Part 14

Guillermina walked in a leisurely manner. She passed through the intervening passages, and found the counting-house door open. This she had hardly expected. She joyously entered the room and closed the door. Then her native lassitude gave way to a haste to which her unaccustomed members almost refused their service. She quickly drew the rug over the sunken trap-door, smoothed the edges, and rearranged the room, so that it appeared as if it had not lately been entered. It was her step overhead which Don Gil and Raquel had heard at first, and which had caused them so much uneasiness.

As Guillermina turned to leave the room, she heard a crash. Escobeda, having failed to break in the great entrance door, had, with the aid of some of his men, pried off a shutter. The band came pouring into the house and ran through all the rooms, seeking for the flown birds. As Guillermina opened the door of the counting-house to come out, key in hand, she met Escobeda upon the threshold. His face was livid. He held his machete over his head as if to strike.

"So this is their hiding-place," he screamed in her ear.

He rushed past her, and entered the counting-house. Its quiet seclusion and peaceful appearance filled him with astonishment, and caused him to stop short. But he was not deceived for long. He tore away the green hangings, hoping to find a door. Instead a wall of iron stared him in the face. He ran all round the room, feeling of the panels or plates, but nowhere could he discover the opening which he sought. Each plate was firmly screwed and riveted to its neighbour. He turned and shook his fist in Guillermina's face.

"You shall tell me where they have gone," he howled, in fury, and then poured forth a volley of oaths and obscenities, such as no one but a Spaniard could have combined in so few sentences.

Guillermina faced him, her hands on her fat hips.

"The Señor should not excite himself. It is bad to excite oneself. There was the woodcutter over at La Floresta--"

"To hell with the woodcutter! Where is that Truhan?" Then Escobeda began to curse Guillermina. He cursed her until he foamed at the mouth, his gold earrings shaking in his ears, his eyes bloodshot, his lips sending flecks of foam upon her gown. He cursed her father and her mother, her grandfather and her grandmother, her great-grandfather and great-grandmother, which was quite a superfluity in the way of cursing, as Guillermina had no proof positive that she had ever possessed more than one parent. He cursed her brothers and sisters, her aunts, her uncles, her cousins, her nephews and nieces.

"The Señor wastes some very good breath," remarked Guillermina in a perfectly imperturbable manner. "I have none of those people."

Escobeda turned on her in renewed frenzy. The vile words rolled out of his mouth like a stream over high rocks. He took a fresh breath and cursed anew. As he had begun with her ancestors, so he continued with her descendants, the children whom she had borne, and those whom she was likely to bear.

"The good God save us!" ejaculated old Guillermina. And still Escobeda cursed on, his fury now falling upon her relationships in all their ramifications, and in all their branches.

"Ay de mi! The gracious Señor wastes his time. If the gracious Señor should rest a little, he could start with a fresh breath."

As Guillermina spoke, she rearranged the curtain folds, smoothed and shook the silken pillows, and laid them straight and in place. She kept her station as near the middle of the sunken door as possible.

Again he thundered at her the question as to where the fugitives had found refuge. Guillermina, brave outwardly, was trembling inwardly for the safety of her beloved Don Gil. The young Señora was all very well, she might grow to care for her in time, but her little Gil, whom she had taken from the doctor's arms, whom she had nursed on her knee with her own little Antonio, who lay under the trees on the hillside yonder--she must gain time.

"Does not the Señor know that the Señor Don Gil Silencio-y-Estrada and the little Señora have gone to heaven?"

Escobeda stopped short in his vituperation.

"Dead? He was afraid, then! He killed her." Escobeda laughed cruelly. "If I have lost her, so has he."

"Ay, ay, they have flown away, flown to heaven, the Señores. The good God cares for his own. I wonder now who cares for the Señor Escobeda!"

With the scream of a wild beast he flew at her, and she, fearing positive injury, sprang aside. Escobeda's spur caught in the rug and tore it from its place on the floor. He stumbled and fell, pulling the green and white carpet after him. Concealment was no longer possible; the trap-door was laid bare. With a fiendish cry of delight he flew at the ring in the sunken door.

"To hell! to hell!" he shouted. "That is where they have gone; not to heaven, but to hell."

Escobeda had heard rumours all his life of the secret passage to the sea--the passage which had never been located by the curious. At last the mystery was solved. He raised the door, and without a word to Guillermina, plunged into the black depths. The absence of a light was lost sight of by him in his unreasoning rage. Almost before his fingers had disappeared from view, Guillermina had lowered the trap-door into its place in the most gentle manner.

If one is performing a good action, it is best to make as little noise about it as possible. As she fitted the great iron bar across the opening, there came a knocking upon the under side of the iron square.

"Give me a light! A light! you she-devil! A light, I say."

Guillermina went softly to the door of the counting-house and closed it to prevent intrusion. She could hear Escobeda's followers running riotously all over the casa. Her time would be short, that she knew. She knelt down on the floor and put her lips close to the crack in the trap-door.

"And he would curse my mother, would the Señor! And my little Antonio, who lies buried on the hill yonder."

"A light!" he shouted, "a light! she-devil, a light, I say!"

"May the Señor see no light till he sees the flames of hell," answered Guillermina. "The Señor must pardon me, but that is my respectful wish."

She smoothed the innocent-looking carpet in place, replaced the chairs, and went out, locking the door after her.

"Let us hope," said she quietly, "that my muchacho has barred the door at the further end of the passage." Looking for a wide crack, she found it, and dropped the key through it.

This is why the disused passage is always called Escobeda's Walk.

Sometimes, when Don Gil and the little Señora sit and sip the straw-coloured tea at five o'clock of an afternoon, the teapot, grown more battered and dingy, the lid fitting less securely than of yore, the Señora sets down her cup, and taking little Raquel upon her knee, holds her close to her heart, and says:

"Do you hear that knocking, Gil? There is certainly a rapping on the counting-house floor."

"I hear nothing," answers Silencio, as he gives a large lump of sugar to the grandson of the brown lizard. And for that matter, there is an ancient proverb which says that "None are so deaf as those who will not hear."

XVIII

Uncle Adan had been taken ill. He was suffering from the exhalations of the swamp land through which he must travel to clear the river field. He had that and the cacao patch both on his mind. There was a general air of carelessness about the plantation of San Isidro which had never obtained before since Agueda's memory of the place. The peons and workmen lounged about the outhouses and stables, lazily doing the work that was absolutely needed, but there was no one to give orders, and there was no one who seemed to long for them. It appeared to be a general holiday.

Uncle Adan lay and groaned in his bed at the further end of the veranda, and wondered if the cacao seed had spoiled, or if it would hold good for another day. When Agueda begged him to get some sleep, or to take his quinine in preparation for the chill that must come, he only turned his face to the wall and groaned that the place was going to rack and ruin since those northerners had come down to the island. "I have seen the Señor plant the cacao," said Agueda. "He had the Palandrez and the Troncha and the Garcia-Garcito with him. He ordered, and they worked. I went with them sometimes." Agueda sighed as she remembered those happy days.

Uncle Adan turned his aching bones over, so that he could raise his weary eyes to Agueda's.

"That is all true," he said. "The Señor can plant, no Colono better. But one cannot plant the cacao and play the guitar at one and the same time."

Agueda hung her head as if the blame of right belonged to her.

"You act as if I blamed you, and I do," said Uncle Adan, shivering in the preliminary throes of his hourly chill. "You who have influence over the Señor! You should exert it at once. The place is going to rack and ruin, I tell you!"

Agueda turned and went out of the door. She was tired of the subject. There was no use in arguing with Uncle Adan, either with regard to the quinine or the visitors. She went to her own room, and took her hat from the peg. When again she came out upon the veranda, she had a long stick in one hand and a pail in the other. Then she visited the kitchen.

"Juana," she said, "fill this pail with water and tell Pablo and Eduardo Juan that I need them at once."

She waited while this message was sent to the recalcitrant peons, who lounged lazily toward the House at her summons.

"De Señorit' send fo' me?" asked Pablo.

"I sent for both of you," said Agueda. "Why have you done no cacao planting to-day?"

"Ain' got no messages," replied Pablo, who seemed to have taken upon himself the rôle of general responder.

"You know very well that it is the messages that make no difference. Bring your machetes, both of you," ordered Agueda, "and come with me to the hill patch."

For answer the peons drew their machetes lazily from their sheaths.

"I knew that you had them, of course. Come, then! I am going to the field. Where is the cacao, Pablo?"

"Wheah Ah leff 'em," answered Pablo.

"And where is that?"

"In de hill patch, Seño'it'."

"And did some one, perhaps, mix the wood ashes with them?"

Pablo turned to Eduardo Juan, open-mouthed, as if to say, "Did you?"

Agueda also turned to Eduardo Juan. "Well! well!" she exclaimed impatiently, "were the wood ashes mixed, then, with the cacao seeds?"

Eduardo Juan shifted from one foot to the other, looked away at the river, and said, "Ah did not ogsarve."

"You did not observe. Oh, dear! oh, dear! Why can you never do as the Señor tells you? What will become of the plantation if you do not obey what the Señor tells you?"

"Seño' ain' say nuttin'," said Eduardo Juan, with a sly smile.

Agueda looked away. "I am not speaking of the Señor. I mean the Señor Adan," said she. "You know that he has charge of all; that he had charge long before--come, then! let us go."

As Agueda descended the steps of the veranda, she heard Beltran's voice calling to her. She turned and looked back. Don Beltran was standing in the open door of the salon. His pleasant smile seemed to say that he had just been indulging in agreeable words, agreeable thoughts.

"Agueda," said Beltran, "bring my mother's cross here, will you? I want to show it to my cousin."

Agueda turned and came slowly up the steps again. She went at once to her own room and opened the drawer where the diamonds lay in their ancient case of velvet and leather. The key which opened this drawer hung with the household bunch at her waist. The drawer had not been opened for some time, and the key grated rustily in the lock. Agueda opened the drawer, took the familiar thing in her hand, and returning along the veranda, handed it to Beltran. Then she ran quickly down the steps to join the waiting peons. But Felisa's appreciative scream as the case was opened reached her, as well as the words which followed.

"And you let that girl take charge of such a magnificent thing as that! Why, cousin, it must mean a fortune."

"Who? Agueda?" said Beltran. "I would trust Agueda with all that I possess. Agueda knew my mother. She was here in my mother's time."

The motherly instinct, which is in the ascendant with most women, arose within the heart of Agueda.

"Come, Palandrez, come, Eduardo Juan," said she. They could hardly keep pace with her. If there was no one else to work for him while he dallied with his pretty cousin, she would see that his interests did not suffer.

"Why, then, do you not go up there in the cool of the evening, Palandrez? You could get an hour's work done easily after the sun goes behind the little rancho hill."

"It is scairt up deyah," said Palandrez. "De ghos' ob de ole Señora waak an' he waak. Ain' no one offer deyah suvvices up on de hill when it git 'long 'bout daak."

Agueda went swiftly toward the hill patch, the peons sulkily following her. They did not wish to obey, but they did not dare to rebel. Arrived at her destination, she turned to Pablo, who was in advance of Eduardo Juan.

"Where, then, is the pail of seed, Pablo?"

Pablo, without answer, began to send his eyes roaming over and across the field. Eduardo Juan, preferring to think that it was no business of his, leaned against a tree-trunk and let his eyes rest on the ground at his feet. As these two broken reeds seemed of no practical use, Agueda began to skirt the field, and soon she came upon the pail, hidden behind a stump.

"Here it is, Eduardo Juan," she called. "Begin to dig your holes, you and Pablo, and I will--_oh!_" This despairing exclamation closed the sentence, and ended all hope of work for the day. Agueda saw, as she spoke, that the pail swarmed with ants. She pushed her stick down among the shiny brown seed, and discovered no preventive in the form of the necessary wood ashes. The seed was spoiled.

"It is no use, Pablo," she said. "Come and see these ants, you that take no interest in the good of the Señor." She turned and walked dejectedly down the hill. Pablo turned to Eduardo Juan.

He laughed under his breath.

"De Seño' taike no intrus' in hees own good."

"Seed come from Palmacristi; mighty hard git seed dis time o' yeah," answered Eduardo Juan, with a hopeful chuckle. If no more seed were to be had, then no more planting could be done.

Later in the evening, as Agueda went toward the kitchen, she passed by Felisa's doorway. A glimpse was forced upon her of the interior of the pretty room and its occupant. Felisa was seated before the mirror. She had donned a gown the like of which Agueda had never seen. The waist did not come all the way up to the throat, but was cut out in a sort of hollow, before and behind, for Agueda saw the shoulders which were toward her, quite bare of covering, and in the mirror she caught the reflection of maidenly charms which in her small world were not a part of daily exhibit. Agueda stopped suddenly.

"Oh, Señorita!" she exclaimed under her breath. "Does the Señorita know that her door is open? Let me close it, and the shutter on the other side. I will run round there in a minute. Some one might see the Señorita; people may be passing along the veranda at any moment."

Felisa gave a shrill and merry laugh.

"People might see! Why, my good girl, don't you know that is just why we wear such gowns, that people may see? Come and fasten this thing. Isn't it lovely against my neck?"

Agueda could not but admit to her secret soul that it was lovely against Felisa's neck. But she coloured as she entered and closed the door carefully behind her. She had seen nothing like this, except in those abandoned picture papers that came sometimes from the States, or from France, to Don Beltran, and then, as often as not, she hid them that she might not see him looking at them. She could not bear to have him look at them. She felt--

"Open the door, that's a good girl! There! Are you sure that the catch is secure? These beauties were my aunt's. See how they become me. I would not lose them for the world. Oh! had I only had them before."

"Are--are--they--has the Señor given them perhaps--to--to--"

"Well, not exactly, Agueda, good girl; but some day, who knows--there!" Felisa made a pirouette and sank in a low curtsey on the bare floor, showing just the point of a pink satin toe. "See how they glitter, even in the light of these candles. Imagine them in a ball-room--Agueda, and me in them! Now I must go and show my cousin. Open the door. Do you not hear--open the--"

"The Señorita is never going to show herself to the Señor in such a gown as that! What will the Señor say? The Señorita will never--"

But Felisa had pushed past Agueda, and was half-way down the veranda.

The thoughts that flashed through Agueda's mind were natural ones. She had honestly done her best to keep the Señorita from disgracing herself in the Señor's eyes, but she would have her way. She had gone to her own destruction. There was a quickening of Agueda's pulses. Ah! Now he would turn to her again. He could not bear any sign of immodesty in a woman. He had often said to Agueda that that was her chief charm, her modesty. He had called her "Little Prude," and laughed when she blushed. Was it to be wondered at that Agueda rejoiced at Felisa's coming defeat, at her imminent discomfiture, the moment that Beltran should see her? She stood in the doorway of Felisa's room, watching the fairy-like figure as it lightly danced like a will-o'-the-wisp down the dark veranda's length, flashing out like a firefly as it passed an opening where there was a light within, going out in the darkness between the doors, still keeping up its resemblance to the _ignis fatuus_.

Before Felisa reached the salon Beltran came out to discover why his charmer had absented herself for so long a time. Agueda caught the look in his eyes, as he stood, almost aghast at the meretricious loveliness of the little creature before him. He gazed and gazed at her. Was it in disgust? Alas! no. Poor Agueda! Rapture shone from his eyes. He opened his arms. But Felisa eluded him and danced round the corner of the veranda.

"You pretty thing! You pretty, you lovely, you adorable thing!" she heard Beltran exclaim, as utterly fascinated, he followed the small siren in her tantalizing flight.

XIX

That succession of events designated as Time passed rapidly or slowly, as was the fate of the beneficiary or the sufferer from its flight or its delay. In some cases the milestones seemed leagues apart, in others but a short foot of space separated them.

To Beltran the hours of the night dragged slowly by, when, as was often the case, he lay half awake in a delirious dream of joy, longing for dawn to break the gloom that he might come again within the magic of that presence which had changed the entire world for him.

To Agueda the hours of the night flew on wings. As she heard the crowing of the near and distant cocks answering each other from coloñia or river patch, or conuco, she sighed to herself. "It is nearly four o'clock, soon it will be five, then six, and the next stroke, oh, God! seven!" For then would the cheery voice which could no longer wait call from the veranda, "How are you this morning, little cousin?" and the answer from that dainty interior would be, "Quite well, Cousin Beltran, if the cocks could be persuaded not to roost directly under the floor of my room, and keep me awake half the night."

Then Agueda must attend to the early breakfast. Trays must be sent to the rooms of the visitors, and for two hours would the Señor impatiently pace the veranda or the home enclosure, awaiting the reappearance of his goddess.

There was no sign of the wearing effect of sleeplessness on the shell-like face when that important little lady appeared upon the veranda, clothed in some wonderful arrangement of diaphanous material, which was to Beltran's vision as the stage manager's dream of the unattainable in costume. With the joyous greeting there was offered a jasmine or allemanda flower or bougainvellia bracht for the girdle bouquet, which often Beltran assisted in arranging, as was a cousin's right; and in return, if Felisa was very good-natured, there followed the placing of a corresponding bud or blossom in Beltran's buttonhole by those small, plump fingers, loaded down with their wealth of shining rings.

It was at this time that Agueda received a shock which, as a preliminary to her final fate, more than all conveyed to her mind how things were going. It was early morning. Juana had brought to Agueda's room the fresh linen piled high in the old yellow basket. Together they laid the articles on chairs and table, selecting from the pile those that needed a few stitches. Agueda sat herself down by the window to mend. She took up her needle and threaded it, then let her hands fall in her lap, as had become her custom of late. Her head was turned to the grove outside, and her gaze rested among the leaves and penetrated their vistas without perceiving anything in grove or trocha.

She had heard Beltran moving about in his room, but he had thrown the door wide and gone whistling down the veranda toward that latest goal of his hopes. She heard the gay greeting, and the distant faint response, then a laugh at some sally of fun. Agueda looked wearily at the pile of starched cleanliness, and took up her work again. How hateful the drudgery seemed! Before this--in other days--time was--when--

It was a homely bit of sewing, a shirt of the Señor's, which needed buttons. This recalled to Agueda that the last week's linen had been neglected by her. It had been put away as it came from Juana's hands. With sudden decision she determined now to face the inevitable, to accept the world as it had become to her, all in a moment, as it were.

Agueda arose and dropped the linen from her lap to the floor. She had never been taught careful ways. All that she knew of such things had come to her by intuition, and her action showed the dominant strain of her blood--not the exactness of a trained servant, but the carelessness of a petted child of fortune. She stepped over the white mass at her feet and went to the door that led from her room to Beltran's. She walked as one who has come to a sudden determination. Of late she had not been there, except to perform some such service as the present moment demanded. She seized the knob in her hand, and turned it round, pressing the weight of her young body against the door. Instead of bursting hurriedly into the room, as was her wont, she found the door unyielding. Again she tried it, twisting the knob this way and that.

She was about to call upon one of the men to come to her aid, as the door had stuck fast, when suddenly she stopped, standing where the exertion had left her. Her colour fled, her lips grew bloodless, she leaned dizzy and sick against the door. On the floor, at her feet, she had caught sight of a small shaving that had pushed itself through the crack underneath. She put her hand to her side as if a physical pain had seized her. She ran to the door of her room which opened upon the outer and more secluded veranda. Passing through this, she walked with trembling steps to the doorway of Beltran's room. She could hear his gay badinage down at the end of the house, where she knew that Felisa was sipping her chocolate inside her room, while he called impatiently to know when she would be ready for the excursion of the day.