herself most heavily punished, for Don Rafael strengthened his wife’s
-fiat against the dangerous temptress, the gate-keeper’s child, by
-absolutely prohibiting her entrance to his house. Chata wept for her
-playmate, and for many days Rosario moped and sulked; while Chinita hung
-disconsolate—as the Peri at the gate of Paradise—about the entrance to
-the court, finding small solace in the young fawn Pepé had given her,
-though she twined her arms around it and held its head against her
-bosom, that its large pensive eyes might seem to join in the appeal of
-her own. And perhaps the two aided by time and Chata’s grief might have
-conquered; but there was a sudden interruption of the quiet course of
-life at Tres Hermanos.
-
-One day Chinita found the whole house open to her; there was no one
-there either to welcome or repulse her save Doña Feliz. Don Rafael, with
-his wife and children, had obeyed a sudden call, and had hastened to the
-dying bed of Doña Rita’s mother. For the first time in her life Chata
-had left the hacienda. Rosario had twice before gone with her mother to
-visit relatives, but for various reasons Chata had remained at home.
-Doña Rita seemed half inclined to leave her at this time also; but Don
-Rafael cut the matter short by ordering her few necessaries to be
-packed, and in a flutter of excitement, perhaps heightened by the frown
-upon her mother’s face, Chata took her seat in the carriage that was to
-bear her far beyond the circle of hills which had heretofore bounded her
-vision.
-
-What a pall seemed to fall upon the place when they were all gone!
-First, a great stillness pervaded the court and corridors where the
-children’s voices were wont to ring; and then hollow, ghostly noises
-woke the echoes. A second court was now opened which long had been
-closed, though the fountains played there, and the flower-pots were all
-rich with bloom. The doors of rooms which before at best had been only
-left ajar were opened wide; and Doña Feliz, with a few of her most
-trusty servants, swept out the long accumulated dust, and let the light
-stream in upon the disused furniture. Chinita had caught glimpses of
-these things before, indistinct, uncertain, as though they were far
-memories of a past existence. She and Chata had often talked of them in
-days when they played at being grand ladies, and in imagination they
-were rich and beautiful; but when she actually stood in the broad
-sunshine, and saw the gilt and varnish, the variegated stuffs and great
-mirrors, the reality seemed a dream, from which she feared to waken. For
-all these material things appealed to something in the child’s nature
-which it appeared impossible she should have inherited from a long line
-of plebeian ancestors,—a something that was not a mere gaping admiration
-for what was bright and beautiful and dazzling by its very height of
-separation from the poor possibilities of her life, but which one would
-say had sprung directly from the influences of lavish splendor. There
-was an impulse toward appropriation and enjoyment in the actual touch of
-these attributes of an aristocratic life, an instinctive knowledge of
-the uses of things she had never before seen or heard of, which seemed
-to come as naturally into her mind as would the art of swimming to a
-duckling that had passed its first days in the coop with its
-foster-mother the hen. Nothing surprised her, and the delight she felt
-was not merely that of novelty, but that of the satisfaction of a
-long-felt want. Doña Feliz had not forbidden her entrance when she first
-saw her at the door of Doña Isabel’s apartment, but watched her with
-grave surprise as she wandered through the long rooms, sometimes picking
-up a fan, a hand-glass, a cup, and unconsciously assuming the very air
-and walk of a grand lady,—an air so natural that even in her tattered
-red skirt it never for a moment made her appear grotesque.
-
-Don Rafael returned home in the midst of the work of renovation. He had
-left his family with the dying mother, forced to return by the
-exigencies of business,—but ill pleased to leave them, for the roads
-were full of bandits, and the country was infested with wandering bands,
-as dangerous in their professed military character as the openly avowed
-robbers. They enjoyed immunity in all their depredations and deeds of
-violence, because they were committed under the standard of the Governor
-of the State, José Ramirez,—for to his _rôle_ of military chieftain the
-adventurer had added that of politician. In this _rôle_ he had hastened
-the tottering fortunes of President Comonfort to their fall, by seizing
-in his name a large sum of money belonging to foreign merchants, and
-with it buying over the troops under his command,—first to declare him
-military governor, and then to join with enthusiasm the clerical forces,
-which sprang into being as if by magic, bringing with them money in
-plenty, and gay uniforms, which put to shame the rags which the Liberals
-wore and which the resources of the legitimate government were
-insufficient to replace with more attractive garb. For months the name
-of José Ramirez had rung through the land in alternate shouts of triumph
-and joy and howls of execration. The prison doors had been thrown open,
-and hundreds of convicts had joined his ranks, ready to die for the man
-who had set them free,—not for gratitude, but in an excess of admiration
-for a spirit more lawless, more daring, than their own.
-
-Chinita used to stand half aloof, and listen to these things, as wild
-rumors of them reached the hacienda, a burning pride glowing in her
-heart as she heard of deeds that made men tremble and stand aghast; and
-in imagination she saw the tall dark man whom she had made her hero
-riding through the streets in the full panoply of military splendor,
-followed by a train of mounted soldiers as gorgeous as himself,—then the
-blaring band, the gay foot soldiers shouting his name, and that terrible
-battle-cry of “Religion y Fueros,” in which so many infernal deeds were
-done; and last of all a multitude of half-clad men, women, and boys and
-girls like herself in ragged garments, not hungry nor wretched, though
-with all the grime and squalor of poverty upon them. She loathed them in
-her heart, though she did not consciously separate herself from their
-kind; but often ran to the covert of the tall corn, or the shade of some
-tree, and sat down and drew her reboso over her head, laughing softly
-and breathlessly, for had she not given this man the amulet which gave
-him a charmed life? Sometimes she heard of attacks made upon him,—how
-bullets had gone crashing through his carriage windows, how in the very
-streets of the city, as well as on the battle-field, his horses had been
-shot under him; but he had never once been hurt. She was a ragged,
-barefoot girl, but here was something which in her own eyes enwrapped
-her as with velvet and ermine,—the belief that she had some part in that
-dazzling career that attracted the gaze, the wonder, the terror of what
-was to her mind the whole wide world.
-
-Through those hot summer days Pedro saw little of his foster child; and
-sometimes when he did see her, she would pass by as if he were nothing
-to her, or would shudder sometimes when he laid his hand with gentle
-violence upon her arm, and forced her in from the glaring sunshine, in
-which she often wandered for hours, unconscious of the heat which was
-burning her skin browner and browner, but painting roses on her cheeks,
-and filling her eyes with light; and sometimes she would come softly up
-behind him and throw the brown tangle of her hair over his eyes, almost
-smothering him in the golden crispness of its ruddy ends, and kiss him
-wildly between his bushy eyebrows, calling herself his wicked Chinita,
-his naughty child, until he would draw her on his knee and wipe away her
-streaming tears with the tenderness but none of the familiarity of a
-parent, and while he did so, sigh and sigh again, and wonder what these
-wild moods would lead to.
-
-When Doña Feliz began the renovation of the family apartments Pedro
-stole in there one day when she chanced to be quite alone, and asked if
-it was true that Doña Isabel would soon return; it was many years—yes,
-twelve and more—since she had left them; and the _niña_ Carmen, was it
-true that she was married? And the Señorita Herlinda? “Was it quite
-certain,” and his voice grew low,—“was it quite certain she was in a
-convent?”
-
-“Did not Don Vicente tell you that?” queried Doña Feliz; “and his sad
-looks, did they not tell you? Ah, unhappy girl, where should she be but
-in a convent? Where else in the world should she hide, who was so at
-feud with life?” She started, remembering herself; but Pedro was looking
-at her with impassive stolidity. “Yes, yes,” she continued impatiently,
-“she has chosen her path; she has left the world forever.”
-
-“But they say,” droned Pedro, monotonously, “that the convents will be
-opened and all the nuns be made free when the Señor Juarez takes his
-turn to rule. They say the day he enters the palace the dead men’s hands
-will open, and all their riches escape from their grasp. The silver and
-gold will be taken from the altars and given to the poor, and the
-monasteries and nunneries be pulled down, that the people may build
-their houses with the stones.”
-
-Doña Feliz laughed. It was not often any sound of merriment passed her
-lips, and then not in scorn. “Dreams, dreams, Pedro!” she said. “Are you
-as foolish as the rest, and think the new law would give all the poor
-wealth, or even the despoiled their own? Do you think Juarez himself
-believes it? No, no! he is a sly fox; and while the Church and Comonfort
-were the lion and bear struggling over the carcass, he strives to glide
-in and steal the flesh. Do you think he will divide it among you hungry
-ones? No! these politicians are all alike, and whether with the cry of
-religion or liberty, fight and plot only for their own aggrandizement,
-and the poor country is forgotten, as it is drenched by the blood of her
-sons. There is not one true patriot in all this distracted land.”
-
-She spoke rather to herself than Pedro, who shook his head with a sort
-of grim obstinacy. “I am thinking to go away, Doña Feliz,” he said. “You
-know the Señor Juarez is at liberty, and there will be bloody days soon
-if Zuloaga does not yield him his rightful place in Mexico. I have a
-mind to see a few of them. You know I was a good soldier in Santa Anna’s
-time, and as I sit in the gate I hear the sound of the cannon and the
-rattle of musketry and the voice of my old commander Gonzales, only it
-comes now from the lips of his son; and I feel I must go.”
-
-Doña Feliz looked at him steadily. She knew her countryman well, and
-though she doubted not that something of the martial spirit of the time
-was stirring within him, she was equally certain that a second and more
-potent reason was prompting Pedro to leave Tres Hermanos; but she only
-said,—
-
-“Then you wish to join Vicente Gonzales? They say he, with all his band,
-has thrown his fortunes in with those of Juarez. Well, well, perhaps
-anything was better than that he should be linked with Ramirez. If
-Vicente is a traitor, it is at least with a noble aim, not for mere
-plunder. There was something strange, forbidding, terrible, about that
-man Ramirez. Did you notice his face, Pedro, when he was here?”
-
-Pedro shook his head, returning with pertinacity to his own plans. “You
-will talk to Don Rafael for me, will you not, Señora?” he said, with a
-trace of the abject whine in his tone that marked the habit of serfdom,
-which a few years of nominal freedom had done little to alter, “and with
-your good leave I will go, and take Chinita with me.” He spoke
-hesitatingly, as though fearful his right would be disputed.
-
-“Take Chinita!” exclaimed Doña Feliz. “What, to a soldiers’ camp, to her
-ruin! You are mad, Pedro. No, she shall remain here with me. I will take
-her into the house. I will teach her to sew. She shall be my child
-rather than my servant! I—” she stopped in extreme agitation, for within
-the doorway the child stood.
-
-“I will be no one’s servant!” she said, proudly drawing herself up; “and
-as to going to the Indian’s camp—ah, I know a better place than that,”
-and she nodded her head significantly. “You shall leave me, Father
-Pedro, with your Doña Isabel!”
-
-Doña Feliz and Pedro started as if they had been shot.
-
-“I came to tell you she is coming,” continued the child. “I was out
-beyond the granaries, letting my fawn browse on the little hill, and as
-I was looking toward the gorge I saw a horseman coming, and far behind
-him was a carriage and many men. Is all ready?” and she glanced around
-her with the air of a prophetess. “Hark! the courier is in the court
-now. Doña Isabel will not be long behind him.”
-
-Pedro hastened from the room with an exclamation of alarmed amazement.
-“Go, go!” cried Feliz. “You are too late!” for she knew in her heart
-that it was in very fear of this visit, and to remove the child from the
-chance of encountering Doña Isabel, that Pedro had proposed to leave the
-hacienda; and here was Doña Isabel herself,—for strangely enough,
-neither of them doubted that what the child had assumed was true. The
-thoughts of Doña Feliz were inexplicable even to herself. She felt as
-though she was placed in some vast and gloomy theatre, with the curtain
-about to rise upon some strange play, which at the will of the actors
-might become either comedy or tragedy. Though of late she had felt
-certain that Doña Isabel would return to the hacienda, that very act
-seemed dramatic, the precursor of inevitable complications.
-
-“Why could she not be content in the new life she had chosen?” muttered
-Doña Feliz. “What voice has been sounding in her ears, to call her back
-to resurrect old griefs, to walk among the spectres of long-silent
-agonies and shame? Foolish, foolish woman! Yet as the magnet attracts
-iron, so thy hard heart is drawn by these bitter remembrances. Go, go!
-thou child!” she exclaimed aloud, and almost angrily. “Doña Isabel would
-be vexed to see thee in her room. Go, and keep thee out of her way!” She
-gazed after Chinita with a look of perplexity and pain, as with a bound
-of irresistible excitement the girl sprang out upon the corridor, her
-laugh rising through the still air as if in notes of defiance. “What
-said the child?” muttered Doña Feliz. “‘Leave me with your Doña
-Isabel’?”
-
-
-
-
-                                 XVII.
-
-
-From the city of Guanapila to the hacienda of Tres Hermanos the road
-runs almost continually through mountain defiles, where on either hand
-the great masses of bare rocks rise so precipitously that it seems
-impossible that man or beast should scale them; and here, where Nature’s
-aspect is most terrible, man is least to be feared. But there are
-intervals where broad flat ledges hang above the roadway, or where it
-crosses plateaus shaded by scrub-oak or mesquite and even grassy dells,
-where after the rains water may be found, offering charming
-camping-grounds during the noon-tide heat; and precisely at such places
-the anxious traveller has need to look to his weapons, and picket his
-horses and mules in such order that no sudden attack may cause a
-stampede among them, and that they may, if need offer, form a barricade
-for their defenders. In those lawless times few persons ventured forth
-without a military escort, and if possible sought additional security by
-accompanying the baggage trains which by arrangement with the party for
-the moment in power enjoyed immunity from attack by roving bands of
-soldiery, and were too formidable to be successfully assailed by the
-ordinary cliques of highwaymen. Seldom indeed was there found a person
-so reckless as to venture forth attended only by the escort his own
-house afforded; and daring indeed was the woman who would undertake a
-two days’ journey in such a manner. The least she might expect would be
-to find her protectors dispersed, perhaps slain, and herself a
-captive,—held for an exorbitant ransom, and subjected to the hardships
-of life in the remote recesses of the mountains, and to indignities the
-very report of which might daunt the most reckless or the bravest.
-
-Yet in spite of all this, a carriage containing a lady and her maid—for
-such were their relative positions, though both were alike dressed in
-plain black gowns and the common blue reboso—entered in the early
-afternoon of a summer’s day the narrow gorge that led by circuitous
-windings through the rocks to the great gorge that formed the entrance
-to the wide valley of Tres Hermanos, whose entire extent offered to the
-eye the wondrous fruitfulness so rich and varied in itself, so startling
-in contrast to the desolation passed to reach it.
-
-The midday halt had been a short one, for it was the rainy season, and
-progress was necessarily slow over the swollen watercourses and the
-obstructions of accumulated sands and pebbles, the masses of cactus and
-branches of trees and shrubs, which had been brought down by recent
-storms. At times it seemed impossible that the carriage, although drawn
-by four stout mules, could proceed, and from time to time the servant
-looked anxiously through the window. But the mistress was equal to all
-emergencies, herself giving directions to the perplexed driver and his
-assistant, and though she had been travelling for more than two days
-over a road usually easily passed in one, allowing no sign or word of
-weariness or impatience to escape her.
-
-But this carriage and its occupants would have appeared to a passer-by
-the least important factor in the caravan of which it formed a part; for
-it was encircled and almost concealed by a band of mounted men, clad in
-suits of brownish leather, glimpses of the red waist-band glistening
-with knives and pistols showing from beneath their striped blankets,
-long knives and lassos hanging at their saddle-bows, rifles in their
-sinewy right hands, while from beneath their wide hats their keen eyes
-investigated sharply every jutting rock and peered into the distance
-with an air of half-defiant, half-fearful expectancy,—for these were men
-taken from her own estate, who idle retainers as they had been in her
-great bare house in the city where Doña Isabel Garcia had lived for
-years in melancholy state, thrilled with clannish fidelity to their
-mistress and passionate love for their _tierra_ to which they were
-returning, and with that vague delight in the possibility of a fight
-which arouses in man both chivalrous and brutish daring, as the smell of
-blood arouses the love of slaughter in the tamest beast.
-
-In front of these rode the conductor of the party clad in a
-half-military fashion, as became the character he had earned for
-eccentric daring, the reputation of which perhaps more than actual
-bravery made him eminently successful in guiding safely the party wise
-or rich enough to secure his escort. This man was known as Tio Reyes,
-though his appearance did not justify the honorary title of Uncle, for
-he was still in the prime of life; but it was applied to him in tones of
-jesting yet affectionate respect by his followers who had joined the
-party with him, and adopted by the others to whom he was a stranger,—for
-at the last moment he had appeared just as they were leaving Guanapila,
-and with a brief word to the mistress, to which in much surprise and
-some annoyance she had agreed, had placed himself at their head.
-
-In the rear of those we have described came four or five mules laden
-with provisions, necessaries for camping, and some private baggage;
-these were driven by _arrieros_ who ran at their sides, for the
-travelling pace of horses did not exceed that of those trained runners.
-
-The journey, wearisome as it had proved, had so far been made without
-alarms, and upon nearing the boundaries of Tres Hermanos much of the
-anxiety though none of the vigilance of the escort subsided; when
-suddenly upon the glaring sunshine of the day, all the hotter and
-clearer from the recent rains, rose in the distance a sort of mist,
-which filled the narrow road and blurred the outline of the towering
-rocks. The guide paused for a moment and glanced back at the escort.
-Each hand grasped tighter the ready rifle; at a word the carriage was
-stopped, the baggage mules were driven up and enclosed within the square
-hastily formed by the armed men,—for upon that clear day, after the
-rains, the tramp of many feet was requisite to raise that cloud of dust,
-and these precautions were but prudent, whether the advancing troop were
-friends or foes.
-
-Tio Reyes, after disposing his force to his satisfaction, rode forward
-with his lieutenant to meet the advancing host, which in those few
-moments seemed to fill the entire range of vision, though at first with
-confusing indistinctness, as did the sounds that came echoing from rock
-to rock. The cries of men rose hoarsely above a deep and rumbling
-undertone, which resolved itself at last into the lowing of cattle and
-the bleating of sheep,—harmless and terrified wayfarers, but driven and
-preceded by a troop of undisciplined soldiery, ripe for deeds more
-tragic than the plunder of vaqueros and shepherds, who would be more
-likely wisely to seek shelter in the crevices of the rocks than to defy
-numbers before whom they were helpless.
-
-“Señora of my soul!” cried the servant, catching a word from one of the
-men, “we are lost! Virgin of Succors, pray for us! These are some of the
-men of his Excellency the Governor, and you know they stop at nothing.
-Ah, what a chance to gain money is this! Once in the mountains what may
-they not demand for you? _Ave Maria Sanctissima!_ Ah, Señora, if you
-would but have listened to the Señorita! to me!”
-
-“Silence!” said the lady, in a tone as of one unused to hear her actions
-commented upon. “Silence! thou wilt be safe. If we are captured, thou
-wilt not be a prize worth retaining; it will be easy to induce them to
-take thee to Guanapila, and obtain a reward from my cousin, Don
-Hernando.”
-
-“No, no!” cried the woman, brought to her senses by this quiet scorn and
-the startling proposition of her mistress. “Could I leave your grace?
-No, no! imprisonment, starvation, even to be made the wife of one of
-those bandits!” and a faint smile curled the damsel’s lip, for she was
-not ugly, and knew something of the gallantries of Ramirez’s
-followers,—“anything rather than desert my lady! Ay, my life! whom have
-we here?”
-
-It was Tio Reyes undoubtedly, and with him was a military stranger, a
-gallant young fellow, and handsome, though his hands and face were
-covered with dust, and something like a large blood-stain defaced the
-breast of his blue coat. “Pardon, Señora,” he exclaimed, bowing most
-obsequiously and removing his wide hat, disclosing a young and vivacious
-countenance, “I am Rodrigo Alva, your servant, who kisses your feet,
-captain of this troop of horse, of the forces of his Excellency Don José
-Ramirez, Governor of Guanapila.”
-
-“And I am the Señora Doña Isabel Garcia de Garcia,” responded the lady,
-with dignified recognition of the young man’s courteous
-self-introduction; “and as I am unaware of any cause for detention, I
-beg to be permitted to proceed toward my hacienda, which I desire to
-reach before night closes in.”
-
-“It is not my desire to molest ladies,” said the captain, gallantly;
-“and I have besides received express orders to defend your passage and
-facilitate it in every way.”
-
-“I have no acquaintance with Señor Ramirez,” said Doña Isabel in
-surprise; “yet more than once have I been indebted to his courtesy,” and
-she glanced at Tio Reyes. “He it was who sent me this worthy guide. I
-know not why the Señor Ramirez takes such interest in my personal
-safety, especially as we are politically opposed;” and she added with a
-daring which had somewhat of girlish archness, strange from the lips of
-Doña Isabel, “he has not the name of a man given to gallantries.”
-
-“No, rather to gallant deeds,” said the young captain, his voice
-accentuating the distinction. “But you, Doña Isabel, like us who serve
-him, must be content not to inquire too closely into his motives.”
-
-“Whatever they may be,” retorted she, in a voice of displeasure, “they
-are not such as will spare my flocks and herds;” and she frowned as a
-stray ox, upon whose flank she recognized the well-known brand of Tres
-Hermanos, bounded by the carriage, from which the escort had gradually
-withdrawn, and were now exchanging amicable salutations with the more
-advanced of the host which they would have been equally pleased to
-fight.
-
-The young man bowed in some confusion. “The men must be fed,” he said.
-“These come from the ranchito del Refugio, Señora, and I regret to say
-the huts are burned down and the shepherds and vaqueros scattered; one
-poor fellow was killed in pure wantonness.”
-
-“And you dare tell me this!” cried Doña Isabel, in violent indignation,
-which for the moment overcame her wonted calmness.
-
-“It was but to explain,” interrupted Captain Alva, “that we encountered
-the famous Calvo there. He has succeeded in raising three hundred men or
-more to march to the assistance of the double-dyed traitor Juarez.
-Fortunately, but a portion of his troops were with him; the rest have
-joined Gonzales,—so our work was easy, though the fellows fought well.
-Three or four were killed, a few wounded, the rest fled to the
-mountains, and we succeeded in securing the cattle and sheep; and I hope
-your grace will be consoled in knowing they are destined to feed good
-patriots.”
-
-Doña Isabel waved her hand impatiently. “What matter a few animals?” she
-said. “But the poor shepherds,—they must be looked to. And the
-wounded—what of them?”
-
-“_Canalla!_” laughed the captain, carelessly, “one or two are with us
-here, tied on their saddles. They will do well enough. Others lay down
-under bushes to shelter their cracked heads. But one there is, Señora, a
-foreigner, a mere boy, who was in the party by chance they say, just a
-boy’s freak,—but, my faith! he did a man’s portion of fighting, and has
-a wound to end a man’s life. He must die if he rides much farther lashed
-to his horse;” and the young soldier, half a bandit in lawlessness, and
-in his perplexed notions of honor, perhaps too, scarce free from
-blood-guiltiness, sighed as he added, “but this is no subject for a
-lady’s ear. Permit, Señora, that my troops and their belongings pass by,
-and you may then proceed in all peace and safety.”
-
-“Thanks, Señor,” said Doña Isabel, adding half hesitatingly: “And the
-wounded youth,—a foreigner, I think you said?”
-
-“By his looks and tongue, English,” answered the officer, with his hand
-to his hat as a parting salute. But Doña Isabel’s look stopped him.
-
-“You pity this poor wounded creature,” she said, “and I can do no less.
-You are compelled to travel in haste, and the city—if that is your
-destination—is far distant.”
-
-Doña Isabel spoke as if under some invisible compulsion and as against
-her will, and paused as if unable to utter the proposal that trembled on
-her lips; but the voluble young officer, with the eagerness of desire,
-divined what she would say, and so lauded the appearance and bearing of
-the wounded prisoner that to her own amazement Doña Isabel found herself
-making room for him in her carriage, much to the surprise of her maid
-Petra, who was mounted upon the led horse, which in thought her mistress
-had at first destined to the use of her unexpected guest.
-
-However, when under the superintendence of Captain Alva and Tio Reyes
-the youth was transferred from his horse to the carriage, Doña Isabel
-saw at once that his strength was so nearly spent that even with most
-careful handling it was doubtful whether he would reach the hacienda
-alive. She shrank away as his fair young head was laid back upon the
-dark cushions, and his long limbs were disposed upon blankets and
-cushions, as much to avoid contact with that frame so evidently of alien
-mould as to give all the space possible to the almost unconscious
-sufferer. She scarce looked at him, as with effusive thanks Alva bade
-her farewell, but forced her eyes, though with no special interest or
-regret, upon the portion of her flocks that was driven bleating before
-her carriage, with mechanical kindness closing the window as the horned
-cattle, bellowing and pawing the dust, followed, and breathing a sigh of
-relief as the last of the revolutionary force rode by, and the sound of
-their noisy march grew fainter, and she realized that her own escort had
-fallen into their places around her carriage, the slow motion of which
-indicated that her interrupted journey was resumed.
-
-For some time the thoughts of Doña Isabel were necessarily directed to
-her wounded guest. The wound in the shoulder had been bandaged with such
-skill and care as could be offered by the self-trained doctor of the
-rancho, for the nonce become army surgeon; and it would doubtless have
-done well but for exposure and fatigue, which had induced fever, in
-which the patient muttered uneasily and even at times became violently
-excited, looking at Doña Isabel with eyes of inexpressible brilliancy,
-catching her cool white hands in his own burning ones and calling her in
-endearing accents names which, though untranslatable by her, were sweet
-to her ear. Perhaps, they were those of mother or sister,—she almost
-longed to know. Later, when under her tendance and that of the grooms,
-who when she motioned for the carriage to be stopped often came to her
-assistance, he sank into uneasy slumber, she had opportunity to wonder
-at the impulse that had induced _her_ to receive this stranger of a
-race, that whether American or English, she had long abjured, and to
-feel once more as she gazed upon his wan features something of the
-bitter detestation with which she had looked upon Ashley’s dead face.
-
-Doña Isabel started; the thought had entered her mind just as they were
-emerging from the great chasm of rocks which gave entrance to the plain,
-and she saw once more the Eden from which she had been driven. The house
-was so far distant still that she caught, across the fields of tall
-corn, but a mere suggestion of its flat roofs and the square turrets at
-the corners of the encircling walls; but though more distant still, the
-tall chimney of the reduction-works rose clearly defined against the
-sky,—so clearly that she could see where a few bricks had fallen from
-the cornice, and how a solitary pigeon was circling it in settling to
-its nest. What a picture of solitariness! Doña Isabel groaned, and
-covered her face with her hand. It was as she had known it would be. The
-first objects to meet her gaze were those that could waken the darkest
-and bitterest memories. Why had she come? Oh that she could retrace the
-rough path that she had traversed!
-
-The wounded man groaned; he was fainting. “Hasten, hasten!” she cried,
-“send Anselmo forward; bid them prepare a bed. The road is not so rough;
-let them drive faster!”
-
-Thus Doña Isabel’s words belied the desire of her heart, for she could
-not by her own wish have approached her home too slowly. This boy was a
-stranger, not even brought thither by her will, as the other had been;
-yet as the other had driven her forth, this one was hastening her back.
-Was it fancy, or did the boy’s lips pronounce a name? No, no! it was but
-her excited imagination. No wonder! Did not the earth and sky, the wide
-circle of the hills, all cry out to her, “What hast thou done? Where is
-Herlinda?”
-
-
-
-
-                                 XVIII.
-
-
-Although Chinita had divined aright when she declared that the carriage
-she had seen in the distance could be no other than that of Doña Isabel,
-and the sounds which penetrated from the court announced the arrival of
-her outrider, she was wrong in supposing that the lady herself would be
-speedily at hand. There was a long delay in which Doña Feliz had time to
-recover outwardly from the agitation into which she was thrown, and
-accustom herself to this verification of her foresight, when upon
-hearing of the marriage of Carmen she had felt a conviction that Doña
-Isabel in her loneliness and the unaccustomed lack of interests around
-her would be irresistibly attracted to the home she had virtually
-forsworn.
-
-Don Rafael having listened eagerly to the courier’s account of the
-meeting with Ramirez’s band, left him to give fuller details to the
-anxious villagers who gathered around,—many of whom had sons or husbands
-at that part of the hacienda lands known as the ranchito del
-Refugio,—and rushed up to Doña Feliz with the news, then down again to
-the court to mount a horse which had been instantly saddled, and
-followed by a clerk and servants galloped away to give meet welcome to
-the lady who had just entered upon her own domains.
-
-Calling the maids, Doña Feliz caused the long-disused beds to be spread
-with fresh linen, and completed the preparations for this vaguely yet
-confidently expected arrival. “She had felt it in the air,” she said to
-herself, for she knew nothing of any theory of second sight, nor had
-ever reasoned, on the other hand, that even the most trivial
-circumstances of life must work toward some given result, which they
-instinctively foreshadow to the observant, as the bodily eye makes out
-the reflection of a material object in a dimmed and besmirched mirror.
-She bestirred herself as if in a dream, her mind full of Doña Isabel and
-the past. Yet like an undercurrent beneath the flood of her thoughts
-flowed the idea of the new element that Doña Isabel was bringing with
-her. “A _foreigner_!” she muttered, as if she could scarce believe her
-words. “Can it be possible that the hand once stung can dally again with
-the scorpion? Ah, no! necessity wears the guise of heresy, but it is not
-possible that Doña Isabel can forget.”
-
-She glanced around her; Chinita had disappeared. Doña Feliz saw her no
-more until the long-delayed carriage rolled into the court, when she
-descended to greet her mistress.
-
-The long summer’s day had almost waned, and so dark was the court that
-torches of pitch-pine had been stuck into rude sconces against the
-pillars, and the face of Doña Isabel looked wan and ghastly in the lurid
-and flickering glare. She could not descend from the carriage until the
-wounded youth had been lifted out. Doña Feliz had never seen but one man
-so fair. She started as her eyes fell upon the yellow masses of hair
-that lay disordered upon his brow, but pointed to a chamber which a
-woman ran to open, and into which the stranger was carried: while Doña
-Isabel, cramped and stiff, leaned upon the arm of Don Rafael, and
-stepped to the ground. As she did so she would have fallen but for two
-strong young hands which caught hers, and as she involuntarily held them
-and steadied herself she turned her eyes upon the face which was level
-with her own. Her eyes opened widely, and with an exclamation of actual
-horror she threw Chinita from her with a sudden and violent struggle,
-and passed proudly though tremblingly across the court.
-
-Don Rafael and Doña Feliz followed, too astounded to make one movement
-to assist their lady’s ascent of the stairs; but when they reached the
-corridor and heard the door of the bed-chamber heavily closed, they
-turned toward each other, their faces pale in the twilight. “Her
-thoughts are serpents to lash her,” murmured Doña Feliz; adding with a
-sort of national pride, “The Castillian woman may choose to ignore, but
-she can never forget or forgive.”
-
-Don Rafael shrugged his shoulders. How much with some races a shrug may
-signify! His then was one of dogged resolution. “It is well,” it seemed
-to say; and he muttered, “As the mistress leads, the servant must
-follow,” while his mother, shaking her head doubtfully, pointed to the
-court below.
-
-Chinita had rushed furiously away from the carriage and the group of
-men, who after the first silence of surprise had broken into but
-half-suppressed laughter, which was soon lost in the babel of greetings
-that the disappearance of Doña Isabel gave an opportunity for
-exchanging, and scarcely knowing in her blind rage where she went, had
-thrown herself upon one of the stone seats that bordered the fountain,
-and with her small clinched fist was beating the rugged stone. Pedro
-stood near her, his face as indignant as her own, vainly endeavoring
-with a voice that shook with anger to soothe her wounded pride, while
-with one hand he strove to lead her away. She spoke not a word.
-Suddenly, as the young face of the girl was lifted to the light, Feliz
-clasped her hands together, and leaned eagerly forward. She motioned to
-Don Rafael,—she would not break the spell by speech; but unheeding her
-he left the corridor and walked away, and presently Pedro was obliged to
-hasten to his duties at the doorway, and the girl and the woman were
-left alone in the enclosure. Doña Feliz leaned motionless over the
-railing. Chinita, still beating the stone with her fist, sat upon the
-edge of the fountain. With her native instinct of propriety, to meet
-Doña Isabel she had put on her second best skirt—not the green one—and
-all her necklaces circled her throat. Her hair was closely braided, but
-curled wilfully round her brow and the nape of her neck. She pulled at
-it abstractedly in a manner she had when excited. Her face was turned
-aside, but to Doña Feliz there was something strangely familiar in her
-attitude,—something which suggested other personalities, but of whom;
-which recalled the past, but how?
-
-While Chinita still sat there, Doña Isabel came out of her chamber and
-crossed to the side of Feliz. Her face quivered as her eyes fell on the
-child, and she laid her nervous white hand upon Feliz’s arm. The two
-women looked at each other, but said not a word; the eyes of the one
-were full of reproach, those of the other of defiant distrust. When they
-turned them upon the court again, the girl had moved noiselessly away.
-Her passion of anger was spent, and with the instinct of the Indian
-strain in her mixed blood, she had gone to hide herself away in some
-sheltered corner and brood sullenly upon her wrongs.
-
-As she passed through the many courts, reaching at last that upon which
-the church opened, she was so absorbed that she did not notice she was
-closely followed by a man who had been very near when Doña Isabel had
-repulsed her, and who with a few apparently careless questions had
-possessed himself of all there was to know of Chinita’s history.
-
-“Look you!” said one, “did not Pedro say that a man as black as the
-devil dropped her into his hands? Who knows but she is the fiend’s own
-child? Vaya, she struck me over the face with talons like a cat’s only
-last week.”
-
-“And well thou deservedst it,” cried the boy called Pepé. But he was
-laughed down by a shrill majority, for Doña Isabel’s unaccountable
-repulse of her had turned the tide of public opinion strongly against
-the foundling; and the woman toward whom Tio Reyes—for he it was—now
-turned for additional particulars, rightly judging that in such matters
-female memories would prove most explicit, crossed herself as she opined
-“that the fox knows much, but more he who traps him, and that Pedro who
-had found the girl could best tell whence she came,”—a saying which
-elicited many nods and exclamations of approval, for Pedro had never
-been believed quite honest in the matter. A wild story that he had
-received the babe from the hands of a beautiful and pallid spectre which
-had once been seen to speak with him in the corridor, and that this was
-the ghost of some lovely woman he had murdered in those early days when
-he and Don Leon were comrades in many a wild adventure, had passed into
-a sort of legend, which if not entirely accepted, certainly was not
-utterly disbelieved by any one.
-
-“Go thy way! She is the devil’s own brat,” cried the wife of the man
-Chinita had once attacked.
-
-“Ay, to be sure!” cried another; “was it not to be remembered how she
-had struggled and screamed when the good Father Francisco baptized her,
-and had sputtered and spat out the salt which the good priest had put in
-her mouth like a very cat. And little good had it done her, for she had
-never been called by a Christian name.”
-
-“Tut! tut!” said the new-comer, “what need of a name has such a pretty
-maid as that, or of a father or mother either? Though ye women have no
-mercy, she’ll laugh at you all yet. The lads will not be blind, eh
-Pancho?”
-
-“That they will not!” cried the lad Pepé, throwing a meaning glance at
-Pancho as if daring him to take up the cudgels in behalf of his old
-playfellow. “What care I who she is? She’s not the first who came into
-the world by a crooked road; and must all the women hint that it began
-at the Devil’s door because they can’t trace it back? Ay, they know
-enough ways to the same place.”
-
-“Well said, young friend!” cried Tio Reyes with a hearty slap on the
-boy’s shoulder. “But, hist! here comes Pedro—with an ill look too in his
-eye. Ah! I thought so,” as the men suddenly became noisily busy with the
-unsaddling of their horses, and the women slipped away to their
-household occupations. “Tio Pedro is not a man to be trifled with. But,
-ah, there goes the girl!” and in a moment of confusion he adroitly left
-the court without being seen, and as has been said followed her steps
-till, as she crouched behind one of the buttresses of the church, he
-halted behind another and looked at her keenly, impatient with the
-uncertain light, eager to approach her before it darkened, yet waiting
-stoically until she was settled in a sullen crouching attitude, probably
-for that vigil of silence and hunger in which a ranchero’s anger usually
-expends itself, or crystallizes into a revengeful memory.
-
-After some minutes, during which the girl neither sobbed nor moved, he
-suddenly bent over and touched her on the shoulder. She was accustomed
-to such intrusions, and shook herself sullenly, not even looking up when
-an unknown voice accosted her. “Hist, thou! I have something for thee.”
-
-“I want nothing, not manna from Heaven even.”
-
-“’T will prove better than that.”
-
-“Then keep it thyself. Thou’rt a stranger. I take neither a blow from a
-woman nor a gift from a man.”
-
-“Ah!” said the man, coming a little nearer and laying a hand lightly on
-her shoulder, “if thou wilt have no gift, shall I _tell_ thee
-something?”
-
-The girl shrugged her shoulder uneasily under his hand. “I am not a baby
-to care for tales,” she said contemptuously; yet the man noticed she
-turned her head slightly toward him.
-
-“Thou art one of a thousand!” he ejaculated admiringly. “Hey now, proud
-one, suppose I should tell thee who thou art,—what wouldst thou give Tio
-Reyes for that?”
-
-“Bah!” said the girl, “I have never thought about it.” Yet she was
-conscious that her heart began to beat wildly and her voice sounded
-faint in her ears. A little picture formed itself before her eyes, of
-Pepé and Marta and Ranulfo and a score of others, waifs of humanity, and
-she herself on a height looking down upon them. She had never
-consciously separated herself from them,—she had never even wished that
-she, like them, had at least a mother; but presently she was conscious
-of a new feeling. Yet she laughed as she said, “I was born then like
-other children,—I had a mother?”
-
-“That had you; but I am not going to sing all that’s in the book,
-_niña_. The wise man talks little and the prudent woman asks few
-questions, and thus fewer lies are spoken.”
-
-“But thou art not my father?” queried Chinita, insolently, yielding to a
-sudden apprehension that seized her, and turning full upon the stranger.
-
-“God deliver me!” answered he; “badly fared the owl that nourished the
-young eaglet.”
-
-“Tell me who I am!” cried Chinita, in a sudden passion of eagerness
-clutching the man’s arm.
-
-“Tut! tut! tut! that is not my business; and as you will not hear my
-pretty little tale,”—for Chinita thrust him violently aside,—“I will
-give you but one word of warning and be gone: the old hind pushes at the
-young fawn, but they both make venison.”
-
-Chinita was accustomed to the obscure phraseology and symbolical
-meanings of the thousand proverbs used by her country people, and she
-instantly caught the idea the speaker sought to convey; but its very
-audacity held her silent for some moments. It was only after she had
-gazed at him long and searchingly that she could stammer, “Doña
-Isabel—and I—Chinita—the same—of one blood!”
-
-The man nodded, but put his finger upon his lip. He feared perhaps some
-wild outburst of surprise or exultation; but instead she said in an awed
-whisper, “Is she then my mother?”
-
-Tio Reyes leaned against the church and burst into irrepressible though
-silent laughter. “What next will the girl dream of?” he ejaculated at
-length, and laughed again.
-
-“What, am I then such a fool?” asked Chinita, coolly, though with inward
-rage. “Look you, if you had told me yes, I would not have believed you
-any more than I believed when Señor Enrique said that she had the young
-American killed who died so many years ago. Bah! one thing is as foolish
-as the other,” and she turned away disdainfully.
-
-“What!” exclaimed the man, eagerly, “do they say that? Humph! Well,
-things as strange as that have happened in her day.”
-
-“But that is a lie,” cried Chinita, excitedly; “it was only because Doña
-Isabel would not interfere to save his son from being shot as murderer
-and _ladron_ that Enrique said so. He went away himself the day after,
-and he it was who led Calvo to the rancho del Refugio. But what has that
-to do with us?” and now first, perhaps because there had been time for
-the matter to take shape in her mind, she showed an eager and excited
-curiosity. “Tell me who I am; you surely have more to tell me than that
-I was born Garcia!”
-
-The man stared, then cried, “And is not that enough? Why, for a word
-thou canst be as good as Doña Isabel’s daughter. With that face of thine
-she dare not refuse thee anything.”
-
-Chinita looked at him as if she would have torn his secret from him.
-Strange to say, not a suspicion that he was jesting with her entered her
-mind. Even as she stood there almost in rags, she felt instinctively
-that she was far removed from him. The one thought that she was a
-Garcia, one of the family whom she looked upon as the incarnation of
-wealth and power, overpowered every other emotion, even that of
-curiosity. She was vexed, baffled that he said no more, yet felt as
-though she had known all, and had but for a moment forgotten. She even
-turned away from him with a momentary impulse to rush into the presence
-of Doña Isabel and assail her with the cry, “Look at me! Why did you
-thrust me away? I too am a Garcia!”
-
-“Stay!” cried Tio Reyes, as she started from his side. Her wild thoughts
-had flashed by so rapidly that, quick though he was to read the
-countenance, he had caught scarce an inkling of what had passed through
-her mind, and was certain only of the half-dazed dislike with which she
-looked at him. It irritated and disappointed him.
-
-“What, girl!” he said, “is not this news worth so much as a ‘thank you’?
-Is it nothing to you whether you are the dust of the roadway or a jewel
-of the mine? Well, I lied to you. Ah! ah! what know I who you are? It
-was my joke! Tio Reyes always likes a jest with a pretty girl.”
-
-“But this is no jest,” said Chinita, quick to perceive that the man was
-already half repentant of his words; “you can better put the ocean into
-a well, than shut up the truth when it is once out. Ah, I did not need
-you to tell me I was no beggar’s brat, picked up by chance on the plain.
-I have heard them say that Pedro has rich clothes which I was wrapped
-in. He has always laughed at me when I have asked about them, but all
-the same he shall show them to you this very night.”
-
-“Chut!” interrupted the man, “what should I know of swaddling clothes?
-’T is just a maid’s folly to think of such trifles. They would not prove
-thee a Garcia, any more than the lack of them belies it, or my mere word
-insures it!”
-
-“That which puzzles me is,” said Chinita, gravely, turning her head on
-one side and looking at him keenly by the dim light, “why you have told
-me this. Have you been sent with a message from—from those who left me
-here?”
-
-“No, by my faith,” said the man, laughing; “and why do I laugh, think
-you? Why, you are the first one who ever asked Tio Reyes for a reason.
-Does anybody who knows me say, ‘Why did you take Don Fulano with all his
-dollars safe through the mountains, and then allow that poor devil De
-Tal, who had not so much as a four-penny piece, to be shot down like a
-dog by the wayside?’ No, even the village idiot knows Tio Reyes has
-reasons too great to be tossed from one to another like a ball; and yet
-you ask me why I have told you the secret I have kept for years, and
-perhaps expect an answer! No, no! that plum is not ripe enough to fall
-at the first puff of wind.”
-
-“I will tell you one thing, though you tell me nothing,” said Chinita,
-shrewdly, after a pause: “It is not from love to Doña Isabel that you
-have told me this, nor for love of me either. What good have you done me
-by telling me I am a Garcia? Why, if I had had the sense of a parrot, I
-might have known it before.” It seemed to her in her excitement as if,
-indeed, she had always known it.
-
-“A word to the wise is enough,” said the man, mysteriously. “Keep your
-knowledge to yourself, but use it to your advantage. You were sent like
-a package to Doña Isabel years ago, but stopped by a clumsy messenger.
-She finds you in her path now; let her find something alive under the
-shabby coverings. God puts many a sweet nut in a rough shell, many a
-poison in despised weeds!”
-
-“Oh!” cried Chinita, with a wicked little laugh, though even at that
-moment the chords of kinship thrilled, “I am but a weed to Doña Isabel,
-eh? Shall I go to her and say, ‘Here is a Garcia to be trodden down’?”
-
-She said this with so superb an air of derision that the man who
-unconsciously all his life had been an inimitable actor in his way,
-muttered a deep _caramba_ of enthusiastic admiration.
-
-“I would by all the saints I could stay here to see how you will goad
-and sting my grand Señora,” he said vindictively. “Ay, remember you are
-a Garcia, with a hundred old scores to pay off. I have put the cards in
-your hands,—patience, and shuffle them well!”
-
-“Patience, and shuffle your cards,”—those cards simply the knowledge
-that she was a Garcia, with presumably the wrongs of parents to avenge.
-The thoughts were not very clear in her mind, but the instincts of
-resentment of insult and of filial devotion were those which amid so
-much that is ungenerous, evil, and fierce, ever pervade the breast of
-the Mexican. She turned again to ask almost imploringly, “My father—my
-mother—who were they?” when she found she was alone. The stranger had
-extorted no promise of secrecy, offered no bribe; it was as if he had
-put a weapon in her hand, knowing that its very preciousness and
-subtlety would prevent her from revealing whence she had received it,
-and would indicate the use to which it was to be turned.
-
-Chinita leaned against the buttress and pondered. Strangely enough, she
-did not for a moment think to seek the man and demand further
-explanation. As she felt he had divined her character, so she divined
-his. He had said all he would say. After all, it was enough. At the end
-of an hour she left that spot, which she never saw after without a
-thrill of the heart, and walked straight to the doorway where Pedro sat.
-He was eating his supper mechanically, with a disturbed countenance,
-which cleared when he saw her.
-
-“They are _tamales de chile_, daughter,” he said, pushing toward her the
-platter, upon which lay some morsels of corn-pastry and pepper-sauce,
-wrapped in corn-leaves. “Eat, thou must be hungry.”
-
-Pedro sighed, for perplexity and vexation had destroyed his own
-appetite, and thought enviously, as Chinita’s white teeth closed on the
-soft pastry, which was yellow in comparison, “It is a good thing nothing
-but unrequited love keeps the young from supping,—and that only for a
-time.”
-
-The gate-keeper watched Chinita narrowly as she was eating and drinking
-atole from the rough earthen jar. There was some change in her he could
-not understand, quite different from the passion in which he had last
-seen her, or the languor which would naturally succeed it. She did not
-talk, and something kept him from referring to the scene in the
-courtyard; he felt that she would resent it. Two or three times she bent
-over him and touched his hand caressingly; yet he was not encouraged to
-smooth her tangled hair, or offer any of those awkward proofs of
-affection which she was wont to receive and laugh at or return as the
-humor seized her; neither did he remind her that it was getting late,
-but at last rose and took from his girdle the key of the postern.
-
-“Put it back, Pedro!” she said in her softest voice. “I shall never
-sleep in the hut with Florencia and the children again; yet be not
-afraid, I will not go to the corridor either. There is room and to spare
-in yon great house.” She nodded toward the inner court, muttered a
-good-night, and before Pedro could recover from his surprise
-sufficiently to speak, swiftly crossed the patio and disappeared.
-
-Pedro looked after her stupefied. He realized that a great gulf had
-opened between them; that figuratively speaking, his foster-child had
-left him forever. He looked like one who, holding a pet bird loosely in
-his hand, had beheld it suddenly escape him, and soar across a wide and
-bridgeless chasm. Would it dash itself into atoms against the opposite
-cliffs, or perchance reach a safe haven? Such was the essence of the
-thoughts for which Pedro framed no words. “God is great,” he muttered at
-length, “and knows what He does;” adding with a sort of heathen and
-dogged obstinacy, “but Pedro still is here; Pedro does not forget
-_niña_!” He looked up as if to some invisible auditor, crossed himself,
-then wearily threw himself upon his pallet; but weary as he was, the
-strong young subject of his cares was sunk in deep and dreamless sleep
-long before he closed his eyes.
-
-
-
-
-                                  XIX.
-
-
-Once within the court, Chinita paused and looked around her cautiously.
-The doors of the lower rooms stood open, and she might have entered any
-one of them unnoticed and found a shelter for the night. But she was in
-no mood for solitude. Indeed it was hard for her to check a certain wild
-impulse that seized her, as she saw a faint glimmer of light which
-streamed through a slight opening of a door on the upper corridor, and
-that urged her to rush at once into the presence of Doña Isabel and
-claim recognition. To what relationship, and to what rights, she did not
-ask herself; a positive though undefined certainty that Doña Isabel
-herself would know, and would be forced to yield her justice, possessed
-her.
-
-Chinita was now a child neither in stature nor mind, but though so young
-in years, had reached the first development of her powers with the
-mingled precocity of the Indian and Spaniard, fostered by a clime that
-seems the very elixir of passion. She had been maturing rapidly in the
-last few months, and as she stood that night in the faint starlight, the
-last trace of childhood seemed to drop visibly from her. She folded her
-arms on her breast, and sighed deeply,—not for sorrow, but as if she
-breathed a life that was new to her, and her lungs were oppressed by the
-weight of a strange and too heavily perfumed atmosphere.
-
-In her absorption Chinita was unconscious that she was observed,—but it
-chanced that Don Rafael Sanchez and his mother had just left the Señora
-Doña Isabel, and were passing through the upper corridor to their own
-apartments. The gallery was wide and they were in the shadow, but a
-stray gleam of light touched the upturned face of the girl and exhibited
-it in strong relief within the framing of her waving hair. As they
-caught sight of it, they involuntarily paused to look at her.
-
-“I do not wonder,” whispered Feliz “that such a face is an accusing
-conscience to Doña Isabel. There is a strange familiarity in every
-feature; and what a spirit, too, she has,—one even to glory in strife!”
-
-Don Rafael nodded. “There has always seemed to me something in that
-child to mark her as the offspring of a dominant family,” he said; “it
-is inevitable that she must break the lines an adverse Fate has cast
-about her. Others such as she stretch out a hand to Vice; if something
-better comes to her, who are we to hinder it?”
-
-The brow of Doña Feliz contracted. “Ay, Rafael,” she murmured, “what a
-change a few miserable years have wrought! Once I was a sister to Doña
-Isabel, and now—”
-
-“You are no traitress,” interposed Don Rafael, “and it is by
-circumstance only that the change has come. Console yourself, dear
-mother, and remember we are pledged. Though we seem false to her mother,
-only so can we be true to Herlinda.”
-
-He breathed the name so low that even Doña Feliz did not hear it; she
-listened rather to the beating of the heart that seemed to repeat
-without cessation the name of one so loved and lost. “How strange it is,
-Rafael,” she said presently, “that I have such persistent, such mocking
-dreams, which against my reason, against all precedent, create in me the
-belief that all is not ended for Herlinda Garcia.”
-
-Don Rafael looked at her musingly.
-
-“There is a man called Juarez who has dreams such as yours,” he said;
-“but they are of the freedom of a race, not of one woman alone. But he
-is hardly able to work miracles. Yet, mother, this truly is the time of
-prodigies; what think you this boy, the young American that Doña Isabel
-brought hither, calls himself?”
-
-“I have asked him,” she said, “but he did not understand me. Oh, Rafael!
-my heart stood still when I saw him first; yet after all he is not so
-very like—”
-
-“Yet he has the same name, Mother. It may be but chance; those Americans
-are half barbarians as we know,—they forget the saints, and seek to
-glorify their great men by giving their children as Christian names the
-surnames of those who have distinguished themselves in battle or
-statesmanship. Sometimes, too, a mother proud of the surname of her own
-family gives it to her son. It may have been so with this man. When I
-gave him pen and paper, and bade him write his name, it was thus:
-‘Ashley Ward.’”
-
-The name as spoken by Don Rafael was mispronounced, would have been
-hardly recognizable in the ears of him who owned it; yet to Doña Feliz
-it was like a trumpet blast. “Strange! strange! strange!” she repeated
-again and again. “Can it be mere chance?”
-
-“That we shall soon know,” said Don Rafael. “These Americans blurt out
-their affairs to the first comer, expecting help from every quarter.
-There is no rain that falls but that they fancy it is to water their own
-field. Nay, mother,” as Doña Feliz made a movement toward the stairway,
-“go not near the man to-night; he has fever, and is in need of quiet.
-Old Selsa is with him, and he can need no better care. He is safe to
-remain here many days; let him rest in peace now. And do you, mother,
-try to sleep; you are weary and worn.”
-
-With the filial solicitude of a true Mexican, the man, already
-middle-aged, took his mother’s hand fondly and led her to the door of
-her own apartment. There she detained him long in low and earnest
-conversation, and when on leaving her he looked down into the court it
-was entirely deserted.
-
-In glancing around her, Chinita’s eyes had caught no glimpse of the
-figures above, perhaps because they had been diverted by a faint glimmer
-of light at one angle of the courtyard; and remembering that this came
-from the room to which the wounded man had been carried, she darted
-swiftly and noiselessly toward it, and in a moment had pushed the door
-sufficiently ajar to admit of her entrance, and had passed in. She
-arrested her footsteps at the foot of the narrow bed, which extended
-like a bier from the wall to the centre of the room. There was not
-another article of furniture in the apartment, except a chair upon which
-the sick man’s coat was thrown; but Chinita’s eyes, accustomed to the
-vault-like and vacant suites of square cells that made up the greater
-part of the vast building, were struck with no sense of desolation. A
-slender jar of water, and a number of earthen utensils of different
-forms and shapes, containing medicaments and food, were gathered upon
-the floor near the bed’s head; and on a deep window-ledge was placed a
-sputtering tallow-candle, which had already half filled with grease the
-clay sconce in which it was sunk.
-
-As Chinita leaned over the foot of the bed and peered through her
-unkempt locks at its occupant, he looked up with a start, and presently
-said something in an appealing tone, which certainly touched her more
-than the words, could she have understood them, would have done. He had
-in fact exclaimed in English, with an unmistakable American intonation,
-“Heavens, what a gypsy! and what can she want here in this miserable
-jail they have left me in?”
-
-She thought he had perhaps asked for water, so she gave him some, which
-was not unacceptable,—though it irritated him that after giving him the
-cup, she took up the candle and held it close to his face while he
-drank. She was in the mood for new impressions however rather than for
-kindness, and the sight of a strange face pleased her. Burning with
-fever though he was, and tossing with all the impatience natural to his
-condition, he could not but notice the totally unaffected ease with
-which she made her inspection. He might have been a curly-headed infant
-instead of a man, so utterly unconcernedly did she look into his
-dark-blue eyes, and note the broad white brow upon which his damp yellow
-hair clustered, even touching lightly with her finger the firm white
-throat bared by the opened collar sufficiently to expose the clumsily
-arranged dressings on the wounded shoulder. Instantly, with a few deft
-movements, she made them more comfortable, for which the young man
-thanked her in a few of the very scanty words of Spanish at his
-command,—at which she laughed, not ironically, but with a sort of
-nervous irrelevance, thinking to herself the while, “He is
-beautiful—bless me, yes! as beautiful as they say the murdered American
-was! Who knows? this one may come from the same district! It must be but
-a little place, his country,—there cannot be such a very great world
-outside the mountains yonder; they touch heaven everywhere. Look now,
-how white his arms are, and his brow, where the sun has not touched it!
-and how red his cheeks! But that must be with the fever.” And so half
-audibly she made her comments upon the wounded stranger, seemingly
-entirely unconscious or regardless that there was any mind or soul
-within this body she so frankly admired,—lifting his unwounded arm
-sometimes, or turning his face into better view, as she might have done
-parts of a mechanism that pleased her.
-
-“Evidently she thinks me wooden,” he said with a gleam of humor in his
-eyes. “As I am dumb to her, she believes me also senseless and
-sightless. Thanks, for taking away that ill-smelling candle,” as with
-the offending taper in her hand she passed to the other side of the bed.
-Then she stopped and laughed, and he remembered that he had seen the old
-woman who had been left in charge of him arrange her sheepskins there
-and throw herself upon them. Until the young girl had come, old Selsa’s
-snores had vexed him; since that he had forgotten them, though now they
-became audible again. As Chinita laughed, she placed the candle-stick
-upon the window-ledge and looked around her, stretching herself and
-yawning. The hour was late for her, the diversion caused by sight of the
-blond stranger and the little service she had rendered him had relaxed
-the tension of her mind, and she felt herself aweary; the shadows fell
-dark in every corner of the room,—there was something grewsome in its
-aspect even to Chinita’s accustomed eyes. It subdued her wild and
-reckless mood, and she scanned the place narrowly for something upon
-which she might lie. Presently the young man saw her glide toward the
-sleeping nurse, and deftly, with a half mischievous, half triumphant
-expression upon her face, draw out one of the sheepskin mats upon which
-the old woman was lying, and taking it to the opposite side of the bed
-arrange it to her liking upon the brick floor, and sinking upon it
-softly and daintily as a cat might have done, compose herself to sleep.
-
-The candle on the window-sill sputtered and flickered; old Selsa snored
-in her corner, seemingly undisturbed by the abstraction of a part of her
-bed; the shadows in the apartment grew longer and longer; the eyelids of
-the young girl closed, her regular breathing parted her full lips. The
-young man had painfully raised himself upon one arm, and assured himself
-of this. He himself was dropping off into snatches of slumber which
-promised to become profound, when suddenly with a start he found himself
-wide awake, and staring at a draped figure which had noiselessly glided
-into his chamber. Save for the candle it bore he would have thought it a
-visitant from another world; but his first surprise over, he recognized
-it as that of a woman. He was conscious that his heart beat wildly; his
-fever had returned. Where had he seen this pale proud face, these
-classic features, these dark penetrating eyes? For a moment again he
-felt as if swinging between heaven and earth, between life and death.
-Ah! yes, he comprehended,—he had been brought thither in some swaying
-vehicle, and this woman had been beside him; she perhaps had saved his
-life.
-
-He murmured a word of thanks, but she did not notice it. “Señor,” she
-said in a voice soft in courtesy, “I pray you forgive me that I had for
-a little time forgotten my guest. I trust you lack for nothing? Ah!
-what—alone?” and with a frown, she made a motion as if to awaken the
-servant Selsa. He understood the gesture though not the words, and
-stopped her by one as expressive.
-
-“No, no!” he exclaimed. “I too shall sleep; and she is old. I would not
-awaken her. See, if I need anything a touch of my hand will rouse this
-girl,”—and the young man indicated by a turn of his head and arm the
-recumbent figure which his visitor had not observed.
-
-With some curiosity she moved to the opposite side of the bed, and
-bending over lightly removed the fringe of the reboso which shaded the
-face of the sleeper. Doña Isabel started, and a slight exclamation
-escaped her lips as she turned hurriedly away,—as hurriedly returning,
-and shading the candle with her hand, that its light might not fall upon
-the eyes of the sleeper, she gazed upon the young girl long and
-earnestly. Unmindful of herself, she suffered the full glare of the
-candle to illuminate her own countenance; and as he looked upon it, the
-young American thought it might serve as the very model for the mask of
-tragedy. Nothing more pitiless, more remorseless, more sombre than its
-expression could be imagined; yet as she gazed, a flush of shame rose
-from neck to brow. Her eyes clouded, her breath came with a quick gasp.
-She stood for a moment clasping the rod at the foot of the bed with her
-white nervous hand; she looked at the American fixedly, yet she seemed
-to have no consciousness that she herself was seen; and presently, with
-the slow movement of a somnambulist, so absorbing was her thought, she
-turned to the door.
-
-Ashley was watching her intently; suddenly her light was extinguished,
-and she vanished as if dissolved in air. He was calm enough to remember
-that she had spoken to him, to know that she could be no phantom of his
-imagination, and to suppose that upon stepping into the corridor she had
-extinguished her light, and sped noiselessly along the wall to some
-other apartment; yet for a long time a feeling of mystery oppressed him,
-and he could not sleep. A vague consciousness of some strange influence
-near him kept him feverish, with all his senses on the alert; yet he
-heard no movement of the woman who crouched within the doorway, leaning
-against the cold wall, and who during the long silent night passed in
-review the strange events that had brought her—the Señora Isabel Garcia
-de Garcia—to guard the slumbers of a foundling, the foster-child of a
-man so low in station as the gate-keeper of her house.
-
-
-
-
-                                  XX.
-
-
-Doña Isabel Garcia had been born within the walls of Tres Hermanos, her
-father having been part owner of the estate, and her mother the daughter
-of an impoverished gentleman of the neighboring city of Guanapila. Doña
-Clarita had been a most beautiful woman, whose attractions had been
-utilized to prop the falling fortunes of her house by her marriage with
-the elderly but kindly proprietor Don Ignacio Garcia.
-
-At the time of her marriage, Clarita Rodriguez was very young, and with
-the habits of submission universal among her countrywomen would probably
-have taken kindly to her fate, never doubting its justice, but that from
-her balcony she had one day seen a young officer of the city troop ride
-by in all the magnificence of the military uniform of the period. A
-dazzling vision of gold lace and braid, clanking spurs and sabre, and of
-eyes and teeth and smile more dazzling still, haunted her for weeks. Yet
-that might have passed, but that the vision glided from the eye to the
-heart, when on one luckless night, at the governor’s ball, Pancho Vallé
-was introduced to her, and they twice were partners in that lover’s
-delirium the slow and voluptuous _danza_. As they moved together in the
-dreamy measure, a few low words were exchanged,—commonplace perhaps but
-not harmless, and by one at least never to be forgotten. Afterward an
-occasional missive penned in most regular characters upon daintily
-tinted paper came to her hands through some complaisant servant. But Don
-Ranulfo Rodriguez was too jealous a guardian to suffer many such to
-escape him, and had been far too wise in his generation to place it in
-his daughter’s power to engage in such dangerous pastime as the
-production of replies to unwelcome suitors. Like most other girls of her
-age and position, Clarita had been strenuously prevented from learning
-to write, and it is doubtful if she ever knew the exact import of
-Vallé’s perfumed missives, although her heart doubtless guessed what her
-eyes could not decipher.
-
-Whether Vallé’s impassioned glances meant all they indicated or not,
-certain it was that he had not ventured to declare himself to the father
-as a suitor for the fair Clarita’s hand, when Don Ignacio Garcia stepped
-in and literally carried away the prize. The courtship had been short,
-the position of the groom unassailable. Clarita shed some tears, but the
-delighted father declared they were for joy at her good fortune; and
-they were indeed of so mixed a character—baffled love, wounded pride,
-and an irrepressible sense of triumph at her unexpected promotion—that
-she herself scarce cared to analyze them. She danced with Vallé once
-again on the occasion of her marriage; again a few words were spoken,
-and the passionate heart of Clarita was pierced with a secret dart,
-which never ceased to rankle.
-
-Don Ignacio Garcia conducted her immediately to the hacienda, where his
-jealous nature found no cause for suspicion; and there the little Isabel
-was born; and on beholding the wealth of maternal affection which the
-young wife lavished upon her child, the husband forgot the indifference
-that had sometimes chafed him, and for a few brief months imagined
-himself beloved. This egotistic delusion was never dispelled, for at its
-height, upon the second anniversary of their wedding day, when taking
-part in a bull-chase, Don Ignacio’s horse swerved as he urged him to the
-side of the infuriated animal; a moment’s hesitancy was fatal; the horse
-was ripped open by the powerful horn of the bull, and plunging wildly,
-fell back upon his luckless rider, whose neck was instantly broken. It
-was an accident which it seemed incredible could have happened to a man
-so skilled in horsemanship as was Don Ignacio. The spectators were for a
-moment dumb with horror and surprise, then with groans and shrieks
-rushed to the rescue, but only to lift a corpse. Doña Clarita with a
-wild shriek had fainted as the horse plunged back, and upon regaining
-her senses, threw herself in an agony of not unremorseful grief upon the
-body of her husband. It was, however, of that violent character which
-soon expends itself; and before the funeral obsequies were well over,
-she began to look around the narrow horizon of Tres Hermanos, and
-remember, if not rejoice, that she was free to go beyond it.
-
-Don Gregorio, the cousin of Clarita’s husband’s, though a mere boy, had
-been brought up on the estate, and was competent to take charge, and the
-administrador and clerks were trusty men; so there was no absolute
-reason why the young widow should remain to guard her interests and
-those of her child, and it seemed but natural she should return to her
-father’s house, at least during the first months of her sorrow. Thither
-indeed she went. She had dwelt there before, a dependent child, to be
-disposed of at her father’s will; she returned to it a rich widow,
-profuse of her favors but tenacious of her rights, one of which all too
-soon proclaimed itself to be that of choosing for herself a second
-husband. A month or two after her arrival in the city, Don Pancho Vallé
-returned from some expedition in which patriotism and personal gain were
-deftly combined, with the halo of success added to his personal
-attractions, and was quick to declare an unswerving devotion to the
-divinity at whose shrine he had worshipped but doubtfully while it
-remained ungilded by the sun of prosperity. Whether Clarita had learned
-to read or not, certain it is that Don Pancho’s impassioned missives met
-with a response more satisfactory than pen and ink alone could give, for
-immediately after the expiration of the year due to the memory of Don
-Ignacio, she became the wife of the gay soldier.
-
-Don Pancho and his wife were both young, both equally delighted in
-excitement and luxury; and within an incredibly short time the ample
-resources which had seemed to them boundless were perceptibly narrowed.
-To the taste for extravagant living, for gorgeous apparel, for numerous
-and magnificent horses, shared by them in common, were added a
-passionate love of gambling, and a scarcely less expensive one for
-military enterprises of an independent and half guerilla order, on the
-part of Don Pancho; and thus a few years saw the wife’s fortune reduced
-to an encumbered interest in the lands of Tres Hermanos.
-
-Don Pancho in spite of numerous infidelities still retained his
-influence over the heart and mind of Clarita; and one night in play
-against Don Gregorio Garcia—who, like other caballeros, occasionally
-engaged in a game or two for pastime—he staked the last acre of her
-estate, knowing she would refuse him nothing, and lost. For a moment he
-looked blank,—a most unwonted manifestation of dismay in so practised a
-gambler,—then laughed and shook hands with his fortunate opponent. There
-was a laughing group around him, condoling with him banteringly, for
-Pancho Vallé had never seemed to make any misfortune a serious matter,
-when a pistol-shot was heard. For a moment no one realized what had
-happened; the young officer stood in his gay uniform, smiling still, his
-gold-mounted pistol in his hand, then fell heavily forward. The ball had
-passed through his heart. His widow had the satisfaction of seeing by
-the smile that remained on his handsome countenance that he had died as
-joyously as he had lived; not a trace of care showed that aught deeper
-than mere pique and caprice had moved him. “Angel of my life!” she
-cried, when her first burst of grief was over, “thou wert beginning to
-make my heart ache, for I had nothing more to give thee!”
-
-This was her only word of reproach, if reproach it might be called. For
-love that woman would have yielded even her life, and never have known
-the hollowness of her idol. Grief did the work that ingratitude and
-neglect—nay absolute cruelty—would perhaps never have effected, and in a
-few short months destroyed her life. As she was dying she called her
-daughter to her. “Isabel,” she said, “thou hast wealth, thy brother has
-nothing; swear to me by the Virgin and thy patron saint, that thou wilt
-be as a mother to him, that thou wilt refuse him nothing that thy hand
-can give! Money, money, money, is what makes men happy!” That had been
-the creed her life’s experience had taught her. For money her father had
-sold her; for that the husband she adored had given her fair words and
-caresses. “As thou wouldst have thy mother’s blessing, promise me that
-Leon shall never appeal to thee in vain!”
-
-Isabel Garcia was but a child, and the boy Leon but three years younger;
-yet as she looked upon her dying mother she solemnly promised to fill
-her place, to take upon herself the rôle of sacrifice, which her
-religion taught her was that of motherhood. Poor Clarita! little had she
-understood a mother’s highest duties,—to warn, to guide, to plead with
-God for the beloved. The mere yielding of material things,—to clothe
-herself in sackcloth, that the child might be robed in purple, to walk
-barefoot that he might ride in state, to hunger that he might be
-delicately fed,—she had pictured these things to herself as the purest
-sacrifices, and surely the only ones to appeal to the hearts of such men
-as she had known; and the young Isabel entered upon her task with her
-mother’s precepts deeply engraved upon her heart, her mind all
-uninstructed, awaiting the iron finger of experience to write upon it
-its lessons.
-
-After their mother’s death, the young brother and sister, mere children
-both, went to live in the house of some elderly relatives, who with
-generous though not always judicious kindness strove to forget the
-faults of the father by ignoring them when they became apparent in the
-boy. The uncle of Isabel, the Friar Francisco, became their tutor, but
-taught them little beyond the breviary. What could a woman need with
-more? As for Leon, he took more kindly to the lasso and saddle, to the
-pistol and sword, than to the book or pen,—and even while still a child
-in years, more passionately still to the gaming table. Though his elders
-with a shake of the head remembered his father’s fate, and sometimes
-pushed the boy half laughingly away from the monté table, or of a Sunday
-afternoon sent him out to the bull-ring for his diversion, where he was
-a mere spectator, rather than to the cock-pit, where he became a
-participant, yet the question did not present itself as one at all of
-questionable morals: every one gambled on a feast day, or at a social
-game among one’s friends. Perhaps of all those by whom he was
-surrounded, no one felt any serious anxiety for Leon except the young
-girl who with premature solicitude warned him of the evil, even as she
-supplied the means to indulge his wayward tastes.
-
-Leon was a brilliant rather than a handsome boy, promising to be well
-grown; and his lithe, vigorous figure showed to good advantage in his
-gay riding-suits, whether of sombre black cloth with silver buttons set
-closely down the outer seam of the pantaloons and adorning the short
-round jacket, or in loose _chapareras_ of buckskin bound by a scarlet
-sash and bedizened with leather fringes,—a costume that perhaps served
-to betray the Indian strain in his blood, which ordinarily was detected
-only by a slight prominence of the cheek bones and a somewhat furtive
-expression in the soft dark eyes. At unguarded moments, however, perhaps
-when he fancied himself unobserved and was practising with his pistol or
-sabre, those eyes could flash with concentrated fire, so that more than
-once Isabel had been constrained to call out: “Leon, Leon, you frighten
-me! You look like the great cat when he pounces upon a harmless little
-bird and crushes it for the very joy of killing!”
-
-Then Leon would laugh, and the soft, dreamy haze would rise again over
-the eyes as he would turn upon her. “Ha!” he would say, “you will never
-be a man, Isabel; you will never understand why I love the sights and
-sounds that throw you poor women into fainting fits and tears. Ha!
-Isabel, if I were you I’d not stay in this dull house with a couple of
-old women to guard me, when you might go to the hacienda and be free as
-air.”
-
-“Nonsense,” Isabel would retort; “what could I do there other than here?
-I could not turn herdsman or vaquero, nor even ride out to the fields to
-see how the crops were flourishing, nor roam like an Indian through the
-mountains.”
-
-“But _I_ would!” Leon would cry enthusiastically; and with his longing
-ardor for the free life of a country gentleman, with its barbaric luxury
-and wild sports, he thus first put into the young girl’s mind the
-thought of favoring the suit which her cousin, Don Gregorio Garcia,
-began to urge.
-
-Don Gregorio had married young, soon after the death of Ignacio Garcia
-whom he succeeded in the management of the estate of which they had been
-joint owners; but his wife had died leaving him without an heir, and the
-first grief assuaged, it was but natural after the passage of years that
-the widower should weary of his loneliness. There were many reasons why
-his thoughts should turn to his distant cousin Isabel, for though she
-was many years younger than himself, such disparity of age was not
-unusual; the marriage would unite still more closely the family
-fortunes, and effectually prevent the intrusion of any undesirable
-stranger; and above all, Isabel was gracious and queenly and beautiful
-enough to charm the heart even of an anchorite, and Don Gregorio was far
-from being one. Indeed, in his very early years he had given indications
-of a partiality for a far more adventurous career than he had finally,
-by force of circumstances, been led to adopt. Thus he sympathized
-somewhat with Leon’s restless activity, and quite honestly secured the
-boy’s alliance,—no slight advantage in his siege of the heart of Isabel.
-
-This, perhaps more than the good-will of the rest of the family, enabled
-Don Gregorio to approach so nearly to Isabel’s inmost nature that he
-learned far more of the strength of purpose and capability for
-passionate devotion possessed by the young untrained girl than any other
-being had done, and for the first time in his life knew a love far
-deeper and purer than any passion which mere physical charms could
-awaken. Such a love appealed to Isabel. She was perhaps constitutionally
-cold to sexual charms, but eminently susceptible to the sympathetic
-attrition of an appreciative mind, while her heart could translate far
-more readily the rational outpourings of friendship than the wild
-rhapsodies of passion. Thus, although Isabel would have shrunk from a
-man who in his ardor would have demanded of her affection some sacrifice
-of the unqualified devotion that she had vowed to her brother, she
-seemed to find in Don Gregorio one who could understand and applaud the
-exaggerated devotion to the ideal standard of filial and sisterly duty
-which she had unconsciously erected upon the few utterly irrational
-words of a weak and dying woman.
-
-The first four years of Isabel’s married life passed uneventfully. Leon
-was constantly near her, and was the life of the great house, which
-despite the crowd of retainers that frequented it would without him have
-proved but a dull dwelling for so young a matron, with no illusions in
-regard to the staid and kindly husband, who was rather a friend to be
-consulted and revered than a lover to be adored,—for although Don
-Gregorio worshipped his beautiful young wife, he was at once too mindful
-of his own dignity, and too wary of startling Isabel’s passionless
-nature, to manifest or exact romantic and exhaustive proofs of
-affection. He used sometimes to mutter to himself: “‘The stronger the
-flame the sooner the wood is burnt;’ better that the substance of love
-should endure than be dissipated in smoke!”
-
-Don Gregorio was somewhat of a philosopher; and as such, as soon as the
-glamour thrown over him by Leon’s brilliant but inconsequent sallies of
-wit, and his daring and dashing manner, was dimmed, and above all as
-soon as his unreasoning sympathy with Isabel’s predispositions settled
-into a calm and sincere desire for her certain happiness and welfare, he
-began to look with some suspicion upon traits which had at first
-attracted him as the natural outcome of an ardent and generous nature.
-
-Friar Francisco had accompanied the young brother and sister to the
-hacienda, partly to minister in the church, and partly as tutor to Leon;
-but in the latter capacity he found little exercise for his talents.
-Upon one pretext or another the boy at first evaded and later absolutely
-refused study; but he joined so heartily in the labors as well as
-pleasures of hacienda life,—he was so ready in resource, so untiring in
-action, so companionable alike to all classes, that Nature seemed to
-have fitted him absolutely for the position that he was apparently
-destined to fill in life. Yet though he was the prince of rancheros, the
-life of the city sometimes seemed to possess an irresistible attraction
-for him; and after months perhaps spent among the employees of the
-hacienda, in riding with the vaqueros or in penetrating the recesses of
-the mountain, even sleeping in the huts of charcoal burners, or in caves
-with rovers of still more doubtful reputation, he would suddenly weary
-of it all, and followed by a servant or two ride gayly down to the city
-to see how the world went there.
-
-At first Don Gregorio had no idea how much those visits cost Isabel; but
-as time went on, and rumors reached them of the boy’s extravagant mode
-of life, Isabel became anxious and Don Gregorio indignant. Some
-investigation showed that a troop of young roysterers who called him
-captain were maintained in the mountains, and that a thousand wild
-freaks which had mystified the neighboring villages and haciendas might
-be traced to these mad spirits, among whom Don Gregorio shrewdly
-conjectured might be found many of the most daring young fellows, both
-of the higher and lower orders, who had one by one mysteriously
-disappeared during the few months preceding Leon’s eighteenth birthday.
-
-Leon only laughed when taxed with his guerilla following, and although
-as he managed it it was a somewhat costly amusement, it was not an
-unusual or an altogether useless one in those days of anarchy; for no
-one could say how soon the fortunes of war might turn an enemy upon the
-land and stores of Tres Hermanos, and even Don Gregorio was not
-displeased to find the most refractory of his retainers placed in a
-position to defend rather than imperil the interests of the estate. As
-to the escapades of city life he found them less pardonable, for they
-consisted chiefly in mad devotion to the gaming-table, which Leon was
-never content to leave until his varying fortunes turned to disaster and
-his wild excitement was quelled by the tardy reflection that his
-sister’s generosity would be taxed in thousands to pay the folly of a
-night.
-
-Before the age of twenty Leon Vallé had run the gamut of the vices and
-extravagances peculiar to Mexican youths, and large as the resources of
-Doña Isabel were, he had begun to encroach seriously upon them; for true
-to her mother’s request, she had never refused to supply his demands for
-money, though of late she had begun to make remonstrances, which were
-received half incredulously, half sullenly, as though he realized
-neither their justice nor their necessity. Isabel was now a mother, her
-daughter Herlinda having been born a year after her marriage, and their
-son Norberto, the pride and hope of Don Gregorio, three years later; and
-naturally the young mother longed to consider the interests of her
-children, which so far as her own property was concerned seemed utterly
-obliterated and overwhelmed by the mad extravagances of her brother.
-
-Strangely enough, Don Gregorio attempted no interference with his wife’s
-disposal of her income, though it seemed not improbable that at no
-distant day even the lands would be in jeopardy. Perhaps he foresaw that
-as her means to gratify his insatiable demands declined, so gradually
-Leon’s strange fascination over his sister would cease; for inevitably
-his restless spirit would draw him afar to find fresh fields for
-adventure, since in those days, when the great struggle between Church
-and State was beginning and foreign complications were forming, such a
-leader as he might prove to be would find no lack of occasion for daring
-deeds and reckless followers, nor scarcity of plunder with which to
-repay the latter.
-
-Whatever were his thoughts, Don Gregorio guarded them well, saying
-sometimes either to Leon himself, or to some friend who expressed a half
-horrified conjecture as to where such absolute madness must end, “See
-you not, ’t is foolish to squeeze the orange until one tastes the
-bitterness of the rind?” He expected some sudden and violent reaction in
-Isabel’s mind and conduct. But though she began to show she realized and
-suffered, she bore the strain put upon her with royal fortitude. Youth
-can hope through such adverse circumstances, and it always seemed to her
-that one who “meant so well” as Leon, must eventually turn from
-temptation and begin a new and nobler career.
-
-At last what appeared to Isabel the turning point in her brother’s
-destiny was reached. He became violently enamored of the beautiful
-daughter of a Spaniard, one Señor Fernandez, who of a family too
-distinguished to be flattered by an alliance with a mere attaché of a
-wealthy and powerful house, was so poor as to be willing to consider it
-should a suitable provision be made to insure his daughter’s future
-prosperity. The beautiful Dolores was herself favorably inclined toward
-the gay cavalier, who most ardently pressed his suit,—the more ardently
-perhaps that he was piqued and indignant that the wary father utterly
-refused to consider the matter until Don Gregorio or Doña Isabel herself
-should formally ask the hand of his daughter, presenting at the same
-time unmistakable assurances of Leon’s ability to fulfil the promises he
-recklessly poured forth.
-
-That Leon had turned from his old evil courses seemed as months passed
-on an absolute certainty. Not even the administrador himself could be
-more utterly bound to the wheel of routine than he. To see his changed
-life, his absolute repugnance even to the sports suitable to his age,
-was almost piteous; his whole heart and mind seemed set upon atonement
-for the folly of the past, and in preparation for a life of toil and
-anxiety in the future. For in examining into her affairs, Doña Isabel
-found that her income was largely overdrawn; Leon’s extravagances,
-together with heavy losses incurred in the working of the
-reduction-works, had so far crippled her resources that it was only by
-stringent effort, and an appeal to Don Gregorio for aid, that she was
-enabled so to rehabilitate the fortunes of Leon that he could hope to
-win the prize which was to make or mar his future.
-
-Doña Isabel was as happy as the impatient lover himself when she could
-place in his hands the deeds of a small but productive estate, famous
-for the growth of the maguey, from which the sale of pulque and mescal
-promised a never failing revenue. The money had been raised largely
-through concessions made by Don Gregorio, and was to be repaid from the
-income of Isabel’s encumbered estate, so that for some years at least it
-would be out of her power to render Leon any further assistance. Don
-Gregorio shook his head gravely over the whole matter; yet the fact that
-the young man was virtually thrown upon the resources provided for him,
-which certainly without the concentration of all his energies and tact
-would be altogether insufficient for his maintenance, and also that he
-had great faith in the energy of character which for the first time
-appeared diverted into a legitimate channel, inclined him to believe
-that at last, urged by necessity as well as love, Leon would redeem his
-past and settle down into the reputable citizen and relative who was to
-justify and repay the sister’s tireless and extraordinary devotion. “Or
-at least,” he said to himself, “Isabel will be satisfied that no more
-can or should be done; and it is worth a fortune to convince her of
-that.”
-
-Strangely enough, though Isabel had addressed herself with a frenzy of
-determination to the task of securing a competency for Leon that might
-enable him to marry and enter upon a life which was to relieve her of
-the constant drain upon her resources, both material and mental, which
-for years had been sapping her prosperity and peace, yet as she beheld
-him ride away toward the town in which his inamorata dwelt to make the
-final arrangements for his marriage, her heart sank within her; and
-instead of relief and thankfulness, she felt a frightful pang of
-apprehension, she knew not why, as if a prophetic voice warned her that
-her own hand had opened the door to a chamber of horrors, through which
-the smiling youth would pass and drag her as he went.
-
-Isabel threw herself upon her husband’s breast in an agony which he
-could not comprehend, but which he gently soothed, happy to feel that to
-him she turned in the first moment of her abandonment,—for indeed she
-felt that she who had given her substance, her sympathy, her faith, all
-of which a sister’s life is capable, was indeed abandoned, and all for a
-fresh young face, a word, a smile. Leon was a changed man, but all her
-devotion had not worked the miracle; another whose love could be as yet
-but a fancy had accomplished what years of sacrifice from her had
-striven for in vain!
-
-There was something of jealousy, but far more of the pain of baffled
-aspiration in the thought, and through it all that dreadful doubt, that
-sickening dread as to whether she had done well thus to strip herself of
-the power to minister to him. It seemed, even against her reason,
-impossible that Leon could be beyond the pale of her bounty; she had
-been so accustomed to plan, to think, to plot for him, that she could
-not grasp the thought that henceforth he was to live without her, that
-she was to know him happy, joyous, at ease, and she no longer be the
-immediate and ministering Providence which made him so.
-
-After the infant Carmen was born, the mother’s thoughts turned into
-other channels. As she looked at this child, the thought for the first
-time came to her, that some day it might be possible that her children
-would inherit some material good from her. Their father was a rich man,
-yet there was a pleasure in the thought that her children, her daughters
-most especially, would be pleased by a mother’s rich gifts, would
-perhaps from her receive the dower that would make them welcome in the
-homes of the men they might love. Isabel began to indulge in the
-maternal hopes and visions of young motherhood, and to feel the security
-that a still hopeful mind may acquire, after years of secret and
-harassing cares have passed.
-
-The usual visits of ceremony had passed between the contracting
-families; the Señor Fernandez had declared himself satisfied with the
-generous provisions which had been made for the young couple; the house
-was set in order, and an early day named for the wedding. Some days of
-purest happiness followed the tearful anxiety with which Dolores had
-awaited the negotiations that were to shape her destiny. An earnest of
-the future came to her in the present of jewels, with which Leon
-presaged the marriage gifts which he went to the city of Mexico to
-choose,—for whether rich or poor, no Mexican bridegroom would fail of a
-necklet of pearls, or a brooch and earrings of brilliants for his bride;
-and with his luxurious tastes, it was not to be supposed that Leon Vallé
-could fail to add to these laces and silks and velvets, fit rather for a
-princess than for the future wife of a country youth whose only capital
-was in house and land. Isabel had just heard of these things, and had
-begun to excuse in her heart these extravagances, which seemed so
-natural to a youth in love, when a remembrance flashed upon her mind
-which justified the apprehensions she had felt, and which it seemed
-incredible should have escaped not only her own but also Don Gregorio’s
-vigilance,—Leon had gone to Mexico in the days of the feast of San
-Augustin.
-
-Isabel was too jealous of her brother’s good name, too eager to shield
-him from a breath of distrust, to mention the fears that assailed her.
-She called herself irrational, faithless, unjust, yet she could not rid
-herself of the dread which seemed to brood above her like a cloud. And
-so passed the month of June, and July brought Leon Vallé back again, and
-one glance at his haggard face and bloodshot eyes revealed to Isabel
-that her fears were realized. He told the tale in a few words and with a
-hollow laugh.
-
-“You will have to go to Garcia for me now, Isabel,” he said. “Your last
-venture has brought me the old luck, cursed bad luck. A plague upon your
-money! I thought to double or treble it, and the last cent is gone!”
-
-“And the hacienda of San Lazaro?” queried Isabel, faintly.
-
-“Would you believe it? Gone too! Aranda has had the devil’s own luck. ’T
-was the last of the feast, Isabel. Thousands were changing hands at
-every table. It seemed a cowardice not to try a stake for a fortune that
-might be had for the asking. I was a fool, and hesitated till it was too
-late. Had I only ventured at once! What think you happened to Leoncio
-Alvarez? He played his hacienda against Esparto’s, and lost. He had
-dared me not five minutes before to the venture. The devil, what a
-chance I missed! His hacienda was three times the size of San Lazaro! He
-bore its loss like a man. ‘What can one do, friend?’ he cried to
-Esparto; ‘it has been thy luck to-day, ’t will be mine when we next
-meet.’ Just then his brother Antonio came up. ‘What luck, Leoncio?’ he
-said. ‘Cursed!’ he answered. ‘I have played my hacienda against
-Esparto’s here, and lost it.’ Antonio shrugged his shoulders and turned
-away. ‘Play mine and get it back,’ he suggested, and walked off to the
-next table. The cards were dealt, and in three minutes Leoncio’s
-hacienda was his own again, thrown like a ball from one hand to the
-other. It was glorious play!”
-
-“But this has nothing to do with thee,” ventured Isabel.
-
-“No,” muttered Leon, moodily; “when _I_ ventured my hacienda and lost,
-there was no Antonio to bid me play his and get it back.”
-
-He looked at Isabel with an air of reproach. She had neither look nor
-word of reproach for him, yet she felt that a mortal blow had been dealt
-her. And Leon? He had laughed, though she knew that the laugh was that
-of the mocking fiend Despair which possessed him; and he had bade her go
-on his behalf to Garcia. She left him in desperation. She knew how
-utterly fruitless such an appeal would be.
-
-It was fruitless. Don Gregorio asked with some scorn in his voice
-whether Leon thought him as weak as she had been, or as much of a madman
-as himself when he had dared the chances of the tables at San Augustin.
-For him, Garcia, to furnish money to the oft-tried scapegrace would be a
-folly that would merit the inevitable loss it would bring. All of which,
-though true enough, Don Gregorio repeated with unnecessary vehemence to
-Leon himself, with the tone of irrepressible satisfaction with which he
-at last saw humiliated the man who had for so long held such a
-resistless fascination over his wife.
-
-With wonderful self-restraint Leon replied not a word to the cutting
-irony with which his brother-in-law referred to the mad ambition and
-folly which had led to his losses, and with which Gregorio excused
-himself from further assisting in the ruin of the Garcia
-family,—reminding the gamester that though he had thrown away the key to
-fortune which he had taken from his sister’s hand, he had still youth, a
-sword, and a subtle mind, any one of which should be able to provide him
-a living.
-
-“That is true,” replied Leon, with a dangerous light in his half-closed
-eyes. “Thanks for the reminder, my brother. What is the old saying? ‘A
-hungry man discovers more than a thousand wise men.’”
-
-They both laughed. It was not likely that Leon’s poverty would ever
-reach the point of actual want. There at the hacienda was his home when
-he cared for it; but as for money,—why as Don Gregorio had said, the key
-to fortune was thrown away, and it seemed unlikely the unfortunate loser
-would ever recover it.
-
-Almost on the same day on which Leon Vallé had told his sister of his
-fatal hardihood at the feast of San Augustin, there arrived, with
-assurances of the profound respect of Señor Fernandez and his daughter,
-the jewels and other rich gifts which Dolores had accepted as the
-betrothed of Leon. With deep indignation that his explanations and
-protestations had been rejected, but with a pride which prevented the
-frantic remonstrances which rushed to his lips from passing beyond them,
-Leon received these proofs of his dismissal, which in a few days was
-rendered final by the news that the beautiful Dolores had married a
-wealthier and perhaps even more ardent suitor, whom the insolence and
-mockery of Fate had provided in the person of the lucky winner of San
-Lazaro. Even Don Gregorio felt his heart burn with the natural chagrin
-of family pride, and Isabel would have turned with some sympathy toward
-the brother of whom, unconsciously to herself, she could no longer make
-a hero. Strangely enough, his aspect as a suppliant for her husband’s
-bounty had disrobed him of the glamour through which she had always
-beheld him. When she herself was powerless to minister to him, he was no
-longer a prince claiming tribute, but the undignified dependent whom she
-blushed to see lounging in sullen idleness in her husband’s house. Yet
-as has been said, when word of the marriage of Dolores Fernandez reached
-them, they would have given him sympathy; but he had received the news
-first, and collecting a half-dozen followers had mounted and ridden
-madly away.
-
-The horses they rode were Don Gregorio’s yet Leon had gone without a
-word of excuse or farewell. Isabel had no opportunity to tell him that
-she had no more money to give him; and in her distress at supposing him
-penniless it was an immense relief to her to find that he had retained
-in his possession the jewels that the father of Dolores had returned to
-him. He would at least not be without resource. But soon a strange tale
-reached her. The jewels torn from their settings, the stones in
-fragments, the whole crushed into an utterly worthless mass, so far as
-human strength and ingenuity could accomplish it, had been found upon
-the pillow of the bride. The husband was jealously frantic that her
-sanctuary had been invaded; the bride was hysterically alarmed, yet
-flattered at this proof of her lover’s passion; and the entire community
-were for days on the _qui vive_ for further developments in this drama
-of love.
-
-But none came, and soon Leon Vallé’s name was heard of as one of the
-guerillas of the Texan war, where he fought for—it was not to be said
-under—Santa Anna; and ere many months his name rang from one end of the
-republic to the other,—the synonym of gallant daring, which in a less
-exciting time might have been called ferocious bloodthirstiness.
-
-Isabel quailed as she heard the wild tales told of him; but Don Gregorio
-shrugged his shoulders and said, “Thank Heaven he turned soldier rather
-than brigand!” The chief difference between the two in those days was in
-name; but that meant much in sentiment.
-
-
-
-
-                                  XXI.
-
-
-Leon Vallé had not parted from his sister in declared hostility, yet
-months passed before she heard directly from him. But this was not to be
-wondered at, as letters were necessarily sent by private carriers, and
-it was not to be expected that in the adventurous excitement of his life
-he should pause to send a mere salutation over leagues of desolate
-country.
-
-Meanwhile the prevailing anarchy of the time crept closer and closer to
-the hacienda limits. Bandits gathered in the mountains and ravaged the
-outlying villages, driving off flocks of sheep or herds of cattle,
-lassoing the finest horses, and mocking the futile efforts of the
-country people to guard their property. The name of one Juan Planillos
-became a terror in every household; yet one by one the younger men stole
-away to strengthen the number of his followers and share the wild
-excitement of the bandit life, rather than to wait patiently at home to
-be drafted into the ranks of some political chieftain whose career
-raised little enthusiasm, and whose political creed was as obscure as
-his origin. “The memory is confused,” says an historian, “by the plans
-and _pronunciamientos_ of that time. Men changed ideas at each step, and
-defended to-day what they had attacked yesterday. Parties triumphed and
-fell at every turn.” The form of government was as changeable as a
-kaleidoscope, and only the brigand and guerilla seemed immutable.
-Whatever the politics of the day, their motto was plunder and rapine;
-and their deeds, so brilliant, so unforeseeable, offered an irresistible
-attraction to the restless spirits of that revolutionary epoch.
-
-Though Doña Isabel Garcia, like all others, was imbued with the military
-ardor of the time, the brilliant reputation that her brother was winning
-in distant fields, though in harmony with her own political opinions,
-horrified rather than dazzled her. She shuddered as she heard his name
-mentioned in the same breath with that of the remorseless Valdez, or the
-crafty and bloody Planillos; yet she was glad to believe his incentive
-was patriotism rather than plunder, and when at last a messenger from
-him reached her with the same old cry for “Money! money! money!” she
-responded with a heaping handful of gold,—all she had been able to
-accumulate in the few months of his absence. Don Gregorio however, vexed
-by recent losses and harassed by constant raids from the mountain
-brigands, sent a refusal that was worded almost like a curse; and
-ashamed of her brother, annoyed by and yet sympathizing with her
-husband, Doña Isabel felt her heart sink like lead in her bosom, and for
-the first time her superb health showed signs of yielding to the severe
-mental strain to which she had been so long subjected.
-
-June had come again; the rainy season would soon begin, and Don
-Gregorio, suddenly thinking that the change would benefit his wife,
-suggested that they should pass some months in the city. The roads were
-threatened by highwaymen, yet Isabel was glad to go, and even to incur
-the novelty of danger. Her travelling carriage was luxurious, and with
-her little girls immediately under her own eye, with an occasional
-glimpse of the four-year-old Norberto riding proudly at his father’s
-side in the midst of the numerous escort of picked men, she felt an
-exhilaration both of body and mind to which she had long been a
-stranger.
-
-The travelling was necessarily slow, for the roads were excessively
-rough, and the party had at sunset of the first day scarcely left the
-limits of the hacienda and entered the defile which led to the deeper
-cañons of the mountains, wherein upon the morrow they anticipated the
-necessity of exercising a double vigilance. Not a creature had been seen
-for hours; the mountains with their straggling clumps of cacti and
-blackened, stunted palms seemed absolutely bereft of animal life, except
-when occasionally a lizard glided swiftly over a rock, or a snake
-rustled through the dry and crackling herbage. Caution seemed absurd in
-such a place where there was scarce a cleft for concealment, yet the
-party drew nearer together, and the men looked to their arms as the
-cliffs became closer on either side and so precipitous that it seemed as
-though a goat could scarcely have scaled them.
-
-They had passed nearly the entire length of this cañon, and the nervous
-tension that had held the whole party silent and upon the alert was
-gradually yielding to the glimpse of more open country which lay beyond,
-and on which they had planned to camp for the night, when suddenly the
-whole country seemed alive with men. They blocked the way, backward and
-forward; they hung from the cliffs; they bounded from rock to rock, on
-foot and on horse, the horses as agile as the men. Amid the tumult one
-man seemed ubiquitous. All eyes followed him, yet not one caught sight
-of his face; the striped jorongo thrown over shoulders and face formed
-an impenetrable disguise, such as the noted guerilla chief of the
-mountains was wont to wear. Suddenly there was a cry of “Planillos!
-Planillos!” amid the confusion of angry voices, of curses, and the
-clanking of sabres and echo of pistol-shots. Don Gregorio found himself
-driven against the rocks, a sword-point at his throat, a pistol pressed
-to his temple, his own smoking weapon in his hand.
-
-Immediately the shouts ceased, and before the smoke which had filled the
-gorge had cleared, the travellers found themselves alone, with two or
-three dead men obstructing the road. Don Gregorio had barely time to
-notice them, or the blank faces of his men staring bewildered at one
-another, when a cry from Doña Isabel recalled him to his senses, and he
-saw her rushing wildly from group to group. In an instant he was at her
-side. “Norberto! where is Norberto?” both demanded wildly, and some of
-the men who had caught the name began to force their horses up the
-almost inaccessible cliffs, and to gallop up or down the cañon in a
-confused pursuit of the vanished enemy.
-
-Don Gregorio alone retained his presence of mind; though night was
-closing in and the horses were wearied by a day’s travel, not a moment
-was lost in dispatching couriers to the city for armed police and to the
-hacienda for fresh men and horses, and the return to Tres Hermanos was
-immediately begun. Sometime during the morning hours they were met by a
-party from the hacienda, and putting himself at the head of his
-retainers Don Gregorio led them in search of his son, while Doña Isabel
-in a state bordering upon distraction proceeded to her desolated home.
-
-Her first act was to send a courier to her brother. No one knew the
-mountains as he did, and in her terrible plight she was certain he would
-not fail her. But her haste was needless, for information reached him
-from some other source, and within a few days he was at the head of a
-party of valiant Garcias, who had hastened from far and near to the
-rescue of their young kinsman.
-
-In all the country round the abduction of Norberto Garcia was called
-“the abduction by enchanters,”—so sudden had been the attack, so
-complete the disappearance of the victim. Beyond the immediate scene no
-trace remained of the act,—it seemed that the very earth must have
-opened to swallow the perpetrators; and yet day by day proofs of their
-existence were found in letters left upon the very saddle crossed by the
-father, or upon the pillow wet with the tears of the mother, demanding
-ransom which each day became more exorbitant, accompanied by threats
-more and more ingenious and horrible.
-
-Such seizures, though rare, were by no means unprecedented, and such
-threats had been proved to be only too likely to be fulfilled. As days
-went by the agony of the parents became unbearable, and Don Gregorio’s
-early resolution to spend a fortune in the pursuit and punishment of the
-robbers rather than comply with their demands, and thus lend
-encouragement to similar outrages, began to yield before the imminent
-danger to the life of his son; and to Doña Isabel it seemed a cruel
-mockery that her brother and the young Garcias should urge him to
-further exertion and postponement of the inevitable moment when he must
-accede to the imperious demands of the outlaws.
-
-The family were one evening discussing again the momentous and
-constantly agitated question, when Doña Feliz appeared among them with
-starting eyes and pallid cheeks, bidding Don Gregorio go to his wife,
-from whose nerveless hand she had wrested a paper, which Leon seized and
-opened as the excited woman held it toward him. Don Gregorio turned back
-at his brother-in-law’s exclamation, and beheld upon his outstretched
-hand a lock of soft brown hair, evidently that of a child. It had been
-severed from the head by a bloody knife. It was a mute threat, yet they
-understood it but too well. Every man there sprang to his feet with a
-groan or an oath. Such a threat they remembered had been sent to the
-parents the very day before the infant Ranulfo Ortega had been found
-dead not a hundred yards from his father’s door. Did this mean also that
-the last demand for ransom had been made, and the patience of Norberto’s
-abductors was exhausted?
-
-Don Gregorio clasped his hands over his eyes, and reeled against the
-wall. Leon sprang to his feet, pale to his lips, his eyes blazing.
-Julian Garcia picked up the hair which had fallen from Leon’s hand; the
-others stood grouped in horrified expectancy. Doña Feliz stood for a
-moment looking at them with lofty courage and determination upon her
-face.
-
-“What,” she cried, “is this a time for hesitation? The money must be
-paid, the child’s life saved. Vengeance can wait!” She spoke with a fire
-that thrilled them, and though they spoke but of the ransom, it was the
-word “vengeance” that rang in their ears, and steeled Don Gregorio to
-the terrible task that awaited him.
-
-That night the quaint hiding-places of the vast hacienda were ransacked,
-and many a hoard of coin was extracted from the deep corners of the
-walls, and the depths of half-ruinous wells. Doña Isabel saw treasures
-of whose existence she had never heard before, but had perhaps vaguely
-suspected; for through the long years of anarchy the Garcias had become
-expert in secreting such surplus wealth as they desired to keep within
-reach. Large as was the sum brought to light, it barely sufficed to meet
-the demands of the robbers; yet it was a question how such a weight of
-coin was to be conveyed by one person to the spot indicated for the
-payment of the ransom and delivery of the child,—for it had been
-urgently insisted upon that but one man should go into the very
-stronghold of the bandits.
-
-At daybreak, having refused the offer of Leon Vallé to go in his stead,
-Don Gregorio mounted his horse and set out on his mission. He knew well
-the place appointed, for he had been in his youth an adventurous
-mountaineer, and more than once had penetrated the deep gorge into
-which, late in the afternoon, he descended, bearing with him the gold
-and silver. As he entered the “Zahuan del Infierno” he shuddered. Not
-ten days before he had passed through it, followed by a dozen trusty
-followers, in search of his child, and had discovered no trace of him;
-now he was alone, weighted with treasure, sufficient sensibly to retard
-his movements and render him a rich prize for the outlaws he had gone to
-meet. Once he fancied he heard a step behind him; doubtless he was
-shadowed by those who would take his life without a moment’s hesitation.
-Yet he pressed on, obliged to leave his horse and proceed on foot, for
-at times the cliffs were so close together that a man could barely force
-his way between them.
-
-Just as the last rays of daylight pierced the gloomy abyss, at a sudden
-turn in the narrowest part of the gorge Don Gregorio saw standing two
-armed men, placed in such a position that the head of one overtopped
-that of the other, while the features of both were shadowed though made
-the more forbidding by heavy black beards, which it occurred to him
-later were probably false and worn for the purpose of disguise. At the
-feet of the foremost was placed a child; and though he restrained the
-cry that rose to his lips, the tortured father recognized in him his
-son,—but so emaciated, so deathly pale, with such wild, startled eyes,
-gazing like a hunted creature before him, yet seeing nothing, that he
-could scarcely credit it was the same beautiful, sensitive,
-highly-strung Norberto who had been wrested from him but a short month
-before.
-
-At the sight the father felt an almost irresistible impulse to
-precipitate himself upon those fiends who thus dared to mock him; but
-even had his hands been free to grasp the pistol in his belt, to have
-done so would have been to bring upon himself certain death. As it was
-he could but look with blind rage from the bags of coin he carried to
-the brigands who stood like statues, the right hand of the foremost laid
-upon the throat of the trembling boy. Even in that desperate moment Don
-Gregorio noticed that the hand was whiter and more slender than the
-hands of common men are wont to be; the nails were well formed and well
-kept, though there was a bruise or mark on the second one, as though it
-had met some recent injury. He was not conscious at the time that he
-noticed this, but it came to him afterward. The foremost man did not
-speak; it was the other who in a soft voice, as evenly modulated as
-though to words of purest courtesy, bade the Señor Garcia welcome, and
-thanked him for his prompt appearance.
-
-“Let us dispense with compliments,” said Don Gregorio, huskily. “Here is
-the money you have demanded for my child. I know something of the honor
-of bandits, and as you can gain nothing by falsifying your word, I have
-chosen to trust in it. Here am I, alone with the gold,” and he poured it
-out on the rock at the child’s feet,—“count it if you will;” and he put
-out his hand and laid it upon the child’s shoulder. As he did so his
-hand touched the brigand’s, and both started, glaring like two tigers
-before they spring; but at that moment Norberto bounded over the
-scattered heap of coin and into his father’s arms.
-
-As he felt that slight form within his grasp the father reeled, and his
-sight failed him; a voice presently recalled him to his senses, and
-glancing up he saw the two men still standing motionless, with their
-pistols levelled upon him and the child.
-
-“The Señor will find it best to withdraw backward,” said the bandit;
-“there is not space here for me to have the honor of passing and leading
-the way, and it is even too narrow for your grace to turn. You will find
-your horse at the entrance to the gorge; it has been well cared for.
-Adios, Señor, and may every felicity attend this fortunate termination
-of our negotiations.”
-
-“I doubt not there will,” cried Don Gregorio, though in a voice of
-perfect politeness, “for I swear to you I will unearth the villains who
-have tortured and robbed me, and give myself a moment of exquisite joy
-with every drop of life-blood I slowly wring from them. You have my
-gold, and I have my child, and now—Vengeance!”
-
-Gregorio Garcia knew so well the peculiar ideas of honor among bandits
-as well as the spirit of his countrymen that perhaps he was assured that
-no immediate risk would follow this proclamation. The word “vengeance”
-rang from cliff to cliff, yet the bandits only smiled mockingly and
-bowed, waving a hand in token of farewell, as with what haste he might
-he withdrew. A turn in the gorge soon hid them from his sight, and
-staggering through the darkness, he hastened on with his precious
-burden, feeling that Norberto had fainted in his aims.
-
-It was near midnight when Don Gregorio reached the hacienda, and
-needless is it to attempt to describe the joy of the mother at sight of
-her child, though Norberto, after one faint cry of recognition, laid his
-head upon her breast with a long shuddering sigh, which warned her that
-his strength and courage had been so overtaxed that they were, perhaps,
-destroyed forever.
-
-As days passed, it seemed evident that the mind of the boy was suffering
-from the shock. The male relatives who during the absence of Don
-Gregorio had mostly dispersed to find, manlike, some distraction
-a-field, returned one by one to embrace him; but he turned from each
-with unreasoning fear and aversion, unable to distinguish between them
-and the strangers in whose hands he had been held a prisoner. At some of
-them he gazed as if fascinated, especially at his Uncle Leon; and when
-by any chance the latter touched him he would burst into agonizing
-wails, which ceased only when his father held him closely in his arms,
-whispering words of affection and encouragement.
-
-Before many days it became evident that Norberto was dying. There was a
-constant, low, shuddering cry upon his lips, “He will kill me!—he will
-kill me if I tell!” and the horrified father and mother became convinced
-that Norberto knew at least one of his captors, and that deadly fear
-alone prevented him from uttering the name. They entreated him in vain;
-and one night the end of the tortured life drew near, and Norberto’s
-wailing cry was still.
-
-The family was alone, except for the presence of Leon Vallé and a young
-cousin, Doctor Genaro Calderon, one of the numerous family connections;
-and those, with the Padre Francisco and Doña Feliz, were gathered around
-the bed of the dying child. The father in an agony of grief and vengeful
-despair stood at the head, and Doña Isabel, ghostlike and haggard from
-her long suspense and watching, was on her knees at the side, her eyes
-fixed upon the face of the child, when suddenly he opened his eyes in a
-wild stare upon Leon Vallé, who stood near the foot of the bed, and
-faintly, slowly articulated the same agonizing cry, “He will kill me if
-I tell!”
-
-At that moment, as if by an irresistible impulse, Leon stretched out his
-hand and placed a finger on the lips of the dying boy. The eyes of Don
-Gregorio followed it; and then like a thunderbolt hurled through space
-he threw himself upon his brother-in-law, grappling his throat with a
-deathlike grasp. He had recognized the bruise upon the second finger of
-the white hand,—he had recognized the very hand. Recalled to life by the
-excitement of the moment, Norberto started up and exclaimed in a loud
-shrill voice, “Take him away! He cut my hair with his bloody knife! Oh,
-Uncle Leon, will you kill me?” and fell back in the death agony,—the
-agony that only the priest witnessed, for even Isabel turned to the
-mortal combat waged between her husband and her brother.
-
-Don Gregorio was unarmed, but Leon had managed to draw a knife from his
-belt. The murderous dagger was poised for a blow, when a woman rushed
-between the combatants; Don Gregorio was flung bleeding upon the bed,
-Doña Feliz hurled into a corner of the apartment the dagger which she
-had grasped with her naked hand, and Leon Vallé rushed like a madman
-from the room. Before he could escape, however, he was seized, pinioned,
-and thrust like a wild beast into one of the solid stone rooms of the
-building. Don Gregorio was held by main force from accomplishing his
-purpose of taking the life of the unnatural bandit ere the bolts were
-shot upon him. He however gave immediate orders that messengers be
-despatched in quest of police; but by some misapprehension or
-intentional delay on the part of the administrador these messengers were
-detained till dawn, and just as they were about to set forth, a cry went
-through the house that the prisoner had escaped.
-
-Gregorio Garcia rushed to the room, glanced in with wild, bloodshot
-eyes, and then with unrestrainable fury, sought out his wife, and
-grasping her arm cried in a voice as full of horror as of rage,
-“Traitress! You have set free the murderer of your child!”
-
-She threw herself on her knees at his feet,—he never knew with what
-purpose, whether to confess her weakness or declare her innocence,—for
-Doña Feliz cast herself between them.
-
-“It was I who set him free!” she exclaimed. “I love the Garcias too well
-to suffer them to be made a mockery of by the false mercy of such laws
-as ours. Think you the idol of the bandits would be sacrificed for such
-a trifle as a child’s life? And you, Gregorio Garcia, would you, this
-fury passed, avenge your injuries in the blood of your wife’s brother,
-robber and murderer though he be? Leon has sworn to me to hide himself
-forever from the family he has disgraced, under another name in another
-land. He has the brand of Cain upon his brow,—God will surely bring his
-doom upon him!”
-
-Doña Feliz spoke like a prophetess. The superb assurance upon which she
-had acted, setting aside all rights of man and relegating vengeance to
-the Lord, did more to reconcile Don Gregorio to the escape of his enemy
-than all further reflection, decisive though it was in convincing him
-that in the disordered and anarchical state of the country, the laws
-would have shielded rather than punished an offender so popular as was
-Leon Vallé. There was perhaps, too, a comfort in the hidden hope of
-personal vengeance with which he waited long months to learn the retreat
-of the man who had done him such foul wrong.
-
-Meanwhile the exact facts of the case were never known abroad; and when
-at last it was rumored that Leon Vallé had been shot by a rival guerilla
-chief and hung to a tree placarded as a traitor and robber, there were
-few to doubt the story, or to make more than a passing comment on the
-hard necessities of war. There seemed so much poetic justice in it, that
-Gregorio Garcia, who was near the end of the disease contracted through
-exposure and mental agony, did not for a moment doubt it, and died
-almost content. Indeed, the circumstances were so minutely detailed by a
-servant who had followed Leon in his adventurous career and who dared to
-face the family in order to prove the death, that even Doña Isabel
-herself did not question it until long months afterward, when a petty
-scandal stole through the land. The lady of San Lazaro had
-disappeared,—whether of her own free will, whether in madness she had
-strayed, or whether she had been kidnapped, none could conjecture. No
-demand for ransom came, no tidings were ever heard of the peerlessly
-beautiful Dolores.
-
-It was after that time that Doña Isabel began to demand tidings of all
-who came to her door, and a suspicion entered her mind which became a
-certainty upon the night our story opened, but which no subsequent event
-had tended to confirm during the years that had passed since then.
-
-This brief relation may serve to explain the strange emotions and
-experiences that made Doña Isabel what her full womanhood found her, and
-which with other events of her later life rendered possible and natural
-the bitter suspense and fear that held her the long night through, a
-watcher at the door of one who, as others had done, might find a means
-to pierce her heart and wound her pride, if not to awaken her deep and
-passionate affections.
-
-
-
-
-                                 XXII.
-
-
-Chinita woke with a confused sensation of haste, and in the dim light
-discovered with a momentary surprise that she was in one of the chambers
-of the great house. Her first clear remembrance was that there was to be
-a wedding in the village that day, and that she must hasten to help
-array the bride, her old playmate Juana,—a girl scarce older than
-herself, but who as the daughter of the silver-smith held some
-pretentions to superior gentility among the village folk. She wondered
-that she was not in the hut with Florencia and the children, and raised
-herself upon one arm to peer through the gloom at the figure upon the
-bed; then suddenly sprang to her feet with an exclamation. The sight of
-the wounded man brought to memory the train of events connected with his
-appearance there. The young man was asleep, but even if he had been
-awake and in dire need of aid, Chinita would not have paused an instant;
-for it flashed into her mind that she must see and speak to Tio Reyes
-before he left. He had told her so little—nothing that she could
-separate as a tangible fact. She must know more. Surely it was early
-still,—she never slept after daybreak; he would not yet be gone. Yet in
-quick apprehension, which burst forth in an irate interjection at her
-tardy awakening, she ran out into the court.
-
-The morning light was beaming there unmistakably, though no ray of
-sunlight penetrated it; and not a creature was stirring, and still
-hopeful the young girl hurried to the outer court. The mingled sounds of
-the movements of men and horses greeted her ear. Although she was late,
-Tio Reyes perhaps was still there. Vain hope! One glance around the
-great court showed her that he whom she sought was gone.
-
-With an angry little cry, which made more than one muleteer turn to look
-at her with, “What has happened to thee?” on his lips, Chinita sped
-across the court, and caught the arm of Pedro, who was standing
-dejectedly outside the great gate. He crossed himself as she appeared,
-and his face lighted up, then clouded again as she cried, “Where are the
-soldiers? When did they go? Why did no one awaken me?”
-
-The man pointed with a disdainful gesture across the plain. Florencia
-was standing at the door of her hut, calling in a rage to a neighbor
-that those worthless vagabonds had robbed her of her last handful of
-toasted corn; and Pedro began to explain to Chinita in his slow way that
-the good friends of the night before had naturally enough demanded
-something from the housewives upon which to breakfast, and that instead
-of giving it to them quietly, and thanking the Virgin that after
-drinking the soup they had not taken the pot, the foolish women must
-needs scold and bewail, as though soldiers should be saints and live on
-air, and as if this was the first raid that ever had been heard of,
-instead of a mere frolic, very different from that of the month before,
-when the forces of the clergy had carried off a thousand bushels of
-maize, without as much as a “God repay you.”
-
-Chinita gazed eagerly toward the east, and presently burst into
-passionate tears. The sun, which a moment before had shown a tiny red
-disk above the hills, flooded the plain with light, and dazzled her
-vision. Through it she saw some rapidly moving figures. The man she
-sought was already miles away. Silently but bitterly she reproached
-herself. She had slept like an insensate lump, and suffered to escape
-her the man who could have told her so much, whom she would have forced
-to speak. She could, as her eyes became accustomed to the light,
-distinguish his very figure in the clear atmosphere; and yet he and all
-she would have learned were so far away.
-
-“What wouldst thou?” demanded Pedro, gruffly; “the soldiers have carried
-off nothing of thine! Heaven forefend! Go to the hut and drink the atolé
-if there is any left, and give God the thanks!”
-
-The broad daylight had cleared the mind of Pedro of all the sentimental
-fears of the night. The glamour had passed away; there stood Chinita
-with the old familiar ragged clothing upon her, to be talked with,
-caressed it might be, certainly scolded with the mock severity of old.
-Yes, it was the same fiery, uncertain, irascible Chinita, who, clearing
-her eyes of their unusual tears with a backward sweep of her small brown
-hand, ran down the hill,—not to the hut where Florencia stood with the
-water-jar, beckoning her, but in quite another direction, to join the
-little crowd of sympathizing friends who were gathered at the door of
-the silversmith.
-
-Pepé was standing there with a gayly caparisoned donkey, destined to
-bear the _novia_ to the village some eight miles distant, where the lazy
-priest who divided his time between the sinners of that point and Tres
-Hermanos, had consented to earn a royal fee by uniting two poor peasants
-in holy matrimony. “It is but for once,” Gabriel had hopefully remarked;
-“and though one runs in debt for the wedding, one can hold one’s head
-above one’s neighbors, to say nothing of dying in peace, if a bull’s
-horn finds its way some unlucky day between one’s ribs.”
-
-Gabriel was a man who honored the proprieties, and Juana was well
-pleased with the good fortune that had awarded her to him; though he was
-twice her age, and had a squint which made ludicrous his most amorous
-glances.
-
-“What has happened?” cried Pepé in a disappointed tone, as Chinita
-darted past him. “Didst thou not say thou wouldst ride with Juana? She
-has been waiting for thee this half hour. The _novio_ will be on his way
-before her if we tarry longer, and thou knowest what that portends. The
-impatient lover becomes the husband never appeased! the wife shall wait
-many a day for him.”
-
-“Bah!” returned Chinita, “if Juana were of my mind the _novio_ would
-wait so long that her turn to play at _paciencia_ would never arrive.”
-
-“Go to!” cried a woman who stood near, “who would have imagined thou
-wouldst be so envious, Chinita; and thou but a child yet? But thou art
-one that hast been brought up between cotton, and expectest the soft
-places all thy life.”
-
-“Pshaw!” answered Chinita. “Speak of what thou knowest, Señora
-Gomesinda; and thou, Pepé, cease making eyes at me. Thinkest thou I have
-nothing better to do than to ride after Juana to see her married to yon
-black giant of a vaquero, who will manage his wife as he does his
-horses,—with a thong? I tell thee as I tell her, he is not worth the
-beating she got when he asked for her!”
-
-“Ay, Señora,” cried Gomesinda, shrilly, “was ever such talk from the
-mouth of a modest girl? What could a reasonable father and mother do for
-a girl when a man asks her in marriage? It is plain she must have played
-some tricks of our Señora Madre Eva to have beguiled him. Ay, but I
-remember my mother flailed me black and blue when José asked for me. I
-warrant you I screamed so hard the whole neighborhood knew she was doing
-the honorable part by me. Thank Heaven, I knew what was proper as well
-as another, and if I had given the man a glance from the corner of my
-eyes, I was willing my shoulders should suffer for it. One may tell of
-it when one is the mother of ten children.”
-
-During this harangue, Chinita had slipped by her, and darted into the
-hut. She threw her arms around the expectant bride, who dressed in the
-stiffest of starched skirts, the upper one of which was of flowered pink
-muslin, stood waiting the finishing touches of her sponsor.
-
-“What, thou art not ready?” cried Juana in a dejected tone, surveying
-Chinita with disapproving eyes. “Gabriel has twice sent messages that
-the sun has risen, and that the Señor Priest likes not to be kept long
-fasting, and thou knowest, as the priest sings the sacristan answers.”
-
-“Ay,” said Chinita, laughing, “a lesson in patience will be good for
-both the priest and thy Gabriel; but it will bode thee ill if he learns
-it at the tavern, as I saw him doing just now. Truly, Juana, thou must
-go without me. I am in no humor to go so far on thy ambling donkey;” and
-she drew herself up with an air of hauteur, which did not escape the
-observant eye of the bride, who said, with a reproachful look,—
-
-“What have I done? Did I ever give thee a sharp word, Chinita?”
-
-For answer, Chinita threw her arms around the girl’s neck; for she was
-really fond of Juana, who had ever been a gentle girl, and had borne her
-perverse humors with a sort of admiring patience which had flattered and
-won the heart of the wayward one. Completely mollified, Juana pressed
-her cheek against Chinita’s shoulder, for she had turned her face away,
-and said, “But thou wilt put on thy finest clothes and sit beside me at
-the fandango, wilt thou not? And thou wilt help my sponsor to dress me.
-See! Dost thou think she has done well this time?” and the girl threw
-her scarf from her head and shoulders, and exhibited her long,
-well-oiled tresses with an air of conscious vanity.
-
-“Nothing could be better,” declared Chinita, heartily, pulling out a
-loop of the bright red ribbons. “Yes, yes,” she added with some effort,
-“I will stay beside thee all through the feast. Thou hast ever been a
-good friend of mine, Juana. There, there, they are calling thee;” and
-she pushed her toward the door, where by this time a noisy crowd had
-gathered.
-
-Instead of only one donkey, there were five or six standing there, with
-gay bridles and necklaces of horsehair, brightened with cords of red or
-blue, and with panniers covered with well-trimmed sheepskins. As the
-Señora Madrina said, “She who should ride upon them would think herself
-on cushions of down.” On the most luxurious of these rural thrones Juana
-was raised, and upon the others her mother and a number of her female
-friends, mostly in pairs, were accommodated; and with many injunctions
-from the bystanders to hasten, the bridal party were at last dismissed
-upon their way.
-
-Laughing and chattering, the women dispersed to their huts to grind a
-fresh stint of maize to replace the tortillas and atolé that had been
-carried away by the soldiers; but Chinita sat down at the door of the
-adobe hut thus temporarily deserted, and with a smile of derision upon
-her lips watched the group of men congregated around the village shop.
-The bridegroom, a middle-aged man, with a dark face deeply imbrowned by
-the sun and seamed with scars (for he had been a soldier before he was a
-vaquero), stood in the midst of them, dressed in a suit of buff leather,
-gay with embroidery. The embossed leather sheath of his knife showed in
-his scarlet waist-scarf, and immense spurs clanked on his heels in
-response to the buttons and chains on the half-opened sides of his
-riding trousers of goat-skin. He was a picturesque figure—though
-Chinita’s accustomed eyes failed to recognize that—as he stood with his
-wide, silver-laced hat pushed back upon the mat of black hair that
-crowned his swarthy countenance, holding high the small glass of mezcal
-which he was about to drink in favor of the toast some comrade had
-proposed. Meanwhile, his companions were noisily hilarious, rallying him
-with impossible prophesies of good fortune, to which he listened with an
-air of imperturbability which was part of the etiquette of the
-occasion,—for in all the world can be found no greater slave to his
-peculiar code of manners than the Mexican ranchero.
-
-The party on donkey-back had almost disappeared upon the horizon before
-it seemed to occur to the group at the tavern store that any movement
-was expected from them. More than once the women had stopped in their
-household tasks to call out a shrill “Go on! go on! By the saints, man,
-will you keep the priest waiting?” and still Gabriel affected the
-indifferent, until as if by accident he strolled toward his horse, which
-stood champing the bit impatiently. Immediately there was a rush of his
-best friends, and the triumphant one who caught the stirrup and held it
-as the bridegroom mounted claimed the luck-gift for the good news of the
-departure,—which was effected at once after a series of pirouettes and
-caracolling, by Gabriel’s putting spurs to his steed and galloping madly
-away, followed by his friends as quickly as they could throw themselves
-into their saddles.
-
-The spell of the day before continued still so to rest upon her that
-Chinita neither joined in the cheer nor the laughter of the women, but
-turned slowly toward Pedro’s hut. The cravings of a healthy appetite
-subdued for the moment the pride that scorned the lowly home. It was
-natural to go there for the corn-cake and the draught of atolé or
-chocolate with which to break her fast. She found the share left for
-her; but after a mouthful or two it seemed to grow bitter to her taste.
-She divided it petulantly among the children who clamored around her,
-and in response to a call from Florencia went to Selsa’s hut where they
-were making tortillas for the wedding feast, arrogantly refusing to
-help, yet glad of accustomed companionship. Much as she resented old
-associations, the wrench was too great for her to separate herself from
-them at once, especially as she had no conception of what could or
-should take their place. She was like a child upon the banks of a river
-that separates it from the farther shore which it longs to reach, though
-dreading to push forth from the land it knows, rough and forlorn though
-it may be. There was with Chinita a strange sense of clinging to a past
-which was irrevocably severed from her, of impatience of a problem of
-the future to be solved, and of lack of will to set herself to its
-solution, as she went from hut to hut. The fever of her mind expended
-itself first in seething irony and jests, and later in a wild
-repentance, which manifested itself in quick embraces of the half
-offended women, and in practical toil, which effectually promoted the
-preparations for the feast, and went far to restore her to the good
-graces of the harassed workers. Indeed, often enough they paused in
-their labors to listen and laugh, as she stood at the brasiers fanning
-the glowing charcoal, or watching the tortillas taken from the flat
-_comal_ and piled in heaps upon the fringed and embroidered napkins used
-on such occasions of ceremony; or went from dish to dish of black beans,
-or red and fiery chile rich with pork or fowl; or gazed with positive
-admiration upon the kids and lambs, stuffed with almonds and raisins,
-forcemeat and olives, and other delicacies, which drawn smoking from the
-earthen ovens attested the generosity of the administrador toward his
-favorite vaquero.
-
-Toward noon the bride and her party returned, ambling home upon their
-donkeys, as humbly as they had gone. Juana was conducted to her future
-home, and her mother-in-law, welcoming her with distant ceremony,
-intended to inspire respect, suffered her to touch her cheek with her
-lips, then led her to the inner room, where lay the apparel for her
-adornment,—a number of toilets being indispensable upon the occasion,
-and indicative of the pretensions of the bridegroom who had hired them.
-
-Chinita, in her mingled mood of disdain and levity, had neglected to
-keep her promise of putting on holiday attire, and stood in some awe and
-much admiration before the bride as she at last appeared in the little
-bower or tent that had been raised for her at one side of the hut,
-facing upon the plaza where the feast was to be held. The little
-woman—for she was not fully grown—was resplendent in a stiff-flowered
-brocade of many colors, trimmed with real Spanish lace and bedecked with
-flowers, and wore a necklace and bracelets of imitation gems set in
-filagree, fit, as her sponsor proudly declared, for the Blessed Virgin
-upon the high altar.
-
-Juana threw a glance of reproach upon Chinita; but her new dignity
-forbade recrimination. A shout presently announced that the bridegroom
-was in sight. The bride, well-drilled in her part, kept her glance fixed
-on the ground; and as he swept by her bower Gabriel deigned not a look,
-but reined in his horse at his own door with a sudden turn of the hand
-which almost threw the animal on its haunches, and before his stirrup
-could be seized had thrown himself from his saddle and was shaking hands
-with his friends, and immediately the feast began.
-
-There was no table set. The fires burned at the corners of the plaza,
-and the women stood over them, dispensing the fragrant contents of the
-jars to all comers. Yet in this apparent informality the strictest
-decorum was observed, and not a mouthful was swallowed or a drink of
-_pulque_ or milky _chia_, without a friendly interchange of courtesies,
-which rather increased than grew less as the hours flew by.
-
-The proverb is true that at a wedding the bride eats least; and at that
-of the Mexican peasant the saying becomes a law. Juana was too well
-drilled in the proprieties to touch a morsel of the delicacies offered
-her, but wore constantly the air of timid resignation with which she had
-met the assumed indifference of her spouse, who resolutely avoided
-casting even a glance in the direction where she held her court,—the
-women crowding with ever increasing admiration to view her after each
-change of toilet, as they might have done to examine a gorgeous picture,
-commenting loudly upon the taste of the dresser and the liberality of
-the groom. But nothing could be more satisfactory to her than this
-feigned indifference of her husband. “Is not Gabriel an angel?” she took
-occasion to ask Chinita, as for the tenth time she was changing her
-apparel. “Imagine to yourself twelve changes of clothing, and he acts as
-if the hiring of them were nothing! What a difference between him and
-Pancho Orteago, who was married at Easter! Four beggarly suits were all
-he provided for Anita, and not one silk among them; and he actually was
-quite close to her again and again, with mouth open, as if he would eat
-her! Such an idiot! He would have spoken to her if he had had the
-chance. I should think she was half dead with mortification! Such
-foolishness in public! Her mother cried with vexation; and no wonder,
-with such a slur cast on the family!”
-
-“Yet it has been like a marriage of turtle-doves!” cried Chinita. “Let
-us see, little woman, if thou wilt say that of thy own six months
-hence!”
-
-Juana shrugged her shoulders and returned to her seat, with her eyes
-more coyly cast down, and a dejected mien, which might not have been
-altogether assumed; for, too earnest in acting her part even to take
-food in private, she was not unnaturally almost spent with the long and
-ceremonious state which for perhaps the only time in her life she was
-called upon to maintain.
-
-By this time, torches of fat pine were blazing at every door-post, and
-the strumming of harps and guitars and many primitive instruments became
-incessant. Groups of men, drowsy or hilarious, as the mezcal and pulque
-they had drunk chanced to affect them, were stretched on the ground,
-lazily watching and criticising the slow and untiring movements of the
-fandango; now and then one would spring up, to place himself before some
-dusky partner, who would raise the song in her shrill monotone, swaying
-and bending her body in unison with the gliding steps, which seemed as
-untiring as they were fascinating.
-
-Occasionally the shrill song of the women was enlivened by the snapping
-of the fingers and thumbs of the men; and more than once, though it had
-been forbidden, the sharp crack of a pistol-shot indicated the
-irrepressible excitement of some enthusiastic dancer. As the night wore
-on, the click of the castanets became more frequent, and the weird and
-tender refrain of _La paloma_ gave place to a bacchanalian chorus. Yet
-this chorus ever bore an undertone of pathos and sentiment which seemed
-to render impossible the absolute frenzy and rudeness of mirth that
-would be apt to characterize such scenes in other lands,—though the
-element of danger that lurked within began to show itself in scornful
-glances, and the contemptuous turning of shoulder or head.
-
-The night was chilly and dark, for it was the rainy season, and there
-was no moon; but the light from scores of torches and from the tripod of
-burning pitch set in the middle of the plaza illuminated the entire
-village. The great house was set so high that the lurid glare reached no
-farther than its gates; yet while its massive façade was in comparative
-darkness, from its windows the scene of revelry was glowingly distinct,
-and irresistibly attracted even the indifferent gaze of Doña Isabel.
-
-Late in the evening she stepped into her balcony; Doña Feliz joined her,
-and they wrapped themselves in their black rebosos, and silently
-regarded the scene. The dances and sports of the peasantry had been
-familiar to them from their childhood. A pleasurable excitement thrilled
-the veins of each as they gazed. This gayety was as far beneath them as
-the follies of our life may be beneath the pleasures of angels, yet
-pleased the exalted sense of kindly interest in the affairs of plebeian
-humanity. They began to murmur to each other something of this feeling,
-when suddenly both became silent. A single figure had caught the glances
-of both. It was that of Chinita, who, scornful and cool while the slow
-_afforados_ and _jarabes_ were in progress, had yielded to the seductive
-strains of the waltz, and was drawn from her station at Juana’s side by
-a rural beau from a neighboring village. The two whirled in the mazy
-dance, presently beginning a series of improvised changes, possible only
-to the subtle grace of youth under the spell of excitement wrought to
-its height by music, wine, and amorous flattery. One by one the other
-couples ceased dancing, the fingers of the musicians flew over their
-instruments, and the swift feet of Chinita and her partner kept time.
-Sometimes they swept together around the circle formed by the admiring
-onlookers; anon Chinita, lifting her arms to the cadence of the music,
-waved her swain away, and circled round him like a bird poising for
-descent, then glided again to his arms; or turning one bare shoulder
-from which the reboso had fallen, looked back upon him with soft,
-languorous eyes which challenged pursuit, while she fled with the speed
-of the wind.
-
-The circle were enraptured, and broke into loud _vivas_, or joined in
-the words of the air to which the pair were dancing. Pedro stood with
-the rest, watching with shining eyes; but at his side was a young woman,
-whose dark brows were drawn together in a spasm of rage. This was
-Elvira, a young widow, to whom the stranger was plighted, and who in the
-utter abandonment of her lover to the dance with another younger and
-fairer than herself, found a fair excuse for the mad jealousy that
-surged through heart and brain, and convulsed her features. But there
-was none to notice her; all eyes were bent upon the dancers, when a
-sudden turn brought them both before the infuriated woman. Seizing a
-knife from the belt of the unconscious Pedro, she sprang toward Chinita,
-with intent to wreak the usual vengeance of the jealous country-woman by
-slashing her across the cheek or mouth, and thus destroying her beauty
-forever. But quick as a flash Pepé, the derided but faithful, threw
-himself between them, receiving the blow in his arm; but shouting and
-gesticulating with pain, he made ridiculous a scene which might have
-been heroic.
-
-This was no uncommon incident at such gatherings, and roused more
-laughter than dismay. The dance suddenly ceased. Chinita, panting with
-exertion, threw herself with a cry for protection upon Pedro, who in
-rage had involuntarily grasped for the missing knife that had so nearly
-accomplished so foul a work; and Benito, recalled to his allegiance by
-this undoubted proof of his Elvira’s devotion, turned to her with words
-of mingled reproach and endearment. Pepé, in spite of his outcry, was
-quite unnoticed in the general excitement until his sister the bride,
-forgetting her dignity, forced her way through the crowd and bound her
-large lace handkerchief over the bleeding wound.
-
-“Thou shalt come home!” said Pedro, resolutely, as Chinita struggled in
-his grasp, with a half defined intention of assailing the woman who had
-assaulted her, and who was being led sobbing away by her repentant
-lover. “What will the Señora think of thee?” he added in a whisper. “She
-is on her balcony.”
-
-Chinita glanced up. She could see nothing against the great blank wall
-that loomed in the near distance, but a sensation of acute shame
-overcame her. She suddenly remembered that which in her brief delirium
-she had forgotten. She turned from the throng as though they had been
-serpents, and fled up the path to the gate, dashing against it
-breathless. The postern was open. She felt for it with her hands and
-darted through, coming full upon Doña Isabel. Feliz followed her lady,
-both looking like spectres under the rough stone arch of the vestibule,
-with its grim garniture of serpents and fierce-eyed wild beasts.
-
-“Wretched girl!” cried Doña Isabel, as Chinita stopped like a deer at
-bay. “Wretched girl!” grasping her with a grip of steel, yet shaking as
-with ague. “Hast thou a wound? Is the mark of shame on thy face already?
-My God! Oh, child! Canst thou not speak?”
-
-“I will kill her!” gasped Chinita, too much excited herself to be
-surprised by the agitation of Doña Isabel, or to wonder at her presence.
-“To-morrow I will find her and give her such a blow as she would have
-given me. What will her Benito care for her then?”
-
-“What is he to thee?” cried Doña Isabel, catching the girl by the wrist,
-and looking into her eyes,—“he or any such _canalla_? Come thou with
-me!—with me, I say!” She threw a glance, half inquiring, half defiant,
-at Feliz, who stood with her eyes cast down, her face strangely white,
-yet inexpressive. “Come thou with me,” she reiterated, scanning the girl
-from her unkempt shock of tawny curls to her unshod feet. A blush passed
-over the usually colorless and haughty face of the lady, as she added
-slowly, “before it is too late.”
-
-The girl and the mistress of Tres Hermanos looked at each other
-searchingly; then Doña Isabel turned and led the way across the court.
-Chinita followed her with head erect and sparkling eyes. Pedro entered
-at the instant, but his foster daughter did not hear him; but Feliz, who
-gave way that the strangely associated lady and girl might pass, looked
-up, and her eyes met those of the gatekeeper. Pedro approached with his
-Indian, cat-like silence of movement, and found her standing as if in a
-dream. The eyes of the man filled with tears. He was too lowly to
-manifest resentment at the studied reserve he believed Doña Feliz had
-for years preserved toward him, while still she had made him her tool.
-He and such as he were made for use. Yet inferior as he was, they had
-been workers in a common cause, and their common purposes seemed now
-frustrated at a word.
-
-He bent humbly and touched the fringe of her reboso.
-
-“Have I done well, Doña Feliz?” he queried in a broken voice. “Alas! I
-can do no more. You see how blood flows to blood, as the brooks turn to
-the river.”
-
-Feliz started. “Strange! strange!” she muttered. She turned upon Pedro a
-glance of mingled pity and deprecation. She seemed about to say more,
-but paused. “Thou art a good man, Pedro,” she presently whispered. “Thou
-hast done a greater work than thou guessest. Be content. Thou knowest
-the child’s nature,—Chinita will not suffer with Doña Isabel; but she
-who thrust from her bosom the dove will perchance warm the adder into
-life.”
-
-“No, no!” cried the man, vehemently. “Cruel, bitter woman! Chinita hath
-been my child, and though she turn from me I will hear no evil of her. I
-will live or die for her!” The unwonted outburst ended in a sob, and
-before he could speak again, Doña Feliz had passed across the court,
-but—strange condescension!—she had seized his hand and pressed it to her
-lips, in irresistible homage to a devotion as pure and unselfish as that
-of the loftiest knight who ever drew sword in the cause of helpless
-innocence.
-
-Pedro turned to his alcove dazed, stunned. To him it was as if a star
-should leave its place in heaven to touch the vilest clod upon the
-highway. A very miracle!
-
-
-
-
-                                 XXIII.
-
-
-Although Doña Rita had left her home upon a sad errand, and her tears
-flowed fast when on embracing her mother she beheld upon her countenance
-the shadow of death, that first startling impression vanquished, she
-allowed herself to be deceived by the fitful brightness that hovers over
-the consumptive; and as days passed on she felt a pleased sense of
-freedom and relaxation, and her return to her early home, which had been
-undertaken as a pilgrimage, assumed much of the character of an ordinary
-visit of pleasure.
-
-Doña Rita was a member of a large family, of whom most had married; so
-that her parents, relieved from cares that had long pressed upon them,
-were enabled to live in the little town of El Toro with an ease and
-comfort from which in their narrow circumstances they had necessarily
-been debarred while the children were dependent. They were, strictly
-speaking, people of the class known as _medio_ _pelo_, or “the
-half-clothed order,” as far below the aristocrat as above the plebeian;
-and Rita Farias had been thought to have risen greatly in life when she
-became the wife of Rafael Sanchez, though he was then but a clerk, the
-son of the administrador of Tres Hermanos, with no prospect of
-succeeding soon to his honors. But as the pious neighbors said when they
-heard of the early death of the bridegroom’s father, “God blessed her
-with both hands,” of which one held marriage, and the other death; so
-Doña Rita was accustomed when she at rare intervals visited her parents
-to be looked upon with ever increasing respect. Such silken skirts and
-rebosos as she wore were seldom seen within the quiet precincts of El
-Toro.
-
-Doña Rita herself was not quite clear upon the point as to whether or
-not her native place could be considered to rival “the City,” as Mexico
-was called _par excellence_, or even Guadalajara, which she had heard
-was a labyrinth of palaces; but Rosario who had seen El Toro declared to
-Chata that nothing could be finer, and Chata herself was quite convinced
-of that when opening her eyes suddenly upon the clear moonlight night on
-which the diligence stopped before the door of the inn, she first looked
-out upon the plaza.
-
-The two girls shivered a little in their sudden awakening, as, scarcely
-knowing how, they were lifted from the diligence and stood upon their
-feet at the door of the inn, with an injunction to watch the basket, the
-five parcels tied in paper or towels, the drinking-gourd, the bottle of
-claret, and the young parrot which their mother had brought with her as
-a suitable gift to her declining relative. With habitual obedience they
-did as they were bid, more than once rescuing a parcel from the long,
-skinny claw of a blear-eyed hag, who crouched in the shadow of the wall
-whining for alms, while at the same time they cast their admiring
-glances at the really beautiful church upon which the white rays of the
-moonlight streamed, converting it for the nonce into a symmetrical pile
-of virgin snow or spotless alabaster. The priest’s house, a long low
-building with numerous barred windows, stood on one side of it, while an
-angle of the square was formed by a mass of buildings, the frowning
-walls of which were apparently unpierced by door or window. This was a
-convent. Later the children learned to know well the gardens it
-enclosed, and also the taste of the wonderful confections the
-sweet-faced sisters made. The other buildings seemed poor and small in
-comparison to those, with the exception of the inn which rose gloomily
-behind them, a solitary rush-light burning palely in the yawning
-vestibule, and the torches flaming in the courtyard, where benighted
-travellers were loudly bargaining for lodgings,—no hope of supper
-presenting itself at that late hour.
-
-While Rosario and Chata were noticing these things with wide-open eyes
-but with ill suppressed yawns, Don Rafael and Doña Rita were returning
-the salutations of the concourse of friends who had come to meet them;
-and as soon as the children had been embraced in succession by each
-affectionate cousin or punctilious friend, they were hurried across the
-plaza upon the side where the shadows lay black as ink, and with a
-regretful glance at the seeming palaces of marble that rose on either
-hand were conducted with much kindly help and cheerfulness over the
-rough cobble-stones along a narrow street of single-storied houses,
-above the walls of which, as if piercing the roofs, rose at intervals
-tall slender trees, indicating the well-planted courts within. Reaching
-the more scattered portions of the town where the moonlight shone clear
-over open fields and walled gardens and orchards, with low adobe houses
-scattered among them, they at last entered, somewhat to the
-disappointment of Chata, a rather pretentious house which fronted
-directly upon the street. She was consoled upon the following day to
-find a garden at the back, where a triangle of pink roses of Castile,
-larkspur, and red geraniums grew, almost choking with their luxuriance
-the beds of onions and chiles, and rivalling in glory of color the
-“manta de la Virgin” or convolvulus, which entirely covered the
-half-ruinous stone-wall—the gaps filled with tuñas and magueys—which
-divided the cultivated land from the thickets of mesquite and cactus
-that lay beyond.
-
-In the garden the children spent many hours while their mother sat
-chatting at the side of the invalid, who rallied wonderfully as she
-heard the endless tales of her daughter’s prosperity; though like many
-another _nouveau riche_, Doña Rita had her fancied self-denials to
-complain of. One of the clerks at the hacienda had a wife whose father
-had given her a string of pearls as large as cherries upon her wedding
-day, while she the wife of the administrador was left to blush over the
-shabby necklace—not a bead of which was bigger than a pea—which Rafael
-had gone in debt to give her on her wedding day, and which until the
-advent of the fortunate Doña Gomesinda she had thought most beautiful;
-and then too her dearest friend had a daughter who would inherit a fine
-house of three rooms or more in that very town, and money and jewels fit
-for a _hacendado’s_ daughter; and it was quite possible that she would
-marry—who could tell? it might even be an attorney or an official,—while
-with two to endow (and it was well known that Rafael loved to enjoy as
-he went), Heaven only knew to what her own flesh and blood were doomed!
-There was Rosario for example,—and her own grandmother, who would not be
-prejudiced, could judge if there was a prettier or more daintily-bred
-girl in the whole town,—what chance was there that an officer or an
-attorney, or indeed any one but a clerk, a ranchero, or a poor
-shop-keeper, should pretend to their alliance when they could give so
-poor a dower with their daughter? Doña Rita’s eyes filled with tears,
-and decidedly she was obliged to compress her lips very tightly to
-prevent herself from uttering further complaint; for since Rosario had
-with true Mexican precocity burst into the full glory of young
-womanhood, this had become a very real grievance to her mother, but one
-of which, with the awe of the promoted as well as trained daughter and
-wife, she had seldom ventured to hint of either to Doña Feliz or Don
-Rafael.
-
-As Rosario had outgrown her sister in physique, so had she also in
-womanly dignity and apparent force of intellect At least she thought of
-matters, and even to her admiring mother and female relatives began to
-give weighty opinions upon affairs which either wearied Chata or
-interested her little. The grandfather, old Don José Maria, used to sit
-under a fig-tree watching with disapproving eyes as Chata darted hither
-and thither chasing a butterfly or ruby-throated humming-bird, or with
-her lap full of flowers or neglected sewing pored over some entrancing
-book lent her by the village priest (he was a man whose ideas, had he
-not been the Santo Padre, would have been the last that should have been
-tolerated in the bringing up of sedate and simple maidens); and those
-same eyes lighted with pride as they fell on Rosario, beating eggs to a
-froth to mix with honey and almonds for her grandfather’s delectation,
-or bending over a brasier of ruddy charcoal watching anxiously the
-cooking of the _dulce_, of which already more successes than failures
-showed her a born artist. Then again sometimes, when Don José came in
-the cool of the evening from the plaza where he had been to buy his jar
-of pulque or his handful of garlic, he could see his favorite sitting
-demurely in the upper balcony with her head bent over her needle,
-listening it is true to that _maldito libro_, “that pernicious book,”
-which Chata was reading, but as far as he could see doing no other harm,
-unless the very fact of a young and pretty girl looking into the street
-was a harm in itself,—but _Maria Purissima!_ one must not be too
-rigorous with one’s own flesh and blood: like others before him and more
-who will come after, Don José Maria forgot in tenderness to the
-grandchildren the discipline he had thought absolutely necessary with
-the preceding generation.
-
-Chata, too, thought it delightful to sit on the balcony and peer through
-the wooden railing at the long stretch of sand which led far away where
-the houses dwindled into a few half-ruinous hovels, where children and
-dogs throve as well as the bristling cacti. On Sunday mornings very
-early, as the mother and daughters came from Mass along that road, they
-used to be covered with dust thrown up by the scores of plodding donkeys
-who wended their way to the plaza laden with charcoal and vegetables,
-eggs and screaming fowls. Doña Rita and her daughters would cover their
-faces with their rebosos, and trip daintily by, scarcely appeased by the
-admiring salutations and apologies of the drivers, who pulling off their
-rough straw hats apostrophized the dust and the scorching sun and the
-clumsy donkey, “by your license be the name spoken!”
-
-Sometimes more distinguished wayfarers passed over the road and turned
-into the inn, or rode on to the barracks which lay quite at the opposite
-extremity of the little town; for it happened that a company of soldiers
-were quartered there. They were for the most part well clad in a gay
-uniform of red and blue, and every man had a profusion of stripes on his
-sleeves or lace on his cap. No one knew and no one asked whether they
-were Mochos or Puros, Conservatives or Liberals,—for the nonce they were
-Ramirez’s men. This General had been a Liberal the month before, and was
-suspected of favoring the clergy at this time. Who could tell? Who knew
-what he might be on the morrow? In the night all cats are gray; in times
-of perplexity all soldiers are patriots. The ragged urchins of El Toro
-threw up their hats for the soldiers of Ramirez, and the discreet
-householders leaned from their balconies every evening to hear the
-little band play, and to exult for a brief quarter of an hour in the
-mild excitement inseparable from a garrison town.
-
-Chata and Chinita had delighted in the distant music, and had caught
-glimpses of the soldiers, as disenchanting as those of the rude grimy
-structures they had in the moonlight imagined to be marble palaces; they
-had gazed up and down the dusty street and watched the noisy ragged
-urchins play “Toro” with a big-horned, long-haired, decrepit goat, with
-crowds of half naked elfin-faced girls as spectators, until they were
-actually beginning to weary of the attractions of the town and long for
-home,—when one day the beat of a drum was heard and a squad of soldiers
-went filing past, with a young officer riding at their head, who threw a
-glance so killing at the balcony where the young girls stood that,
-whether intended to reach her or not, it pierced the heart of Rosario on
-the instant.
-
-Chata had also noticed the young officer (a slender undersized young
-fellow, with a swarthy lean face and keen black eyes, shaded by a
-profusely decorated sombrero), but merely as a part of the mimic
-pageant,—a prominent part, for the trappings of his horse, as well as
-his own dress, were covered by that profusion of ornament affected by
-gallants whose capital was invested in the adornment of the person with
-which they hoped to conquer fortune; for in those days there were
-numberless roystering adventurers, who to a modicum of valor united a
-vanity and assurance which provided many a rich girl with a dashing and
-fickle husband, and his country with a soldier as false to Mexico as to
-his Doña Fulana.
-
-It was just after this that evening after evening Rosario would lean
-pensively over the balcony rail, resisting Chata’s entreaties to come to
-the garden where there was no dust to stifle them, and where the dew
-would soon begin to fall upon the larkspurs and roses, and already the
-wide white cups of the _gloria mundo_ were beginning to fill with
-perfume. The dew would chill her, the perfume sicken her, Rosario said.
-Chata remonstrated; Rosario smirked and smiled. Chata grew vexed; she
-thought the smile in mockery of her. She need not have lost her sweet
-temper,—Rosario was thinking of a far different person. The young
-captain was walking slowly down the opposite side of the street; he had
-just laid his hand on his heart. It was on him Rosario smiled.
-
-Doña Rita, discreetest of mothers, was not one to leave her daughters to
-their own devices unwatched. It was she who always accompanied them in
-their walks or to Mass; yet curiously enough the young captain found
-means to slip a tiny note into Rosario’s ready hand, as she knelt on the
-grimy stone floor of the church. Obviously, Doña Rita could not be in
-two places at once, and she usually knelt behind Chata, who needed
-perhaps some maternal supervision at her devotions; and it came about
-that the space behind Rosario was occupied by some stranger. It was Don
-José Maria who first noticed that quite as a matter of course that
-stranger grew to be the Captain Don Fernando Ruiz; and quite
-accidentally it happened that thereafter the mother and daughters went
-to an earlier Mass. Don José Maria was not so early a riser as Don
-Fernando was; so he was not there, while the young soldier was in his
-usual place.
-
-Chata was perhaps a stupid little creature,—Rosario it is quite certain
-would never have done such a silly thing; but one day when Don Fernando
-had pressed a note into the hand which was nearest to him, and which in
-the confusion of dispersal happened to be that of the smaller sister,
-she gave it in some indignation to her mother. It was full of violent
-protestations of affection, and entreated the life of his life to give
-her lover hope; it was signed her “agonized yet adoring Fernando.”
-
-Doña Rita showed herself capable of great self-control; she said sadly
-that she would not ask which had been guilty of attracting such
-impassioned admiration, but she assured the girls she was heart-broken.
-When she reached the house, after first carefully closing the door that
-her father might not hear, she rated them both soundly. Chata did not
-think it strange they should both be thought guilty; she assumed that
-Rosario was as innocent as herself. Doña Rita, giving Rosario the note
-to read, that she might learn for herself the daring and presumption of
-which man is capable, forgot in her indignation to reclaim it. An hour
-afterward Chata saw Rosario read it over in secret, and was scandalized
-to see her kiss it; and late that day, as they stood as usual on the
-balcony (the little mother, as Chata remarked, was so forgiving!), she
-caught Rosario’s hand spasmodically as Fernando passed by, but the girl
-released it with some impatience and slyly kissed the tips of her
-fingers,—and Chata, with a pang of awakening, realized that her sister
-had not been and was not so innocent of coquetry as she had assumed, and
-thenceforth suffered indescribable tortures between her sense of loyalty
-to her sister and duty to her mother.
-
-Rosario’s ideal of truth was in accordance with that which surrounded
-her; to be silent when speech was undesirable, to equivocate pleasantly
-where plain speaking would be harsh, to tell a lie gracefully where
-truth would offend,—this was her natural creed, which she had never
-questioned. But Chata, unknown to herself, had never accepted it; her
-soul was like certain material objects which resist the dyes that other
-substances at once absorb. It was not enough for her to give the truth
-when it was asked,—it was a torture, an unnatural crime, to her to
-withhold it. She would not indeed have done so in this case, had not
-Rosario in a manner put her upon her honor the very next day.
-
-The washerwoman had been there, and Rosario, who was an embryo
-housewife, had been deputed to attend her, and Chata, who had gladly
-escaped the duty, ran to the bedroom when she saw the servant depart to
-congratulate her sister on the dispatch she had made; when Rosario
-closing the door mysteriously, cried: “Look! look what he has sent me!
-Is it not beautiful, charming, divine?” and she held up to the light her
-hand, on the first finger of which glittered a ring.
-
-Truth to tell, Chata was dazzled; at that moment her own insignificance
-and the womanliness and beauty of Rosario were more than ever apparent.
-She gazed at Rosario with greater admiration than on the ring, beautiful
-though it was. Here was a sister just her own age, yet a woman with an
-actual lover! Oh!
-
-“What will our mother say?” she began in an awed voice, when Rosario,
-her womanly dignity gone, began to spring up and down, screaming yet
-laughing, “_Ay, Dios mio!_” throwing her hand over her shoulder and
-slipping it into the loose neck of her dress. “Oh, my life! the creature
-is down my back! it is crawling now on my shoulder! No, no,
-grandfather,” for Don José Maria had entered, “it is Chata who will help
-me. No, my mother! Ay, it is gone now! I would not have you frightened,
-it was but one of those bright little beetles that live on the roses;”
-and she contemptuously tossed something out of the window, and Chata saw
-with speechless wonder that the ring which had been on her finger was
-gone. The bauble at least had slipped into a secure hiding-place, and
-Chata really could not determine whether the beetle had ever existed or
-no.
-
-An air of delightful mystery began to pervade not only the house but the
-quiet street all the way from the plaza, which Don Fernando Ruiz crossed
-at intervals in the long, dull, sultry days. It became quite a diversion
-to the initiated to watch what clever turns and doublings he would make,
-and with what assumed indifference he would linger by the fruit-stand at
-the corner, where old Antonina sold tuñas or a few poor figs and lumps
-of roasted cassava root. She made quite a fortune from the young
-captain, who seemed bent on dazzling her bleared eyes; for every day,
-and sometimes three or four times in a day, he appeared resplendent in
-uniform of blue and red, or a riding suit of buckskin embroidered in
-silver, or perhaps, when his mood was sombre, in black hung with silver
-buttons, and more than once in a suit of velvet and embossed leather,
-with buttons of gold set with brilliants, and riding a horse with
-accoutrements so splendid that Doña Rita declared he must be as rich as
-the Marquis of Carabas himself, and without any apparent consistency
-embraced Rosario with tears.
-
-Truth to tell, Doña Rita was a match-maker born, and though her talents
-had lain dormant during the years she had spent at the hacienda, they
-had not declined; and it was natural that she should find a quiet
-exultation in exerting them in favor of her daughter, for young though
-Rosario was, her precocity and the custom of the country and period
-rendered it perfectly natural that marriage should present itself in her
-immediate future.
-
-A vision of it rose before the impassioned girl like a star, though
-there was a period of clouds and mourning when her grandmother died, and
-Chata, sobbing in the garden or moving sadly about the darkened rooms,
-wondered that Rosario could smile over those pink notes she was always
-stealing into corners to pore over. During the nine days that her mother
-remained within doors receiving visits of condolence, the notes indeed
-were the aliment upon which Rosario’s fancy fed; for Doña Rita, though
-the little drama of courtship had undoubtedly made less absorbing to her
-the tragedy of illness and death, was too strict an observer of the
-proprieties to allow her maternal affection to betray her at such a time
-into permitting even a shutter to be left ajar, or to suffer her
-daughter to approach a window to satisfy herself by a momentary peep as
-to whether the love-lorn captain was on his accustomed beat or no. It
-was a time however when without offence the veriest stranger might leave
-a card and word of sympathy, and this he never failed to do from day to
-day. Doña Rita would glance at the bit of cardboard with an affectation
-of indifference, but it would always shortly disappear from the table,
-and with the cruel sarcasm of childish intolerance Chata would suggest
-to Rosario its suitability for baking the little puffs of sugar and
-almonds upon, which she was so deft at compounding.
-
-At last the _novena_ of grief was ended, and taking her aged father’s
-arm Doña Rita dutifully led him into the street to breathe the air.
-Rosario knew that at that hour the captain was on duty at the barracks,
-but nevertheless could not resist the opportunity of stepping into the
-balcony and gazing upon the scene from which she had been so long
-debarred. A neighbor across the way greeted her with a significant
-smile; and somewhat piqued, Rosario drew back, half closed the shutters
-with a hesitating hand, and then dropping on the floor in the long ray
-of sunlight that streamed through the aperture, set herself to the ever
-entrancing task of re-reading her lover’s letters.
-
-As she sat there opening them one by one and after perusal leaving them
-unfolded in her lap, she became so absorbed that she did not notice the
-passage of time until a footstep sounded behind her, and glancing up she
-saw with trepidation that her grandfather was ushering in a tall and
-imposing stranger, whose military garb made her heart beat madly, for a
-wild thought of Fernando Ruiz flashed through her mind. Her confusion
-was not lessened by perceiving that the visitor was a man of more
-advanced age and infinitely greater assumption of rank. The telltale
-letters were in her lap, though involuntarily she had dropped her reboso
-over them; but she dared not rise lest they should drop in a shower
-around her, and she equally feared the anger of her grandfather and the
-condemnatory surprise of the visitor.
-
-“I pray you enter the house, Señor! Pass in, sir, pass in!” she heard
-her grandfather say in his smoothest tones. “My daughter will be here
-almost immediately; but she stopped at the convent for a moment to buy a
-blessed candle to place before the altar of Our Lady of Succors. She
-will be honored indeed by this visit. Take care, Señor, the room is
-somewhat dark, but I will open a shutter. _Valgame Dios_, what have we
-here?” as he caught sight of the bent figure sitting in the narrow
-streak of sunshine. “_Caramba, niña_, rise! rise, I say! seest thou not
-the Señor General?”
-
-“Ay, but I have the cramp in my poor foot, my grandfather,” cried
-Rosario in a voice of lamentation, vainly endeavoring under cover of the
-reboso to make some disposal of the letters which rustled alarmingly.
-“_No, Señores_, by Blessed Mary my patroness, let me alone!” she cried,
-as both her grandfather and the stranger attempted to help her,—the
-latter with a faint gleam of amusement in his eyes, the former with
-genuine consternation depicted on his face. “Ay, Chata,” for by this
-time her sister had appeared. “Oh, but my back is broken! it is worse
-than when you struck me with the stick when you were trying to knock the
-peaches from the tree. Oh! ah! no, it is impossible for me to rise!”
-
-In dire affright Chata knelt before her. “Oh, what shall I do?” she
-cried, in remorse at the remembrance of an escapade that had been almost
-forgotten, and in sudden fear that it might have been the cause of her
-sister’s present distress. “Oh, my life! I thought it was your poor
-foot!” and she began rubbing one small slippered member, while Rosario
-eagerly whispered, “Stupid one, hide me these letters!” and the
-mystified Chata felt her sister’s hand with a mass of fluttering papers
-thrust under her arm, covered with the ever useful reboso.
-
-Involuntarily the hapless confidant pressed them to her side, and at the
-same moment Rosario limped from the room, inwardly raging at making so
-poor a figure before the General, while Chata, standing for a moment
-abashed, was about to follow, when a voice which bewildered her by its
-strange yet familiar accent said gayly, “And you, my fair Señorita, have
-you never a twinge of the same disorder that afflicts your sister?” and
-he glanced meaningly at a pink envelope, which had fallen at her
-feet,—at the same time covering it with his foot that it might not
-attract the suspicious eye of the old man, who with profuse apologies
-for the informality of the reception was assuring the visitor that until
-that moment never had there been a healthier damsel than his
-granddaughter Rosario, adding with a sigh, “But the Devil robs with one
-hand and pinches with the other.”
-
-Chata trembled and blushed painfully as she raised her eyes timidly to
-the General’s, while with a sense of the grotesque she was conscious of
-wondering whether he, like herself, was thinking her grandfather had
-suggested no complimentary agency in her grandmother’s removal to
-another sphere. But at the instant all present perplexities vanished in
-the surprise with which she recognized the face which she had seen but
-for a few brief hours years before,—the face of the man of whom Chinita
-had never grown weary of talking. “The Señor General Ramirez,” she said
-in a low voice, with some awe. She was more than ever bewildered by the
-look he had fixed upon her. She shrank back, barely dropping her hand
-for a moment upon that he extended toward her. She was actually inclined
-to be frightened, his eyes were so brilliant, his smile so eager. The
-foolish thought struck her that had not her grandfather been there, this
-strange imperious man would surely have taken her in his arms, would
-have kissed her! She hurried from the room to find Rosario waiting for
-her at the end of the corridor, alternately smothering her laughter in
-the folds of her dress, and angrily chafing at her sister’s delay.
-
-“Your horrid letters!” cried Chata, thrusting them into her hands.
-“Here, take them, read them, laugh over them or cry, or kiss them if you
-will! I hope I shall never see a love-letter again in my life. He saw
-them,—the Señor General. I know he did. Oh, what shame!”
-
-“Pshaw!” interrupted Rosario. “What does it matter? He will think none
-the worse of me. Without doubt he is come on the part of Fernando to ask
-for me. How proud and happy my mother will be, and how she will rail at
-me! It will not be difficult for me to cry as I ought, for I am mad with
-vexation to have appeared such a fool when I should have been so
-dignified. Why, the Señor will think me a child still! Does he not look
-like some one we know, Chata? And yet we can never have seen him
-before.”
-
-“Yes,” returned Chata, “we have seen him. He is the General José
-Ramirez.”
-
-“Ah, my heart!” ejaculated Rosario, dramatically. “What a misfortune! My
-father hates the General Ramirez because he once had some horses driven
-away from the hacienda; and besides he is a good Christian and fights
-for the Church! Ay, unlucky Fernando, to have chosen such a messenger!
-But thank Heaven, it is my mother who will first hear him! Ah, there she
-comes!” and in irrepressible excitement Rosario grasped her sister’s
-hand. “Oh, child!” she added sentimentally, “you too may be asked in
-marriage some day!” and she sighed with an air of vastly superior
-experience, while Chata revolved in her mind what her playfellow Chinita
-would say when she told her of this unexpected meeting with the hero
-whom she fancied she had rendered invincible by the gift of the amulet.
-
-Like most children of her country Chata wore a scapulary. It had lain
-upon her breast ever since she could remember. She drew it out and
-looked at it. Some day she thought she would open it; now she only made
-the sign of the cross, as she replaced it. Rosario in nervous unrest had
-left her. The cool of the evening had come; the perfume of the flowers
-stole in at the open window, and the breeze soothed the unusual
-agitation of her mind. Glad to be alone, yet anxious and perplexed, she
-stepped into the garden. More than once as she walked down the alley she
-stopped, her heart palpitating violently. She fancied she heard her name
-called, or that Ramirez would step from the shadow of a tree to
-encounter her. It was an unnatural and unchildlike mood quite new to
-her. It seemed to her that her grandfather’s unnecessary mention of the
-Devil’s name might have incited that enemy of innocence to annoy her,
-and she whispered an _Ave_.
-
-There was a large cluster of bananas just behind the house. Chata sat
-down there to watch the fantastic clouds which hovered where the sun had
-set. In her absorption in the glowing scene she was unconscious that any
-sound disturbed the silence around her. It was indeed but a low
-indistinct hum, scarcely recognizable as the sound of human voices. Had
-she noticed them, she would have remembered that she was within a foot
-or two of a window which was screened from sight by the foliage, and
-would have withdrawn from possible discovery; but as it was, she
-remained there an unconscious trespasser. The first distinct sound that
-reached her ear at once startled and impressed her, for it was the deep
-voice of Ramirez uttering her own name.
-
-“Chata, yes it was Chata I said,” he affirmed dictatorially. “Why
-attempt dissimulation with you, Señora? I am in no humor for trifling.
-Will Doña Isabel provide a dowry for your daughter? It is my fancy that
-Ruiz should marry the little one, and I can make or mar him. So far the
-boy has blundered, but if he once turns his eyes on the pretty face of
-Chata, he will not find the mistake irremediable.”
-
-Chata could not credit the evidence of her senses, and remained as if
-rooted to the spot. She presently heard her mother sobbing: “This is an
-unheard of thing! A young man pays court to one child,—perhaps she is
-not insensible to his advances,—and his patron comes to me to bid me
-give him another, whom he has not perhaps even glanced at. Oh, it is too
-much! too much!”
-
-“I have already told you,” said Ramirez, coldly, “that Ruiz is poor. His
-father was my father’s servant, and is mine; more than once he has saved
-my life at the risk of his own. Years ago he rendered me a service that
-I swore to repay in a certain manner. More than once of late I have been
-reminded of my promise, and the marriage of Fernando with your daughter
-would render its fulfilment impossible.”
-
-“By my patron saint!” cried Doña Rita, “it is strange indeed that a poor
-little country girl should interfere with the projects of a man as great
-as yourself. But even if that is possible, why bid me give him
-Chata?”—adding with asperity, “have I not done enough? No, no! I will
-not, I cannot make my Rosario a sacrifice!”
-
-“_Caramba!_” cried Ramirez, laughing, “is it so dreadful a thing that
-she should wait until the next lover comes,—he will be sure to come,
-Señora,—and that she should have a double dower to make her fairer in
-his eyes? for I tell you Ruiz will ask no dowry from you with the little
-one. Come, come, Señora, I am not used to reasoning and pleading, yet I
-am not cruel. The child has been yours too long for me to tear her from
-your arms. It was a cunning device of Doña Isabel to hide her from me.
-Ah, it is not the first trick she has served me, and, like the others,
-she will find it turn to my advantage!”
-
-“As Heaven is my witness,” ejaculated Doña Rita, in a voice of intense
-impulse and fear, “never have I breathed to mortal the secret which you
-seem to know! Who are you, sir? What have you to do with the child?”
-Suddenly, she uttered a horrified shriek. Chata, who had started from
-her seat with dilated eyes and lips parted, gasping for breath, heard
-her mother spring to her feet, and rush toward the door; heard also
-Ramirez follow her and apparently draw her back, remonstrating in low
-tones. Then she realized no more. Perhaps she fainted, though to herself
-there appeared no interruption of consciousness. Though she did not
-notice the stars come out, she beheld them at last looking down upon
-her, as if they heard the questions that were repeating themselves again
-and again in her mind. Whose child was she; who was the man who claimed
-the right to shape her destiny? That she was not the child of Rafael
-Sanchez and his wife she felt certain. Doña Rita had not denied the
-insinuation.
-
-The child—all childish thoughts suddenly crushed by the overwhelming
-revelation she had surprised—remained in the same spot, unconscious of
-the passage of time, until she heard her sister—no, Rosario—calling her
-in anxious yet irritated tones: “Where art thou, Chata? Chata, the
-supper is ready; the grandfather is angry that thou art so long in the
-garden! Oh, here thou art!”
-
-The two girls encountered each other in the dusk. Rosario threw her arms
-around the truant. “How cold thou art!” she said. “Hast thou seen a
-ghost here alone? Bless me! one would think the General Ramirez had
-brought the plague with him. My mother has shut herself up, and when I
-went to her door to beg her to tell me whether she was ill, she answered
-me, ‘The world is all ill. Go dress saints, my child, it is all that is
-left to thee!’ What could she have meant? Can it be after all that the
-General did not come from Fernando?”
-
-Rosario stopped to wipe a tear from the corners of her eyes. Evidently
-she was more perplexed than dismayed. She was too young to fear the
-mischances and mishaps of love. Her words recalled to Chata’s mind the
-fate that was decreed to her,—to which she had given no second thought,
-in her discovery that she was not the child of those she called father
-and mother. Friendless, homeless, nameless,—yes, she reflected bitterly,
-that she had _never_ been known by a Christian name,—she felt as though
-the solid earth had opened beneath her, and she was clinging desperately
-to some tiny twig or bough to prevent herself from being engulfed
-forever. She clung hysterically to Rosario, who had begun to laugh
-nervously. And so old Don José Maria found them, and querulously bade
-them go into the house; nothing but ill fortune would befall maidens who
-wandered alone in the dark; did they not know that the Devil stood
-always at the elbow of a woman after the sun set? With which second-hand
-and scurrilous wisdom the old philosopher ushered them into the dimly
-lighted dining-room. Doña Rita was there, and as the girls entered
-lifted her eyes, which were heavy with weeping, and for the first time
-in her life Chata saw in them aversion,—yes, actual fear and dislike.
-
-The child sighed deeply, and sat down at a shaded corner. No one noticed
-that she ate nothing. The old man was sleepy, Doña Rita was occupied
-with Rosario, who grew more and more depressed. From her mother’s very
-kindness her daughter foreboded little good from the tidings she could
-give her.
-
-
-
-
-                                 XXIV.
-
-
-For many succeeding days Chata seemed to herself to be struggling to
-awaken from a torturing dream. The household was very quiet. Doña Rita
-and Rosario went gloomily to work to set the house in order and prepare
-for departure; they talked together in low tones, and sometimes one or
-the other would sigh in echo to poor old Don José Maria, who was
-contemplating a lonely widowhood, though a kindly cousin had consented
-to take charge of his domestic affairs,—a kindness which was taken
-exceedingly ill by the two elderly servants. It was natural enough that
-the atmosphere around her should be charged with gloom, and as natural
-that to Chata it should seem a part of the evil dream from which she
-longed to emerge. At times she thought desperately that she would rush
-to Doña Rita and beg her to tell her all; but she shrank from dispelling
-the illusion of her life, from losing the father and mother whom she had
-believed her own. Her father!—was it possible he could be other than Don
-Rafael? No, no, no! she loved him, he loved her; he was her own, her
-very own,—even Rosario did not love and cling to him as she did. And if
-by word or deed he was deposed from that relationship who would take his
-place?
-
-The unhappy girl shuddered from head to foot; her very heart seemed to
-become ice. Who, if all she had heard was true, could be her father but
-this man, General José Ramirez,—the bloody guerilla, the unscrupulous
-robber? He had not, it was true, declared so in as many words; it would
-kill her to hear them—she would not hear them. And so in a sort of dumb
-frenzy she resisted the temptation to disclose what she had heard; and
-with a miserable conviction that she was the object of suspicion and
-dislike, and feeling herself a hypocrite and impostor, she lived from
-day to day, nursing in her heart such repressed misery as perhaps only a
-sensitive and uncomprehended child can feel.
-
-Chata was at the point in life where the intuitions of womanhood begin
-to encroach upon the credulity and frankness of immaturity. A year
-earlier it is likely she would have gone to Rosario at once with her
-surprising discovery; but now she unconsciously felt that she
-was—however unwillingly—her rival. She needed no instruction by word or
-experience to tell her that Rosario would feel no sympathy with the
-stranger who had shared as a sister in the love of father, mother, and
-friends, and who it was purposed should be given to the man whom she had
-herself won. Strangely enough the remembrance of this only occurred to
-Chata at intervals, and simply in connection with Rosario. Her mind was
-so engrossed by the sense of desolation and the agonizing fear of the
-General Ramirez, that the thought of Ruiz seldom presented itself to
-her; and the possibility of his being in any way made to affect her life
-seemed so absolutely incredible that even the sight of him brought no
-blush to her cheek nor a thrill of interest, either of dislike or latent
-kindness, to her bosom.
-
-The bewildered and suffering girl did not realize that there was any
-change in her manner. Sometimes she wondered that she could sleep all
-night, that she could laugh, yes even talk, so wildly at times that Don
-José Maria sniffed impatiently, and muttered that it was hard an old man
-could not take his sorrow in quiet,—as if it was some sort of soothing
-potion, which to be healthful must be lingered over. But the truth was
-that the dull, heavy, unrefreshing sleep which came to the child took
-the place of food to her, besides following naturally upon the physical
-exhaustion consequent on incessant thought and movement; her sharp,
-penetrating laugh and inconsequent babble were the outbursts of mental
-excitement that otherwise must have found vent in passionate cries and
-tears.
-
-Chata, it is true, had suddenly become invested with a new interest to
-Doña Rita, who, while events flowed smoothly on, accepted without
-question the prevailing opinions and sentiments of those surrounding
-her. She had honestly thought she loved her foster daughter as her own,
-and that her welfare was as dear to her as that of her own child; but
-now, without reasoning on the matter, without a throb of anguish in
-contemplating the fate which Ramirez might will for her, she saw in the
-girl but a rival who, once knowing them, might well approve and glory in
-the designs that threatened the pride and affections of Rosario.
-
-Doña Rita dared not repeat to her daughter the substance of her
-interview with Ramirez; and even had she been at liberty to do so, her
-satisfaction in being the possessor of an actual secret would have led
-her to assume, as she did now, mild airs of superior wisdom,—which were
-perhaps as effectual as words could have been in assuring Rosario that
-the opposition which the General Ramirez had urged against his
-subaltern’s engagement was more serious than the ordinary interest of a
-patron would have induced him to make; and for a week or more her
-affectations of despair, her abundant tears and hopeless sighs, were
-sufficient to justify her mother’s exaggerated tenderness,—a tenderness
-which Chata contrasted bitterly with the indifference that permitted her
-own suffering to pass unnoticed.
-
-The secret fear of Chata’s heart was that she might meet Ramirez, might
-even be called upon to speak with him. The thought of either filled her
-with a frenzy of dread. Had it been possible she would have fled from
-the town. Oh, if she could but have hoped to find her way to the
-hacienda alone, even though she dared not make herself known to Doña
-Feliz and the administrador! Oh, was it possible that they could be
-cold, suspicious, as Doña Rita was? The thought was an impiety, yet it
-returned to her again and again, and her dread of meeting Don Rafael
-became—from vastly differing causes—almost as strong as that with which
-she imagined herself enduring the mocking and triumphant scrutiny of
-Ramirez. In her desolation the memory of Chinita rose before her. Oh, to
-steal with her into the hut and lean her head upon the breast of that
-poor waif, who must in her woman’s consciousness be feeling something of
-the misery that day by day was becoming more agonizing and unendurable
-to Chata! The similarity of lot so unexpectedly revealed to her seemed
-to explain the irresistible attraction which the foundling—who had
-apparently been so far removed from her by caste and circumstance—had
-always possessed for her. At the thought, a tint of crimson suffused her
-neck and face. How could she know but that in the obscurity of Chinita’s
-life as the adopted child of a poor gate-keeper, even the foundling had
-perhaps less to blush for than the supposed daughter of the
-administrador?
-
-Doña Rita had talked much during the early part of her visit of the
-family affairs of the important personages whom her husband served.
-Chata had heard the talk with more entertainment than interest; but she
-was of a reflecting and acute mind, and she began now to weave theories
-and form conclusions which sometimes startled, sometimes horrified her.
-Had she but caught the name that had brought the shriek from Doña Rita’s
-lips the evening the General Ramirez had talked with her! But without
-that clew her speculations were idle, and she tortured herself in vain,
-yet with unconscious dissimulation hid her wild and bitter thoughts
-beneath an exterior that to the ordinary observer appeared one of
-thoughtless rather than feigned and hysterical levity.
-
-In the fear of meeting the General—though the temptation often came upon
-her to fly from the house lest he might enter it—Chata avoided going
-into the streets, and but that she feared it might prove a deadly sin
-she would even have made an excuse of illness to remain from Mass. But
-this might not be, though no temptation of a week-day feast would draw
-her forth. And thus it happened that she and Doña Rita were alone when
-the General Ramirez for the second time visited the house.
-
-Rosario by chance had accompanied her grandfather on a visit. She had
-gone in the best of spirits; for she had shown Chata a note from Ruiz,
-in which he declared that though forbidden to ask for her until in the
-course of the revolution he had acquired a competency, or her father
-should lose his unjust prejudices against the Church party, he should
-ever remain true to her, and should live only in the hope of calling her
-his own. For the first time Chata had embraced Rosario with a genuine
-sympathy with this love which seemed so true and yet so hopeless, and
-had watched her turn the corner leading to the plaza, when she was
-suddenly aroused from a melancholy—which was actual repose compared to
-the state of excitement that had long possessed her—by the sound of a
-quick, imperious knock upon the street door; and glancing down, she saw
-the General Ramirez impatiently flicking his boot with the small cane he
-carried, and glancing up and down the street as if suspicious rather
-than desirous of observation. He had not seen her she was sure. Quick as
-thought she ran through the room, and passing through the window pushed
-open a door which led to the parapeted flat roof of the back building,
-and crouching behind a low brick wall prayed breathlessly to the Virgin
-for protection. It was a solitary place, where only a servant came
-sometimes to place a tub of water to be heated in the noonday sun, or to
-hang some household article for speedy drying. It was not likely, even
-were she wanted, they would think to look for her there. She was out of
-hearing, away from all the ordinary sounds of the house; no voice could
-reach her there,—not even that voice whose accents she could never
-forget, which had made her desolate.
-
-As the time passed on and the stillness grew oppressive, and the
-sunbeams, which had at first annoyed and distracted her, stole to the
-wall and at last receded altogether, a sense of bitter forlornness and
-weariness overcame her; and ceasing from the vain repetitions of _Aves_
-and _Pater nosters_, Chata clasped her hands over her face, and resting
-it upon her knees burst into heart-rending sobs.
-
-Her passion did not continue long; it was perhaps too severe. It was
-arrested as by a blow,—by the sudden bang of a heavy door. She lifted
-her head and listened. Was it fancy, or did she hear the rattle of
-musketry? It was an unfamiliar sound, and yet she recognized it. What
-had happened? Was an enemy entering the town? Had the garrison revolted?
-Accounts of such events were too frequent to make these conjectures
-other than natural even to Chata’s unwarlike mind. She hastily rose,
-pushed aside the bolt of the heavy door, and stepping into the corridor
-found herself face to face with Doña Rita.
-
-“Ah, you are here!” that lady exclaimed in a hurried and abstracted
-manner, far different from that which she would usually have worn at the
-discovery of such a misdemeanor. “I have been seeking you everywhere,—I
-could not send a servant. And now something has happened in the street,
-and he has rushed away without seeing you,—the Señor General Ramirez, I
-mean.”
-
-“I know whom you mean!” cried Chata. “Oh, my mother, why should I see
-him?” Then with wild passion she threw herself at Doña Rita’s feet, and
-buried her face in her skirts and the flowing ends of her reboso. “Oh,
-tell me that it was not true—what I heard! I was in the garden the other
-evening as you talked! Oh, my mother, my mother!”
-
-Doña Rita looked down at her in startled surprise, but almost instantly
-an expression of relief rose to her countenance. “Rise, child, rise!”
-she said in a low, not ungentle voice; yet there was an inexpressible
-lack of maternal solicitude in it, which struck to the heart of the
-suffering child. “Listen; be reasonable; have I not ever been kind to
-thee? I do not blame thee even now that thou art forced to repay me so
-ill; it is not thy fault.”
-
-“But you shall not be repaid so ill!” exclaimed Chata. “I will be your
-child forever. Oh, it is not possible that he—this strange man, who
-frightens me—would dare take me from you?”
-
-“Bless me, _niña_, you are a strange one! If you but knew it, you have
-rare good fortune. A handsome lover and a rich dowry are not to be had
-every day for the asking. But you show a proper spirit, and one I should
-have expected after the good training you have had. Heaven knows what
-would have been the result had you been given to Doña Isabel, and
-allowed to run at large like most of the children of Our Blessed Lady.
-Yet it was a cruel trick my mother-in-law played me, and Rafael too!
-Well, well, it shall be brought home to him some day. Listen! was not
-that the sound of cannon? and my child abroad! Ave Maria Sanctissima!”
-
-“Mother, be not afraid!” said Chata, desperately. “She and my
-grandfather will not yet have left Doña Francisca’s, and that you know
-is quite away from the plaza or the barracks; they have only to cross
-the gardens and be home in a ‘God speed us!’ But as for me, I am in more
-fright and misery than if a thousand guns were levelled upon me. Do you
-not see, I know only that I am not your child! Who am I? What is to
-become of me?”
-
-“The last seems settled already,” returned Doña Rita, with an accent of
-chagrin which was almost spiteful; “and the long and short of it is,
-child, that you were sent to Doña Isabel, but that my mother-in-law had
-the fancy you would be safer with me; and I, like a tender-hearted
-simpleton, did not object to humoring her whim, thinking at the same
-time I was doing a person whom I loved a service she would know how to
-appreciate,—and now when the time has come for recompense, instead of
-gain, comes loss. There is nothing in this world but vexation and
-disappointment.”
-
-“I cannot understand anything of this,” said Chata, with a deep sigh.
-She had risen to her feet, and was looking pitifully at Doña Rita, who
-walked up and down the corridor, listening to the distant and irregular
-firing, and interrupting her discourse with interjections and doubts as
-to the safety of her daughter. “But when I see my father, Don Rafael, I
-will ask him, or Doña Feliz,—yes, Doña Feliz always loved me.”
-
-“Ay, but you must ask nothing,” almost screamed Doña Rita, running to
-Chata and seizing her by the shoulders. “They will think it was I who
-betrayed the secret; they will never forgive me. Oh, I should lead a
-dog’s life! You are not old enough to know how cruel an angry husband or
-a baffled mother-in-law can be. And poor Rosario—”
-
-“What can it matter to Rosario?” interrupted Chata. “Were you not
-lamenting that her dowry would be so small? Will it not be double now
-that I shall not innocently rob her?”
-
-“Yes, yes,” whispered Doña Rita, eagerly. “The General Ramirez promised
-me this very day that when you, Chata, married Ruiz, he would make a
-gift to Rosario of all my husband may bestow on you, and that as much
-more should be given her on her wedding day, provided that the secret of
-your birth be kept. It is useless to ask me his reasons. He gave me
-none. I cannot guess them any more than I can surmise why Doña Isabel
-would not receive you, and therefore you were thrust into my arms.
-Heavens, what a reverberation! the whole house shakes!”
-
-“It is nothing,” cried Chata, “but the slamming of a door. I hear the
-voices of Don José Maria and Rosario. Stay!” she added, grasping Doña
-Rita as she was about to run down the stairs. “I warn you that I will
-know all the truth. Your poor reasons shall not keep me from demanding
-it. Doña Feliz shall not refuse me!”
-
-“Doña Feliz will do as she wills!” retorted Doña Rita. “But this I tell
-you, child, that the moment Ramirez knows that those who once crossed
-his plans are warned against him, you will be spirited away. Ramirez has
-his own purposes, and is not to be thwarted. He is already angry against
-Rafael and Doña Feliz for their attempted and long successful deception.
-He is a man of great and mysterious power, and knows not the meaning of
-the word forgive; and as sure as you stand there, if you disobey his
-commands sent you through me he will separate you at once from your home
-and friends, and bring ruin upon those who have cared for you.”
-
-Doña Rita spoke with that impressive eloquence and fire which upon
-occasion seems at the command of every Mexican. She stood with one foot
-on the corridor floor, the other upon the stair, which she was about to
-descend, and she had turned half-way round, stretching out her hands,
-and lifting her dark and anxious eyes to encounter and fix the gaze of
-Chata. Below, in the stone entrance-way, stood Rosario, volubly
-describing to a servant the dangers she and her grandfather had
-encountered. For the moment Doña Rita appeared in Chata’s eyes like some
-timorous yet desperate animal standing between her and her young. “My
-Rosario, my poor child,” said the mother in a low voice, “is her life to
-be blasted by you? Ramirez is in two minds now. One is to resent the
-frustration of his will, and be the mortal enemy of those who have
-sheltered you; the other to applaud and reward them. Upon your
-discretion all depends.”
-
-“But I shall go mad if I have only this to think upon,” exclaimed Chata.
-“Who, who can tell me anything to make this dreadful revelation
-endurable, if not Don Rafael or Doña Feliz? Ah, yes, there is—there is
-the General.”
-
-“Surely!” replied Doña Rita. “Yes, my life, I am coming”—to Rosario.
-“Yes, Chata, could I have found you to-day, you would have known all.
-Ask him what you like—it will please him. Oh, he is most considerate.
-Did he not show that by taking me into his confidence? Yes, yes, you are
-right; insist upon knowing all from him, and you shall tell me: who
-could understand, or sympathize so well? But as you love me and value
-the safety of Rafael, not a word to him or Doña Feliz.—Rosario! what an
-impatient one! What is there to see? If there is commotion in the
-street, keep back from the windows. Ay, who would have thought the
-troops would pass this way? God save us, we shall be killed! the whole
-town will be destroyed! The street is alive with soldiers. Bar the
-doors! close the shutters! Oh, what horror! Is it Comonfort returned? Is
-it a _pronunciamiento_? What new alarm is this?” Ejaculating these last
-sentences Doña Rita hurried downstairs and rushed from room to room,
-directing the bewildered servants and chiding Rosario, who, attracted by
-the sound of music and the trampling of men and horses, strove to peep
-through a crack in the shutters.
-
-Chata, standing where she had been left at the head of the stairs, heard
-it all as though in a dream. She said over and over to herself, “It is
-the General I will ask. Yes, yes, I will have the courage! No word of
-mine shall bring danger on my father. Oh, why do I say ‘my father’? Yes,
-I will say so; he is mine until he turns me away! Oh, what shall I do?
-Oh, Sanctissima Maria, help thy child! May I not say to Don Rafael,
-‘Here is thy poor little child; she will be the daughter of no other’?
-Oh, I know he would cling to me, fight for me; but that Doña Rita says
-would be ruin! Ah, I know the soldier is cruel and false, even if he is
-my father; he has been so to me—” She stopped suddenly, as though
-blasphemy had escaped her. Though she would not believe in her heart the
-testimony which her reason could not disallow, she was struck dumb by
-the mere possibility of filial disrespect and with the actual abhorrence
-which she felt in her bosom toward the man whom she instinctively
-feared.
-
-As if to flee from her thoughts, she rushed into a room that faced upon
-the street, and with an impulse such as leads the desperate man to throw
-himself into a vortex of seething water, or into the thickest of battle,
-as her ear caught the sounds of commotion, she threw open the shutters
-and stepped out upon the balcony.
-
-A scene of confusion met her eye, in which men on horseback and on foot
-seemed mingled indiscriminately, each individual struggling in an
-attempt to secure a personal advantage. Ranks were broken and scattered.
-Men and officers alike were for the most part un-uniformed, and to the
-uninitiated it was impossible to distinguish the adherents of one party
-from those of another, save by the wild cries of “_Religion y Fueros!_
-Long live Liberty! Long live Juarez!”
-
-The name of Juarez had begun to be a familiar one in all ears; and even
-though it possessed not the magic of later years, the voices that
-uttered it thrilled with an intensity of purpose which seemed to infuse
-the word with life,—to make it a watchword for great and noble
-aspirations and deeds, not the mere echo of a name, a party cry to be
-shouted with frenzy to-day and execrated to-morrow.
-
-It was impossible to tell what chance had forced the combatants upon
-that straggling highway. The struggle had begun at the barracks, when a
-party of horse had surprised the garrison, pouncing upon it from the
-hills like hawks upon their prey, and by the sheer force of surprise,
-rather than any superiority of numbers or courage, throwing it into a
-confusion which in spite of the efforts of the young officers speedily
-resulted in a panic. The soldiers who had been drilling before the town
-prison,—which had done duty as a fort,—after a feeble and confused
-attempt to defend its doors, had been driven into the plaza; and when
-Ramirez reached this, it was to find his own guns turned upon him. His
-servant had been leading his charger up and down the street, awaiting
-him; and catching a glimpse of his master as he hurried past an alley in
-which the groom had taken refuge, he called in mingled devotion and
-affright,—
-
-“For God’s sake, Señor! here is the black. Mount him for your life!
-another moment and we should have been discovered! Everybody knows
-Choolooke, and my life would not have been worth a cent had they caught
-sight of him. My faith, I like not these surprises! This way, Señor!
-Around by the church there is an alley unguarded. They are fighting like
-ten thousand devils in the plaza. It is madness to go there!”
-
-Ramirez sprang into the saddle with a laugh, though his lips were white
-and his eyes blazing with rage. It was a new experience to him to be
-thus caught napping,—his scouts must have played him false. His horse
-snorted and bounded under him. In another moment he was in the midst of
-the mêlée, and an electric shock seemed to pass through friends and foes
-alike. There were wild shrieks at sight of him. The exultant invaders
-echoed with some dismay the name of Ramirez, the battle-cry with which
-his followers made an attempt to rally, seizing arms from the hands of
-their opponents, or using the pistols which had remained forgotten in
-their belts.
-
-For a few moments the plaza appeared to be a veritable battle-ground,
-though there was far more noise and confusion than actual fighting done.
-Ramirez knew with infinite rage and shame that he would probably be
-forced to yield the town, rather by strategy than superior numbers. It
-would have been an actual pleasure to him at the moment to have seen his
-followers falling in their blood, rather than flying disarmed,—even
-though they should rally later and take a terrible revenge upon the
-enemy. For an instant his presence stemmed the current of retreat, but
-for an instant only. There had been a secret dissatisfaction in his
-ranks, which the sight of the well-known face of a popular leader,
-together with panic, rapidly fermented into a _pronunciamiento_; and
-even as Ramirez, waving his sword above his head, entered the street of
-the Orchards, he was saluted with the shout, “Down with Ramirez! Down
-with the Clergy! Long live Juarez! Long live Gonzales!” and through the
-dust and smoke he caught sight of Vicente Gonzales, almost
-unrecognizable under the grime of the hurried march and the heat of
-excitement and success.
-
-The two were so close together they could have touched each other. One
-of those hand-to-hand encounters which the history of Mexico proves were
-not infrequent even at that date seemed inevitable, as they turned
-toward each other with the fury of personal hatred added to partisan
-animosity.
-
-But at the moment when the two fiery steeds would have clashed together,
-a woman threw herself before Ramirez and caught his arm, calling aloud
-his name. With that wonderful power of the bridle-hand possessed by the
-horsemen of Mexico, Gonzales drew back his charger and gazed full at his
-opponent, whom force more potent than a blow seemed to arrest. The crowd
-surged in; Ramirez’s horse was forced back. The woman had fallen in the
-mêlée; and with a curse upon her the guerilla chieftain was swept onward
-in the current of retreat.
-
-Chata from the balcony had witnessed this incident in the distance. She
-shrieked as the woman fell. An officer who was speeding past looked
-up,—it was Fernando Ruiz. “Coward!” she involuntarily cried, “to leave
-your General!” She realized how impossible, having lost the first moment
-of vantage, would be an attempt to control the undisciplined and flying
-rabble when even the officers had succumbed to panic; and for the first
-time her sympathies woke for Ramirez.
-
-Yielding to the necessity of the moment the General had put spurs to his
-horse. The bullets flew past him as he sped over the highway; yet he
-glanced up as he passed the house,—he even drew rein for an instant in
-alarmed surprise.
-
-“Go in! go in!” he cried. “What! wilt thou be killed in mere wantoness?
-Go in, I tell thee! Are _both_ to be killed before my eyes to-day?”
-Chata sprang through the open window in affright, obedient rather to his
-stern yet imploring gesture than to his words. He glanced back, fired a
-pistol toward a pair of Liberal soldiers who had rapidly gained upon
-him, and without the change of a muscle upon his set face, as one of
-them pitched headlong from his plunging steed, continued his flight and
-disappeared in the low bushes.
-
-With horror Chata watched the death agony of the wounded soldier. His
-comrade had not thought it worth while to linger; there might be booty
-or sport elsewhere. All the church bells were being rung for the victory
-by this time. The half hour’s fight was over; the fort had been taken,
-the garrison routed, a _pronunciamiento_ successful; the town had
-changed its politics. A few dead men were lying in the streets, a few
-wounded were bathing or plastering their bleeding heads or limbs; the
-closed houses were opening again; the street merchants were setting
-forth their wares; and one of the thousand phases of the revolution had
-passed.
-
-The next day the Liberal soldiers were lounging about the streets; the
-boys were shouting, “Long live Gonzales!” as they went by, as they had
-shouted before, “Long live Ramirez!” A tranquil gayety pervaded the
-place. No one would have known its peace had ever been disturbed.
-
-So lovely was the afternoon, and the distant sounds of the band playing
-in the plaza were so inspiring, that Doña Rita and her two charges
-sallied forth to visit the convent. They had often been there before.
-Rosario thought it dull to wait while her mother chatted at the grating
-with the soft-voiced nuns, but Chata watched them with awe. There was
-one whose pale face used to peer out wistfully through the
-semi-darkness; her voice and her large dark eyes, it seemed to Chata,
-were always softened by tears. She longed to touch the white hand which
-she sometimes saw raised to the sensitive lips, as if to check some
-ill-considered word.
-
-Upon this day some rays of light piercing the barred window of the
-corridor rendered the features of the nun unusually distinct. A sense of
-bewilderment stole over Chata as she gazed upon them. Where had she seen
-them before? Who was this Sister Veronica?
-
-The short time allowed for the interview expired; the attendant nun gave
-her hand to Doña Rita to kiss in token of dismissal, and turned away. As
-the Sister Veronica extended her hand in turn, Doña Rita caught it
-eagerly: “Forgive me! Forgive me! Oh, I had thought so ill of you,” she
-said earnestly; “yet to think ill of you seemed to make my own life
-noble. Forgive me, Señorita Herlinda, that I ever thought you anything
-but a true and spotless saint!”
-
-The eyes of the nun opened wide. “Forgive, forgive? I have nothing to
-forgive; why should not you—ay, all the world—condemn me?” she whispered
-hoarsely. “Oh, Rita, that face! that face!”
-
-At that instant the slide was drawn and the white face and eager eyes of
-the nun disappeared.
-
-Chata turned to look behind her where the nun had apparently directed
-her gaze. A woman was crouching on the door-sill. She was not old,
-though over her wonderful Spanish beauty some power of devastation
-seemed to have swept. She was carelessly but richly dressed, the
-disorder of her person seemingly according with that of her
-manner,—perhaps of her intellect; for though evidently a lady by birth,
-she lay in the sun, her head uncovered, her shawl thrown back from her
-shoulders, her hair, which was of a peculiar reddish brown, half
-uncoiled, twining like little serpents around her throat.
-
-She glanced carelessly up as Doña Rita and the young girls passed her.
-Chata saw with surprise that one side of her face was bruised, and there
-was a deep scratch on her arm. Where had she seen before the glint of
-that shining hair? It flashed over her in a moment. This was the woman
-who had thrown herself upon Ramirez!
-
-Chata involuntarily paused, but Doña Rita caught her hand and drew her
-away. She had motioned Rosario on before. Her very garments had rustled
-with disdain as she passed the prostrate woman.
-
-“Such as these one can at least be certain of,” she said sententiously.
-It was not a pleasant thing to own one’s self mistaken. Chata detected
-chagrin in the tone of her voice: was she piqued that she had misjudged
-Sister Veronica? Then she remembered with a start what the new interest
-of the moment had driven from her mind,—the name by which her mother had
-addressed the nun: it was of the Señorita Herlinda that her mother had
-asked pardon!
-
-A feeling of awe crept over her. She had seen Doña Isabel’s beautiful
-and sainted daughter, around whose name hung so much romance and
-mystery. And oh the sadness of that face! the wistfulness of those eyes!
-the appealing agony of that voice!
-
-When they reached the house the door was ajar; there was a mild
-excitement within. A familiar voice saluted their ears. Doña Rita
-clutched Chata’s arm and whispered, “Not a word, I command thee!” and
-with a glance of mingled entreaty and menace followed Rosario to greet
-Don Rafael with exclamations of welcome and delight.
-
-Chata took with icy fingers the hand he extended at sight of her and
-bent over it with tears and kisses. “My father, my own father!” she
-whispered. Even had she been at liberty to do so, she would not for the
-world have broken the spell of those words.
-
-“My patron saint!” cried Don Rafael, regarding her with puzzled
-fondness, “what has come to the child?” He caught her on his arm and
-held her from him. Her eyelids lowered, her color rose beneath his gaze.
-Presently he released her and turned away. He had not kissed her. Had he
-forgotten? Had some new, deep feeling withheld him? Chata felt cold and
-faint; he too had muttered under his breath, “That face! that face!” and
-_he_ had spoken those words of _her_.
-
-
-
-
-                                  XXV.
-
-
-For many days following the unexpected event which closed the feast of
-Juana’s marriage, an old proverb went the rounds of the gossips of Tres
-Hermanos: “She who would handle the wild-cat should wear steel gloves.”
-Doña Isabel had heard it perhaps, though it was not likely to reach her
-ears then: and assuredly she had reason to remember it.
-
-Perhaps when Chinita crossed the court and followed Doña Isabel upstairs
-to her own room, dazzling visions flitted before her of being clasped in
-the embrace of her patroness, and being called by the name which to her
-was sovereign. But nothing of the sort occurred. Doña Isabel threw
-herself into a chair as if exhausted, and bent her face upon her hands,
-leaving the child standing so long regarding her in silence that at
-length her impatient spirit rose in rebellion, and she said, “The Señora
-surely brought me here for something more than to stand like a drowsy
-hen waiting for morning.”
-
-Doña Isabel raised her head at these words, which though impatient did
-not strike her as impertinent,—she was too well acquainted with the
-characteristic speech of her inferiors, rich in quaint phrases and
-figures drawn from familiar objects,—and regarding the girl with that
-curious mixture of admiration and repulsion which never entirely
-disappeared, she replied,—
-
-“Thou art a proud child. Humility would better become thee. Hast thou no
-other name than Chinita, which I hear all call thee?”
-
-“I was baptized like any other Christian,” cried Chinita, indignantly.
-“And as for surname,” she added recklessly, “if I am not Garcia, you
-Señora, will tell me!”
-
-Doña Isabel’s lips compressed; no effort of her will could prevent the
-falling of her eyelids,—an actual fear of the girl seized her; yet she
-was fascinated. She said not a word, and presently Chinita began to
-laugh in a low, triumphant tone, which was to Doña Isabel like the
-mocking of a thousand devils.
-
-“Hush, hush!” she said violently at length. “You distract, you madden
-me!”
-
-She caught up a candle, took the girl’s hand and drew her impetuously
-into the corridor. She tried several doors, and opened the first that
-yielded. It was not until they stood within the room that Doña Isabel
-knew it was that (long deserted, half unconsciously avoided ) of
-Herlinda. She started, and clasped her hand over her heart. Then as if
-scorning her weakness, pointed to the bed, and without a word turned
-from the room.
-
-With a sense of wild exultation Chinita saw she was to sleep in a bed,
-like a woman of quality; in the very bed of the daughter, whose name,
-like that of a saint, was spoken with bated breath by the vulgar, and
-was perhaps too sacred for utterance by those who had loved her.
-
-The little structure of brass, with its mattresses and pillows, its
-linen and lace, was unpretentious enough, but Chinita walked around it
-and eyed it almost in awe, as if it had been the throne of a princess.
-The candle was beginning to flicker in its socket when she at last lay
-down, adjusting her head to the unaccustomed pressure of the pillows
-with some difficulty, saying to herself with an impatient smile, “What a
-poor creature I am! Even the things I have longed for hurt more than
-please me to learn to use. But there must be still greater things to
-conform to, and I shall do it. Oh, yes, Sanchita thought she could ride
-in a coach, and be taken for a lady as well as another; and I who was
-born a lady must forget I have been ever a Sanchita. It should not be
-hard!”
-
-Chinita had slept far better upon the preceding night upon a sheepskin.
-Her excitement and the unusual comfort of the bed kept her wakeful; and
-at early dawn she was up, peeping into the wardrobe, where long-disused
-dresses and other garments were hanging. She took down one of bright
-silk and put it on, and thought how exactly it fitted her. She could
-scarcely see herself in the dim mirror, and she went to the door to open
-it for the admission of more light, and with a momentary fright found
-herself a prisoner. She decided in a moment that Doña Isabel had no
-intention of detaining her beyond the sleeping hours, yet a feverish
-impulse seized her to escape at once. That any one should hold her at a
-moment’s disadvantage was intolerable to her. Without thinking of the
-dress she had on, she glanced around her eagerly for means of egress.
-The window was barred, but there was a door that opened into an
-adjoining chamber, into which she passed hastily, finding the door that
-opened on the corridor actually ajar. As her way was open, she was in no
-hurry to depart, but stood balancing herself on one foot, holding by one
-hand to the door-post, and with the other pushing back her hair that she
-might see clearly into the court.
-
-Not a creature was astir; the very bird that was in a cage hanging near
-her stood silently on his perch, with his head on one side, gazing
-through the bars as if in pensive wonderment at the silence.
-
-Chinita had a feeling that the world had been transformed with her; she
-was half terrified, yet amused, and longed for some one to speak to.
-Could she speak the old words, the accustomed sounds? Was she indeed
-Chinita and not another? Had Rosario or Chata been under the same roof,
-she would have been tempted to run to them at once with the query; but
-there was no one who would know what she meant if she put such a
-question to them. They would only laugh and stare and pass on. Ah, there
-was one who could not pass on! At a bound she was on the stairs, and in
-a minute stood at the door of the stranger’s room. It was open; he liked
-the air. Early as it was, Selsa had left him; so without let of
-hindrance Chinita seated herself at the foot of the bed, and with
-expressive pantomime began to inquire into the state of the wounded
-shoulder.
-
-The young man looked at her in amaze. This was the strangest of the
-strange visitors he had had. At first he did not recognize her in the
-incongruous dress; but a glance at the elfin face and the mop of curls
-recalled to his mind the name Chinita, and he held out his hand with a
-gesture of welcome and surprise, and even found words in his meagre
-stock of Spanish to ask her where she had been.
-
-“I have been in my home,” she answered with a great show of dignity. “Do
-you not see, I am a lady, a grand lady?”
-
-She had risen and spread out the silken dress with her hands. The young
-man caught one of the locks of her hair, and pulled it teasingly, “_No
-comprendo_, I don’t understand. Tell me where is your mother? Where is
-your _padre_?”
-
-Such a mixture of languages should have been unintelligible, but Chinita
-understood very well, and with a sudden prompting of the spirit of
-mischief which was never far from her, replied, “_Padre mio muerto!
-Americano guero, como Ud.! Oh, si Americano!_”
-
-“What!” cried the young man in English, “Your father dead! An American?
-Fair like me?” He had clutched the lock of hair so tightly, as he rose
-in his bed in his excitement, that her head was quite near him. “Are you
-quite sure? Can it be possible?” adding, with sudden remembrance that
-intelligent though she was it was impossible she should understand his
-foreign tongue, and angry as he saw her at his vehemence, it was
-unlikely she should care to divine his meaning, “_Niña bonita_, pretty
-child, pardon me! Your father an _Americano_? Well, that is wonderful! I
-_Americano_,—I, Ashley Ward. _Pardona mi!_”
-
-Chinita was not to be at once appeased; but she saw with inward delight
-that he was much impressed by her claim jestingly set forth to American
-parentage, and there was something in the sound of his name that
-recalled to her mind the man who had been murdered so many years ago.
-She began with a thousand gestures, which made somewhat intelligible her
-voluble Spanish, to give an account of him. The young man listened with
-intense excitement, anathematizing his ignorance of the language in
-which she spoke, yet convinced that chance had led him to the very spot
-which he had had it in his mind to seek. In the interest of her
-narration, Chinita forgot the assertion she had made; but her listener
-more than once supposed that she alluded to it, and looked intently upon
-her face to catch a glimpse of some expression that should remind him
-even of the race to which the man of whom she spoke had belonged. But
-there was nothing. The features, expression, color, were those of a
-Mexican of mixed Spanish and Indian types, with nothing individual other
-than a weird beauty and vivacity, and the peculiar hair which had
-suggested the name that even Doña Isabel did not seek to disassociate
-from her. For at the moment when the interest of her narrative was at
-its height, and Ashley Ward had risen on his pillows and was following
-her every gesture with mute and rapt attention, the lady of the mansion
-entered, calling breathlessly, “Chinita! Chinita!” suddenly arresting
-her steps, as she caught the concluding words: “And so he was killed!
-And they say it was not a man, but the Devil who did it. But for my part
-I don’t believe it, for the ghost of the American can be seen under the
-tree or at the old reduction-works any night; and it’s not likely Señor
-Satan would give so much liberty to a soul he seemed so anxious to get.”
-
-Chinita had finished her sentence with a certain defiance, for she felt
-guilty before Doña Isabel,—not so much for being found in the room of
-the wounded guest, as because of her borrowed attire. But Doña Isabel
-did not seem to notice that. “Thou art wrong to come here,” she said;
-“thou art wrong to talk like a scullery-maid of things thou dost not
-understand. What did I hear thee say of an American as I came in?”
-
-“Did I say American?” retorted Chinita with a laugh at the thought of
-the jest she had made, for the idea of falsehood did not occur to her.
-“Ah, yes! I told him the American was my father! He would have believed
-me even had I said Señor San Gabriel. Oh, it is a grand diversion to see
-his eyes open with wonder! Selsa says he is dumb and deaf and
-understands nothing, but there is not a word I say that he does not
-understand quickly enough; and he knows—” But she ceased suddenly, for
-Doña Isabel was deadly white. She had turned to the American almost
-fiercely, and demanded hoarsely, “What has this child told you? What
-tale has she poured into your ears, wild, improbable,—the dreams of a
-child, filled with the superstitious tales of the common people? What
-have you heard? What have you believed?”
-
-Ashley Ward looked at her in some surprise at her vehemence. Her
-gestures did not translate to him the purport of words which had not
-even a familiar sound. After a moment he shook his head, and said
-slowly: “_No comprendo!_ I do not understand Spanish.”
-
-Doña Isabel breathed freely; her rigid face relaxed; she almost smiled.
-“Foolish child,” she said to Chinita; “he does not understand our
-language. Come, thou shalt have chocolate with me. I am not angry,
-though thou art a runaway.”
-
-Chinita seldom afterward found Doña Isabel so gracious when she had
-committed a fault; but she discovered at night, when she was left in her
-room alone, that that particular escapade was not to be repeated. The
-door which led to the adjoining room was locked, as well as that which
-opened upon the corridor. She shook the bars of the window in impotent
-rage. She opened her mouth to scream, to wake the echoes with the name
-of Pedro, but at a second thought refrained, and went and lay quietly
-down like a baffled animal reserving its strength for the time when its
-prey should be near. She did not sleep. She had done nothing to tire
-her, and also she had dropped into slumber more than once during the day
-in the silence of Doña Isabel’s room, where she had sat watching her, as
-she opened drawers and boxes, and as if by stealth moved various
-articles to a large trunk, turning from it with affected carelessness
-when Doña Feliz or any servant entered.
-
-Chinita was living over again in her mind the long monotonous day,
-feeling as if a thunder-clap or some convulsion of Nature must break
-upon the feverish stillness, when she heard a tap at her window. The
-sash was already raised, but she sprang noiselessly from the bed and
-across the floor, and thrust her hand through the bars, for she divined
-that Pedro had called her.
-
-“It is but for a moment, _niña_,” he whispered, almost humbly, as he
-kissed her hand. “But tell me, art thou happy; art thou content?”
-
-“Why should I not be happy?” she asked. “I have worn a silk gown all day
-long, and have eaten and drunk things so dainty a humming-bird might sip
-them; and Doña Isabel has dared not say no to me,—though she does not
-love me, Pedro, and I love not her.”
-
-“Then thou wilt come again to poor Pedro, who does love thee?” queried
-the gatekeeper in a tremulous and doubting voice.
-
-She withdrew her hand, tossing her head scornfully. “No,” she said. “You
-know how the black cat strayed once into the hut, and though Florencia
-drove him away, and would strike and frighten him if he stole as much as
-a morsel of dried beef, he would come back and curl himself under the
-bench, and lie there upon the cold floor, though he might have gone to
-the granaries and had his fill of fat mice, and plenty of straw to lie
-on. Well, Pedro, I am the black cat, and I will stay in Doña Isabel’s
-house because it is my humor, and I cannot tell why, and there is an end
-of it.”
-
-Pedro sighed; but presently he said in his slow way, “Well, well! God is
-God,—may he care for thee! Pedro can be of no more use to thee; the
-guitar that doesn’t accord with the voice is best hung upon the wall.
-Farewell, Chinita; God grant thee so much good that thou needst not
-remember thy old friends.”
-
-Chinita laughed. “Thou art vexed, Pedro; but I love thee, and I would
-love thee more if thou wouldst tell me the name of my father or my
-mother.” Pedro shook his head. “Oh, I am sure thou dost not know; thou
-couldst not have kept a secret all these years!” She looked at him
-sharply, but he was not the man to begin unwary defences, which might to
-a keen eye expose the weakest spots in his armor. He stood for some
-moments quite silent. Chinita saw by the moonlight that his face had
-lines upon it she had never seen before. Her conscience smote her, yet
-she could not say she was sorry for the fate which had parted them,—for
-it did not occur to her any more than to him that he might question the
-act of Doña Isabel, and refuse to yield the child he had sheltered from
-its birth.
-
-“What secret should the tool have?” he asked at length bitterly. “It is
-taken up and laid by as the master wills. Years ago I used to think I
-was a man, but since then I have been but a dog to watch and to guard;
-but the watch is over, and the dog may be a man again. That would please
-you, would it not? There is better work than to sit at a gate and see
-the soldiers come and go, and never hear so much as the echo of a shot;
-or as much as know why there is a smell of blood always in the air, and
-men are dragged away to death. Gonzales told me the struggle is for
-liberty; I can do no more for you, and I will go and see. Who knows what
-I may find beyond there? Who knows what news I may bring to you?”
-
-The face usually so stoical in its expression was lighted as if by an
-inward fire. For the first time Chinita knew that this man too had his
-ambitions, the stronger that they had been repressed for years. Would he
-join the next band of soldiers or bandits that came that way? The
-thought struck her comically, like a touch of the mock heroic; yet it
-thrilled her. She would have liked to be a soldier herself. She would
-have chosen to be a boy to go with him; and yet she was glad they were
-to part, if that indeed was his meaning,—that her foster father would no
-longer sit at the gate.
-
-He had touched her hand and bent to kiss it humbly, as he might have
-saluted Doña Isabel herself. Then he thrust a long narrow package
-through the bars, muttered softly, “_Adios_” and stole noiselessly away.
-
-Though Chinita saw him at his old place on the morrow, she understood
-that an eternal farewell had been made to their old relations and their
-old life. All that remained of them was contained in the package of
-trinkets he had brought her,—the coral beads, the few irregular pearls,
-the many-hued reboso, and the ribbons she had prized and which in his
-simplicity he had thought she would regret. Indeed, she had recognized
-them with a thrill of delight; nothing half so bright or costly had been
-offered her in the new life she had imagined would be so rich and
-brilliant. Yet she clung to it as hers of right, the more firmly after
-turning over and over, again and again, the dainty swaddling clothes,
-which she had never seen before, but which she knew Pedro had yielded to
-her as the sole possessions with which she had come to him,—possessions
-useless in themselves, but invaluable to her as proofs that she came
-from no plebeian stock. She wondered if her mother had arrayed her in
-them to cast her out,—and though she was of no gentle mould, her mind
-revolted from the thought. Then, had her father disowned her; or had an
-enemy filched her from her cradle, and unwilling to be guilty of her
-blood, left her in the first hands he had encountered? She ran over in
-her mind all the tales she had heard of mysterious disappearances,—and
-they were not a few,—but none would fit the case; and surely a
-hue-and-cry would have been made at the abduction of a rich man’s
-infant.
-
-Chinita wrapped up the clothes and hid them away in impatient despair.
-Once she thought of taking them to Doña Isabel; but what would be gained
-by that? That her protectress knew the secret of her birth she was
-convinced, not by any course of reasoning, but by the simple fact that
-she had assumed the charge of her as her right. The girl did not know
-how baseless are apt to be the caprices of a great lady.
-
-The days passed wearily to the eager child. They would have been
-intolerable—for she was always alone or with Doña Isabel, who gave her
-no certain status as equal or inferior, and with whom she was feverishly
-defiant, or seized with sudden tremors of awe or actual fear—but that
-she knew Don Rafael had gone to bring his family home. She longed to
-pour her secret thoughts into the ears of Chata, to show the infant
-clothes and hear her comments and suggestions. It appeared to her that
-Chata would certainly penetrate the gloom, and in her sweet simplicity
-throw some light upon the mystery which enveloped her. Besides, the
-wilful girl exulted in the anticipation of dazzling the eyes of Rosario
-and Doña Rita by her connection with Doña Isabel. She was shrewd enough
-to see it had greatly increased her importance in the estimation of the
-servants and employees. Even Don Rafael, before he went away, had seized
-an opportunity to ask her whether she was content, and afterward had
-never failed to bow to her with grave politeness when they met.
-
-Once a strange thought had been set in the child’s mind: it returned and
-vexed her again and again. Doña Feliz had come into the room when in an
-unusual mood of devotion Chinita had knelt to pray before the image of
-the Virgin, before which, though she did not know it, had been poured
-forth so many bitter cries. Feliz started as she saw her, and Chinita
-rose to her feet.
-
-“Do not rise,” said Doña Feliz; “learn, child, to pray. Many amens must
-perforce reach Heaven; it is well to begin thy task young.”
-
-“What task?” Chinita queried. “I shall have something more to do than to
-pray all my life. That is for saints and nuns; and even Pedro would not
-take me for a saint.”
-
-“But thou couldst still be a nun,” said Doña Feliz, with a peculiar
-smile; “and why shouldst thou not be?”
-
-“Why not?” ejaculated Chinita. “Because I will not!” Then seized with a
-sudden terror, she cried, “Is that why Doña Isabel has taken me from
-Pedro? Is it to shut me up to pray for her and the wicked brother she
-loved so much? Selsa told me she had set her own daughter to free his
-soul from purgatory, and is not that enough? I’ll not do it. My knees
-ache when I kneel; I yawn, I fall asleep. I cannot bear to be forever in
-one place. It is to go away, to see strange sights, to wear silk and
-lace every day, as the _niña_ Herlinda must have done,—see, here are
-some of her dresses still,—it is for this, and because I was born for
-such things, that I stay with Doña Isabel; it is not to pray. I care not
-to pray, nor sing hymns, nor dress saints. I will go to her and tell her
-so!”
-
-Doña Feliz caught the arm of the excited child. “I am your friend,” she
-said. “Speak not a word of what I have said. Perhaps it was a foolish
-thought; but many more beautiful than you have entered convents, and
-perhaps have been happy.”
-
-“Is the Señorita Herlinda happy?” asked Chinita, her excitement calmed
-by the thought of another. “Selsa told me once,—it was the night
-Antonita saw the ghost of the American, when she came back from the
-mountain,—Selsa told me a witch had laid a spell upon her the day he was
-murdered,—a witch who loved the foreigner; and that the _niña_ Herlinda
-drooped and withered and would have died, but that a fever carried away
-the evil woman before she could read her into her grave.”
-
-“The witch!” ejaculated Doña Feliz, mystified. This was a superstition
-of which she had heard nothing. “Who was the witch?”
-
-“How can I tell?” answered Chinita. “Chata knows more of her than I. It
-is to her old Selsa told her tales; she is never cross to Chata. But
-after the American was killed I know the witch used to read and read and
-read strange words to the poor _niña_, and she grew paler and paler, and
-more and more sad.”
-
-“And the witch died?” queried Feliz, thinking of Mademoiselle La Croix.
-
-“Yes, in a good hour,” answered Chinita, energetically. “But I forgot;
-you must know it all, Doña Feliz. Tell me,”—with her old gossiping
-habit,—“tell me, did the Señorita love the American? Was it for him she
-pined away; or because she was bewitched; or was it because the Señora
-would not let her marry the Señor Gonzales, but would send her to the
-convent to pray for the wicked Don Leon?“
-
-“_Quien sabe?_ Who knows?” answered Doña Feliz, in the non-committal
-phrase a Mexican finds so convenient. “It is not for us to chatter of
-the Señorita Herlinda. Peace be with her! and have a care how you
-mention her name to Doña Isabel.” Her brow contracted as she thought how
-many conjectures, how much gossip of which she had known nothing, had
-been busy with events she had believed quite passed from remembrance.
-
-
-
-
-                                 XXVI.
-
-
-Ashley Ward had been, an involuntary though perhaps not entirely an
-unwilling guest, at Tres Hermanos a month or more before it dawned upon
-him that he was not a perfectly welcome one. Throughout his illness,
-which had been prolonged by the peculiar nursing and diet to which he
-had been for the first time in his life subjected, he had, though left
-almost entirely to the care of Selsa, been provided with luxuries and
-delicacies that even his imperfect knowledge of the country and
-situation enabled him to know were rare and costly, and most difficult
-to obtain. Doña Isabel Garcia was like a princess in her quiet dignity
-and in her gifts; and like a princess too, he grew to think, in the
-punctiliousness with which, every day, she sent to inquire after his
-health, and the infrequency with which she entered to express a hope
-that he lacked nothing. She never touched his hand, seldom indeed turned
-her eyes upon him when she spoke, and never smiled; and when she left
-him he inwardly raged, and vowed he would leave the hacienda on the
-morrow, even though he should die from the exertion. But his wound was
-slow in healing; the fever had sapped his strength; he was alone, and no
-opportunity of securing escort presented itself. He was virtually a
-prisoner. And besides, after these periods of vexation he would fall
-into a fit of musing, which would end in the resolve never to leave Tres
-Hermanos until certain doubts were set at rest, which from day to day
-grew more and more perplexing.
-
-The nurse, Selsa, was more communicative than the Indian peasant woman
-is apt to be. She had been employed constantly in and about the great
-house in positions of some trust, and had lost that awe of superiors,
-which held the mere common people dumb. In a sense, indeed, she felt
-herself one of the family, privileged to use gentle insistence with the
-sick, even against their aristocratic wills, and to be present, though
-eyes and ears were to be as blind and deaf as the walls around her,
-while matters of family polity were at least hinted at, if not openly
-discussed. She had in fact been to the house of Garcia “the confidential
-servant,” without which no Mexican household is complete,—one of those
-peculiar beings who however false, cruel, deceitful, and thievish with
-the world in general is silent as the grave, devoted even unto death,
-true as the lode-star, to the person or family which she serves.
-
-There was something in the personality of this wrinkled crone, growing
-out of these relations, which early impressed the young American; and
-gradually he grew to feel that he was face to face with an oracle, had
-he but the magic to unseal her lips, as the witch-like Chinita had had
-to change her air of vexed though friendly equality into unobtrusive yet
-unmistakable deference. Other servants who came and went spoke with some
-envy and spite of the sudden elevation of the gatekeeper’s foster-child.
-But Selsa, sitting in the doorway of the sick man’s room, combing out
-her long black locks,—for that, though she never succeeded in smoothing
-them, was her favorite occupation,—would glance askance at Ward and
-say,—
-
-“Be silent! the Señora knows what she does. Go now! she has a heart like
-any other Christian. What was to become of the girl, now that Pedro will
-be leaving for the wars? Would you have Don ’Guardo think we are
-barbarians here, who would leave the innocents to be devoured like lambs
-by the coyotes?”
-
-Don ’Guardo was the name Selsa had evolved from Ward, which she had
-perhaps believed to be the foreign contraction of Eduardo; and as
-Ashley, with boyish enthusiasm easily acquiring the limited vocabulary
-of those around him, began to relieve the monotony of his convalescence
-by listening to their conversations, and asking some idle questions, he
-found himself answering to the convenient appellation and alluding to
-himself by it, until it became as familiar to his ears as his own
-baptismal name, and certainly conveyed far more friendliness to him than
-the formal Señor Ward, which Don Rafael and his mother rendered with
-infinite stumbling over the unattainable W.
-
-There was a subdued excitement throughout the hacienda upon the day that
-Don ’Guardo first appeared at the great gateway. Pedro was sitting there
-in the dull, dejected manner suggestive of loss, or waiting, or both;
-and it was only when Florencia, with an exclamation, twitched his sleeve
-that he looked up.
-
-“_Maria Sanctissima!_” he stammered, staggering to his feet. Ashley
-stood in the dim light in the rear of the deep vestibule, with his hand
-on Pepé’s shoulder,—for the boy had been called to attend him,—but with
-a sudden faintness he had paused to rest against the stone wall hung
-with serpents. Ashley was a handsome youth, but in Pedro’s eyes a
-thousand times more startling than the most hideous snake or savage
-beast. So had he seen John Ashley stand a hundred times or more, not
-pale and trembling, but full of life and joy. Was this his sad ghost,
-come with reproachful eyes to haunt him?
-
-“It is the Señor American,” said Florencia. “My life! how pale he looks!
-Go, go, Pepito! bring him hither before the carriage of my Señora drives
-in; here it is at the very gate.”
-
-Pedro instantly recovered his usual stoicism. “Wait, Señor!” he said,
-“you are well placed where you are. The carriage can pass and not throw
-an atom of dust on you.” And at that moment the feet of the horses and
-the rattle of wheels were heard on the stone paving, and the hacienda
-carriage was driven rapidly into the courtyard. As it passed, Ashley
-caught a glimpse of Doña Isabel—how pale and statuesque!—and beside her
-a creature radiant in triumph, who nodded to Pedro as she passed; her
-smile seeming to say, “Behold me!” Hers was not an ignoble pride, but
-the wild exultation of an eaglet that had been chained to earth, and for
-the first time had tried its wings in the empyrean. That morning Doña
-Isabel had said, “Chinita, thou shalt go with me;” and though the lady’s
-brows had risen a little when with unconscious audacity the girl had
-taken the seat beside her, and not that opposite, where Doña Feliz was
-wont to sit, she said nothing. “The child is pale,” she thought, “and
-needs the air; there is no one to heed that she sits beside me.”
-
-It would be hard to tell what were the thoughts of Chinita; they were a
-sudden delirium after the intense quiet of the semi-imprisonment, which
-she had borne with stoical fortitude for the sake of a dimly seen future
-of power. In this enforced quiet, day by day, her ambitions were shaping
-themselves; the dominant passion of her being was seeking a point from
-which she might have advantage over all the narrow field within the
-range of her mental vision. As yet her aspirations knew no name; they
-were mere vague, impatient longings, or rather impatient spurning of the
-old ignoble conditions of life. To ride in a carriage was an
-intoxication to her, because the low-born peasant went afoot. She chafed
-in a very thraldom of inaction because the high-born toiled not. She
-loved the rustle of a gaudy silk, while her hand shrank from the contact
-of the stiff and rustling fabric, because such attire was only for the
-rich and great. As undefined as had been the joy with which she had
-heard she was a Garcia, was still the delight of each fresh conquest
-that she made. No eager _virtuoso_ groping in the dark among undescribed
-treasures could be more ignorant yet more wildly anticipative of the
-glories the daylight should discover than she of what the future should
-reveal.
-
-From where Don ’Guardo and his attendant stood, they could see Doña
-Isabel and Chinita as they descended from the carriage. Doña Isabel,
-without glancing around, ascended the stairs to her own apartment.
-Chinita followed a step or two behind, then turned and paused. Her quick
-eye scanned the little group that had gathered in the court. Ashley Ward
-himself was startled by the change that had passed over her since he had
-seen her last. What had been elfish in her wild abandonment of bearing
-had become a subtle grace of manner, which gave piquancy to a hauteur
-that counterfeited the dignity of inherent nobleness. “The gypsy has
-borrowed the air of a queen!” was the thought of the American. He felt
-Pepé quiver beneath his hand, and looking at him saw a sullen fire in
-his dark, slumberous eyes, though his lips were white and his dusky face
-ashen as if a chill had seized him. The girl had overlooked him and all
-the plebeian crowd, and her eyes rested in a triumphant challenge on
-Ashley. She smiled, and a ray of sunlight darted down and reddened the
-crisp and straggling tendrils of her hair. The smile or the sunlight
-dazzled him; he leaned heavier on Pepé’s shoulder. She reminded him of a
-Medusa idealized, of incarnate passion surrounded by the halo of radiant
-youth.
-
-Ashley was roused by a sudden movement of Pepé, who had for the moment
-forgotten his station, and impetuously thrown himself upon a bench in an
-attitude of impotent grief and rage; then he sprang to his feet, and
-again placed his shoulder under Ashley’s hand. Once more he was the mere
-stock and stick; but Ashley had discovered in him the soul and heart of
-a man.
-
-“Poor fool!” he thought, with a sort of anger mingled with his pity;
-“here is a touch of the tragic in this little comedy, which the wily
-little peasant is inspired to play so daintily. She appears to have
-bewitched me with the rest; I can’t keep the thought of her, or rather
-of her words, out of my head,—and yet I have only a word to build a
-whole fabric of theory upon.”
-
-These thoughts had passed through his mind in an instant,—the instant in
-which Chinita had lightly run up the stone steps after Doña Isabel, and
-in which Ashley and Pepé had reached the broad gateway of the hacienda.
-Ashley sank upon the stone bench where Pedro was wont to sit, and Pepé
-leaned sullenly against the rough wall. Both looked in silence over the
-village, across the fields, the narrow line of cottonwood trees and
-yellow mud which marked the bed of a torrent in the rainy season and a
-waste of desolation in the long drought, and onward still to the gray
-and barren mountains whose distant peaks of purple pierced the deep blue
-of the cloudless sky. The scene to Pepé was as old as his years, too
-familiar to distract for a moment his tortured mind; but Ashley beheld
-it in a sort of rapture. Perhaps any glimpse of the outer world would
-have charmed him after his unwonted imprisonment; but the fertility of
-the valley, this gem set in the broad expanse of bare and sterile
-Mexico, was a revelation to him of that wonderful productiveness and
-beauty which in his journeyings he had often heard of but had never
-encountered, until at last he had believed that the horrors of war, in
-its years of duration, had swept over the land and blasted it. But here
-was one spot at least that had escaped,—such a spot as he had pictured
-for months, and sought in vain.
-
-For a time he gazed upon it in simple admiration, then at first almost
-unconsciously began to look about him for certain landmarks. Yes, here
-at his back was the great pile of buildings; here on the sandy slope in
-front, the village of adobe thatched with knife-grass; there along the
-line of the watercourse, the few straggling huts of the miners and
-laborers; there away to the right, the low walls of the reduction-works
-with its tall brick chimney, and in its rear the gaping cleft of the
-mountain which marked the entrance to the mine. All now was silent and
-deserted; yet for a moment he seemed to look upon it with other eyes,
-and to see the trains of laden mules filing in and out of the wide
-gateways, and to trace the black smoke rising in a column to the
-cloudless sky. “This must be the place!” he inwardly exclaimed; and
-drawing from his breast-pocket a flat case of papers, he selected from
-them a torn and yellow letter, and read it slowly over, ever and anon
-raising his eyes to identify some point in the description, which a hand
-as young, more firm, more resolute than his own, had in an hour of
-leisure so accurately written years before. The date of the missive was
-gone, and with it the name of this new place in which the writer seemed
-to have found an earthly paradise,—“not wanting,” as he said at the
-close of the letter, “an Eve to be at once the gem of this perfect
-setting, and the inaccessible star to which poor mortals may raise
-longing eyes, but may never hope to win.”
-
-Ashley smiled as he read the words. Who could this divinity have been?
-But for other letters that had been put into his hands he would have
-thought the paragraph mere bathos, boyish gush, and sentiment; but it
-was a prelude to what might prove a strange and fateful series of
-events. Somewhere here his cousin had years ago lived and loved and been
-done to death; and his mission was to trace the sequence of these
-events, and to learn whether or no with John Ashley had passed away all
-possible influence upon the fortunes of his own life.
-
-Until within a few months such questions had never occurred to him. The
-John Ashley whom he had dimly remembered had been murdered years before;
-and so had ended an adventurous career, which had been his own choice,
-or perhaps his evil destiny. To Ward, as to others, that had been the
-sum and substance of the tragedy which had thrown a gloom for a time
-over all the family, and had stricken a proud mother to the heart. She
-had suffered years in silence, the name of her wayward son never passing
-her lips; her young daughter had grown up with no knowledge of her
-brother but his name. It was she who after the mother’s death had found
-these letters, and entreated her cousin to seek the fatal spot of John
-Ashley’s death,—surely there must be somewhere records that would give
-the exact location,—and to make inquiries for the wife, and for the
-possible child, of whom he wrote in his last short letter, full of
-passionate appeal to his mother in behalf of the young creature who for
-him had forfeited the confidence, perhaps the love, of her own.
-“Herlinda! Herlinda! Herlinda!” was the burden of the letter. “The name
-rings in my ears,” Mary Ashley had said. “How could my mother have been
-deaf to it? She thought of those people as barbarous, false, cruel,
-treacherous. But what matters that to me, if there is among them one who
-has my brother’s blood, or one who loved him?”
-
-“The marriage laws of those countries are strange,” Ward had ventured to
-say. “Perhaps your mother feared complications which could but bring
-disgrace and misery.”
-
-“I do not fear them,” said Mary Ashley, proudly. “It is a wild country
-for a woman to go to, but if you will not investigate this matter, I
-will brave any inconvenience, any danger, to do so. I cannot live with
-this tantalizing fear in my heart.”
-
-The idea that tormented Mary seemed at best that of a mere possibility
-to Ashley,—the possibility of an event which, as the mother had seen,
-might if proved bring far more pain than joy, especially at this late
-date; yet it worked upon his mind gradually, as it had upon Mary’s
-suddenly,—perhaps the more surely because he personally profited by the
-supposition that his cousin had died unwed. By his aunt’s will he had
-been left the share in her property that John would have inherited, on
-condition that neither he nor any legitimate heir should appear to claim
-it.
-
-People shrugged their shoulders and smiled pityingly. “Poor soul, had
-she then doubted her son’s death?”
-
-The news had reached Mrs. Ashley in an irregular way; the war had
-supervened, and particulars had been few and far from exact. But later,
-through some business house, inquiries had been made and some few books
-and almost worthless articles of clothing had been obtained from an
-alcalde, who swore they had been the dead man’s sole effects. Certainly
-the proofs had been irregular but sufficient. What could one expect from
-such a lawless set of uncivilized renegades, who knew nothing of civil
-or international law, and were bent on the sole task of exterminating
-one another? They smiled at the condition in the will, and pitied the
-poor woman who could thus hope against hope. Ashley Ward himself, the
-orphan nephew whom his aunt had loved with a jealous devotion, which at
-times wearied him by its suspicions and exactions, at first smiled also.
-But when Mary brought to him the fragments of three old letters to read,
-just as his mind was filled with plans for a career which the possession
-of ample wealth and leisure seemed to justify, and which in poverty he
-could never have dared aspire to, he grew thoughtful, moody at
-times,—then suddenly his own impetuous, generous self again.
-
-“I will go to Mexico, Mary,” he said, “and bring you word of your
-brother’s life there. No doubts shall shake their spectre fingers at me
-in my prosperity, nor torment your loving and anxious soul.”
-
-“Good, true cousin!” was all she answered. She perhaps did not realize
-what effect upon the prospects of Ashley the results of this journey
-might possibly have; they dawned upon her little by little as the days
-went by and no news came of him.
-
-The daring traveller had been obliged to enter Mexico at some obscure
-point. The Liberal government under Juarez was installed at Vera Cruz;
-the Conservatives held the City of Mexico; and the length and breadth of
-the country was in a state of riot and ferment, torn and devastated by
-roving bands who changed their politics as readily as their encampments.
-Ashley’s journey through the Republic was like a passage over
-smouldering coals between two fires, and constant address and
-fearlessness were required to avoid collision with either faction,—his
-ignorance of the language and causes of contention perhaps serving him a
-good turn in making natural the indifference and absolute impartiality
-which he could never so successfully have assumed had his sympathies
-been ever so slightly biassed.
-
-In the distracted state of the country it was almost a hopeless task to
-endeavor to trace the movements of an alien who had lived in it but a
-short time, and that years before. If any record had been made of the
-exact place and mode of John Ashley’s death, it certainly had been
-unofficial, and retained no place in the archives of either the Mexican
-or American government.
-
-Ashley Ward was at first appalled by the unexpected difficulties that he
-encountered. Inquiries brought to his knowledge the existence of several
-haciendas bearing the name of Los Tres Hermanos; and these he
-successively visited, reserving to the last that which lay in the most
-isolated and mountain-begirt district,—a point which it seemed
-impossible could, amid wild and sterile surroundings, offer the panorama
-of beauty and fertility which the pen of his cousin had described. He
-would perhaps have abandoned his search, at least for that unpropitious
-time, but for a re-perusal of the first letter which contained neither
-news nor descriptions of importance, but in which was mentioned the fact
-that the writer had been offered employment by the family of Garcia. The
-owners of the distant hacienda of Tres Hermanos, Ashley Ward discovered,
-were called Garcia,—a name too common, however, to be any proof of
-identity, yet which seemed to make it worth his while to spend another
-month or more of precious time in the search, which in another country,
-with records of average exactness, would perhaps have been performed in
-one or two days.
-
-The trip had been made as quickly as the excessively bad state of the
-roads at the rainy season would allow, and with but few divergences and
-delays; and the boundaries of the estate had been already passed when
-the young American and his servant were, in a merry rather than a savage
-humor, detained or rather actually captured by the redoubtable Calvo,
-who to amuse the leisure that hung rather heavily upon his hands invited
-the young American to ride in his company. In his broken but expressive
-English, the freebooter uttered such courteous phrases that the young
-man was quite unconscious that he was in fact a prisoner, and passed a
-not uninteresting day in exchanging political opinions, local and
-international, with the dashing chieftain,—who, while apparently
-absorbed in the novelty and pleasure of listening to the conversation of
-his involuntary guest, was mentally preparing the speech in which he
-should convey to him on the morrow the terms of ransom for himself and
-servant,—a likely fellow whom Calvo had more than half a mind to add to
-the number of his followers.
-
-But the servant himself had no illusions as to the glory of fighting or
-the chances of booty, and sometime during the night in which they were
-encamped at the _ranchito_ of El Refugio managed to elude the lax
-watchfulness of the troop, who had made a merry meal on freshly killed
-lambs and such other modest viands as Doña Isabel Garcia’s trembling
-shepherds could furnish, and without so much as a word of warning to the
-American had escaped,—bearing with him the small bag of necessaries of
-which he had charge, a pair of silver-mounted pistols, and a sum of
-money which Ward had been assured would in case of attack and capture be
-more secure in the possession of this “loyal and honest man” than in his
-own.
-
-Ashley had barely had time to realize the defection of his servant, to
-suspect his actual position as a prisoner in the hands of the courteous
-but mercenary and implacable Calvo, and wrathfully to regret the
-ignorant trustfulness with which he had divided with the much lauded
-servant the risk of transporting his funds, retaining in his own hands
-perhaps not enough to meet the rapacious demands of his captors, when
-suddenly his meditations were interrupted by cries of confusion, shouts,
-the crack of rifles, the whizzing of balls, challenges and defiant
-yells, the shrieks of women, and the groans and appeals of the helpless
-shepherds,—followed by the sight of huts ablaze, of frightened flocks
-wildly bleating and rushing blindly under the very feet of the horses,
-which trampled them down, while their keepers, as bewildered as they,
-fell victims to the mad zeal and excitement of the opposing troops who
-had so unexpectedly met on that isolated spot.
-
-It was conjectured that the missing servant had in his flight to the
-mountains accidentally come upon the soldiers of the Clergy, and to turn
-attention from himself had betrayed the proximity of the Liberals. A
-hurried march in the early morning hours had proved the truth of the
-servant’s information; and the surprise and some advantage in
-numbers—for the Captain Alva had spoken with a trace of the usual
-exaggeration of the speech of his countrymen, in describing the enemy as
-numbering three hundred—turned the chances in favor of the attacking
-party; although Calvo at first seemed inclined to contest the matter
-obstinately, and Ward, with an involuntary feeling of fealty to his host
-(though he had already some inkling of his intentions in regard to
-himself) had ranged himself upon his side. He soon saw with indignation,
-however, that the defence of the poor villagers held no part in Calvo’s
-thoughts. To frustrate some movement of the enemy, he actually ordered
-the firing of a hut in which women and children had taken refuge; and it
-was while defending the humble spot from Puro and Mocho alike, that Ward
-received the wound which disabled him,—that covered with blows from
-muskets and swords he fell, and trampled beneath the feet of the now
-flying and pursuing soldiers, for a few horrible moments believed
-himself doomed to die in a senseless mêlée, in which his only interest
-had been to protect the weak, but in which he recognized no inherent
-principle of right. Later he saw in those apparently senseless broils
-the throes and struggles of an undisciplined and purblind nation toward
-the attainment of a dimly seen ideal of justice and freedom, and learned
-the truth that these people, who seemed so lightly swayed by the mere
-love of adventure, held within their breasts the divine spark that
-distinguishes man from the brute,—the deathless fire of patriotism. They
-too could suffer, bear imprisonment, famine, even death, for freedom.
-
-But these were none of Ashley Ward’s reflections as he found himself
-laid apart from three or four dead men, who had been hurriedly thrown
-together for burial, and after being subjected to a hasty
-examination—which resulted in the abstraction of his remaining funds,
-his watch and other valuables, and the binding up of his wound—lifted to
-the back of a raw-boned troop-horse, and forced to join the march of the
-triumphant guerillas. He would have preferred to be left to the care of
-the houseless and destitute shepherds; but Captain Alva, whether with
-the hope of some ultimate benefit from the capture of the foreigner or
-not it is impossible to tell, professed himself horrified at the
-barbarity of deserting him,—and, as we have seen later, in apprehension
-of his death from exposure to the sun, and the fever that seized him,
-availed himself of the opportunity of evading the responsibility of the
-death of an American upon his hands, by delivering him to the care of
-Doña Isabel Garcia.
-
-And so, still weak, and destitute of money until he could arrange for a
-supply from the City of Mexico, but full of hope, confident that he had
-reached his goal, and that a few discreet inquiries would give him the
-information he sought, and perhaps allay forever the doubts that
-tormented his sensitive conscience, Ashley Ward drew a deep breath of
-satisfaction as he sat at the hacienda gate; and in an animated mood,
-which supplemented his insufficient Spanish, addressed himself to the
-reticent and gloomy Pedro, startling him from his usual stoicism by the
-exclamation, “And you, my man, can you tell me of the American your
-foster-child spoke of? There is not so much happens here that you can
-have forgotten.”
-
-Had Ashley known anything of the instincts and customs of the genuine
-ranchero, he would have begun his investigations in a far more guarded
-manner. That a certain Don Juan had met a bloody death there years
-before, he already knew; that this had been his cousin, he surmised;
-that the gatekeeper should know more of the domestic life of an employee
-of the hacienda than the owner herself, or even the administrador, was a
-natural conclusion. But had Ashley Ward wished to seal the lips of the
-suspicious and astute gatekeeper, he could not have chosen a more
-effective manner of accomplishing it. As well touch the horns of a snail
-and expect that it would not withdraw into its shell, as to question
-this man directly and hope to learn aught of value.
-
-Pedro looked at the inquirer from under the shadow of his bushy eyebrows
-and wide hat; and though his heart bounded, his face became a very mask
-of rustic stupidity as he answered, “Your grace has had much fever with
-your wound. Heaven and all the saints be thanked that you are young and
-healthy, and will soon be as strong as ever.”
-
-“Um!” ejaculated Ward, for the moment disconcerted. “Yes, I have had
-fever, but that has nothing to do with the American. He was a living man
-fourteen or fifteen years ago, if there be any truth in what your—young
-mistress told me.” He hesitated how to designate the girl, whose status
-and relations seemed so strangely undefined.
-
-Pedro’s eyes for a moment lightened. Pepé laughed ironically, yet he
-would have turned like a wild beast on another who had done so.
-
-“Who speaks much, speaks to his undoing,” quoth Pedro, gruffly, and
-turned away; yet he eyed the young American furtively, with an inborn
-hostility to his race, an unreasoning belief that in the guise of such
-fair tempters lurked the demon who would destroy unwary damsels body and
-soul, yet with an almost irresistible desire to unburden his soul of the
-weight that had so long oppressed it, to cry aloud, “I can tell you all
-you would know,—how the American lived, how he died, how the child he
-never saw lives after him. Is it her you seek? And why?”
-
-Pedro clenched his hands with a gasp. He remembered that the natural
-instincts of kindred had changed to bitterness against Herlinda’s child.
-She had been cast out, disowned, deserted. Who was this stranger, this
-foreigner, that he should be more just, more generous, toward the
-doubtful offspring of one who had died years before? How should he even
-guess such a child to be in existence? No, he could not guess it. What a
-mad thought had darted through his own brain! Pedro actually laughed at
-his own perplexed imaginings. What! the secret of Herlinda, which had
-been kept so inscrutably, in danger from this idle news-seeker?
-Preposterous! yet an odd conceit entered the gatekeeper’s mind: “The
-blind man dreamed that he saw, and dreamed what he desired.” This
-groping youth had come far to inquire into the fate of a man long
-dead,—it must be because it would bring him profit, for it did not for a
-moment occur to Pedro that the questions asked were from mere idle
-curiosity,—and would it be possible anything should escape him? “Well,
-what God wills, the saints themselves cannot hinder.”
-
-Pedro sat down upon the stone bench opposite, in an affectation of
-sullen obstinacy. Ashley was weary and chagrined, and in silence looked
-over the landscape with an increasing sense of recognition. Pepé stood
-in the same lounging attitude, patiently waiting. One might have thought
-him carved of wood against the stone wall, yet of the three men he it
-was whose passions were fiercest, whose thoughts like unbridled coursers
-followed one another in mad confusion. His mind was full of Chinita!
-Chinita! Chinita! her beauty, her insolent grace,—the memory of her
-pretty, haughty ways when she had been but a barefoot, ragged peasant
-like himself, and the contemplation of the hopeless height to which she
-had risen. Never before had he been conscious that he had aspired. Now,
-bruised, torn, wounded as if by a fall into hopeless depths, he saw her
-image swimming before his disordered vision; he thought of her as a
-princess, a goddess, yet he laughed when he heard her named as mistress.
-
-Such was the mood in which Pepé presently listened to the disconnected
-dialogue between Pedro and the guest, who was hampered by a language
-strange to him, and by suspicious caution on the part of the gatekeeper.
-For the first time in his life, Pepé was struck by a peculiarity in
-Pedro with which he had always been acquainted; namely, his
-unwillingness to speak of the tragedy, which to other minds had seemed
-no more horrible than scores of others that had occurred in the
-neighborhood and were common subjects of conversation. As he listened,
-Pepé became conscious that Pedro was detracting from the interest of the
-tale rather than adding to it; and when the young American at last said
-inquiringly, “And the cause of this murder was never known? There was no
-woman—” he was startled that Pedro answered not with the old jest, “Was
-there ever an evil but that a woman was at the root of it?” but rose and
-strode rapidly away.
-
-“There _was_ a woman,” muttered Ward, looking after him, “and the
-gatekeeper knew her. I have found the man who can tell me of Herlinda.”
-
-He spoke in English, but Pepé the eager listener caught the name
-“Herlinda.” Five minutes later, when Ward turned to speak to the youth,
-he found him with his hands clasped, stretched out before him, his eyes
-staring into vacancy.
-
-“Idiot!” was the half contemptuous, half pitying comment of the
-American. Little guessed he that the conversation that had seemed to
-result in so little to him had offered both a suggestion and an
-inspiration to the peasant,—the very key to the problem which he had
-himself come so far and dared so much to solve.
-
-
-
-
-                                 XXVII.
-
-
-Upon the following day, Ashley Ward went again to the gateway,—not
-merely to breathe the fresh air and enjoy the view, but irresistibly
-attracted by the remembrance of the taciturn warder. The more he
-reflected upon the emotion the man had shown when his eyes first rested
-upon him, a stranger, as he had entered the vestibule; the more he
-thought upon the guarded replies to the questions he had asked
-concerning the young American who had been there years before,—the more
-convinced he became that there had been a mystery which had led to his
-kinsman’s death, and that Pedro, if he would, could divulge it.
-
-Was it possible the man himself was the assassin? The perplexed youth
-began to sound Pepé cautiously as to the reputation Pedro had borne. But
-the young fellow was absorbed in other matters, of which Ashley rightly
-conjectured Chinita was the vital point, and was wandering and curt in
-his answers. Yet he seemed to feel that Ashley divined, if he did not
-comprehend, his pain, and so attached himself to him and followed him
-about, much as might a wounded dog some stranger who had spoken to him
-with an accent of pity in his voice.
-
-So when Ashley went to the gateway, it was Pepé’s arm that aided him,
-though with the impatience of a young man he protested against this need
-of a crutch, and had actually walked steadily enough across the court,
-under the gaze of Doña Feliz and Chinita, who happened to be in the
-window; but he had been glad to clutch at Pepé as they entered the
-vestibule. The lad was not trembling then, but erect and flushed:
-Chinita had smiled upon him as he passed.
-
-Pedro was standing in the gateway, shading his eyes with his hand, and
-gazing toward the cañon which opened behind the reduction-works. He did
-not notice Ashley and Pepé, but presently began to mutter: “Yes, it is
-they. Don Rafael has had a lucky journey. Go thou, Chinita, and tell
-Doña Feliz the master and her daughter-in-law and children will be here
-for the noon dinner.”
-
-Pepé laughed derisively. “You forget, Pedro,” he said; “it is the _niña_
-Chinita, and the Señorita Chinita now; even if she heard, she is scarce
-likely to run at your bidding. But are you sure the Señor Administrador
-comes there? If so, I will myself go and tell them.”
-
-“Go then, go!” cried Pedro, impatiently. “I am not blind, though old
-usage sometimes misleads me, and I talk like a dotard. Yes, yes. There
-comes the carriage down the cañon, and Don Rafael himself on his gray,
-and Gabriel and Panchito; I can almost distinguish their very faces.”
-
-So could Ashley, for the air was brilliantly clear, and the travellers
-had yielded to the inspiring influences natural at the sight of home,
-and allowed their horses to break into a mad pace, far different from
-the methodic gait of ordinary travel.
-
-Pepé, in spite of repressed excitement, had gone at his usual lounging
-and listless pace to inform Doña Feliz of the approach of her son, and a
-little group of villagers had assembled around Pedro, when a lithe,
-active young figure brushed by them and leaped upon the stone bench at
-Ashley’s side. He glanced up, and to his surprise saw Chinita, her hair
-flying, her eyes bright with anticipation. Putting her finger upon her
-lip as he was about to speak, as if to enjoin silence, she pressed
-herself close to the wall. There was a long narrow niche where she
-stood, and it received almost her entire figure. No one but Ashley and
-Pepé, who came with haste behind her, had noticed her.
-
-“Hush! hush!” she whispered. “Chata will look for me here,—here where I
-used to stand. Ay, Pepé, you were a good lad to warn me in time, so I
-could slip away. Doña Isabel will never miss me,—she is at her prayers;
-and Doña Feliz is wild with joy that her son comes home again.”
-
-The excited girl had spoken in the softest of voices, yet Pedro heard
-her. But the rest of the gathering crowd were craning their necks and
-straining their eyes in the direction in which the approaching
-travellers were to be seen.
-
-Pepé looked up at the ardent and gypsy-like young creature, as though
-she were a saint, and Ashley with a glance of genuine admiration and
-sympathy. He knew not whom she was thus eager to welcome, but it
-thrilled and surprised him that she should manifest such lively
-affection. Both the young men instinctively drew near as if to shield
-her, and stood one on either side, almost hiding her.
-
-“That is right; but you will stand away and let her see me when the
-carriage drives by,” she whispered, placing a hand on Pepé’s shoulder.
-“_Dios mio_, how my heart beats! She will cry with joy when she sees me,
-with silk skirts and all so fine. And Doña Rita and the _niña_
-Rosario,—how they will open wide their eyes!” And she broke into a low
-laugh, which to Ashley’s ears was too full of a sort of malicious
-triumph to be merry.
-
-The time of waiting seemed long; it was indeed far longer than Chinita
-had counted upon. “They will miss me from the house; they will look for
-me here!” she whispered again and again in an agony of impatience.
-
-Strangely enough, the adults of the gaping throng, who were intent on
-watching the approach of the travellers, had not noticed her; but three
-or four children arrayed themselves in a wondering row, pointing their
-fingers at her with ejaculations of “Look! look!” but were checked from
-uttering more by Pepé’s warning frowns and Chinita’s own imploring
-gestures.
-
-Ashley was beginning to realize that there must be much that was absurd
-in the scene. Surely, never was so strange a background made for a group
-of gossiping peasants as this of the eager-eyed and beautiful girl,
-leaning from her niche in the massive stone-wall between the two young
-men—the one the type of aristocratic refinement and delicacy; the other
-of swarthy, ignorant, half-tamed savagery—who served as caryatids, upon
-whom she leaned alternately in her excitement, seeming herself to
-partake of the nature of each.
-
-The carriage with its group of outriders now rapidly approached. “Ah!
-ah!” exclaimed Chinita, “the horses are plunging at the tree where the
-American was murdered. They say the creatures can always see him there,
-Señor. Ah, now they have passed; they come gayly, they come straight. It
-is not only the Señor Administrador and the servants, there are
-strangers too. I am glad! I am happy! I love to see new faces!”
-
-“Be silent!” whispered Pepé, hurriedly; “all the world will hear if you
-sing so loud. _Carrhi!_ the soldier sees you!”
-
-It was true; though the villagers had been too intent upon welcoming the
-new-comers to heed Chinita, and the carriage flashed by so rapidly the
-inmates could have caught but a glimpse of color against the cold gray
-wall, a stranger in a travel-stained uniform started as his eyes fell
-upon her, and checked his horse so suddenly that it reared.
-
-“The Virgin of our native land!” he muttered in a sort of patriotic and
-admiring wonder. “Ah, what a beautiful creature!” he added, as the girl
-he had for a moment classed as a saint sprang from her niche to the
-bench and thence to the ground, and darted through the crowd to the
-inner court,—where by this time the carriage had stopped and its inmates
-were descending.
-
-Ashley sank upon the bench with a sudden access of weariness. Pedro,
-oblivious of his vicinity, crouched rather than sat beside him. The
-gatekeeper’s nerves doubtless were weak. The carriage that had driven
-into the court was the same in which Herlinda Garcia had departed years
-before; as it dashed by him he could have sworn he saw her face framed
-in the window. He had seen, as had Chinita, the sad and gentle
-countenance of Chata. Grief reveals strange likenesses.
-
-When Chinita reached the carriage door, she found it blocked by the
-descending travellers and those who welcomed them. Doña Rita was so slow
-in carefully placing her feet from step to step, and paused so often to
-answer salutations, that there was ample time for the young officer to
-reach the spot and extend a hand to Rosario who followed her. Her
-blushes and coy smiles; the air with which she drew back and with which,
-with a little shriek, she pulled her dress over her tiny foot lest it
-might be seen; the soft glances which she threw from beneath her long
-lashes,—formed a pretty piece of by-play, quite intelligible to all
-beholders, but for that time certainly quite thrown away upon the
-stranger.
-
-Ten minutes before, to have held for a few brief minutes the tips of
-Rosario’s fingers would have been to him ecstasy. Now he was scarcely
-conscious that they were within his own, and his eyes were fixed upon
-Chinita as she stood breathlessly waiting for Chata. Never in his life,
-he thought, had he seen such a face. The changeable yet ever radiant
-expression was like the dazzle of warm sunshine through scented leaves;
-the shimmer of rebellious hair was a divine halo, though the sparkle of
-the dusky eyes declared a daring soul more fit for earthly adventure
-than ethereal joys.
-
-Rosario’s eyes followed his gaze. She had heard the strange tale of Doña
-Isabel’s intervention in the fate of the waif. She had wondered whether
-the high-born lady could have seen anything in the girl’s face that
-attracted her; and that moment more decidedly than ever she answered
-“No,” yet realized that here was a face to bewitch men. She tossed her
-head and passed on. Doña Feliz stopped her to embrace her, and meanwhile
-the two early playmates met.
-
-“Life of my soul!” cried Chinita. “How I have longed for you! Did you
-not see me perched in the niche of the wall? Ay, how Doña Isabel would
-frown if she knew!”
-
-“I saw only the tall, fair man,” answered Chata in a low voice. She was
-pale and trembled: “I thought first it was the ghost of the American. Oh
-God, what a shock!”
-
-Chinita laughed merrily. “What! a coward still, and with the old stories
-we used to tell still first in your mind? Ah, I have tales to tell now
-will be worth your hearing.” She bent low and added in a whisper, “Have
-they not told you? I have the place of the Señorita Herlinda now! I have
-her room. I think sometimes she must be dead, and I have risen in her
-stead. Do I look like a ghost, Chata?”
-
-“Hush, hush!” entreated Chata. “Oh Chinita, I wish I never had gone
-away. Oh, how shall I live now? How can I bear it?”
-
-At that moment Doña Feliz approached, and evading her proffered embrace
-the young girl bent her head on the arm of the woman and burst into
-tears. Chinita stood confounded; the light and joyousness died out of
-her face; a certain half-savage look of inquiry came over it. She turned
-abruptly to the young officer,—
-
-“What have they done to her?” she demanded.
-
-“Chinita,” said a cold, impassive voice, “this gentleman is a stranger
-to you. It is not seemly that you stand here questioning him;” and with
-an imperious wave of her hand, Doña Isabel seemed actually to force the
-two apart.
-
-Almost unconsciously the young man drew back, bowing low, and Chinita
-turned to the staircase; yet as she obeyed the movement of Doña Isabel’s
-hand a furious rage possessed her. As she stepped upon the first stair,
-some demon prompted her to wind her arm around Chata’s neck and raise
-her tear-stained face.
-
-“I am going to the Señorita Herlinda’s room,” she said. “I am there in
-her place; and—” here she stopped, laughed, and threw a glance over her
-shoulder—“there is the American!”
-
-Her last words had been prompted by a glimpse of Ashley Ward as he
-crossed the court. He caught the appellation, and bowed and smiled.
-Chinita ran up the stairs, and Doña Isabel stood rigid with a face like
-death. Her eyes were resting however on Chata’s countenance.
-
-The young girl had shrunk within Doña Feliz’s protecting arm. Had Doña
-Isabel turned her eyes upon the woman’s defiant yet apprehensive face,
-it might have been a revelation to her; but she looked at Don Rafael.
-
-“Your daughter has a strange face and strange ways for a ranchero’s
-daughter,” she said, with an attempt at irony; but it failed. Her face
-worked painfully as she added, “She reminds me of those I would forget.
-We have strange fancies as we grow old.”
-
-A laugh sounded from the window above. She started and looked up, then
-dropped her head again and turned slowly away.
-
-Chata gazed after her awestruck, though she knew not why. Her manner was
-so different from that of the proud and haughty dame she had pictured.
-Don Rafael looked from Doña Isabel to his mother. Both these women, it
-seemed to him, had grown wonderfully aged since they had met, but a
-month or so before. There was a subtile antagonism between them—these
-two who loved each other, as only such deep intense natures can—which
-tore and harried them far more than actual hate could have done.
-
-“What hast thou, my life?” Doña Feliz whispered to Chata. “Art thou not
-happy? Have strange tales been told thee?” and she looked keenly at her
-daughter-in-law, who had smiled and courtesied in vain as Doña Isabel
-went by.
-
-“My mother,” said Doña Rita in her softest voice, “the child is weary;
-she must rest. Heed not this silly child, Don Fernando. Thank Heaven,
-Rosario is not so fanciful!”
-
-But Don Fernando was not thinking of Rosario, or of Chata either for
-that matter, but of how he had slunk away from his chief to prosecute a
-love-affair that he had believed no power could make less than a matter
-of life or death to him; and how in a moment it had become lighter than
-air. The boyish perversity with which he had determined, even at the
-risk of offending his patron, to continue his courtship of Rosario
-Sanchez, trusting to fate or her father’s generosity to make marriage
-with her possible, faded from his mind like a dream, and with it her
-image; and in its place rose the arch mocking face of the “little saint
-of the Wall.” Proved she angel or demon, he felt that she was henceforth
-the genius of his destiny. He was a vain and profligate adventurer; but
-all the same the arrow had found his heart, not as a thousand times
-before to inflict a passing scratch, but to bury itself in its inmost
-core.
-
-All had taken place in a few short moments. While the horses were being
-unharnessed and led away; while the villagers were still crowding around
-the carriage, and Doña Rita’s baskets and packages were being lifted
-out; while a few words of greeting were exchanged,—emotions and passions
-had sprung into being that were to make the seemingly prosaic household
-a very vortex of conflicting elements.
-
-The young American, who thought himself but a looker-on, was also not
-unmoved. Like Doña Isabel, he said within himself, “That young girl has
-a strange face and strange ways for the daughter of a Mexican. And yet
-what know I of Mexicans or their ways? This is a strange atmosphere, and
-fills my brain with strange fancies. Perhaps out of them all I shall
-evolve some reality. May the Fates grant me again such a chance as I had
-to-day of speaking to the wild gypsy Chinita! Nothing has happened here,
-I can well believe, that she cannot tell me of. But after the escapade
-of to-day, she will hardly escape the vigilance of her duenna again. Ah,
-here comes the young soldier—too travel-stained to be as dashing as is
-his custom, no doubt. He looks a gay bird with sadly bedraggled
-feathers.”
-
-Pepé apparently approved of him as little, as he passed by to the room
-assigned him. The peasant did not cease from lounging against the wall
-or bare his head as an inferior should.
-
-“Insolent barbarian!” muttered Don Fernando, in a revival of his usual
-contempt for the peasantry, as the swarthy young fellow scowled at him,
-he neither guessed nor cared why. What could such a vagabond have to do
-with the Señora Garcia’s _protégée_? He would serve when the time came,
-to make one, in the independent troop he, Fernando, would raise: such
-worms as he were only fit to serve men. There were wild rumors afloat of
-the wonderful fortune of that phœnix Benito Juarez. What if he, Ruiz,
-should join his standard? There was a strange fire and exultation in the
-young man’s veins. He had been tied to a resistless fate long enough,—he
-would break his trammels, and by one daring act free himself forever
-from control, from tutelage, from Ramirez.
-
-
-
-
-                                XXVIII.
-
-
-“Señor Don Rafael!” cried a hoarse voice at break of day. “Rise, your
-grace! for strange things have happened while we have slept! Ay, Señor,
-if the demon himself has not carried away Pedro the gatekeeper, who can
-tell us how he has gone?”
-
-“Gone!” echoed the voice of Don Rafael from within.
-
-“Gone, Señor, and left not even so much as his shadow; yet the doors are
-locked, and not even in the postern is there so much as a crack, nor the
-key in the lock. The muleteers, who were to be upon the road at
-cock-crow, have waited until both they and their beasts are cramped with
-standing, and all to no purpose.”
-
-“Is this true?” exclaimed Don Rafael, presently appearing with a
-_serape_ thrown over his shoulders, and shivering in the morning air.
-“Ay, man, thou hast a tongue like a woman’s. And Pedro, thou sayest, is
-gone?”
-
-The man drew one hand sharply across the other, as who should say,
-“vanished!” though his lips ejaculated, “Gone, Señor; and who is to open
-the door now that it is shut? And who could shut the door upon Pedro but
-Satan himself?”
-
-“Who, indeed?” said Don Rafael, gravely. “Think you so bulky a fellow
-could creep through the keyhole of the postern and take the key with
-him? By good fortune, he brought me the key of the great door as usual,
-and here it is. If the Devil hath carried away one gatekeeper on his
-shoulders, it is but fair he should send me another; and thou, Felipe,
-shall be the man.”
-
-Felipe stared a moment; then with a transient change of expression which
-might be of intelligence, or simply a vague smile at his own good
-fortune, extended his hand for the keys; and suddenly mute with the
-weight of his unexpected promotion trudged down the stone stairs, across
-the silent inner court and the outer one, where by this time the
-household servants were exchanging exclamations of wonder and alarm with
-the impatient muleteers. Felipe unlocked the wide doors, threw them open
-with a clang, sank into Pedro’s place upon the stone bench, and
-thereafter reigned in his stead.
-
-The wonder of Pedro’s disappearance grew greater and ever greater, until
-the boy Pepé said sulkily he had been played a shabby trick. Had not he
-said to Pedro the night before, when the Señor Don Rafael had told them
-that the General Vicente Gonzales was in El Toro, that for a word he
-himself would go to him there; and doubtless Pedro had stolen away
-alone, like the surly fox that he was. But the saints be praised, the
-road was open to one man as well as another.
-
-“Hush!” said one in a warning tone; “though Pedro may have a fancy for a
-cleft head or broken bones, must we all cry for the same? Go to thou
-Pepé! thou art scarce old enough to leave the shade of thy mother’s
-reboso. Did I not see thee sucking thy thumb but last Saint John’s day?”
-
-There was a roar of laughter, and though Pepé raged, no one heeded his
-wrath; the talk was all of Pedro. That he had gone to be a soldier was
-universally believed; that Don Rafael, and not the Devil, had aided his
-going was not for a moment thought of. The women crossed themselves, and
-the men spat on the floor emphatically,—yet there had been more
-mysteries than that in the life of Pedro.
-
-Florencia, who was distraught at her uncle’s disappearance, and tore her
-hair and bewailed herself as a bereaved niece should, found her way to
-Chinita to pour out her griefs and fears; although since the change in
-the young girl’s position they had by common consent ignored their
-former relations,—Florencia, because of the wide social gulf fixed
-between the great house and the hovels around it; Chinita, from pure
-indifference. She was too full of her new life to think of the old, or
-of the persons connected with it.
-
-It was so early that she was still not fully dressed, and the chocolate
-wherewith to break her fast stood untouched upon the table, when the
-sound of some one sobbing at the door brought a tone of sorrow into
-thoughts which had simply been vexed before.
-
-Chinita had risen in an ill humor. Doña Rita and Rosario, and even Chata
-herself, had failed to show any surprise at her position. True, Don
-Rafael had warned them of it; but at least something more than a kindly
-indifference might have greeted her,—if only a glance of envy from
-Rosario. What wonderful things had they all seen, that they had no
-thoughts to spare for her? Bah! Rosario had neither eyes nor thoughts
-for any one but the young officer with the red neck-tie. Well, they
-should see! But what of Doña Rita,—and Chata too? Why, Chinita hardly
-knew her. Was she also thinking but of herself, like the others? That
-was a change in Chata, and one that ill-suited her.
-
-Chinita had slept badly for thinking of these things; and truth to tell,
-when her mind was ill at ease the softness of the bed troubled her. She
-had dreamed of snakes, of three snakes who had lifted their heads out of
-water to hiss at her. Here was the first one. Certainly she had not
-dreamed of snakes for nothing. Well, to be sure, here was Florencia,
-whom she had almost forgotten, come with some trouble! She felt a little
-flutter of gratification, and unconsciously assumed the air of a
-_patrona_, as she said,—
-
-“Ah, is it then Florencia? And what ails thee; and how can I help thee?
-What, has Tomasito broken the newest water-jar, or by better fortune his
-neck? Or has Terecita choked herself with a dry bean?”
-
-“God has not desired to do me such favors,” returned Florencia, piously
-and with a flood of tears. “No, rather than my children should become
-little angels, he prefers that they shall be friendless upon the earth.
-_Ay de mi!_ what is a father, what is a husband (and you know the very
-driveller of a man I have), what is any one to an uncle who was a
-gatekeeper of Tres Hermanos?—a veritable treasure of silver, a spring of
-refreshing! Was there ever a time Florencia asked a shilling of Pedro in
-vain?”
-
-At another time Chinita would have laughed at this pious exaggeration;
-now it filled her with inexpressible alarm.
-
-“What! is my god-father dead?” she cried, wringing her hands and for the
-moment relapsing into the demonstrative gestures and cries of her
-plebeian training. “_Ay Dios_, Florencia, it cannot be! Answer me,
-stupid one! Is thy mouth as full as thy eyes that thou canst not
-answer?”
-
-“Is chocolate served to the poor at day-break?” cried Florencia in an
-injured tone, and with a glance at the dainty breakfast; and then at an
-impatient word from Chinita she explained how Pedro had departed in the
-night, though the hacienda doors were locked upon the inside, and
-conjectured that if he had not been spirited away by the Devil, he had
-gone to join the Liberal General Gonzales,—there could be no other
-alternative. She had heard Señor Don Rafael talking to him till late in
-the night of how Gonzales had beaten the General Ramirez at El Toro, and
-was still there trying to strengthen his forces, while those of the
-Clergy had disappeared, no one knew where, but surely to gather men and
-means to recover the lost position.
-
-Chinita’s eyes flashed. She knew nothing of politics, but she thrilled
-at the name of Ramirez. She laughed scornfully that Pedro should throw
-his puny strength into the force against him. Still she said, “God keep
-him;” and jested away Florencia’s fears.
-
-“Bah! What should happen to my god-father?” she said. “And thou knowest
-thou wilt want for nothing. Hark thou! there is nothing to cry for that
-thy uncle is gone. Has he not often told us of the dollars he made in
-the wars?”
-
-“I fear me he is likely rather to receive hard blows than hard dollars
-now,” answered Florencia, disconsolately,—an expression of expectancy,
-however, relieving her doleful countenance, as she added, “Ah, Chinita
-of my soul, thou wert ever the kerchief to wipe away my tears.”
-
-Chinita laughed. “Thou used to say I was a prickly pear to draw tears,
-rather than a kerchief to dry them,” she presently said, pushing her
-chocolate toward Florencia, and thrusting into her hand the little
-twists of bread.
-
-“There, take them; I would a thousand times rather have a thick cake and
-a drink of white gruel. One is not always in the humor for sweets;” and
-she tugged viciously at the hair she tried vainly to smooth,—she was
-always at feud with it because it was not longer. But at last she
-confined it in two short tresses, tying each with a red ribbon; and then
-suddenly dropping on her knees before Florencia, placed her hands palm
-downward upon the floor, and looking up in the woman’s face with a laugh
-exclaimed, as a tinge of red deepened the olive of her complexion, “And
-what of the American, Florencia? Is he like him thou sayest the Señorita
-Herlinda loved?”
-
-“Ave Maria Purissima!” cried the startled woman. “The saints forbid that
-I should say such a thing of a Garcia, and she dedicated to the
-Madonna!” But recovering herself, “Certainly this American is like the
-other. Is not one cactus like another that grows on the same mountain?
-Should a white-blooded American be like a cavalier of blue-blood, or
-like an Indian of the villages? Yet both, one and the other, are we not
-Mexicans?” and she uttered the words as one might say, “Are we not
-gods?”
-
-“That is very true,” commented Chinita, gravely; “and yet they are not
-frights, these Americans. Why should not the Señorita Herlinda have
-loved one if it pleased her? Listen, Florencia; I will tell thee a dream
-I had one night. When one’s bed is too soft, one dreams dreams.”
-
-Florencia looked at the girl with an admiring glance. How amiable she
-could be, this Chinita, when she chose. “Little puss! little puss!” she
-murmured, giving her the pet name Pedro had used, when in her kittenish
-moods one had never known whether she would scratch or fondle one with
-soft purrings, begun and ended in a moment. “Little puss! thou wert ever
-good to thy Florencia.”
-
-“Thou art a flatterer!” ejaculated Chinita, half-inclined to withhold
-her confidence, yet longing for a listener. “Ay, Florencia, thou knowest
-not what it is to sit for hours in the gloom within four walls. Ah, what
-thoughts come into one’s head! When I ran about the village, the wind
-blew the thoughts about as it did my hair; but now my brains are like
-cobwebs, and when a thought touches them it clings like dust, and so
-they grow thicker and heavier until my very skull aches;” and she
-pressed her head with her hands, and heaved a deep sigh.
-
-“But to think is not to dream,” said Florencia, in some disappointment,
-for she had a child’s love for the marvellous, and did not understand
-Chinita’s abstractions,—unstudied and simple though they were.
-
-“But dreams come from thoughts,” answered Chinita; “and what should I
-think of here but of mysteries,—such as why the Señora should keep me
-with her, though she loves me not; why she walks the floor and counts
-her beads, and when she forgets I am in the room murmurs over and over
-the name of Herlinda; why she looks before her sometimes, as you used to
-tell me the woman looked who saw the ghost of the American,—and that is
-always when she chances to meet this Don ’Guardo whom she will not speak
-of, or suffer Doña Feliz to invite to our table, though he stays here so
-long. And after I have asked so many things, I set myself to the answer.
-Oh, you would wonder at what I say to myself of all these things,—and
-then sometimes come dreams to tell me I am right.”
-
-Florencia looked at the door vaguely,—she was thinking perhaps she had
-better go.
-
-“Yes, yes,” continued Chinita, as if to herself, “I am growing perhaps
-like the owl,—I, who in the broad sunlight saw nothing, have discovered
-many things here in the dark. Well, well, Florencia, one thought came to
-me on a vexed night when I could not sleep. I had been talking to Doña
-Feliz that day. I know not why, but I am with Doña Feliz like the young
-fox my god-father tamed,—when I touched him with my hand he was pleased,
-yet he bristled and longed to bite. Good! we had talked that day.
-Yes,—it was of the nuns, and she said the Señora might desire I should
-be one; and I was angry, and said I would not be shut up to pray as the
-Señorita Herlinda had been; and then Doña Feliz bade me be silent and
-ponder what she had said. And after she went away it was not of myself I
-thought, but of the Señorita Herlinda; and in the midst of my thoughts I
-saw the American pass the court, and Doña Isabel, who was near, turned
-herself away, as if an adder had darted upon her.”
-
-Florencia looked up with a mute inquiry or fascination in her gaze.
-Chinita, in a sort of monotone, followed the thread of her thoughts.
-
-“When I went to sleep at last, I dreamed that I, though still Chinita,
-was Herlinda, and that the American who was lying wounded in the room
-below came up the stairs, and tapped lightly at my window. I stepped
-softly and looked out at him through the grating. Ah, it was this Don
-’Guardo, yet so different, as a man is different from his reflection in
-a glass; and I did not wonder to see him there. I put my hand out and
-touched him, and was happy. And as I stood at the bars,—I myself, and
-yet the _niña_ Herlinda,—the man of my dream said, as a husband says to
-his wife, ‘Open, my life;’ and when I opened the door he led in by the
-hand a little child,—I knew it to be his child, though it had not blue
-eyes nor the yellow hair. Well, I stood there, and stood there, and
-strove to speak and could not; and the vision of the man and of the
-child faded, and the thought that I was still Herlinda faded too, and
-the dream was ended.”
-
-She ceased speaking, and looked at Florencia with a vague yet searching
-gaze.
-
-“By my faith, a strange dream!” murmured Florencia, disquieted. “You
-should have lighted a blessed candle when you woke, and passed it before
-you three times, saying an _Ave_ each time. Santa Inez! I would rather
-see the ghost of the American than dream such a dream!”
-
-“Coward! it frightened me not,” continued the girl. “And I did not seem
-to wake, though I knew that I, Chinita, lay in the bed, and that my head
-sank deep in the soft pillow, and that I could not or would not raise
-it; and the meaning of the dream crept into my mind, as the light creeps
-into a dark room. Yes, I felt as I used to when I saw the little green
-blades shoot up in the spring, and I could think how the corn would
-grow, and the leaves would wave, and the maize would lie in the silk and
-the yellow sheath; and so I had thought of what I had heard,—of the love
-of Herlinda for the American, and what might have come of it.”
-
-“Hush!” interrupted Florencia with a scared look. “You said you dreamed
-of a child. Did you see its face?”
-
-“No,” answered Chinita, slowly. “But what need that I should see it?”
-
-The two had risen as if by one impulse, and looked into each other’s
-eyes. The woman was awed as much by the penetration and daring of the
-young girl’s mind as by the thought that for the first time arose within
-her.
-
-She cast her thoughts back. She had been young when the American was
-murdered, when the Señorita Herlinda had left the hacienda never to
-return, when the child had been found at the gate; yet she wondered that
-she had been so blind to what now appeared so plain, and that all
-alike—the wise and simple, the old and young—had been so utterly dazzled
-by the glamor that surrounded the family of Garcia that no suspicion of
-dishonor might attach to its women, or of cowardice to its men. Surely
-none other than Herlinda Garcia would have escaped the lynx-eyed Selsa,
-or a score of other scandal-loving women! Curiously enough, while a
-feeling of detraction for the nun, whom she had long been used to
-canonize in her thoughts, stole into her mind, a sensation of
-traditional reverence for the Garcia arose for the young girl before
-her. Florencia’s ideas of morality were perhaps vague on all points;
-they certainly did not reach that of aspersion of the innocent fruit of
-another’s fault.
-
-“Ay, _niña_,” the woman said at last with a gasp, “it is not every one
-who drinks red wine that is happy. Thanks to God, the peasant woman who
-carries a burden in her arms too soon needs only to suckle it under her
-scarf, like any mother, and needs not to close upon herself the doors of
-a convent. Santa Maria! who would have thought such things of the _niña_
-Herlinda?”
-
-“Be silent!” cried Chinita, with a tardy repentance of her confidence.
-“How do I know that I am not the worst of evil thinkers, and a fool, a
-very fool? Look thou, Florencia, it is thou who shall discover the truth
-for me. Pedro is gone; perhaps he never knew it. The Tio Reyes must
-know; but where is he? Yet I _must_ know. Oh, I could bear the truth
-from Feliz, from Doña Isabel; but they are as silent and as sorrowful as
-the image of the Madre Dolores. It is thou, Florencia, who must help me.
-Oh, it will be but a diversion for thee. Thou shalt talk of thy Tio
-Pedro, and of the day I was dropped in his hand, and of the days that
-went before. Thou canst talk now of the murder of the American, and of
-the Señorita Herlinda too, and there will be no Pedro to chide thee. And
-see,—” as the woman began some faint objection,—“I have all the pretty
-things Pedro gave me, and money too; yes, more than thou wouldst think.
-And thou shalt never miss thy uncle; thou shalt have them all, if thou
-wilt but talk to the old women of things that happened here before the
-time of the great sickness. But, Florencia, thou must tell them nothing.
-Oh, if I could only run again in and out of the village huts as I used
-to do!”
-
-Florencia looked at the excited girl with a nod of intelligence. “Have
-no fear,” she said; “it is not possible that Florencia knows not how to
-manage her own tongue, though no one knows better than thyself it was
-ever a quiet one. But it shall wag now, and not like the dog’s tail, in
-mere idleness.”
-
-Chinita laughed, then glancing around her warily, drew from her bosom a
-small gold coin. She had evidently prepared herself for a chance meeting
-with Florencia.
-
-“Take it,” she said, “and go. Thou hast been here too long already;
-and,” she added with the flush of red again tingeing her face, “talk and
-gossip when the American is near. He must be sad,—it will cheer him to
-hear the voices, even if he understands but little; and if by chance he
-speaks to thee, why! thou shalt tell me what he says.”
-
-Florencia had experienced one great surprise that morning, and here was
-another; the first had awed, the second delighted her. Like all her race
-she had the instincts of secrecy and intrigue, and suddenly the
-opportunity to practise both were offered her. She looked at Chinita
-with a glance of infinite cunning in her soft dark eyes; but the young
-girl would not meet her gaze. “Go, go!” she said impatiently; “you have
-been here too long. The Señora is coming—or is it Doña Feliz? Go! go, I
-say!”
-
-It was neither Doña Isabel nor Feliz, but only Chata, who entered with a
-preoccupied air, scarcely noticing the woman who passed her on the
-threshold. She did not speak, however, until Florencia had reluctantly
-passed out of hearing; and then she cried eagerly, “Chinita! Chinita!
-who is the stranger who stood with thee at the doorway? God bless us! I
-thought I saw the ghost of the American we used to talk of; and but now
-I met him below in the court. Who is he? What is he here for?”
-
-“That remains to be seen,” answered Chinita, with an uneasy laugh. Her
-hasty confidence in Florencia troubled her, and closed her lips toward
-the friend for whom she had hitherto longed. “At least the stranger is
-no ghost; yet how can we know that the man who was murdered here so many
-years before was anything to him?”
-
-“But I do know,” insisted Chata. “I had gone to the arbor, thinking thou
-mightest be there, to break my fast. I was standing in the centre, with
-my eyes turned toward this room, thinking I should see thee leave it,
-and thinking too of the _niña_ Herlinda,—O Chinita! she is still so
-beautiful,—when I heard a step behind me. It was a strange step, and I
-turned quickly and saw the American looking at me as if he too believed
-he saw a ghost. Was it not strange, Chinita? We looked at each other
-quite steadily for many moments, then he said,—
-
-“‘Pardon me, you are then the daughter of the administrador? You came
-here yesterday?’
-
-“I could scarcely make out his words, yet I understood what he said, and
-I seemed to know that he had taken me for another,—perhaps for thee,
-Chinita; and then again he said, ‘Pardon me! Pardon me!’ and we still
-continued to look at each other; and I did not think how bold I must
-appear until the other stranger, the young officer who loves Rosario,
-stepped out of the room they have given him. I heard his spurs clank on
-the pavement, and then I fled away to thee. But for the fright, I should
-not have dared to come hither, Chinita. All yesterday my grandmother
-kept me from thee. She said now thou art the child of Doña Isabel, and
-that without leave I must not go to thee.”
-
-“Chata, thou hast a poor spirit!” exclaimed Chinita, with some
-severity,—though she remembered with impatient anger that Doña Isabel
-had kept her in the garden at her side, on pretence of showing her the
-strings of irregular pearls, which she should some day arrange in even
-strands. Doña Isabel had made no promise, but Chinita could almost see
-them in the future bedecking her own neck and arms. She had been
-beguiled, even as Chata had been commanded, to keep apart from her old
-playmate.
-
-“There is a mystery in it all!” she exclaimed. “Though I am here with
-Doña Isabel, I know not who I am. It is intolerable! Sometimes I fear I
-am but her plaything, with no more right to her notice than had the fawn
-I found on the river bank and petted, till it died from very heartbreak
-because it longed so for the mountains and its kind. And so I long,
-Chata. Ah, thou knowest not what it is to be a nameless wretch, to be
-tossed from hand to hand, and have no share in the game but the dizzy
-whirling through the air. Pshaw! I would rather be dashed to pieces
-against the first wall than go through life with nothing but favor to
-rely on. I want a name, a place, a right. I will have them: even you,
-who are the daughter of the administrador, have those; and I—Well, I
-will not be simply _Chinita_, whom Doña Isabel makes a lady to-day, who
-was a child of the Madonna yesterday, and may be a beggar to-morrow.”
-
-Chata had been leaning on the arm and pressing her head against the
-shoulder of Chinita. She raised it now with a sharp low cry, and turned
-away. Little guessed the impetuous, ambitious foundling how her words
-tortured and taunted the other, who longed to cry out, “I too am no one!
-I too am a stray, a waif, and if I know my father, know him only as a
-terror,—a horror.” Her promise to Doña Rita silenced her. She felt there
-was but one person in the world to whom she would break her promise,—the
-pale, sweet-faced nun of the convent of El Toro. In her passionate,
-bitter mood Chinita chilled and silenced her. She did not even tell her
-that as she hastened from the arbor the American had caught the end of
-her flying reboso, as if by an irresistible impulse, and cried: “I am
-Ashley Ward! Ashley! Ashley! remember the name!”
-
-Remember it! it seemed to Chata as if she had always known the man as
-well as the name, which had ever before been to her the symbol of the
-dead rather than of the living. That she should have seen the Señorita
-Herlinda, whom she had always known to be alive, seemed more wonderful,
-more incredible to her mind, than that the young man should have risen
-before her to claim the name of the murdered foreigner. Now that he had
-come, she seemed all her life to have been expecting him. She did not
-see him again for days, but all that time the expression of his eyes
-haunted her. She could not fathom it. She did not guess it had been but
-a reflection of the surprise, yet conviction, in her own.
-
-Chata did not again transgress the commands of Doña Feliz; nor did she
-remain long enough with Chinita in her first visit to be tempted into
-further confidence. Indeed, they parted with something like a quarrel,
-as they had been used to do in their childhood’s days. Rosario’s name
-had been mentioned, and Chinita had with some scorn commented both on
-her sentimental air and the indifference of her lover.
-
-“Did he love her at El Toro?” she asked with the laugh that was so
-mocking. “He stood for an hour, you say, at the corner of the street
-waiting for a glance from her; he wrote verses by day and sang them by
-night beneath her window? Well, he stood from noon till night yesterday
-with his eyes turned upward,—one would have thought he had never gazed
-at anything lower than the sky; yet it was only for a glimpse of _my_
-face, and a single glance from my eyes dazzled and blinded him. Thank
-Heaven, he dare not tune a guitar beneath my windows for fear of Doña
-Isabel, or I should be tormented with all the old rhymes changed from
-Rosario to Chinita. Ah, there are likings and likings, and this pretty
-soldier is one who would try them all!”
-
-“Chinita,” cried Chata in indignation, “you are false, you are cruel!
-Rosario has done nothing to you that you should torment her. I
-understand nothing of such things as Rosario does; though I am her age,
-she seems to be a woman while I am still a child. But she says she loves
-Fernando, and for love a woman’s heart may break.”
-
-Chata was thinking of the pale, sad nun; but Chinita threw herself into
-a chair and broke into a peal of laughter. It rang through the silent
-house, and startled Doña Isabel in the further chamber. She started
-nervously and clasped her hands over her ears.
-
-“What a strange child it is.” she murmured, “Ah, I should have loved her
-if—” She glanced at a note she had just written. It was addressed to
-Vicente Gonzales, and promised him a thousand mounted soldiers.
-
-Doña Isabel made no idle promises, and she had counted well the cost
-when she had thus irrevocably committed herself to the cause of the
-Liberals. She had watched for years the course of events, and none saw
-more clearly than she that the time for passiveness had gone. On every
-hand there must necessarily be sacrifice. “That which goes not in sighs,
-must in tears,” she said sententiously. “I like not the Indian Juarez,
-yet his policy promises deliverance from the vampire that for
-generations has grown strong and ever stronger, as it has drained the
-very life of the nation.”
-
-The knowledge that Gonzales was in El Toro enjoying the prestige of an
-accidental victory, but with a force entirely insufficient to meet that
-which Ramirez might at any day bring against him, had been the immediate
-cause of her action. To reward Pedro with a service which should at once
-remove him from her sight and fill his mind with new and absorbing
-interests, were the reasons why he had been chosen to ride from rancho
-to rancho secretly inciting the men to join the standard, which was to
-be raised upon the morrow.
-
-“Ah, this Ruiz is a poor tool!” muttered Doña Isabel, “yet for that
-reason may be the more readily bought. He loves the daughter of my
-administrador, and will do much to gain my good word. Rafael says he is
-a brave soldier, if a false one; and there will be those with him who
-will guard against treachery. He shall fulfil his empty offer to lead a
-thousand men to Gonzales, and claim of Rafael the reward he sighs for.
-Ah, there is the child’s laugh again,—I could almost fancy it in mockery
-of me! Ah, this of patriot is a new _rôle_ for me, and tries my nerves.
-Well, Chinita shall laugh while she can: if it is for long, it will
-prove her none of the blood of Garcia. Was there ever a happy woman
-among them?”
-
-While Doña Isabel pondered thus, Chata in deep indignation had turned
-from her whilom friend. She had been brought up among a people who in
-matters of love held man excused and woman guilty in all cases of
-inconstancy. “Farewell!” she exclaimed, “I will come no more to you who
-are so cruel. Doña Isabel was right to part us; she has changed your
-heart as she has your fortune. Ah!” she added bitterly, “all the world
-is changed to me, and why not you?”
-
-The grieved and imbittered girl went out so quickly that Chinita’s
-answer did not reach her. As she passed through the corridor Chata
-glanced down. The young officer stood there, as Chinita had described.
-He would catch the first glimpse of her as she left her room. Chata
-flushed in anger, yet tears of pity rose to her eyes. She was still a
-child, yet her heart foretold what might be the agony of woman’s
-slighted love.
-
-Even so soon Chinita was laughing no longer; she had crouched forward
-and sat with her face bent almost to her knees. “What have I done?” she
-asked herself. “It is early morning still, and I have told a secret to a
-fool, and offended her I should have trusted!”
-
-She had eaten nothing; the excitement under which she had acted suddenly
-expired, and she burst into sobs and tears. Doña Feliz coming in a few
-minutes later, found her on her knees before the little image of her
-patron saint, passionately vowing the gift of a silver _Christo_ in
-return for the boon she craved.
-
-“Go to the corridor, my child,” said Feliz pityingly. The girl was a
-problem to her, which every day seemed more difficult of solution. “You
-look weary and ill; but console yourself,—Pedro is safe. You will see
-the good foster-father again, be assured.”
-
-Chinita looked at her in astonishment. She had for the time forgotten
-Pedro’s very existence. Doña Feliz discerned at once that she had
-credited the girl with a sensibility to which she was a stranger. Five
-minutes later she was quite certain of it, as Chinita sat on the
-corridor, apparently equally unconscious of the impassioned glances of
-Ruiz, or those of the invisible but infuriate Rosario, drawing the
-threads of some dainty linen and singing,—
-
-                         _Sale la Linda,
-                           Sale la fea,
-                         Sale el enano,
-                           Con su galea._
-
-                         “The beauty comes out,
-                           The ugly one too;
-                         Then comes the dwarf,
-                           With a gay halloo.”
-
-As unstudied and inconsequent as the meaningless words of the song
-seemed the actions of the singer, but Feliz shook her head, and met Doña
-Isabel with a face that was even more serious than its wont. The problem
-became to her mind each day more complicated. Would the result be
-bitterness, and that grief most dreaded by the proud heart of Doña
-Isabel Garcia,—the grief and bitterness of shame?
-
-
-
-
-                                 XXIX.
-
-
-Florencia fulfilled her mission well,—recalling skilfully to the minds
-of the elder gossips the events and doubts of years agone, and those
-suspicions, light as air, which had once before menaced the fair name
-and fame of her who later had been revered as a saint under the name of
-Sister Veronica.
-
-It was natural after the excitement of Pedro’s disappearance had
-subsided that reminiscences of events in which he had figured should, in
-default of some new interest, rise to the stagnant surface of hacienda
-life, and be re-colored and adorned with suggestions probable or
-improbable, and that the favorite topic should be torn to shreds in its
-dissection, while the motive power of its appearance should in the
-excitement of discussion be utterly lost sight of. Florencia herself, in
-the interest of tracing the sequence of events, and in hearing
-attributed to the characters that had figured in her girlhood traits and
-deeds of which she had heard little or nothing at that bygone time,
-almost forgot that she was talking with a purpose, and therefore perhaps
-had a truly unprejudiced account to give to Chinita,—when she could
-again see her, for Doña Isabel had become a wary duenna, and the girl
-had had no opportunity of learning anything that might have thrown light
-upon the theory she had formed of her birth and parentage.
-
-In his insufficient knowledge of the language, Ashley Ward let much of
-the gossip of the women who chatted about him as they performed their
-daily tasks pass entirely unheeded, while he pondered upon the very
-subjects which with more or less directness were discussed. But one
-morning he caught the name of Herlinda, and thenceforth all his senses
-were alert. Great was his surprise when he discovered this to be the
-name of a daughter of Doña Isabel who had been a beautiful girl when the
-American was killed, and thenceforward his mind became preternaturally
-keen; so that he divined the meanings of words he had never heard
-before,—gestures, glances, the very inflection of a tone, became
-revelations to him.
-
-Hitherto, without cogitating upon the matter, Ward had naturally assumed
-from hearing no reference to another that the newly married Carmen was
-the only child of Doña Isabel. Now he learned the tragical fate of
-Norberto and the existence of the elder and more beautiful daughter
-Herlinda, the cloistered nun; and she was for the time the theme of
-endless reminiscences and conjectures. Her winsome childhood; her early
-gayety and incomparable beauty; the open love of Gonzales; the suspected
-mutual attachment of the young American and the daring child, who with
-her mother’s pride had failed to inherit her mother’s strength of will;
-the murder of John Ashley; the time of the great sickness; the death of
-Mademoiselle La Croix; the effect of the shock and horror upon the mind
-and appearance of Herlinda; the scarcely whispered, faint, yet not
-wholly disproved suspicions which had floated over the name and fame of
-the daughter of a house too absolute in its ascendency and power to be
-lightly attacked; her removal from the hacienda; her strange rejection
-of the suit of one who had always been dear to her, and to whom her
-mother, in accordance with good and seemly usage, had pledged her; her
-renunciation of the world she had loved, and entrance to a convent,
-which she had held in horror,—all these circumstances were discussed
-from a dozen points of view.
-
-And all he heard confirmed in Ashley’s mind the belief that the woman
-whom his cousin had loved was traced; that whether she had been actually
-a wife or no, she, Herlinda Garcia, the daughter of a woman whom it
-would be a mortal offence to approach upon such a subject, was the
-possible mother of a child which he could scarcely refuse to believe
-existed,—though here a new perplexity confronted him as (like the young
-officer, whom he regarded with a half-contemptuous amusement that should
-have prevented him from following any example set by so love-lorn a
-cavalier) he began to seek occasion for observing Chinita with an
-intensity that made her doubly the object of the jealous and ireful
-dislike of Rosario and her mother. To his alert and dispassionate mind
-circumstances pointed to this girl as the possible link between the
-families of Ashley and Garcia, though the most minute and patient
-observation only seemed to make absurd the supposition that American
-blood mingled in the fiery tide which filled her veins, colored her rich
-beauty, and vivified the scornful and stoical yet ambitious spirit,
-which as by a spell at the same moment repelled yet charmed both himself
-and the haughty Doña Isabel. What was the secret of the foundling’s
-influence? He cared not to analyze either his own mind or the
-irresistible fascination of Chinita; but that the girl, though not
-positively beautiful, and unmistakably repellent in her caustic yet
-stoical discontent and ambitious unrest, possessed a bewitching and
-bewildering grace far different from any he had ever beheld in woman, of
-whatever race or kindred, impressed him daily more and more deeply,
-while—But stubborn facts made speculation and efforts at inquiry alike
-futile.
-
-As days passed on, a certain friendship sprang up between Ward and Don
-Rafael. They talked for hours over the political situation,—Ashley
-straining ear and mind to comprehend the administrador’s smooth and
-impressive utterances, and Don Rafael with grave politeness listening
-without a smile or gesture of amusement to the hesitating and often
-utterly incomprehensible attempts of the young American to deliver his
-opinions, or to make minute inquiry into reasons and events which often
-horrified as well as puzzled him. Don Rafael had the air of simplicity
-and candor which is so infinitely attractive to the stranger, and which
-presented so great a contrast to the lofty coldness of Doña Isabel and
-the grave and melancholy reticence of Feliz. Their demeanor left the
-baffling and depressing conviction that there was an infinity that they
-might reveal were but the right chord touched; while that of Don Rafael
-was satisfying in its cordiality, even while no response fulfilled the
-expectation that his fluent and kindly frankness appeared to encourage.
-
-As soon as the state of his wound permitted, Ashley joined the
-administrador in his early morning rides to the fields and pastures, and
-learned much of the workings of a great hacienda. These rides were
-confined to the immediate neighborhood of the great house, and four or
-six armed men were invariably in attendance,—for, as Don Rafael
-explained with a smile, the administrador of the rich hacienda of Tres
-Hermanos was invested with the dignity of its possessors, his personal
-insignificance being absorbed in the state of those he represented; so
-that his person bore a fictitious value, and if seized by an enemy,
-either personal or political, would doubtless be held at a prince’s
-ransom, which the honor as well as the interest of his employers would
-force them to pay.
-
-In the course of these rides they not infrequently approached the
-deserted reduction-works, and it was upon the first occasion that this
-happened that Don Rafael questioned the young American as to his
-relationship to the last director; and upon learning it, rehearsed with
-deep feeling the story of his murder, pointing out the very tree under
-which the bloody tragedy was enacted.
-
-Ashley watched his countenance narrowly as he talked. His words, whose
-meaning might have been obscure to the foreigner, were rendered dramatic
-by the deep pathos of his tone and the expressive force of his gestures;
-even the men who rode behind drew near as his voice rose on the
-stillness of the air in a tale so foreign to the peace and beauty of the
-scene. As they skirted the low adobe wall and looked over upon the
-stagnant masses of mineral clay, the piles of broken ores, the adobe
-sheds and stables crumbling under rain and sun, Ashley was ready to
-credit the whispered words with which Don Rafael ended his narration;
-“Señor, it is said in the silent night, when the moon is at its full,
-phantoms of its old life revivify this deserted spot, and that its
-massive gates open at the call of a ghostly rider, who wears the form of
-that poor youth who after his last midnight ride came back feet
-foremost, recumbent, silent, from the tryst he had sallied forth to
-keep.”
-
-“And did you know the woman?” gasped rather than demanded Ashley Ward.
-
-“Did _I_ know the woman?” answered Don Rafael. “I know the woman? I was
-a stranger, and, truth to tell, no friend of Americans; a faithful
-husband withal, and was it likely, though he had them, this stranger
-would have shared secrets of a doubtful nature with me? When I said a
-‘tryst’ I used it for want of a better word. What attraction should a
-man so refined, so engrossed in his affairs as this busy foreigner, find
-in the humble and rustic beauties of the village? For my part, I find it
-impossible to imagine such coarseness in a man so little likely to be
-governed by a base passion as Ashley appeared. You know your own people
-better than I can; what say you?”
-
-“I say the same!” answered Ward, eagerly, with a keen glance at the
-sensitive dark face of the administrador. “Yet I know that my cousin
-loved; that he claimed to be married; that the lady—”
-
-He paused,—some of the men were within hearing, listening like Don
-Rafael himself with rapt faces. That of Don Rafael lighted for a moment
-with an incredulous smile. “Ah, then there _was_ a woman?” he said.
-“That might be; but a marriage? Ah, Señor, if there had been that, all
-the world would have known it. You know but little of our laws if you
-suppose such a contract could be here secretly and legally made. If he
-claimed such to be the case, he was vilely deceived, or himself was—”
-
-He stopped at the word, as if fearing to offend.
-
-To urge the matter further seemed to Ashley worse than useless. He had
-learned enough of marriage laws in Mexico to feel that to mention the
-name of Herlinda Garcia in connection with that of Ashley was to cast
-upon it a slur such as could but bring upon him the resentment, and
-perhaps the revenge, of the family to which he was probably indebted for
-his very life, and certainly for a hospitality that merited respect for
-its liberality if not gratitude for its warmth.
-
-“I shall never learn the truth,” he thought; “and why indeed should I
-seek it? My aunt was wise in her generation. Though ignorant of the
-possibilities or impossibilities of Mexican society and character, she
-wisely refrained from problems which its keenness and honor ignored or
-left unsolved. I will go back again in content to my houses and lands,
-to my silver and gold. I am despoiling no legitimate heir; and to
-imagine the existence of any other is an offence either to my cousin’s
-intelligence or honor, as well as to the chastity of a woman whom even
-in thought I must be a villain to asperse. Let but a momentary quiet
-come that I may be able to obtain the requisite funds, and I will
-abandon this senseless quest, and leave my murdered cousin to rest in
-peace in his forgotten grave, in this land of violence and mysteries.”
-
-This was the resolve of one hour,—to be broken in the next, as the sight
-of a girl’s face or the sound of her voice, like a disturbing
-conscience, assured him that in absence the doubt, or rather the
-tantalizing certainty, would each day torment him more and more, and so
-make enjoyment of his wealth even more impossible than it had been when
-Mary’s sensitive imaginings had urged him upon his Quixotic errand.
-
-Trivial and even ridiculous things often divert minds most harassed and
-burdened, and exert an influence when great and weighty matters would
-benumb or torture. It would have been impossible for Ashley Ward, in the
-embarrassment of his situation (for his funds in the City of Mexico were
-entirely cut off by its investment by the Liberals) and in the
-perplexity of his thoughts, to have entered with enjoyment upon any
-festivity or pleasure requiring exertion either of body or mind; but he
-was, quite unconsciously to himself, in the mood idly to view the little
-comedy which was enacted more and more freely before his eyes,—just as
-in seasons of deepest grief and anxiety one may seek mechanical
-employment for the eye and relief for the brain in the perusal of a tale
-so light that neither the strain of a nerve or a thought, nor the
-excitement of pleasure or pain, shall awaken emotion or burden memory.
-
-Fernando Ruiz was too wily a youth, too courteous, too kind, to throw
-off at once the semblance of devotion to a goddess who had lured him to
-a shrine that held a divinity whose charms, in his inconstant sight, so
-far surpassed her own that he could not choose but transfer his worship,
-even were it but to be disdained and rejected. In the decorous visits he
-made to Doña Rita and when they met at table, he would still sigh and
-cast despairing glances at the bridling Rosario, who but that she
-intercepted others more fervent still, directed toward the upper end of
-the board where Doña Isabel and Chinita sat in lonely state, would have
-believed quite true the tale with which her mother strove to console
-her,—using such feeble prevarication as is usual in Mexican families
-when ill news is to be ultimately communicated, in the fond hope of
-softening a blow which doubt and procrastination can but cause to be the
-more nervously dreaded. But well was Rosario convinced that though Ruiz
-held daily conferences with her father, and even once or more was
-honored by a few moments’ speech with Doña Isabel, it was not of her or
-of love that they spoke; and with a philosophic determination to replace
-with a more faithful lover the fickle admirer whom she could cease to
-love but would never forgive, the piqued, but lightly wounded damsel
-began to turn a shoulder upon the recreant soldier and her smiles upon
-the stranger.
-
-Ward was perhaps singularly free from vanity, or too much absorbed to
-notice the honor paid him; but with a sense of angry surprise he became
-aware that Chinita no longer ignored the existence of the persistent
-languisher, who at early morning paced the court in trim riding-suit of
-leather, a gay serape thrown negligently over his left shoulder, his
-wide-brimmed hat poised at the angle whence he could see the door of her
-room open, and Chinita rival the sun in dazzling his enchanted eyes. At
-noon he stood in the self-same spot in gay uniform, from which by some
-miraculous process all stain and grime had disappeared; and not
-infrequently at evening he reappeared in the holiday dress of some
-clerk, who for the time had lent his jacket of black velvet trimmed with
-silver buttons, or his riding-suit of stamped leather and waist-scarf of
-scarlet silk, well pleased to fancy he was represented by the lithe
-young officer, who filled them with a grace that made them thenceforth
-of treble value in the owner’s eyes.
-
-This masquerade might have continued indefinitely,—for Ruiz wearied no
-sooner of changing fine clothes than of descanting to Ashley of his
-sudden but undying passion for the young Chinita, whose fortunes he
-conceived, as the favored of Doña Isabel Garcia, would be as brilliant
-as her charms,—but that first, one by one, then in twos and threes, in
-tens and dozens, men flocked into the adjacent villages; and though
-reluctant to be torn from gentler pursuits, yet proud to form and
-command a regiment, the young adventurer was set the task of bringing
-order out of the wild and discordant elements,—a task for which the
-training of his life, and his peculiar knowledge of the material with
-which he had to work, more fitted him than any especial talent, however
-brilliant, in the conduct of ordinary military affairs would have done.
-
-The young officer’s vanity was flattered, for in some occult way the
-responsibility of the spontaneous rally was thrown upon his shoulders,
-and he became the central figure in a movement which within a few days
-assumed a picturesque and imposing character. He himself assumed that
-the magic of his name had called from their rocky lairs these mountain
-banditti, these sturdy vaqueros, these apathetic but resolute rancheros
-who trooped in, bringing with them rusty carbines and shotguns, and
-sometimes polished Henry and Sharp’s rifles, which the enterprise of
-speculative Americans had introduced into the country. There was no
-choice of weapons, but every one brought something,—a silver-mounted
-pistol, worthless as pretentious, or a strong and formidable
-short-sword, or glittering curved sabre, forged in some mountain or
-village smithy.
-
-It seemed too that by mere force of will money came into the captain’s
-hands, and that clothing, horses, and provisions were thus brought forth
-from the stores and fields of Tres Hermanos; that plans were laid, and
-adverse possibilities provided against, a way marked out and guides
-provided; and that he suddenly found himself at the head of a force more
-fully equipped than any he had before beheld,—men eager for adventure
-and battle, and clamorous to be led to join the forces of Gonzales, who
-while the cause with which he sympathized was meeting bloody reverses
-around the City of Mexico in which the Clerical forces were
-concentrated, was daily attracting in the interior formidable additions
-to the numbers of the Liberals. The tales of Conservative despotism and
-barbarity, which later investigations proved to have been well founded,
-aided much in influencing the masses to seek a change of evils, even
-where hopeless of any lasting benefit from the new condition of affairs
-which it was proposed to inaugurate.
-
-A people who had for generations found in changes of government simply
-fresh despotisms and encroachments were not likely to be as enthusiastic
-in discussion as mad for action,—for crushing and destroying the old,
-and seizing upon all available booty, not as necessary to the success of
-their cause, but as a despoilment of the enemy. And upon this principle
-it within a few days happened that Tres Hermanos presented more the
-appearance of a forced than a voluntary contributor to the military
-necessities of the time. Not only the common soldiers but those who were
-to lead them,—most of them men as skilled in ordering the sacking of a
-hacienda as in defending a mountain pass or assaulting some unwary
-town,—had poured in and filled every vacant nook in the village huts,
-and occupied the long-deserted reduction-works and the ruinous huts
-along the watercourse, and overran the courts and yards of the great
-house itself.
-
-The great conical storehouses of small grains and corn were opened and
-the mill invaded by the soldiers, who under the half-reluctant
-directions of the skilled workmen kept the somewhat primitive machinery
-in constant motion,—varying their employment by breaking the half-wild
-horses brought in from the wide pastures and talking love to the village
-girls, who in all their lives had never before beheld a holiday-making
-half so delightful.
-
-The long-closed church too was thrown open, and a priest from the next
-village was busied all day long shriving the sins of those whom he
-shrewdly suspected were ready to raise the standard of revolt against
-the temporal rule of the Church, whose ghostly powers had overshadowed
-earth with the terrors of its supernatural dominion.
-
-Ruiz had gained a certain fame, more as a reflection from that of the
-man with whom he had been associated than from any daring episodes in
-his own career; and he actually possessed a military training that
-ordinarily well filled the place of innate genius, and at other times
-counterfeited it. He had impressed Don Rafael as a man well suited, if
-hedged with precautions, to lead the forces that his representations
-induced Doña Isabel to send to the relief of her favorite Gonzales. A
-leader of more positive aspirations and declared opinions than Ruiz
-manifested, would not so happily have welded and moulded men of such
-diverse and conflicting elements,—men who, accustomed to the freedom of
-guerilla warfare, were more ready to be led by the glitter than the
-substance of authority. A man of straw, who though answering a purpose
-for the time could create no diversion of devotion to his own person in
-detriment to the supremacy of Gonzales, was sought and found in Ruiz. He
-was indeed the simple tool of Doña Isabel Garcia, manipulated by her
-administrador, yet so skilfully that he came to think himself the moving
-power which from an isolated farmhouse had within a few days changed Los
-Tres Hermanos into a military camp.
-
-In proportion with the importance of the position into which Ruiz was
-forced his love and daring grew, and he remembered that many men of
-family as obscure, and certainly of less tact and talent than he, had
-crowned their fortunes by marriage with beautiful daughters of rich
-houses; and he even began to reflect with some dissatisfaction upon
-Chinita’s doubtful status, although a few days before he had despaired
-of rising to a height where he might dare so much as touch the hand of
-Doña Isabel’s favored _protégée_.
-
-These changes of feeling were watched from day to day with amusement by
-Ashley Ward, and with rage by Pepé, as with despair he saw himself
-fading completely from the horizon of Chinita’s life, and a new and
-dazzling star rising upon her view. More than once Ashley Ward saw him
-nervously fingering the knife in his belt, as the unconscious Ruiz stood
-by the fountain in the moonlight and strummed the strings of a
-bandoline, and in the shrill tenor which seems the natural vehicle of
-such weird strains sang the _paloma_, “the Dove,” or _Te amo_, “I love
-thee,”—sounds pleasing in any female ear, though doubtless, thought Doña
-Isabel, intended to reach the heart of one particular fair one; at which
-she smiled as she imagined this to be the pretty brown Rosario, while
-the tender notes in reality appealed not quite in vain to the girl who
-with a remarkable semblance of patience shared the seclusion of her own
-life.
-
-Once only had Chinita rebelled, and that was when, instead of her usual
-ramble in the garden with Feliz or Doña Isabel herself, she had asked to
-be driven through the village, past the reduction-works, that she might
-see the preparations of which the distant sounds reached her. She would
-not be appeased at Doña Isabel’s refusal, even by the suggestion that
-she should stand upon the balcony of the central window, whence she
-could overlook the scene for miles; and so contrary was her humor that
-Doña Isabel was glad to agree to her sudden fancy that her old
-playfellow Pepé should be allowed to describe to her what he had seen.
-“Men see more than women,” the wilful girl exclaimed; “he will tell me
-something more than of the chickens that are stolen, and the number of
-tortillas that are eaten. Ay, Dios! I would I were a man myself, to be a
-soldier!”
-
-So toward evening a message brought by Doña Feliz herself startled the
-sullen Pepé. Ashley Ward watched the youth with some curiosity as he
-sauntered across the court and ascended the stone stairs. Pepé’s dress
-that day was in a Saturday’s state of grime, and at best consisted of a
-shabby suit of yellow buckskin, from which the metal buttons had mostly
-dropped, and which gaped at the armholes as widely as at the waistband;
-and his leathern sandals and sombrero of woven grass showed signs of
-age, corresponding to that of the ragged blanket he wore with such an
-air that he might have been taken for the very king of idle loungers.
-
-Doña Isabel glanced up at him as he muttered the customary salutation,
-uncovering his shock of black hair and inclining his head to her, while
-his black eyes furtively sought Chinita. There was nothing in his
-appearance for the most careful duenna to fear, and although Doña Isabel
-remembered that a few weeks ago those two had been equals, they now
-seemed as widely sundered as the poles; and knowing the prolixity with
-which the ordinary ranchero usually approached and gave his views upon
-any subject, she withdrew to the lower end of the gallery, where she
-might count her beads or con her thoughts undisturbed. The murmur of
-voices reached her with sufficient distinctness for her to know that the
-usual process of minute questioning and tantalizing indefiniteness of
-answer was in progress; and at length, soothed by the warm still air,
-the low song of a bird in the orange-tree which exhaled a sweet and
-heavy odor, and the habitual absorption of her own reflections, she
-failed to notice that the murmur of the voices grew less and less
-distinct, and indeed blended faintly with the low medley of sounds
-peculiar to the coming eveningtide.
-
-“Pepé,” Chinita was saying then, in a tone a little above a whisper,
-“tell me, is it true that this Don Fernando Ruiz, who for love of
-Rosario, and to please Don Rafael and Doña Isabel, is to lead these
-recruits to join Don Gonzales,—tell me, is it true that he was the
-associate of that Ramirez who was here so many years ago?”
-
-“It is likely,” answered Pepé, sullenly. “I have heard that he is
-Ramirez’s godson; and what more likely,” he added in an undertone, “than
-that the Devil should stand sponsor for an imp of his own blackness?”
-
-“In that case,” said Chinita, sharply, “it is impossible Ruiz has
-pronounced against him. Who ever heard of a godchild drawing sword
-against his sponsor? It should be against his father or brother rather.
-Go to, Pepé, you and I know nothing of Puro or Mocho. Bah! they know not
-the difference one from the other themselves; but we do know Ramirez and
-Gonzales, and it is the first that I love. What are you frowning at,
-Pepé? Oh! oh! oh! you are jealous, as you used to be of Pancho and Juan
-and Gabriel! What an idea! Ha! ha! ha!”
-
-“Why do you laugh so loudly?” asked Doña Isabel across the corridor, not
-displeased to see her merry.
-
-“Because he was telling me how the Tia Gomesinda broke the jar over the
-shoulders of the brave recruit who drained it of her last boiling of
-corn gruel,” answered Chinita, readily. “But excuse me, Señora, I will
-not disturb you again;” and she turned with a conciliatory smile toward
-Pepé, who was regarding her with an expression of malignant idolatry,—if
-such an extravagant phrase may be coined, to indicate a love which was
-capable of destroying, but never of renouncing, its object.
-
-“Thou art more unmannerly and more easily vexed than when thou usedst to
-follow me through the corn and bean fields, bending under the loads of
-wild fruit and flowers I piled upon thee, and then throwing them down
-some stony ravine because of one sharp word I would give thee. How canst
-thou expect ever to be aught but a poor ranchero, with a temper so
-unreasonable?”
-
-“And what if I were as patient as Saint Stephen himself, what would it
-matter? Thou wouldst not love me,” answered the young man. “And what
-care I whether I am poor or rich, ranchero or soldier? It is all one now
-that thou art with Doña Isabel. Why, if thou wert her child she could
-not be more choice of thee. Those who ate from the same plate and drank
-from the same bowl with thee are less than the dogs who followed thee;”
-and he would have kicked, had it been near enough, the cur which had
-been Pedro’s, and which like many others had the undisputed right to the
-corridor, and with patient obstinacy chose to lie at Chinita’s door.
-
-The young girl looked up with a tantalizing smile. She had been used to
-these speeches of covert jealousy, which she feigned to take as the envy
-of an ill-mannered ranchero. “Pshaw!” she said gazing at him through her
-half-closed lids, and yet from beneath the long lashes that veiled them
-casting a languorous though wholly unstudied glance, which dazzled and
-thrilled him, “‘friends, bacon, and wine should be old!’ What friend
-like an old friend? He is better than a new-found relation. It is he who
-will do a bidding and ask no reason for it; it is he—”
-
-“What can I do for thee?” whispered Pepé, hoarsely. “Tell me, and thou
-shalt see whether I am a friend or no; and then Chinita thou wilt—”
-
-“Sh-h!” interrupted Chinita, her finger again on her lip. “What does it
-matter to me who wins or loses in these senseless battles? Yet I wonder
-thou art not with Pedro; I would not have him sick or wounded, and
-alone,” and her eyes filled with tears. Pepé moved from foot to foot,
-and rubbed his shoulder against the wall uneasily. There was a covert
-reproach in her tone which he resented, and yet it pleased him too that
-she should be troubled: if Pedro were remembered, he could not himself
-be wholly forgotten.
-
-“It is not my fault,” he muttered: “he stole away in the night. Some say
-after all he has not gone to Gonzales, and that the men who are gathered
-here may find themselves led to Ramirez. At any rate this Ruiz—who you
-say loves Rosario, but who sighs like a furnace when his eye lights on
-you, and who has worn away the post of his door writing verses to your
-praise with the point of his rapier—should be but little to be trusted.”
-
-“Ah!” ejaculated Chinita, “I do not think thou lovest him, Pepito. Thou
-wouldst not that he should do me a favor instead of thyself?”
-
-“I would see him choked first with the wine in which he drinks a toast
-to thine eyes,” answered Pepé, hotly. “Señor Don ’Guardo and I are in
-the same mind about that; but it is not that he thinks thee a beauty,”
-he added hastily.
-
-Chinita flushed and tossed her head proudly. “What matters it what Don
-’Guardo thinks?” she said. “There could be nothing but ill luck in the
-favor of a man like that. Hast thou shown him the grave of the other
-American? Ah, thou must know where to find it. Didst thou think I did
-not see thee following me behind the tuñas and bushes the day I found it
-after I had bidden thee go back? Thou wert like Negrito there. Come
-here, Negrito; thou art lean and black, but I love thee;” and she
-stooped to pat the slinking cur. “Ah, ah! Pepito, it would be a good
-jest if thou wouldst show Don ’Guardo the American’s grave, and tell him
-Chinita bids him beware of the same fortune.”
-
-“He would think thee a gypsy more than ever, and a saucy one,” answered
-Pepé. “But I know this is not the favor thou wouldst ask of me. Thou art
-thinking ever of Ramirez, who bewitched thee. Ask it of the Captain Ruiz
-rather than me. I would die for thee, but I see not how I can serve thee
-by turning traitor.”
-
-Chinita started up angrily. “Am I a false-hearted wretch to ask it of
-thee?” she cried furiously, though in a low voice. “Ramirez fights for
-the side of right. Is it his fault if the Clergy are right to-day and
-the Liberals tomorrow? Were not he and Gonzales upon the same side when
-they were here years ago? Were not his men crying ‘_Dios y Libertad!_’
-when they passed here six months ago? And suppose the cry is changed.
-Bah! with Doña Isabel’s men he would be of Doña Isabel’s opinion! What
-does it matter to him? He is a man to fight, not to sit down like Don
-Rafael and the major-domo, old Don Tomas, and talk, talk, talk!”
-
-“That is very well,” said Pepé, staidly; “but why do you not tell this
-all to Doña Isabel? Or listen, now: to please thee I will seek Pedro,—I
-warrant me he is not so far away,—and I will tell him how thou wouldst
-have Ramirez rather than Gonzales to lead the troops; if it matters not
-to him, _cierto_ it will not to me! But I tell thee frankly I would be
-of those who would pull down rather than build up churches. I see no
-gain to be had in fighting for the Señores the bishops, who have so much
-already that the poor man can have nothing but leave to fast while the
-priests revel in plenty. Go to, Chinita! thou hast heard Pedro talk of
-freedom as much as I have. If Don Benito Juarez and Don Vicente and the
-rest of them gain the day, I—why I might be an alcalde myself, or a
-general; and then—well, anything thou wilt!”
-
-Chinita laughed and nodded at him. “It is the Señor Ramirez who could
-bring about all that,” she said with conviction; “and, Pepé, though thou
-dost not love the Captain Ruiz, thou shalt take him that message from
-Chinita. Yes, yes! go thy way quietly to Pedro, and if there is treason,
-Ruiz shall work it. So the General Ramirez shall be brought over to our
-side, and Ruiz shall be the only man who will be blamed, if Doña Isabel
-is vexed.”
-
-Pepé shook his head doubtfully. His views were no clearer than
-Chinita’s, but they were not additionally obscured by an unreasoning
-enthusiasm for a self-created hero. Doña Isabel was rising from her
-chair; the rattle of the wood upon the bricks startled the two speakers.
-
-“How goes it with thy sister Juana?” asked Chinita, lightly. “She told
-me once she loved Gabriel because, though he was old and ugly, he would
-do more to please her than all the young and handsome lovers. Are they
-happy, do you think, or has he beaten her already, as I said he would?”
-
-Pepé looked at her keenly and with an expression of wild hope from
-behind the wide hat he was holding in both hands before his face, in
-awkward preparation for departure. Would Chinita too marry the man who
-would please her? And after all it was but a little thing,—just a hint
-to the man whose admiration she jeered at.
-
-“Thou canst go now, Pepé,” said Doña Isabel, approaching. “I am sure the
-Señorita has heard enough of the wild doings of these mad soldiers.
-Thank Heaven, they leave us soon! Ah, now that I think of it, thou mayst
-say to the Señor Americano that Captain Ruiz told me to-day he would
-gladly give him safe escort as far upon their way as their roads may lie
-together; and—but I forgot, such messages are not for thee. I will send
-them by the Señor Administrador.”
-
-Pepé muttered his adieus and bowed himself away in some confusion.
-Chinita looked after him meaningly; he caught her glance and then the
-motion of her lips. His heart beat wildly; they formed the refrain of a
-popular song,—
-
-                       “Adios, my dearest love!”
-
-Pepé reached the court quite dizzy. Ashley Ward and Captain Ruiz were
-both waiting for him. His excitement had reached a crisis. He seized
-Ruiz by the arm. “If you would please her,” he hissed in his ear, “find
-Ramirez, and let him, and not Gonzales, lead the troops.”
-
-“You are drunk!” answered Ruiz; yet he clutched the youth by the arm,
-and led him into his room.
-
-Pepé came to his senses with the shock as he sank upon a stone bench
-against the cold, hard wall. Presently he gave a brief account of
-Chinita’s desires and reasons. Ruiz listened without a smile. Childish
-and unprincipled as they were, they were not more so than scores he had
-heard discussed in the course of the years of anarchy in which he had
-entered upon manhood. Find Ramirez, pledge him to the Liberal cause,
-leave it to him to gain such an ascendency over the troops that they
-would themselves proclaim him their leader! It was an easy task. It set
-him thinking, and Pepé slunk away to hope, to doubt, to despair, to hope
-again.
-
-                       “Adios, my dearest love!”—
-
-just the refrain of a song, yet it pursued and bewildered him. For less,
-stronger men than Pepé the ranchero have committed unimaginable crimes.
-
-The next morning when they met in the court, Captain Ruiz stopped Pepé.
-“Tell her her wishes are law to me!” he said. “If she but love me, I—”
-
-“_Caramba!_” cried Pepé, savagely. “Am I an old woman or a priest that I
-should carry your messages? She love you! she would needs have been born
-to lead apes, to love you.” And Pepé flung himself off in a rage, while
-the astounded Ruiz gazed after him in open-mouthed amazement.
-
-“By my life, he loves her himself!” he muttered vacantly. “Señor Don
-’Guardo, heard you ever such presumption? The bare-skin beggar loves the
-favorite—what shall we say?—niece of Doña Isabel!”
-
-“Let us say you are both fools!” said Don ’Guardo in good round English
-and with a sudden rage, the motive of which was to himself inexplicable;
-and the discomfited captain bowed, not doubting that his own expression
-of disgust had been echoed.
-
-“_Caramba!_ a woman so beautiful gazed at by every beggar, like an image
-of the Virgin of Remedios carried in procession! I swear I will not
-forget thee, Pepito, and will keep a close eye on thee, now I know thou
-hast been tampered with!” continued Ruiz, hotly. “A word to the General
-Gonzales will be enough if he is of my mind!”
-
-That day, in spite of Doña Isabel’s diligence, a pink note found its way
-to Chinita. “Good!” she said after reading it, “My General Ramirez will
-have the men; the Señor Gonzales will be helped, and Doña Isabel will do
-a double good. This is not so bad a subject,—this Ruiz; and his eyes are
-as black and large as those of Ramirez himself. All is well. All things
-will come right at last. Ah, if only what Don Rafael told Feliz one
-night should come true, and the convents are opened, then—”
-
-She paused. It seemed too utterly impossible even to dream of. She
-looked again at her first love-letter; a twinge of remorse seized her as
-she thought of Rosario. She laughed, but she tore the paper into
-infinitesimal shreds.
-
-What was the writer thinking? “Onward! I have gone too far to turn back
-even at the word of Chinita. A promise will gain her love, but the
-essential thing is the good-will of Doña Isabel. ‘A pearl is all the
-better for a golden setting!’ No treaties then with Ramirez. Though he
-is my godfather, I need not his patronage. Doña Isabel, a straight path,
-and Juarez! Forward! Ruiz, fortune favors you!”
-
-
-
-
-                                  XXX.
-
-
-A few days later the troops had left Tres Hermanos, and Ashley Ward
-stood in the silent graveyard on the mountain side, pushing back with
-his foot the loose sand his tread had disturbed, as it threatened again
-and again to cover the rude wooden cross upon which his eyes were fixed.
-It bore the name of his murdered cousin, faint yet distinct, preserved
-by the sand, for the wind had soon prostrated it after Chinita’s shallow
-replanting. The words seemed to Ashley to call to him aloud from the
-dust of his kinsman; in the hot sunshine their spell was as potent as
-though a ghostly voice had spoken at midnight. For the first time,
-something more intense than the desire to satisfy conscience by proving
-that he wronged no rightful heir in entering upon property which would
-have been John Ashley’s had he lived, arose in his mind. The absolute
-reality of his cousin’s death for the first time seemed to become an
-overwhelming conviction; and with it came memories of the young and
-daring man whom he had in childhood held in wondering admiration. And as
-he stood within sight of the spot where the brilliant young life had
-ended in a bloody tragedy, a deep wave of sorrow surged over his soul,
-and from its depths, as from the loose sands of the wind-levelled grave,
-appeared to rise a cry for vengeance.
-
-Though not till now had Chinita’s charge that he be taken to the
-American’s grave been carried out, the message from Doña Isabel, which
-Pepé had not failed to deliver, had reached him some days before, and
-had been supplemented by a visit from Don Rafael. Although a certain
-fascination had inclined Ashley to linger still at Tres Hermanos, he had
-so little hope of adding to the information he had already gained of his
-cousin’s life,—there seemed so little possibility that the marriage
-which John Ashley had intimated had taken place, could ever have been
-more than a mere sentimental dedication of the lovers one to the other,
-in which they deemed themselves man and wife in the sight of God, but
-which in the sight of man was a mere illicit connection, to be condemned
-or ignored,—that he had not dared to present himself before the haughty
-mother of the one Herlinda whom he suspected to have been the object of
-his cousin’s passion, and to insult her with questions or insinuations
-that would cast a doubt upon her daughter’s purity and a stain upon the
-fame of the house of Garcia, which even the blood of John Ashley and his
-own added thereto would be insufficient to wash away.
-
-The young man had decided then to accept the order of dismissal, so
-delicately conveyed in the intimation that by accepting the escort of
-the troops as far as they might proceed toward Guanapila, he would not
-only reach a point whence in all probability he might in safety proceed
-to that city, but that he would thus render a favor to Doña Isabel, who
-was minded by the same opportunity to withdraw from the hacienda,—her
-presence there being liable to act as a lure to either party, who might
-after seizing her person levy a ransom upon the family which even their
-large resources would be severely strained to meet.
-
-Although the fiction was maintained that her assistance of the Liberal
-cause was involuntary, it was readily surmised that Doña Isabel Garcia
-was in reality seeking to avoid the vengeance of the Conservatives,
-while their forces were so demoralized and scattered that she might hope
-to reach Guanapila, which was then occupied by a patriot guard, before
-the tide of the war should turn and bring the army of the Church again
-to the fore en masse,—collected by the clarion cry of fanaticism, and
-lavishly rewarded from the hoards of silver and gold drawn from the
-vaults into which for generations had been drained the prosperity and
-the very life-blood of the peasantry.
-
-Ashley Ward had been struck with admiration of the woman who thus dared
-the dangers of the road,—to which she had been no stranger. He had felt
-something of the chivalrous enthusiasm of a knight of old, as he joined
-the irregular band which by daylight had gathered upon the sandy plain
-before the straggling village. The soldiers had fallen into march with
-something like order, with Ruiz at their head,—for once with an anxious
-face, for he felt that the die was cast, and that he had raised up for
-himself an enemy whom it would be mad temerity to face, and hopeless to
-attempt to conciliate. The baggage-mules were driven by the
-leathern-clad muleteers, who even thus early had begun their profane
-adjurations to the nimble-footed beasts, that listened with quivering
-ears thrown back in obstinate surprise at every unwonted silence. The
-women who had come from other villages had laughed and chided their
-unruly infants, as they arranged and rearranged their baskets of maize
-and vegetables upon the panniers of their donkeys, if they were
-fortunate enough to possess any, or upon their own shoulders if they
-were to walk; and those who were for the first time leaving their
-birthplace to follow the fortunes of husband or sweetheart, had burst
-into loud lamentations. Ashley had been glad to find these changed to
-laughter, however, before they were well past the broken wall of the
-reduction-works; which they skirted, entering upon the bridle-path which
-led across the hill, where the rough heaps of sand showed through the
-scattered cacti, and where, by the rude wooden crosses, he now for the
-first time learned lay the village graveyard.
-
-Pepé had ridden sullenly by his side. He had been sent back with a sharp
-reprimand from the station he had taken among the mounted servants who
-surrounded the carriage of Doña Isabel, Ruiz in petty tyranny refusing
-him so honorable a place. A glance from Chinita had been the deepest
-reproof of all; and as he pondered upon it, certain words which she had
-uttered, and which he had hitherto forgotten, had come into his mind. As
-they neared the graveyard his eye caught Ward’s, and suddenly laying his
-hand upon the bridle of the American’s horse, he had muttered,—
-
-“Señor, she thinks I have forgotten all her wishes; but there is not
-even one so foolish that I scorn it. Turn aside but for a moment,
-Señor,—here where the adobe has fallen, your horse can scramble through
-the wall. Follow me, they will not miss us before we can reach our
-places again. _Caramba!_ Don Fernando watches me as a cat watches a
-mouse. Here, Señor,—never mind the women. Stupids! how they herd their
-donkeys together, when they might have the whole hillside to pick their
-own paths on! Patience! Let us wait a little, Señor! Ah,” he reflected,
-as they remained silent and motionless, “there is the spot. I have never
-forgotten it since I followed her through the rushes down there by the
-stream, and scratched my face in the tuñas, darting behind them that she
-should not see me. I was not half so tired as Chinita was though, when
-she sat down to rub sand upon her smarting hands, and fell asleep with
-the sun beating upon her head. I wonder if she ever thought it was I who
-covered her face with her ragged reboso,—she wears one of silk now, as
-clean and soft as a dove’s breast,—or that I lay behind the big pipes of
-the flowering organ-plant as she turned over the fallen cross which her
-hand struck against, and read the name and age of the American who had
-been murdered years before? Who ever would have thought—for I hated her
-then if I did follow her, as she maddens me now with her soft eyes and
-her mocking smile—that I should be bringing here the man who perhaps is
-just the handsome, woman-maddening demon they say that other was, and at
-her will too? _Ave Maria Purissima!_ what God wills the very saints
-themselves may not say No to,—much less a poor peasant like Pepé Ortiz.”
-
-These thoughts, perhaps scarcely in the order in which they are set
-down, passed through the mind of Pepé, as lingering until the straggling
-procession had passed, he emerged from the shade of such an organ-plant
-as had once sheltered him years ago, and taking his bearings with
-unerring eyes, beckoned to Ashley,—who had waited within touch of his
-hand, and whose heart had begun to beat suffocatingly, though he knew
-that it was utterly improbable that anything more important than the
-mound that covered the body of his cousin would meet his eye,—and led
-the way to the most wind-swept and desolate portion of that paupers’
-acre, and presently stooping where the ground was sunken rather than
-heaped, turned with some effort the half-buried cross, and exposed to
-Ashley’s view the name from which his own had been derived.
-
-The young man gazed at it in a sort of fascination, actually spelling
-the letters over and over. He felt as if a part of himself must be
-buried there. His eyes burned; the glaring sunshine leaped and quivered
-above the ill-carved letters, distorting and confounding them. His heart
-beat violently; every sense but that of hearing seemed to fail him, and
-every sound upon the air became a weird, mysterious voice,—blood crying
-unto its kindred blood.
-
-This deep emotion fixed the indifferent and wandering eye of Pepé, who,
-holding the bridles of the horses, stood near, impatient to be gone, yet
-intending to watch out of sight the last stragglers; for it was with a
-double purpose he had turned aside to point out the grave of the
-American,—first, perhaps, to gratify the seemingly jesting wish of
-Chinita; and then to seize the opportunity to turn his fleet steed into
-the narrow bridle-path which led to mountain villages, where he shrewdly
-suspected Pedro might be found, or at least be heard of. He had promised
-to carry the message of Chinita to Pedro, and would have set forth upon
-the very night she had charged him with it, but until mounted by Ruiz’s
-command had found it impossible to provide himself with a horse, without
-which it was hopeless for him to attempt his quest. To escape the
-discipline of the ranks, he had induced Ashley to retain him as his
-servant, feeling no scruple at his intended abandonment. As his eye
-rested upon the pale and excited countenance of Ashley, Chinita’s words,
-with which she had bade him taunt him, flashed into his mind; yet he
-forbore to utter them, saying presently in a tone of concern,—
-
-“Let us go now, Señor, it is growing hot. It is almost noon, and you are
-faint. Let us ride on, and I will point out the way that you must take
-when we have crossed the face of the hill. Then comes a slight descent,
-Señor, and upon the little plain that lies between that and the cañon of
-the Water-pots will the troop stop for the nooning. This has been a
-rapid march. Doña Isabel will feel all the safer when she is once on the
-highway. But as for us, Señor, we must part company. You will find a
-better servant; I should but ill serve your grace. You know yourself I
-am but a stupid fellow, and it is only the patience of your grace that
-has been equal to my ignorance.”
-
-Ashley heard neither the excuses of Pepé nor his own praises, but with a
-gesture at once commanding and entreating the servant to leave him,
-said: “Pepé, I had forgotten. There is something which will keep me
-still at Tres Hermanos. The Señora Doña Isabel must pardon me. Go! go to
-your duty, as I must to mine. God! how could I have forgotten it? Oh
-John, John! does time and distance make men so unnatural? Is it possible
-I could leave the place where you were so foully murdered, without
-knowing why or by whom? Who killed him, and why was the deadly and
-secret blow struck? Ah, that involves the question of the very mystery I
-came here to fathom, and which I was turning my back upon; for I am
-convinced that it is here, and not by following Doña Isabel Garcia, that
-it may be solved. She is too resolute, too astute; nothing is to be
-forced or beguiled from her lips! But now that the spell of her presence
-is removed, I may learn everything from these people, who with all their
-cunning and clannish devotion can surely be influenced by reasons such
-as I can give.”
-
-“Who would have guessed the sight of a grave would so stir the blood?”
-soliloquized Pepé. “Can it be that Chinita—But no, she was more in jest
-than earnest; she always laughed at the _niña_ Chata for her sorrow for
-the foreigner.—Well, all must die!” he said aloud. “Believe me, Señor,
-after all these years a knife-thrust is a little matter to inquire into.
-_Caramba!_ Chinita herself would tell you that to turn back on a journey
-because of the dead is an omen of evil; ’twas not for that she would
-have me show you the grave of your countryman,—God rest him!”
-
-Ashley looked at him keenly. “Ah,” he said, “it is then no accident that
-you have brought me here? God! what a mystery! Pepé, tell Chinita I know
-her thoughts, and that I never will rest till I prove them right or
-wrong. She is a strange creature, and likely to prove an enigma to more
-men than myself. Poor lad, she is not for you to dream of.”
-
-“I will not see her again till I can tell her that which shall please
-her,” said Pepé. “Look you, Señor, she is one who will have the world
-turn to suit her.”
-
-“A wilful girl,” thought Ashley, with judicial disapproval. “She has all
-the craftiness and deceit of the Indian and the pride and passion of a
-Spaniard; yet what if I should follow her? No, no! mere circumstance and
-conjecture shall not turn me!—_Adios_, Pepé,” he said aloud, “and
-beware! It is Doña Isabel you serve, and not the young girl who has
-bewitched you.”
-
-Pepé smiled vaguely; his glance roved over the landscape. “Her heart is
-virgin honey in a cup of alabaster!” he murmured. Ashley was becoming
-accustomed to the poetic expressions of these unlettered rancheros, and
-with some impatience took in his own hand the bridle-rein of his horse,
-and reminding Pepé that it was nearly noon, and that he would be missed
-should he longer delay, bade him mount and hasten with messages of
-excuse to Doña Isabel for his own sudden return to Tres Hermanos.
-
-With the customary apparent submission of a peasant, Pepé prepared to
-obey. He was in fact anxious to set forth as soon as he could be certain
-that no straggler was near to mark his movements. The troops and their
-followers had disappeared. “The Señor Don ’Guardo should leave this
-solitary spot on the instant,” he said with genuine concern; “in these
-days of revolution, one can never say what dangerous people may be
-wandering abroad.”
-
-“I have nothing to fear from them,” answered Ashley, “unless it should
-be that they might attempt to rob me of the horse Doña Isabel has lent
-me. Well, for its sake, I will be prudent; though in truth the sight of
-a ghost in this desolate spot of sunken graves would seem more probable
-than that any living being should pass here. Now, then, good-by, Pepé.”
-
-“Until our next meeting, Señor!” replied Pepé, gravely lifting his hat.
-He had attached himself to Ashley, and it seemed to him an evil omen
-that they should part at a grave, and he thus attempted to console
-himself by the pretence that it was but for a little while. “For a short
-time Señor, and God keep you!”
-
-Ashley shook his hand warmly. The ranchero drew his hat over his eyes,
-adjusted his serape so that his face was almost hidden, and dropping
-into that utterly ungraceful posture into which the skilled horseman of
-Mexico relapses when he suffers his steed to take his own way and pace
-across a wearisome stretch of country, he turned his horse’s head toward
-the bridle-path they had left, and slowly receded from Ashley’s gaze.
-Once however beyond the crest of the hill, the rider’s eye brightened,
-his figure straightened; a distant sound of voices reached his keen
-ear,—it was so remote that but for the rarity of the atmosphere it would
-have failed to reach him. Bending his head, he listened intently for a
-moment; then raising it he gazed searchingly on every hand, rode for a
-short distance to the right, guided his nimble-footed beast down the
-cleft sides of a deep ravine and along the dry bottom of a rock-strewn
-path, which rapid floods had in some past time cut in their fierce
-descent from the steep sides of the frowning mountains, and so gradually
-gained the dark and solitary defiles that led directly to those eyries
-of bandit mountaineers, who under the guise of shepherds,
-charcoal-burners, and goat-herds had been, as Pepé well knew, the chosen
-comrades of Pedro Gomez and his mates in the boyhood days of that Don
-Leon whose wild deeds were still the theme of many a tale, and like the
-story of his death became more mythical with every repetition.
-
-Pepé rode steadily on for hours, picturing to himself his meeting with
-Pedro should he find him, or the quiet exultation of Chinita when she
-should hear that he had deserted the troops, or of the return of Don
-’Guardo to the hacienda. In his heart he was not displeased that the
-American should be separated from Chinita, though it left her the more
-completely to the gallant care of Ruiz. He had comprehended instantly
-the emotion which had seized upon Ashley at his kinsman’s grave,—the
-instinct for revenge. He said to himself that those Americans, after
-all, were people of sensibility, and he felt a certain satisfaction that
-he had been the instrument of calling into action a sentiment that did
-the foreigner so much credit.
-
-Meanwhile the heat of noon passed, and Ashley’s horse stood with patient
-dejection in the shadow of the huge cactus to which he had been
-tethered, not even taking advantage of the freedom allowed by the length
-of the rope, so little temptation to browse was offered by the sparse
-and coarse tufts of herbage which struggled into existence here and
-there. The time wore on, and an occasional stamp attested his
-disapprobation of a master who lay prone upon the ground under a
-mesquite tree when the sun shone hottest, and who when the cool breeze
-of afternoon swept over the silent spot, stood long and still beside the
-grave he had not sought, and yet felt infinite reluctance to leave.
-
-It was a foolish thought, but as he gazed across the broad valley to the
-great square of buildings set among the fields, the youth imagined how
-indeed the dead man might at times steal forth to visit again those
-fertile scenes where he had lived and loved. As he stood there, Ashley
-could see the people like pigmies passing in and out the great gateway,
-or going from hut to hut in the village. There was one figure—it seemed
-that of a woman—which his eye sought from time to time, as it appeared
-and disappeared in the corn and bean fields, and at last came out on the
-open road that lay between them and the reduction-works. He was becoming
-quite fascinated by its hesitating yet persistent progress, when he was
-startled by a sound; and glancing up, he saw a man leaning upon the
-crumbling wall and regarding him with a gaze so bewildered, so fixed,
-that involuntarily he moved a step toward him.
-
-The stranger started, as if some frightful spell had been broken. Ashley
-saw that he crossed himself, and muttered some invocation; yet that he
-had not the look of a nervous man or a coward, but rather of a
-somnambulist pacing the earth under the impulse of some horrible dream.
-The man was not ill-looking,—no, decidedly not; and though his skin was
-deeply browned as if from much exposure, and his cheek bones were
-prominent, giving his face a certain cast below the eyes that was
-plebeian or Indian in character, the eyes themselves were dilated and
-brilliant, and the straight nose and pointed beard gave him the air of a
-Spanish cavalier, though he wore the broad sombrero and serape of a
-common soldier of the rural order. Perhaps on ordinary occasions even a
-more practised eye than that of Ashley Ward would have accepted the
-stranger for what he purported to be; but the American with an
-extraordinary feeling of repulsion little accounted for by the mere
-sense of intrusion caused by the man’s unexpected appearance, at once
-leaped to the conclusion that his dress—though he had no appearance of
-strangeness in it—was virtually a disguise, and that instead of a
-soldier of the ranks, the man before him was of no ordinary position or
-character.
-
-The new-comer seemed to have risen out of the ground, so stealthily had
-he approached. It would have been quite possible for him, tall as he
-was, to have skirted the wall without observation from any one within
-the enclosure. But undoubtedly he had taken no precaution in that
-solitary place, which except at funeral times was shunned as the haunt
-of ghosts and ill-omened birds and reptiles, and thus had come
-unexpectedly upon the motionless figure of the tall young man clothed in
-a plain riding-suit of black, with bright conspicuous locks at the
-moment uncovered, and fair-skinned face of a characteristic American
-type,—all unremarkable in themselves but associated in the mind of the
-observer with one whom he had seen but twice or thrice, and this on the
-mad night when the moon had shone down upon a victim quivering in the
-death-agony above which he had exulted.
-
-The two men held each the other’s gaze in silence for a full minute,
-both unmindful of the common courtesy usual in such chance encounters in
-solitary places. Then recovering from the superstitious awe which had
-overpowered him, the Mexican stepped over the broken wall. Ashley
-noticed as he did so that heavy silver spurs were on his heels, and that
-the fringed sides of his leathern trousers were stained as though with
-hard riding, and that, as if from habit, rather than any purpose of
-menace, his nervous hand closed upon the pistol in his scarlet band, as
-with a few long strides he reached the spot on which Ashley stood with
-that air of defiance which a sudden intrusion upon a solitude however
-secure naturally arouses in a man who is neither a coward nor an adept
-in the self-command that is perhaps the most perfect substitute for
-invincible courage.
-
-“Señor,” said the Mexican, “your pistols are on your saddle. You are
-right; this is an evil habit to wear them so readily at one’s side.
-Pardon me if in my surprise I assumed an attitude of menace; but these
-are troublous times. One scarcely expects to find a cavalier alone in
-such a place.” He looked around him with a smile, which did not hinder a
-quiver of the lip expressing an excitement which his commonplace words
-denied.
-
-Ashley regarded the speaker with ever increasing repugnance. It was true
-his pistols hung from the saddle, but there was a small knife in his
-belt, and his hand wandered to it stealthily as he answered: “Señor, I
-make no inquiry why you are here, and on foot,—which you must
-acknowledge might well cause some curiosity in this place; but in all
-courtesy I trust your errand is a happier one than mine. Whatever it is,
-I will not intrude upon it longer than will suffice to plant this
-cross.” And with an air of perfect security, yet with his knife in hand,
-he bent to the work, which the other regarded with an almost incredulous
-gaze,—the preservation of a grave or its tokens being a sort of
-sentimentality to which by tradition and training he was a stranger; and
-to see it exhibited for the first time in this God’s acre of laborers,
-almost sufficed to dissipate the impression the unexpected encounter had
-made upon him. As Ashley quietly pursued his work, the new-comer had an
-opportunity to look at him narrowly. After all, this one was like many
-another American! Yet there was something in the young man’s appearance
-that brought the sweat to the brow of the soldier; he pushed back his
-hat, and breathed hard. As he did so, Ashley braced the cross against
-his knee. The action brought the letters into clear and direct view. The
-eyes of the Mexican rested upon them. He fell back a step or two in
-superstitious awe, involuntarily exclaiming:
-
-“_Cristo!_ was _he_ buried here? And who are you?”
-
-Ashley glanced up. There was a revelation to him in the questioner’s
-disordered and ashy countenance. He dropped the cross, sprang over the
-grave, and seized the stranger by the right arm. “Who are you who ask?”
-he cried. “What do you know of the man who is buried there?”
-
-“My faith! you are a brave man to put such questions!” retorted the
-new-comer, wrenching himself free. Ashley had spoken in English, but the
-violence of his act had interpreted his words. “Take your pistols and
-defend yourself, if you are here for vengeance. Kill him? Yes; I killed
-him as I would a dog. Faith, I thought it was his accursed ghost that
-had risen to challenge me!”
-
-“I am his cousin! Assassin, give me reasons for your deed!” cried
-Ashley, furiously, yet with a remembrance that to every criminal should
-be allowed some chance of justification.
-
-But the Mexican seemed little inclined to profit by it.
-
-“Reasons!” cried he. “Yes, such reasons as I gave him when I thrust the
-knife into his heart.” He raised his pistol and fired. The shot passed
-so close to Ashley’s temple that he heard it whiz through the air. In
-the same instant the two men clinched. The horse, which during the
-controversy had plunged and reared madly, broke away, and careering over
-the graves galloped wildly down the hillside. A fresh horse with its
-rider at the same instant dashed into the enclosure, and a voice cried,
-“For God’s sake my General! what adventure is this? Mount! mount! there
-is no time to be lost!”
-
-The combatants at the sound of a third voice had involuntarily paused.
-Had the knife in the hand of the American been in that of the Mexican it
-would have sheathed itself in his opponent’s heart; but Ashley, less
-ready in its use, arrested his hand midway. His passion half spent, the
-scarcely healed wound throbbing in his shoulder, his strength exhausted,
-he had much ado to keep himself from staggering.
-
-“A touch of my sabre would finish him,” said the new-comer coolly, as he
-reined in his restive horse, and put his hand on the long weapon
-swinging from his saddle. But the soldier stopped him.
-
-“No killing in cold blood,” he exclaimed. “’Tis a madman, but his fury
-is over. What brings you here, Reyes? Were you not to wait at the
-rendezvous?”
-
-“Wait!” he retorted, “this is no time to wait! We are already a day too
-late. A thousand men are on the road before us, my General! We let them
-pass us this morning as we lingered on the opposite side of the mountain
-in the Devil’s gate!”
-
-“And the troops are there still?” cried the other furiously. “Where is
-Choolooke? Did you not think to bring me a horse? Back to the Zahuan,
-man! We must begin the march this very night. I know Ruiz; he will yield
-in a moment at sight of me!”
-
-“Not he!” answered Reyes. “He has a new patroness; Doña Isabel herself
-is with him.”
-
-“Isabel!” cried the officer with an oath. “Ah, then, Tres Hermanos is
-partisan at last! _Carrhi!_ my lady Isabel shall find what she has begun
-shall be soon ended!” He put a small silver whistle to his lips and blew
-a shrill blast, which was answered by a neigh. A black horse lifted its
-head and looked over the wall with a gaze of almost human intelligence.
-
-“He followed me at a word,” exclaimed Reyes, “and stood by the wall like
-a statue when I bade him. Never was there such another horse as your
-black Choolooke, my General. Even the stampede of that unbroken brute
-that was tethered here could not startle him.”
-
-“Ay, I discipline horses better than I do men,—eh, Choolooke?” The horse
-with its jingling accoutrements had cantered into the enclosure, and
-with one bound his owner was in the saddle.
-
-All had passed in the few minutes in which Ashley was recovering breath,
-and in utter bewilderment endeavoring to gain some insight into the
-meaning of this rapid transformation scene, of which he himself had
-formed a part. As his late opponent sprang into the saddle, he could
-have fancied he heard the sound of the bugle, so alert were the man’s
-movements, so soldierly his bearing. But in the midst of his involuntary
-admiration he did not forget the extraordinary relations in which they
-stood to each other. He threw himself before the horse at the imminent
-risk of being trampled down. “Your name!” he cried. “By your own
-admission you are my cousin’s murderer. We must meet again! I am Ashley
-Ward; and you?”
-
-“Out of the way!” cried the rider, checking his horse by a dexterous
-turn of his hand. “My name? Ah, yes! Tell them there,” and he nodded in
-the direction of the hacienda, “they will soon have reason never to
-forget it!” He hesitated; plunged the spurs into his already impatient
-steed, and dashed furiously away, followed by Reyes; then rose in his
-stirrups to shout back in defiance the name—“Ramirez!”
-
-
-
-
-                                 XXXI.
-
-
-Ramirez! Ashley’s heart bounded, his brain throbbed dizzily yet acutely.
-Here was no obscure assassin, who once escaping him would perhaps be
-lost forever.
-
-The name was on every lip with those of Juarez, Ortega, Degollado,
-Miramon, and a score of other popular chieftains who of one party or
-another, or of independent factions, attracted to themselves a host of
-followers, more by their own personal magnetism than for the sake of any
-principles they represented. In that time of anarchy any head that rose
-above the common herd led enthusiastic multitudes, who followed a nod
-and applauded to the echo even one deed of daring. But Ramirez held his
-prestige by no such recent and uncertain tenure; throughout the long
-years of revolution he had been a central figure in the bloody drama.
-Even his recent defeat at El Toro and his subsequent disappearance had
-added but a fresh glamor of mystery to his adventurous career, without
-detracting from the almost superstitious awe with which he was regarded.
-It was believed that he would reappear when and where least expected.
-Ashley Ward had smiled covertly at the strange and daring escapades
-attributed to this man. He had become in his mind a figure of romance;
-and here in the broad day he had risen before him, the self-denounced
-murderer of John Ashley,—and as suddenly as he had come, so had he
-escaped him.
-
-Thinking no more of the cross, which had fallen upon the ground, hiding
-beneath it the name that had been so long preserved for so strange a
-purpose, Ashley Ward turned from the sunken graves and striding across
-the mounds, scarred and broken by the sacrilegious tread of the horses’
-feet, stood for a moment upon the broken wall, scanning the country in
-his excitement for some sign of the desperate men who but a few moments
-before had urged their restive steeds up the steep path and disappeared
-over the crest of the hill. He saw his own recreant steed galloping
-toward the hacienda walls, keeping the high-road, on past the
-reduction-works and the long stretch of open country beyond, and
-plunging and rearing at the fatal mesquite-tree. The superstitious
-vaqueros had instinctively imbued their animals with the same irrational
-terrors in which they had themselves been trained. Yet no sight of ghost
-or smell of blood lingered there to rouse memory or vengeance. Their
-waiting-place had been that long-forgotten grave upon the desolate
-hillside.
-
-Ashley leaped from the wall and rapidly began the descent to the valley.
-The sun was still high in the heavens, for the scene we have recorded
-had passed in less than a brief quarter of an hour. As he walked on,
-gradually falling into a more natural pace, the whole matter took
-definite form and coherence in his mind. That which had been so
-unexpected, so unnatural, seemed to be the event to which his whole
-journey to Mexico, all his wanderings, his strange and wearisome
-experiences, had inevitably and naturally tended. And then arose a point
-beyond. His work at Tres Hermanos seemed ended; the primal cause of his
-being there was forgotten. The definite thought now in his mind was to
-reach the hacienda, provide himself anew with horse, guide, and arms,
-and follow on the path which Ramirez had chosen, and upon which he would
-sooner or later re-appear, decoyed by the rich booty that Doña Isabel
-had intrusted to the weak and presumably faithless Ruiz. Could he reach
-and warn her in time?
-
-Ashley’s scarce-healed wound was throbbing painfully, the way was long,
-the heat intense; yet he pressed on resolutely, though at last he
-staggered as he went. He sat down to rest awhile among the dry rushes of
-the spent watercourse, under a straggling cottonwood-tree, the few poor
-leaves of which scarcely sufficed to shade him from the fierce rays of
-the sun. A fever heat was in his veins; wild theories and speculations
-passed through his brain,—some of them, perhaps, not far from being keys
-to the mystery of that tragedy which that day for the first time had
-become to his mind other than a vague and gloomy fantasy. Now, like the
-murderer himself, it was real, absorbing, appalling.
-
-The young man rose and again pressed on. After the descent to the long
-rude wall of the reduction-works, he skirted it slowly, thinking as he
-went how changed the aspect of the place must be since his cousin had
-ridden forth to his death. How proudly John had written, and almost
-vauntingly, of the prosperity his management had inaugurated, of the
-crowds of laden animals that passed in and out of the wide gates, of the
-men who led their slow, laborious lives among those primitive mills and
-wide floors of trodden ores.
-
-Ashley glanced at the great square mass of walls and towers of Tres
-Hermanos, glistening in the distance. To his weary eye it looked far
-away; yet doubtless he thought it had been but the ride of a few eager
-minutes to the lover, as he went at midnight to cast a glance at the
-walls that circled his mistress, or to rein his horse beneath her window
-that he might win a word or glance from her who whispered from above.
-These, Ashley had heard, were lovers’ ways in Mexico; he did not know
-that no maiden of Tres Hermanos ever occupied one of the few apartments
-whose windows opened toward the outer air. Yet as he debated the matter
-with himself, it became more and more probable to him that John Ashley
-had upon the fatal night been actually within the walls of the hacienda,
-and been stealthily followed thence by his treacherous rival,—for what,
-he thought, even to a Spaniard, could justify so foul a murder but the
-falseness of his mistress, the triumph of a hated rival? Pedro’s
-taciturnity and gloom Ashley construed as proofs of his complicity in
-the crime. Even then Ramirez had been a chieftain of renown, and Pedro
-in his youth had been a soldier, a free rider, of whom strange tales
-were told. Was it not probable that he had opened the gate at a
-comrade’s bidding,—or, more likely still, had bidden him wait beneath
-the tree where the favored lover was wont to mount his horse, and so
-take him unawares? Ashley remembered that such, it had been said, had
-been the manner of his cousin’s taking off. He had been slain with the
-swiftness and sureness of a secret and unhesitating avenger.
-
-The ardent youth railed at the mocking chances that had combined to
-suffer Ramirez to escape him in the unpremeditated struggle in which
-they had clinched with a deadly enmity. In such a struggle he could have
-found himself the victor without remorse, or could have died without
-regret; but it was not in his nature to follow a man for blood. Yet
-neither could he shut his ears to that cry for vengeance, for justice,
-which seemed ringing through the sultry stillness,—the more importunate
-as the possibilities of their attainment shaped themselves in his mind.
-
-That this must be a personal matter between himself and Ramirez was
-clear. At any time it would probably have been useless for an alien to
-have denounced so popular and influential a man as the proud and daring
-_revolucionario_. To attempt his arrest for a murder committed years
-before and probably in rivalry for a lady’s favor, would be but to throw
-a new mystery about him, and add a fresh legend of romance to those
-which already made him rather a character of ideal chivalry than of mere
-vulgar, every-day lawlessness and semi-barbarity. Though the brilliant
-adventurer was now under a temporary cloud, one threat of attack from
-law would make him again a popular idol; indeed it was likely that a
-_pronunciamiento_ in his favor would be the immediate result, and that
-in falling into his hands the American would lose, if not his life, at
-least all opportunity either of obtaining the satisfaction of the law
-for his cousin’s death, or of investigating further those doubts and
-probabilities which he had forgotten, but which now came upon him with
-redoubled force.
-
-The excited Ashley planned in his mind to refresh himself upon reaching
-the hacienda, and demanding horse and guide to set forth upon that very
-night, hoping to rejoin the force at daybreak. It was useless, he
-reflected, to waste further time in idle questionings. It was to Doña
-Isabel herself he would appeal, and warning her of the danger that
-threatened her from the bandit chieftain, induce her to make common
-cause with him against one who for years must have been their common
-enemy. Impossible was it for him to solve the mystery of the relations
-in which the several actors in this strange drama in which he was so
-unexpectedly taking part, stood either to one another, or to himself.
-There was but one fact certain; by that alone he could connect himself
-with beings who seemed almost of another world,—the one undoubted fact
-of the discovery of John Ashley’s murderer.
-
-Ashley’s ready apprehension of the public mind had been helped by what
-he knew to be the actual state of affairs in the ranks to which Doña
-Isabel had intrusted the safety of her person, trusting to the resources
-which were at her command, and to the present ascendency of Gonzales, to
-bind those soldiers of fortune to the cause she had espoused. Perhaps
-none knew better than she the elements that an alluring chance of gain
-or a transient enthusiasm had drawn together; but she could not know how
-near the fire lay to the straw, and how at her very side were those who
-in the name of patriotism—or, like Chinita, for a personal sentiment as
-unexplainable as it was imaginative and ardent—would sacrifice her
-dearest plans, and think it a grand and noble deed to raise the
-ubiquitous and dashing Ramirez upon the fall of the slow and cautious
-Gonzales. Ashley had imperfectly comprehended the scheme or its
-bearings; he had little understood, and felt but little interest in,
-those strange complexities and personalities of Mexican politics; but
-now a sudden party zeal and horror of treason seized him. Where was
-Pedro Gomez, who, having played traitor once, might do so a hundred
-times more? Where was Pepé? Had he rejoined the troops, or had the
-detour to the graveyard been but a clever plan for eluding them? Were
-these, and perhaps Ruiz too, the tools of Ramirez? Yet the latter had
-appeared to have ridden far; the news of the gathering and departure of
-the troops had appeared to have astounded as much as it had enraged him.
-Who had carried the news to Reyes?
-
-The way was long and the youth’s excitement waning; his recent illness
-and still aching wound began to declare their effects. In his full vigor
-Ashley Ward would have found the walk under the glaring sunshine—which,
-though no longer vertical, was fierce and blinding as it neared the
-western hilltops—more than he would have chosen for an afternoon’s
-stroll. Weak as he was, and becoming painfully conscious that he had
-fasted since morning, he was glad to lean sometimes against the high
-adobe wall and measure with his eye the slowly decreasing distance. It
-was a landmark on his way when he caught sight of the heavy gate set in
-the wall of the reduction-works; he knew then just how much farther he
-must go. He had no thought of actually approaching it, but he noticed
-with surprise that one heavy valve was slightly ajar; and with that
-sudden collapse which is apt to assail the overtasked frame at the
-unexpected sight of an open door, however meagre the entertainment it
-may suggest, he dragged himself onward with the natural belief that he
-should find within some servant or attaché of the great house. But when
-he reached the gate and looked through the narrow aperture, a perfect
-stillness reigned within. No horse stamped in the courtyard; no spurred
-heel rang on the pavement. Great cacti were pushing their gaunt and
-prickly branches into the narrow space, as if stretching longing arms
-out into the wide world from which they had been so long shut in.
-
-With some effort Ashley thrust back the strong and aggressive barrier,
-and forced his way in. Rank grass, which was at that season yellow and
-matted, had grown up between the cobble-stones, and raised them in
-little heaps, over which the lizards ran. One—fiery red—stopped as
-Ashley’s boot-heel woke the echoes, and turned a wondering ear, then
-glided swiftly on.
-
-Between the main building and the offices there was a small arched
-lobby, through which one entered the great court, upon which piles of
-broken ores and the long dried masses were spread. In this lobby in the
-olden time the workmen had been stopped by the watchman or gatekeeper
-and searched,—a proceeding to which they daily submitted with
-indifference, holding their arms on high while the practised searcher
-ran his hands over their thin and scanty garments, shook out the coarse
-serape and tattered sombrero, peered among the rows of glistening teeth
-and under the tongue, for those fragments of rich ore or amalgam which
-in spite of all precautions, or by the connivance of the searcher,
-reached the outer world, netting in the aggregate a considerable surplus
-to the income of the laborers, which found its way to the gambling
-tables, or was spent in the adornment of their wives,—as was proved by
-the great decline in the village of the manufacture of filagree
-ornaments of quaint and delicate designs upon the closing of the Garcia
-mining-works.
-
-Ashley, with a feeling of curiosity or a sense of impending action,
-which renewed his strength as a tonic might have done, noticed that the
-door upon the side of the lobby that opened into the main building or
-living rooms was also ajar. He glanced in, but except where the long ray
-of light stole in through the aperture, which his person partially
-obscured, all was so dim that he saw only imperfectly a few scattered
-articles of furniture,—and they appeared to be so old and battered that
-they were scarce worth the protection which the great padlock and rusty
-key, hanging from a staple in the door, indicated had been afforded
-them.
-
-With a feeling of awe, Ashley remembered that his cousin must have
-lived, and perhaps had lain dead, in that room. With nervous energy he
-thrust open the door, and the light streamed in. He started as his eyes
-fell upon the floor. It was of large square bricks, thickly spread with
-the dust of many years, but impressed with footprints so blurred that,
-dazzled as his eyes were, he could not tell whether they were those of
-man, woman, or child. They seemed mysterious, ghostly. There was no
-sound of human presence. His heart beat as it had not done in all the
-excitement of that day.
-
-“I am here! I have been waiting as you bade me,” said a low, frightened
-voice. The words came so unexpectedly that Ashley scarce understood
-them. He stepped forward and glanced around searchingly. In the farther
-corner of the room a female figure was in the act of rising from a low
-seat on which it had crouched. The face was half-averted, the dark
-reboso was drawn over it with the left hand, the right was outstretched
-as if in supplicating, almost compulsory, welcome.
-
-“Good God!”—“_Dios mio!_” The ejaculations were simultaneous; the girl
-sank to the floor, the young man involuntarily drew back.
-
-“Señorita!” he exclaimed in a voice of incredulity, “Señorita, you here
-and alone?”
-
-“_Maria Sanctissima!_ not the General Ramirez!” he heard her moan; yet
-in the fright and confusion there seemed an accent of relief. “Don
-’Guardo! Oh, what has brought you here? Oh, Señor, believe me—”
-
-“Do not distress yourself to explain, Señorita,” interrupted Ashley,
-coldly. “Rise, I beg, and I will go at once; but that you may not waste
-more time in waiting, I will tell you that the man you speak of will not
-be here to-day. And,” he added, with an intensity that startled even
-himself, “if there is justice in heaven or upon earth, never again shall
-he fulfil a lover’s tryst upon a spot that by any other than a demon
-would be shunned as a scene of gentle dalliance, if not abhorred as the
-theatre of a crime that should have blasted his whole life!”
-
-The girl threw back her head-covering and looked up in uncomprehending
-amaze. As her gaze caught Ashley’s both colored, both averted their eyes
-in confusion. Ashley recoiled before hers, so childlike, so honest.
-
-“Chata!” he murmured; “Chata!” involuntarily extending toward her his
-hand in deprecation, in entreaty, in protection. She clasped it as a
-frightened child might, and clinging to it rose to her feet, swaying a
-little and bending low, not with weakness, but with shame.
-
-“I dared not disobey him,” she murmured at last. “I dared not disobey.”
-
-Ashley dropped her hand,—almost flung it from him.
-
-The girl’s face crimsoned; she opened her lips, hesitated, then clasping
-her hands together, cried, “It is not as you think. Oh, rather than the
-truth, would to God it were! I am not the child of Don Rafael and Doña
-Rita! Jose Ramirez is my father!”
-
-
-
-
-                                 XXXII.
-
-
-“José Ramirez is my father!”
-
-Had her words been a thunderbolt hurled at Ashley’s feet, they could not
-have astounded him more. The daughter of Ramirez!
-
-“I do not believe it! I cannot believe it!” he exclaimed, with no
-thought for courteous words. “Oh, that is a tale for a jealous lover!
-but I am not one. Anything, anything rather than that, Señorita, would
-serve to explain the reason of your presence here!”
-
-“Why have I spoken?” cried the young girl with tears. “Why have I broken
-my promise, and only to be disbelieved and scorned? O, Señor, I know not
-what it was in you that wrung the words from me! Did he not command me
-to be silent till he gave me leave to speak? He is my father, yet I have
-disobeyed his first command. In the letter the woman brought me, two
-days after he left El Toro, and in which he commanded me to meet him
-here upon this day, he enjoined secrecy again and again; and yet I
-forgot. Miserable girl that I am!”
-
-Ashley had lived among Mexicans long enough to learn something of their
-ideas of filial duty. No matter how vile, how cruel, how debased the
-parent may be, the duty of the child is perfect obedience and respect;
-the petted infant in its most wilful moments ceases its passionate cries
-to kiss the father’s hand; the young man deprives himself, his wife and
-children, to minister to his aged parents; he who cannot or will not
-work, esteems it a pious act to become a bandit upon the highway rather
-than that his father or mother shall look to him for food or even for
-luxuries in vain,—and thus he comprehended the remorse of this
-conscience-stricken child, as the conviction rushed over him that her
-belief might indeed be true. There was that in the contour of her face
-which resembled that of Ramirez more markedly than the mere general type
-that in her babyhood had given her that resemblance to Rosario, which
-daily grew less, and indeed had never been apparent to Ashley; though in
-her face he had traced resemblances which had puzzled and bewildered
-him, and which as he gazed upon her now became still more confusing.
-
-As they had been conversing, Ashley and Chata had gradually drawn near
-to the door, where the light fell full upon the agitated girl. Yes, in
-the square brows, the heavily fringed lids resting upon the olive
-cheeks,—too broad beneath the eyes for beauty, but singularly delicate
-about the mouth and chin,—so far she resembled Ramirez; or was it but a
-common Aztec type? The mouth itself, sensitive, refined,—which should
-have parted but for laughter,—quivered with emotion, and the large gray
-eyes she lifted to Ashley’s were singularly grave and earnest. Where had
-he seen such a mouth, such eyes? The contrasts and combinations in the
-face confused him. Never had he seen its counterpart, yet fancy might
-under other circumstances have led him upon wild theories. That face
-familiar, yet strange, had haunted him since he had first seen it.
-Vainly he had sought in his memory for some picture, some dream, with
-which to connect it. Now, though he had seen Ramirez, though Chata
-declared herself his child, the same feeling of uncertainty, of
-tantalizing familiarity yet strangeness, remained; the association of
-one with the other did not even momentarily satisfy him. He was not
-conscious that the face appealed to his imagination rather than to his
-memory, or that it had always awakened an interest different from that
-with which he had looked upon others. Certainly its beauty had not
-delighted him; even as he looked at her now, the witching, glowing,
-ever-changing countenance of Chinita rose before him. “Strange!
-strange!” he murmured. “What can be the mystery that from the first has
-seemed to hover around you, to separate you from the rest?”
-
-“Ah, yes!” she said humbly. “I have realized that myself. Oh, for a
-long, long time I have felt as a stranger among them all,—they so good,
-so true; and I—O God, who am I? Ah, I used to pity Chinita, but they
-have given her her proper place. It must have been a worthy one, or Doña
-Isabel would not have made her her child. But when they separate me from
-Don Rafael what shall I be?”
-
-“Do not think of it. He—this Ramirez—is gone, perhaps never to return,”
-said Ashley, soothingly. “And if not, why should you go with him? Appeal
-to Don Rafael, to Doña Feliz.”
-
-“Doña Rita has told me already that would be worse than useless,”
-replied Chata. “Don Rafael and Doña Feliz have already interfered in his
-plans for me; to thwart him further would be to make him their deadly
-enemy. Oh, you know not, Señor, what men like Don José Ramirez will do;
-and yet he is my father!”
-
-Her voice failed in an agony of terror and shame. Ashley’s words died on
-his lips. Here was a grief he could hardly understand, against which he
-could offer no advice to one whose education and mind were so different
-from his own. What could he say to her to lessen the burden of her
-grief? Surely not, as he would have done to Chinita, that she should
-strive to content herself in a destiny which would raise her from an
-obscure station to wealth,—for the revolutionary chieftain, he supposed,
-had never-failing resources,—and to a certain dignity, as the daughter
-of a popular hero. He could have imagined Chinita as glorying in such a
-position, and Rosario as reigning with a thousand airs and graces in the
-miniature court around her; but here was a child, a very child,
-shrinking from the possible contact with cruel and conscience-hardened
-adventurers, and stricken to the heart by the thought of losing the
-heritage of an honest name.
-
-Presently Chata spoke again, as though to speak to this stranger in whom
-she had involuntarily confided was, in spite of her self-reproach, to
-lay her long repression, her doubts and fears, before a shrine. Almost
-incoherently, in the rapid utterance of overwhelming excitement, she
-poured forth the story of the interview of Ramirez and Doña Rita which
-she had overheard in the garden at El Toro. In her earnestness she did
-not even omit the project which had been discussed for uniting her
-future with that of Ruiz. Ashley’s teeth became set and his lips pressed
-each other as he listened. Here indeed was confirmation of the villain’s
-claim; and yet—and yet—
-
-“It cannot be!” he interrupted. “I cannot believe it. You say yourself,
-your very being recoils from him—ah, it must be for some deep cause you
-hate him so! And I too—I hate him. Did I not tell you I have a long
-arrear of wrong to settle, and—”
-
-“You!” she ejaculated wonderingly. “What wrong can he have done to you?
-Was it he who robbed and wounded you?”
-
-“No, no!” he answered. “Those were but the chances of travel. There is
-something far greater than that; but while you believe him to be your
-father, I will not talk to you of avenging myself. I should be a brute
-indeed to add a feather’s weight to your trouble. Do not think of that
-again; but believe me, there is some mystery neither of us understands.
-The truth may be far from what you think it. I will demand it of Don
-Rafael, of Doña Feliz—they must know.”
-
-She was looking at him wonderingly, almost in awe, with those large,
-clear, gray eyes, which seemed to have in them the reflection of a
-purer, calmer sky than the intense and fiery one beneath which she was
-born. As he looked at her, her very dress seemed a disguise, so entirely
-did she seem disassociated from the scenes in which he found her.
-
-“Ah,” she said hopelessly, clasping her hands, “you do not know my
-people as I do. I have not asked Don Rafael or Doña Feliz to tell me the
-secret of my birth. They have concealed it for some weighty reason, and
-until the time comes when they judge it right for me to know, I might
-plead with them in vain. By going to them I should but lose their love,
-and become the object of their suspicion and doubt. Oh, I could not
-endure that, I would not endure it! Doña Rita is changed, is cold,
-distrustful; and why should I by useless haste bring their anger upon
-her? No, no, Señor, I beg, I entreat you, say nothing to Don Rafael. Let
-me be in peace as long as I may. My father has not come to-day; perhaps
-he has forgotten me!”
-
-“You reason wildly,” said Ashley. “I cannot understand these strange
-duplicities; yet I know it is quite true I should gain nothing by direct
-questioning. What have I ever gained? No, it is to Doña Isabel I will
-go, and to Ramirez himself. But promise me, Chata,” he added earnestly,
-“promise me, by all you hold most sacred, never to leave the hacienda to
-meet him or any messenger of his. Promise for your own sake, and I swear
-I will leave no measure untried to free you from this strange bondage.”
-
-He had expressed himself with difficulty throughout, but she caught his
-meaning eagerly. “Oh, if I dared to promise!” she murmured. “But it is
-the duty of the child to obey. Besides, he would tell me the truth; even
-this very day I thought I should have known the wretched story,—oh, I am
-sure it is a wretched one! Well, I have a respite,—a little respite. Go,
-Señor; you have been kind,—be kind still by being silent. I must go; the
-sun will soon set. Ah, unfortunate that I am, the men will be coming in
-from the fields, the women will be at their doors,—how shall I ever
-return without being seen?”
-
-Here was indeed a difficulty. The strictly nurtured girl had never in
-her life been outside the precincts of the village alone; that she then
-should be, and with a young man, would occasion endless gossip. The two
-involuntary culprits looked at each other with blank faces,—Ashley in
-absolute dismay, for he had heard of the strict requirements of Mexican
-customs and etiquette, and knew to what cruel innuendo this young girl
-had exposed herself. He realized then for the first time how great her
-courage had been in venturing forth in obedience to the command of
-Ramirez.
-
-“Chata, Chata! for God’s sake,” he cried, “go at once! I will remain.
-Your mad freak will be pardoned this time, when they see you are alone.”
-
-“Alone!” she echoed, a crimson flush suffusing her face as she fully
-realized the significance of his words, and saw that with a sudden
-faintness he leaned against the wall, spent with excitement and fatigue.
-
-“Yes, yes,” he said wearily, “none will know I am here. The night will
-soon pass; in the morning I will wander in to one of the huts. They will
-fancy I was lost on the mountain. None will think—you will be safe.”
-
-“I _am_ safe,” said the girl with sudden resolution. “Would a woman of
-your own country leave you to hunger and shiver through all the night in
-a desolate place like this? Ah,” she added with a long-drawn breath and
-a tremor, “even ghosts are here.”
-
-Ashley smiled. “I do not fear them,” he said. “I fear but for you. Go!
-go at once! And yet before you go, promise!—promise me never to run
-these risks again; never in any place to meet Ramirez!”
-
-In his earnestness he clasped her hand and gazed eagerly into her limpid
-eyes. “I promise, yes, I promise,” she said hurriedly. “But I will not
-leave you,—weak, fasting, fainting!”
-
-She looked up at him with the angelic pity in her face that innocent
-children feel before they have learned distrust. Ashley read the perfect
-trust, the perfect guilelessness, of her tender nature. Rather, he
-thought, would he die than cast a cloud upon her name; and what, after
-all, would matter the privations of a few hours? That he must not be
-seen in the neighborhood for some time after her unusual wanderings was
-a foregone conclusion. How should he combat her resolution? Truly, this
-gentle girl had deep springs of action within her. For duty and right
-she could be a very heroine.
-
-As these thoughts passed through his mind, a sudden breeze stole through
-the open gate and reached the lobby; there was a faint smell of cactus
-flowers, and a rustle of the dry grass. The effect was weird and
-ghostly. A shadow fell between them. Had the sun plunged down beneath
-the western hills? They glanced up and started apart,—Doña Feliz was
-before them.
-
-The ordinarily grave and self-possessed woman was for a moment the most
-agitated of the three. She gasped for breath. She had been walking fast,
-but it was not that alone which caused the earth apparently to reel
-beneath her. She had found Chata, whose disappearance from the hacienda
-she had discovered at the moment when a cry had run through the house
-that the horse of the young American had returned riderless; that the
-youth had doubtless met an evil fate. She had found them both,—and
-together!
-
-She pressed her hands over her eyes as though to shut out some horrid
-vision; a moan broke from her lips,—then she caught Chata in her arms
-and glared at Ashley with concentrated anguish and fury. Had one guilty
-thought possessed him, or had he meditated a doubtful act, her glance
-would have covered him with confusion. As it was, he read in her
-expressive face and gesture a volume of deep and terrible significance,
-far different from that which an anxious duenna ordinarily casts upon
-the imagined trifler with the affections of her charge. Nothing of that
-assumption of virtuous indignation, yet of flattered satisfaction, which
-in the midst of remonstrance gives indication of a certain sympathy and
-inclination to condone the offence in consideration of its cause, was
-apparent. Doña Feliz evidently had in her mind no lover’s venial
-follies. This meeting was to her a tragedy,—the very culmination of
-woes.
-
-Ashley read something of this in her expression and gesture, and
-hastened to reassure her, by giving a partial account of the reasons of
-his return. The anxious guardian of innocence would perhaps have thought
-his turning aside at the instance of Pepé to view his cousin’s grave,
-his lingering there, the departure of the servant, the flight of his
-horse, all a fabrication, but for the meeting with his cousin’s
-murderer, which the young man recounted with startling brevity and
-force, unconsciously regaining in the recital much of the excitement and
-deep indignation which had thrilled him at the time of the encounter,
-and which had gradually subsided amid the new complications that Chata’s
-words had opened before him.
-
-Involuntarily Ashley refrained from any allusion to the fact that the
-young girl had ventured forth to meet this man Ramirez; and acute though
-she was, it did not suggest itself to Doña Feliz, who seemed lost in
-wonder at the almost miraculous chance which after so many years had
-brought into contact the secret murderer and him whose mission it seemed
-to avenge the innocent blood. In his recital, Ashley had not mentioned
-the name of the self-confessed assassin. Doña Feliz did not ask
-it,—perhaps she inferred that it remained unknown to him,—yet Ashley was
-certain his identity was no problem to her. Had she guessed the secret
-all these years? Had she screened the guilty and fostered the innocent,
-at the same time?
-
-Deep as was her interest in his tale, full as was her acceptance of the
-fact that the meeting of Ashley Ward and Chata was purely accidental,
-Doña Feliz did not exhibit a tithe of that horror and dismay which was
-depicted upon the countenance of Chata, who listened breathlessly,—her
-lips apart, her hair pushed back, her startled eyes opened wide. Ashley
-would gladly have recalled his words as he looked at her. Every particle
-of color had faded from her face.
-
-In her absorption in Ashley’s words, Doña Feliz had ceased to regard or
-even remember the young girl, who suddenly recalled herself to that
-lady’s mind.
-
-“Doña Feliz,” she murmured in an agonized and pleading voice, “when my
-mother forsook me, why did you not suffer me to die? Oh why, why did I
-live to hear such horrors, to know such wretchedness as this?”
-
-As if in a frenzy, before either thought to stop her, or found words
-with which to answer or recall her, she ran out from the lobby,—her
-small figure passing unimpeded through the cactus-guarded gateway,—and
-fled across the plain toward the hacienda. She was young and
-strong,—excitement lent wings to her feet. Doña Feliz and Ashley
-standing together in the gateway looked at each other in amazement. The
-girl continued her flight until she reached the outskirts of the
-village. There a horseman stopped her. Even at that distance they
-recognized Don Rafael, and saw that Chata clung to him passionately when
-he dismounted.
-
-“She is safe!” murmured Doña Feliz. “Rafael will know how to account for
-her presence with him.”
-
-“Yes,” thought Ashley; “these Mexicans fortunately know how to coin a
-plausible tale as well for a good cause as for a bad one.”
-
-They saw that Don Rafael, placing Chata on his horse before him, had
-turned in the direction of the hacienda, and was signalling to the
-vaqueros lingering in uncertainty at the gate.
-
-“They will be here in a few moments, Señor,” said Doña Feliz, calmly.
-“We must lock the gates and conceal the keys. You must be found outside
-of, not within, these walls.”
-
-Ashley assented, and within a few moments, and in silence, their
-necessary task was accomplished. Doña Feliz then led the way toward the
-village, walking rapidly as though impelled by the agitation of her
-thoughts or a desire to escape question. Ashley kept pace with her with
-some effort, though the chill which had come with the grayness of
-evening over the landscape revived and strengthened him. The breeze was
-whistling in the tall corn in the fields as they passed them; the cattle
-were lowing in the yards; the distant sound of horses’ feet was
-beginning to be heard; the riders like gray columns were seen
-approaching. Ashley laid his hand upon the arm of Doña Feliz. She turned
-and looked at him. His face was to her a volume of reproach and
-question. Her voice broke forth in a great sob.
-
-“Ashley! Ashley!” she exclaimed, “do you not comprehend that a vow
-stronger than death controls me? Ask me nothing, but follow the
-indications which the good God—Fate—Providence—has given you. The time
-may come—for strange things are happening in our land—when I may be free
-once more. Now I may only watch and wait and pray. Ah! what hard tasks
-for a woman such as I am! But I have vowed; I cannot retract!”
-
-“You are wrong!” cried Ashley. “How strange that a woman of so much
-intelligence, of a conscience so pure, can suffer herself to be led by
-the spurious customs and traditions that pride and priestcraft together
-have fastened upon her people! But your very reticence, Doña Feliz,
-confirms my beliefs. I will go as you recommend, as my own judgment
-urged me, to follow the clew I have so unexpectedly obtained. Do not
-think that a vulgar and wolfish desire for vengeance alone actuates me;
-but justice must be done. Even for Chata’s sake, this man must not be
-suffered to continue his course unchecked.” He would have added more,
-but Gabriel and Pancho, the vaqueros, came galloping up with vivas and
-cries of welcome.
-
-“Praised be our Holy Mother, and all the saints!” exclaimed one. “Don
-Rafael told us you were safe. Who would have thought the Señora and the
-niña Chatita would have found you no farther away than deaf and blind
-Refugio’s? Ay, Doña Feliz, without seeking, finds more than will a dozen
-unlucky ones, though they have spectacles and lanterns to aid them. In
-the name of reason, Don ’Guardo, how happened your nag to throw you and
-gallop back thus? He is manageable enough with any of us—” and there was
-a suspicion of irony in the solicitude of the horseman, which did not
-escape Ashley as he answered,—
-
-“To-morrow you shall have the whole tale. These roads of yours are no
-place for a man to linger on alone. But for the present, remember I have
-a wound not too well healed, and am more anxious for supper than for
-recounting adventures.”
-
-“Ah! ah! he was stopped on the road by banditti,—and has escaped.” The
-vaqueros regarded Ashley with vastly increased respect. Their numbers
-were augmented as they neared the hacienda; and when the party reached
-the gates, wild rumors of Ashley’s prowess were already flying from
-mouth to mouth.
-
-Ashley did not present an imposing figure as he passed in between the
-crowds of admiring women; but he served to turn their thoughts from the
-unprecedented appearance of Chata, which was but unsatisfactorily
-explained by Don Rafael’s ready fiction that she and Doña Feliz had been
-piously visiting at the hut of old Refugio, and that upon the arrival of
-Ashley there, the young girl had hastened to meet her father, and give
-him news of the American’s safety.
-
-“Doña Feliz is even too careful of her grandchildren,” said some of the
-more liberal. “What harm would have come to the maiden from a walk of a
-few minutes, or a few words spoken, with an honorable young man such as
-he seems to be? Now, if it were Don Alonzo, or that gay young Captain
-Ruiz, for example!”
-
-Rosario, who had been leaning over the balcony as Ashley arrived, heard
-something of what was said, and smiled. She was not at all ready to
-believe that Chata’s walk had extended only as far as the hut of blind
-Refugio; and that it had not been made in company with Doña Feliz she
-was quite certain. But she had no time just then to interest herself in
-Chata’s affairs,—her own were far too engrossing; for the new clerk whom
-Carmen, at Doña Isabel’s request, had sent from Guanapila, evidently was
-much more intent upon studying the charms of Rosario than his new
-duties, and in seeking favor in her eyes than in those of the
-administrador himself. The new clerk was Don Alonzo, and Don Alonzo was
-a handsome fellow, with the face of an angel, Doña Rita said,—a contrast
-indeed to that little brown monkey Captain Ruiz; and Rosario smiled
-coyly, and did not gainsay her.
-
-The next morning at an unusually early hour this same Don Alonzo tapped
-on Ashley’s door. “Pardon, Señor,” he said, “but the horses and servants
-are ready, and I have orders myself to accompany you beyond the
-boundaries of Tres Hermanos.”
-
-The announcement was not a surprise. Ashley had arranged his departure
-with Don Rafael upon the preceding evening. He dressed hastily, and
-while partaking of his cup of chocolate, glanced often around him, in
-expectation of the appearance of Don Rafael or his mother; but in vain.
-The American could no longer hope to learn at a parting moment what each
-had chosen to withhold. Irrationally, and against all likelihood, he
-ventured to hope that Chata might steal forth for a farewell word. He
-laughed at himself afterward for the thought, saying that the air of
-intrigue had begun to affect his own brain.
-
-Sooner than was usual, even in that land of early movement, Don Alonzo
-warned him it was growing late. It was not too late or early for Rosario
-to wave her little brown hand from her mother’s window in token of
-adieu. Ashley did not see it, but he for whom it was intended did. So
-with more foreboding and reluctance than he could have imagined possible
-but a few hours before, Ashley once more rode forth from Tres
-Hermanos,—this time with a definite object, from which he felt there
-could be no turning back, no possible end but his own death or the
-downfall of a man to whom but yesterday he had been utterly indifferent,
-but who to-day was inseparable from all his thoughts, his passions, his
-purposes,—Ramirez the _revolucionario_, the declared murderer of John
-Ashley, the declared father of the young girl who seemed the very
-incarnation of honor and sensibility, of tenderness and purity.
-
-
-
-
-                                XXXIII.
-
-
-The departure of Ashley Ward from Tres Hermanos was not so entirely
-disregarded as he had supposed. It was not Rosario only, who left her
-chamber at daybreak. Scarcely had she disappeared in the gloom of Doña
-Isabel’s apartments on her way to the favorite balcony, when her father
-stepped out upon the corridor, starting as his eyes fell upon Doña
-Feliz, who, seemingly with the spirit of unrest that pervaded the
-household, at the same moment emerged from her room. With a muttered
-salutation each abandoned the original intention of exchanging a
-farewell word with the departing guest; and arresting their steps at the
-balustrade, they leaned over and listened intently to the sounds of the
-early exit. The light was still so uncertain that though Don Rafael
-noticed, he did not wonder at, the gray tinge upon his mother’s face; it
-seemed only in harmony with the prevailing darkness.
-
-The rains of the past season had been insufficient, and a murky though
-almost inpalpable mist, felt rather than seen, brooded over the silent
-landscape. It was scarcely oppressive enough to affect the young men who
-rode forth stirring the sluggish air, nor the eager horses lifting their
-heads to fill their lungs with the breath of morning, and expelling it
-again with a force that agitated the stillness with a sound like a blow
-upon water; yet it weighed inexpressibly both upon the body and mind of
-Don Rafael. As he had come to the corridor with a certainty in his mind
-that he should meet his mother, he had purposed to question her as to
-the actual occurrences of the day before, for the connection of Chata
-with the return of Ashley Ward remained entirely unexplained. That his
-mother was satisfied that it was not a mere vulgar _rendezvous_ into
-which she had been tempted, he was assured by her manner toward both the
-young man and the recreant girl; indeed, it appeared that she had
-scarcely noticed an incident which in that place, and at the age of
-Chata, was sufficient to array against a young girl the suspicions of
-the most trusting and generous of matrons. Yet Don Rafael could imagine
-no possible inducement but the voice of a lover that could have called
-her forth alone from the great house,—for that Chata had gone alone, he
-knew as well as did his keen-eyed daughter Rosario.
-
-The last gray figure had long since disappeared from the outer court,
-into which they looked as into a distant and narrow vista; the clank of
-the horses’ hoofs upon the paving had changed to the thud upon the
-roadway, then ceased altogether to be heard; and Don Rafael turning his
-eyes upon his mother’s face, had opened his lips to question her,—when
-with a thrill of surprise, which became terror even before the momentary
-utterance was repeated, he heard her laugh that strange, unmirthful,
-hollow laugh that indicates a mind diseased, while she said
-whisperingly,—
-
-“He is gone. Yes! yes! I unbarred the door, and Pedro picked the lock so
-cleverly and noiselessly that the very watchman asleep across the
-threshold did not hear him. Ah, I knew Gregorio would be quiet enough by
-daylight; but Leon was awake, wide awake. For all your tears, Isabel, he
-would not have gone but for me; he swore he would kill Don Gregorio for
-the blow he gave him. Why did you say you loved at last as a woman
-should the husband who was your brother’s foe to death, and that you
-sent him freedom that he might seek a death more worthy of his villany
-than by the sword of an outraged father, or the executioner’s bullet?
-They were bitter words, and you knew they were false,—for even with your
-child lying dead through his persecution, you loved him still. And when
-he would not stir because of your taunts, but swore he would meet his
-fate and shame the callous heart whose love had been as weak as her
-sacrifice was forced and incomplete, what was there for you to do but to
-throw yourself on your knees before him, and entreat him for his
-mother’s sake to be gone? Even then he would have stayed but for me.
-‘What!’ I cried, ‘to shame your sister, you will give another victory to
-the husband of Dolores?’
-
-“Ah, it is not tears that conquer such a man as Leon! In a moment he had
-sprung to his feet; he had thrust Isabel aside, and me too,—yes, that
-was nothing. Pedro held his horse, but Leon glared at him as he sprang
-into the saddle. ‘But for you, I should have given the last blow at
-midnight,’ he cried. ‘It shall be thine some day, when thy master’s
-account has been closed!’ and with that he was gone. Yes, he is gone.
-Not a sound of the horse as he gallops! Gone, and none too soon! the
-morning is come,”—and she uttered again that sound called a laugh.
-
-“Mother, what hast thou?” cried Don Rafael, clasping her arm, and
-noticing for the first time the deep hollows beneath her brilliant eyes,
-and the wide circles that made more appalling their unnatural glare.
-“Mother, thou art dreaming! thy hand burns, and thy temples. Maria
-Sanctissima! dost thou not know me?”
-
-“Know thee?—yes. Why, thou art Rafael,” she answered, letting her eyes
-drop for a moment on his scared and anxious face. “Why should I not know
-thee? Had ever woman a better son? Yes, yes, he is safe; let Don
-Gregorio wake when he will, Leon is away. Ah, at the last he was not so
-cruel,—eh, Isabel? Why should you moan and wring your hands because he
-vowed never again but by his death should his name shame you? Ah! Ah!
-Ah! well, they say he died, shot and hanged to a tree as a miscreant
-should be. Do you believe it, Isabel? Yet why not? God of my soul! is it
-only the son of Pancho Vallé that can be pitiless? Only—” so she
-muttered on, in a low monotonous voice, pacing the corridor with an
-uncertain step, varying from the halting motion of one about to fall, to
-the impetuous haste with which she fancied herself urging again the
-unwilling flight of the sullen and revengeful youth, whom she too, with
-the perversity of woman’s heart, had loved as sincerely as she had
-condemned.
-
-Don Rafael followed her in a perturbation of surprise and terror, which
-drove from his mind all other thoughts save those that his remembrance
-of former plague-stricken seasons forced upon his mind. Fever was in the
-air, and his mother was the first victim! The rainy season, which in
-most years cleared the black watercourses and the village itself of the
-accumulations of nine dry and almost torrid months, had failed to do its
-accustomed work. No rushing torrents had cleared the watercourses; but
-instead of proving the friend of humanity water had become its enemy, by
-mingling scantily with the foul elements that had gathered during the
-long period of drouth, and which exhaled the subtle miasma which even
-the pure air of that elevated region was powerless to render innoxious.
-Don Rafael absolutely wrung his hands before the evil he foresaw, and
-which neither experience nor intelligence had led him to combat with any
-sanitary precautions. That the fever should from time to time decimate
-the _hacienda_ appeared to his mind one of the inevitable calamities of
-life, no more to be avoided than the spring floods or the blasting
-lightning or the outburst of volcanic fires. But had all these forces
-combined assailed him at once, his consternation could not have been
-greater than to witness in his mother the delirium which testified to
-the dreaded typhoid. As has been intimated, his love for his mother was
-of no common order; without being weak in judgment or irresolute in
-character, he had been accustomed to share with her his every thought,
-and their sentiments and aims were ever in such perfect accord that a
-dissentient word had never arisen between them.
-
-As Don Rafael followed his mother in her erratic and excited movements,
-scarcely conscious of what he did, or of anything except that with each
-moment her talk grew more distracted, while her thoughts were
-persistently fixed upon the events and woes and passions of by-gone
-years, a door at the end of the corridor was timidly pushed open, and
-Chata’s face peeped anxiously out. Had Don Rafael’s thoughts been free,
-he would have wondered that the girl was fully dressed at such an early
-hour; but he did not even heed the explanation she hurriedly gave as she
-advanced to meet him.
-
-“I would not have left my grandmother alone, but she forbade me to
-come,” she said. “Oh, I could not sleep. I thought the morning would
-never dawn. I went to her with the first light, but she would not listen
-to me. She bade me leave her; and I thought it was because she was
-angry, but it was this! Oh, Father, is it a sickness? See, she does not
-know me? _Mama grande_, it is I; it is your Chata.”
-
-“Be silent!” exclaimed Don Rafael, the more sharply because of his
-extreme alarm. “Fly, Chata! fly to thy mother, thy sister! Call old
-Selsa, any one who has sense and knows what remedies to bring. Why do
-you stare? Do you think my mother is mad? It is the fever. It is not for
-nothing that the rains have been delayed so long. Pitying Saints, as I
-rode by the ditches last week they were black as pitch and foul as a
-vulture’s quarry. Run! I will lead her to her room. Ay, ay, Mother, thou
-art strong, and not so old yet,”—and with the tenderness of a child and
-the devotion of a lover the son guided the steps of the delirious yet
-gentle woman, who, half-conscious of her state, half-resentful of care,
-suffered herself to be led into the chamber she had quitted in apparent
-health but a brief quarter of an hour before.
-
-Apparent health only, for she had passed an utterly sleepless night,
-strangely excited by the events of the day, yet unable to fix her mind
-upon them. Chata, upon her return to the hacienda, had sought her own
-chamber; and in the press of other thoughts Doña Feliz had failed to
-follow and to question her upon the strange escapade, which the whole
-character and bearing of the young girl combined to render utterly
-inexplicable,—for she had no data by which to connect it with the
-appearance of Ramirez at the cemetery, and she absolved Ashley Ward from
-any pre-arrangement with the young girl as completely as though they had
-been found a thousand miles asunder. As was natural, suspicions of some
-precocious love, of which some one of the many volatile and dashing
-youth that had lately gathered at the hacienda was the object, haunted
-the mind of Doña Feliz; but she rejected them with disdain, promising
-herself upon the early morning to demand the truth, not doubting she
-should learn it. Even while awake to the importance of the incident, and
-inwardly debating it, she was conscious that the remembrance of it, as
-well as of Ashley and his strange participation in the life-drama in
-which she had enacted so forced and painful a part, constantly strove to
-elude her, and was recalled with an effort that with every hour grew
-greater and less effective; while all the events and actors of long ago
-passed in endless review before her,—Doña Isabel in her matronly
-girlhood, soothing and bribing with tender words and lavish gifts her
-wilful half-brother; Don Gregorio; the dying Norberto; the scowling and
-furious abductor; then Herlinda and John Ashley. The pale procession,
-spectral yet real, voiceless yet each repeating with irresistible
-eloquence the tale of his love, his guilt or anguish, passed before her,
-thrusting aside, as often as they re-appeared, the forms of those who at
-this new and critical point had appeared upon the scene.
-
-As the night passed, she was perfectly aware of this tantalizing
-inability to command her thoughts; and as again and again she set
-herself to follow the probable course and effect of Ashley Ward’s
-intervention in the fate of the man who to her seemed gifted with
-demoniacal powers for evil, and an absolute invulnerability to human
-vengeance, or as she began in mind to question Chata, the persons both
-of the young man and the girl seemed to fade from before her, and the
-voices that should have replied, were those which had been familiar
-years before,—oftenest that of Herlinda in wild repetition of her
-unhappy love, and agonized entreaties for the babe she was but to
-embrace and forever relinquish. Through it all Doña Feliz had retained
-the thought of Ashley’s departure; and with some vague thought that the
-sight of him would calm her fevered brain, she instinctively strove to
-accomplish the resolve with which she had begun the night. And thus her
-last conscious act before the positive delirium of the fever seized her,
-had been to look, with the half-fearful gaze of one who invokes yet
-dreads the vengeance of heaven, upon him who seemed to her morbid and
-superstitious mind fraught with a mission to avenge and right the
-innocent,—both the living and the dead.
-
-Don Rafael, in consternation, had recognized at once the serious
-character of his mother’s illness. As he called aloud for help, and
-Chata with white and affrighted face hastened to obey his command,
-Rosario, followed by her mother in some confusion, appeared from the
-farther corridor. Too much bewildered and alarmed to wonder at seeing
-his daughter also dressed and abroad at such an hour, her father
-exclaimed in impatience at the voluble reproaches of Doña Rita, who,
-pushing Rosario from the side of Doña Feliz, bade her cease from such
-tempting of Providence, affirming that for her own sins she (Doña Rita)
-must have been burdened with the plague of so reckless a child, and
-praying her in the name of the Holy Babe to fly from infection lest she
-should break her mother’s heart by her premature decease. To all of
-which Rosario submitted with a sobbing declaration that she was already
-faint and ill, whereupon Doña Rita hastily retreated to her own room,
-dragging Rosario with her; and in spite of his hurriedly formed
-resolution to the contrary, Don Rafael was forced to confide his mother
-to the care of Chata and of the servants, who, subservient to the
-slightest wish even of this inexperienced girl, were however absolutely
-useless without the guiding presence of a superior.
-
-
-
-
-                                 XXXIV.
-
-
-The hilltops were flooded with sunshine when the party from Tres
-Hermanos reached them; the atmosphere was so clear, that looking back
-over the broad valley, spread with fields of maize and beans, and the
-half-tropical luxuriance of fruit and flower, Ashley could distinguish
-every break and fret on the massive front of the great house, and
-recognized with a feeling almost of awe the tall, slender figure
-standing upon the centre balcony. She waved her hand in token of
-God-speed. Strange, inscrutable woman! She had bidden him go forth as
-the minister of fate, she had furnished him with servants, horses,
-money, arms,—yet had spoken no word. Ashley felt as though he were an
-enchanted knight in an enchanted land!
-
-The traveller bade adieu to Don Alonzo in sight of his cousin’s grave;
-then, followed by his two servants, rode rapidly onward in the direction
-taken the day before by the troops and Doña Isabel, by Ramirez and
-Reyes,—indifferent which he first should encounter, confident that
-sooner or later the full significance of the impulse that had led him
-upon his Quixotic journey to Mexico would be revealed. The little cloud
-no bigger than a man’s hand had grown so great as to overshadow his
-earth and heavens. He rode on as in a dream. The day passed, the night
-came, and the party was still alone. The guide had mistaken the way.
-That night they encamped but a league from the village of Las Passas.
-Ashley slept neither better nor worse for that; there was no voice to
-tell him it could be more to him or his than a score of other villages
-which lay in the recesses of these wild mountains. The next day he left
-it to the right, and set his face toward El Toro.
-
-Meanwhile the march of the troops had been as rapid as the nature of the
-country, broken by deep ravines and at first offering a tortuous ascent
-to the table-lands, would allow. To Chinita, though the slow movement of
-the carriage was irksome and irritating, and the clouds of dust that
-rose from beneath the tread of the horses obscured the sights which in
-their novelty delighted and filled her with exultation of a new and
-expanding life, the hours passed as though winged by enchantment. In the
-joyous clamor of the camp followers and the scarcely less restrained
-hilarity of the troops, in the tramp of the horses, the clanking of
-arms, there was a subtile music that aroused all the energies of her
-adventurous spirit, and imbued her with an animation which like a flame
-within a crystal vase seemed visibly to fill and surround her whole
-being with strength and beauty.
-
-Had the country passed over been as dull and uninteresting as it was in
-fact wild and picturesque, the effect of movement and change would have
-been still the same to her; for hers was a mind to be affected by the
-various phases of humanity rather than of inanimate nature. The
-landscape in truth offered to her view little of novelty, for in her
-childhood she had wandered where she listed, and her lithe young limbs
-had been as untiring as her curiosity. The succeeding cañons and hills,
-the slopes and cactus-planted valleys, were but counterparts of those
-which she had explored on every side of the plain on which Tres Hermanos
-stood. With ready tact she avoided recalling her unwatched, untended
-childhood to the mind of Doña Isabel, who received with a distaste which
-seemed of the nature of regretful shame any allusion to the life from
-which the girl who now called her _Tia_ (aunt) had been rescued.
-
-The use of this appellation had been brought about by Ruiz, in his
-evident uncertainty as to how the apparent relationship between his
-patroness and her _protégée_ should be defined. He had tentatively
-alluded to Doña Isabel as the godmother of Chinita, a designation which
-some conscientious scruple led her to reject. The word _Tia_ is used by
-Mexicans as a term of respect toward an elder as often as in actual
-acknowledgment of relationship; and when with some daring Chinita one
-day applied it to Doña Isabel, in answering some remark of the young
-captain, the lady allowed it to pass unchallenged; and gradually “_mi
-Tia_ Isabel” took the place of the formal “Señora,” which hitherto had
-helped to keep their intercourse as reserved and cold as when Chinita
-still stood at the gate at Pedro’s side, and Doña Isabel had furtively
-glanced at her glowing beauty, and felt the hand of remorse pressing
-upon her heart.
-
-The haughty lady felt it still; and that it was which made her lenient
-to a score of faults in this young girl that in her own children would
-have been deemed almost unpardonable. She did not admit that she loved
-her,—it is doubtful if she really did,—yet she strove by all the arts of
-which the long repression of her nature made her capable to win the
-heart of the girl, who she saw with suspicious intuition beheld in her
-one who had wronged her, and was even now withholding her birthright.
-Doña Isabel bestowed rich presents, but never a caress; perhaps Chinita
-would have spurned the last as lightly as she received the first. Ruiz,
-admitted to a certain intimacy by the necessities of the time, was
-impressed by the entire absence of any sense of obligation with which
-the young girl took her place with Doña Isabel, as if she had never
-known one more humble, while there was something in the cold and stately
-manner of Doña Isabel which seemed to shrink before the imperious force
-of character of her young companion.
-
-It was at their first halt that Doña Isabel had, with unexpected
-hospitality, sent to invite Ruiz to share their midday meal; and,
-evidently with some effort, at the same time she bade the servant extend
-the invitation to the young American. Ruiz presented himself with due
-acknowledgments, but Ashley was nowhere to be found: he and his servant
-Pepé had disappeared from the ranks. No one remembered having seen them
-since they ascended the face of the hill of the graveyard; doubtless, it
-was surmised, the young man had grown weary, and had unceremoniously
-returned to Tres Hermanos.
-
-Doña Isabel’s face clouded. Upon the next day she had hoped to part
-company with her unwelcome guest forever; and now,—part of her purpose
-in leaving the hacienda was already frustrated. Ruiz was scarcely less
-disquieted; a glance at Chinita’s triumphant countenance confirmed his
-apprehensions. Pepé, at least, had not returned to the hacienda, he was
-assured. The officer had had it in his mind to have the servant strictly
-watched; but it had not occurred to him that upon the first day he would
-attempt to evade him and fulfil Chinita’s wild project of summoning
-Ramirez. He inwardly cursed his own folly and the duplicity of Ashley,
-whom he hitherto had not for a moment supposed in sympathy with the
-plot. He and the young American had even laughed at it together as the
-foolish dream of an imaginative girl. Now to the suspicious officer’s
-apprehensions was added a burning jealousy. For Chinita’s sake the
-American had doubtless made her cause his own; and with such an ally,
-Ruiz reflected, it was not impossible that he might see himself
-confronted by the man who he knew well never forgave a slight, never
-left unrevenged an injury.
-
-The manner of Ruiz was so grave and abstracted that day, that Doña
-Isabel was inclined to credit him with far more depth and earnestness
-than as the reputed suitor of Rosario, or the airy and flippant recreant
-follower of the notorious Ramirez, she had attributed to him. Ruiz had
-the art of involuntarily suiting his demeanor and conversation to those
-in whose company he was thrown. There was no conscious hypocrisy in
-this, for the desire to please was natural to him, and often served him
-in good stead in the absence of genuine feeling, and even under the
-sting of wounded self-love held him silent, and masked his resentment.
-Many a time in his life-long intercourse with Ramirez had he chafed
-under the General’s haughty patronage and made no sign; and it was only
-when he found himself thwarted in what was for the moment his strongest
-passion, that he began to question the designs of the chieftain to whom
-he owed all the fortune which birth or talents combine to make possible
-to other men.
-
-Ruiz was the son of Tio Reyes, a life-long follower of Ramirez, for whom
-the chieftain had been sponsor, and toward whom he had with minute
-conscientiousness directed every worldly advantage which his means and
-position rendered possible. To Ramirez, Ruiz—who was known by the name
-of his mother (a not uncommon custom where her family renders the
-cognomen more honorable than that of the father)—owed the chance which
-had made him a soldier of fortune instead of a laborer in the village
-where his brothers and sisters plodded and toiled, in absolute ignorance
-of the father who had forsaken them.
-
-Ruiz’s knowledge of this strengthened his resolution to ignore the past,
-and suffer no ill-timed revelations to interfere with his determination
-to win at one step love and fortune by gaining the hand of the
-_protégée_, of Doña Isabel,—a purpose he was certain Ramirez would
-oppose, for in a moment of confidence the General had intimated that it
-was to a daughter of his own, in accordance with a promise made long
-years before to Reyes, that the young man was to be united; it was for
-this destiny his future had been shaped, his fortunes moulded.
-
-At any previous time the ambition of Ruiz would have been fully
-satisfied; his whole desire would have been to meet this promised bride,
-and by his marriage strengthen the interest which the caprice or
-affection of Ramirez alone caused to be centred upon him, and which,
-though often burdensome and tyrannous, was apparently the young man’s
-sole passport to success. Even when in pique and half-timorous defiance
-he took advantage of his separation from Ramirez to follow Rosario to
-Tres Hermanos, it was with no fixed resolution to tempt fortune alone.
-His short-lived passion and his independence and anger would have died
-together, had not his love for Chinita and the unexpected opportunities
-thrust upon him opened before him a prospect of advancement and triumph
-far above his wildest dreams, and completed his treason to his early
-patron, without teaching him the lesson of truth either to the new cause
-or to the mistress to which he was sworn.
-
-In the eyes of Doña Isabel Ruiz was but the hireling whose faith was
-purchased for Gonzales; in those of Chinita, the devoted follower of
-Ramirez; in his own—well, time and circumstance would decide.
-
-Like thousands of others who took part in the strife that rent and
-decimated Mexico, Ruiz had but little conception of the points at issue.
-He had simply followed the lead of the popular chieftain to whom
-circumstances had attached him. He had learned by observation that
-wealth flowed from the coffers of the clergy into the hands of Ramirez,
-who scattered it lavishly to all about him,—dissipating the greater part
-in luxurious living in cities, and the maintenance of hordes of
-followers in towns and cañons of the mountains, and with ready
-superstition returning much to the source whence it came, for never a
-follower of his kept child unchristened or burial Mass unsaid for want
-of means to purchase the services of a priest.
-
-Ramirez had appeared to the young imagination of Ruiz absolute and
-ubiquitous. There were few daring deeds done that he had not shared in;
-scarce a town been seized and its merchants arrested until the forced
-loans demanded from them were paid, scarce a train of wagons laden with
-silver stopped, scarce a _pronunciamiento_ with its excitement and rapid
-exchange of power and property effected, that he had taken no part in.
-He had been found wherever fighting or plunder were. He had taken a
-bloody part in the repulse of the Liberals at the City of Mexico, where
-the names of Zuloaga the President and of Miramon alike were made
-infamous. He had shared in the futile attacks upon Vera Cruz, where
-Juarez at the head of the Provisional Government maintained with
-stubborn tenacity, with a handful of followers, the most important
-stronghold upon the seaboard, promulgating those unprecedented
-resolutions and decrees which revealed to the minds of the people that
-of which they had never hitherto dreamed,—namely, the separation of
-Church and State; the suppression of the monasteries, which like
-vampires had for generations drained the resources and absorbed the
-intellect of the people; and the secularization of those immense
-treasures which, donated by the faithful to feed the hungry and the
-sick, train the orphans, maintain the glory and worship of God, had
-become the means of oppression and bloodshed, and were the thews and
-sinews of the civil war, in which the clergy strove to maintain the
-abuses of the past and forge fresh chains for the future.
-
-In a country where the dogmas of Catholicism were as the oracles of God,
-where every heart was bound either by the truths or the superstitions of
-Rome, or in most cases by both inseparably, the magnitude of the task
-assumed by the astute and resolute Juarez was almost beyond the
-comprehension of those bred in the lands which have never groaned
-beneath the yoke of ecclesiastical tyranny. Any premature act, any
-unguarded word, might become the cause of offence; and yet it was no
-time for hesitation or timorous questioning.
-
-Juarez knew the time and the temper of his countrymen; and environed
-though he was, virtually imprisoned in one small town upon the seashore,
-his influence reached to the most remote districts of the interior. And
-although the armies of the clergy swept the country from sea to sea, in
-obscure fastnesses rose daring bands in tens and twenties and hundreds,
-who promulgating the new promises of liberty sent forth by Juarez,
-maintained them with a tenacity of purpose that made defeat impossible.
-Worsted in one quarter, they arose in another, employing with
-unscrupulous daring every means that cunning or audacity could bring
-within their power,—claiming the excuse of necessity for those acts of
-rapine and cruelty in the satisfaction of personal enmities, the warfare
-upon the women and children, and the thousand barbarous deeds which make
-the history of that time a continual record of horrors. Had example been
-necessary, they would have found it in the career of the opposing
-forces; but in truth it was a time when the attributes of patriot and
-plunderer, soldier and bandit, became inextricably confused; so that,
-perhaps as completely to himself as to others, the average actor in that
-bloody drama became a baffling and unsatisfying enigma.
-
-Such was the mental condition of Ruiz, though it did not occur to him to
-define it. Attached to the clerical party by long association, and by
-the uninterrupted prosperity which he had shared with Ramirez,—who since
-separating himself from Gonzales had followed an independent career, in
-which he had found the highest bidders for his services among the crafty
-leaders of the old régime (who to their rich gifts added the indulgences
-of the Church, to which no soul however blood-stained and conscienceless
-could remain indifferent),—when Ruiz declared himself to Don Rafael a
-convert to the Liberal cause, it was but as a precautionary measure
-recommended by Doña Rita; and it was only when he saw in Doña Isabel a
-patroness more powerful than the one he had abandoned, added to his
-resolution to make himself independent of the man who had hitherto
-controlled as well as defended him, that he in reality inclined to the
-faction which day by day seemed gathering strength, and likely to become
-the dominant power.
-
-But though his political views thus shaped themselves to meet Doña
-Isabel’s, Ruiz was no more faithful to her purposes than to those of
-Chinita. To abandon Gonzales to his fate at El Toro,—for he did not
-doubt that Ramirez would return with overwhelming numbers to the
-destruction of its insufficient garrison,—and at the same time to win
-the confidence of Doña Isabel and that of the troops under his command,
-thereafter seizing the first opportunity of having himself proclaimed
-their permanent leader and marching to join Juarez, whose cause was
-becoming strengthened day by day by fresh accessions from the interior,
-became his dream. Thus he hoped to blind Chinita by an apparent
-inability rather than disinclination to further her designs, mislead
-Doña Isabel, and secure for himself a position which should render it
-not absurd or incredible that he should aspire to the hand of a
-_protégée_ of the Garcias, and to the dower which he shrewdly suspected
-he might of right demand.
-
-All these plans were not perfected in a day, and the defection of Ashley
-Ward and his servant seriously interfered in the ambitious captain’s
-calculations; but he allowed no trace of uneasiness to appear in those
-rare intervals when he found an opportunity to exchange a few words with
-the impatient Chinita.
-
-Unconsciously also, Doña Isabel herself aided to establish a bond of
-confidence between them. When the long irregular column, with banners
-flying, driving before it the lowing cattle, whose numbers grew less
-after each night’s slaughter, and followed by the motley line of women
-and children with the rude equipage of the camp, would be fairly in
-motion after the confusion of the early start, Ruiz would rein his
-prancing steed at the side of the carriage and deferentially place
-himself at the orders of the ladies. On these occasions his manner was
-one of perfect respect to both, of entire concurrence in the dictates
-and desires of Doña Isabel, and of half-indifferent, half-amused
-rejection of the immature and inconsequent conjectures and opinions of
-the girl, for whose beauty he exhibited a timid but irresistible
-recognition, which flattered while it disarmed the suspicious mind of
-Doña Isabel. She believed him still the ardent admirer of Rosario,—a
-thing which, she reflected, was under the circumstances most fortunate.
-
-In the freshness and animation of those morning hours conversation
-became natural and easy, and the events and names which were upon every
-tongue furnished food for abundant reminiscence and comment. Doña Isabel
-was eloquent in praise of Gonzales, who to his success at El Toro had
-added others in the neighborhood, which together with the occupation of
-Guanapila had made the entire district the undisputed territory of
-Liberalism. Ruiz assented to her enthusiasm with an ardor which seemed
-but natural in a youth who having separated himself from one powerful
-patron, should desire to place himself beneath the protection of
-another; and a comparison of the two, which should explain his defection
-from the first, followed in natural course; and with carefully chosen
-words, whose meaning held a subtile relation to the thoughts and
-predilections of his two auditors, he spoke of the intrepid and
-unscrupulous Ramirez.
-
-More than once Doña Isabel, in the midst of his talk, sank back in the
-carriage lost in deep and painful thought, as the wild and terrible
-deeds in which that lawless man had figured recalled to her mind the
-horrors of her youth. Deeds such as these might have been planned and
-executed by the boy who had once been the pride, as he was afterward the
-bane, of her life, had he lived; but he was dead. Yes, thank God! though
-her heart had bled inwardly for long years; he had made no sign since
-the tale of his end came—he was dead!
-
-While she was thus lost in thought, Chinita listened with glowing cheek
-and eyes. Ruiz knew of the meeting with Ramirez to which she looked back
-with such peculiar and unwearying fascination; and discerning in her
-admiration of his former leader an unfailing means of rousing in her a
-personal attraction which in her passionate nature might become an
-absorbing love, he carefully refrained from giving her any hint of his
-real sentiments toward her hero, and spared no covert word, no mute
-eloquence of his dark and expressive eyes, to increase an enthusiasm
-which had already led her into such strange defiance of the plans of
-Doña Isabel. To reinstate her hero in the power from which he had fallen
-became Chinita’s dream, the aspiration of her soul.
-
-On the fifth night of their journey it chanced that they entered a
-village, where Doña Isabel and her servants were enabled to find a
-shelter, which after the restricted and insufficient accommodation of
-tents seemed absolutely luxurious, primitive and rude though it was.
-Doña Isabel wearied with travel, and depressed with anxiety at the
-unaccountable delay of Gonzales, who she had supposed would have
-hastened to take command of the troops that her energy and bounty had
-provided, had early retired to the room assigned her. Chinita had
-reluctantly accompanied her, for a fandango was in progress in the great
-kitchen, the charcoal brasiers flaming red against the dark walls of
-yellow-washed adobe, and shining upon the bronzed faces of a group of
-swarthy men, who strummed upon stringed instruments of various shapes
-and sizes; while another group of mingled men and women went through the
-rhythmic motions of the dance, with which the young girl, gazing from
-her cell-like retreat across the court, had long been so familiar.
-
-Chinita had never danced since the night that she had fled from the
-wedding _fiesta_ into the waiting arms of Doña Isabel. She had thought
-of the scene and its pleasures only with anger and disgust; and yet as
-she looked into the red glare and watched the swaying figures, she
-longed to rush in and throw herself among them. To her, as to Doña
-Isabel, the time of suspense was growing unbearably long; she was mad
-for action. Unreasonably, she felt that there among their caste she
-might find Pedro, Pepé,—some one who would do her bidding, who would not
-dare put her off as Ruiz was doing with tantalizing promises.
-
-Chinita knew that instead of following the most direct paths as Doña
-Isabel had commanded, the route on various pretexts had been
-changed,—she supposed to make communication with Ramirez possible. She
-had no reason to doubt the good faith of Ruiz, yet she was impatient and
-miserable. A straggler upon the road had given them the news that
-Ramirez had been seen upon the hills with a forlorn and ill-armed troop,
-which bore evidence of the ill fortune which the defeat at El Toro had
-inaugurated. She had conceived a violent and unreasonable antagonism to
-Gonzales, who from his whilom associate had become the successful
-opponent and rival of the man whom by the childish gift of an amulet she
-had fancied herself endowing with invincible good fortune. Even as she
-grew older, her faith in the magic powers of a charm which had been the
-creation of a wizard, and had been blessed by Holy Church, scarcely grew
-less; and the remembrance of it undoubtedly strengthened the fealty so
-strangely sworn. Besides, a purpose had arisen in her mind of appealing
-to Ramirez to establish her position in the house of Garcia, by wresting
-from Doña Isabel an acknowledgment which would give her rights and a
-certain status (though clouded it might be) where now she was but the
-recipient of favors,—the peasant born raised to a dignity which was a
-mere scoff and jest to the ready wit of the sarcastic and epigrammatic
-rancheros. Chinita knew them well. Were not their gifts and prejudices
-her own?
-
-Musing thus, the girl glanced from the barred window where she stood
-back through the gloom of the apartment to the bed where Doña Isabel was
-lying,—already asleep. The yellow light of a candle just touched the
-lady’s pale face; it was contracted with that habitual expression of
-pain which the darkness of night permitted to the proud and suffering
-woman, but which in the day, or under the eye of even the most
-unobservant, she banished resolutely, though its shadow rested ever
-uncomprehended, unpitied.
-
-There was something in the lassitude of Doña Isabel’s figure, the
-hopeless grief upon the countenance, which for the first time suggested
-to Chinita the possibility that emotions deeper than that pride of birth
-which was as great in degree in herself, though neither as pure in
-principle nor bounded by the conventionalities of caste, had actuated
-the deeds and embittered the life of her who to the eye had been so
-absolute, so unassailable. With a feeling of awe Chinita took a step
-toward the sleeper, when a sound drew her glance to the court. Into the
-motley throng of lounging soldiers and _arrieros_, with their mules
-feeding and stamping around them, two belated travellers forced their
-way. It was the voice of one of them that had startled the watcher, and
-claimed instantly all her thoughts, setting her heart beating stiflingly
-as she sprang to the lattice and pressed her face eagerly against the
-iron bars.
-
-The red light from the kitchen was augmented by the flame of a smoking
-torch, as a servant came forward to take the horse of the foremost
-rider. When he leaped lightly from his saddle, pushing back his broad
-hat, Chinita recognized the American, while a woman ran across the court
-and clasped the arm of the other as he alighted: it was Juana, the wife
-of Gabriel.
-
-“Hist! hist!” said the man in a low voice, “no crying nor screaming. The
-Señor and I are here on business that would please your captain but
-little. By good fortune he is camped to-night at the outskirts of the
-village, and dare not leave his post. Tell me, Juana,—and not a word to
-Gabriel when thou seest him,—where is Chinita?”
-
-Before Juana could gather her wits to reply, a hand was thrust through
-the bars almost at the speaker’s shoulder; but it was Ashley who first
-saw it. He took it for an instant in his own, and bent over it. “I must
-speak with you, Chinita,” he said; “join me in the corridor as soon as
-the house is quiet. I have much to say.”
-
-It was not the voice of a lover that spoke, but it thrilled her as that
-of a prophet. “Speak low,” she answered, breathlessly, “Doña Isabel
-sleeps close by; but I will escape,—yes, I will come to you. Is not
-Juana with you? She must take my place here. The door is locked; the key
-is in the hand of Doña Isabel. But I will have it, trust me; the Senora
-sleeps heavily.”
-
-The girl’s face glowed with excitement; she was ready for any adventure,
-the more daring the more welcome. Ashley Ward looked at her with a
-strange pride and admiration: this was a nature that no shame could
-crush, no outward fate dismay!
-
-Chinita, standing at the grating, feeling an almost unrestrainable
-desire to burst into wild laughter and tears, was for some time utterly
-silent, waiting the hour when, the revelry over, sleep would fall upon
-the house. Ashley drew into the shade of the corridor. The inn was but a
-caravansary; there was none to notice who came or went. In the laughing,
-chattering crowd he was virtually alone. The thoughts that came to him
-as the fires faded, as the noisy revellers strolled one by one to their
-sleeping-places, and the pale light of the stars shining down upon that
-strange scene showed Pepé wrapped in his blanket, standing sentinel at
-his side, were indescribable. A phantasmagoria seemed to glide before
-him, in which Mary, his cousin, the ordinary places, scenes, and
-associates of his youth, Ramirez, Chata, all the strange actors in this
-drama, in new and ill-comprehended scenes, passed by; and in the midst
-the door of a chamber cautiously opened, and the girl of the siren face,
-which the very voice of fate had seemed to bid him seek in this far
-land, stepped eagerly and lightly forth to meet him.
-
-
-
-
-                                 XXXV.
-
-
-In an angle of the corridor, where from sunrise to sunset a woman
-usually sat, selling cigarettes and small glasses of _chia_ to the
-passers-by, stood a low _banquito_, which was in fact only a superfluous
-adobe jutting out from the massive wall. Ashley withdrew his foot from
-this rude stool and greeted Chinita ceremoniously, and yet with an air
-of protecting authority, inviting her by a gesture to be seated, saying,
-“So you will be less likely to be seen by any chance comer. But from
-necessity, I would not have asked you to speak to me here.”
-
-The girl looked at him with a little quiver of laughter rippling her
-mouth, though her eyes were anxious. Evidently she was troubled with no
-sense of impropriety, and the thought of having eluded Doña Isabel
-diverted her. Instead of obeying Ashley’s invitation, she darted to
-Pepé’s side, caught a fold of his blanket in her hand, and drew it from
-his half-covered face.
-
-“Ah, Pepito, and is it thou?” she cried breathlessly. “What news dost
-thou bring me? Hast thou then seen my godfather, and what does he say of
-the Señor General? Does he not think the plan a good one?”
-
-Pepé shuffled uneasily to regain possession of the blanket, answering
-pettishly and in a stifled voice, “Is the servant to talk when the
-master stands by with the words ready? Go now, Chinita, you knew better
-than that when Florencia used to pull your ears for a saucy one!”
-
-The girl pouted, turning to Ashley with a lowering face. She felt
-instinctively that what had been to her a matter of simple expediency, a
-means of securing the fortunes of a man who was in her imagination all
-that was noble and great, might have a meaner aspect to this stranger,
-who would perhaps think she had meant harm to Doña Isabel. Why had Pepé
-dragged this American into the matter at all? Idiot! Ruiz had said
-nothing but evil would come of it; and here was the stranger standing so
-straight and silent to be questioned,—and looking at her, too, with a
-sort of pity in the curious gaze he turned upon her. She felt half
-inclined to turn back to the room whence she had come; yet she said
-somewhat mockingly,
-
-“It is you, Señor, who must speak, though it was the servant I sent on
-my errand; but perhaps you have seen Pedro and asked him my questions?”
-
-“You had better sit down, Chinita,” answered Ashley, severely. “I should
-not be here to-night if it were not to tell you things hard for you to
-listen to, and only to learn of matters of life or death should you have
-consented to come. Heavens! what a strange perversity of fate that you
-of all others should be anxious for the welfare, infatuated with the
-character, of—Ramirez!”
-
-He spoke the name as though it were a curse, and the ready flame leaped
-into Chinita’s eyes and cheek.
-
-“Ah, then,” she said, in a low but intense and penetrating tone, “you
-have come to tell me, like the others, that he is a brigand and a
-wretch! It is false! He is too brave, too daring, too noble for such
-cowardly spirits as yours to understand! Pepé, thou wert a craven.
-Stupid, it was Pedro I bade thee go to, not to this pale American, who
-has lost all his blood through a single wound!”
-
-Ashley smiled faintly, vexed to find himself stung by a girl’s
-unreasoning passion, but interposed quietly, “We lose time, Señorita,
-which is prudent neither for you nor for me. I beg you will listen to
-what I have to say. You will agree with me then that this is no hour to
-talk of my courage or the lack of it.”
-
-He had stepped between her and Pepé, to whom with a strange perversity
-she turned as if to show her disdain for the foreigner, whose every word
-had a tone of reproach. A mere suggestion that the proprieties which
-Doña Feliz and Doña Isabel had attempted to graft upon the rude stalk of
-her untrained, unguarded childhood had some other meaning than an
-elder’s caprices, touched Chinita’s mind: a young man could know nothing
-of woman’s freaks and prejudices; she felt the hot blood rising to her
-cheek as she encountered his quiet gaze. All at once the court and
-corridor seemed to become wonderfully dark and still. A slight shudder
-ran through her frame; she drew back from the American and sat down
-where he had directed her, drawing her reboso close around her.
-
-“Señor,” she said, quite humbly, “I am listening.”
-
-Ashley did not speak at once, though Pepé seemed to urge him to do so by
-a motion of the head, which betokened readiness to confirm his speech;
-and when he began, it was at a point entirely unexpected by either
-listener.
-
-“Señorita,” he said, “is it not true that when you think of an American,
-you have in your mind a pale-faced, mysterious, unresisting youth,
-gliding spectre-like about the hacienda walls, tempting by a love-song
-the bloody steel of some dark and daring desperado? In a word, is it not
-the vision—distorted, insufficient, faint—of my murdered cousin, John
-Ashley, that comes before you?”
-
-The young girl started. “Yes! yes!” she said hurriedly, not knowing what
-she said. “At least, once I thought like that. I had not seen an
-American then; I did not know—”
-
-“And the first American you have known has had the benefit of the
-preconception,” interrupted Ashley, grimly. “Well, it is something to
-know the secret of a contemptuous indifference which has always been so
-frankly expressed.” This comment was in English, and though Chinita
-watched the motion of his lips, their silence could not have given her
-better opportunity to recover her confused and startled thoughts.
-
-“Then it is true,” she said. “You are of the family of the poor
-American, who was killed like a rabbit by a hawk. Why, they say that he
-could not have even clapped his hand on his belt, though a _man_ from
-very instinct would draw a knife on his enemy, even in his last gasp. Is
-it not so, Pepito? I used to tell Chata that, when she would shed her
-soft tears of pity for him. Well, I could not cry, but I have watched at
-the mesquite-tree for the coming of his ghost a thousand times; yet I
-never saw it—and it was I who found his grave.”
-
-“And it was you who bade Pepé show it me,” interrupted Ashley; “and
-perhaps not as a mere jest as he thought.” She nodded, looking up at him
-vaguely and keenly. “You thought perhaps I had come these many miles
-from my own country to find it?” he added. “Well, that was scarcely so;
-it had not presented itself to me as possible that the obscure grave of
-a murdered foreigner should be remembered still, and that his name
-should be found above it. No, I came for proofs of John Ashley’s life,
-not of his death. It was not even to trace his murderer or to avenge him
-that I came.”
-
-She looked incredulous. “Why then should you come?” she asked. “Had you
-a vow? If I had known and loved the dead man, it would have been to kill
-the man who struck him in secret that I would have come. But it is as
-Captain Ruiz says,—the blood of an American runs so slowly it cools his
-heart, while ours is a burning torrent that causes the soul to leap and
-the hand to smite at a word.”
-
-Ashley realized that impatient contempt of him was struggling with a
-feeling to which, with sudden apprehension of its importance, she dared
-not give utterance; or perhaps the idea that had long been shaping
-itself was for the moment obscured, but yet in the darkness and
-confusion was growing to an overwhelming certainty in her mind. Chinita
-had risen to her feet, but suddenly she sat down, covering her face with
-a hand which Ashley saw in the dim light shook with suppressed
-excitement. Her attitude was that of a listener; and in a low voice he
-told her of his boyhood, of the days when he had come in from school and
-stood at the shoulder of his grown cousin,—the young man with the silky
-shadow just darkening his upper lip, and with the clear frank eyes of a
-boy, who looked so eagerly forward into the active life of manhood,
-restive under the restraints and cautions that hampered him, until at
-last he broke away, and was no more seen, nor scarcely heard of, until
-the news of his early and violent death came to cast an unending gloom
-over the household, which before had been captious, foreboding, but ever
-loving, ever secretly proud of the bold, irrepressible spirit it could
-not chain to its standard of decorum, or tame to walk in the narrow path
-of uneventful and passionless existence. The years of his own youth he
-passed lightly by; there was nothing in them for comment until he came
-to the time of his aunt’s death, his inheritance of the fortune that
-should have been John Ashley’s, the reading of those few letters which
-had given to Mary Ashley such strange dreams, and which in the
-re-reading had filled his mind with thoughts of the same possibilities
-that racked her own. He spoke of them briefly in a single sentence: “We
-found by his letters that he believed himself married; it was to find
-the woman he had loved, or any trace of her, that I came.”
-
-Chinita sat so still one might have doubted if she heard; but that very
-stillness convinced Ashley that she listened with an absorbing interest,
-too great for questioning. She could but wait breathlessly for what was
-to come.
-
-“After long and vexatious wanderings I was taken wounded to Tres
-Hermanos,” continued the young man. “There, when my hope was almost
-exhausted, I heard the name that had been in my mind so long,—heard it
-only to make inquiries which ended in confusion, and threatened to
-involve me in endless complications; so at last I was glad to suffer
-myself to be convinced that my conjectures were the mere vagaries of an
-overburdened fancy, a too scrupulous conscience, and to turn my face
-homeward, determined that thereafter I would live my life, and take in
-peace the goods fortune sent me. In such a mind I rode with the troop
-across the plain and up the desolate hillside, along which the scattered
-graves of the poor lay, the mounds scarce noticeable among the rocks and
-cacti. Pepé remembered your jesting command; it would give him an
-opportunity to withdraw from the troops unheeded. He invited me to go
-with him to see something that would interest me. When I saw the grave,
-my heart began to beat; when I read the name upon the fallen cross, the
-blood rushed into my eyes and suffocated me; every drop in my heart
-accused me! There lay my cousin murdered, and in looking for a possible
-claimant to his name, I had forgotten him! I had forgotten that his
-death was still unatoned for, the murderer undiscovered, unsought,
-unpunished.”
-
-Chinita dropped her hand from her face and looked up, her eyes glowing,
-her lips apart, her bosom rising and falling with the quick breath that
-came and went. Here were words she could understand; here was a spirit
-that touched her own.
-
-“And then, then, then?” she muttered; and Pepé leaned out from the wall,
-like a gaunt shadow, to hear the narration, as if every word was too
-significant to allow a single one to escape him. “Then?”
-
-“Then,” resumed Ashley, “I seemed chained to the spot. I could not tear
-myself away, though reason told me that to stay there was useless; to
-hasten forward and demand the truth from those I had hitherto shrunk
-from offending, the only course open to me. Reason as I would, I could
-not force myself to leave the spot. After a time, yielding to necessity
-and to my command, Pepé left me. I was alone for hours with the dead. My
-mind was full of him; I heard his voice; I looked into the eyes which
-death had closed for so many unregarded years. I saw before me that face
-which I had so long forgotten; but my fancy pictured him never as in
-life, gay, happy, resolute, but pale, bloody, corpse-like, stretching
-out dead hands to me and speaking with the soundless voice of those we
-dream of. Who remembers the tone of a voice, silent forever? Yet it
-echoes in our heart; it awakens our joys, our griefs, our fears; it is
-more powerful, more terrible, than any living voice. And so upon that
-day was the voice of the dead John Ashley to me. As I listened to it, I
-swore never to leave Mexico until the mystery of his death, as well as
-that of his life, was open to me; until I had called to account the
-villain who had cut him off so secretly, so vilely.
-
-“While I was full of the thought, and the whole world around me seemed
-to stretch on every side silent, void, waiting for me to choose whither
-I would go, in what direction I would set out to seek the nameless
-object of the new absorbing passion, which seemed more vital, more
-essential to my being than the air I breathed, I felt a presence near
-me. I looked up,—a man was leaning over the wall. I instantly
-conjectured he was not the mere peasant his dress indicated. A sense of
-mysterious connection between his life and mine seized upon me; it
-strengthened as he crossed the wall and strode toward me over the sunken
-graves. He came as though under a spell; I looked upon him as if under
-the fascination of a serpent-like gaze. I recoiled, yet for worlds I
-would not have turned from him. His eyes fell upon the cross; the
-expression of his face, the words that sprang from his lips,—vague
-though they were,—sped to my brain with an electric thrill. I knew the
-man before me was John Ashley’s murderer.”
-
-Chinita had risen. She stretched out her hand and touched the hilt of
-the knife in Ashley’s belt. It was the action of a moment, yet it was a
-question that the quick beating of her heart and the panting breath made
-at the instant impossible from her lips. Ashley answered it by a brief
-account of the combat and its interruption.
-
-As he ended, she drew a deep breath of relief. It did not occur to him
-that it could be for any other than himself. It flattered and pleased
-him, for an instant he realized how deeply, as having in it something of
-the tender unreasoning fears of gentle womanhood. Yet the readiness with
-which she had comprehended his passion for revenge, while it justified
-him, had set her in a harsh and cruel aspect, which made her lithe, dark
-beauty forbidding, unrelenting, tiger-like. Yet this strange young
-creature, he thought, at once so foreign to him, and still so near,
-concealed after all, under the surface of incomprehensible moods and
-half barbaric customs, those attributes of gentleness, those instincts
-of justness, which amidst the perplexing differences of national manners
-and standards of good and evil may be distinguished and understood by
-every mind. At that moment Ashley felt her to be less an alien than he
-had ever been able before to consider her. She was not only beautiful,
-bewitching, but in part, at least, comprehensible.
-
-Chinita stood silent for many moments; she had not even started when he
-spoke the name Ramirez. The personality of the man of whom he had spoken
-had been a foregone conclusion in her mind.
-
-“It was the amulet I gave him that saved him,” she said simply; and
-Ashley stared at her blankly, not comprehending the meaning of her
-words, but only that the relief she had experienced had been rather for
-the aggressor than for him. Had he then been mistaken? Was she an entire
-stranger to the thought which so permeated his own mind that he had
-imagined it must be present in hers?
-
-“Yes, the amulet that I gave him must have all the virtues Pedro told me
-of,” she said musingly. “So it was the General Ramirez who killed the
-American? _Dios mio!_ he must have had good cause; yet it angers me. Ah!
-it is well I have time to think what cause he must have had!”
-
-“Cause!” ejaculated Ashley, “cause!”
-
-The girl nodded her head in an argumentative way. In the dim light
-Ashley could read the struggle in her mind,—indignation at the deed,
-dismay at its consequences, battling with attempted justification of the
-perpetrator. “By my patron saint!” she exclaimed at length, “it was the
-woman who was to blame. Why did she torture him? He must have loved her;
-and what was there in the American to make her false to Ramirez? Strange
-she should have preferred another to him!”
-
-“For God’s sake say no more!” cried Ashley, with actual horror in his
-voice. “I forgot that this tale has no deeper significance to you than
-any other; that the American is to you simply an American, and Ramirez
-the hero of your own countrymen, by whose desperate deeds your
-imagination is dazzled, and for whom, even in the midst of horror, you
-find excuse, admiration, justification. To you he seems but a jealous
-lover, taking just revenge upon a successful rival.”
-
-Chinita spoke not a word, but bent her head as though his words were an
-accusation. Her face, in the dim light, was so impassive it was
-impossible for Ashley to conjecture what was passing in her mind. Did
-she remember that he had said he had come to seek a child, and was it
-possible that the mystery of her own birth had not suggested to her that
-she might have an interest in the ghastly deed of Ramirez far deeper
-than would make natural or possible to her the excuse of jealousy in the
-perpetrator? He had learned something of the reticence and
-self-restraint of these people since he had come among them; yet was it
-possible this young girl could suspend judgment in such a cause until
-her own relation to it was fully ascertained? Were prejudice, education,
-sentiment, so much stronger than the voice of Nature? Did no instinct
-cry in her heart, denouncing this man, of whom she had made a hero,—no
-womanly pity hover over his victim? What a ready apprehension she had
-shown of Ashley’s own desire for vengeance! Was that simply because it
-was the passion strongest in her own soul, and so gave to her ready
-excuse even for murder?
-
-Under the moonlight it seemed to him that the young girl’s face grew
-hard as marble. No, she was not one to yield her faith lightly. This
-deed, which had filled the mind of Chata with dismay, and intensified a
-thousand-fold the horror in which she held the character of the man whom
-she believed it sin not to reverence and love, would in no wise shake
-the faith and admiration of this stronger soul, who could condone it
-with the thought that a woman had played the murderer false.
-
-“Yet with all this, Señor,” she said at length, looking up, “if you have
-no more to tell me, I see not why this should turn me against the Señor
-General. For you it is different—oh, quite different; but for me,—” She
-paused suddenly, and Ashley saw that the hand which hung at her side was
-clenched till the nails marked her flesh.
-
-Yes, the deed itself was nothing,—a trifle, at most,—but in its relation
-to her, how great, how terrible, it might become!
-
-Ashley was not deceived. He felt that by a word he might fan into a
-resistless flame the fire that lay smouldering in that resolute heart,—a
-word which would be no surprise to her, which would but confirm the
-conviction against which, in loyalty to Ramirez, she struggled with even
-a certain anger against the persistent suspicion that made the legendary
-and unheroic figure of the American a mute denouncer, more powerful,
-more persuasive, than the living man who had revealed the author of the
-tragedy which through all her life had been so dark a mystery. It seemed
-to Ashley that she held her breath to listen to his next words; but he
-could be as hard as she was herself to this girl, whose heart seemed
-incapable of feeling aught but a personal injury, or any passion but
-revenge.
-
-“Señorita,” he said, “I went back to the hacienda. My horse had fled;
-there was nothing else for me to do, if I would find means to follow
-this man who had suddenly become my debtor in all the dues of outraged
-kinship. My object was to obtain money, a horse and guide, and to regain
-the troop as quickly as should be possible; to denounce this murderer to
-Doña Isabel, and reveal the plot against her interests which had
-appeared to me so weak, so absolutely absurd, but which now assumed an
-importance commensurate with my detestation of him whom it was designed
-to serve. But with further thought my resolution changed. If all her
-agents were false,—Pedro, Ruiz, as well as you, whom I know to be”
-(Chinita winced),—“and Pepé should be successful in inducing Pedro to
-play into the hands of Ramirez, what power could Doña Isabel employ to
-prevent that change of leadership which it was more than probable the
-troops—indifferent to the cause, eager only for action and booty—would
-accept with acclamations? Clearly, my only course was to proceed to El
-Toro and arouse the too confident Gonzales, who in incomprehensible
-inactivity was awaiting the promised succor,—incomprehensible if the
-emissaries of Doña Isabel had reached him; for, as I knew, not one word
-in reply had been returned.
-
-“I had much to ask of Doña Isabel Garcia,—questions which had burned
-upon my lips before; but reflection told me I was no more ready to ask
-them now than I had been; that her pride might be still as obdurate. No,
-there were months before me in which by gradual assault I might acquire
-all the knowledge I would in vain endeavor to gain by sudden force. I
-was confident that if by no stratagem or treason Ramirez ultimately
-could place himself at the head of these troops, he would be found in
-the field against them. I learned that he hated Gonzales as a personal,
-no less than a political, foe. Gonzales then was the man for me to
-follow. In serving Doña Isabel against the machinations of those she had
-so blindly trusted, I should serve myself; keep in view the mocking
-fiend whose downfall I had sworn, and perchance satisfy myself in regard
-to the still importunate doubts which had led to my presence amid these
-strange scenes.
-
-“I had intended to leave the hacienda upon the very night of my return,
-but on my way—Well, that is nothing to the purpose; I reached it
-exhausted. But the early morning found me in the saddle. My strength
-revived with every step toward El Toro. Once we caught sight of the long
-line of the hacienda troop crossing the open plain. We had passed
-through cañons and byways, and were far in advance of them. More than
-once in the mountains we heard the name of Ramirez, and made wide
-detours of hamlets where men were gathering in twos and threes and
-sixes,—ragged, unkempt, unarmed for the most part, but full of
-enthusiasm in their leader, and confident of booty and glory. Without
-doubt, the reverse of Ramirez at El Toro would not remain unavenged. I
-realized the spell of that potent name, the very echo of which seemed to
-be as eloquent as the living voice of most men, chieftains and leaders
-though they might be.”
-
-Chinita’s eyes glistened; she raised herself with a proud gesture, as if
-the involuntary tribute to the genius of the adventurer was a personal
-commendation.
-
-“Though we avoided the villages,” continued Ashley, “I did not hesitate
-to question the few passengers we met upon the roads. These were chiefly
-wandering traders, stooping under their burdens of clay-ware or
-charcoal, adherents of no particular party, and reticent or the
-opposite, as their natural impulses or the supposed necessities of the
-time prompted. These I plied in vain for news of Pedro, of Pepé, or even
-of the noted Ramirez himself. Each and every one seemed to have passed,
-and left not even a memory behind; though from these very ranchos and
-hamlets I knew Doña Isabel’s troops had been drawn, and that the
-followers of Ramirez were daily drawing more,—forcing those they could
-not persuade, laughing at the protestations of the women, and feeding
-the adventurous ardor of the men with tales of daring exploits and
-promises of plunder. All this we heard, and knew the whole country was
-in a ferment, yet passed through it undetected, on our own part unable
-to catch a glimpse or hear a word of the covert from which Ramirez
-directed and inspired the movement. Travelling rapidly, we entered upon
-the third day a deep gorge, which cut the foothills of the very mountain
-that overshadowed the towers of the convent town toward which I was
-journeying. Still a painful stretch of twelve hours, of an almost
-pathless labyrinth of rock and sand, I was told, lay before us; and
-early in the evening I ordered a halt, intending to set forth before the
-day broke. One of my servants spoke of a spring which he knew of; and
-though the season was so dry that we had little hope of discovering it,
-we decided to push on, although at every step the horses seemed to
-protest against the effort,—for they had been ridden mercilessly,
-without change and almost without food or rest. As we neared the spot
-where we hoped to find water, the aspect of the country seemed to grow
-even more forbidding.
-
-“‘The dry season has swallowed it,’ said the servant dejectedly, after a
-careful survey of the locality. ‘There is nothing here but sand,—a dry
-welcome for our thirsty beasts;’ and at a signal from me he threw
-himself from the saddle, and tethering his panting horse, clambered up
-the gorge to gather a handful of dry grease-wood with which to light a
-fire. Meanwhile, his fellow busied himself in unpacking the few articles
-we had brought, and I threw myself on the ground against a rock, feeling
-myself more secure in that wild and secluded pass than I had done since
-I left the hacienda.
-
-“The place was very still. Although it was yet daylight in the world
-without, the whole gorge was in shadow. The crackling of the herbage
-under the horses’ feet, or a low word occasionally spoken by the men,
-was all that broke the stillness. I suppose from thought I was gradually
-falling into slumber, when the sound of horses galloping, of men
-laughing and shouting, broke upon the air. I started to my feet and
-seized my arms, calling for the men; but they had disappeared; the three
-horses were rearing and plunging. I caught and succeeded in mounting my
-own; but as the cavalcade drew near, I realized that its members were so
-numerous and in such mad humor that it would be worse than folly for me
-to approach them. One of my men had recovered from his panic, and stole
-up to me with blanched face and wide-staring eyes. I pointed to the
-horses, and with wonderful dexterity he bounded into the saddle of one,
-and caught the bridle of the other. In as little time as it takes me to
-tell it, we gained the shelter of the rock. Calmed by a few low words,
-the horses stood motionless, and from our covert we saw the company of
-lawless soldiery go by.
-
-“Ramirez was at their head; and by a cord at his bridle-rein was tied a
-man, who vainly strove to keep pace with the gallop of his horse. At
-almost every step he fell, and was struck by the hoofs of the foremost
-horses, whose riders leaning down brought him again to his feet with
-blows from the flat sides of their swords. There were perhaps thirty
-ruffians engaged in this brutal sport; and after them ran a man at such
-a pace as only an Indian could maintain, even for moments, wringing his
-hands and praying and crying,—alternately a prayer and a curse. And in
-him, more by his voice, gasping and hoarse though it was, than by sight,
-I recognized Pepé Ortiz.”
-
-Chinita would have screamed, but the ready hand of the peasant closed
-over her mouth. “The man! the man tied to the horse’s rein!” she gasped,
-when he released her.
-
-“I could not see his face, and he had no breath to cry out,” said
-Ashley. “They passed so closely, I could have shot Ramirez like a dog.
-But I seemed paralyzed by horror. It did for me what perhaps a moment’s
-reflection would have done had I been capable of it,—it saved me from
-suicide. To have moved then would have been certain death. I could not
-comprehend the mad jests of those around the victim; but a moment after
-they passed I heard a sound which to all ears conveys the same
-meaning,—a pistol shot,—and the voice of Ramirez crying,—
-
-“‘_Caramba!_ the next fall would have killed him, and the dog should die
-only by my hand. There! I have paid the debt I owed thee,—thou knowest
-for what. It should have been paid thee like the other villain’s years
-ago. Would that I had dragged him at my horse’s rein as I have thee!’
-
-“The man fell; a soldier, with a laugh, cut the rope; all swept on with
-shouts and laughter,—Ramirez the quietest among them. In a few minutes
-they were far up the gorge. One glance had satisfied Ramirez that his
-shot had reached its aim.
-
-“None seemed to remember the panting wretch behind. I had reached the
-prostrate body as soon as he, and together we raised it up. Under the
-mask of bruises and blood and the dust of the roadway, I recognized the
-man I had been seeking,—Pedro Gomez.”
-
-Pepé caught Chinita on his outstretched arm,—she had staggered as though
-struck by a heavy blow. Ashley sprang to her side in remorse,—he had
-spared her nothing in the recital; but she had not fainted. She raised
-herself slowly, and lifting her arms above her head, wrung her hands in
-speechless agony.
-
-The man who had been murdered years before had been a shadow, a myth, in
-her mind. He became at that supreme moment a living presence, joining
-with, blent with, the martyred Pedro in denunciation of the man whom she
-had raised in her admiration to a pinnacle of glory. The idol of years
-crashed to the earth, in semblance of a demon,—and with it fell the
-stoicism and pride that had encased as in bands of steel the softer
-emotions of her nature.
-
-“Murdered! murdered both!” she moaned at length. “Was it not enough he
-should bereave me even before I came into the world, but that he should
-so vilely slay the only creature who has loved me? Oh, my God!” she
-added, shuddering, “why have I been so cursed as to have given one
-thought to such a wretch? Oh! forgive, forgive, forgive!”
-
-
-
-
-                                 XXXVI.
-
-
-To whom was that vain cry addressed? Ashley questioned not, but clasping
-in his the icy hands which strove to smite and beat each other, spoke
-such words of soothing as came readiest in the stranger tongue he found
-so inadequate. He realized that it was not to him Chinita directed that
-wail of self-abasement and remorse; and he also apprehended somewhat of
-the wild joy that would have been his, had she involuntarily turned to
-him in the anguish of her desolation. But she was scarcely conscious of
-his presence, and in her frenzy—terrible to witness, though it was not
-loud—even Pepé’s rough accents were unheeded.
-
-“_Niña_ of my soul!” he said earnestly, “Pedro is not dead. No, it is
-not a lie I tell thee! Who would lie to thee in such an hour as this? I
-have come to tell thee that he lives; ’t was he himself who sent me.”
-
-“He himself!”, she echoed at last, turning her wild, tearless eyes upon
-Pepé’s face. “Ah, it is because thou art here that I know he is dead,
-else thou wouldst not dare to leave him!”
-
-“And by my faith, it is not of my own will I am here!” answered Pepé,
-bluntly. “Señor Don ’Guardo, you can tell her that.”
-
-“I can in truth,” replied Ashley, who seeing that the peasant’s words
-were received by her but as mere attempts to defer the evil moment when
-the inevitable assurance of the death of her foster-father must be given
-her,—so well did she know the customs and manners of her country people,
-ever prone to useless prevarication, even in their deepest
-sorrow,—hastened to describe to her the few scant means they had found
-in his extremity to recall the exhausted Pedro to the life that had
-apparently been thrust and beaten and driven from him forever.
-
-The ball of the pistol had but grazed the cheek of the tortured man; the
-blood and dust had deceived the accustomed eyes of Ramirez, as it had
-deceived their own. The greater danger arose from the frightful
-condition of laceration and fatigue to which the mad race through the
-stony cañon had reduced him.
-
-In a few words Pepé told the tale. He and Pedro had met but the day
-before, and it was while hastening to El Toro to apprize Gonzales of the
-plot that Pepé, in the petition of Chinita, had revealed to the
-indignant Pedro, that they had encountered face to face the irate
-chieftain and his followers. Pepé understood little of the cause that
-led to their being seized, dragged from their horses, and threatened
-with instant death. Both alike protested innocence of any scheme to
-baffle or injure the mountain chieftain; but he understood too well the
-ease with which a foe too weak to fight could assume the aspect of a
-friend. At the worst, however, Pepé imagined they might be forced to
-turn back on their way to spend a few unwilling hours among the bandit
-followers, until chance should give them opportunity to escape. But
-Ramirez’s memory was keen as it was vengeful. Suddenly he bent and gazed
-searchingly into the face of the elder prisoner.
-
-“Ah!” he exclaimed, with an oath, “I know thee! Thou art Pedro Gomez.”
-
-Pedro, who till this moment had bent his head to avoid the gaze of his
-captors, raised it swiftly with an ejaculation of amazement. A red
-handkerchief bound the brows of Ramirez; his face was swarthy and grimed
-with hard riding.
-
-“Ah, and thou knowest me, too!” Ramirez cried. “Thou hast called me a
-devil more than once in thy lifetime; and now I will prove thy word
-true. Hereafter thou wilt have no further chance for that, or for
-opening the gate to the man who would make my—” He gnashed his teeth in
-speechless rage, and with his sword struck the keeper across the face.
-
-The action spoke louder than words. Some one, in ready comprehension of
-the leader’s mood, threw a lasso, and catching the prisoner across the
-breast began to mimic the wild shouts of a bull-fighter. But Ramirez was
-in no humor for pastime.
-
-“On! on!” he cried. “’T is nearly sunset. Let us see how far on our way
-this fellow can accompany us till then; and then by a vow I made to my
-patron San Leonidas, more than a score of years ago, he shall die.
-_Caramba!_ did ever man play Ramirez false, and he forget to pay him his
-dues?”
-
-Pepé, amid the shouts and laughter of the band, heard these words with a
-wild sense of terror; but it was only when he beheld Pedro struggling at
-the side of the plunging horse, that he realized that the gate-keeper
-was to be dragged to his death. He had heard of Ramirez’s wild jests,
-and imagined that this might be one, until he beheld the cortège
-speeding forward, urging the unhappy Pedro before them with blows and
-jeers, or exhibiting their wonderful horsemanship in evading his
-prostrate body,—which, however, more than once, as he fell, sounded
-under the thud of the horses’ feet.
-
-Pepé could have escaped at any moment, for in the concentration of
-attention upon Pedro his companion had been utterly forgotten; but he
-followed madly, expostulating, entreating, cursing, while his breath
-allowed; and then was swept onward in the whirl, seemingly almost
-unconscious, till he heard the shot that ended the mad scene, and found
-himself staggering over the body of the bleeding Pedro.
-
-The sight of Ashley, as unexpected as it was reassuring, as though an
-angel had arisen, saved the wretched youth from utter collapse of mind
-and body. But for the new excitement he would have fallen prone, and had
-he ever regained consciousness it would have been to find his comrade
-dead. But under the impulse of Ashley’s energetic action and sustaining
-words, he even helped to raise the victim, in whom, lacerated though he
-was, Ashley soon discovered a feeble flutter of the heart.
-
-“We took him to the shelter of the rock,” said Ashley, who had by signs
-hastened Pepé’s conclusion of the account, which, related in his own
-profuse manner, was far more agonizing than the brief outline here
-given, “and found that his extraordinary powers of endurance, though
-strained to the uttermost, had stood him in wonderful stead. An arm was
-broken, and every muscle so wrenched and strained that when he regained
-his consciousness the resolute will, which during the progress of the
-torture had withheld him from uttering protest or groan, utterly gave
-way, and he screamed in agony. Happily his persecutors were too far
-distant to be recalled by those unrestrainable cries of returning
-consciousness. Even while we poured brandy down his throat, and rubbed
-and stretched his limbs, it seemed as though it would have been a
-thousand times more charitable to suffer him to die than to recall him
-to such agony. When he regained full consciousness, however, the cries
-ceased,—not because the pain was less, but that the will regained its
-mastery. “As his eyes fell upon me, he gazed at me a moment as upon an
-apparition. So wild was his look, I thought he was going mad.
-
-“‘Don Juan! here! here!’ he muttered hoarsely. ‘Are we in hell together?
-But, no!’ he sprang up, then fell back with a groan. ‘I shall live to
-warn her yet. Oh God, that the child should entreat me to turn traitor
-for him! But she shall not fall into his accursed hands. Never! never!
-Ah, Pepé, thou art here; hasten, hasten! tell her she is the child of
-John Ashley, the man Ramirez murdered. What though I die? She will be
-saved! Go! go! I pray you!’”
-
-Chinita started. Ward anticipated some outburst of emotion, but the
-glance she flashed back at him indicated simply keen intelligence; the
-springs of feeling remained untouched. With an effort Ward continued:—
-
-“My recreant servant had returned. It was Stefano, whom you know well.
-He is a coward, but ready in resource, and with a kindly heart. He knew
-the country well, and told us of a cave he once had slept in, and led us
-to it unerringly. To our surprise we found there a scanty supply of
-toasted corn, left by some wandering tenant, and a quantity of water,
-still fresh enough to show that the cave had not long been empty. There
-was a remnant of a woman’s dress in one corner,—heaven knows how brought
-there,—and this we used to bind the pistol wound; while Stefano used the
-best means available in setting the broken arm. These rancheros are
-possessed of strange accomplishments,—I don’t believe a surgeon could
-have done it with more skill.
-
-“During the course of our passage through the dusk, bearing as best we
-could our groaning burden, Pedro’s hallucination that I was John Ashley
-merged into recognition. It was but little I could do for him, but it
-filled him with gratitude. ‘You are a good Christian,’ he ejaculated
-again and again; and once in the night, when the others slept, he
-muttered ‘_Niña, niña_ Herlinda, forgive me! I am dying. You bade me
-protect the child! Ah, even in life it has not been possible! Is she not
-in the hands you bade me defend her from?’
-
-“These sentences, murmured at intervals, kept me waking while all others
-slept, hanging over him with entreaties to disburden his mind of the
-secret which weighed so heavily upon him that it seemed under it he
-could neither live nor die.
-
-“‘Tell me at least,’ I said, ‘who is this man called Ramirez, whom I saw
-this evening wreak upon you so terrible a revenge? How comes it that you
-are so hated by the man for whom your foster-daughter is plotting? Have
-you not been his follower in by-gone days? Surely it is not Chinita who
-has set such enmity between you!’
-
-“‘No, no! it began before she was born,’ answered Pedro shudderingly,
-his pale countenance becoming more ghastly still. ‘Oh, Lady of Sorrows!’
-he continued, as if forgetful of my presence, ‘was it not enough that
-the child should fall again into the power of Doña Isabel,—she who tore
-it from its mother’s breast to cast it among the beggars who feed with
-the dogs at her gates,—but that her father’s murderer, her mother’s
-destroyer, should wield this devil’s witchcraft over her? My God, who
-will defend her? Who will rescue her?’”
-
-Chinita raised her head, her nostrils quivering, the veins upon her neck
-and temples swollen and palpitating.
-
-“‘Tell her the truth,’ I said! ‘Then she will be her own defender; and
-I—you know me; for what other purpose am I here but to shield her? Yes,
-Pedro, the secret you have kept so long is mine as well as yours. John
-Ashley, my cousin, died because he dared love a woman named Herlinda;
-and that Herlinda was the daughter of Doña Isabel Garcia.’” A look of
-indescribable hauteur and triumph passed over Chinita’s rigid face,
-while Ashley continued,—
-
-“Pedro stared at me in wild dismay, ‘_Niña, niña!_’ he muttered,
-piteously, ‘I have not betrayed thee; and Doña Isabel, though you have
-taken the child from me which you thrust upon me in such mockery, have I
-not borne the torture meekly? No, even to this man, so like the other
-that he needed not to tell his name and kin, I have told nothing to
-shame you!’
-
-“His words sprang from his lips in spite of the will that would have
-kept them back; for a time he was like a man under the influence of a
-maddening draught. Striving to calm him by the assurance that I would
-never use the knowledge he might give me to dishonor the family to which
-his whole life had been devoted, I drew from him little by little his
-strange tale. It concerns neither you nor me, Chinita, until in
-recompense for secret service done her in the cause of her wretched
-brother Leon, Doña Isabel Garcia made Pedro gate-keeper at Tres
-Hermanos. There my unfortunate cousin gained his good offices in his
-secret meetings with the young Herlinda. The man seems in truth to have
-been conscious of no serious offence against Doña Isabel in lending his
-aid to the tender intercourse of the young lovers, although he was
-cognizant of her plans regarding the marriage of Herlinda and Gonzales.
-My cousin claimed the right to visit his wife; and Pedro took his gold
-and was silent, if not convinced.
-
-“‘Ah, how joyously Ashley left his wife—for the last time,’ Pedro
-exclaimed at length, ceasing to expect my questions and taking the tone
-of narrative. ‘Yes, Don Juan called Herlinda always his wife: what was
-the keeper of the gate to demand,—the word of a priest forsooth, rather
-than that of the man whom his mistress loved? Ah! Doña Isabel I knew
-would ask all, or the young Gonzales. One cannot do worse than put his
-hand in a boiling pot, and wherefore do that when it hangs over his
-neighbor’s fire? Yes, never had Ashley seemed more confident, more gay.
-“I shall not again need to waken thee at midnight to let me pass like a
-thief who leaves a bribe,” he said; “to-morrow I shall be free to come
-and go as I will.”
-
-“‘Alas!’ the remorseful Pedro continued, ‘as my eyes followed the young
-American, I thought any woman might be pardoned for loving him: had he
-not beguiled my own heart? for I swear I loved him. Yet I wondered at
-the courage of the _Niña_ Herlinda,—she who had seemed so timid, so
-yielding to her mother’s every wish. _Caramba!_ it is true,—“There is
-nothing too strong for love or death.” I laughed as Ashley stepped
-forth, to think how youth in its folly can baffle caution, when a voice
-behind me echoed the sound. The blood froze in my veins, so overpowering
-was the very presence near me even before it touched me. Almighty
-powers! when I looked up, the man in the peasant’s dress, whom only a
-few hours before I had admitted as a stranger within the walls, hurled
-himself upon me; but the blaze in his eyes could burn only from the
-fierce and terrible rage of the evil spirit of that house. It was Leon
-Vallé who dashed me down and rushed out into the night.’”
-
-Chinita uttered an exclamation; then repeating the name, “Leon! Leon
-Vallé,” listened with bated breath, while Ashley continued in the words
-of Pedro:—
-
-“‘I knew at the moment that Ashley was lost. Not a thousand prayers, nor
-the swiftest aid my cries could have gained him, would have saved him. I
-waited, scarce daring to breathe; with strained ears I listened. Would
-the murderer, his first work accomplished, return? I knew then he held
-my life forfeit; yet had he returned, I should have opened the gate to
-him. Ah, you know not the power of that man! As it was in Leon Vallé
-then, so it is now in Ramirez. God, what power in those terrible eyes! I
-felt it then, I felt it to-day. What resistance was possible? The
-morning came. I was still alive, but the people came to me crying of the
-dead. What need had I to ask the name? In the midst of the tumult a
-terrible shriek rang on my ears. I thought my brain was turning. There
-was but one thought that steadied it,—confession, confession to Doña
-Isabel.
-
-“‘As soon as it was possible I sought her presence. I cannot tell you
-what passed; I only know the words I would have spoken died on my lips.
-Whether Doña Isabel had known of it or not, I could not determine; but
-that the love of Herlinda Garcia and the young American was to die with
-him, and that the terrible vengeance which had been worked for her was
-not to be in vain, seared itself upon my mind. The preservation of that
-secret was to atone for my sins, and not confession. Never to mortal was
-my knowledge to be breathed. This was the penitence laid upon me. And
-so, despairing, I left her. What was the immortal soul of a poor peasant
-in comparison to the honor of the family of Garcia?
-
-“‘It was well! Why should a servant gainsay his mistress? So months went
-on, Señor. Within and around the hacienda people were dying. They told
-me the _niña_ Herlinda herself was pining,—some whispered for the
-American; but a terror seized even on the boldest, and the American’s
-name ceased to be heard, and that of the young Gonzales took its place.
-The gossips were content to blame any name unchid for her wan cheeks and
-sunken eyes. But I knew that no man had scorned her love, and that no
-living man had aught to answer for had she loved too well. I had not
-seen her for weeks and weeks; but one night a creature so pale and wan I
-thought it her ghost, accosted me. Strange, strange the mission that
-brought her. It was to entreat my protection—that of the worthless
-Pedro—for the child which in secret and in banishment she was about to
-bring into the world.
-
-“‘Well! well! I promised all she asked. I should have done so even had I
-thought it possible the dire need she pleaded would be hers. Oh! I had
-heard strange and fearful tales of deeds that have been wrought within
-the walls of these great and solitary haciendas; but that Doña Isabel
-would stoop to crime, and that I should find it in my power to save a
-child which she would strive to sacrifice, I could not believe. Trouble,
-I thought, had made Herlinda mad. But she was mad only with the frenzy
-of a prophetess.
-
-“‘With terrible forebodings I saw her taken from her home. Day and night
-I thought of her, and my heart was like ice; but one day, when worn out
-with watching and expectancy I sat at the gate, I fell into a doze, and
-in my dream heard the voice of Herlinda calling me. It changed to that
-of a man. I woke with a start, and a child was dropped into my hands.
-Strange and wonderful must have been the means by which the hunted and
-distracted Herlinda had evaded the mother she feared! Who had been her
-friends, Señor? The wonder is with me still. I saw the face of her
-messenger but for a moment, yet it has haunted me. Yes, more than once,
-when I have thought of new faces that have passed before me, I have
-said, “Such an one was like the man; why was I blind to it when he stood
-before me?”’ Pedro started up, and clasped my arm so powerfully that I
-shrank. ‘Señor!’ he cried, ‘As God lives, I saw such a face to-day! It
-was that of the man who rode behind him they call Ramirez.’
-
-“‘Reyes!’ I ejaculated. ‘Reyes!’ What strange sport made the messenger
-of Herlinda the follower of Ramirez? I—”
-
-Ashley paused, for Chinita echoed the name with an intense surprise far
-greater than his own. She clasped her hands to her temples, as though
-fearing the mad bewilderment of her thoughts was crazing her. “Tell me
-no more,” she said faintly. “Do I not know the unnatural wretch that I
-have been? But what of Pedro? Why did you leave him? How dared you leave
-him? You!” She turned upon Pepé, accusingly. “He lives, you say, and yet
-you are here!”
-
-“No less would content him,” interposed Ashley, while Pepé muttered an
-inarticulate remonstrance. “It was Pepé you had sent upon your errand;
-it was Pepé whom Pedro would dispatch with his answer.”
-
-“Ay!” said Pepé, grumblingly, “and with you I must remain. I am sworn to
-that, whether you like it or loathe it.”
-
-“I,” said Ashley, “have ridden thus far out of the direct path I would
-have taken to El Toro, to warn you of the character of the man you have
-made your hero; to tell you I believe you to be the daughter of my
-cousin, to offer you the home and the fortune that would have been his.”
-
-He spoke unhesitatingly, yet a strange sense of bewilderment swept over
-him. He was conscious that it was no fear of material loss that troubled
-him, though not for an instant did he dream of using the advantage of
-the law against this defenceless girl; but that this strange impulsive
-creature should be of the same blood as he, as the calm and gentle Mary;
-that she should come into their life with her wayward passions, her
-erratic genius, her weird beauty,—was a thing incomprehensible, almost
-terrible. Yet the blood leaped stronger in the young man’s veins as he
-beheld her; and his heart bounded as he said, “Yes, I must go; for I
-have certain news that the enemy is massing his forces for attack. I go
-to warn Gonzales; but I shall return to claim you as my cousin’s child.
-Meanwhile, be silent—patient. Pedro prays you keep the secret of your
-birth. He believes as firmly as ever that only thus can you be safe. And
-for that mother’s sake I pray you be silent. Right may be won for you,
-and her good name be still left untainted. There may be a mystery still
-to be unravelled.”
-
-“I will be silent; I will wait,” Chinita said in a cold, hollow voice.
-
-Ashley noticed that she had no word of sympathy for him, no recognition
-of the endeavors that had led to her discovery. Apparently the thought
-that he was aught to her was as far from her mind as any grief had ever
-been for that other American,—as far indeed as such was at that moment.
-For, strangely, Ashley seemed to penetrate the inmost shrine of her
-thought; and still the figures around which centred her love, her hopes,
-her passions were only those of Pedro, of Ramirez, of Doña Isabel.
-
-“I will be silent,” she repeated. “Ah, it will be easier now! Yes,
-hasten to El Toro, bring Gonzales; he will be a surer, safer leader than
-Ruiz—though I will turn him again to my will. Yes, yes, more than once I
-have thought Ruiz wavering, uncertain! Now at a word I will make him
-what before he has only affected to others to be,—the undying enemy of
-Ramirez!”
-
-Ashley was silent. He would have had this girl passive, supine, womanly;
-yet from the very necessity of warning her, he had been forced to arouse
-in her this vindictive wrath against the man who had done her
-unwittingly such foul wrong.
-
-“Listen!” he said hurriedly, after a pause. “It is Pedro who implores,
-who commands, that until he gives you leave, nothing of what I have told
-you shall pass your lips. I might have had your promise before I would
-speak. See, the stars are shining that must see me on my way. Give me
-two promises before we part,—one that you will be silent; the other that
-Pepé shall be continually within your sight or call. For this he was
-sent from the side of the suffering, perhaps dying, Pedro. He would have
-you safe,—safe from Ramirez.”
-
-“And I will kill you before you shall fall into his hands,” interposed
-Pepé, grimly.
-
-Chinita smiled with cynical bitterness, and said indifferently, “I
-promise. Yes, I promise. Ah, yes, Señor, you will see I have been silent
-when you come again. And now I will go back. What if the Señora Doña
-Isabel should wake and find me missing?—the child she loves so well!”
-
-She waved her hand, and stepped backward through the darkness. At the
-door of the chamber where Doña Isabel lay, she seemed to vanish into
-air, so swift, so silent, was her going.
-
-Ashley gazed after her long in silence,—so long that another spectral
-figure stole through the doorway, and with noiseless steps reached
-Pepé’s side. “The Señora slept like the dead,” Juana whispered; “but not
-for a thousand hard dollars would I lie in Chinita’s place again, while
-she forgets time in lover’s chat. I wonder at thee, Pepé! thou hast not
-a man’s heart in thee. I thought thou lovedst her thyself!”
-
-“Fool!” said Pepé, sulkily, and turned away; while Juana, ill paid for
-her devotion, sought a corner of the corridor in which to sink to sleep.
-
-“Strange, incomprehensible creature!” muttered Ashley at length. “What
-emotions, what thoughts are hers? At least it is certain that the
-fascination of Ramirez is dissolved,—horror, hatred perhaps, has taken
-its place. She is safe. And now Pepé, my horse; I must take the road.
-And if it be true that Juarez is at hand, even Ramirez himself may
-tremble; the combined forces of Gonzales and Ruiz will hold him at bay,
-and keep an open road for the intrepid Liberal to the capital.”
-
-It was scarcely two hours past midnight, though his interview with
-Chinita had lasted long, when Ashley cautiously emerged from the inn,
-and took his way toward the open country. The troops lay at the east end
-of the town; but giving the watchword to the few sentinels who
-challenged him, he avoided them, and soon found himself in the vast
-solitude of the night. He had taken the precaution to procure a fresh
-horse, and for some leagues the way lay across a level country, so he
-made such speed as brought him by dawn within sight of the mountain upon
-which Pedro lay,—but on a side many miles nearer El Toro, his
-destination, where Gonzales, with his insufficient garrison, was
-anxiously awaiting the reinforcements without which he could neither
-dare to advance, nor hope to maintain his position in case of attack.
-
-As Ashley glanced toward the ragged and solitary cliffs where like a
-hunted animal the man was lying, he remembered that after the first
-horror was passed, Chinita had spoken no more of her foster-father, had
-asked no question as to what hands were set to tend him, nor in what
-direction lay the cave in which he was sheltered. Such queries would
-have been useless,—she could do nothing; yet it would have been but
-natural that she should have made them. Even if the gate-keeper’s care
-of her neglected infancy was forgotten, or accepted as a matter of
-course, and though her mind was absorbed by thoughts of her own history
-and her wrongs, yet his very connection with them should have made him
-an object of interest if not of tenderness.
-
-“Heavens!” murmured Ashley, “can it be that this strange creature, as
-different in her instincts as in her appearance and education, is of the
-same blood as Mary? A bewildering charge shall I take to her, if Doña
-Isabel still, to save the reputation of her daughter, lays no claim to
-this beautiful girl, and denies her such scanty justice as she can give!
-For a daughter of an Ashley must not be left to the sport of
-chance,—neither to be sold to the first who bargains for her beauty;
-nor, worse still, to be consigned to a convent, as the unhappy Herlinda
-was.” He reasoned calmly, yet his heart and temples beat hotly. “Let me
-think. If this Gonzales but proves a man of honor, I may gain some aid
-from him; he, at least, may know in which convent this woman—whom he
-also loved—is immured. By the way, he is a fanatic upon this new scheme
-of Juarez, of secularizing the property of the clergy. Ah, in event of
-the success of the Liberal arms, that might work countless and
-unimagined changes!”
-
-The thought was full of suggestion. Ashley gave rein to his horse, and
-dashed forward with fresh vigor. Afterward he scarce remembered how the
-day passed; but its close found him, spent and weary, alighting at the
-door of the inn of El Toro.
-
-Almost at the same moment, far on the other side of the mountain, two
-travellers, so wrapped in long striped blankets and covered by wide
-sombreros as to be almost indistinguishable, the man from the woman,
-drew rein before a mass of cactus and gray rock; and while the one gazed
-furtively around, vainly seeking a sign of human contiguity, the other
-dismounted, and bending to a mere crevice in the rock gave a long, low
-whistle, then turned to help his companion, saying, “That will bring
-Stefano. Chinita, thou wilt see that, though a coward, he is no fool,
-and has cared well for thy foster-father. Said I not so? Ah, here he
-comes.”
-
-Chinita was cramped by long riding, and was fain to cling to her guide.
-She looked around her with a shudder. The wild solitude of the place was
-terrible. She feared to move, lest she should find herself face to face
-with death. Her head swam, the world turned black before her eyes; and
-in the midst a strange hand touched her own. A low laugh sounded on her
-ear,—it was that of a woman.
-
-“Santa Maria!” she heard Pepé exclaim. “It is the Virgin of Guadalupe
-herself. It is then that we are too late to serve the poor _padron_!”
-
-The low laugh sounded again,—there was in it more of madness than
-sanctity. Chinita, with superstitious fear and desperation, sought to
-wrench her hand from the hot clasp in which it was held. The close air
-of the entrance of the cave closed round her, as with persistent force
-she was drawn within; and with a scream of terror she fell fainting,
-overcome by the excitement and exertion of many hours, and by the
-unexpected apparition which had greeted her.
-
-
-
-
-                                XXXVII.
-
-
-The illness which attacked Doña Feliz upon the morning that Ashley Ward
-set forth from Tres Hermanos, was the first indication of an epidemic
-similar in character and force to that which had devastated the hacienda
-fifteen years before. Reminiscences of the time of the great sickness
-became the absorbing topic of conversation, until the care of the dying
-and the burial of the dead silenced all voices, and turned all thoughts
-to the overwhelming cares of the present.
-
-At first with unspeakable remorse Chata attributed the illness of Doña
-Feliz to her unwonted exertion in walking to the reduction-works through
-the fierce sunshine, and to her grief and shame in discovering her, whom
-she believed to be her granddaughter, there in conversation with a
-stranger,—from whom a modest maiden would have shrunk in decent coyness,
-if not in fear. Chata’s heart burned with grief and remorse. She longed
-to throw herself upon her knees, and pour out her soul before the woman
-she held in such love and reverence that the thought of her distrust and
-displeasure was like a mortal wound in her heart. Yet she was forced to
-be silent, before the unconsciousness and delirium which for days and
-weeks overpowered the body and mind of the strong, though no longer
-youthful, woman.
-
-It was some consolation to the distressed maiden that she was called
-upon, almost alone, to bear the labor and responsibility of the care of
-Doña Feliz. Don Rafael was almost helpless before his mother’s peril;
-the servants were terrified and incompetent. Soon Chata, in the
-incessant toil, almost ceased to think of the trials and perplexities of
-her own life, save to cry bitterly to herself that had she never known
-before that Doña Rita was not her own mother, the difference in her
-bearing at that crisis toward Rosario and herself would have betrayed
-the truth.
-
-“Even Don Rafael,” she thought, “though he loves me, is content that I,
-rather than his own child, should risk the danger of the infected
-atmosphere.”
-
-But in truth the alarmed and harassed man was capable of but little
-reflection or discrimination as to the actions of those about him. He
-gave no heed to the selfishness of his wife or Rosario, while he found
-Chata ever at Doña Feliz’s side, tireless, calm, unmurmuring,
-ministering with a rare ability, which even natural tact and long
-experience seldom combine to produce in such perfection, to the needs
-and comfort of the ever delirious patient. He grew speedily to have a
-perfect trust and faith in this ministering child; and though once, when
-for a little while his mother was silent, and the servants had fallen
-asleep, he opened his lips to question her, there was something in the
-imploring yet innocent gaze of those clear gray eyes before which he
-shrank, as Ashley Ward had done, powerless to utter a word that should
-indicate distrust.
-
-“Perhaps my mother knows,—yes, doubtless she knew,” he said to himself,
-with a faint attempt to justify his silence. “_Caramba!_ a man must have
-a black heart himself who could doubt the whiteness of so pure a soul!”
-
-Almost hourly his perturbation of mind was increased by the report of
-some fresh name upon the list of the sick. With a faith as profound as
-their own in the decoctions of herbs and roots used by the village
-quacks, and a superstitious respect for the alleged virtues of blessed
-relics and candles, and even for amulets of less sacred renown, he went
-from hut to hut, endeavoring to propitiate the favor of Heaven by
-charitable deeds,—thus perhaps gaining for himself a more personal
-affection than the mere clannish regard which he in a measure shared
-with the actual proprietors of the vast estate, but which was not strong
-enough to insure him against the wit or malice of the dependent yet
-utterly indifferent and irresponsible host he attempted to govern. A
-doctor had been sent for, and also a priest; but neither appeared,—the
-priest perhaps because the last one, who had but lately left there, had
-given accounts of Doña Isabel’s proceedings little likely to be
-acceptable to the Church. This added to the perplexities of Don Rafael.
-
-In the midst of them he was one day accosted by Tomas, the husband of
-Florencia, who in tones of genuine distress, which for the time gave
-pathos to his usual drunken whine, bewailed the sickness of his wife,
-and related how, spurning his care, she called vainly upon her Uncle
-Pedro (not a day’s luck had befallen them since he had left them), and
-upon the Señorita Chinita (praying his grace’s pardon for mentioning one
-whom the Señora Doña Isabel herself had chosen to be a lady), to come
-and give her a cup of cold water,—as if he, Tomas, himself had not
-spilled over her a jar of honeyed _pulque_ in the vain effort to pour a
-draught down her parched throat. It was plain to see that the woman was
-doomed, and that it was for her the corpse-candles had been lighted.
-
-“The corpse-candles!” echoed Don Rafael,—for he well knew the popular
-superstition at Tres Hermanos, that when the burial lights were to burn
-in the great house, their spectral counterfeits were first seen in the
-ancient dwelling where the spirits of the early possessors of the
-hacienda still guarded treasures, which awaited some daring and
-fortunate claimant in a descendant who should combine their faith with a
-tenacity of purpose and an untiring energy worthy the riches that had
-eluded their own weak and inconstant efforts. Had indeed the conclave of
-shades gathered to welcome another unsuccessful toiler among them? Don
-Rafael shuddered and crossed himself, and wondered that there was no
-news of Doña Isabel. He gave Tomas a silver piece, and told him that it
-was not for Florencia, or even for his own mother, that the
-corpse-lights of the Garcias would burn blue, and sent him away
-comforted.
-
-An hour later, through the medium of the fiery liquors distilled from
-the agave, Tomas had so far strengthened his courage that he forgot the
-corpse-lights altogether, until he saw them again at midnight glimmering
-in the distance, not only behind the hacienda walls, but fitfully in the
-darkness of the middle distance. He crossed himself, as he fancied he
-caught at intervals glimpses of spectral bearers. His comrade on the
-watch jested at the fears that he opined transformed the soft brilliancy
-of the large and brilliant firefly into the light of ghostly candles;
-and Tomas was content to yield to the soporific charm of the mescal,
-rather than contest the matter with his drowsy comrade,—who, with a
-regularity which custom made invariable, at certain intervals awoke and
-emitted the shrill whistle that proclaimed that the sleepers of Tres
-Hermanos were safe beneath his vigilant care.
-
-Just at dawn the man straightened himself suddenly before the rampart
-against which he had been leaning, gazed over the landscape with keen
-apprehension, and uttered a faint cry of consternation. The sandy line
-between the hacienda gates and the village had become a living one.
-Whence had the figures stolen? There they stood motionless, horse and
-man. The watchman stooped and shook his unconscious comrade. “Mother of
-Jesus!” he cried; “your corpse-lights were in the hands of living men.
-They are here! they are here! Ah, they are knocking upon the doors! That
-fool Felipe is turning the key in the lock! Up! Up!” At the same moment
-his whistle sounded shrilly, and the crack of his rifle upon the air
-woke the slumbering tenants of the assaulted house.
-
-Too late! the unwary gatekeeper was surprised; the heavy doors were
-forced open, the courts in an instant were full of armed men, and Don
-Rafael, half dressed, staggering from his scarce tried slumbers, was
-seized by a half-dozen soldiers, while a voice he well knew, though it
-came as if from the dead, and knew to be that of a man who was as
-inflexible in act as unscrupulous in purpose, exclaimed,—
-
-“How now, Don Rafael? Doña Isabel Garcia has at last showed her true
-colors. It is for Gonzales and the Liberals the men and treasure of Tres
-Hermanos have been accumulating! What, nothing for her Mother the
-Church? Ah, it is the old story,—nothing for those of her own
-household!”
-
-The unwelcome intruder glanced around him with the air of one familiar
-with, yet inimical to, his surroundings; he laughed as he dropped the
-point of his sword upon the brick pave, and his spurred heel rang upon
-the stone step. Yet a close observer might have noticed a false note in
-the light and scornful tone, as though some poignant memory troubled his
-present purpose; and it was with a half evasive though still a
-threatening glance, that he lifted his eyes to encounter those of the
-administrador, who stood a disordered and helpless but resolute prisoner
-upon the steps above him.
-
-At the sound of voices and the tramp of men, Chata had run hastily out
-from the room of Doña Feliz, whose illness had approached a crisis. The
-press of men prevented her from reaching Don Rafael, who imperatively
-signed to her to retreat. Still she would have dared much to reach him;
-but catching a glimpse of the triumphant countenance of the man at the
-foot of the stairs, she drew back, covered her face with her hands and
-fled precipitately,—in fear for herself perhaps, but more with an
-instinctive feeling that her presence endangered rather than helped her
-foster-father. That the General José Ramirez had entered Tres Hermanos
-in a mood to seize any pretext to assume toward it and its people the
-_rôle_ of an injured and desperate man, was to be seen at a glance. The
-very soldiers had already divined as much, and were leading their horses
-and mules to drink at the fountain, and invading the arbor and lower
-rooms; the sound of their jests and laughter was mingling with the crash
-of the great flower-pots, carelessly pushed from their stands, and the
-sharp crack of jars of the quaint black and gilded ware of Guadalajara,
-which ornamented the corridors.
-
-Chata re-entered the room of the sick woman, with pallid face and lips,
-and eyes expanding with a terror such as the mere sight of the imminent
-destruction of material things alone could not have occasioned. Terrible
-had been the tales she had heard of houses laid waste and property
-destroyed; yet even when the horrors seemed about to be repeated around
-her, she felt that she could have endured them bravely as among the
-chances of war had not this invasion brought to her an intensely dreaded
-and peculiar danger. She passed the group of alarmed and excited women
-who gathered at the bedside, uttering exclamations of terror, and
-kneeling at the head of the couch she clasped in her own the hand of the
-unconscious Doña Feliz.
-
-“Grandmother, my dearest!” she murmured in a low voice, yet full of
-agony; “surely he will not tear me from thee! Oh, rather may I die with
-thee!”
-
-“Oh, by the saints,” cried the voice of Doña Rita in her ear, “for my
-child’s sake, Chata, rise and fly to him! It is thou only who canst save
-us. What did I tell thee in El Toro? Doña Isabel has ruined us! but for
-her foolhardiness in sending aid to Gonzales all might have been well;
-but that has brought the wrath of Ramirez upon Rafael!” She turned
-toward her prostrate mother-in-law, with something very like fury,
-clenching her hand and crying, “Ah! ah! your clever deception will not
-seem so happy a one when you wake to find it has killed your son! That
-is what you deserve! You deceived even me. Do you think had I known, I
-would for all the favor promised me have played mother to the brat of
-Leon Vallé?”
-
-The women ceased their cries to listen to this frantic outburst, which
-though but Greek to them, had a sound of mystery, which for the moment
-deadened their ears to the increasing tumult without. “Leon Vallé!” said
-one in an awe-struck voice,—“that was the Señora’s wicked brother.”
-
-“Leon Vallé!” echoed Chata, a new light dawning upon her. “Maria
-Sanctissima, can it be?”
-
-“What more natural?” cried Doña Rita, testily. “Was he ever weary of
-extorting some proof of Doña Isabel’s devotion? But _Dios mio_, there
-was to be an end of her infatuation! Had he not killed her child? What
-better chance for vengeance was she to find than to conceal, destroy,
-every trace of his, when with devilish mockery he thrust it upon her?
-But then he might have known it was like thrusting the lamb into the
-jaws of the wolf. On my faith, girl, it maddens me to see you standing
-there motionless, when it is as if the legions of Satanas himself were
-loose. Go! go! I say, to soothe him. Entreat him to restrain his troops.
-The house will be sacked. Who knows what horrors may follow!”
-
-“I will not go to him,” said Chata, slowly, a red spot burning upon
-either cheek, her eyes dark with horror. “If he is indeed the man you
-say, will he not defend the home of his sister? If I am his child, will
-he not claim me? If he does, I must submit; but go to him—No! To save
-the hacienda—what has Doña Isabel done for me? To save my life—no!”
-
-
-
-
-                                XXXVIII.
-
-
-In the few moments during which this scene had passed, the administrador
-at a sign from the General had been half forced—though he made no
-attempt at resistance—to the lower corridor. Thence he followed his
-captor to a dining-room, where a servant with terrified alacrity was
-already bringing in cups of chocolate for the breakfast, while a woman
-with a tray of small loaves of sweet-bread in her hands dropped it
-incontinently at sight of the dreaded Ramirez. He laughed, throwing
-himself into a chair, and looking around him with the furtive glance
-with which men involuntarily regard places or persons connected with
-memories distasteful or horrifying. There was an image of the Virgin of
-Guadalupe at one end of the apartment, with a small lamp burning before
-it. He crossed himself, and muttered an _Ave_ as he looked at it; then
-pointed to a second chair and the cups of chocolate.
-
-“It is early, Don Rafael,” he said lightly, “but I have a soldier’s
-appetite, which the fresh air has sharpened,—and you know the saying,
-that a stomach at rest makes an active brain; so accompany me, I
-entreat, in breaking the morning fast, and then let us to business.” And
-with a show of indifference, which imposed far better upon his
-followers, who made an interested throng around the door, than upon Don
-Rafael, he tasted the chocolate he had drawn to his side.
-
-The administrador remained standing, though the two soldiers, who had
-each held an arm, released their grasp and stepped back. Disconcerted by
-the thought that in his dishabille he could scarcely present a dignified
-figure, Don Rafael still maintained his composure sufficiently to refuse
-the proffered refreshment with the air of a man who questions the right
-of another to play the part of host,—assuming, in fact, toward the
-intruder rather the attitude of personal than of political hostility.
-
-Ramirez divined this, and his face darkened. “You know me, Don Rafael,”
-he said in a low tone, “and that I am a man to take no denials.”
-
-“Yes,” answered the administrador, shortly, “I know you. The saints must
-have blinded me that I was so easily deceived upon your last visit; but
-you had always the power to mask your face at will.”
-
-“Bah! every man has a dozen countenances at his command, if he but know
-how to summon them,” replied Ramirez, carelessly, “and a touch of art to
-fix their coloring, and twist the eyebrows or moustache. Why, even your
-mother was deceived! Where is she now? Ah! that woman was like Isabel
-herself; I swear she would have killed me, even when she seemed to love
-me most. It is the way of women, like serpents, to twine and sting at
-the same moment.”
-
-“My mother is dying,” said Don Rafael, lifting his eyes for a moment
-upon the face of the image of Mary. “Yet living or dying, it is not for
-a man to hear another speak lightly of his mother. But this is nothing
-to the purpose.”
-
-“Nothing,” replied the other, accepting the rebuke; “and I have no time
-to lose.” He seemed to forget the chocolate, pushing the cup from him,
-and turning as if to rise from the chair. “Look you, Rafael, what money
-did Isabel leave with you? Not half her resources went in that mad freak
-of raising a troop for Gonzales.”
-
-Perhaps Don Rafael had expected the question, for his countenance
-remained imperturbable. “There are horses and cattle and corn and men,
-still,” he answered. “The administrador of Tres Hermanos can do nothing
-to defend them; but the money,—by Heaven and the Holy Virgin, its
-hiding-place is known only to him, and he will die before you shall have
-another dollar to add to those which have cost so much blood and so many
-tears!”
-
-Ramirez’s eyes flashed; yet the look of astonishment which he threw upon
-the small, half-clothed man was as full of admiration as though he had
-been a king clad in royal robes. But even a king would not have thwarted
-Ramirez with impunity.
-
-“You know me,” he reiterated in the same intonation with which he had
-before spoken the words, allowing a long, dark, intimidating gaze to
-rest upon the face of Don Rafael.
-
-“Yes, I know you,” was the answer as before. “Yes, I know you; and it is
-for that reason I have said that never a dollar belonging to the woman
-you have so foully wronged shall pass into your hands. Thank Heaven that
-she is not here to be tempted! Thank God that while the identity of
-Ramirez with the bane and curse of the house of Garcia has been shaping
-itself in my mind, no hint of the truth has been in hers!”
-
-“I do not believe it!” cried Ramirez, violently. “She hates me! for the
-sake of that puling boy and her dotard husband she hates me still! ‘The
-bane of the house of Garcia,’ said you. Why, what man among them has a
-name beyond his own door-stone but me? And the women! Ah, ah! What saint
-would have saved the fame of the women of the house of Garcia had it not
-been for me?”
-
-Don Rafael glanced around him warningly,—the room was full of strange
-faces, beginning to light with wondering curiosity at this strange
-conversation, so different in substance from that usual between the
-guerilla and his victims. This was no place in which to talk of women;
-yet Don Rafael himself desired to avoid a private interview with this
-man, while Ramirez on his part assumed an ostentatious air of having
-nothing to conceal,—nothing that he might be ashamed his followers
-should learn. He knew, in fact, that at that crisis, surrounded as he
-was by the most unscrupulous and desperate characters, the prestige of
-his mad career might be advantageously heightened rather than
-diminished, if he would keep his ascendency. Don Rafael read his
-thought, and lest in very hardihood his opponent should be led to
-accusations or revelations it would be impossible for him to leave
-unanswered, he began one of those long and desultory conversations that,
-while apparently frank and unstudied, are triumphs in the art of
-avoiding or concealing the real subject at issue.
-
-Ramirez, well as he knew the tricks of the genuine ranchero, whether of
-the higher or lower grade, was himself for a time deceived,—for, with
-far less than his usual astuteness, he allowed himself to lapse into
-occasional denunciations, and to make demands of the administrador that
-increased the curiosity and interest of his listeners. These did not in
-any degree shake the constancy of Don Rafael, who, with the thought that
-the crisis of his life was approaching, crossed his arms upon his breast
-and fortified his courage with the remembrance of the vows by which he
-had pledged himself, and the less heroic satisfaction that he promised
-himself then in thwarting the plans of a man whose will had been as
-triumphant as it was insatiable.
-
-Meanwhile, the tumult in the house increased. A wild rumor had spread
-that the General José Ramirez was by right the master of the place and
-all it contained. Some said he was the lover, others the brother, of
-Doña Isabel. At last, even the name by which he had been known there
-began to be shouted, though the sound of it was less popular than that
-by which he had won his way later to fame. Still, it gave a certain
-authority for license where there had been before a show of restraint;
-and a speedy assault was made upon the store-rooms and granaries, and
-even upon the inner chambers and courts, which contained nothing but
-furniture and ornaments,—useless to soldiers on the march, or even as
-booty for their wives and followers.
-
-Ramirez listened to the tumult without attempting to interfere.
-Evidently his object was to break the resolution of Sanchez by an
-exhibition of the destructive and unscrupulous character of his
-followers. But Don Rafael never winced except once, when the cry of a
-woman pierced the apartment.
-
-Ramirez heard it also. “Ah! it came from the kitchens, from some
-scullery-maid,” he commented after a moment. “Now, Don Rafael, you see
-and hear for yourself what a crew of devils I have with me,—just the
-riff-raff of the mountains, whom that cursed Pedro failed to wile away
-from me. _Caramba!_ never was a surprise greater. It would not have
-happened but that like a fool I lingered near El Toro waiting for a
-chance to pounce upon Gonzales. Never let a private vengeance sway the
-judgment,” he added sententiously. “A thousand devils! It seems as if
-the hacienda were tumbling about our ears! Yet at a word I can stop it.
-Where is the money?”
-
-“If the din never ceases till I reveal that,” answered Don Rafael,
-doggedly, “you will never have your revenge on Gonzales; for what I have
-sworn I have sworn. The flocks and herds I can’t defend; and what are a
-few hundred beeves or horses? But the money; no, by God! if Doña Isabel
-herself should command it, I would not suffer that another coin should
-touch your bloody hand!”
-
-Ramirez started up with an oath. Involuntarily he glanced at his hand.
-It would not have surprised him to have seen it literally red,—and,
-strangely enough, the blood gushing from the fatal wound he had dealt
-the American, just from the arms of Herlinda, rather than that of his
-nephew or Don Gregorio, was that which presented itself to his mind. He
-walked the room in a new and undefinable excitement. The sight of Don
-Rafael, to whom the destruction of the property that was precious as his
-life seemed as nothing to the pleasure of baffling the man he abhorred
-of the money he believed absolutely necessary to his success in leading
-troops to encounter the well-reinforced and well-equipped Gonzales,
-revealed to him the hatred and horror in which he was held. Doubtless
-that of the servant was but a mere reflection of that of Doña Isabel.
-
-Well, let them hate him with reason; let the wild mountaineers take
-their own sport unchecked. He heard one of the clerks, flying rather
-than running through the corridor, exclaim that Don Rafael must come, or
-there would be a famine in the place before the next harvest; that the
-great storehouses of maize had been forced open, and the contents
-scattered throughout the village for horses and men to tread under their
-feet; and that the very oxen and sheep were revelling in the abundance,
-liable to destroy themselves by very excess, even if the soldiers should
-fail to drive them before them.
-
-Ramirez and the administrador glanced at each other. They had not spoken
-for many minutes, each feeling the other implacable, yet each perhaps
-believing that the wanton destruction would appeal to the other’s weaker
-or better nature. Ramirez grew crimson, almost black, with inward
-rage,—rage as great with those who were wreaking destruction on his
-sister’s house, as with this insignificant yet determined man who
-withstood it. Don Rafael was white as death, his lips blue, his eyes
-strained; again the cry of a woman sounded on the air! It came from
-above. He started toward the door. A dozen hands seized him. Ramirez
-turned upon him with his drawn sword.
-
-“Where is my daughter?” he demanded in a voice of fury. “I will find a
-way to force the gold from you, but first my daughter,—where is she?”
-
-“Your daughter?” echoed Don Rafael in a tone of such absolute amazement
-that even Ramirez was for a second distracted from his rage.
-
-“Yes, my daughter! She whom you have aided Isabel to hide from me all
-these years. Faith, it was a pretty trick,—an eye for an eye, with a
-vengeance. But after all it was a petty plot, and soon fathomed. You
-were less jealous of flesh and blood than of this cursed gold, and gave
-me the first inkling of her whereabouts yourself.”
-
-“I?” exclaimed the administrador; “I? What know I of a child of yours?”
-
-“Ah, that is what you must satisfy me of. Where is she,—the Chata, whom
-you nodded and hinted about so mysteriously in your cups so many years
-ago?”
-
-Don Rafael—if it were possible—turned a shade whiter than before; his
-form seemed to shrink, his heart sank with guilty shame and absolute
-terror. How well he remembered those few words, which, though so
-indirect and apparently unimportant, he had thought of with remorse a
-thousand times. And to what a terrible, though utterly unforeseen,
-conclusion they had led this man! He lifted his hands above his head.
-
-“By the Blessed Mother, I swear,” he said, “that I know not what you
-mean! I know nothing of a child of yours!”
-
-Ramirez looked at him contemptuously. “You will tell me next that the
-child your wife denies is yours,” he said.
-
-In effect it had been upon the lips of Don Rafael to claim Chata as his
-daughter, as he had done a thousand times before. Was she not his before
-all the world? Had she not been from the very moment the eyes of his
-wife had rested upon her? But she had betrayed the confidence to which
-she had been but partially admitted,—Rita! He hesitated, and Ramirez
-seized the advantage.
-
-“You dare not!” he exclaimed. “Your wife has confessed all: it will
-never do to trust a woman with a secret in company of a man who cares to
-learn it, though very perversity might keep her silent with a world of
-women.” The sight of the discomfiture of Don Rafael had restored to
-Ramirez some portion of good nature. “The screeching has ceased,” he
-added. “Yet I am a fond father. I would assure myself of my child’s
-safety. Where is the girl? I must and will see her, if but to tell her
-why I played her false last week. Where is my daughter?”
-
-Don Rafael’s face, which throughout this interview had retained its
-pallor, crimsoned with excess of agitation. The mystery of Chata’s visit
-to the hacienda was revealed. Had she met this man? Did she know—did she
-believe? He remembered her changed aspect, her silence, her tears.
-Ramirez stood watching him with impatience, yet triumph. The crimson
-flush convicted the administrador. Don Rafael strove in vain to steady
-the glance of his suffused and burning eyes, to still the throbbing of
-his temples, while he sought to command the most impressive and
-convincing words in which to answer and forever silence this mad
-assumption. But none presented themselves. The group around listened
-breathlessly, more excited than Ramirez himself. They looked silently
-from face to face of the two men who were engaged in this singular
-dispute. Inside the room one might have heard a feather float through
-the air, so deep was the silence; and at last, in despair of finding
-imposing words, the administrador uttered the simple denial, “Chata is
-not your child.”
-
-Most of the men drew back for the moment convinced. Not so Ramirez. “It
-is false!” he cried. “I have your own maudlin hint, and your wife’s
-positive confession, that the girl is neither hers nor yours.”
-
-Don Rafael grew pale again. There was that in his face which would have
-augured ill to Doña Rita had she seen it; but he said with an effort, “I
-will not give my wife the lie. The child is neither mine nor hers!”
-
-“Then whose—whose but mine?” demanded Ramirez fiercely.
-
-Don Rafael paused a moment as before. In an instant he had recalled
-the circumstances that had attended the adoption of the child. Rita
-had been young, placable, easily pleased with a gift: the fewer
-confidants the better; it was ever the duty of a Mexican wife to obey
-unquestioningly,—she had been obedient then; it had not been necessary
-that she should know more than it had been wise to tell. Don Rafael
-drew a deep breath of relief. Ramirez and the group around him watched
-him narrowly.
-
-“Declare then!” queried Ramirez at last, “whose daughter is she if not
-mine?”
-
-“I will not say,” answered Don Rafael; “but I do swear she is not yours.
-Stay,” he added, struck with an idea. “What reason have you for thinking
-she is yours?”
-
-“Reason!” echoed Ramirez scornfully; “because fifteen years ago, more or
-less,—perhaps you have reason here to remember well that year,—I sent my
-child here, to Doña Isabel: it was a whim of mine that she should have
-tender nurture and decent training. I was a fool to trust a woman’s
-love. Of course Isabel remembered her own bantling, though I had even
-some foolish thought that the little one I sent might console her,—most
-women have hearts for baby wants and fancies that sicken men. Of course
-for her it was a chance for revenge too good to be lost. I have been in
-two minds ever since I knew how she scorned my trust whether to be angry
-or pleased with you for aiding her purpose. But let it pass; yield the
-child and the money quietly and”—he looked over his shoulder with an
-impatient frown—“that infernal tumult and destruction shall cease. If
-not—”
-
-“I will yield neither the girl nor the money;” replied Don Rafael. “They
-are neither of them mine nor yours; but I have possession of both, and
-will keep them.—Surely Rita has both girls in the secret recess, as we
-have always planned in such a case as this,” he thought, with a qualm at
-the remembrance of his wife’s treason, as revealed by Ramirez. “Surely
-at such a time she will protect a young damsel, even though she be not
-her own child.”
-
-Ramirez looked at him with a lowering brow, repeating again, “If not
-mine, whose child is she? By Heaven, I know she is mine! There could not
-be on all the earth a creature in whom Doña Isabel or Feliz or yourself
-could have so deep an interest as to trouble yourself for life with his
-child. It is incredible, impossible. Unless she is—” He paused on the
-name, looked round him, clinched his hands, advanced to Don Rafael, and
-gazed searchingly into his face.
-
-Don Rafael did not flinch. Ramirez burst into a laugh. “I would have
-killed you had you dared even to have looked askance,” he said.
-“_Caramba!_ the women of the Garcias may be fools or devils,—they have
-shown the spirit of both; but if a man should ever kill another because
-of one of them, it would be for his daring, not in revenge of his
-triumph.”
-
-Did these words indicate a tardy repentance, a conviction that Herlinda
-had been indiscreet but innocent? Don Rafael had no time to discuss the
-question with himself; but he had such new insight into the mind of
-Ramirez that he was warned from giving any fresh cause of offence. Had
-he had no previous reasons, it would have been a sufficient one for him
-to keep inviolate the secret which he had sworn to preserve to his
-life’s end. In his present humor, the man with whom he had to deal would
-in his baffled and vengeful rage have spared neither the name nor fame
-of even his own mother, had occasion offered to tempt him to blacken it.
-Don Rafael believed the women of his household as well as the money safe
-in the hiding places he had constructed for them,—the first known to
-Doña Feliz and Doña Rita, the second to himself alone. To any fate that
-might befall himself he looked with stoical courage if not indifference.
-Leaning against the wall, he crossed his arms defiantly and awaited
-events.
-
-
-
-
-                                 XXXIX.
-
-
-At high noon a terrible and heartrending wail of anguish sounded through
-the house, penetrating with dismal insistence through the clamor of the
-soldiery and the thousand indescribable noises of the animals, which had
-been hastily collected; and which added the element of mere brute
-bewilderment to the scarcely more reasonably restrained terror of the
-people.
-
-Ramirez had recognized the obstinate defiance of the administrador. More
-than once before he had dealt with others as tenacious of the interests
-of those they served. He had no time to lose in vain persuasions, and
-had himself conducted the search throughout the vast building, of which
-he believed he knew every nook and corner. But he had to his amazement
-and chagrin found neither treasure nor any member of the family of the
-administrador save the apparently dying Doña Feliz. After a fruitless
-endeavor to recall her to consciousness, he left her with a curse, and
-returning to her son, assaulted him with menaces, alternated with fair
-promises,—the one as little regarded as the other.
-
-Upon one subject only would Don Rafael permit himself to speak; and to
-that Ramirez, in his rage, refused to listen. The suggestion that his
-daughter, if indeed he had a reason to seek one there, might prove to be
-Chinita, the foster-daughter of Pedro Gomez, he received with utter
-contempt. He remembered her well, he said; an imp as black as Pedro
-himself,—black as he must be now, scorching in Hades. That little demon
-was none of his, while Chata had the very face of his mother,—the face
-of an angel. Ah! ah! that was indeed a daring jest, that Isabel should
-strive to palm off upon him the brat of her doorkeeper! Once long
-before, like the witch she was, the girl had stopped him and thrust into
-his hand an amulet,—he drew it from his pocket, and cast it from him. By
-the way, now Pedro was dead, if Rafael still believed her worth a
-thought, he had better see in such a day as this that she had some other
-protector. She must be nearly a woman now!
-
-Ramirez fell into greater rage when he learned that Doña Isabel had
-taken charge of this despised waif. He swore that it was in mockery of
-himself; and Don Rafael soon perceiving that every word he uttered was
-construed as an attempt to deceive, and fearing that at some time it
-might bring evil upon the girl to whom, whether she were the daughter of
-Ramirez or no, he certainly desired no harm, the administrador became
-utterly silent, in his heart commending the prudence of Rita in
-following this time with exactness his instructions, and condoning the
-treason of which by the assurances of Ramirez he had been forced to
-believe her guilty.
-
-In truth, although at first the alarmed and not too scrupulous woman had
-urged Chata to secure the safety of herself and her child by claiming
-the protection of Ramirez, as time passed and he made no movement toward
-such recognition she began to distrust the effect it might produce upon
-the renowned guerilla. He and his soldiers were there for plunder and
-rapine, not paternal sentiment. As the cries of the women-servants and
-villagers reached her, the resolution to seek safety in concealment
-seized her. Though still far from wishing to conceal Chata from Ramirez,
-to whom the accidental sight of her might recall some sense of mercy or
-tenderness, she feared both him and her husband too greatly to dare
-leave her to the chance of insult from the licentious soldiery. But
-Chata absolutely refused to leave Doña Feliz, from whose side even the
-servants had fled; and it was her scream that had penetrated to the
-rooms below, when, by the friendly force of Don Alonzo, she was immured
-with Doña Rita and Rosario in the secret recess, which Don Rafael had
-constructed with a vague apprehension of such an emergency.
-
-It chanced that this recess, which was in the immensely thick outer wall
-of the great house, was dimly lighted and ventilated by a loop-hole so
-small as to be barely visible from without, but which opened funnel-like
-toward the inside of the apartment. Through this loop-hole these three
-women, whose voices were quite inaudible to those either within or
-without the building, heard confusedly the village cries, and caught
-uncertain glimpses of the space outside the hacienda gates. After what
-seemed hours of incarceration, during which Rosario had fretted and
-slept, and Doña Rita had alternately chided and lamented, while Chata
-entreated to be released that she might return to the side of Doña
-Feliz, they saw with anxious surprise a crowd gathering upon the sandy
-slope; not of the soldiery alone, but the people of the
-hacienda,—clerks, workmen, women who were wringing their hands and
-uttering sharp cries of terror and entreaty, which ended in that deep
-wail, which seemed to signify some agonizing catastrophe.
-
-Doña Rita was the first to divine what was happening. “Maria Purissima!”
-she cried. “Is it possible Rafael is as mad as the administrador of Los
-Chalcos,—that he has refused some demand? Does he not remember how
-Ramirez caused that poor foolish one to be hanged without mercy! O my
-husband, my husband! Oh! has he no thought for me, for his child, that
-he will sacrifice his life for Doña Isabel? How will she thank him?
-Whoever thinks twice of the foolhardy obstinacy of an administrador?”
-
-Chata sprang to her feet. “Give me the key!” she cried. “Let me go! Now
-if Ramirez is my father, he shall prove it! Would he deny his daughter
-the life of her foster-father? Give me the key!”
-
-“No, no!” screamed Doña Rita, “the place is full of ruffians. Ramirez
-himself is a tiger! I—” but Chata had wrenched the key from her numbed
-and shaking hands, and thrusting it in the lock had turned the grating
-wards.
-
-When she rushed into the corridors they were empty,—there was a sight to
-behold elsewhere. On she flew, not noticing that Doña Rita and Rosario
-followed, and that their shrieks rose with hers, as in a minute or less
-they reached the outer court, and strove to penetrate the throng that
-filled it and extended to the village beyond.
-
-Within the high arch of the doorway, clear against the deep blue of the
-mid-day sky, swayed the figure of a man,—of Rafael Sanchez. Below, sword
-in hand, stood Ramirez and two panting laborers who that instant had
-accomplished his decree. Around them were gathered scores of armed men,
-evil-eyed, with the ferocity of brutes in their faces; and Ramirez stood
-pre-eminent, a very demon.
-
-The crowd parted like water before the shrieks of the three women. In a
-moment Chata reached the side of Ramirez, and grasped his sword. “Spare
-him! spare him!” she demanded rather than entreated. “If I am your
-daughter, cut the rope! Spare him, and do as you like with me; else I
-swear I will die with him rather than be known as your child!”
-
-The women were on their knees,—not Doña Rita and Rosario alone, but all
-those of the village. Sobs and entreaties filled the air. Ramirez threw
-a glance of triumphant admiration upon Chata, and put one arm around
-her, while he raised the other, pointing with a nod to the swaying
-figure.
-
-A man sprang to cut the rope, and the administrador fell into the dozen
-arms stretched out to receive him. Chata saw with infinite joy that he
-was not dead. He threw up his arms, gasped, opened wide-staring eyes. A
-moment later, she was hurried away. Half-fainting though she was, she
-was glad to escape that embrace from which she dared not shrink.
-
-“Ah, Rafael, you are conquered,—I have the girl! And now where is the
-gold?” she heard Ramirez exclaim, and saw the gesture of defiance with
-which the scarce conscious victim answered this demand.
-
-An hour later Chata was riding by the side of the baffled Ramirez. She
-knew not whether her foster-father was living or dead, and dared not
-ask; but stifling her sobs, looked back through a mist of tears upon the
-desolated hacienda. It was incredible even to her horrified and longing
-gaze, the terrible devastation that had been worked in a few short
-hours. Seemingly to complete its ruin, a thunder-cloud, which had been
-lurking over the valley, discharged its contents over the devoted house.
-Upon the hills the sun shone; Chata was safe from the fury of the storm.
-And yet she felt as though the very wrath of heaven had burst over her.
-
-“_Caramba_, Chatita! thou wilt make a soldier’s daughter yet!” Ramirez
-was exclaiming. “By my faith, I am proud of thee!” In spite of the
-unattained gold, he pressed on in rare good humor. His fury, like the
-storm, was quickly expended. “And by our Lady of Glory I am glad that
-you came in time to save that obstinate fool, Rafael. He has, after all
-is said, served me a good turn in aiding Isabel to put what she meant
-for a shabby trick upon me. _Caramba!_ It was clever of her. I should
-never have discovered it but for a slip of the tongue on Rafael’s part
-which no one else would have noticed, and but for thy wonderful likeness
-to my mother,—the angels give her good rest!”
-
-Chata could not be grateful for this favor of nature; it seemed to her
-indeed the bitterest spite that could have been wreaked upon her. She
-turned her eyes upon the face of Ramirez with a questioning glance,
-which startled him: those gray eyes, limpid and clear as they were, were
-far different from the large, languorous, black ones of his mother,—yet
-not unfamiliar. Where had he seen such before? The inquiry was not worth
-a special effort of memory. Enough that the eyes were beautiful. The
-very softness and appeal in their expression held a peculiar charm for
-this fierce, hard spirit. He had begun a denunciation of the revenge
-practised against him by his sister, but he abruptly paused. What if
-this young creature knew nothing of those wild deeds of bygone years?
-Why shock her tender and immature mind by the recital of such episodes
-as she would view but at their darkest? For the first time in his life
-he felt the impossibility of impressing his hearer with the daring
-rather than the villany of his deeds, and rode beside her in silence,
-furtively watching her face, which with wonderful control, indicating a
-latent strength of character, she suffered to reveal none of the horror
-or fear with which he inspired her, but only the natural grief with
-which she had been separated from the home of her childhood.
-
-Indeed, the thought of Doña Feliz was the dominant one in Chata’s mind,
-and prevented any serious grief or alarm as to her own situation. The
-question of her own safety or future position troubled her little. It
-was the fact of her separation from the beloved and stricken friend, who
-was so dependent upon her care, and her absolute horror of the murderer
-of the American,—for as such Ramirez ever figured in her thoughts,—which
-rendered it so difficult a task for her to retain her self-possession
-and answer with calmness the few questions or remarks that were from
-time to time addressed to her.
-
-Chata soon perceived that as the day wore on, and she began to exhibit
-signs of fatigue from the hurried march and the heat, her presence
-caused far more anxiety than triumph to her captor. “The old folly!” he
-muttered from time to time,—“to act without counting the cost. I doubt
-whether there is a decent woman among this drove of camp-followers. If I
-had but thought to bring one from the hacienda! In fact, it was a fool’s
-act to bring the child at all, with such work before me as I have!”
-
-Chata caught these broken sentences with a wild hope that he might
-decree her return to Tres Hermanos. Willingly would she have risked
-going alone on foot if necessary. But the sun set, the shades of evening
-closed in, and the hurried march was still pursued, until, when she was
-ready to faint with fatigue, the General ordered a halt, and lifting her
-from the saddle, placed her upon a pile of blankets; while a half-dozen
-men set to work with practised hands to build a little hut or tent of
-mesquite and manzanita boughs to shelter her from the night air.
-
-As the weary girl sat near the tent fire, endeavoring to eat the food of
-which she stood in much need, but for which she could not force an
-appetite, she found herself the centre of a wild horde of perhaps nearly
-five hundred persons, of whom a fifth were women and children, who were
-busy at the fires preparing the evening meal while the men were staking
-horses, or patrolling the circle of the camp, keeping within bounds the
-hard-driven and panting cattle and sheep, whose distressing lowing and
-bleating at intervals filled the air. Apparently there was an entire
-lack of discipline, the unreasoning enthusiasm of the moment and the
-personal magnetism of the renowned leader serving to hold the unruly
-elements subservient to the necessities of the occasion, and obedient to
-his slightest mandate. The majority of the troops were of the most wild
-and even savage appearance; for, as their leader had said, they were the
-riff-raff, the scourings of the mountain villages and remote farms.
-Chata was not unaccustomed to the sight of such individuals, but in mass
-the impression they made upon her was of concentrated evil. The trace of
-gentler feeling that each face or person might have revealed on scrutiny
-was lost in the prevailing ferocity of expression and accoutrement. The
-clash of arms, the jingle of spurs, the hoarse voices made her shudder
-no less than the sullen faces, the gleaming eyes, and the sinewy and
-powerful frames.
-
-Strangely enough, as her eyes followed Ramirez, a sense of his complete
-harmony with his surroundings seemed in the girl’s mind to condone the
-wild deeds of which he had figured as the hero. She realized for the
-first time the fascination that unlimited power over such elements must
-exercise over a mind given to daring, and uncontrolled by any moral
-principle. She thought of Chinita, and how her adventurous spirit would
-have exulted in such an adventure as this. As she gazed into the fire
-the very face of that fearless, enigmatic young nature seemed to rise
-before her, beautiful, passionate, yet with that capacity of endurance,
-which in a man might become cruelty, that capricious changeableness,
-which one moment dissolved in tears, and the next shone in a smile. So
-real was the vision that Chata started, and found herself gazing
-affrightedly into the face of Ramirez, who was regarding her with the
-expression of mingled affection, triumph, and vexation which had not
-left his countenance since he had set her upon Doña Rita’s favorite
-horse at the door of the hacienda.
-
-“I have a notable project in my mind for you,” he said abruptly. “You
-know that I am the Governor of Guanapila.”
-
-“Yes,” she said timidly; “but I thought—” she hesitated, fearing to
-offend.
-
-“Ah, you thought I was beaten and barred out. They will find I am
-neither one nor the other. The gate is shut but not bolted, and it will
-be hard if I find not a way to creep in. It is impossible for me to keep
-you with me on the march. You must be with some woman.”
-
-“Oh, I would rather be with you. Indeed I will give no trouble! I will
-be brave!” she exclaimed, instinctively shrinking from the thought of
-contact with such women as she saw around her.
-
-He smiled with gratification, his egotistic nature flattered by the
-thought that he was gaining her confidence; but his face darkened as she
-added with hesitation, “I had hoped—I thought perhaps you were taking me
-to my mother.”
-
-“It is not of your mother I was thinking,” he said ambiguously, “when I
-spoke of Guanapila, but of my niece Carmen de Velasquez. She knows that
-the General Ramirez once sent an escort with her mother to Tres
-Hermanos, and levied upon her husband for a loan of ten thousand dollars
-when he might have had five times as much,—for the old fellow she has
-married is rich, and does honor to the financial acumen of the fair
-Carmen, and we will see whether she has a just appreciation of the
-favors I am supposed to have rendered her. There, go to your tent and
-sleep in peace; in three days you shall be safe within the house of
-Velasquez in Guanapila.”
-
-It cannot be said that Chata slept in peace; yet the prospect was
-reassuring, and enabled her to bear with resignation the fatigues and
-excitements of the following days, and the loneliness and terrors of the
-nights. The General slept before the opening of her tent. Upon the
-fourth night he awoke her, and handed her a torn and shabby reboso and a
-skirt of coarse red cloth, with instructions to put them on. She did so
-with some repugnance, though the clothing she left was not better; and
-at a call stepped out into the starlight. The young Captain Alva
-preceded her in silence outside the limits of the camp, where two horses
-were in waiting, held by a man whom at the first startled glance she
-failed to recognize. It would have horrified her beyond control had she
-known that in his size and air and dress he was the image of the
-ranchero who had entered Tres Hermanos on the night of the murder, years
-before. She uttered a cry of relief as Ramirez greeted her.
-
-“Ah, is it not a perfect disguise?” he said. “Why, I might go into El
-Toro itself with impunity! Mount, child, and keep close at my side!”
-
-In a minute or less, with the assistance of Alva, Chata was ready for
-the start,—her courage rising with the sense of mystery and daring under
-which Ramirez seemed to glow and expand. He paused to give his last
-commands to Alva, of which she heard only the concluding words: “Reyes
-should be here by daylight. Keep him at all hazards, for he must sound
-Ruiz before another day passes. _Caramba!_ I cannot believe that fellow
-has failed me; but whether or no, the end will be the same,—except that
-I swear if Ruiz prove false, were he twice my godson he shall not escape
-my vengeance.”
-
-The General pulled his hat over his eyes, waved his hand, struck the
-spurs into his horse, and led the way at a swift canter. Chata until
-within the last few days had never ridden on horseback; but she was
-singularly free from fear or awkwardness, and with ease, though in
-silence, kept at his side.
-
-“Chata,” Ramirez once said abruptly, turning his dark and piercing eyes
-upon her, “I am risking much for your sake. Remember that you are my
-daughter. Be faithful to me, obey my bidding, and I will cherish you as
-the apple of my eye. It may depend upon you whether the troops of Doña
-Isabel follow my lead or that of Gonzales. You will know my meaning
-later; but I swear to you, as I have done by Ruiz, my vengeance shall
-rest upon whomsoever balks me,—yes, if it is even you, the newfound
-daughter whom I love.”
-
-Chata trembled. Though his words were an enigma, they indicated that her
-_rôle_ was not to be an utterly passive one. Her companion awaited no
-answer, and Chata did not attempt to make one. They rode on at ever
-increasing speed as the night advanced. Just at daybreak they reached a
-hut, which was placed at the mouth of a cañon. There they left their
-horses, and an old woman appeared with a crate of turkeys in each hand,
-one of which she gave to the disguised chieftain, the other to the
-wondering Chata.
-
-An hour later they were in the streets of Guanapila, and before they had
-broken their fast Chata sat overcome with fatigue and dismay upon the
-stone stairs that led to the corridor of a palatial residence. The
-ranchero, as the servants supposed him, had gone to speak with the lady
-of the mansion. It was a long time before he re-appeared; and when he
-did, a beautiful woman preceded him. She was very pale, and there was in
-her eyes an incredulous and startled expression, which changed to pity
-as her gaze fell upon Chata,—who, looking up, thought of the pale and
-lovely face she had seen but once, and knew she must be in the presence
-of Carmen, the sister of the nun of El Toro.
-
-Ramirez whispered a word in the ear of the bewildered girl, it might be
-of warning or of farewell; but her senses failed her,—she neither saw
-nor heard more.
-
-“Go, go!” cried the mistress of the house. “For God’s sake go, before
-there is any one to wonder. Whether your tale be true or false, she has
-the face of a Garcia, and a loveliness and sweetness of her own. I will
-guard her as though she were my child. Go, go! and the saints grant you
-a safe passage. I will not betray your confidence. Ah, she has fainted!
-I will manage that; it shall be my pretext for charity.”
-
-Ramirez kissed the hand of the unconscious Chata, and turned away. For
-once he had executed an act of extreme self-denial, yet amid it all his
-crafty mind foresaw how he might use it to his advantage.
-
-The exit from the city was readily effected, but Ramirez did not proceed
-many miles unrecognized after mounting his horse at the hut where he had
-left it. The man who spoke his name unhesitatingly, though in a cautious
-voice, was Reyes. He gave the General unwelcome tidings. Gonzales had
-joined forces with those of Tres Hermanos. He had risked the attack and
-occupation of El Toro, and it was conjectured would attempt the march to
-the Capital itself, round which the audacious Juarez was from his
-stronghold in Vera Cruz directing the concentration of the Liberal
-forces.
-
-Ramirez ground his teeth in rage. “I have been delayed and hampered by
-that girl,” he cried. “Could I but have gone straight to Ruiz, he would
-not have dared defy me. As it is—”
-
-“As it is,” interrupted Reyes, “all is not yet lost. I have still to see
-Ruiz,—he is not my son if it is impossible to convince him upon which
-hot plate the cake is best toasted.”
-
-The conference of the two men lasted but a few moments. They had been so
-accustomed in their long intercourse to treat of subjects of which one
-was as well informed as the other, and upon the course to be taken at
-the present time they were so well agreed, that they parted with no
-attempt at explanation, but simply after a few words of instruction had
-been given by Ramirez to the other.
-
-“Tell him,” the chief said finally, “I am ready to fulfil my word; and
-if Ruiz be anxious to see her, let him risk as much for love as I have
-done. She is at the house of Doña Carmen Velasquez in Guanapila; and
-tell him as surely as he is my godson and your son he shall be shot as a
-traitor if he fails me in this affair. Good-by for a time; good news or
-bad news, my blood is up for a desperate venture now. It cannot be that
-after all these years luck is turning against me at last.”
-
-“It did that years ago when you stabbed the American,” thought Reyes as
-they parted; “it was that that weighted the scale. That accursed
-foreigner who is here to avenge him has upset all our plans for
-misleading Gonzales. With both together Ramirez has fearful odds against
-him, which even with the help of Ruiz and his men he may find it hard to
-combat. But how in heaven’s name has the General his daughter with him?
-_Caramba!_ I have often wondered how he would relish that drunken freak
-of mine! Faith, I did not care to try his temper to-night by many
-questions. Well, who would have thought he would have kept in the same
-mind for so many years! To think of his striving to give her the family
-training at this late date! Ah, ah, ah! it is more likely to mar than to
-make her. If Fernando is of my mind he will wait in such a matter for no
-pruning and training, but pluck the flower while it is within his reach,
-thorns and all.”
-
-With which poetic simile, Tio Reyes rode on well pleased on his errand
-to the young Ruiz, while Ramirez, proceeding rapidly in the opposite
-direction, regained within the hour his enthusiastic but disorderly
-horde.
-
-XL.
-
-Vain would be the attempt to describe the consternation of Doña Isabel
-when she awoke at early dawn, and felt about her that peculiar
-stillness—a stillness that seems absolutely tangible—which indicates the
-abstraction of the element of humanity from the associations about us,
-and is especially impressive when that loss is utterly unexpected.
-
-It was not yet daylight, and it was by this peculiar stillness, and not
-by sight, that Doña Isabel learned with a deadly feeling of dismay at
-her heart, that she was alone. For a moment she lay silent, then raising
-herself on her elbow sought to peer through the gloom, while with
-faltering voice she uttered the name “Chinita.”
-
-There was no answer. She would have been inexpressibly surprised had
-there been; and yet refusing to be convinced, she arose from her bed and
-made her way to that of Chinita. Had the girl been there, in the
-infinite relief and excitement of the moment the lady must have clasped
-her in her arms with kisses and tears; as it was, after passing her
-hands wildly over the empty couch, she sank upon it with a deep and
-bitter moan, feeling anew, and with the intensified agony of
-remembrance, the shock with which she had heard the cry of Herlinda,—“My
-husband! My husband!” What but a like betrayal could in that place and
-time have drawn a young girl from her chamber? Alas! alas!
-
-The thoughts of Doña Isabel flew to Ruiz; a thousand trifles, unheeded
-before, crowded her remembrance as confirmation of some secret
-understanding between him and Chinita. If she had noticed them at all it
-was to think with a smile that they had reference to Rosario. How had
-she been so blind! She sprang to her feet and hastily dressed herself
-with some undefined intention of seeking him in his quarters, and
-demanding an explanation of him if he were to be found, or of confirming
-her worst fears if he had fled. All her old distrust of him, which he
-had so skilfully lulled, returned with overwhelming force, and in her
-unfounded suspicion she included the more just one of treason to her
-purposes to the cause of liberty and to Gonzales, and with irresistible
-certainty became convinced that the delays and detours which Ruiz had
-made had been expedients of traitorous policy. In the few moments needed
-for the completion of her toilet, a terrible fear took possession of
-her. For the first time that night she had been separated from the main
-body of the troops,—what if she were abandoned! Nothing seemed more
-likely. Only the great self-possession that she habitually practised
-prevented her from rushing out—yes, even into the streets of the
-village—to satisfy herself that the rude encampment remained unbroken.
-
-Yet with all this raging excitement of grief and doubt within her, she
-presently stepped out upon the corridor with that stately calmness which
-she ever wore before the world, were it represented by but the meanest
-peasant. Day had scarcely broken, yet there was a sound of movement
-unusual in so small a place. To the excited mind of Doña Isabel it
-appeared that like herself the people all must be searching wildly for
-the girl who had so strangely escaped her. She went to the inn door and
-looked out. The camp-women were wandering through the streets already,
-chaffering and bargaining with the vendors of milk and bread and
-vegetables. In the distance she saw the soldiers preparing for the
-march. Three or four officers were lounging down the narrow street. To
-her infinite surprise and relief she saw among them Ruiz. He hastened
-his steps and joined her with an air of consternation, which even in her
-excitement she noticed had in it a subdued suggestion of apprehension as
-of one detected in some doubtful act.
-
-In a few words Doña Isabel apprised him of the disappearance of Chinita.
-It was impossible that it could be concealed; it was absolutely
-necessary that search should be made. Ruiz listened with an emotion
-greater even than hers. “Good heavens, Señora!” he cried, “we are
-undone. Ramirez must be at hand. In some way she has learned his
-whereabouts; she has fled to him!”
-
-Doña Isabel thought Ruiz had suddenly gone mad. “Fled to Ramirez!” she
-cried. “Impossible! What can she know of the man? What object can she
-have in seeking him?”
-
-Instinctively the lady had led the way back to the room she had left.
-Ruiz followed her, in the utter demoralization of his mind at the
-unexpected tidings, pouring out incoherent explanations of the designs
-that Chinita had cherished, and unconsciously revealing much of the
-duplicity of the part he had himself acted. With an acuteness of mind
-perhaps intensified by the keen emotion with which she listened to the
-unexpected accusations against the young girl, Doña Isabel conjectured
-at once that the speaker had played a double part; and it was a not
-improbable solution of the mystery of Chinita’s disappearance, that in
-discovering this the young girl had resolved to precipitate a crisis in
-the fate of the man who exercised so unaccountable a fascination over
-her.
-
-Yet with whom had she fled? Had Ramirez himself stolen into the inn and
-borne her away? The face of Ruiz blanched at this suggestion. Had the
-girl learned what was indeed a fact, that upon that very day the troops
-of Doña Isabel Garcia were by their officers to protest against a
-further attempt to reach Gonzales, and declaring Ruiz their chosen and
-permanent leader were at once to take up the march to join the forces of
-General Ortega, a newly arisen and popular Liberal chieftain who was a
-personal and implacable enemy of Ramirez,—thus leaving El Toro to its
-fate? Had Chinita indeed gone with such news to Ramirez? Ruiz felt that
-his doom was sealed, for he rightly conjectured that the excitement of
-Chinita’s disappearance had already dampened the ardor in his behalf
-which he had found it a slow and almost impossible task to awaken among
-the troops. Indeed, that it had been roused at all was owing to the
-discontent which had arisen through the cleverly concealed tactics he
-had used in contriving so long and monotonous a march to the aid of a
-man but little known or admired, and from the general belief in the love
-of the beautiful _protégée_ of Doña Isabel for the young aspirant for
-fame. In her hand the favor of Doña Isabel was supposed to lie. Eager
-for action, eager for booty, brought to a point where they were almost
-within sound of the bugles of General Ortega, who was making his hurried
-and triumphant march to the capital, it had been decided that upon that
-very morning a _pronunciamento_ should be made, which, while involving
-no change of politics, should compel the consent of Doña Isabel to the
-apparently spontaneous outburst of patriotism upon the part of her
-troops, and confirm Ruiz in the command that she had temporarily
-confided to him.
-
-Ruiz had so cunningly planned every detail that he doubted not that not
-only Doña Isabel, but Chinita as well, would be convinced of his entire
-ignorance of the _coup_, and that the girl’s ambition, and perhaps a
-somewhat malicious satisfaction in the reversal of the plans of Doña
-Isabel, would lead her to an acceptance of the apparently unavoidable
-forfeiture of her own desires.
-
-To this end the ambitious young officer had been patiently working since
-the day he had found himself at the head of the troops of Tres Hermanos.
-He had been amazed at his own success. Everything had seemed to
-contribute to it. Not even the triumph of seeing himself actually
-attracting the good-will, if not the love, of Chinita had been denied
-him; and now at the moment least expected, at the most critical
-juncture, she had failed him. It was impossible for him to assume his
-usual self-sufficient air as he re-issued from the apartment of Doña
-Isabel,—an air that imposed on the majority of observers as that of a
-man conscious of power, rather than as a disguise of incompetency. His
-crest-fallen bearing as he gave the necessary orders for scouts to be
-sent out in search of those who in the night must have left the
-ill-guarded town was evident to the most careless eye, and did much to
-increase the feeling of distrust and coldness that was already beginning
-to supplant the ill-considered ardor of a few hours before.
-
-The scouts had been despatched; and the main body of the troops waited
-for marching orders, which were long delayed. Ruiz, closeted with the
-men who had been most amenable to his reasoning, urged openly the
-arguments that he had but covertly suggested before. That exhausted
-apathy which following an exploded project is far more hopeless than
-that which, merely unignited, precedes its agitation, resisted all his
-efforts at revival. The officers, like the soldiers, listlessly waited
-to hear what would happen next, absolutely indifferent to Ruiz, and
-concerned for the moment in a mere matter of gossip,—the escapade of a
-young girl.
-
-Toward noon some of the messengers returned. Most of them had nothing to
-report, but the vaquero Gabriel, the husband of Juana, as soon as he
-could escape the questioning of Ruiz, disappeared. An hour later he
-entered the apartment of Doña Isabel.
-
-“What news, Gabriel, what news?” the lady cried excitedly. “Did you come
-upon any trace of—of the child; of those who have stolen her away?”
-
-The vaquero shook his head, and Doña Isabel groaned. Those few hours had
-wrought a terrible change in her appearance. She was not young and able
-to meet shocks of disaster as she had been when they had shaken her in
-by-gone years.
-
-“I found no trace of them, my Señora,” said the man, slowly. “Perhaps my
-eyes are not as keen as they were, and they say when one thinks much one
-sees little. Since I am married I find one must think. A woman gives one
-abundance for thought. She grinds care for a man more surely than corn
-for his bread.”
-
-Doña Isabel looked up at him quickly. She knew that this oracular
-sentence had some bearing on the subject that absorbed her thoughts.
-“Speak,” she said. “What has your wife to do with this?”
-
-“She was the playmate of the young Señorita,” he suggested.
-
-“True, but what of that?”
-
-“She would be likely to be in her confidence,—at least where there was
-no other to trust.”
-
-Doña Isabel started, looking at him with fixed attention.
-
-“The thought came to me as I rode out of the town,—it came back to me
-again and again. After hours of vain search I suffered myself to be
-convinced. I came back and taxed Juana with knowing with whom, and when
-and where, her friend had gone.”
-
-“Well?” ejaculated Doña Isabel, in extreme agitation.
-
-“She denied it. By all the saints she denied it; but I had a saint she
-had forgotten to commend herself to.” He smiled significantly.
-
-Doña Isabel understood the arguments used by rancheros to refractory
-wives too well to doubt what his grim jest meant. At another time she
-would have indignantly dismissed from her presence the man who admitted
-laying a hand in castigation upon his wife; now she merely by an
-imperative gesture urged him to finish what he had to communicate.
-
-“It was as I thought,” he said coolly. “Two men talked with her last
-night. The one was Juana’s brother, Pepé; the other was the Señor
-Americano your grace knows of.”
-
-Doña Isabel sank back in her chair as if struck by a sharp weapon. “The
-American! the American!” she repeated again and again. She felt as
-though a hand had been thrust from the grave to torture her. The
-superstitious dread which had been planted in her breast by the first
-glimpse of the face of Ashley Ward, and which had perhaps led her
-irresistibly to a course that the resolution of years would under
-ordinary circumstances have rendered impossible to a nature as tenacious
-as was her own, became a horrible certainty. Evil fate in the guise of
-the American appeared to pursue her. Whatever the purpose with which he
-had lured Chinita from her side, it could but be productive of woe for
-her. Would the tale of her daughter’s shame and her own apparent
-heartlessness be told throughout the land? Had this pale and seemingly
-spiritless young man resolved on such a vengeance of his cousin’s
-fancied wrongs? Or—worse still—was this but a repetition of the old, old
-tale of passion and folly? Doña Isabel covered her face with her hand
-and groaned again.
-
-Gabriel had called his wife to the room, and she came with eyes red with
-weeping, and told the tale that seemed to her best. Fearful of bringing
-the vengeance of the Señora upon Pepé, should she avow that he had left
-the inn alone with Chinita, she declared he had but accompanied the
-American, whom she boldly affirmed had set out for the coast, with the
-young girl, intending to set sail for the wild country whence he had
-come.
-
-Doña Isabel and Gabriel both knew too well the inventive genius of their
-countrywomen literally to believe all she said; yet as hour after hour
-passed by and no news of the fugitives was heard, and no trace of them
-in spite of the most untiring search was found, they were at length led
-to conclude—the one with despair—that Juana’s words were true, and that
-the brief connection of the beautiful foster-child of Pedro Gomez with
-the lady of Tres Hermanos was ended forever.
-
-
-
-
-                                  XLI.
-
-
-Never perhaps did so marked a change occur in the discipline and
-carriage of any body of troops, from a cause apparently so slight, as
-that which followed the flight of Chinita. Of the visit of the American
-nothing was publicly known, but the wildest rumors of her probable
-action ran like wildfire through the ranks, the name of Ramirez coupled
-with her own being on every tongue. So potent was the fame of the
-guerilla chieftain and the fascination of Chinita, that a word from her
-at that excited moment would have acted like fire on straw, and set a
-blaze to the smouldering insubordination and disappointed energies of
-the baffled and impatient recruits, who had entered upon the service
-from love of adventure and booty rather than with any fixed convictions
-or an intelligent conception of the interests at stake.
-
-Doña Isabel wore before the world the same impassive face as ever, but
-at night the demon powers of remorse and intolerable anxiety wrought
-cruel havoc with its beauty. It was impossible too for her to conceal
-utterly the suspicion and distrust with which Ruiz inspired her; and the
-influence which through Chinita mainly he had for a brief period
-acquired, both over Doña Isabel and the troops, and which at best had
-been looked upon as a privilege he should yield later with his authority
-to Gonzales, began to wane rapidly. Dissatisfaction and mutinous
-threatenings were manifested on every hand, and the position of Ruiz but
-for the presence of Doña Isabel would have been absolutely untenable;
-and a crisis was evidently imminent, when the long desired leader
-suddenly appeared to relieve the tension of the situation, and to awaken
-a frenzy of enthusiasm for the cause, which had been at the point of
-abandonment.
-
-It was with intense relief that Ruiz himself greeted the appearance of
-Gonzales, unexpected though it was, and incomprehensible the means by
-which he had obtained information that had led him so completely to
-alter his plans. That the American was concerned in the matter Ruiz did
-not doubt, though he could imagine no clew to his motives, the
-conviction being still in the mind of the baffled officer of Chinita’s
-indifference to Ashley, and of her flight to Ramirez.
-
-It was with amazement and alarm that Gonzales witnessed the ravages of
-time and care upon the once beautiful and stately Doña Isabel. The very
-excess of joy with which she welcomed him seemed weak and pitiful. He
-had been detained long upon the way from El Toro by a series of petty
-annoyances, such as the bad state of the roads and a succession of
-trifling skirmishes with the enemy, resulting in burdening the march
-with the care of the wounded; and thus the loss of Chinita had become to
-Doña Isabel by the time of his arrival an assured fact. With tears of
-anguish she told him of the ingratitude of the child she loved, though
-she carefully concealed the fact that she supposed her to be other than
-one of the class of people from whom she had taken her; and with this
-explanation only Gonzales could not enter fully into her grief, or
-accept the fact that the loss of her _protégée_ was indeed the entire
-cause of her anguish. Had she not mourned for years as he had the living
-entombment of her daughter Herlinda? Had not the sight of him revived in
-her mind the keenness of her woe?
-
-Doña Isabel was ill both in body and in mind; worn out with anxiety and
-the fatigues of travel, the reaction occasioned by the appearance of
-Gonzales was doubtless too great for her enfeebled powers. To his
-extreme embarrassment and anxiety he found himself charged with the
-unexpected responsibility of the care of a lady of much social
-consequence, and one personally extremely dear to him, who was stricken
-with an illness that demanded the most efficient attendance and complete
-isolation from disturbing influences. Added to the present necessity of
-gaining the confidence of the disorganized troops, and of continuing the
-march with the most unrelaxing vigilance, the situation thus became most
-onerous to the young commander,—not the less so because of the presence
-of a man he had thwarted and displaced, and whom it was necessary to
-keep in view and perhaps conciliate.
-
-Upon the next night after the arrival of Gonzales, when Ruiz with
-seeming cordiality though with relief and rage contending in his mind
-had yielded his command, he strode to the outskirts of the camp, and
-smoking or rather forgetting to smoke a cigarette, mentally reviewed
-with bitter disappointment the perplexing and conflicting events that
-had led to so utter an overthrowal of his carefully concocted schemes.
-With the rapidity and excitement of his thoughts, his pace increased as
-though he was striving to tread down his mortification while he was
-preparing therefor a speedy and certain revenge.
-
-The thought of this was chiefly directed toward Chinita. But for her
-flight Ruiz doubted not his position would have been so firmly assured
-that he would have been enabled to carry out his schemes. Thus he had
-hoped to find himself at the head of a force which in the event of final
-victory would have recommended him to the highest honors in the gift of
-Juarez, or at any rate assured him against the vengeance of Ramirez. To
-treachery time had added actual hatred of the man who had befriended
-him, and whose evil deeds, while he professed to abhor them, he would
-have rejoiced to have courage and address to imitate, and of whom he
-still held a superstitious dread, which had once been absolute awe.
-
-It maddened the recreant follower of Ramirez to think of Chinita in the
-power of such a man. That day the last wild escapade of the lawless
-adventurer, the torture of Pedro, had in some way reached the ears of
-Ruiz and destroyed a lingering hope he had cherished that the girl,
-proud and hard though he believed her, had in some impulse of affection
-gone to her foster-father,—a thought that he had not even hinted to Doña
-Isabel, for with petty spite he refrained from uttering that which he
-imagined might give relief to her long agony. He imagined how Chinita,
-who doubtless had seen through his double dealing, would make it
-contemptible by her scorn, and ridiculous with her irony; and how
-Ramirez would, after listening to her account of him rise his sworn
-enemy: Ruiz had witnessed such scenes. No; return to Ramirez was
-impossible. Besides, that chieftain’s ultimate defeat was certain: the
-Liberal cause was strengthening every hour. Ramirez must have lost his
-former keenness to follow thus a losing venture. Ruiz began to console
-himself by thoughts of how, though only in a subordinate part, he should
-assist in the discomfiture of the proud general and that of the girl who
-loved him,—for the ignoble youth was incapable of believing hers to be
-the love of a mere unreasoning child, though to a purer heart her words
-would have a thousand times declared her enthusiasm to be but a
-fanatical admiration, untouched by a tinge of passion. The maddening
-jealousy that had raged in the heart of Ruiz since he had learned of the
-flight of Chinita, and had rendered him incapable of a sustained effort
-to renew the ambitious projects so fatally shaken, now flamed up with
-cruel intensity; and yet he loved her. At that moment he would have
-liked to throttle her, yet would have recalled her to life with words of
-passionate love and burning kisses.
-
-As he pondered, he struck his breast with his clinched hand.
-“_Caramba!_” he muttered, “is all lost? Is there no way to overset this
-miserable favorite of the Señora? Maria Sanctissima! who is that?” His
-hand like a flash passed to his pistol.
-
-“Hist!” said a voice. “It is I, Fernando. I have not a moment to spare.
-I have tried to gain a way to thee for an hour or more. I know all that
-has passed. Fool! thou shouldst have raised the battle-cry for Ramirez
-before this Gonzales reached thee; there were men with thee who would
-have sustained thee well!”
-
-“Bah! a man has opinions,” answered Ruiz, coolly, recognizing the voice;
-“and if Ramirez still chooses to fight for the priests, that is no
-argument for my being as mad. I tell you plainly, Father, I am tired of
-playing a boy’s part; you will hear of me yet as something more than the
-lieutenant of Gonzales.”
-
-“Big words, big words,” laughed Tio Reyes. “Now listen to that which I
-have to say to you;” and leaning from his saddle in a few concise words
-he delivered the message of Ramirez, adding a few paternal injunctions
-as to the conduct Ruiz should in future observe.
-
-“Up to this time nothing is lost,” he continued; “in truth had you acted
-in good faith, no course could have been better save this last step,—but
-that may easily be recalled. Ramirez will soon be prepared to attack
-Gonzales in force; his mind was set on regaining El Toro, but that can
-be deferred. ‘When the loaf is cut the crumbs may be soon eaten!’ Be you
-prepared to pass over to your rightful commander at the last moment with
-all your men. The rest of the troop will follow like sheep. Bah! what is
-the name of Gonzales to that of Ramirez! With the forces we could then
-combine, what might we not attempt! I promise you in the name of
-Ramirez, on his honor as a soldier and his faith as your godfather, a
-free pardon for all that has passed. _Caramba_, man! I can’t imagine how
-you could have been so mad. I have seen the girl who has bewitched you,
-and by my faith I thought her nothing more than any other brown chit,
-save that her eyes were darker and bigger than most, and her tongue
-sharper than a man cares to find between his wife’s lips! What, you
-hesitate? You believe Ramirez at the bottom of a pit, and the pit dry?
-Fool! He has treasure you know nothing of; and as for men, did the
-mountain villages ever fail him?—and you know how many may be counted on
-here. _Caramba_, try them! Tell them he has sacked Tres Hermanos.”
-
-“I know it,” said Ruiz, thoughtfully, “and doubtless the booty was
-great!”
-
-Reyes shrugged his shoulders but did not contradict him, reiterating
-again and again the assurances of the favor of Ramirez in the event of
-Ruiz’s acceptance of his proposals, and on the contrary the chief’s
-determination to wreak an awful vengeance upon his god-child should he
-prove obdurate and attempt to carry to injurious lengths the treacherous
-intrigues which he had designed against his benefactor.
-
-Ruiz vehemently denied his guilt, yet hesitated to make promises which,
-whether kept or broken, might make still more dubious his future
-position. Reyes read his mind, and at length said coolly,—
-
-“The fact is, you have been bred a servant of Ramirez. When I swore the
-service of my life to him, yours went with it. You are the one creature
-in the world he has never met with a frown or given a harsh word to; but
-do you think he will spare you for that? No; if you should fall into his
-hands as a traitor, which sooner or later you would be sure to do, you
-would be shot! Yes, like a dog,—” and the speaker spat on the ground to
-emphasize his contempt. “But if you are reasonable he will forget all
-that has passed,—more than I would do in his place I can tell you; ay,
-he will even give you his daughter.”
-
-“His daughter!” echoed Ruiz with a sneer.
-
-“On my soul, you must be hard to please,” cried his father. “For the
-girl’s sake I was sorry enough he killed the fool of a gatekeeper five
-days ago. For all her proud ways, she loved him like a child,—more than
-she will love Ramirez though he is her father, when she hears of this
-mad deed.”
-
-Ruiz sprang to his side. “What do you mean?” he cried, seizing his arm.
-“Is Chinita the daughter of Ramirez? Is she with him? Is she indeed the
-girl who has been promised to me for these years and years? _Por Dios_,
-what would I not do for her? What would I not dare? But I do not believe
-it. Ramirez knows I love her; this is but a deception. Ah, I know him
-too well!”
-
-Reyes laughed. “He told me if you were not satisfied you might go and
-see for yourself. Faith, he had no thought you loved her already. I met
-him on the road as he came back from leaving her. Does that surprise
-you? He is a careful father; she is in the house of the Señora’s
-daughter, Doña Carmen.”
-
-Ruiz seemed stunned. Reyes saw that his point was gained, and uttered
-but a few words more, which elicited only the response,—“Ramirez’s
-daughter? Wonderful, wonderful! And after all, she will be mine.
-Heavens! how can I live a day longer without seeing her? Commend me to
-the Señor General. You know, my father, my heart is good, though my
-brain may have erred! Tell me, has she said but one good word for me?
-She—”
-
-“Enough!” cried Reyes, laughing the more. “I have not seen her, I tell
-thee; and if thou wouldst know what she thinks, find a pretext and see
-her at Doña Carmen’s house. It was a strange freak of the General’s to
-take her there, but a happy one. Thou shalt not be molested on the way,
-I promise thee. But I have no further time for talking. Adios! thou art
-the only man I have ever seen whom love has brought to his right senses.
-It will be well if thou art as sane a year after the wedding!”
-
-The two men embraced, in the fashion of the country, and with an ardor
-on the part of Ruiz that he seldom affected.
-
-“_Caramba!_ the father is a man of a thousand,” he muttered to himself
-as he watched him disappear, guiding his horse so deftly that not a
-sound broke the silence of the night. “Virgin of consolation!” he
-continued, as he walked slowly back to his quarters. “This is like a
-dream. Plague upon it! That is the fault of my father; he is always in
-haste. I would have asked him a thousand questions, had he given me but
-a quarter of an hour. But it is of Chinita herself I will ask them.
-Surely she must have shown some favor toward me, or my godfather would
-not recommend me to her with such confidence. _Santo Niño_, show me some
-way to make it possible to steal into Guanapila and exchange a word with
-her!”
-
-The curiosity of the young man as much as his love prompted the latter
-aspiration. His suspicion of the identity of Ramirez with the brother of
-Doña Isabel, the Leon Vallé so long supposed dead, returned to him with
-force; but he longed to know whether the secret of her birth had been
-conveyed to Chinita, and how her flight had been contrived. He pictured
-her then like a bird in a cage beating herself against the iron bars of
-Doña Carmen’s windows. That was not what she had hoped for when she had
-talked to him of Ramirez. If she had tolerated him before, would he not
-now be doubly dear, as one who should liberate her from the natural
-restraints of a maiden’s life?
-
-Ruiz forgot his fancied wrongs in an intoxication of delight. Constant
-pondering upon the question how he should manage to evade the vigilance
-and suspicions of Gonzales and effect a visit to Guanapila kept him
-preoccupied, yet feverishly alert, until the increased indisposition of
-Doña Isabel brought about what appeared to him a special interposition
-in his behalf, and in pleading for the aid of “Our Lady of the
-Impossible” he promised her in pious gratitude a candle of enormous
-proportions.
-
-To reach a point where he might leave his generous but failing friend
-had become the most earnest desire of Gonzales. But its fulfilment had
-seemed an impossibility, for from the time he assumed command of the
-troops almost hourly news had been brought to him of gatherings of bands
-of Conservatives, which promised to offer formidable resistance to any
-movement he might make; and until Doña Isabel was safety disposed of, he
-desired at almost any risk to avoid an open collision.
-
-The march had slowly proceeded, and so constantly had Gonzales been
-occupied, and so serious became the condition of Doña Isabel, that there
-was but little conversation between them, and somewhat to his impatience
-that on her part had been limited to a few brief sentences of warning
-against Ruiz and constant inquiries for Chinita, and entreaties that
-search should be made for her in every direction.
-
-Gonzales, as far as was possible, had obeyed these inopportune requests;
-but the anxiety and grief that prompted them seemed to him strained and
-unnatural, though he could not doubt after due inquiry made that the
-lost girl was of remarkable beauty and of an original and fascinating
-character. Still, his knowledge of the class whence he supposed her
-sprung had made quite credible to him the generally accepted theory of
-her flight. Yet he started when Doña Isabel had mentioned the American
-as her probable companion or instigator, adding in a low voice, “Twice
-an American has robbed him.” What did she mean? His cheek flushed as he
-remembered that it had been said that for love of the murdered Ashley,
-Herlinda had taken the veil. And had Doña Isabel dreamed that he would
-find consolation after so many years in this beautiful peasant girl whom
-she had raised from the dust? Gonzales silently resented the
-insinuation. Yet none the less the suggestion of the complicity of the
-American in her disappearance haunted and vexed him. He did not tell
-Doña Isabel that to Ward he owed the definite news of the approach of
-reinforcements, and that he had virtually left him in charge of El Toro,
-and that the commission from Juarez for which the foreigner had applied
-had already doubtless reached him. Had he betrayed this young girl,—the
-_protégée_ of Doña Isabel,—in spite of his zeal in his service the
-American should have much to answer for to him. A few weeks would decide
-all. He preferred to wait patiently the development of affairs, and
-refrained from perplexing further the mind of Doña Isabel.
-
-Meanwhile the condition of the lady had become rapidly worse. Perhaps
-she had brought from Tres Hermanos the germs of the disease that during
-these very days was working such terrible havoc there; perhaps the long
-days and nights of exertion, anxiety, and grief had produced it,—but
-certain it is that as the position of Gonzales became more critical, so
-the imminent danger of Doña Isabel increased. A desperate evil commands
-a desperate remedy. So it was at length decided that an effort should be
-made to convey the lady to the city of Guanapila, to the house of her
-daughter Doña Carmen; and Ruiz, in the utter impossibility that Gonzales
-found of personally conducting the party, was permitted to execute the
-delicate and important trust.
-
-With an apparent readiness of resource and disregard of danger, which
-commended him greatly to the perplexed General, Ruiz himself had
-proposed the measure.
-
-Taking the precaution to send with him men from Tres Hermanos only, and
-such as he knew to be warmly devoted to their mistress, Gonzales acceded
-to the plans of the wily young officer, and despatched him upon the
-important and seemingly dangerous mission.
-
-After the separation of the detailed party from the main body,
-skirmishing parties began upon the latter frequent and harassing
-attacks, and the suspicions of Gonzales were again aroused by the
-impunity which Ruiz enjoyed, yet alternated with fears for his ultimate
-safety. He could scarcely believe that knowing it to be in their power
-to secure so rich a prize as Doña Isabel, the hungry forces of the
-clergy would suffer her to escape, unless indeed Ruiz was himself as
-false as he had once suspected. Again and again he reproached himself
-for yielding to the apparent frankness and loyalty of the man he had at
-first distrusted, and with an anxiety which grew into actual torture he
-awaited the outcome of the action which circumstances against his will
-and judgment had forced upon him.
-
-Ruiz, unmolested, made his way as rapidly as the condition of his charge
-permitted toward Guanapila. He comprehended well the circumstances which
-were distracting the mind of Gonzales. These constant though petty
-attacks he knew from information sent by Reyes were destined to weaken
-the prestige of Gonzales by a series of petty misadventures, after which
-his destruction by the desertion of Ruiz, followed by the mass of the
-disaffected, might, it was conjectured, be readily accomplished. It
-seemed the simplest matter in the world to effect, and had been
-instantly agreed to by Ruiz in the hasty conference with his father. Yet
-further reflection gave him an unaccountable antipathy to the course he
-was to pursue. It cannot be said that a lingering trace of honor
-influenced him, or any genuine disapproval of the character or
-convictions of Ramirez, for Ruiz was in the widest sense a man to be
-bought and sold, a creature influenced by every turn of advantage; but
-in spite of all that had passed between him and Reyes, he doubted the
-good faith of Ramirez. The good fortune that was to give him Chinita at
-so slight a cost seemed to him incredible. Did the girl love him, and
-had she owned as much? Or was she to be fooled into acquiescence in the
-plans of Ramirez by the chimera of his parental power? No; he knew
-Chinita too well to believe she would marry against her own desire, even
-to gratify a parent who exerted over her the extraordinary ascendency
-that she had instinctively acknowledged in Ramirez. Ruiz was, moreover,
-impressed with a belief in the ultimate disaster of the Conservative
-cause. For Chinita’s sake he would risk involvement in the ruin he
-foresaw, hoping that by some spar he himself might float; but unless
-assured of her good-will,—the thoughts of the young conspirator carried
-him no further, unless vaguely to conjecture the extent of power which
-he might thereafter exert over the fortunes of Doña Isabel, through his
-connection with her mysterious _protégée_.
-
-With ill-concealed impatience, and hopes and emotions which every hour
-grew more dazzling and overpowering, Ruiz at length found himself in the
-house of Doña Carmen, and in her presence and that of her young
-companion. With inexpressible amazement, instead of her he sought he
-found himself face to face with Chata, the supposed daughter of Don
-Rafael.
-
-The confusion and excitement of the arrival gave almost instantly an
-opportunity for him to pour into the ear of the young girl the burning
-questions which rushed to his lips. In the necessity in which she found
-herself to attend instantly the wants of her mother, Doña Carmen left
-the young soldier and her charge alone together. Breathlessly demanding
-of Chata news of Chinita, Ruiz revealed to the astounded girl the
-separation of her playmate from Doña Isabel, the mystery of her flight,
-and the extraordinary purposes which the young girl had cherished in
-relation to Ramirez. In every word too he betrayed his own love for her
-he denounced, and the raging jealousy which possessed him.
-
-Chata in her extreme agitation, forgetting the promises she had made,
-revealed her own connection with Ramirez, in describing in a few brief
-sentences the scenes which had taken place at Tres Hermanos, and
-especially the means by which she had saved Don Rafael. She could not
-comprehend the rage and disgust with which Ruiz flung himself from her
-when she announced herself to be the daughter of Ramirez, but a moment
-later it flashed upon her that she had heard herself named as the
-destined bride of this man who so openly despised her. Had he too known
-of the destiny awarded him? She turned from him with a burning blush,
-and without a word they parted. She remembered afterward that she might
-perhaps have sent news to the hacienda,—to her foster-father Don Rafael,
-to Doña Feliz did she still live; but her one chance had gone, and her
-semi-imprisonment began anew. Doña Carmen was not again betrayed into a
-momentary forgetfulness of her charge.
-
-Ruiz turned from the house with a thousand conflicting emotions. The
-encounter with Chata had produced in his mind an absolute fury of
-resentment, as he reflected that this was the girl whom Ramirez had
-promised him as his wife,—in his boyhood jestingly; in his manhood as a
-reward, an incentive. Heavens! what was this puny creature in comparison
-with Chinita? And Chinita was perhaps at that very moment with
-Ramirez,—perhaps even laughing with him over the weakness and
-discomfiture of the youth they had combined to deceive! With blind and
-insensate rage, Ruiz believed himself the victim of a conspiracy between
-Ramirez and his own father to substitute this girl for the peerless
-creature that he loved, and who doubtless was at that moment in the camp
-of her triumphant lover. They had thought to entrap him into furthering
-their designs, deeming it impossible that he should enter Guanapila and
-discover the trick that was to be played upon him.
-
-Ruiz did not for a moment conceive it possible that Ramirez had known
-nothing of his love for Chinita, or that his father had himself been
-ignorant of the identity of the girl whom Ramirez had claimed as his
-daughter, or that Reyes had drawn a false conclusion from his own hasty
-questions.
-
-In this mood Ruiz was presently met by old acquaintances, before whom he
-was forced to mask his excitement; and moreover they were in festive
-humor, which prevented them from being observant or critical. The town,
-but imperfectly garrisoned, had for some time held an anxious and
-harassed populace, prognosticating nothing but invasion and the levy of
-forced loans; but it chanced that on that day a guest had arrived, who
-by the mere magic of his presence, unattractive and unimpressive as was
-his bearing, inspired confidence and hope. Benito Juarez himself had
-made one of those secret incursions for which he was famed, and had
-reached Guanapila with the purpose of conferring with such officers of
-his party as had ventured to meet him. There were but few, and Ruiz was
-honored by an invitation to represent Gonzales. The deference paid him
-as a delegate from so important a leader, in command of so considerable
-a force, raised to its highest pitch the absolute fury of resentment
-that convulsed the desperate lover; and at the banquet that followed the
-conference, the wine and flattering notice of the Liberal President
-completed the overthrow of the little caution that he had hitherto
-maintained in his speech and demeanor.
-
-The toasts drunk were loud and frequent, and the name of Ramirez was the
-most deeply execrated. Many of the young men indulged in extravagant
-boasts and declarations as to the deeds they would accomplish in the
-near future, scorning the prowess of the man at whose very name they
-were accustomed to tremble. Some one spoke with a laugh of a beautiful
-girl who had been seen in his company but a few days before. It was not
-until afterward that Ruiz reflected that the spy had probably caught a
-glimpse of Chata on her way from Tres Hermanos. At the moment his mind
-was full of Chinita, and rising impetuously, in a torrent of fiery words
-he broke into denunciation and invective, telling the tale of Pedro’s
-martyrdom as he had heard it, and vowing that as Ramirez had slain the
-poor peasant, so he himself would accomplish the defeat and death of the
-“mountain wolf.” “I promise you, Señores,” he concluded, “that when you
-next hear of Fernando Ruiz you shall have cause to remember the vow I
-have here made. Ramirez is doomed!”
-
-The stoical man at the head of the table smiled faintly at the storm of
-applause that followed this speech, and as Ruiz a few minutes later took
-his departure Juarez muttered to his neighbor, “That young fellow will
-bear watching. He has either a tremendous personal wrong to avenge, or
-he is striving to mislead us. I know him to be the godson of this very
-Ramirez, whom he thunders against. A Mexican may turn against, may even
-murder, his own father; but his godfather,—he must be a renegade indeed
-to attempt his destruction!” His neighbor assented.
-
-When the words of Ruiz were reported to Ramirez,—as reported they were a
-few days later,—he smiled as grimly as Benito Juarez himself had done.
-“The cockerel crows loud,” he said. “He was always a blusterer. Well, we
-shall see; a week at latest will decide all that. Bah! if the fellow but
-had in him the blood of his father!—but with the name of his mother he
-must have taken a braggart’s tongue. It will be well for him if he does
-not weary my patience in the end. But for my promise to Reyes—”
-
-He frowned darkly. Had Ruiz seen the face of his godfather then he might
-have repented his boast. As it was, his own mad words served as a spur
-urging him to the inevitable future. He returned to the camp of Gonzales
-unmolested, and was received with intense relief, with thanks and
-praises, yet wore thereafter a dark and vengeful face.
-
-
-
-
-                                 XLII.
-
-
-The arrival of Doña Isabel at the house of her daughter brought a change
-into the life of Chata that might have been considered even more dreary
-and oppressive than the semi-imprisonment to which she had thus far been
-subjected, though she was spoken of as an honored guest. In fact this
-change was most welcome to the young girl; for while it afforded her
-even less freedom of movement, it gave a sufficient reason for her
-seclusion, as also occupation both to body and mind.
-
-What had been the nature of the communication that Ramirez had made to
-Doña Carmen, Chata knew not, but it had evidently impressed that lady
-with a deep sense of responsibility. In those days there were even in
-the quietest times no regular mails into the country districts, and this
-gave a ready pretext to Doña Carmen for resisting all attempts to
-communicate with the household at Tres Hermanos. The highways, infested
-as they were by roving bands of soldiers and banditti, were indeed
-scarcely safe for the transmission of even peaceful intelligence; and
-thus none reached Guanapila from the hacienda, and Chata, and in a
-lesser degree Doña Carmen herself, endured a painful uncertainty as to
-the condition of Don Rafael and of Doña Feliz and others whom Chata had
-left stricken with the dreaded fever. Day by day she had awaited news;
-day by day she had hoped for the appearance of Doña Isabel and
-Chinita,—while Doña Carmen, after listening with astonishment and some
-manifestations of displeasure to the account Chata gave of the departure
-of her mother from Tres Hermanos under the escort of troops destined to
-the relief of Gonzales, gave the opinion that the destination she would
-seek would be El Toro rather than Guanapila.
-
-“My sister the religious is at present there,” she said; and Chata with
-glowing face, and lips that trembled at the memory, told her of the
-chance glimpse she had once caught of the beautiful and saintly nun.
-
-Doña Carmen’s eyes filled with tears, and she silently embraced the
-girl; the little incident drew Chata nearer to her heart. “Ah, child,”
-she would say, “I never have known, I never could conjecture, why our
-beautiful Herlinda chose so sad a life,—it must be sad to be shut away
-from this fair world, from sweet companionship, from love. Yes, Herlinda
-might have chosen from among a score of the handsomest and noblest of
-cavaliers. And then our mother,—how she loved her! one might see it
-through all her sternness. I never knew the truth, yet I am sure a great
-and terrible sorrow caused Herlinda to enter a convent. She had no
-inherent fitness, no liking natural or acquired, for such a life.”
-
-Doña Carmen was not accustomed to speak thus freely of family affairs.
-She had much of the characteristic reticence of the Garcias. Chata met
-many of the younger members from time to time. They were too well bred
-to show any curiosity concerning her; but among the servants of the
-household and of others, there was much gossip as to how and why she had
-come, and what relationship she bore to the husband of Doña Carmen, who,
-kind and amiable man that he was, seemed to take peculiar pleasure in
-her companionship. But the arrival of Doña Isabel in an apparently dying
-condition turned all thoughts into a new channel.
-
-From the first, Chata had entreated to be allowed to take her part in
-nursing the stricken lady, but had been gently refused. Thereafter, the
-husband of Doña Carmen used often to see their young guest gliding
-restlessly about the house vainly seeking some distraction for her
-anxious thoughts. He did not know the secret pain that tormented her. He
-would gladly have facilitated her return if he could to that Don Rafael
-from whom in a mad freak the mountain chieftain had stolen her; yet
-there were circumstances,—there were reasons for not offending one so
-powerful. Who knew? Guanapila was of course under Liberal rule to-day,
-but what would it be to-morrow? The cautious man shrugged his shoulders
-and said something of this to Chata, who smiled and thought him good to
-care, yet wondered with all his goodness and his years,—the years that
-had not brought in their train any additional attractiveness to his
-person,—that Doña Carmen loved him. Was it as she had heard, that his
-riches had beguiled one already passing rich?
-
-Since she had left El Toro, Chata had become a woman. Change of scene
-had given impetus to the somewhat retarded development of her physique,
-and mental anxiety had stimulated her mind and given to it an intuitive
-appreciation of causes and events that is generally gained by innocent
-and unsuspicious natures, such as hers, only after long experience.
-
-Thus she comprehended fully, as she would not have done a few months
-before, the gravity of the step Chinita had taken in separating herself
-from Doña Isabel. Ruiz had not spared the woman he loved in the few
-brief sentences he had passionately uttered: love was with him but a
-devouring flame, ready to destroy its object either in the struggle of
-attainment or in the fury of baffled desire. Chata blushed even in
-secret when she remembered the aspersions he had cast upon the friend of
-her childhood. She knew the innate purity of the girl’s mind, though it
-had been developed amid surroundings which might well have tainted it.
-She knew her pride: even when she was but the barefoot foster-child of
-Pedro the gatekeeper, Chinita had held Pepé and his mates as far apart
-from her as the dogs that followed them or the mules they tended. Dogs
-and mules she liked well and made serve her needs, as also she did the
-lads. Chata did not doubt that Pepé now as ever had proved himself the
-slave of Chinita’s will. Perhaps it was to Tres Hermanos she had gone.
-Although knowing as she did the fascination that Ramirez had always
-exerted over the girl’s mind, she could not but fear that led not by
-reckless passion but by a spirit of devotion at which Ruiz had sneered,
-yet in which Chata herself recognized the peculiar strength and
-determination of Chinita’s character, the impulsive creature might
-actually have sought an entrance to the camp to urge the plan that she
-conceived was to further the glory of the Church and the interest of him
-whom she had made the hero of her imagination. That Ashley Ward was in
-any way concerned in the disappearance of Chinita, either as a principal
-or an accessory, Chata indignantly refused to believe. Her heart beat
-suffocatingly as she thought of him. No, no! he was not a man to entice
-a girl to her ruin.
-
-And as days went by news reached Chata that strengthened this
-conviction. The American was engaged in deeds of a far different
-character. In his way he was beginning to fill the minds and occupy the
-conversation of people as much as Ramirez had ever done. They gave him a
-new name, as those at the hacienda had done; but Conservatives and
-Liberals alike wondered at and exaggerated his exploits, until Ashley
-had won a reputation for reckless bravado quite foreign to his true
-character,—which was exhibiting itself in the most careful and nice
-calculations of chances, the whole tending toward the fulfilment of the
-task to which he had dedicated himself; namely, the downfall of the
-unpunished and unrepentant murderer of John Ashley.
-
-Chata recognized this, and was filled with emotions perhaps more
-conflicting, more strange, than had ever before met in the breast of so
-young a girl. They held her thoughts by day and night. Oh that she had
-never left Ramirez! Oh that she could speak but for a few moments with
-Ashley! But she was powerless; and meanwhile what was the fate of
-Chinita? What that impending over the man she was in duty bound to
-warn,—to love if it were possible?
-
-But before these reflections had reached this point, an employment that
-prevented them from becoming utterly overwhelming was afforded her.
-Chata no longer wandered aimlessly about the house, but kept the strict
-seclusion of Doña Isabel’s apartment, to which she had been hastily
-summoned one night by Doña Carmen herself.
-
-“My mother talks so strangely,” she had said in a low voice, pressing
-her hands to her white and frightened face. “No, I cannot comprehend
-what she says; but I cannot have the servants about her. They might
-imagine unspeakable things. Oh, what tales and rumors they might set
-afloat! No, no! I will not have them here, with their suspicions and
-evil thoughts. But you,—you are innocent and frank; you will not torture
-into strange meanings the mutterings of a diseased imagination.”
-
-“No, no!” answered Chata, reassuringly. “It was the same with Doña
-Feliz. Sometimes she talked so strangely, so sadly, one was forced to
-weep, and then again to laugh; yes, in all my trouble I laughed. But I
-will not now, Doña Carmen; only let me be useful. Doña Isabel did not
-seem to like me when she was at the hacienda, so I kept as much as
-possible out of her sight. She said my face was not such as Don Rafael’s
-daughter should have; and after all,” she added sadly, “she was right.”
-
-What passed in that sick chamber through those long days and nights Doña
-Carmen and Chata never repeated, even to each other. Perhaps they could
-not, all was so disconnected, so improbable, and through all her
-delirium the patient held so great a restraint over her utterances.
-Sometimes one escaped her that startled and commanded attention; but the
-next invariably contradicted it, and it was impossible to form a
-connected theory even had Chata tried. But that great sorrows, events to
-cause constant and secret care and remorse, had taken place in the life
-of Doña Isabel, and that they concerned Chinita closely, was abundantly
-clear. What pathetic appeals, what wild ravings, in which the names of
-those who had lived in the past,—of her husband, her mother, her
-brother, and of Herlinda,—were constantly mingled with those of the
-American and Chinita. And friends or servants followed each other in
-endless yet confusing succession; yet of them all the name of Chinita
-was the most frequent. The present grief combined all others; in Chinita
-seemed centred the agonies and loves of her lifetime.
-
-Chata listened with a sort of envy. Ah, if it had been given to her to
-raise such a passion of feeling! She found herself from day to day
-leaning with infinite tenderness over this woman, who had seemed so
-cold, but whose heart was now revealed as a very volcano of repressed
-and seething emotions. She was grateful and deeply touched that Doña
-Isabel in her delirium clung to her fondly, calling her “Mother,” or
-“Quina,” which Doña Carmen told her was the name of a cousin she had
-dearly loved. Even after she had recognized her when the delirium was
-past as the daughter of Don Rafael, she seemed pleased to have her
-there; though she said querulously, “It is strange you are only a little
-country girl. But Feliz has good blood in her; it has been transmitted
-to you,—there is nothing of Rita, nothing of Rafael himself.”
-
-After that she made no further comment; but her eyes often followed the
-movements of Chata with a puzzled expression painful to see. One day
-after she had become convalescent, Doña Carmen spoke of this. “Whom does
-she remind you of?” she asked lightly.
-
-“I cannot tell; I do not know,” Doña Isabel answered wearily. “Perhaps
-it is of Chinita. Oh! I can think of nothing but Chinita. Are they still
-looking for her, as I have prayed,—as I have commanded?”
-
-“Mother,” said Doña Carmen, solemnly, “who is Chinita? Why should you
-care so much?”
-
-The face of Doña Isabel grew rigid. “Shall I tell you what you have
-uttered in your delirium?” continued Doña Carmen, looking fixedly into
-her mother’s eyes. “Shall I ask you if you spoke the truth, or if what I
-have gathered—here a word, there a word—is but a dreadful fancy? Mother,
-Mother! if it is the truth, no wonder that the fate of this girl is on
-your soul! No wonder Herlinda—”
-
-She paused affrighted. In her excitement she had said far more than she
-had intended. What if her mother in her delicate condition should sink
-beneath this cruel attack,—should faint, should die? Carmen threw
-herself down beside the couch with a prayer for forgiveness.
-
-Doña Isabel in the first surprise had clasped her hands over her heart.
-Slowly the pale hue of life returned to her face. “Carmen,” she
-whispered faintly, “speak! speak! After all these years, accusation—even
-from my own child—is more bearable than silence. O my God, I meant
-well!—it was for Herlinda’s sake. Yet what remorse, what agony I have
-suffered!”
-
-The two women sank into each other’s arms. There had ever been a barrier
-of reserve between them,—in a moment it was swept away. Doña Isabel
-poured out her heart. It was Carmen who withheld what might have been
-revealed; a conviction seized her that there was much in this strange
-family mystery yet undeclared, and of which Doña Isabel knew nothing;
-and that her mother’s mind was in no condition to be perplexed by
-further doubts and complications. She left the room and went to her
-husband.
-
-“Chulita my beautiful one,” he said anxiously, as she was about to leave
-him an hour later, “thou wilt do nothing rash? Yet I will not forbid
-thee. In truth, but that robberies and abductions are so common upon the
-roads, I would go with thee myself.”
-
-“Not for the world!” exclaimed Doña Carmen in genuine consternation.
-“They would seize thee and carry thee into the mountains. But as for
-me,—I promise thee no robber shall think me worth a second thought. But
-hold thee ready,—the desire may come to her at a moment’s thought, and I
-would not leave thee without warning; I would not have thee unprepared.”
-
-
-
-
-                                 XLIII.
-
-
-With the same unreasoning fury with which he had denounced Ramirez at
-the banquet, Ruiz had returned to the camp of Gonzales; and through a
-cleverly managed correspondence with Ramirez—in which however he dared
-not mention the name of Chinita, lest he should awaken in the astute
-mind of the General a suspicion that his godson conjectured the
-deception which was to be played upon him—Ruiz gradually drew from the
-chief data through which to propose such movements to Gonzales as
-procured for him as a strategist the respect and admiration of that
-commander, which well might have satisfied a laudable ambition.
-
-Meanwhile Ramirez himself, though surrounded by no despicable force,
-which was daily augmented by accessions from the mountains or from the
-ranks of less popular leaders of either party, was for the first time in
-his life oppressed by a vague melancholy,—which, with some impatience,
-he ascribed to the forced separation from the child whose purity and
-innocence had so irresistibly attracted him. There were times when he
-thought with what horror such a record as his would be viewed by that
-gentle and upright nature; and a positive dread came upon him of her
-ever knowing the one incident that had been so vividly recalled to him
-by the appearance of the avenger upon the grave of the man he had
-murdered years before,—one crime among many he had almost forgotten. He
-said to himself that an evil spell had been upon him ever since the day
-when he had foolishly thrown away the charm the elf-like child had given
-him. His emissaries had brought him word time and again of the
-miscarriage of his best-laid plans. Who had betrayed them?
-
-Ramirez knew too well who had frustrated them. The American who had
-escaped his knife at the cemetery seemed ubiquitous since obtaining the
-commission which authorized him to wage war against his cousin’s
-murderer. Not content with defending El Toro with unexampled bravery, he
-appeared at every point where an advantage was to be gained. “_Carrhi!_”
-Ramirez said to himself, “I shall be forced to give that fellow a thrust
-of my dagger in secret, since he appears to be impervious to ball and
-proof against the chances of open warfare. He or I must fall. There’s
-not room in all Mexico for him and me.”
-
-Whether there was room or not, it seemed destined that they should
-remain in it together, though not without constant collision. Gonzales
-became to the mind of Ramirez far less formidable than this
-yellow-haired foreigner, who with a mere handful of followers so
-constantly harassed and baffled him. Like most men of his class, the
-mountain chieftain was intensely superstitious, and one night in the
-moonlight he saw, or fancied he saw, a female form glide before him into
-the chaparral. He caught but a glimpse of the face, but it had reminded
-him of Herlinda, for whom he had done the deed that, so late, seemed to
-have brought upon him a threatened retribution. As he searched the
-bushes for the woman, whom he could not discover, he shuddered as he
-remembered the expression of her eyes,—as of a wronged creature who had
-loved and now hated. He had seen such an expression in a woman’s eyes
-before. More than ever after this strange occurrence the thought of
-Ashley Ward tormented him; the young man’s face haunted him; and
-curiously enough other faces also began to peer upon him,—faces of women
-he had wronged, of men who with good cause bore him deadly hatred, or of
-others whom, like the American, or the gatekeeper, he had murdered.
-
-Ramirez grew strangely taciturn and nervous. Not even the letters of
-Ruiz aroused him. In his heart he distrusted his godson, as he did all
-men but Reyes, all women but Chata. Had she been near, he thought, he
-would have talked to her and cast off his fancies; but in her absence
-they grew upon him. One day he could have sworn he saw clearly not only
-the face but the figure of Pedro Gomez; and upon another, that of the
-woman he had loved long years before. Bah! they were fantasies. He
-wondered whether he too would be seized with the fever, which was still
-raging at Tres Hermanos, and of which they said its lady was dying at
-her daughter’s house in Guanapila. Was this weakness of nerve the
-presage of what was to come?
-
-At last battle was joined with Gonzales as had been planned. The day
-turned in favor of Ramirez; even the gallant assistance of Ward availed
-little against the desperate courage of the mountain troops. The genius
-and valor of their leader were manifested with a vigor that declared
-they had been but shaken, not broken. Until the arrival of Ward it had
-even appeared that the forces actually under the command of Ramirez
-would have been sufficient to effect a victory; but Ward’s appearance
-speedily turned the tide in favor of Gonzales, and with some impatience
-Ramirez gave the signal that was to hasten the promised action of Ruiz.
-
-But at the critical moment the expected ally failed him. With a
-vindictive fury which was demoniacal in its exhibition, Ruiz threw
-himself against his old commander. The carnage was terrible in that part
-of the field; and when the fray was ended, the demoralization of
-Ramirez’s troops was complete,—yet he himself had escaped.
-
-That such should be the case seemed to Ashley Ward incredible, as later
-he walked over the field seeking among the slain the man against whom he
-had begun a private warfare, which to his own surprise had, with further
-investigation of the principles involved, rapidly attained in his mind
-the dignity of a struggle for liberty that even dwarfed the incentive of
-personal revenge, although it was impossible that this should be wholly
-forgotten or ignored.
-
-Gonzales marched into El Toro amid the clanging of bells and shouts of
-rejoicing; for though that was a convent town, the people of the lower
-class were mad _Juaristas_, who did good service under Ward when troops
-were scarce. The triumph had however not been gained without much loss
-upon the Liberal side; and among the missing was the young officer who
-in the eyes of Gonzales—and to the astonishment of Ward—had so ably
-vindicated his character as a stanch adherent in the day of battle. Pepé
-too, the right-hand man of Ward, was gone.
-
-In very truth, at the last moment the most important and useful
-calculation of Ruiz had failed. He saw Ramirez, by his orders,
-surrounded by desperate men; it seemed inevitable that he must be
-stricken down,—when a party led by Reyes broke through to his
-assistance, and in the fury of the onslaught Ruiz himself was swept from
-his horse and hurried away, and to his consternation found himself a
-prisoner dragged onward in the irresistible impetus of flight.
-
-They were miles distant from the scene of battle when the fugitives at
-last paused; and here for the first time Ramirez knew of the special
-prisoner that had been made. When his eyes fell upon the youth, a frown
-which darkened as with a palpable cloud his already rigid and pitiless
-face, overspread the countenance of Ramirez and made it absolutely
-terrible. Even to fallen angels the crime of ingratitude may seem the
-one damnable offence. In Ruiz, remembering the love and favor he had
-shown him, Ramirez held it so to be. This insignificant boy had
-compassed his ruin; his life seemed too poor a forfeit to condone the
-offence. The baffled, desperate, outraged chieftain cursed the fate
-which had cast the treacherous favorite into his power. But the terrible
-blackness of his face still deepened, as he gazed.
-
-A lasso had been drawn tightly around the waist of Ruiz. His face was
-cut and bleeding; the gold lace and epaulettes had been torn from his
-coat; his uncovered hair was filled with dust, and his face reeking with
-sweat. He raised his bloodshot eyes appealingly. He knew the man before
-him,—the man, worthless and unscrupulous though he was, who had been
-kind to him, whom he had betrayed, and whose death he had attempted to
-compass. Ruiz did not attempt to speak, but fell on his knees and raised
-his bound hands. Ramirez gazed at him a moment in silence, then without
-the quiver of a muscle in his impassive face uttered the sentence, “Let
-him be shot at once!”
-
-Shot at _once_,—from that terrible mandate there was no appeal. There
-was not one there to utter a word in the traitor’s behalf, but only a
-moan from the dust to which he had sunk. Reyes was not there; probably
-the result would have been the same had he been. The soldiers raised the
-young officer and stood him against a tree.
-
-At the last moment that strange indifference to death, which among his
-countrymen so often counterfeits courage, caused Ruiz to straighten his
-figure and raise his head; and in the insolence of despair he said to
-Ramirez, with a glance of malignant contempt, “Had you fallen into my
-hands I would have shot you with my own pistol an hour ago.”
-
-Perhaps the still proud youth hoped by this speech to escape the
-ignominy of execution by a file of common soldiers. If so he was
-mistaken. Ramirez gave the signal; the balls whizzed through the air and
-found their way to their destined aim. Ruiz fell without a groan.
-Ramirez himself, though still with an impassive face, to the
-astonishment of all stooped and stretched the limbs and crossed the
-hands of the young man upon his breast. There was a spot of blood upon
-the face, and the chief wiped it away as tenderly as a mother might lave
-the face of her dead infant; and yet but a few moments before he had
-commanded this youth to a violent death, and according to the creed he
-held, his soul to purgatory without benefit of clergy.
-
-Forgetting to give the expected order for the execution of the other
-prisoners, Ramirez turned away. In another moment he had placed himself
-at the head of the party and continued the retreat. “At the next halt it
-can be done as well,” remarked the lieutenant, philosophically. “There
-are plenty of horses; bind the prisoners well and bring them along.”
-
-And thus for that day at least Pepé Ortiz among others knew he had
-escaped a fate of which the very idea—with the remembrance of Ruiz to
-intensify its horror—made his tongue cleave to the roof of his mouth and
-his knees quiver with terror. Yet the day came when he, like the traitor
-whose end he had witnessed, straightened himself against a tree, and
-with apparent coolness awaited the mandate of Ramirez that was to
-consign him to eternity; naught but a miracle it seemed could save him.
-He only begged a cigarette of a soldier, remarking that they might be
-scarce where he was going,—secretly hoping thus to hide the quiver of
-the lips which belied the bravado of his words.
-
-Shortly after this time, Chata to her surprise received by the hand of
-an Indian fruitseller a brief note from Ramirez. At the first reading
-its contents seemed hard and indifferent. He spoke with an almost savage
-irony of those who were driving him back like a wolf to his mountain
-lairs. “I know of fastnesses, if I care to seek them, where no foot but
-mine has ever trod, and where this accursed American who is hunting me
-down like fate could never hope to follow me,” he wrote. “But it shall
-never be said that Ramirez fled from man or spirit, were it Satan
-himself. After all, a man may not escape from him who is destined to
-bring death to him. Ruiz was marked to die by me. I loved him, yet his
-fate is accomplished.”
-
-Chata shuddered. It seemed incredible that save by accident such a thing
-could happen, so sacred is esteemed by Mexicans the tie between sponsor
-and godchild; and the tone of the letter impressed her as that of a
-desperate man who was ready for unheard-of deeds. Had Ramirez in truth
-deliberately destroyed the man whom for years he had associated in his
-every hope and plan, to whom he had promised the hand of his child? Deep
-indeed must have been the villany that had merited such an end. The sigh
-of relief which Chata involuntarily breathed, that she was free from the
-possible accomplishment of the destiny that had been marked out for her,
-was perhaps as sympathetic as any caused by the death of Fernando Ruiz.
-
-A reperusal of the letter gave to Chata’s mind an impression of the
-longing, the stinging regret, the remorse which the words had been
-designed to conceal rather than display. The pride, the fierceness, the
-unconquerable will of the writer pervaded them; yet the wail of a lost
-spirit crying for the one good that it had known, and now believed
-forfeited forever, seemed to echo through her soul. “He loves me,” she
-thought remorsefully. “He believes himself doomed to die, and that he
-will see me no more. Oh! if it were possible I would go to him. Oh, if I
-dared tell Doña Isabel!—but no, she would keep me from him; she would
-mock my pain with the cry that this was but the just recompense of the
-evil he had brought upon her long ago. She believes her brother dead;
-why torture her by telling her my miserable history?”
-
-Chata showed the letter to Doña Carmen, and she it was who called the
-girl’s attention to some chance mention of the name of the place where
-Ramirez said he might be able to remain some days, even if closely
-pressed, for the people there were secretly sworn to his support. Day
-after day wild rumors flew through the city of the pursuit of Ramirez,
-his capture, his death, only to be contradicted upon the next. They did
-not seriously agitate Chata, for not once was the name of the place he
-called his stronghold mentioned.
-
-One night the anxious girl had a vivid dream. She dreamed she saw the
-chieftain and Chinita lying dead,—the one on one side of a village
-street, the other on the opposite. The people were rushing wildly about
-screaming and gesticulating madly, while Doña Isabel, followed by women
-clothed in black like herself, was in frenzy passing from one to the
-other, uttering that low wail that seems the very key-note of woe.
-
-Chata woke with a stifled scream. The wind was blowing shrilly through
-the trees and seemed to bring to her a voice, which said, “Wake! oh
-wake, Chata! I have dreamed of her.” The voice sounded close to her ear.
-It came from Doña Isabel, who leaning over the dreamer’s bed was
-repeating again and again the words, “I shall find her. I have dreamed
-of her.”
-
-Chata raised herself upon the pillows and caught the lady’s wasted hand.
-“Yes, yes,” continued Doña Isabel, “I have dreamed of Chinita and of
-another,—one I loved long years ago. I saw them together in Las Parras.
-It is a revelation! Why have I not thought of it before? No other place
-would be so fitting. I shall find her. I am going now, now! My carriage,
-my horses, my men must be here; I will call them. Tell my daughter when
-she wakes; she will understand.”
-
-Doña Isabel turned to leave the room, her excitement supplementing her
-returning strength; but Chata detained her. “I too will go,” she cried.
-“Nothing shall prevent me. Doña Carmen will not stop us,—she knows; she
-dare not forbid me. I will tell her now. She will know what is best for
-us. The carriage is still here, but—”
-
-Chata hastened from the room and wakened Doña Carmen. “Ah,” said the
-daughter to herself, “the thought is come, and the hour.” She hastily
-wrote a line to her husband, who was absent at a hacienda he owned near
-the city; provided herself with some rolls of gold, and presently
-entered her mother’s room dressed in a somewhat soiled cotton gown, and
-with her reboso over her arm. Doña Isabel, who in the excitement of her
-thoughts was walking hither and thither, taking up and putting down
-articles of apparel, looked at her daughter blankly. Why, she thought,
-had a servant come at that hour?
-
-“See, I am ready,” cried Carmen, cheerfully. “The diligence is to leave
-the city for the first time to-day. We shall pass through the country
-quite safely. Who would stop such poor creatures as we appear to be?”
-
-Doña Isabel looked at her daughter gratefully,—her mind had been running
-helplessly upon carriages and mounted escorts and all the paraphernalia
-of travel, which require so much time and thought to prepare. “True,
-true!” she said, “that will be best, oh much the best!” In feverish
-haste she prepared herself for the journey as Carmen had done, arraying
-herself in a plain dark dress and reboso. But her daughter noticed that
-she did not think of the expenses of the journey, and herself silently
-assumed the direction of the little party.
-
-Doña Carmen led the way from her own house so quietly that only the
-doorkeeper to whom she gave a few directions, which he doubtless in his
-amazement straightway forgot, was awakened. The three ladies were so
-humbly dressed that they attracted but little notice at the diligence
-house, and being hastily motioned to the poorest seats in the coach were
-soon on their way. Covering their faces with their rebosos, they did not
-so much as speak to one another.
-
-Some ten leagues from the city the diligence was stopped by a half-dozen
-armed men. The male passengers were ordered to lie down upon their
-faces, and were despoiled of all their money and valuables. Chata to her
-extreme disgust—which fortunately was disguised by her alarm—received an
-amicable expression of approval from one of the bandits, which was
-abruptly checked by the remark of the captain that this was no time for
-fooling, as there was a rival band but a half-mile farther on. The elder
-women escaped remark. Happily, the other band did not present itself,
-and the three ladies told their beads in devout thankfulness.
-
-That night the travellers remained at a miserable hut, which served as
-an inn, feeling a certain protection in the presence of an aged priest,
-who chanced to be awaiting there an opportunity to proceed upon a
-long-interrupted journey; and upon the following morning he formed one
-of the travelling party. Beyond bestowing upon them his blessing, he
-said nothing to them,—although somewhat to her discomfort Doña Carmen
-noticed that he often turned an inquiring gaze upon them. Early in the
-afternoon the diligence stopped at a miserable village, the nearest
-point at which, in the interrupted arrangements of travel, it approached
-Las Parras; and having deposited Doña Isabel’s party and the priest,
-diverged toward the north.
-
-Doña Isabel looked around her helplessly, saying, “It is nearly eight
-leagues to Las Parras. I have often been here,—I know the road well. We
-shall never reach there!”
-
-“You will see, Mother, you will see,” answered Doña Carmen, cheerfully;
-and greatly to the astonishment of the priest and the women who stood
-near, she drew forth a half-dozen ounces of gold, and held them up.
-“See,” she said in her clear patrician voice, “you are good people here;
-we are not afraid to trust you,”—her quick eye had shown her there was
-not an able-bodied man in the almost ruinous place. “We are not so poor
-as we look, and I will give you all this for three, four—” she glanced
-at the priest—“horses, donkeys, or mules, be they ever so poor, upon
-which we can go our way.”
-
-The women laughed stupidly, and looked at one another and then at the
-gold. Evidently if there was a beast of burden in the village it was
-securely hidden, and though the money tempted them they were afraid.
-
-“No, no,” said one at length. “Three weeks ago the Señores Liberales
-drove off our last cow, and the week after the Señores Conservadores
-slaughtered the turkeys, and—”
-
-“But we want neither cows nor turkeys,” interrupted Carmen, impatiently.
-
-“Quite true; but the Señorita would have horses,” answered the matron
-imperturbably; “and yesterday the General Ramirez was here—”
-
-She paused as though it were unnecessary to say more of the fate of
-their horses; and Doña Isabel, starting up impetuously, hurriedly
-questioned the assembled gossips. Upon the subject of the visit of
-Ramirez the villagers were eloquent. He and his followers had reached
-there spent with fatigue and long fasting. In a few moments the place
-had been sacked of all its poor provision; there had not been enough to
-give one poor ration to the half-dozen prisoners who were with them.
-They would have been shot—yes, upon the very spot upon which their
-graces were standing—but for the prayers of a young girl, who seemed to
-be the lieutenant’s wife; at least she was in his care,—and Ramirez had
-admitted it could be done as well at the next halt. She herself gave a
-drink of water to the poor lads for the love of God, and also a tortilla
-to one among them that she knew,—poor Pepé Ortiz; but he was too weak to
-swallow it, and had given it to another less wretched than he.
-
-Chata began to cry softly, while Doña Isabel demanded a description of
-the young girl who had been of the party. This was vague enough; but
-insufficient as it was it made the thought of further delay
-impossible,—and the eloquence and gold of Doña Carmen, to which was
-added the authority of the priest, presently induced the villagers to
-produce four sorry beasts, upon which with some difficulty the party
-were secured, for no saddles or panniers were to be had. It was almost
-sunset when, following the old stage-road, the already wearied
-travellers set out upon their long and possibly perilous ride.
-
-The women of the village stood for a long time with arms akimbo, looking
-after the departing travellers. They had divided the money among
-themselves,—they felt rich and could afford to be pitiful. “The poor
-Señora has perhaps lost a daughter,” said one—“doubtless the fair girl
-who rode with the lieutenant. The Holy Mother protect her, for the man
-was in two minds about taking her farther; but the Señor General swore
-he would run his sabre through him if he cast her off to starve in such
-a hole. To starve, eh! One who has never lived in my birthplace cannot
-know how well the pigs fatten here when the tunas are ripe.”
-
-“Pshaw! girls are fools, and not worth breaking one’s head for,” said a
-second, whose only son kept her rich, when well-laden travellers were
-plenty. “Where go they now? They are turning toward Las Parras. They
-will miss the soldiers, or I am no prophet.”
-
-“As a prophet one may give thee a thousand lashes, for thou art ever at
-fault,” laughed a third. “But what matters it to us where they go? The
-road is open to them as to another. They should not go far wrong with a
-holy little priest to guide them.”
-
-
-
-
-                                 XLIV.
-
-
-Upon the very morning that Doña Isabel and her companion left Guanapila,
-news which might perhaps have changed their movements had they heard of
-it flew like wildfire over the city. The convents throughout Mexico had
-been simultaneously opened under a decree of the Liberal government, and
-thousands of women dedicated to a cloistered life were thus set free to
-choose anew their destiny.
-
-Women who for half a century, perhaps, had lived apart from life and
-love were returned to die amid the turmoils of a home where love for
-them had ceased, or to pass over seas to seclusion in strange lands.
-Others, in whom voices as of demons were but just then ceasing to tempt
-the memory with whispers of the world and its alluring joys, saw those
-joys actually within their reach, and with dismay sought to turn their
-eyes away, and prayed for strength to brave the perils of the deep, and
-bear the homesickness that in a strange country would torment the soul
-of the cloistered nun as surely as if she had been free to gaze upon the
-valleys and mountains of the native land she was about to leave forever.
-Younger women, those to whom the early years of seclusion had brought
-but disenchantment, were cruelly roused from the stupor of habit which
-was succeeding pain and presaging content, and with secret regret now
-clung to the vows they fain would have cast aside forever, or in a few—a
-very few—cases became that shunned and despised creature, a recreant
-nun. That night was the signal for horror and tears throughout the land.
-A wail arose from thousands of families, about to catch a glimpse of
-their consecrated dear ones, and then to know them banished forever.
-Such uprooting of ties, such griefs, such domestic woes, are inevitable
-in all great national or social revolutions.
-
-A certain secrecy had been observed in the preparations for and
-execution of this stroke of policy, which had indeed been threatened and
-openly urged as a political necessity, but which in spite of the exile
-of the archbishops and the suppression of monasteries had been
-thought—even by those who acknowledged its probable benefits to the
-nation—too daring a measure ever to be carried into effect. It had been
-thought a dream of the arch-iconoclast Juarez. But he was a man whose
-dreams were apt to come true; and so it happened upon this summer night,
-striking admiration and consternation to the hearts of Liberals and
-Conservatives alike, for there was scarce a family of either party
-throughout Mexico that was not represented in the vast religious houses
-which abounded in every town. Into these, overcoming their superstitious
-scruples, the populace for the first time now penetrated, and learned
-something of the surroundings and consequent life of those whom for
-centuries they had supported as saints, dedicated to prayer and fasting
-for the sins of the people. To their disenchantment and surprise, the
-people found many of these gloomy piles filled with wide and beautiful
-chambers, where flowers and musical instruments stood side by side with
-the altar and _prie Dieu_, and parlors and refectories which opened upon
-gardens planted with the choicest and most luxuriant shrubs and flowers.
-There were kitchens too where the choice conserves were made which
-sometimes found a way to the outer world, and where doubtless other
-savory dishes were prepared for the saintly sisterhoods. In many of
-these retreats each nun had her servant, who came and went at her
-command, and life—if one may judge from the inanimate things and the low
-whispers that sometimes reached the outer air—was made a soft and
-sensuous prelude to the celestial harmony of eternity.
-
-But there were others—and they were many—where the utmost austerity
-pictured by the devout secular mind was practised; where entered the
-poor daughter, or she whom the priests perceived had a true vocation, or
-a deep and agonizing grief, which would keep her faithful to the vows of
-poverty, of devotion, and obedience. There were none of those amiable
-daughters of rich families too bountifully supplied with girls, and for
-whom a dowry to the Church provided a safe and pleasant home, whence
-they might easily glide through this life into another,—where female
-angels would never be esteemed too plentiful,—but where were only the
-poor, the sorrowful, the despairing; and the well-filled vaults beneath
-the gloomy chapels attested how rich a harvest death had gleaned in
-those dreary abodes of penance.
-
-For many days the officers in command at various points had been in
-possession of orders,—which it is to be conjectured were in many cases
-transmitted to the abbesses of the principal nunneries, that they might
-take advantage of this notice by quietly disbanding their sisterhoods
-and sending each member to her own family, or in communities to the
-United States or some transatlantic land. But the opportunity for moral
-martyrdom was not to be destroyed by a mere concession to convenience,
-and not in a single case was the knowledge acted upon,—except perhaps
-that in a few convents upon the designated night the nuns refrained from
-repairing to their dormitories, but prepared for exit, awaited the
-mandate praying in the lighted chapels; and where this occurred, the
-mothers superior afterward acquired reputations of special sanctity for
-the supposed spirit of prophecy which had moved them. But in the
-majority of these establishments, so absolute was the belief that the
-threatened invasion would never be attempted, or if attempted would
-bring upon the intruders the instant vengeance of the Almighty, that no
-change was made in usual habits, and an outward composure was
-maintained, which we may believe among the initiated at least disguised
-many a beating heart filled with genuine horror, or with a wild guilty
-anticipation from which it shrank in remorse. The world! the world! With
-a turn of the lock, with scarce more than a step, they would be in it;
-and then—then!
-
-Guanapila was not, strictly speaking, a convent city. The few small
-retreats within it were vacated with so little commotion that, except in
-the houses to which the sisters were removed, nothing was known of the
-measure until the following morning. But in the much smaller town of El
-Toro there were whole streets lined on either side with high, massive,
-and windowless walls which were the façades of vast cloisters. It was
-with feelings of intense though repressed excitement that Vicente
-Gonzales placed himself at the head of a small force which was to demand
-entrance to those formidable but peaceful structures, while the mass of
-the troops remained at the citadel, ready upon a signal to enforce his
-authority, whether questioned by Church or people. It was true the
-populace had declared itself Liberal in sentiment ever since the defeat
-of Ramirez had left them under the guns of the _Juaristas_; but bred as
-they had been under the very shadow of these colossal monuments of the
-Church it was not unlikely that when their sanctity was threatened, the
-momentary conversion of the citizens to patriotism might yield to zeal
-in the defence of institutions that had appeared to them as unassailable
-as the very heavens.
-
-Vicente Gonzales might readily have sent another to fulfil the dubious
-task before him,—in fact in most cases men of dignity unconnected with
-the army were chosen as peaceful ambassadors of the power that held the
-sword; but the hour had arrived for which this man had prayed and
-fought,—for which he would have prayed and fought had no individual
-suffering added sharpness to the sting of the thorn that for so long had
-tormented his nation. He himself, he resolved, would execute the decree
-that should sweep this great incubus from the land. Perchance among the
-released he might find one whom he had never consciously for one moment
-forgotten; he might see her, if but for a moment, as she passed in the
-throng. He had never ceased to see the yearning, despairing, yet
-resolute expression upon the young face of Herlinda Garcia, as amid
-clouds of incense it faded from his sight behind the iron bars that
-separated her and her sister nuns from the body of the church whence he
-had witnessed her living entombment. That was in a city far away; most
-likely she was there now. Yet there was a chance,—a mere chance!
-
-Strangely enough, Ashley Ward had never spoken the name of Herlinda to
-Gonzales; nor had either mentioned that of Chinita—an inexplicable yet
-differing motive holding both silent. The rapid events of the war, which
-had given full occupation to body and mind, had prevented discussion of
-domestic matters, and there was something in the reticence of Gonzales
-that forbade aught but deeply serious investigation; and for the present
-Ward was unprepared to attempt this. They were friends; but there were
-deeps in the nature of each that the other made no attempt to fathom.
-Upon this night Ward knew the mind of Gonzales perhaps better than did
-the man himself; and throughout the unwonted scenes of which he was a
-mere passive spectator, to him the most engrossing were the emotions
-that betrayed themselves upon the countenance of the commanding officer.
-
-As Ashley and Gonzales left their quarters together, behind them
-followed closely a man in a sergeant’s uniform, who halted painfully,
-and across whose face was a livid scar. To those who had heard nothing
-of the torture he had undergone, Pedro Gomez would have been scarcely
-recognizable,—for besides the disfiguring scar, there was an expression
-of vengeful and ferocious daring where before had been but dogged
-obstinacy and a certain rough kindliness; and to those who had believed
-him dead, his appearance would have brought a superstitious horror as
-that of one escaped from the torments of the damned.
-
-Besides these three, several officers and other gentlemen, with a small
-guard of soldiers, passed out of the citadel afoot, and at a short
-interval were followed by all the available carriages of the town. What
-occurred thereafter may perhaps be best described by a translation of
-the chronicles of the time:—
-
-  “One night—one terrible night—a long and unusual sound, a prolonged
-  rumble, was heard in the streets. It seemed shortly as if all the
-  carriages in the city had become mad, now rushing hither, now thither,
-  waking from sleep the peaceful neighborhood; so that each person
-  demanded of the other, ‘What is this?’ ‘What has happened?’ and no one
-  could answer with certainty the other.
-
-  “While the people wondered, the carriages stopped at the doors of the
-  nunneries, and the gentlemen charged with the commission demanded
-  entrance, and intimated to the nuns the order to leave their cells and
-  refrain from reuniting in cloister.
-
-  “‘But, gentlemen, for God’s love!’
-
-  “‘How can this be?’
-
-  “‘His will be done!’
-
-  “‘But where can we go? Oh, what iniquity!’
-
-  “Such were the phrases that broke the startled stillness of the
-  cloisters. But the commissioners were deaf to all appeals, merely
-  rubbing their hands and saying,—
-
-  “‘Let us go. Let us go on, Señoritas! We have no time to lose!’
-
-  “Truly the time was limited,—that night only, for perchance by day the
-  gentlemen commissioners would have had a distaste to penetrate the
-  convents; or perhaps only by night can certain mischievous deeds be
-  carried to the desired exit.
-
-  “It is said that some naughty novices upon hearing themselves called
-  señoritas forgot for an instant their grief, and smiled. There did not
-  lack also of those who had entered the category of grave mothers who
-  did the same! And after all, was not this a venial and excusable
-  fault? Should not a girl, beautiful and fragrant as a jasmine, become
-  tired of hearing herself addressed every hour and every day in the
-  year as ‘Little Mother,’ ‘My Reverend Mother,’ ‘How is your
-  Reverence?’...
-
-  “This was an event which each one was obliged to accept as she would,
-  but none the less surely. ‘Came it from God? Came it from Satan?’ By
-  either it may have come; but is it not true that Satan is—ourselves?”
-
-The party headed by Gonzales asked themselves no such questions as
-these, but cautiously, swiftly, and effectively did the work, which
-history might criticise. No time was allowed the nuns for preparation.
-Even from the richest convents few articles were carried away as the
-nuns dispersed. Perhaps more previous preparation than was suspected or
-afterward acknowledged had been made; certain it is that the most
-magnificent and valuable jewels had disappeared from the vestments of
-the virgins and saints upon the altars. But as quickly as might be the
-weeping and lamenting sisters were placed in carriages and conveyed to
-houses ready to receive them; though many in the confusion wandered out
-into the darkness and rain afoot, and gave a pathetic chapter to the
-tale of bloodless martyrdom. As one by one the convents were vacated,
-the party passed on; until the smallest and dreariest of those retreats,
-that which nestled beneath the shadow of the parish church, was reached.
-
-Throughout the work Gonzales had spoken only to give the necessary
-orders. The measure that in itself had been so dear to his soul was now
-in its actual execution repugnant to him,—the tears, the sighs, the long
-processions of black-robed and wailing women distressed his heart, and
-filled him with shame and anger. As all this continued, his face
-darkened and a profound melancholy oppressed him. It was raining
-dismally. In other towns doubtless the same scenes were being enacted.
-He turned faint, his eyes filled as with blood. Even Ashley Ward, amid
-the intense interests of the scenes around him,—the views of those grand
-interiors lighted by the candles borne by the retiring nuns, and the red
-glare of the soldier’s torches,—felt the influence of the deep sadness
-of this solemn exodus. The clouds of incense sickened him, and through
-them the glorified Madonnas, the bleeding Christs upon the altars, the
-troops of black-robed nuns themselves, seemed alike beings of another
-world, into which he had stepped unbidden. The light shone upon rows and
-rows of white faces, which looked forth from their wrappings like faces
-of dead saints. He seemed to see each individual one. He was excited to
-the utmost; the blood pulsed hotly through every vein, yet a sense of
-keen disappointment chilled his heart, and unconsciously to himself
-something of what he read upon the faces of Gonzales and Pedro was
-reflected upon his own. A profound quiet and solemnity fell upon the
-party, as they passed the vestibule and penetrated the dim recesses of
-the Convent of the Martyrs.
-
-There the nuns were all gathered in the chapel, praying and waiting, and
-the wail of the Miserere stole from the great organ through the dim
-arches and bare cells. In that place there was nothing of beauty, of
-grace, of sensuous luxury. The stern austerities of an asceticism scarce
-surpassed in mediæval days was found behind those massive and windowless
-walls, which shut out the light, material and moral, of the nineteenth
-century.
-
-As the men entered the chapel, the nuns fell upon their knees and
-covered their faces,—all except the abbess, who remained standing to
-hear the mandate of expulsion.
-
-“Blessed be God!” responded her deep, pathetic voice, “Blessed be God in
-all his works! Sisters, let us go hence;” and taking up the woful
-strains when the organ ceased, with each nun adding to them the weird
-beauty of her voice, the abbess led the way to the portal, and the
-sisterhood passed into the bleak darkness of the unfamiliar street.
-
-By this time the wind was blowing,—a summer’s wind, yet it pierced the
-bodies upon which for years no air of heaven had blown,—and it was
-raining heavily. Fortunately many vehicles had gathered at the curb, and
-ere long the banished nuns were under shelter; and the work of the night
-was accomplished.
-
-Ashley Ward, with other officers and gentlemen, had busied himself in
-bestowing the poor ladies as rapidly and commodiously as possible in the
-carriages, and as the last one turned the corner of the great building,
-the soldiers fell into line at the word of command; and in a few moments
-he found himself alone. He discovered this when he turned to speak to
-Gonzales. He was nowhere to be seen, and Ashley remembered that when he
-had last seen him it was at the chapel door, watching with pale and
-anxious countenance the exit of the nuns.
-
-Gonzales had been suffering from a recent wound. Had the fatigue and
-exposure, and that deadly sickness of crushed and dying hope overcome
-him? Ashley caught up a torch, which was sputtering and about to expire
-on the dripping pave, fanned for a moment its flame, and then made his
-way back into the forsaken building.
-
-He found Gonzales standing on the spot where he had parted from him, and
-before him stood a man with a flickering torch. Both were in an attitude
-of extreme dejection; both started as Ashley’s footsteps broke the
-stillness. Pedro—for the second man was he—led the way into the outer
-darkness, and Gonzales, having in his hand the heavy key which had been
-delivered by the abbess, turned to lock the abandoned house. He paused
-and looked to the right and left. The street was utterly forsaken; the
-rain came in gusts, and it was with much ado that Pedro, turning hither
-and thither, kept alive the flame of the torch.
-
-Once as he turned, the light fell full upon the face and figure of Ward;
-and at the instant an exclamation of incredulous joy, followed by a
-groan, fell upon their ears. Gonzales dropped the key, and it rang
-sharply upon the stones at his feet.
-
-“There is a woman here!” he ejaculated breathlessly. Something in the
-tones had drawn the blood from his heart. “Here! here! a light, Pedro,
-in God’s name!”
-
-The senses of Pedro were even more acute than those of Gonzales and
-Ward. Not only had he heard the voice, but he knew whose it was, and
-whence it had come. His torch flashed upon an alcove of the deep wall;
-and there ensconced they saw the sombre and meanly clad figure of a nun.
-She had covered her face; her form shook violently.
-
-“Señorita,” said Gonzales, recovering himself and respectfully
-approaching the woman, “forgive us that you are left behind. We thought
-all had been provided for—all.”
-
-“It is I who would have it so,—I who promised myself I would escape,”
-answered the nun, brokenly, yet with an almost fierce intensity. “Have I
-not prayed and wept for this hour? Could I let it pass? No, no! I
-lingered—I fled—I could not, would not, go with them. They would have
-dragged me with them across the seas—away—away from her,—my child! my
-child!”
-
-She uttered the last words almost in a scream, yet her gaze followed
-Ward. “Who is he? who is he?” she asked in a feverish whisper. “It is
-not my murdered angel,—my love, my husband,—it is not he; and yet so
-like! Oh my God, is it because thou hast forgiven me that thou bringest
-this vision before me?”
-
-Gonzales started back; gazed eagerly, rapturously at the nun; then
-rushed to clasp the coarse folds of her drapery. Pedro dropped at her
-feet. Ward alone uttered her name,—“Herlinda!”
-
-Gonzales bent over her hand, uttering inarticulate words of greeting.
-She scarcely seemed to hear them. “Vicente, is it thou?” she said
-faintly. “But he, who is he?—the man of the yellow hair, with the face
-that at prayer and at penance, asleep and awake, has ever haunted me?”
-
-Herlinda stepped nearer to Ward. Her lips were parted, her eyes aflame;
-never in all his life before and never again saw he a woman so beautiful
-as this one in the unsightly garb, so coarse it grazed the skin where it
-touched it. “No wonder,” he thought, “my cousin loved her; he could have
-done no other, even had he known he was doomed to die for her!”
-
-Ah! the unhappy daughter of the haughty Garcias was far more beautiful
-that night than ever John Ashley had beheld her. Suffering first had
-refined, and now the divine inspiration of hope illumined those perfect
-features. Ashley Ward comprehended this; but Gonzales with horror
-recalled her words, and thought her mad. “_Maria Sanctissima!_” she
-cried as the light flashed full on the American, “I am forgiven, that I
-behold the living likeness of his face.”
-
-Ward bent before her, inexpressibly touched. He would have spoken, but
-at this instant her eyes fell upon the kneeling man at her feet. “It is
-Pedro,—yes, it is Pedro,” Herlinda said in a low voice. “Perhaps he
-knows of her,—yet, my God, he dares not look at me!”
-
-“Niña, Niña!”
-
-“Speak, Pedro, speak! thou must know of her. Tell me, was Feliz
-faithful? Is my child well, happy?”
-
-“Merciful God, she is indeed mad!” interjected Gonzales. “O Herlinda,
-know you not you never were married, never had a child?”
-
-Herlinda turned on him a glance of mingled entreaty and impatience, then
-raised her eyes piteously toward heaven. “They said I was not married,”
-she moaned brokenly; “but oh, I had a child,—and they took her from me.
-Oh, if I could have died!”
-
-Gonzales turned from her with a groan. How bitter was the revelation!
-Married! It could not have been! And a child? Ah! he knew then why a
-convent had been her doom.
-
-In a broken voice Pedro began to speak. Ashley, with the red glare of
-the torch he held falling full upon him, seemed to Gonzales a mocking
-witness of the shame and woe which from Herlinda were reflected upon
-him, the man who loved her, had ever loved her; yet he felt
-instinctively that the American had a right to hear, to judge, as well
-as he. Ah, it was an American who—“An American!” he gasped, and his hand
-touched the hilt of his sword.
-
-“Niña, Niña!” Pedro was saying. “They brought the child to me. Oh, the
-sweet child, with its soft, dark eyes,—oh, the child with its ruddy
-curls! and I remembered all that you had said, my Señorita. I watched
-over it, I cherished it, it was my own!”
-
-“Thine! thine!” cried the nun clasping her hands, and in her excitement
-even thrusting him from her. “It could not be! Oh Feliz, Feliz! thou
-couldst not be so false!”
-
-The tone of incredulity, of horror, in which she spoke pierced Pedro to
-the quick; yet he answered humbly, “I thought to please you, Niña, to
-keep her from those you distrusted; and she was happy, oh quite happy,
-all through her little childhood. You know one can be quite happy
-playing in the free air.”
-
-The released nun burst into sudden tears. “Happy in the free air! Oh
-yes, yes!” she cried. “Oh, if all these years I could have begged even
-from door to door with my child, even with the brand of shame upon me!
-Oh the suffering, the suffering of these long, long desolate years!”
-
-Gonzales stepped to her side, and placed her arm within his own. “Thou
-shalt be desolate no more, Herlinda,” he said, “thou betrayed angel of
-purity!”
-
-“Betrayed, no!” cried Ashley Ward, looking up. “Deceived perhaps they
-both were, but the man who was slain as her betrayer believed himself
-her husband, as she believed herself his wife,—as I believe now she most
-truly was. Thank God I am here to champion their cause and that of their
-child!”
-
-Gonzales left Herlinda a moment to embrace Ward in his southern fashion;
-then supporting her again listened to what Pedro had to say.
-
-The mother’s face grew whiter and whiter as the tale proceeded. “That,
-_that_ my child!” she murmured at intervals, and her head sank lower and
-lower upon her breast. Even Gonzales and Ward heard with amazement the
-story of Chinita’s appearance at the cave where Pedro had lain wounded.
-“What!” one cried, “has she not been all this time in the house of Doña
-Carmen? Did you not tell us that in a strange freak of impatience she
-had hastened there?”
-
-“It was you, Señores, who affirmed it must be she, when you heard of the
-young girl who had been taken there, from the Indian whom you captured
-as a spy of Ramirez,” answered Pedro, with the humble cunning of the
-true ranchero; “and why should your servant contradict you, when Chinita
-herself had commanded otherwise—”
-
-“And where in God’s name is she now?” demanded Ward. “You know who I am.
-You know all this time I could not have rested tranquil had I thought—”
-
-“Have no anxiety, Señor,” answered the man with his old sullenness. “And
-I swear to you, Niña, she is safe, quite safe. She is with a woman who
-can guard her well. She is gone to seek the man who murdered her father.
-Ah, Niña, your daughter has the blood of the Garcia; she will avenge
-you!”
-
-Herlinda sank with a moan. Ashley would have raised her, but Gonzales
-motioned him back. There was a house at a little distance where a widow
-and her daughters dwelt, and thither he bore her.
-
-It was then at the middle hour between midnight and dawn; and long
-before light, after a hurried consultation, the three men met again
-before the widow’s door. All arrangements had been made for the brief
-transfer of the command of the troops. Gonzales, Ashley, and Pedro acted
-as outriders for a strong military coach drawn by four fleet mules. Into
-this stepped Herlinda and the widow, both dressed as respectable
-gentlewomen; and before the people of El Toro wakened from their deep
-sleep that followed the excitement of the early night, the travellers
-were far upon the road, and though the way was long and rough were
-gaining fast upon the diligence which bore Doña Isabel, her daughter,
-and Chata.
-
-
-
-
-                                  XLV.
-
-
-On the evening when Doña Isabel and her companions set forth from the
-village upon their toilsome pilgrimage to Las Parras, two women leaned
-against the gate-posts at the entrance to the garden where the mistress
-of Tres Hermanos and the mother of the administrador had parted so many
-years before, and looked wearily along the silent road. One would not
-have been surprised to hear that during all these years no other mortal
-had approached the place, for the air of neglect it had worn then had
-deepened into that of utter abandonment. It looked not merely disused,
-but actually shunned. The gate had fallen from its hinges and lay broken
-upon the rank coarse grass and weeds, which thrusting themselves between
-the bars filled the paths. Thick clumps of cacti and stunted
-uncultivated fruit and flowers, with manzanita and other common shrubs
-of the country, had outgrown and outrooted the feebler growths, and
-almost hid the low front of the solid but dismantled building, upon
-which the iron-ribbed shutters hung forlornly like broken armor on a
-battered image.
-
-The sun and wind and rains had done their work unchecked in all these
-years, aided by the revolution, which had torn and scathed whatever had
-attracted its greedy hand and then passed on, leaving desolation to
-continue or repair the work of destruction. The vines, which had at
-first served as a graceful drapery, hung so heavily on every porch and
-wooden projection of the house that they had broken down the frail
-supports, and added to the general appearance of riot and disorder;
-while their matted masses offered a defiant obstruction to any
-adventurous comer. Yet these women had forced a way into the dark and
-mouldy rooms, and found a certain pleasure and security in their
-seemingly impenetrable and forbidding aspect.
-
-“We have been here three days,” said the younger, who even in the
-declining light one might see was a mere girl, while her companion,
-though small, was old in face and figure,—not with the dignity of actual
-age, but with a sort of lithe grace and abandon, which comes from years
-of free and careless action. “We have been three days waiting, yet he
-has not come! You may be mistaken. How can you reckon upon what a man
-like Ramirez will do? He is not like a blind man, always led by his dog
-upon the same round.”
-
-“Necessity and habit are the dogs that lead him,” said the woman with a
-slight laugh. “Fortune is against him; he has been beaten from every
-stronghold. I know this is the hole he will creep into at last.”
-
-“And the people here, they would save him?” said Chinita, musingly. “He
-has ever spared them, ever protected them, that he might have a safe
-refuge in time of need. Here, here, but for us he would be safe?—but for
-us, Dolores?”
-
-“Ah, he is not the first who does not find even nests where he hoped to
-find birds,” answered the woman called Dolores. “To-day he is laughing
-at the little troop of Liberals patrolling these hills; he will make a
-way between them. Yes, you will see; here, here, upon this very road, we
-shall see him flash by like a meteor, and then be lost. But my eyes can
-trace him; my hand will be able to point the way he has gone.”
-
-The woman had unwittingly conjured up a vision that thrilled the
-imagination of the listener. “Oh!” she cried with a sudden gesture of
-repulsion and weariness, “I am sick of this mean and miserable life.
-Would to God I had gone to him as I vowed to do. Do not tell me he would
-have laughed at my rage! No, no! a man could not laugh at the girl who
-accused him of the murder of her father; who stood before him to remind
-him of all his secret and unnatural crimes! Ah, I cannot endure this
-silent, creeping enmity. Three times already by our means he has been
-tracked and driven from his stronghold; once but for Pepé he would have
-been killed,—Ruiz himself would have killed him!”
-
-“Fox against tiger!” cried Dolores, contemptuously. “Bah! the idiot
-might have known that with the smell of blood in the air, not even the
-shadow of the cross would save him if he fell into the hands of Ramirez;
-yet he rushed on his fate. And for Ramirez there waits for him a doom
-more just than death on the battlefield,—though you, who warned Pepé to
-save him, are but a faint-hearted weakling.”
-
-“Would you have him die without knowing the revenge that followed him?”
-cried Chinita. “What would death alone be to such a man as he? It was
-you, yourself, who first urged Pepé to leave us,—not that he might kill,
-but if need were save, Ramirez.”
-
-“It is true,” answered Dolores, mollified; yet she fixed upon Chinita a
-long and penetrating gaze, which seemed to read her very soul. “But you
-are a strange, strange creature,—a peasant for all your pride. He is
-still more a grand gentleman to stare at with fear than a murderer and
-robber to you.”
-
-Chinita’s face turned white. The reproach of the woman stung her, yet
-she felt it was just. “Oh, if I were a man!” she presently muttered;
-“oh, if I were a man!”
-
-“Yes, the way would have been short then,” said Dolores. “Just a
-knife-thrust, and the debt would have been paid. But the revenge of
-women can be a thousand times more deep, more sweet, if one has the
-patience to wait.”
-
-“Patience!” exclaimed Chinita in that shrill, metallic voice that
-indicates a mental tension so violent and long continued that every
-chord of the nervous system vibrates painfully at a word. “Have I not
-had patience? Have I not waited at your bidding until I seem to live in
-a frenzy of fear lest he should escape, and never hear, never see me,
-never know who I am? And what have I gained? Ruiz is dead; Pepé perhaps
-is dead. Ah, if I had spoken! Had Ramirez known that I live, it might
-have saved them both!”
-
-The woman’s answering laugh had more of scorn than mirth in it. “Be
-quiet, child!” she said. “You are young. You think Ramirez has a
-conscience, and that you would have roused it to torment him. Pshaw! I
-will arm you with a better weapon; a little patience—perhaps
-to-morrow—and you will see!”
-
-“Mysteries! always mysteries!” exclaimed Chinita, with increased
-impatience. “_Santa Maria!_ why do you not push back that black kerchief
-from your brows? Have you the mark of a jealous woman’s knife across
-your forehead? Is your hair white, or—or—” She paused, with a horrid
-suspicion flashing through her mind. Was this woman, with whom she had
-daily and nightly associated for weeks, a victim of that species of
-leprosy known as the “painted”? Was some dread trace of it to be seen
-upon that constantly covered head? Dolores with careless grace had
-raised and clasped her hands above the unsightly kerchief. The bared
-arms were clear and fair; only the deep-lined face they encircled looked
-old, but care, not disease, had marked it. She looked at Chinita through
-the growing dusk with an inscrutable expression in her almond-shaped and
-beautiful eyes. They were eyes that still might fascinate at will.
-Chinita drew a little nearer to her, and sighed deeply. There was a
-sense of guilt upon the girl’s mind since she had heard of the death of
-Ruiz; a sickening apprehension, too, for the fate of Pepé Ortiz.
-
-Dolores read her thoughts. She dropped one hand from her head upon the
-young girl’s shoulder. There seemed something magnetic in the touch.
-Chinita, though she would rather have resisted, yielded to it,—like a
-nettle grasped in a strong hand. “Silly one,” said the woman soothingly,
-“fret not yourself for Ruiz. Ramirez knew him better than did you. He
-had had long years to con the lesson in. It is well for the weak
-defenceless creatures of the earth that these wild beasts attack and
-destroy one another!”
-
-Chinita looked unconvinced. In spite of doubts, she had had a certain
-pride and solace in the belief that Ruiz would prove true to
-Ramirez,—true through his love for her. She had purposely left him
-ignorant of the change in her own views and feelings in regard to
-Ramirez that he might be free to act upon his own impulses and
-convictions. She knew not what she would have had him do, yet all the
-same he had disappointed her. She had no clews to the motives of Ruiz,
-other than those Dolores suggested to her, and there was an uncertainty
-and vagueness overhanging him which made him in her eyes a victim to his
-love for her, and a fresh cause for accusation of the man who seemed
-destined utterly to bereave and despoil her. Strangely enough, in her
-wildest excitement Chinita had never formulated for herself any definite
-mode of action when she should see Ramirez,—as see him, accuse, defy him
-she would! There had been a conviction in her mind that in her the
-ghosts of the innocent he had slain, the shame,—which with strange
-perversity he had shrunk from when it menaced his family pride in the
-person of Herlinda Garcia,—the contempt and hatred of his wronged
-sister, would all rise to confront and overwhelm him. That which should
-follow, time, circumstance would determine; but that the wild fever of
-her passion would be satisfied she would not doubt. She had longed with
-an ever increasing excitement to find herself before Ramirez, and to
-pour forth her wrongs in burning words. Yet this woman Dolores, with a
-fascination even greater than the unconscious one that Ramirez himself
-had exerted over her, had withheld her from her purpose, had even led
-her to gain the secrets of the chieftain’s plans from his most trusted
-confidants,—the young girl reddened with shame and anger, yet with
-flattered vanity, when she remembered that the sight of her beauty had
-been more potent than the gold of Dolores. Chinita had not guessed that
-she had been purposely employed to act the part of a spy, and had
-resented deeply the fact that her discoveries had more than once been
-transmitted to Gonzales, and that her revenge was supposed to be
-gratified by the consequent defeat which had overcome Ramirez. Her
-longing was for a more dramatic, more direct revenge. Pedro and Dolores
-could plot and scheme for the silent overthrow of him who had wronged
-them; they gloried in their astuteness that made him an unsuspicious
-victim, while Chinita writhed under it, and only the promise that in Las
-Parras she should accuse Ramirez face to face had made endurable to her
-the life of secret intrigue and absolute disguise and constant change
-that she had led for weeks. The element of peril, it is true, had
-stimulated her adventurous spirit; but she would fain have been in the
-midst, not hovering a ready fugitive upon the edge of the fray.
-
-When weeks before Chinita had, after her faintness, opened her eyes in
-the low, rocky cave in which Pedro lay, it had been to find him an
-almost unrecognizable mass of wounds and bruises, lying on a sheepskin
-pallet, gazing at her with wide-distended eyes, and ejaculating in tones
-of dismay, mingled with incredulous delight, “What have I done? Oh God!
-is it possible that she has come to me,—the miserable, dying Pedro?”
-
-“Yes, yes, Pedro, I am here!” she cried, staggering to her feet. “Ah,
-the American thought I had forgotten thee; but thou wert in my heart all
-the time that he talked. Ah, though I am of other blood, it is thou that
-hast saved me! They would have thrust me out to die. I will cling to
-thee while thou livest; I will avenge thee when thou diest!”
-
-“Hush!” muttered Pedro faintly, as she stooped and kissed his hand,
-bedewing it with her tears. “Ah, I shall not die, now you have come. Did
-I not tell you,” he asked, turning to a figure beside Chinita, “that I
-should live if I could know she loved me?”
-
-“And this is the girl you have nurtured?” asked the stifled voice of a
-woman. She was not as tall as Chinita, and she held a candle up close to
-the face of the girl to look at her. Chinita was spent with fatigue;
-moreover there were tears on her face, and she resented the inspection,
-pushing away the woman’s hand rudely. Yet it was not that of a servant,
-nor of a woman of the lower class. Even in the excitement of the moment
-Chinita was conscious of wondering who and what this person was. How
-came she there in the cave among these fugitives?
-
-“But for her I should have been dead already,” Pedro was saying. “She
-has wondrous skill and knowledge of surgery and herbs. But,” he added,
-in a low, apologetic voice, “she knows all. I have talked in my
-delirium. I could not help it. You will pardon me,—if I die you will
-pardon me?”
-
-“I have nothing to pardon!” cried Chinita. “What! you think because my
-mother lives I would hide her name? No, no! I have endured enough for
-her cowardice and the shame of Doña Isabel. No, no! let me but see
-Ramirez,—this Leon Vallé,—and though it be before all the world, I will
-declare who I am. The American, Ashley Ward, says he will claim me as
-his cousin. Pepé must ride and tell him I am here, and we will have
-vengeance together for the cruel deeds of Ramirez. You shall be avenged,
-Pedro, you shall be avenged!”
-
-The sick man’s eyes glistened. As she spoke, Chinita’s face had glowed
-with an unrelenting and cruel intensity of purpose. The woman at her
-side had never once removed her eyes from her. No one was noticing her;
-had they done so, they would have beheld an extraordinary series of
-changes pass over her dark but mobile face,—suspicion, delight, doubt,
-alarm, conviction. Suddenly she seized Chinita’s hand, and pressed it to
-her heart; it was beating so tumultuously that the young girl drew back
-startled. The woman thrust her hands under the loose folds of the black
-kerchief that draped her head with a sombre yet Oriental grace, then
-withdrawing them caught a stray lock of Chinita’s hair, and burst into a
-long, low, triumphant laugh.
-
-Chinita drew herself away, alarmed and offended. Pepé had come in; and
-looking at her anxiously he said, “Nina, do not mind her. Esteban tells
-me she is a mad woman; yet she does no harm. She does not know what she
-talks of, and one moment denies what she has said at another. It would
-not be strange if she should tell you some dreadful tale, and afterward
-laugh, and say grief had made her mad!”
-
-“And so it has,” cried the woman. “Ah yes, I have been mad; but that is
-past. Yes, yes. Life of my soul,” turning to Chinita, “how beautiful
-thou art! And the hair, it is a miracle! In all the world there should
-be no other with such hair. Thou hast had good fortune, Pedro, to bring
-up such a child. She is an angel. Ah, it is as if I had seen her all my
-life! And thou hast a spirit to match thy face,” she added turning again
-to Chinita. “Thou canst not brook a wrong. Well, well! we will make
-common cause; and some day—soon, soon we will stand together before Leon
-Vallé with such a tale, such a revenge, that even he will sink before
-it. To think that after all these years, I shall turn against him the
-dagger with which he has pierced me!”
-
-“Who are you? What do you know of me?” cried Chinita, shuddering, though
-she understood that the weapon of which the stranger spoke was no
-material tool. “Why should you join with me, or I with you? No, no; when
-Pedro is able, we will go away, you your way, and I mine!”
-
-“Our ways lie together!” cried the woman, excitedly. “The one without
-the other would fail. Oh! you think me mad, but I am not. I could tell
-you things,—but no, I will wait; perhaps thou hast not even heard of me.
-Ah! how many years is it since I disappeared from the world, that I have
-been forgotten?”
-
-Pedro raised himself upon his elbow painfully, and gazed at her with a
-long and eager scrutiny. “I know you now,” he said, “though I never saw
-you but once, and then you were beautiful as the Holy Madonna on the
-high altar at Pueblo.”
-
-“Yes,” she interrupted; “I am Dolores, whom Vallé loved. Ah, you think
-that strange, because my beauty is gone, and I am old, and like a witch,
-living in this murky cave! Where else should I go—I, whom he stole away
-and betrayed, and despoiled and forsook?”
-
-“But you are rich,” said Pepé in wonder, and in a tone that seemed to
-condone the rest.
-
-“Rich!” she said scornfully. “Rich! yes, for such needs as mine. Rich!
-he used to give me jewels a queen might have been proud of. He thought I
-wasted, lost, destroyed them, as he would have done, but I kept
-them,—kept them for my child. Ah, I knew she would be beautiful, would
-be worthy of the rarest and costliest I could give her. Ah, I would give
-her jewels! such jewels as would buy her love, were she as capricious,
-as hard, as Ramirez himself.”
-
-Chinita drew back from her, with a certain hauteur, a certain loathing
-upon her face. “I have heard of you,” she said coldly. “You chose your
-lot. If you have wrongs, they can be nothing to mine. See”—and she
-pointed to Pedro—“what Ramirez has done but now; while but for his
-murderous knife my father would have lived, and my mother would not have
-been obliged to hide her disgraced head in a convent, and I should not
-have been left a pauper at the gate of my mother’s house.”
-
-“There can be no wrongs greater than these?” said the woman half
-interrogatively, half affirmatively. “Yet listen! He stole me away from
-my husband; I swear I did not go willingly, though I loved him,—oh my
-God, how I loved him! For him I died to the world. I forsook the father
-who was dear to me as life. I lived a life of infamy, hiding in obscure
-villages, in mountain huts, in caves when need were. I bore him
-children; but they died,—all died as though there was a curse upon them.
-That angered him; then he grew cold, then false and cruel. One day a
-captive was brought into the camp for ransom,—a captive he himself had
-made. He sent to me to look at the man and to set a price upon his head.
-I went, as he told me, in gay attire, with jewels blazing on my arms and
-neck, a diadem upon my head. When the prisoner looked up and saw me,
-with the price of my shame as he thought upon me, he staggered, gasped,
-and fell down dead. He was my father. My senses fled, yet when another
-child was born they returned to me. She was strong and beautiful. I
-clasped my treasure; but my heart burned against her father. I swore I
-would leave him, that I would hide the child where he never should
-discover her. Fool! fool! that I was! When I woke next day, for in my
-weakness I slept, the babe was gone,—dead they told me; gone too the
-pretty clothing I had made, the little trinkets I had placed about her
-neck. But the blessed prayers I had bought from the holy nuns of La
-Piedad were not in vain! No, no! wretch, demon, that he was!”
-
-Chinita’s heart beat suffocatingly. “What! you think the child was still
-living?” she said.
-
-“I know it! I know it!” cried Dolores. “I feel it here,—here in my
-heart, which beats for her. And sometime, when I find that child, if I
-do find her, think you she will love me? Think you she will hate her
-father as I do? Think you she will avenge my wrongs and hers?”
-
-“But if he loved her,” said Chinita; “if he meant to separate her
-from—from such a woman as you had been! Oh, I know you have suffered,
-that you have reason for vengeance; but—” she cried hysterically,
-striking her hands together, terribly moved, she knew not why. The
-strange woman broke into sobs, piteous to hear. Chinita clasped her
-hands. “But you would not have her—your child—his child—hate the man you
-loved?”
-
-“Hate him!” echoed Dolores. “I would have her hate him with such hate as
-she would bear toward the fiends of hell. I would have her know him as
-you know him,—the insatiable monster who wrecked the happiness of a
-sister too fond, even when most foully wronged, to seize the vengeance
-that was within her grasp. Ah, Doña Isabel it was who set him free to
-murder, to betray, to wrench the child from its maddened mother, and
-cast it out by the first rude and careless hand that would do his will!
-My God! were you his child could you have pity? Would you not feel your
-wrongs,—the wrongs of the mother who bore you?”
-
-Dolores spoke with the wild excitement of one who for years had brooded
-on this theme. Chinita herself seemed to be struggling with some fantasy
-of a disordered brain. The woman actually glared upon her, as if on her
-reply hung her destiny. Overcome by the unexpected demand upon her
-sympathy,—a demand that the peculiar circumstances of her life made
-irresistibly impressive,—Chinita shrank with horror at the tumult of
-emotion which revealed to her mind the possibilities of her own
-passionate nature.
-
-“Tell me no more! Ask me no more!” she cried. “Ah, if I were his
-daughter! But no, I am the daughter of Herlinda Garcia, and of the man
-he murdered in secret. Yes, I will seek Ramirez out. I—I—O God! I know
-not what I will do, but I will have justice! revenge! revenge!”
-
-The girl ended with a scream, and fell down, burying her head on Pedro’s
-shoulder. The wounded man, his ghastly face pressed close against her
-twining hair, looked appealingly to the excited woman who stood over
-them. There was scorn, rage, intense offence upon her face; but slowly
-they died out, and she turned away with the weary air of one in whom
-some periodic excess of passion or madness had wrought its work and
-brought its consequent exhaustion. A half hour later she brought the
-girl some food, wonderfully dainty for the place and its resources, and
-gently fed and soothed her. Pepé and Pedro looked on wonderingly. All
-that had been said had passed so quickly that they had not realized that
-aught of consequence had happened; but in the quiescent attitude of
-Chinita, and the strange calm that had fallen upon the excited and
-erratic woman, they instinctively felt that a new phase of life had
-begun for them. A new spirit was in future to lead and rule them; and it
-dwelt in the frame of this half-crazed woman, who had declared herself
-mistress of the cave. The men thenceforth seemed led by a spell; and to
-the same spell Chinita gradually succumbed.
-
-This had been the first meeting of Chinita with the woman who stood
-talking with her nearly two months later at the garden gate of Las
-Parras. They had left the cave weeks before,—Pepé and Pedro, the latter
-still bruised and maimed, to join the troops of Gonzales; and Chinita,
-unable to resist the influence of Dolores, followed rebelliously with
-swift and unerring movement the fortunes of Ramirez. By what arguments
-Pedro had been won to consent to separate from his foster-child, and to
-maintain silence concerning her to Ashley, can be but guessed; though
-certain it is that Chinita on her part reminded him of the promise he
-had made Herlinda to protect her child from Doña Isabel, to whose care
-she justly suspected Ashley Ward would strive to return her. Meanwhile
-Dolores adroitly fostered in the girl’s mind that hope of a peculiar and
-swift revenge, which was to satisfy at once the many wrongs that in
-those diverse lives were clamorous for justice; while an intense
-anticipation urged the gatekeeper to hasten without delay to join the
-Liberal army,—the anticipation of that event which presented to his mind
-such wondrous possibilities. The convents once opened, would Herlinda
-claim her child? Would she by some strange miracle confront Leon Vallé
-and her proud mother with the proof of that which Ashley Ward had in
-spite of adverse law and custom declared still possible,—the proof of
-her marriage with the American who had been slain without accusation,
-without the possibility of defence?
-
-Pedro could not reason; he could but doggedly wait, and guard with
-silent fidelity and ferocity the charge that had been given him. That a
-superior intelligence, an undeclared authority potent as an armed power,
-had for a time wrested Chinita from him, made him only the more
-tenacious when once again he held her in his grasp. His foster-child
-while in the mountains with the woman whose life was bound in the same
-interests, the same mysteries, as her own, was safe from the
-possibilities of removal from his cognizance.
-
-Pedro was asked no questions which he cared not to answer, when he
-presented himself among the Liberal forces. Ashley, tranquil in the
-belief that Chinita was with Doña Carmen in Guanapila, avoided more than
-casual mention of her name; and Pedro jealously guarded his secret, and
-patiently waited the moment he superstitiously believed would come,—the
-moment which, when it did come, gave him the sharpest sting he had ever
-known in his stoical existence; when Herlinda Garcia cried in
-uncontrollable horror and dismay, “What! you,—_you_ have brought up my
-child? She was given to _you_!”
-
-On the journey from El Toro there was but one thought in the mind of him
-who had served with such blind faithfulness. For the first time a doubt
-tormented him. “Would the beautiful, uncontrollable idol of his heart
-satisfy the longing—the years of longing—of the woman who freed from her
-bonds was hastening to claim her daughter and acknowledge her before the
-world?” As the hours passed, Pedro shunned the eyes of Herlinda, though
-they looked upon him with a grateful affection that should have been at
-once an invitation to confidence and a recompense of his long fidelity.
-Yet with the remembrance of Chinita ever before him, the glance of
-Herlinda seemed that of accusation and reproof. Her words rang like a
-knell in his heart. He, who knew the vices and virtues of the two castes
-which he and the still beautiful woman represented, knew that like oil
-and water they were irreconcilable, and understood the full significance
-of that involuntary cry, “What! _you_,—_you_ have brought up _my_
-child?”
-
-
-
-
-                                 XLVI.
-
-
-A league or less from the village of Las Parras there stood—and perhaps
-still stands—a small chapel, built, no one knows in fulfilment of what
-pious vow, at the entrance to a mountain pass of the roughest and most
-dangerous sort alike from the forces of Nature and of humanity. Likely
-enough some rich hidalgo, escaping from brigands, raised here the humble
-pile, and vowed that the lamp should ever burn before the Virgin and her
-blessed Child. But through the long years of war, as a pious ranchera
-had said in holy horror, the blessed Babe had remained in darkness. But
-some time after midnight, one rainy night, a sudden flash of flame
-lighted up not only the dingy altar but the whole of the small mouldy
-interior of the chapel, and a scene was revealed which a passing monk
-might have viewed with reverence, so nearly must it have copied one that
-may have been common enough when Joseph and Mary journeyed to Jerusalem,
-eighteen hundred years and more ago.
-
-This thought indeed entered the mind of a man who riding through the
-drizzling rain caught a glimpse of the unusual light through the
-unguarded doorway, and reining his horse gazed curiously in. At first
-the place seemed to him full of women and jaded beasts; then he saw
-there were but four of each, and that one of the human creatures was a
-man,—a priest. The women,—good heavens! they were the Señora Doña Isabel
-Garcia, and the girl whom he had once seen under circumstances almost as
-extraordinary,—she whom he knew as the daughter of Ramirez and the
-foster-child of Don Rafael. Of the other woman he scarcely thought, yet
-he instinctively guessed she was Doña Carmen. Ashley Ward looked round
-in bewilderment. Only that day some definite account of what had
-occurred at Tres Hermanos had reached him, told by a man who had been
-with the administrador and his mother in their vain endeavors to trace
-the girl who had been so boldly spirited away. The search had been long
-delayed because of the illness of Doña Feliz; but once begun, it had
-been prosecuted with untiring zeal. Not a village, scarce a hut
-throughout that region had been unvisited, yet all in vain.
-
-Ashley had heard the tale with deepest sympathy. Oh inconceivable
-obtuseness! that it had not once occurred to him or to Gonzales that the
-girl of whom they had heard as sojourning with Doña Carmen, and whom he
-had believed to be Chinita, might prove to be her vanished
-playmate,—simply because the remembrance of the house of Doña Carmen had
-slipped from their minds when their supposed knowledge of the movements
-of Chinita made Doña Carmen’s young guest no longer an object of
-interest to them, simply because the means adopted by Ramirez for the
-security of Chata would never have suggested themselves to minds less
-daring, less original than his own. Ashley Ward turned from the doorway
-dazed. The presence of these personages in such a place, at such a time,
-seemed unreal, bewildering, ominous.
-
-Upon the heavy sand the horse that Ashley rode had made so little noise
-that it had not roused the miserable travellers as they cowered wet and
-shivering around the sputtering fire, upon which the priest with
-unhesitating hands threw some dry portion of a wooden railing and the
-broad cover of a sacred book of music. Vain sacrifice! for being of
-parchment it but curled and blackened, yet would not burn any more than
-would the bare stone floor upon which the welcome embers lay.
-
-Turning back a few paces Ward encountered the carriage he had
-accompanied thither. With bowed heads, endeavoring thus to shelter their
-faces from the mist, General Gonzales and the servant Pedro rode, one on
-either side of the heavy travelling carriage. Just as Ward appeared they
-caught sight of the light. The coachman and his helper, half dead as
-they were from want of sleep, saw it too, and all the mules were stopped
-as though transfixed. The men began to mumble prayers, crossing
-themselves with unction. Gonzales, following his habit of caution as
-well as the motion of Ward, rode softly forward to reconnoitre.
-
-Before the occupants of the carriage had time to question the meaning of
-the stoppage, Gonzales had returned. His face was white with excitement
-as he dismounted and opened the door of the vehicle.
-
-“Señorita,” he said in a voice that shook from suppressed emotion, “a
-wonderful thing has happened!”
-
-Herlinda leaned eagerly forward. She caught the gleam of the light and
-the grim outline of the chapel against the leaden sky. “Is my
-child—Leon, my uncle—here?” she gasped.
-
-“No, no! that would not be so strange; we may perhaps at any moment
-encounter them. But your mother, your sister,—they are in yonder church,
-drenched, wretched; travellers seemingly more anxious, more eager than
-ourselves. From a word I heard, they too seek—your child.”
-
-Gonzales spoke the last two words with evident difficulty and
-repugnance. Herlinda did not notice that. She scarce had heard more than
-the words, “Your mother, your sister.” In trembling haste she descended
-from the carriage. Instinctively she clasped the arm of Ashley Ward to
-support her through the inequalities of the roadway; and followed by
-Gonzales and Pedro, who had dismounted, she sped with surprising
-fleetness to the open door of the chapel.
-
-At the sound of approaching footsteps, those within sprang to their feet
-in terror. Even the brutes hurtled together within the very rail of the
-altar, leaving free the space between the fire and the low arch beneath
-which the intruders stood. The women stood panting, their hands clasped
-upon their hearts, their lips parted, their eyes staring wildly. Doña
-Isabel was foremost. She first saw as in a vision her daughter, whom she
-believed still within convent walls, supported by the arm of the
-American. She sank upon her knees; her tongue clave to the roof of her
-mouth.
-
-“Mother,” said Herlinda in a voice which gave conviction of the reality
-of her presence, “I am no ghost. The convents have been opened,—I am
-free. Where is my daughter? You took her from me,—give her back to me.
-My child! my child!”
-
-She advanced into the chapel with a gesture so earnest, so impassioned,
-that it seemed that of concentrated power and anguish combined.
-
-Doña Isabel bowed her head on her hand. Under the red light of the fire
-her form seemed to shrink and wither.
-
-“Have mercy! oh, Herlinda, have mercy!” she moaned. “Your child is not
-here. I am seeking her, oh with what grief, what anguish! Ah, my God, it
-is true,—all, all that you can say to me!” She raised her eyes and they
-fell upon Gonzales. “I thought to save your honor and mine. That there
-still might be love and joy for you, I gave the child to Feliz to do
-with as she would. I did not think, I could not think—”
-
-“Cruel, cruel mother!” cried Herlinda, “and false Feliz! Oh, what
-reproaches will be bitter enough, sharp enough, to heap upon her! She
-promised me she would love my child, care for it, protect it,—yes, even
-from you, unnatural mother that you were! Yet together you have
-degraded, perhaps brought about the ruin of, my child! I have been shut
-in from all the world,—and yet I am not the weak girl I was. No, the
-heart and brain of a woman grow even in utter darkness. You had no right
-to thrust my child away. No, she was mine,—come disgrace, come scorn,
-what would, she was mine. You tore her from me,—give her back to me!”
-
-While this extraordinary scene took place, Chata with indescribable
-emotion recognized the pale impulsive face of the nun of El Toro,—so
-pale still, so worn, yet so strangely young, and lighted by the intense
-and resolute spirit of a wronged and noble woman.
-
-“Yes, give me back my child!” reiterated Herlinda. “Ah, Mother, I read
-your heart; I know now better than I did then your motives for utterly
-ignoring, utterly denying my connection with the American. Your brother
-killed him: it was to shelter him, Leon Vallé, as much as to hide what
-you believed my shame, that you tore my baby from me. You resolved that
-there should be neither wonder nor question that could incriminate your
-idol. Oh, a sister’s love, a sister’s sacrifice is beautiful; but where
-in all the world before has it been stronger, more prescient than that
-of the mother for her child?”
-
-Doña Isabel raised her hands above her head as though to ward off some
-crushing blow. Carmen rushed forward and caught her sister’s hand.
-“Herlinda,” she cried, “say no more. I am your sister—I am Carmen! Oh, I
-have always known there was a mystery; yet I have loved you, believed
-you true, believed you pure. You were almost a child,—you knew not the
-evil!”
-
-“I was not a child!” returned Herlinda, proudly, yet clasping her sister
-with a grateful joy. “For all my trusting love I would not have stooped
-to sin. I was married. Yes,” she added defiantly, “though all the world
-deny it, I was married. God grant that I may one day stand before my
-husband’s murderer,—oh, with that word I will overwhelm him. What! he,
-the ravisher, the assassin, think to avenge _my_ honor!”
-
-The form of the excited woman dilated as she spoke. Through the dim
-chapel her voice pealed with a ring of purity and truth, more clear than
-the tone of silver bells. There was a clamor of answering voices. Even
-the priest started forward, but Chata caught his flowing gown and
-whispered him in broken accents,—
-
-“Oh, for the pity of God hide me. Let her not see me! Oh, this is too
-terrible, too terrible!” She shook with dread. “Madre Sanctissima, it
-will kill me if her eyes fall upon me! I am the daughter of the man she
-seeks. O Virgin of Succors, pity me!”
-
-The burly person of the priest supported and sheltered the stricken and
-trembling girl. “Courage, courage!” he whispered. “Thou shalt plead for
-him. For thy sake she will forego the claims of justice,—she will
-forgive!” He naturally attributed her emotion to apprehensions for her
-father’s fate. “Yes, even I will plead with her.”
-
-But in the brief space of this interference there had been a movement at
-the door, and a strange voice was heard. Gonzales—who throughout had
-stood just back of Herlinda, chafing that he was not at her side, for he
-would have championed her before the world—disappeared for a moment;
-then returning, strode forward to the fire and raised Doña Isabel with a
-not unkindly though imperious hand.
-
-“Señora,” he said, “I have this moment heard news of Ramirez, brought by
-an escaped prisoner, one of your own men, Pepé Ortiz by name. As we
-suspected, the defeated and desperate chief is on his way to, perhaps
-has entered, Las Parras. There is no time to be lost. With him—accusing
-him, for such was her mad purpose—we may find your daughter’s child. Oh,
-would to God,” he added with fervor, “I had known this horrible blight
-upon Herlinda’s young life! I would have sheltered, I would have
-sustained her. I would have appealed to Rome.”
-
-Doña Isabel looked at Gonzales in a dazed way, slightly swaying as she
-stood. “Thou wert ever noble, ever true,” she said dreamily. “Thou
-lovedst her. But Leon? She spoke of Leon. Then it is true! He did indeed
-murder the American. But he is dead; he is dead.”
-
-The mind of the poor lady seemed wandering. She stood looking about her
-with an awful smile. Gonzales saw that she did not connect the name of
-Ramirez with her brother. Illness, exertion, and the intense emotions of
-that hour had made it impossible for her to receive any fresh
-impressions, or even to recall those that perhaps had once faintly
-suggested themselves and had faded. She was conscious of but one
-thought, one hope. “Herlinda’s child, Herlinda’s child!” she repeated
-again and again. “O God, to find, to give back the child!”
-
-The agonized woman would have clasped the hand of Gonzales appealingly,
-but he had turned and led Herlinda from the place. Chata, gliding toward
-Doña Isabel, drew the arm of the suffering lady around her neck, and
-murmuring fond words, thus stood supporting her. And thus some moments
-later Ashley Ward found them. The young girl seemed in his eyes the very
-embodiment of Tenderness supporting Despair.
-
-Ashley took her hand. “Oh, Chata!” he said, “what a fearful error this
-has been! And Chinita, where shall we find her? Poor girl, poor girl!
-God grant she has not found that man; the horrible fascination he held
-over her might prove more fatal than her newly-sworn hatred. Come, come,
-let us hasten. It is at least certain that Ramirez is at this moment in
-Las Parras.”
-
-“Chinita!” cried Chata, her heart sickening. “What, is Chinita the child
-of Doña Herlinda? I love her, but oh she—the Señorita Herlinda! No, no,
-it cannot be!”
-
-Ashley smiled drearily. “The eagle is sometimes found in a dove’s nest,”
-he said. “Ah, with such a mother what a glorious woman that strange
-defiant creature might have become! But what powers for good have been
-debased in those low associations among which she was thrown!”
-
-The young man stopped, remembering Doña Isabel; but she had moved away.
-She was already at the door. Gonzales, who was returning for her, led
-her silently to the carriage. The widow who had been with Herlinda had
-dismounted and joined Chata and the priest, as they issued from the
-gloomy chapel. The poor woman looked confused and wretched; it was a
-comfort to her to hear the muttered benediction of the friar.
-
-Chata mounted the sorry beast on which she had come, despite the
-remonstrance of Ashley. “No, no, I cannot bear the accusing gaze of the
-Señorita Herlinda,” she protested. “You, Don ’Guardo, know who I am. My
-place is at Leon Vallé’s side, not here. O God, would that it were not
-so!”
-
-The rain had ceased. There was a streak of dawn in the sky. The road lay
-like a pale yellow serpent, which grew brighter as they followed its
-sinuous twinings among the hills. There was a slight accident, which
-detained the carriage; but Chata, accompanied by Pepé,—who had
-recognized her with amazement, and who gave her a brief account of all
-that had happened in the life of Chinita since they had parted,—hastened
-on as speedily as was possible to her jaded beast. Just at the dawn she
-found herself entering the straggling town; and suddenly the mass of
-verdure beyond a broken wall which they were skirting, and over which
-she was gazing with eyes as heavy as the dripping herbage, sparkled as
-with a thousand diamonds. The sun had risen; and facing it—his eyes so
-dazzled that the figures upon the roadway were to him like the scattered
-trees, mere black, shapeless masses—was the object of her dread, yet
-also at that moment of her fondest anguish bloody and travel-stained
-with the marks of battle and flight upon him, the wreck of what she had
-last seen him.
-
-Filial duty and womanly pity supplied the place of that love which she
-could not conjure even then, and with a cry she drew rein at the
-prostrate gate; and to the amazement of Pepé, who knew nothing of the
-relations between the young girl and the defeated chieftain, she sprang
-to the ground and rushed to the embrace of the hunted man. Looking back
-she saw the others approaching, and sought to repel them by an
-entreating gesture. Her voice was heard in warning; but Ramirez heeded
-it no more than he did the sound of wheels and the tread of horses on
-the roadway. He had known of late such strange vicissitudes and such
-unaccountable experiences, which had been so unforeseen, often so
-disastrous yet fleeting, that they seemed the phantasmagoria of a
-frightful dream. These noises, these figures, were but the same to his
-stunned senses. But this girl in his arms, who called him father,—she
-was real flesh and blood, and thrilling with life. He clung to her with
-rapture; and as he would have done in a dream, he saw her there without
-surprise,—only with a vague bewilderment, a fear that she too would fade
-away. No! She clung to him with tears, as though seeking to protect him
-from some menaced danger.
-
-Ah, he understood: this man who had reached them was the American who
-had accused him at the grave of him whom he had murdered. Great God! Had
-beings of this world and the other combined against him? There was
-Pedro, or his ghost; there too was Herlinda! Yes, though it was years
-since he had seen her, and then only for a moment in her lover’s arms,
-he knew her instantly.
-
-Ramirez recoiled before her glance. His arms fell from Chata. The
-released nun, who had not known that the young girl had been of their
-company, thrust her aside, then caught her hand and looked searchingly
-into her face. Her own face quivered as she looked. It grew whiter and
-whiter still, as Chata raised her eyes and returned the gaze.
-
-“I saw you from the convent grate—at El Toro,” said Herlinda,
-breathlessly.
-
-Carmen’s face brightened like that of one who solves a joyful mystery.
-Chata sighed deeply.
-
-“Chata,” cried Ashley, who divined what must be in the mind of Herlinda,
-“speak! Tell the Señorita that you are not her daughter. Her suspense is
-terrible!”
-
-But Chata could not utter a word. Ramirez broke into a laugh. He himself
-heard that betrayal of his over-strained nerves with a shudder. He would
-not have laughed had his will served. Why should he laugh? Then the
-shame, he thought, of this poor Herlinda had been complete. She had a
-child; she had come to the avenger of her shame hoping to find the lost
-proof of her frailty. Even his sister Doña Isabel was crying wofully,
-“Oh Leon, Leon, is it thou? Art thou the Ramirez my poor Chinita loved?
-Oh, in pity give her back to me! I will forgive all—yes, even Norberto’s
-death—if thou wilt give Herlinda her child.”
-
-“You are all mad!” cried Ramirez, recalled to himself. “What know I of
-Herlinda’s child, or even that she exists? I only know that this is
-mine,” he laid his hand upon Chata,—“she of whom you thought to cheat
-me. Ah, had I known there was another infant to claim your secret love,”
-he added mockingly, “I could have better disposed of my own!”
-
-While the unrepentant brother of Doña Isabel was saying this, Pedro in
-gruff and surly accents was reminding him of the girl who had stopped
-him upon the road years before, and had given him an amulet. Yes, the
-impatient listener remembered her; he had heard her name,—Chinita; that
-was the girl of whom Rafael had spoken, she who had been the foundling
-of the gatekeeper. A vision of the unkempt, witch-like creature who had
-startled his horse, as she stood under that accursed mesquite-tree, rose
-before him. Was that Herlinda’s child? She stood still with her hand
-upon Chata, gazing upon her incredulously. Ramirez threw it off in
-sudden passion.
-
-“Uncle Leon,” said Herlinda humbly, hopelessly, “you killed my husband.
-Oh, I would forgive you that, could you give me my child! Oh, when I saw
-this girl here—” she dropped her face into her hands and wept.
-
-“Shame on you!” cried Ramirez. The sight of woman’s tears irritated him,
-and Herlinda’s assertion of her marriage made blacker still a deed whose
-silent, stealthy consummation had ever been to him a secret cause of
-shame. “What though I killed your lover, was it not to avenge the honor
-of the Garcias?”
-
-“The honor of those you had disgraced!” cried the outraged woman
-scornfully,—“of her whose life you had crushed! No, your hand was ready
-for murder, your heart delighted in blood,—and so you killed my love,
-without a word of warning; and because in your vile, cruel heart you
-could believe no woman pure, no man just, you thus brought in an instant
-desolation and ruin upon me!” Ramirez shrank before the indignant pathos
-of her voice. “Ah,” she added, “all, all this I would forgive—O God,
-have I not prayed to thee and thy saints for grace to forgive?—if I
-could but behold my child. They tell me she has followed you,—one says
-because of the strange infatuation your mad career presents to her;
-another, that she may avenge her wrongs, her father’s murder. I warn
-you! beware! such a girl is not to be scorned.”
-
-“I know nothing of her,” cried Ramirez, vehemently. “Here is your
-mother—Pedro; they have known the girl, they should render you an
-account of her. As for me, there is a man here who upon the grave of him
-I killed declared himself his avenger: it is to him I will answer for
-that deed.”
-
-Ashley Ward involuntarily drew his sword, eager for the offered combat;
-but Pedro and Gonzales threw themselves between the two men. “This is
-neither the time nor the place,” exclaimed Gonzales; while Herlinda
-cried, “Do not touch my uncle for your life! My mother, my mother!”
-
-Doña Isabel had indeed thrown herself upon her knees before the priest,
-and frantically implored his interposition. As he raised her he was seen
-to speak; but no one heard his words, for shrill female voices in
-altercation added to the confusion of the moment, and every eye was
-turned in the direction whence they came.
-
-“Let me go! let me go! I will hear no more! I will wait no longer! He
-will escape. Oh, it is not with such weak words I will speak!”
-
-Two female figures issued panting from the covert,—it seemed that the
-elder woman had striven to hold the other back, but the younger had
-triumphed. Doña Isabel uttered a cry of infinite gratitude and joy.
-Chata caught and held the girl as she came. “Chinita! thank God,” she
-cried, “you are here!”
-
-Pedro in an ecstasy seized the robe of Herlinda. “There, there,” he
-cried, “is your child! your beautiful child!”
-
-“Yes!” cried Chinita in mad excitement which only burning words could
-relieve. Not then could she pause for fond greetings or reverent tears;
-the sight of Ramirez seemed at once to fire yet absorb her wildest
-passions. She sprang toward him, as one may suppose the lion’s whelp
-faces a tiger that in some fierce struggle has filled the air with the
-scent of blood. The very aroma arouses and maddens its kindred nature.
-With an outburst of eloquence which like arrows tipped with venom seemed
-to sting and paralyze the object upon which they were directed, she
-assailed Ramirez with the story of his crimes; and separated from the
-picturesque and daring events that had accompanied and disguised them,
-and told with dramatic eloquence and vivid anger, they thrilled every
-listener with shuddering abhorrence and dismay. Blackest of all, she
-pictured the murder of John Ashley. Ramirez himself seemed visibly to
-shrink and wither before her scathing words, while Herlinda pressed her
-hands over her ears, entreating her to cease. The agonized woman could
-not endure the vivid rendition, for the girl unconsciously acted out, as
-she conceived, the scene of midnight murder.
-
-From the moment of Chinita’s appearance, Ramirez had seemed overwhelmed
-as by the sight of some unearthly being; and while she spoke his eyes
-riveted themselves upon her, his jaw fell, his countenance took the hue
-of death. Suddenly the girl burst into wild sobs and tears. Her rage was
-spent. “Go, go!” she said,—“you who have cursed my life, you who killed
-my father, you who condemned my mother to a convent and me to a beggar’s
-life; for was it strange they cast me out, hoping I should die? And so I
-should have done but for Pedro— Fiend, to pursue him with devilish
-tortures after so many years! Oh! that it was which brought my hate upon
-you. Ah, I had loved you from a child,—not with a woman’s fancy, but as
-though the thought of you were the very soul that was born with me. Of
-you I thought, for you I prayed—was it not so, Chata? It was I who gave
-you the amulet they said would insure life and fortune. I planned and
-schemed to give you wealth and power. Ah, even when I knew the cursed
-wrong you had done me, I could not believe, I could not realize; that
-murdered man had been dead so long he seemed of another world, another
-time,—he seemed nothing to me. But the torture of Pedro,—ah, that was
-real, that was of my life; it maddened me. Ah! ah! ah! it brought your
-downfall. You have wondered how your skill, your well-laid plans, your
-valor, all have failed you. It was because of me! because of us!”
-
-Chinita turned and indicated her companion with a gesture of her hand.
-She saw then what had riveted the gaze of Ramirez, and rather than her
-words had held each witness dumb. Dolores—her face kindled into
-fictitious youth, her beautiful eyes gleaming with a flame that seemed
-to scathe—had drawn from her brows the kerchief she had worn. The act
-had revealed a wondrous mass of brown hair, with the russet tinge of the
-chestnut, gleaming in the sunlight with threads and spirals of gold. The
-two heads, that of Chinita and of the woman, seemed to have been
-modelled the one from the other, so exact was their form, and so similar
-the texture and color and peculiar growth of the marvellous wealth of
-curls that crowned them both.
-
-Chinita drew back with dilated eyes, speechless with the overwhelming
-horror of conviction. Chata would have clasped her in her arms, but she
-drew herself away. In the woman whose wild laugh rang upon the air Chata
-recognized the one who had thrown herself before the horse of Ramirez,
-and who had lain a bruised and shameful figure upon the convent steps at
-El Toro.
-
-There was a moment of profound silence. Even the sultry air seemed
-waiting, as though for the thunderclap that follows the lightning flash.
-
-“Ah, Leon Vallé! you know now who accuses you,” cried the woman. “Oh, is
-not this a sweet revenge, to curse you by the lips of your own
-child,—the child you robbed me of? What! you thought _that_ your child!”
-she pointed with ineffable contempt to Chata, who in the overwhelming
-excitement of the moment clung to the pallid and trembling Herlinda.
-“Bah! what is she to the beautiful being I bore you,—into whose soul was
-infused the idolatrous love that had been wrested from my heart, the
-love that had been my ruin? Ah, such love dies hard! It lived again in
-her,—it lived in her heart for _you_. Because of it I dared not claim
-her, though I knew her the moment my eyes fell upon her,—yes, as you
-know her now. In whom but in our child could be reproduced this
-wonderful wealth of hair you used to call the siren’s dower? In whom but
-in our child could reappear your own face, glorified, masked, by woman’s
-softness? Ah, Doña Isabel and this Pedro were deceived; they thought it
-was the beauty of Herlinda that they saw. But I knew it to be yours. Ah,
-in all these weeks I have taught your child how to hate you; I have
-plucked out that root of love; I have made more real the fancied wrongs
-of which she has accused you. Trifles! trifles! trifles all!—the murder
-of a supposed father, the torture of an old man, the death of a base
-lover,—yes, that Ruiz to whom from her birth you destined her. But I,—I
-cry to you give back my innocence! give back my ruined life! give back
-my father, who by your act was killed as surely as though your hand had
-struck the blow! give me the young years of my daughter’s life, those
-she squandered a beggar at your sister’s gate! Ah, you cannot, you
-cannot! But I,—I can avenge my wrongs and hers.”
-
-Quick as a flash the infuriate woman levelled a pistol. Quick as an
-answering flash Chinita threw herself before her and sprang to her
-father’s breast. A second shot following so quickly on the first that
-they seemed as one, a cry of agony, a scream of madness, the cries of
-women, the hoarse voices of men, made the garden a pandemonium of
-hideous sounds. The desperate woman, whose bullet had touched its mark
-harmlessly to Ramirez through the slender form of Chinita, fled madly.
-Ramirez, scarce conscious whether the blood which streamed over him was
-that of his daughter or his own, bore the wounded girl through the
-throng that pressed him, wildly calling upon his child,—alas, alas! his
-but for the brief span during which her warm young blood should leap
-from the deadly puncture in her breast!
-
-Herlinda, the first to regain self-control even amid the intense
-revulsion of feeling through which she had almost instantaneously
-passed, tore into shreds some portion of her garments and strove to
-stanch the wound; but in vain. Chinita, with a smile which succeeded her
-first wild cry and stare of horror, motioned her away. She pressed her
-own fingers on the wound, raising her head from the arm of Ramirez to
-say, “I saved you, I saved you! just as I used to think I would do. Ah,
-I could not hate you,—no, no! though I tried. And she could not root out
-my love,—it lives here still.” She pressed her hand still tighter on the
-wound. “My father! my father!”
-
-The face of the hardened man contracted in agony. He turned toward Doña
-Isabel and Herlinda with a heartrending cry. “You are avenged,—both,
-both, avenged! O my God! You never can have known such agony as this. Oh
-wretched man that I am, to see the sum of all my crimes cancelled by
-this terrible reprisal!”
-
-The hand of the dying girl fell from its place. Chata knelt and placed
-her own with desperate energy against the fatal wound. Chinita smiled
-and faintly kissed her. “My dream has come true,” she said. “Ah, when
-they pity me you will say, ‘She always longed to die for him.’ Tell them
-it was best that I should die, I loved him so. Death wipes out every
-wrong. He is my father!”
-
-Ramirez groaned. Great drops of sweat stood on his brow. He strove still
-to support her; but Gonzales on the one side and Ashley on the other
-bore her weight.
-
-By this time the garden was full of people. A man forced his way through
-the throng.
-
-“Reyes! Reyes!” cried Ramirez, “Villain, did you not as I commanded give
-my child to Isabel, my sister; or was yours the accursed hand that
-brought her to this pass?”
-
-Reyes gazed at the dying girl in horror. A suspicion of the
-misapprehension under which Ramirez had acted, and which had confirmed
-Ruiz in his treachery, had haunted him for days, since in a remote
-village he had met the administrador of Tres Hermanos and heard from him
-the tale of the carrying away of Chata. He had hastened toward Las
-Parras with Don Rafael and his mother, bent on warning Ramirez and
-confessing the wild carelessness with which he had disposed of the child
-who had been confided to him, and who he had supposed until his meeting
-with Chinita had indirectly reached the person to whom she was destined.
-It had not been possible for him—a man in whom the paternal instinct had
-never dwelt—to imagine it the one virtue in the callous, fierce, and
-unscrupulous Ramirez. But with this bleeding, dying figure in his arms
-Ramirez seemed transformed. Reyes fell on his knees.
-
-“Ah, had you but told me the whole truth!” sighed the dying girl. “A
-Garcia you said! Ah, I should have been prouder to be _his_ daughter
-than a thousand times Garcia!”
-
-She turned her head, and her eyes fell on Ashley’s face and rested
-there. A soft, strange illumination animated her own, as though from
-some inward light just kindled. “Adios! Adios!” she murmured. “Ah, you
-were noble, generous! yet you thought I did not feel, that I did not
-understand. Ah, could I live, you should see! But this is best; you will
-never need trouble now for Chinita. No, no, no! do not grieve— Ah, that
-might make me weak! I would not—find it—hard—to die.”
-
-She looked at him long and fixedly,—perhaps to her as to Ashley a secret
-as sacred as it was precious, was then revealed. A blueness crept around
-her mouth, a glaze over her beautiful eyes. “No wonder that she loved
-the American!” she whispered at length,—dreamily, as though her mind
-wandered to the past. The words sank like lead in Ashley’s heart, to be
-forgotten never, never!
-
-After a moment the lips of the dying girl moved in prayer. The priest,
-who had from time to time endeavored to control an emotion which seemed
-a personal rather than a merely sympathetic grief, bent over her, and
-all present fell on their knees. Chinita whispered in his ear a few
-words, and received absolution with a smile of perfect peace. Then began
-the solemn litany for the departing soul; Chinita was evidently sinking
-rapidly.
-
-Pedro had fallen on his knees before her, in grief too deep for words.
-Pepé from behind him gazed into her glazing eyes with stoical despair.
-Suddenly she smiled, and laying her arm over Pedro’s shoulder, extended
-her blood-stained hand, looking at Pepé with the pretty, winning,
-disdainful smile of old, and said faintly, though proudly, “I am the
-daughter of the Señor General. Lead me, Pepé,—lead me. I am tired!”
-
-And thus with her arm around him who had been so blindly faithful, and
-with her hand in that of the peasant youth who through life had been her
-adoring slave, with one long sigh, which left her lips smiling as it
-passed, Chinita fell asleep,—resting forever from the passion and
-turmoil of life.
-
-“Peace, peace, peace!” reiterated the solemn voice of the priest, in
-assurance, in warning, in invocation. It penetrated hearts to which the
-very word had seemed a mockery. The hardest, the most reprobate, the
-haughtiest, the most sorrowful, repeated it with a sob. Ramirez on his
-knees, crushed to the earth, heard it as the cry of a despairing angel.
-Where for him could peace be found?
-
-
-
-
-                                 XLVII.
-
-
-When Pedro Gomez rose from his knees he held in his hand a little square
-reliquary of faded blue. The string from which it had hung had been
-pierced by the fatal bullet, and it had dropped unheeded from Chinita’s
-neck.
-
-Reverent hands bore the corpse into the desolate house; while Ramirez,
-or Leon Vallé,—for by his true name he was ever after called,—rising at
-the entreaty of his sister, stood like one bereft of sense or movement.
-Suddenly he laid his hand upon the gatekeeper’s arm and muttered
-hoarsely, “Kill me Pedro! See, I have no sword. If thou wilt not for
-vengeance, do it for love. You loved her,—for her sake end my misery!”
-
-Pedro laid the reliquary in his hand. “If it should not be true?” he
-said doggedly of the faded silk. “Oh, was it for this I bore so many
-years the mocking silence of Doña Feliz and my mistress? No, no! it
-cannot be. Open this. ’Twas on her bosom when she came into my hands.
-The niña Herlinda promised me a token. It will be found there,—there in
-the blessed reliquary. Fool that I was to think it had nothing to
-declare to me. Ah, how your hands shake! Well, ’tis but a moment’s
-work.”
-
-The gatekeeper ripped the sewed edges with his dagger’s point quickly,
-desperately, as though he were profaning a sacred thing,—then blankly
-looked at the worthless trifles on his palm. Just a tiny curl of brown
-and gold, and the eye-tooth of some animal, a fancied charm against
-infantile diseases, both wrapped in a paper scrawled with a
-faintly-written prayer.
-
-Pedro was convinced. Till then he had clung to the belief that had given
-to his clownish life the elements of heroism, of love and sacrifice.
-Chinita the beautiful, the beloved, was dead—dead; but to his soul there
-came a bereavement far more terrible than that of death. He raised his
-glazing eyes appealingly, hopelessly. Ah, there was Doña Feliz,—she whom
-all these years he had accused as the hard, unpitying witness of the
-degradation of Herlinda’s child! and of her Doña Isabel with sobs was
-entreating brokenly in God’s name some news of the charge she had
-received years before. Pedro listened with a jealous eagerness, which
-the involuntary cry of Chata, interrupting for a moment the answering
-voice of Doña Feliz, made intolerable. “Mother of God!” he cried at
-length, “it was Doña Feliz then who guarded Herlinda’s child!”
-
-“O false, cruel Feliz! why did you deceive me?” cried Doña Isabel. “Why
-did you suffer me to believe the gatekeeper’s foundling was of my own
-flesh and blood? Ah, God, so she was! It was the beauty of my mother
-that deceived me; it was repeated in the offspring of Leon, as it could
-never be in that of the American. Ah, it was for that I loved Chinita
-with such passionate tenderness and remorse! Oh, why did you suffer it?
-Why give me no warning? And now Chinita is dead, and my daughter cries
-to me for her child, and I cannot answer her.”
-
-“Did I not warn you at this gate?” responded Doña Feliz, “that the day
-would come when you would bitterly repent the words you uttered; when
-you bade me take and hide the babe even from your knowledge,—never to
-mention her whether living or dead, that to you it might be as though
-she had never existed? Have I not obeyed your mandate? Ay, even when my
-heart bled because I saw the agony, the delusion under which you
-labored, I have suffered with you, but I have been faithful.”
-
-Doña Isabel bent her head in speechless woe. For her there might not be
-even the poor consolation of reproach. Yet she murmured, “In pity, where
-is Herlinda’s child?”
-
-“She is here. Thank God she is here!” replied Doña Feliz,—“this girl
-whom you have believed to be the daughter of my son. Weeks ago your
-brother, Leon Vallé, reft her from us, believing her his own. Only by
-revealing the secret we had sworn to keep could Rafael have saved her.
-Ah, God knows! Perhaps at the last moment, when hastening from the
-strong room she threw herself into the power of the ravisher that she
-might save her foster-father from death, then perhaps his will might
-have failed; but he was speechless. I have been ill; yes, near to
-death,”—her haggard face, her sunken eyes, her wasted figure attested
-that,—“yet we sought her far and near. Until last night we had no
-tidings. A rough soldier listened in the inn to the tale we everywhere
-proclaimed. He came to me secretly; ‘Señora,’ he said, ‘the girl you
-seek is perhaps in the house of Doña Carmen. Ramirez himself is
-deceived.’ This was the first stage of our route to Guanapila. We need
-go no farther; for standing there, Herlinda, with Carmen, is your
-child.”
-
-Doña Feliz broke into sobs, sinking weak as a child into the arms of Don
-Rafael. “The struggle is over,” she said to him; “our task is
-accomplished, the long dissimulation is ended!”
-
-Herlinda and Chata had not needed the conclusion of the brief words of
-Doña Feliz; they had clasped each other in a rapturous embrace. But the
-sobs of the distressed lady recalled them from their joy, and hastening
-to her side they poured out in fervent gratitude such words as seemed to
-repay to her sensitive heart its long years of devotion as truly as
-though each word had been a priceless jewel.
-
-“Ah!” said Doña Feliz, “all, all is nothing to merit the happiness of
-this hour. It is the poor Pedro, he whose matchless devotion mocked my
-poor work, who is worthy of such words as these. Ah, my heart bled for
-him, but I could not, dared not speak.”
-
-“Oh foolish unreasoning girl that I was so to bind you!” cried Herlinda.
-She turned to speak to Pedro, but he was nowhere to be seen. There was a
-movement among the villagers, who, repulsed from the windows of the
-house by the soldiers, began to disperse, when the voice of the priest
-stopped them.
-
-“Listen, friends,” he said. “This has been a dread and fearful hour, an
-hour to try the souls of men. I am old, yet never have I known such
-anguish as this day has brought to me. Some sixteen years ago, a
-stranger in this land, ignorant of its language and customs, I came to
-this village with a young American whom I met. He was a handsome youth
-and won my heart,—a warm, Irish heart that often led me contrary to my
-judgment. The American told me that here his love was staying. I laughed
-at him for fixing his heart upon some brown-skinned, dark-eyed peasant
-girl. He did not contradict me, but bade me be ready in the early
-morning to wed him to the lovely object of his youthful passion. I
-remonstrated, yet was glad to serve him. Though no priest lived here,
-the little church was open; the people were glad of the opportunity to
-hear Mass. Just before it began, John Ashley and Herlinda Garcia were
-married. As she for a moment loosened the reboso she wore to make the
-necessary responses, I caught a glimpse of a face that led me to suspect
-it was no simple peasant who stood before me. Yet it was only in after
-years, when the requirements of the law and the customs unalterable as
-law among the different castes existing in your land became known to me,
-that I remembered with disquiet the marriage I had celebrated here. I
-was a missionary among the tribes of Northern Indians, doing good work.
-I strove to assure myself that, irregular as I knew the marriage to
-be,—contracted in secret, unknown to and probably against the consent of
-the young girl’s parents, in a language unintelligible to the few
-witnesses,—the parties were probably living in amity, satisfied, as
-surely God and man might be, with a marriage which only the quibbles of
-the law made disputable. Yet I could not be at ease; a voice seemed
-calling me hither. Alas, alas! I came but to witness the consummation of
-the tragedy begun years, years ago,—a tragedy, the direct outcome of my
-fatal error. But I will atone. I will go—would to God in penance it
-might be upon my knees—to the Holy Father in Rome, and pray him to
-ratify the marriage. Doña Herlinda Garcia, pure in name as in deed,
-shall give a spotless name to the child of her virtuous love!”
-
-The old monk ceased; tremblingly he wiped away his tears. “Pardon,
-pardon!” he murmured to Herlinda. “Oh my daughter, how you have
-suffered! But daughter, the certificate I gave,—had you not the paper?
-That, however subject to cavil, would have declared your purity.”
-
-“Ah, a paper!” cried Herlinda. “I have thought of it a thousand times.
-It was in English. I thought it was a blessed prayer, though John told
-me to treasure it as my life; that was why I sewed it in the reliquary I
-placed about my baby’s neck.”
-
-With a cry Chata drew forth the tiny bag, almost the counterpart of that
-poor Chinita had worn, and the sight of which had confirmed the mistake
-of Pedro,—on such slight things hangs fate! She thought of how often she
-and Chinita had compared them when children, laughingly proposing to
-exchange or open them, yet ever shrinking from tampering with them in
-superstitious awe. Pedro, who had returned, snatched it from her
-hand,—the act irresistible. As he opened it with his dagger’s point, a
-filigree earring fell into his palm. He groaned and turned away.
-
-Herlinda caught from his hand a tattered paper. “Read, read!” she cried
-to Ashley. “See that he was noble, true as you have said! He was my
-husband!”
-
-The proof attested by the signature of the long dead Mademoiselle La
-Croix, and that of the living priest, was of the simplest, the most
-efficient, and all these years had been preserved by the piety or
-superstition of the child to whom it had been confided, and who, had she
-but known it, had so vital an interest in its discovery. Chata gazed at
-the paper in blank amaze. Around her were men and women giving thanks to
-God and his saints. At the knees of Herlinda was her uncle Leon Vallé
-and Doña Isabel her mother.
-
-Ashley Ward was the first to break the spell. He took Herlinda’s hand.
-“Remember, here is a man who never doubted you,” he said.
-
-“And here one who would have died for you!” said Gonzales.
-
-In a single phrase each had expressed the loyalty of the nation he
-represented,—Ashley, that of faith in man’s honor and woman’s chastity;
-Gonzales, the tenacious love that distrust might change to jealous
-madness, but which it could never destroy.
-
-
-Within a few hours a sad and solemn funeral cortege set forth from Las
-Parras, bearing all that was mortal of the beautiful Chinita. Not far
-from the limits of the town Ashley and Gonzales came upon a startling
-and awful sight,—a woman lay dead upon the road, her garments sodden,
-her beautiful hair defiled by the mud of the highway. She had fallen
-face downward. As though some evil omen warned him, Leon Vallé hastening
-from the rear anticipated them in raising the corpse.
-
-It was that of the maddened Dolores. It had needed no weapon to reach
-her heart; despair and agony had summoned to her destruction the swift
-and fatal malady that had killed her father. Those who saw her, he who
-pressed her wildly to his breast and bade her live, accusing himself not
-her, called it a broken heart. As her child had said, “Death wipes out
-every wrong.” Only remorse, pity, love survive.
-
-They buried them both—the two of that sad name Dolores—in the hacienda
-church. But one lies in a nameless grave, and the other is marked by one
-that recalls a vision of a beautiful girl, to whom a happier destiny
-should have brought the joys of life, and whose proud spirit should have
-conquered its cares; yet its perplexities, its conflicting passions, had
-made the pilgrimage so hard, so set with thorns, that she had been
-content—yes, thankful—to end it there: “CHINITA.”
-
-In so short a life the unfortunate girl could not have wandered far from
-heaven; yet for years there was one on earth who spent upon each day
-long hours of prayer and fasting at the tomb of her brother’s child,—to
-the memory and the name of Chinita uniting that of Leon, and embracing
-both in the undying love which looked beyond the grave for its
-perfection and its reward. At evening would come one older, but more
-peaceful than the mourner, to lead her home; and hand in hand, the two
-would pass out into the soft and tranquil air. Thus Doña Isabel and
-Feliz renewed with tears the friendship of their youth; and thus—ended
-the ambitions, the passions, the impetuous pride, sources of such
-strange and grievous perplexities—they await together in peaceful gloom
-the light of a perfect day.
-
-
-
-
-                                XLVIII.
-
-
-It was thus that Ashley Ward and his bride beheld them in after
-years,—years during which he had returned to the United States to take
-part in that great conflict which had been raging there while he had
-been gaining experience in the irregular and inglorious strife in which
-his zeal for liberty had been stimulated by private aims. The purity of
-his patriotism was unstained, however, by any less glorious motive; and
-during the last two years of the Civil War for the Union there was none
-who fought more valiantly than he, nor one who laid down his sword with
-a more just renown, to dedicate himself to the profession which in the
-lack of fortune was both his choice and a positive need.
-
-That Ward should renounce the fortune of John Ashley was an actual grief
-to Herlinda and to Chata herself, but he would have it so; and even Mary
-Ashley was pleased it should be, although, as she said, her niece was
-already most absurdly wealthy in right of the Garcias for a girl of such
-retired and humble tastes,—one whose only extravagance was in her
-charities. Mary Ashley found in the love of Chata—she soon abandoned the
-attempt to call her by the stately name of Florentina—a recompense for
-the scrupulous conscientiousness which had led her to seek the supposed
-wife and possible child of her brother.
-
-It was not until after the Pope had ratified her marriage that Herlinda
-Ashley visited the home of her husband’s family. After that she returned
-at intervals while Chata was being educated as her aunt desired. During
-that time Gonzales, from whose hand Herlinda had received the Papal
-edict, was fighting anew the battles of freedom on his native soil; and
-by his side, doing gallant deeds unstained by crime, was Leon Vallé. But
-when the short-lived empire of Maximilian was overthrown, when Herlinda
-crowned the long fidelity of Gonzales by following the rare example
-given by a few released nuns and became the wife of the Liberal soldier,
-the silent yet resolute man who had been his constant companion in arms
-disappeared, and with him Pedro Gomez.
-
-No one but Rosario, who as the wife of Don Alonzo took the lead among
-the young and idle wives of the hacienda employés, asked any questions
-concerning the disappearance of Leon Vallé. Doña Rita looked wise, and
-Don Rafael smiled at her, for she knew nothing, and could conjecture
-nothing that might bring evil. Rafael was the same indulgent, easy
-husband he had ever been. It did not occur to either that a more perfect
-confidence might have been observed between them,—they had followed
-custom; what more could be needful?
-
-Chata and her mother sometimes talked of Vallé with wondering pity; but
-they saw that Doña Isabel was content,—his fate was not a mystery to
-her. Perhaps he was wandering in foreign countries. At least, after he
-had gained the new, fresh fame which honored the name of Leon Vallé, he
-was no more seen in Mexico. There was but one thought that troubled the
-heart of Chata. She could not, even for Chinita’s sake, forgive the
-murderer of her father.
-
-It was when Ashley Ward had gained a certain assurance of success and
-ultimate wealth, that he wooed and won the object of his early, generous
-search, his early protecting interest, his later love. In the heart of
-Chata no rival flame had ever glowed; Ashley had been her first, her
-only love. And he perhaps was scarcely conscious that the pang which
-ever came at the sound of one almost sacred name, was the throb of a
-scar where love had set its deathless root. Chata never suspected that
-an uncommon grief had made possible the tranquil happiness which she
-shared with her husband; while he never questioned even in his own soul
-whether his happiness would have been greater, or perhaps have been
-changed to torture and torment, had the beautiful, erratic daughter of
-Leon Vallé been spared to earth. Whatever wild emotion had thrilled him,
-Chata,—the good, the sweet, the gentle Chata, with the intelligent and
-reflective mind, which curbed and perfected the enduring emotions of her
-heart,—was the only woman he had ever thought of as his wife. They
-rejoiced in perfect trust and sympathy,—she never imagining, he never
-regretting, the more impetuous passion that might have been.
-
-It was while on their wedding journey, attended by an escort of
-soldiers, which the insecurity of the roads in the years immediately
-following the overthrow of the empire made necessary, that they went
-into a remote district among the mountains, some twenty leagues from
-Vera Cruz, from which port they were to sail for their Northern home.
-The captain of the escort was a silent, swarthy young man, who born a
-peasant, had by his valor and development of extraordinary qualities as
-a strategist acquired during the contest with the French a reputation
-that would, had the incentive of personal ambition urged, have made it
-possible for him to reach the highest grade of military rank. But he
-fought for principle, not for glory; to forget despair, not to challenge
-fame. The man was Pepé Ortiz. Upon such men, the world when joy and love
-fail, sometimes thrusts greatness. This was predicted of the silent
-captain.
-
-One night the young officer came to the inn and invited the bride and
-groom to walk with him in the moonlight. They passed through the streets
-of the town, where the massive adobe houses, white as marble in the
-deceptive light, threw shadows black as ink, and presently emerged upon
-a paved road, which led to a garden set thick with trees. The air was
-heavy with perfume; hundreds of fireflies, where the thicket was so
-dense no ray from the sky might penetrate, seemed to fill the place with
-ghostly fires. It was enchanting, weird,—ay, awe-inspiring. Chata clung
-to her husband’s arm in mute expectancy.
-
-Soon in the near distance they heard a sound as of measured strokes, and
-a low continuous moan. The strokes quickened to the whizz of heavy
-flails, the moan to the dirge of the _Miserere_. Then they understood
-with a shock of horror that they were about to witness one of the
-processions of penitents, which, though forbidden by the civil law,
-still were conducted secretly in remote and fanatical districts. Chata
-would have fled, but the pity at her heart seemed to paralyze her limbs.
-Ashley, with a feeling strangely differing from mere curious expectancy,
-put his arm around her and awaited the advent of the dolorous company.
-
-Presently the penitents came from amid the shelter of the trees, like
-mournful ghosts upon the moonlit road. They were all men,—men to whom
-the memory of their sins was intolerable,—and as they walked they
-wielded the cruel scourges on their bared shoulders, and ceaselessly
-intoned the dirge. It was past midnight, and for hours they had
-continued the dreadful flagellation and the unceasing march. Blood
-streamed from many a gaping wound; they staggered as they walked; more
-than once a fainting sufferer fell, and was lifted to his feet by the
-man who walked beside him. All this dismal company were masked; each
-wore a friar’s gown and a rough shirt of hair, which hung pendant from
-the girdle at the waist, above which was seen the cut and bleeding skin.
-
-Sick with horror, when the last of the miserable wretches had gone by,
-Chata leaned sobbing on her husband’s breast. But he gently set her upon
-the grassy bank of the roadside, and followed by Pepé hastened to the
-help of a poor wretch, above whose prostrate form his faithful attendant
-bent with despairing gestures. They raised the apparently dying man, and
-turned aside the mask. The moonlight fell upon the face of Leon Vallé,
-worn with the passions of other years and with the griefs of the
-present, yet nobler than they had ever beheld it. At that moment the
-likeness between this man and Chata became in Ashley’s eyes peculiarly
-intensified.
-
-The trembling and sensitive young wife had approached, with an absolute
-certainty that something was transpiring which was to touch her own
-being. Scarcely surprised, though with a shock, she recognized Leon
-Vallé. Presently she bent and kissed him with tears. From that moment
-Chata had no secret rancor to regret,—the penitent was forgiven.
-
-“Señores, Señores, I pray you leave us; he revives, he will in a moment
-recover consciousness,” cried the rough voice of Pedro Gomez. With that
-complete self-abnegation which, when the claims and interests of his
-seignorial chieftain are involved, is perhaps presented in its highest
-development by the Mexican peasant, he had ignored the revengeful
-abhorrence with which the memory of Leon Vallé had for years inspired
-him, and for the sake of her whom he had loved and served as the scion
-of a noble race, had dedicated his life to the father for whom she had
-gladly died.
-
-As Doña Feliz had once done years before, Chata kissed with reverence
-the hand of this embodiment of fidelity, and with a throbbing heart
-turned from the last scene in the drama of which her life had formed a
-part. Thenceforth a new act was entered upon, in which deep and tender
-memories and present peace and trust are working out the trite but
-blissful tale of wedded love.
-
-University Press: John Wilson & Son, Cambridge.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-                           Transcriber’s Note
-
-The proper nouns Castile and Castilian are sometimes spelled with a
-double ‘ll’.
-
-On p. 466, an opening quotation mark seems to be misplaced. See the
-table below.
-
-Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and
-are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the original.
-The following issues should be noted, along with the resolutions.
-
- 77.6     thus acquiring an exquisite [caligraphy]     _sic_ calligraphy
- 100.21   thrust the ta[il/li]sman into his belt       Transposed.
- 117.6    If Vi[n]cente Vicente is a traitor           Removed.
- 141.30   on the wounded shoulder[,/.]                 Replaced.
- 181.23   a ru[r]al beau from a neighboring village    Inserted.
- 207.28   Yo[n/u] are not old enough                   Inverted.
- 260.31   chilled and silenced her[,/.]                Replaced.
- 316.27   the son of Pancho Vall[e/é]                  Replaced.
- 340.1    with an elec[t]ric thrill.                   Inserted.
- 351.21   I pray you!’[”]                              Added.
- 352.37   A look of ind[i/e]scribable hauteur          Replaced.
- 365.38   she murm[e/u]red in a low voice              Replaced.
- 409.37   a sad and solemn funeral cort[é/è]ge         Replaced.
- 415.17   into the chap[par/arr]al.                    Replaced.
- 427.22   reputations of special sanc[t]ity            Added.
- 438.35   this silent, creeping e[mn/nm]ity            Transposed.
- 442.4    she cried[,] staggering to her feet.         Added.
- 466.36   [“]this girl whom you have believed          Added.
- 466.37   to be the daughter of my son. [“]Weeks       Removed.
-
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