Part 10

So it was no sleepy work, tallying for the thirty-seven swart fellows who were doing Don Roman’s fall shearing, and any one less practiced than Lorenzo might have lost count now and then. Every one seemed to be working his best, but the two cries that came oftenest of any were “_trece_” and “_diezisiete_.” Number thirteen was a short, thickset Mexican from Los Lunas, known (because of his unusually dark complexion) as Black Juan, and number seventeen was that two-fisted Pedro of Cubero. They had been for several years the two best shearers in Valencia county, and therefore, very naturally, rivals—though in some way they had never come together before. But now finding themselves, on the eve of the fall clip of 50,000 sheep, face to face each with a man he had never seen, but had disliked for ten years, neither could refrain from a slight curl of the lip. That fellow such a _guapo_? Huh! He might make a noise among the slowpokes down in the valley, but beside a real shearer there wouldn’t be enough of him to make a shadow! It was not long before their thoughts came to speech, and soon they had made a wager for a sheep-shearing race on the morrow. The ponies upon which they had come, their tattered blankets and a large proportion of their prospective wages were staked on which should shear the more fleeces between sunrise and sunset.

For eleven hours, now, the race had been in progress. Lorenzo had given the word when the first rim of sun peered above the yellow mesas. At noon the other shearers had taken the usual half hour to swallow the rude meal of tortillas and roasted sheep-ribs, but Juan and Pedro had worked doggedly on. The crunch of their shears seemed never to stop, and against the numbers thirteen and seventeen the little slanting marks (each fourth one crossed) had crept clear across the tally card and Lorenzo had to start a new line for each of them.

Five o’clock—five-thirty—six—and suddenly the timekeeper shouted “_Ya ’stá_!” The noise redoubled for a moment as each man hurried to finish his present sheep, and then stopped. Bent backs straightened slowly amid a general sigh of relief. A hard day, truly. Not a man in the corral, even down to young Blea, who had not sheared his sixty or seventy sheep. But the rivals? All crowded around Lorenzo as he began to count up.

“M—m—m—twenty-four, twenty-five—twenty-five tallies and three. Pedro has one hundred and twenty-eight sheep!” And Juan? “M—m—m—twenty-seven tallies and one—one hundred and thirty-six! Bravo! _Que guapo!_” And the evening air rang with shouts.

“Thou couldst not have done it fairly!” growled Pedro, with rage in every line of his dusty face.

“How, fairly, sleepyhead? Have I not worked openly before all?”

But Pedro went over the fence sullenly and walked away, muttering to himself. Only when a couple of other shearers joined him at his camp-fire did he give further vent to his feelings.

“Thrice fool that I was,” he snarled, “to make a bet against that! For clearly to-day my shears were bewitched and would not cut well. And you know well the why—it is that old _bruja_ of a Candelária who has given them the evil eye! For yesterday, as she passed, my dog ran at her, whereat I laughed, and in the act she turned and cursed me.”

“Thou didst ill,” said one of his companions. “All know that she is a witch, and works all manner of evil to them that offend her. Why, there was Marcelino, who refused to give her meat when he killed a sheep, and straightway she made a mouse to steal into his stomach, so that it was near to kill him.”

“But I am not Marcelino, then, to go pay a horse to another witch to cure me. No, I will have-me-them with her. She shall pay me for this loss and for the laughter they have put upon me.”

“What is that, Pedro?” said young Alonzo, coming up just then and squatting by the fire. “You wouldn’t hurt the poor old woman?”

“Who gave you a candle in this funeral?” snapped the defeated shearer. “That is what I will do. There are too many of these _brujas_ putting spells on innocent folks, and there’s only one way to cure them—the way they did in San Mateo last year. We’ll stone her for a witch. And much care thou, that thou get not hurt also!”

The two others made no serious opposition to Pedro’s plan. They had nothing against the old woman themselves, but every one knew that such witches were a great pest to the community—perhaps it would be a public service to put her out of the way. Besides, they were rather used to being led around by the nose by Pedro, who, in addition to his prowess as a shearer, was so powerful and reckless that he had become the acknowledged leader of a certain class.

“_Pues_, understood! We will go over presently and give the old hag a shower of St. Peter’s tears! And thou”—turning to Alonzo, who was rising to go—“the less tongue, the less sore bones, eh?”

Candelária lived across the arroyo in a miserable little _jacal_ of piñon[37] trunks chinked with mud, right up against the side of the great lava flow. She was a sorry-looking hag; and, on seeing her, the first thought of much better educated people than Pedro would very likely have been: “What an old witch!” She was tall and gaunt and incredibly wrinkled, but with such keen black eyes that almost every one shrank at her gaze.

Alonzo himself was certainly not fond of her, and probably it would not be too much to say that he was secretly a bit afraid of this grim, dark figure in greasy tatters, despite his year of school in the little mission at San Rafael. But at thought of her being stoned to death he felt a sudden revulsion.

“But what to do?” he muttered to himself as he slouched away from the camp-fire. “Pedro is bad to meddle with, and no one here will help me; even Don Roman is afraid of the witches, and hates them. _Ea!_ I will go warn her, so she can hide till the shearers have gone.”

It was already very dark as he stumbled over the rocky ground and turned west along the bank of the arroyo. This was a deep ravine plowed through the meadow by the intermittent brook from the snows of the Zuñi mountains. In summer there was no stream, but here and there were pools enough for the thirsty sheep and cattle. Now there had been rains, and a narrow rill connected the brimming pools. He found the white, peeled log which served as a footbridge from bank to bank, and started to walk cautiously across it. Midway he stopped suddenly with an audible chuckle, turned, came back and shambled toward the corrals. Something seemed to amuse him mightily, for at every few steps he paused to laugh softly. Camp-fires burned all about the corral, and even far up the rocky mesa, where the sheep were being herded for the night; but Alonzo had eyes for but one. Near an angle of the enclosure stood a stout post, and not far from its foot was a bed of embers surrounded with sooty kettles and frying pans. It was Telango’s slaughter house and kitchen, where that greasy gentleman turned twenty sheep a day into soups and joints for the shearers.

Telango was at the moment absent, and when he returned to his post a kettle of mutton tallow that had been trying out over the embers was missing. That should have made a pretty row, for the cook was a touchy autocrat; but, supper being over, Telango was so sleepy that he would scarce have noticed it had his whole kitchen been carried off.

* * * * *

“Well, are we ready?” asked Pedro in a low tone of his allies a little after 8 o’clock. Every one else was asleep, apparently. The camp-fires had all died down and no one was moving. Pedro rose quietly and stole off into the darkness, followed by Pepe and ’Lipe. “Close behind me,” he whispered, “and with care, for if she hears us she can hide in the malpaís, where no one could find her.”

“But perhaps she would not run,” broke out ’Lipe uneasily, as they neared the arroyo. “Since she is a witch she might rather throw a spell on us.”

“Quiet you the mouth, stupid! We have only to take care that she does not hear us.”

“But I have heard that they need not the ears, for the evil spirits tell them.”

“Let the evil one tell her, if he will!” growled Pedro. “I would like to see him keep _this_ from her,” and he picked up a jagged lava fragment over which he had stumbled. “Be not sheep! Close behind me, now.”

Pedro stepped out upon the log whose white length stretching into the gloom seemed to rest upon nothing. His teguas made no noise upon the wood, and he was midway across when suddenly there came a stifled oath. His feet flew right and left and he dropped astride the log with a violence that shook the breath out of him, and in the same instant began to slip to one side. In vain he clutched at the log. It gave no hold, and lurching over he dropped twenty feet. There was a tremendous splash; and then another and another. Pepe and ’Lipe had followed their leader downward without even stopping to sit down first.

The shores here were steep and rocky, cut deep in a lava flow millenniums older than that whose jet black miles lay along the pretty meadow. In the middle was a long, deep pool wherein the few boys of Alamitos were wont to swim in summer. Just now it was not particularly attractive. During the shearing several thousand sheep were watered daily at the head of this pool and at the shallower one above, and at such times no one thought of bathing in the odorous mess.

Any one listening might have heard for some seconds after the splashes nothing but a faint gurgle, as of bubbles breaking. Then there were curious snorts and plashings, as if that invisible black abyss had suddenly become the home of a hippopotamus family, and then a laborious thrashing about. Presently there was a rattle of pebbles, mingled with coughs and angry mutterings, as if some one were trying to scale the banks.

“Why didn’t you come this side, stupids?” Pedro whispered across when he had done choking and sputtering. “The _bruja_ lives over here—not yonder. _Vamos!_”

“But man! We are not crazy! Seest thou not that she has the power and so easily has bewitched us? If we go further we shall find worse.”

“Four times fools! It was only that I slipped, and you, being scared, fell also. Come on!”

“Thanks,” answered Pepe and ’Lipe in a breath. “But even fools know better than to defy the evil one.”

“Come over or you answer to me!” snorted Pedro, forgetting his caution. “Cowards that you are, I’ll show you,” and he started back across the log to get in arguing reach of the deserters.

But four steps from the bank his feet again suddenly leaped out from under him and the log smote him in the back with a loud thump, and a wild splash flung a dirty rain in the faces of his terrified companions.

“Uh, uh!” he gasped, coming to the surface at last. “Kff! Tchoo!” for he had swallowed a most unsavory pint.

“Ah, ha-ha!” rang a weird, shrill laugh from the southern bank. Pepe and ’Lipe crossed themselves and took to their heels, without thought of waiting for their leader. It struck a chill through Pedro, too, as he floundered to the shore and clambered up the jagged rocks frantically, cutting his hands and knees. But he hardly noticed that—all he could think of was the mocking laugh. Candelária’s laugh! After all, she was too strong! There was no use fighting against these witches—just see how easily she had undone his strength and wit! No more witch hunts for him—and he scrambled up the bank in utter rout. Just then a dark form reached out overhead. Pedro did not see it; but in an instant came a warm, suffocating avalanche which choked his cry of terror and half blinded him.

“Murder!” he managed to sputter at last. “_So-cor-r-r-ro!_” and he fled to the camp like one chased by wolves.

“So, thief! Shameless! It was thou that stole my tallow, then!” roared Telango, who had discovered his loss just now. “To anoint that dirty head, eh? Then take this!” and with a stout cudgel he belabored the luckless Pedro till the latter broke away and fled into further darkness. No wonder Telango had found him out—his great shock of hair and beard were matted in a gray, greasy mask, like the runnings of a cheap candle.

Pedro did not finish the shearing season. Next morning he was missing from Alamitos, and a few days later news came that he was in Cubero. His accomplices had no explanations to offer for his disappearance or for their wet clothing, and as for Alonzo, he “told nothing to nobody.” Only at times he was observed to drop his shears and double up as though he had a pain in his stomach, while his face would become suspiciously red. Furthermore, he came carelessly up to Telango at noon with:

“Oh, here’s your lard bucket—I picked it up by the arroyo. And say—if you want to make candles, you’d better go scrape the foot-log. Somebody has greased the whole middle of it!”

“What thing?” grumbled Telango. “Of the witches, no doubt. And _quizas_ the same who anointed Pedro.”

“_Quizas_,” answered Alonzo solemnly, and he walked off without cracking a smile.

The Habit of the Fraile.

The Habit of the Fraile.

I.

The end drew near of the longest siege that was ever in any of the three Americas. More than a year ago the red field of Ayacucho had crowned the triumph of the rebel colonies. The mother-nation that found the New World, and tamed it and gave it to her sons, no longer had sons there, for the very last had disowned her. Mexico, the first great Spanish kingdom in America, had turned republic; and so had the neighbor provinces. South America had followed suit; for the cry of “Independence,” premature as it was among these peoples, then and still so unripe for self-government, carried contagion, and Peru itself, the gem of the conquest, the land of riches and romance, had thrown off the merciful “yoke” of home to stagger for generations under the ten-fold worse yoke of her own corrupt sons. Of all the Americas that had been Spain’s by discovery, by conquest and by settlement, there now remained to her on the continent only the space boxed by the four walls of Callao[38]—a space a mile and a half square. There the red-yellow-and-red flag still flaunted defiance to the victorious insurgents; for there Rodil,[39] “the second Leonidas,” was making the last heroic stand for Spain.

It was hopeless odds—this fiery loyalist against all rebel South America. There was no possibility of reinforcements from anywhere; no chance of retreat. Cooped up in what was then the largest fort in the New World, he saw the land fenced with the flushed armies of Bolívar,[40] the bay blocked by the allied fleets. For twenty-one months he had repulsed their almost daily attacks and outwitted their ceaseless stratagems; and for twenty-one months, too, had baffled the still more dangerous foes within his walls. Of the two thousand eight hundred men at his hand when the siege began, March 1, 1824, over seven hundred had been killed and more than twice as many had died of the pestilence. Of the eight thousand citizens first within the fort—for all Callao was included by those huge ramparts—two thousand four hundred had been sent out to avoid famine, and over five thousand had fallen by the plague. The survivors had no heart left. Almost daily some new plot to betray the fort was discovered, and almost daily the “iron general” gave a row of conspirators to the musketeers. To war, disease and treachery, famine added its terrors. Horse meat and rats were already delicacies; and only yesterday, a noble invalid had given a plate heaped up with gold for three lemons.

It was New Year’s eve. That, down here, twelve degrees below the equator, meant high summer. All day long the tropic heat had beaten mercilessly upon Callao, and now the wan defenders lay sprawled along the ramparts beside their guns, drinking the grateful dusk. Here and there sounded the uneven tramp of the patrol down the cobble-paved streets, and their sharp challenge, “_Alto! Quien vive?_” to every one they met. It rang out now, and the soldiers crossed their muskets before a tall, gray-robed figure.

“It is I, my children,” was the quiet answer. “Delay me not, for I go to the sick.”

“Pass, father,” said the _sargento_, and all lifted their caps, stepping from the narrow sidewalk to make room for the priest.

“But what is this?” cried the officer, suddenly thrusting out his long arm and clutching something which was about to fly right between them. It was a thin, pale girl of ten, hooded in the black manta of her people.

“_Que es esto?_” repeated the _sargento_ more gently. “Dost thou not know the orders that none shall move upon the street after dark, since so many drop letters over the walls to the rebels? Get thee in, for even children are not exempt,” and he pushed her back into the doorway from which she had just burst.

But the child made no motion to obey. “The padre!” she panted. “The padre! For my brother is very sick.”

“_Si, pues?_ Well, go thou and catch the fraile, then. But much eye that thou come not near the walls.” And the kindly old Spaniard led his men off down the street.

By this time the priest had turned the corner; and when the child came flying to that street, lo! he was far ahead. But she kept running breathlessly and at last, where the dark bulk of the castle of San Felipe overhung them, she plucked the gray robe from behind. Her bare feet had drawn no noise from the stones, and the priest started violently, choking back what sounded like the beginning of a cry.

He wheeled sharply about with a stern “What is this?”—but his voice was pinched.

“My brother—very sick—padre! Please, your grace, come!” she panted.

“To the devils with your brother!” he growled, flinging her off. “_Váyate!_” and he was gone before the dumbfounded child could speak again. She stood a moment looking stupidly after him, and then, sobbing, limped wearily homeward.

II.

The house, like most of Callao in those ill days, was little better than a wreck after twenty-one months of the rebel cannonading. The dark stairway teetered and groaned dismally as she scrambled up, and overhead the Southern Cross blinked hazily at her through a tattered frame—the insurgent shells had left little of the flimsy roofs of the city where it never rains. Long, ragged strips of bamboo lathing dangled here and there, and at her childish tread dribbles of the gravel covering came pattering about her like uncanny footfalls. She was trembling all over when she pushed open a broken door and entered the room, the rude Moorish balcony of which overhung the street. There was a hole in the roof here, too, and the doors of the balcony had been splintered by a cannon ball. A twisted rag flared smokily in an iron plate of grease on a broken chair, and where the vagrant shadows began to stand their ground against its feeble rays, some one was bending over a tattered mattress upon the floor.

“_No hay cuidado_,” said a strange voice as she stopped short, in alarm. “The _sargento_ bade me bring a cup of _caldo_ for thy brother, seeing thee so much a woman. For now that there is nothing to eat, he said, perhaps that would be the best medicine.”

“God pay you!” cried the child nervously. “And my brother?”

“He drank the broth as one greedy, and in a moment fell asleep. How many days makes it that he is sick?”

“Two, señor. Since four days there was nothing to eat but two crusts of bread, and those he made me eat.”

“_Pobrecito!_ He has no more than hunger. To-morrow I will bring another _caldo_—for even broth of horse gives strength—that ye may not starve. But have ye no fathers?”

“Papa fell in San Felipe; and our mother was sent from the city with many. But us she hid in the house, saying that the enemy had no mercy even to the weak. And so it was; for the women that tried to pass to Lima the _insurjentes_ fired upon. And she never came back.”

“Dogs of rebels! But now I go, little one. Have heart, for I will look to you. _Hásta luego._”

When he was gone the child crouched down by her brother and slipped her trembling hand into his. The shadows were so crawly! They seemed to draw back and then come stealing at her. And it was so still—only the hail of the sentries, breaking across such a silence as if they stood guard over a city of the dead.

“_Que hay_, little sister?” said the boy, starting up wide awake with the suddenness of those that are fevered. “The father? Couldst not find one? But it is all the same, for God sent us a friend with food.”

“And he comes to-morrow also,” she added eagerly. Then she told how she had followed the priest, but he had shaken her off with rough words.

“_Ea?_ How is that? For the fathers do not so. And how is it thou followedst him even to the castillo?”

“_Pues_, for that he went very fast and I could not catch him. He was at the corner even when the _sargento_ let me pass; but when I came running there he was almost at the next _cuadra_, as if he too had run.”

Vicente suddenly sat up on the squalid mattress. The smoky wick flung deep shadows in his hollow cheeks, and he looked so pale and wild that Lina almost cried out at him.

“I tell thee, ’manita,” he whispered earnestly, “I believe not in that priest! Running so, and so rough to thee! And thou sayest that at touch of thy hand to his robe he started and was to call out? There is a danger, I tell thee!” he repeated vehemently, striking his thin fist upon the floor till the impish shadows danced again. “All is crooked now, when they say the very captains wait to sell our general. And if the priests be traitors too——”

“But what to do?” asked the girl, in awe of this fierce young brother.

“Ay! What to do? For we know nothing. But something there _is_, my heart tells me. _Oyez!_ Wouldst thou know the padre again, seeing him?”

“_Como no?_ For it was near the _farol_, and I saw under the hood his eyes, how shining they were.”

“And his voice, too—no? Come, then, and we will see who is this father that curses his children!” And the boy rose eagerly, though his legs shook under him.

“But how canst thou go out, _hermano_, being so sick?”

“_No hay cuidado._ For now it is for our king against the rebels, and strength I shall have for that. The _caldo_ also gives me new life. _Vamos!_”

III.

Weak as he was, he drew her down the tottering stairs and into the dark street; and there they stood a moment, not knowing whither to turn. “_Claro!_” exclaimed Vicente, “we will follow as he went—perchance we may meet him returning.”

But at the very corner some one turning in hastily from the next street stumbled fairly over them; and Vicente and Lina and the stranger went down in a heap.

“Little animals!” snarled an angry voice. “Are you blind? For a so-little I would break your bones. Eh? He is _who_?” he hissed, catching them by the arms—for he had heard Lina’s excited whisper, “_Es él_.”

“She says you are the priest that would not go to her sick brother,” answered Vicente in a steady voice, “and I believe it, for you are rough to the weak. But we will find a padre who is not so.”

“_Márchanse_, brats!” said the stranger in a tone of relief. “But,” he added, turning and shaking his finger at them, “no more running after me, or I throw you over the wall.”

“Have no care, señor padre,” said Vicente, with sarcastic politeness; and taking Lina by the hand he hurried around the corner. In a moment he turned his head and caught a glimpse of some dark object peering past the wall. “_Es!_” he whispered, squeezing the slender fingers, and a few rods farther on drew Lina into a recess of the wall. He was trembling all over.

“_Es!_” he repeated. “Canst thou not see that _he_ is no fraile, though he wears the habit? It is the voice of a soldier and not of the church. And here! This fell to my very hand when we all went to the ground together”—and he held up a crumpled paper. “But first it is to see whither goes this father of rebels. Come so far as the house and there wait me, for it is better that I go alone.”

“But, Vicente—I—I’m afraid of the _duéndes_!”