Part 20

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.