Part 12

“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she recognized the well-known brand of Tres Hermanos, bounded by the carriage, from which the escort had gradually withdrawn, and were now exchanging amicable salutations with the more advanced of the host which they would have been equally pleased to fight.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!”