Part 22
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.