Part 34

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.