Part 9

Dolores made a sharp passionate gesture, a contrast to her usual languorous movements. Into the sleepy, tawny eyes shot a dilating fire.

“Have you made love to her?” she demanded.

“Dolores, do you imagine any man could resist that girl?” he rejoined.

“Have you?” she repeated with heaving breast.

Montes discarded his tantalizing lightness. “No, Dolores, I have not. I have lived in a torment lately. My love for you seems turning to hate.”

“No!” she cried, extending her hands. She softened. Her lips parted. If there were depths in her, Montes had sounded them.

“Dolores, tell me the truth,” he said, taking her hands. “You have never been true.”

“I am true to my family. They chose Perez for me to marry--before I ever knew you. It is settled. I shall marry him. But--”

“But! Dolores, you love me?”

She drooped her head. “Yes, señor--lately it has come to that. Ah! Don’t--don’t! Montes, I beg of you! You forget--I’m engaged to Perez.”

Montes released her. In her confession and resistance there was proof of his injustice. She was no nobler than her class. She was a butterfly in her fancies, a little cat in her greedy joy of physical life. But in her agitation he saw a deeper spirit.

“Dolores, if I had come first--before Perez--would you have given yourself to me?” he asked.

“Ah, señor, with all my heart!” she replied softly.

“Dearest--I think I must ask you to forgive me for--for something I can’t confess. And now tell me--this reception given to-morrow by your mother--is that to announce your engagement to Perez?”

“Yes and I will be free then till fall--when--when--”

“When you will be married?”

She bowed assent and hesitatingly slid a white hand toward him.

“Fall! It’s a long time. Dolores, I must go back to Brazil.”

“Ah, señor, that will kill me! Stay!” she entreated.

“But it would be dangerous. Perez dislikes me. I hate him. Something terrible might come of it.”

“That is his risk. I have consented to marry him. I will do my duty before and after. But I see no reason why I may not have a little happiness--of my own--until that day comes. Life for me will not contain all I could wish. I told you; now I am happy. But you were included. Señor, if you love me you will remain.”

“Dolores, can you think we will not suffer more?” he asked.

“I know we will afterward. But we shall not now.”

“Now is perilous to me. To realize you love me! I did not think you capable of it. Listen! Something--something might prevent your marriage--or happen afterward. All--all is so uncertain.”

“_Quién sabe?_” she whispered; and to the tawny, sleepy languor of her eyes there came a fancy, a dream, a mystic hope.

“Dolores, if Perez were lost to you--one way or another--would you marry me?” he broke out huskily. Not until then had he asked her hand in marriage.

“If such forlorn hope will make you stay--make you happy--yes, Señor Montes,” was her answer.

* * * * *

There came a time when Yaqui was needed in the factory where the henequen fiber was extracted from the leaves. He had come to be a valuable machine--an instrument of toil that did not run down or go wrong. One guard said to another: “That big black peon takes a lot of killing!” and then ceased to watch him closely. He might have escaped. He might have crossed the miles and miles of henequen fields to the jungle, and under that dense cover had made his way northward to the coast. Yaqui had many a chance. But he never looked toward the north.

At first they put him to feeding henequen leaves into the maw of a crushing machine. The juicy, sticky, odorous substance of the big twenty-pound leaf was squeezed into a pulp, out of which came the white glistening threads of fiber. These fibers made sisal rope--rope second in quality only to the manila.

By and by he was promoted. They put him in the pressing room to work on the ponderous iron press which was used to make the henequen bales. This machine was a high, strange-looking object, oblong in shape, like a box, opening in the middle from the top down. It had several distinct movements, all operated by levers. Long bundles of henequen were carried in from the racks and laid in the press until it was half full. Then a lever was pulled, the machine closed on the fiber and opened again. This operation was repeated again and again. Then it was necessary for the operator to step from his platform upon the fiber in the machine and stamp it down and jump upon it and press it closely all round. When this had been done the last time the machine seemed wide open and stuffed so full that it would never close. But when the lever was pulled the ponderous steel jaws shut closer and closer and locked. Then the sides fell away, to disclose a great smooth bale of henequen ready for shipment.

The Yaqui learned to operate this press so skillfully that the work was left to him. When his carriers went out to the racks for more fiber he was left alone in the room.

Some strange relation sprang up between Yaqui and his fiber press. For him it never failed to operate. He knew to a strand just how much fiber made a perfect bale. And he became so accurate that his bales were never weighed. They came out glistening, white, perfect to the pound. There was a strange affinity between this massive, steel-jawed engine and something that lived in the Yaqui’s heart, implacable and immutable, appalling in its strength to wait, in its power to crush.

IV

There seemed no failing of the endurance of this primitive giant, but his great frame had wasted away until it was a mere hulk. Owing to his value now to the hacienda, Yaqui was given rations in lieu of the ball of soggy bread; they were not, however, what the Indian needed. Montes at last won Yaqui’s gratitude.

“Señor, if Yaqui wanted to eat it would be meat he needed,” said the chief. Then Montes added meat to the wine, bread, and fruit he secretly brought to the Indian.

When Montes began covert kindnesses to the poor Yaqui slaves the chief showed gratitude and pathos: “Señor Montes is good--but the sun of the Yaquis is setting.”

Perez in his triumphant arrogance evidently derived pleasure from being magnanimous to the man he instinctively knew was his rival.

One day at the hacienda when Montes rode up to meet Donna Isabel and Dolores he found them accompanied by Perez and his parents. Almost immediately the young officer suggested gayly:

“Señor, pray carry Dolores off somewhere. My father has something to plan with Donna Isabel. It must be a secret from Dolores. Take her a walk--talk to her, señor--keep her excited--make love to her!”

“I shall be happy to obey. Will you come, señorita?” said Montes.

If they expected Dolores to pout, they were mistaken. Her slow, sleepy glance left the face of her future husband as she turned away silently to accompany Montes. They walked along the palm-shaded road, out toward the huge, open, sunny space that was the henequen domain.

“I hate Perez,” she burst out suddenly. “He meant to taunt you. He thinks I am his slave--a creature without mind or heart. Señor, make love to me!”

“You will be his slave--soon,” whispered Montes bitterly.

“Never!” she exclaimed passionately.

They reached the end of the shady road. The mill was silent. Montes saw the Indian standing motionless close at hand, in the shade of the henequen racks.

“Dolores, did you mean what you just said?” asked Montes eagerly.

“That I will never be Perez’s slave?”

“No; the other thing you said.”

“Yes, I did,” she replied. “Make love to me, señor. It was his wish. I must learn to obey.”

With sullen scorn she spoke, not looking at Montes, scarcely realizing the actual purport of her speech. But when Montes took her in his arms she started back with a cry. He held her. And suddenly clasping her tightly he bent his head to kiss the red lips she opened to protest.

“Let me go!” she begged wildly. “Oh--I did not--mean--Montes, not so! Do not make me--”

“Kiss me!” whispered Montes hoarsely, “or I’ll never let you go. It was his wish. Come, I dare you--I beg you!”

One wild moment she responded to his kiss, and then she thrust him away.

“Ah, by the saints!” she murmured with hands over her face. “Now I will love you more--my heart will break.”

“Dolores, I can’t let Perez have you,” declared Montes miserably.

“Too late, my dear. I am to be his wife.”

“But you love me, Dolores?”

“Alas! too true. I do. Oh, I never knew how well!” she cried.

“Let us run away,” he implored eagerly.

Mournfully she shook her head, and looking up suddenly she espied the Yaqui. His great burning cavernous eyes, like black fire, were fixed upon her.

“Oh, that terrible Yaqui,” she whispered. “It is he who watches us at the bull fights--Let us go, Montes--Oh, he saw us--he saw me--Come!”

Upon their return to the house the old Don greeted them effusively. He seemed radiant with happiness. He had united two of the first families of Yucatan, which unison would make the greatest henequen plantation. The beautiful señorita had other admirers. But this marriage had unusual advantages. The peculiar location and productiveness of the plantations and the obstacles to greater and quicker output that would be done away with, and the fact that Lieutenant Perez through his military influence could work the fields with peon labor--these facts had carried the balance in favor of the marriage. The old Don manifestly regarded the arrangement as a victory for him which he owed to the henequen, and he had decided to make the wedding day one on which the rich product of the plantation should play a most important part.

“But how to bring in the henequen!” he concluded in perplexity. “I’ve racked my brain. Son, I leave it to you.”

Young Perez magnificently waved the question aside. Possessing himself of his fiancée’s reluctant hand, he spoke in a whisper audible to Montes. “We planned the wedding presents. That was the secret. But you shall not see--not know--until we are married!”

Montes dropped his eyes and his brow knit thoughtfully. Later, as a peon brought his horse, he called Perez aside.

“I’ve an idea,” he said confidentially. “Have Yaqui select the most perfect henequen fiber to make the most beautiful and perfect bale of henequen ever pressed. Have Yaqui place the wedding presents inside the bale before the final pressing. Then send it to Donna Isabel’s house after the wedding and open it there.”

Young Perez clapped his hands in delight. What a capital plan! He complimented Montes and thanked him and asked him to keep secret the idea. Indeed, the young lieutenant waxed enthusiastic over the plan. It would be unique; it would be fitting to the occasion. Perez would have Yaqui pick over and select from the racks the most perfect fibers, to be laid aside. Perez would go himself to watch Yaqui at his work. He would have Yaqui practice the operation of pressing, so at the momentous hour there could be no hitch. And on the wedding day Perez would carry the presents himself. No hands but his own would be trusted with those jewels, especially the exquisite pearls that were his own particular gift.

At last the day arrived for the wedding. It was to be a holiday. Yaqui alone was not to lie idle. It was to fall to him to press that bale of henequen and to haul it to the bride’s home.

But Perez did not receive all his gifts when he wanted them. Messengers arrived late and some were yet to come. He went to the mill, however, and put Yaqui to work at packing the henequen in the press and building it up. The Indian was bidden to go so far with the bale, leaving a great hole in the middle for the gifts and to have the rest of the fiber all ready to pack and press. Perez would not trust anyone else with his precious secret; he himself would hurry down with the gifts, and secretly, for the manner of presentation was to be a great surprise.

Blue was the sky, white gold the sun, and the breeze waved the palms. But for Montes an invisible shadow hovered over the stately Mendoza mansion where Dolores was to be made a bride. The shadow existed in his mind and took mystic shape--now a vast, copper-hazed, green-spiked plain of henequen, and then the spectral gigantic shape of a toiling man, gaunt, grim, and fire-eyed.

Montes hid his heavy heart behind smiling lips and the speech of a courtier. He steeled himself against a nameless and portending shock, waiting for it even when his mind scorned the delusion. But the shock did not come at sight of Señorita Dolores, magnificently gowned in white, beautiful, serene, imperious, with her proud, tawny eyes and proud, red lips. Nor when those sleepy strange eyes met his. Nor when the priest ended the ceremony that made her a wife.

He noted when Lieutenant Perez laughingly fought his way out of the crowd and disappeared. Then the unrest of Montes became a haunting suspense.

By and by the guests were directed out to the shaded west terrace, where in the center of the wide stoned space lay a huge white glistening bale of henequen. Beside it stood the giant Yaqui, dark, motionless, aloof. The guests clustered round.

When Montes saw the Yaqui like a statue beside the bale of henequen, he sustained the shock for which he had been waiting. He slipped to the front of the circle of guests.

“Ah!” exclaimed the old Don, eyeing the bale of henequen with great satisfaction. “This is the surprise our son had in store for us. Here is the jewel case--here are the wedding presents!”

The guests laughed and murmured their compliments.

“Where is Señor Perez?” demanded the Don as he looked round.

“The boy is hiding,” replied Donna Isabel. “He wants to watch his bride when she sees the gifts.”

“No--he would not be there,” declared the old Don in perplexity. Something strange edged into his gladness of the moment. Suddenly he wheeled to the Yaqui. But he never spoke the question on his lips. Slowly he seemed to be blasted by those great black-fired orbs, as piercing as if they had been lightnings from hell.

“Hurry, open the bale,” cried the bride, her sweet voice trilling above the gay talk.

Yaqui appeared not to hear. Was he looking into the soul of the father of Lieutenant Perez? All about him betrayed almost a superhuman intensity.

“Open the bale,” ordered the bride.

Yaqui cut the wire. He did not look at her. The perfectly folded and pressed strands of fiber shook and swelled and moved apart as if in relief. And like a great white jewel case of glistening silken threads the bale of henequen opened.

It commanded a stilling of the gay murmur--a sudden silence that had a subtle effect upon all. The beautiful bride, leaning closer to look, seemed to lose the light of the tawny proud eyes. Her mother froze into a creature of stone. The old Don, in slow strange action, as if his mind had feeble sway over body, bent his gray head away from the gaunt and terrible Yaqui. Something showed blue down under the center strands of the glistening fiber. With a swift flash of his huge black hand, with exceeding violence, Yaqui swept the strands aside. Then from his lips pealed an awful cry. Instead of the jewels, there, crushed and ghastly, lay the bridegroom Perez.

TIGRE

TIGRE

“Yes, I’ve a power over animals. Look at Tigre there! But the old women in Micas say I’ve found one wild thing I’ll never tame.”

“And that, _señor_?” asked Muella.

“My young and pretty wife.”

She tossed her small head, so that her black curls rippled in the sunlight, and the silver rings danced in her ears.

“Bernardo, I’m not a parrot to have my tongue slit, or a monkey to be taught tricks, or a jungle cat to be trained. I’m a woman, and--”

“Yes--and I am old,” he interrupted bitterly. “Look, Muella--there on the Micas trail!”

“It’s only Augustine, your _vaquero_.”

“Watch him!” replied Bernardo.

Muella watched the lithe figure of a man striding swiftly along the trail. He was not going to drive cattle up to the corrals, for in that case he would have been riding a horse. He was not going toward the huts of the other herders. He faced the jungle into which ran the Micas trail.

Surely he could not be on his way to Micas! The afternoon was far advanced and the village many miles away. No _vaquero_ ever trusted himself to the dangers of the jungle at night. Even Augustine, the boldest and strongest of Bernardo’s many herders, would scarcely venture so much. Yet Augustine kept on down the trail, passed the thatched bamboo fence, went through the grove of palms, and disappeared in the green wall of jungle.

“He’s gone!” cried Bernardo. “Muella, I sent Augustine away.”

She saw a dull red in her husband’s cheeks, a dark and sinister gleam in his eyes; and her surprise yielded to misgiving.

“Why?” she asked.

“He loved you.”

“No! No! Bernardo, if that’s why you sent him away, you’ve wronged him. Of all your _vaqueros_, Augustine alone never smiled at me--he cared nothing for me.”

“I say he loved you,” returned Bernardo hoarsely.

“Bernardo, you are unjust!”

“Would you lie to me? I know he loves you. Girl, confess that you love him. Tell it! I won’t bear this doubt another day!”

Muella stood rigid in his grasp, her eyes blazing the truth that her lips scorned to speak.

“I’ll make you tell!” he shouted, and ran to a cage of twisted vines and bamboo poles.

As he fumbled with the fastening of a door, his brown hands shook. A loud purr, almost a cough, came from the cage; then an enormous jaguar stepped out into the sunlight.

“Now, girl, look at Tigre!”

Tigre was of huge build, graceful in every powerful line of his yellow, black-spotted body, and beautiful. Still, he was terrible of aspect. His massive head swung lazily; his broad face had one set expression of brute ferocity.

The eyes of any jaguar are large, yellow, cold, pale, cruel, but Tigre’s were frightful. Every instant they vibrated, coalesced, focused, yet seemed always to hold a luminous, far-seeing stare. It was as if Tigre was gazing beyond the jungle horizon to palm-leaf lairs which he had never seen, but which he knew by instinct. And then it was as if a film descended to hide their tawny depths. Tigre’s eyes changed--they were always changing, only there was not in them the life of vision; for the jaguar was blind.

Bernardo burst into rapid speech.

“The taunting old crones of Micas were right when they said I could not tame the woman; but I’ve tamed every wild creature of the Taumaulipas jungle. Look at Tigre! Who beside Bernardo ever tamed a jaguar? Look! Tigre is my dog. He loves me. He follows me, he guards me, he sleeps under my hammock. Tigre is blind, and he is deaf, yet never have I trained any beast so well. Whatever I put Tigre to trail, he finds. He never loses. He trails slowly, for he is blind and deaf, but he never stops, never sleeps, till he kills!”

Bernardo clutched the fur of the great jaguar and leaned panting against the thatch wall of the cage.

“I’ll soon know if you love Augustine!” he went on passionately. “Look here at the path--the path that leads out to the Micas trail. See! Augustine’s sandal-prints in the dust! Now, girl, watch!”

He led Tigre to the path and forced the nose of the beast down upon Augustine’s footmarks. Suddenly the jaguar lost all his lax grace. His long tail lashed from side to side. Then, with head low, he paced down the path. He crossed the grassy plot, went through the fence, along the trail into the jungle.

“He’s trailing Augustine!” cried Muella.

She felt Bernardo’s gaze burning into her face.

“Tigre will trail him--catch him--kill him!” her husband said.

Muella screamed.

“He’s innocent! I swear Augustine does not love me! I swear I don’t love him! It’s a horrible mistake. He’ll be trailed--ah, he’ll be torn by that blind brute!” Muella leaped back from her husband. “Never! You jealous monster! For I’ll run after Augustine--I’ll tell him--I’ll save him!”

She eluded Bernardo’s fierce onslaught, and, fleet as a frightened deer, she sped down the path. She did not heed his hoarse cries, nor his heavy footsteps.

Bernardo was lame. Muella had so little fear of his catching her that she did not look back. She passed the fence, sped through the grove, and entered the jungle.

II

The trail was hard-packed earth, and ahead it lost its white line in the green walls. Muella ran swiftly, dodging the leaning branches, bowing her head under the streamers of moss, striking aside the slender palm leaves. Gay-plumaged birds flitted before her, and a gorgeous butterfly crossed her path. A parrot screeched over her head.

She strained her gaze for the trailing jaguar. Then she saw him, a long black and yellow shape moving slowly under the hanging vines and creepers.

When Muella caught up with Tigre, she slackened her pace, and watched for a wide place in the trail where she could pass without touching him.

“I must pass him,” she muttered. “He can’t hear me--I can do it safely--I must!”

But still she did not take advantage of several wide places.

Presently the trail opened into a little glade. Twice she started forward, only to hang back. Then desperately she went on, seeing nothing but the great spotted cat just in front of her.

Sharp spear-point palm leaves stung her face, and their rustling increased her terror. She flashed by Tigre so close that she smelled him.

Muella uttered a broken cry and began to run, as if indeed she were the wild creature Bernardo had called her. She looked over her shoulder to see the sinuous yellow form disappear round a bend of the trail. Then she gathered courage. For a long time her flying feet pattered lightly on the trail. She was young, supple, strong, and it took much to tire her. She ran on and on, until her feet were heavy, her breath was almost gone, and her side pierced by a sharp pain. Then she fell to a walk, caught her breath, and once more ran.

Fears began to beset her. Had Augustine left the trail? How swiftly he had walked! It seemed as if she had run several miles. But that was well, for, the larger the distance the farther she would get ahead of the jaguar.

Shadows began to gather under the overhanging vines and creepers. Only the tips of the giant ceibas showed a glint of sunlight. The day was fast closing. Once more she ran on and on; and then, as she turned a curve, a tall, dark form stood out of the green, and blurred the trail.

“Augustine! Wait! Wait!” she cried.

The man swung round, and ran back. Muella, panting for breath and with her hand pressed over her heart, met him.

“_Señora!_ What has happened?” he exclaimed.

“Wait! My breath’s gone!” she gasped. “Wait! But keep on--we--we mustn’t stop!”

Muella took a fleeting upward glance at him. It was so hurried that she could not be positive, but she thought she had caught a strange, paling flush of his bronzed face and a startled look of his dark eyes. Why should his meeting her unexpectedly cause more than surprise or concern?

As she trotted along, she shot another quick glance up at him. He seemed unmistakably agitated; and this disconcerted her. She heard his amazed questions, but they were mostly unintelligible.

She had thought of nothing save to catch up with him and to blurt out that Tigre was on his trail, and why. The words now halted on her lips. It was not easy to tell him. What would he say--what would he do? A few moments back, he had been only one of Bernardo’s herders--the best, truly, and a man whom it was pleasing to look upon, but he had been nothing to her. He alone of the _vaqueros_ had not smiled at her, and this piquing of her pride had gained him notice which otherwise he might never have got.

As she pattered on, slowly regaining her breath, the presence of the man seemed to grow more real. It was well that she knew Augustine cared nothing for her, else she could not have told him of Bernardo’s unjust suspicions.