Toward evening Raquel grew more quiet, and Ana, seeing that the fever
was abating, gave herself much blame for sending in such haste for
Rafael; and what she had written to him only the good saints could tell,
for she had been so frightened she had possibly told him unpleasant
things!
However, all things could be endured if only Raquel would open her eyes
in reason once more, and lift the load of self-blame from the heart of
Ana.
Not only the young girls, but the mistress as well, kept a respectful
distance from the room where Raquel lay, adjoining the hall. Her moans
and strange words had filled them with dread, but no more so than had
the grovelling fear of the old Indian woman. All day she had crouched at
the door like a patient animal, waiting the end. Sometimes she muttered
to herself in queer Indian words, sometimes she crept to the couch of
Dona Raquel for a little while, and then back again to the door, always
mumbling or praying, and always insisting that the mother of Raquel had
come from the grave to tell things, and that the last of the kings was
gone now for always!
Any attempt at a question, any interpretation of her mutterings, would
arouse her to a realization that she was among new people in a strange
land, and her lips would shut in a straight line, to be kept shut so
long as she was conscious of their presence.
The Indian servants crept past the door, with fearful eyes fixed in
dread. She was of another race and another tongue than their own
forebears, straight and slender even in her old age; darkest
reddish-bronze in color, while a San Juan grandmother was always fat,
and nearly always black. Beside them, Polonia looked almost Caucasian.
Yet she proudly denied any white blood; she was an Indian of a hill
tribe of the south, the name of which she would not utter.
All this, and her mutterings, and the wild words of her mistress, put
terror into the heart of the San Joaquin household. The girls huddled
together and whispered tales of witches and ghosts, and thought she
looked like each in turn; and Dona Ana got great credit for courage in
staying in the room with her in the night-time.
But all their vague fears were changed to a definite terror when one of
the Indian children found the clay image by the aquia, and in its yet
moist members all the pins, for the stealing of which half the children
around the ranch had that morning received a taste of the rope's end.
Such a gray-faced, wailing lot as scampered up from the aquia! Girls
screaming, old women wailing, and the mothers herding the children out
of reach of the accursed thing!
All was explained now, about the sudden awful sickness of the Dona
Raquel! The Indian woman from the south was a very devil! Dona Raquel
had perhaps had to whip her some time, and she had waited until she was
with her in a strange house to do this thing: that was why she crouched
at the door as if on guard; she was afraid some one might enter to pray,
or with holy water, or any of the helps of the saints. And after the
life had gone from Dona Raquel, who could tell that she might not kill
others, even all of them on the ranch? Since she had in one hour's time
changed her mistress from a well woman to a crazy woman who laughed, how
long would it take to do the same for a dozen? Not a day! In a week she
could kill them all!
Panic seized the entire herd. They raced in terror for the ranch-house
and overwhelmed the mistress with their fears. Her daughters clung
together, white-faced at the frenzy facing them. The men were out on the
ranch and ranges; Don Enrico was with them, and there was no one to
control the dark mob of fanatic faces, any more than one could head a
stampeding herd of cattle: that was what terror developed in them--the
mad, unreasoning rush of animals to trample underfoot, or tear to
pieces, the thing they feared.
The mistress could only gasp, "Pray to God--pray to God!" but her voice
was lost in the tumult of the wild chorus. It was too late for prayers;
prayers were no good after a devil had got hold of any one! Then there
was only one thing to do, and they had the knife for the meat and the
axe for the wood! A devil could be burned out, or drowned out, and there
was not water enough this side of the sea for the drowning; therefore--
In vain their mistress screamed, and her daughters clung to the bare
brown arms of their serving-women. They were thrown aside in the
stampede of the savage herd. Let the lady say what should be done with
white blood; but this was an Indian, and an Indian of a strange tribe
and country!
Even in their panic the bovine cowardly herd remembered that fact; there
would be no Indian relatives of the witch to wreak vengeance on them;
she was the devil's own, and she had no other kindred!
They tore across the hall, sacred at other times to the family, and Ana,
rising in wonder at the tumult, was met at the door by the mob. She
retreated to the couch of Raquel, with outstretched arms to protect her
guest, as she commanded that they be gone.
Her words were scarcely heard. At the door, crouching, and with covered
head, they found her they wanted, and dragged her unresisting through
the hall and out into the open.
The mistress, sick and half fainting, stumbled to her own room, and
cowered at the altar, with one daughter clinging to her and sobbing,
while the other stood at the portal of the patio and called for some of
the boys, or a man, or horse for any one who could ride for help and
stop the horror.
"Mother of God! They make the fire!" she screamed.
It was true. They were dragging the wood and making ready for a fire.
Children followed their mothers, gathering leaves and straw. One
black-skinned creature had brought a shovel of coals, and was lying
prone on the ground beside it, blowing it with her breath until it
glowed and sent demoniac lights into her heavy-lidded eyes. One old hag
held the devil's witness, the clay image, before the accused, and after
one brief look Polonia made no struggle. It was fate; she had known from
the feverish words of Dona Raquel that some one must die as sacrifice.
Then she began to croon a strange whining chant, and the hands of those
holding her fell away in sudden terror of even the touch of her. Slowly
she stumbled to her feet, and looked at the sun, and raising her old
hands toward its lowering light, waved them to and fro in weird
salutation, never checking the strange song or chant.
Ana had a pistol, and stood in wavering uncertainty as to whether she
should run out, or stay on guard beside Raquel; but to the final
adjuration she responded as one suddenly aroused from a stupor of fear,
and rushing to the little plaza she screamed loudly and then fired two
shots in quick succession; then after a deliberate little pause she
fired once more, and with pale cheeks turned toward the door, trembling,
and waiting.
"God be praised! See, help is coming," gasped Juanita, pointing
northward. "Good! The dust--the man on the horse--and how he rides--how
he rides!"
Ana watched the rider, fascinated and weak with terror. Juanita was
laughing and crying with joy, but her cousin stood pale and motionless,
and said not a word as the horseman swept past the garden to the back of
the house, where smoke was rolling up in a white cloud.
He was none too soon. The fire was leaping in long tongues from the
crackling sycamore boughs. The dark faces of the fanatics were alight
with frenzied eagerness for their pious task of destroying a witch
before they might be interfered with. They had heard the screams and
shots, and knew what they meant, and the log they were tying the witch
to was held upright by many willing hands.
Her hands were already tied together; there was nothing left to do but
fasten a rope around her at the waist, and toss both log and witch into
the hottest corner.
And then Juanita ran screaming toward the group, and back of her rode a
man on a fiend of a horse, knocking the pious devotees right and left,
and caught up the limp figure of old Polonia and flung it on the saddle
in front of him.
She opened her eyes and looked at him once as he raised her from the
ground, and then closed them and looked no more. It was all of no
use--neither the holy water to keep away the thought of him, nor the
witchcraft to take the life from him. It was the accursed Americano, and
the charm had only served to bring him more quickly!
After the first staggering blow from the stranger's horse, some of the
stronger spirits rallied, and lunged forward to drag the woman from her
rescuer, while others lashed his horse that it might become
uncontrollable. Two able-bodied wenches held on like grim death, despite
the quirt which he brought down across their shoulders again and again,
while he held the horse and Polonia with one arm.
The animal, between the lashing of the mob and the roaring of the
flames, was leaping madly, and the rider had all he could do to control
its terror. Any moment a shot, or a club, or a stone thrown at his own
head might give them two victims instead of one. That was Juanita's one
wild fear. She screamed for Ana with the pistol, but Ana had sunk down,
white and trembling on the doorstep, as she saw a black form suddenly
appear in the midst of the howling mob of savages. An instant she saw
him on the outer edge of the leaping, struggling circle, and the next
he was by the head of the horse, and a strong arm struck right and left
until there was space enough to show he was a bronzed, bearded man in a
priest's habit.
"Back to your kennels, dogs!" he cried, sharply. "Since when have ye
dared strike at gentlemen? On your knees, every one of you! On your
knees!"
The younger girls and children dropped in the dust, but some of the
older were less willing to give up.
"She is a witch, father; she is killing a woman," cried one; "it is
right a devil be put in the fire!"
"Then how hot must the fire be made when your day comes!" he replied,
and raised his hand and spoke slowly, solemnly, "Thrice heated will that
fire be for the thrice-accursed! To your knees, in the name of God!"
With sullen, shamed, disappointed faces, they obeyed. A white man who is
a stranger they dared attack, if enough of them were together, but not a
priest--a priest who could hit hard enough to knock a bull down.
"That was a close shave, padre," observed the American, with a breath of
relief. "They had this poor old wretch almost pulled in two--will you
take her?"
The priest made a step forward, and then halted and smiled, as in vague
perplexity.
"I have not the pleasure of understanding English," he said, gently.
Ana arose and came forward; she was still very pale and still trembling;
she looked at the priest and tried to speak, but the words were
smothered in a half sob.
"My daughter," he said, quietly, "take courage." Then he glanced at the
pistol still in her hand. "It was you who fired? That was right. I was
on the hill in the edge of the wood, and it is well you sent that
warning. Your American friend said--?"
"Oh, I speak a little Spanish too," remarked Bryton, in that tongue; "it
is the woman with the tied hands I wanted you to take."
The padre did so, untying the rope deftly, and steadying her wavering
figure, while Bryton slipped from the saddle, and spoke to Juanita, who
had the one welcoming face he had seen.
"I know you," she said, eagerly. "Did I not see you at San Juan
Capistrano, at Alvara's and at the Mission? I was sure of it. This is my
cousin Dona Ana and Father--"
"Libertad," the padre interrupted, briefly, and spoke directly to
Bryton, "from Mexico."
"You will think us all savages to allow this, father," and she pointed
to the huddled Indians and the leaping flames; "but it was all so
quick--like that--no one could think! My mother is in hiding from it,
and--"
"Father," said Ana, speaking for the first time, "a priest is needed in
the house. We have a woman who may be dying. Will you come quickly?"
She was eager to separate the priest from the others, and, her speech
was nervous and eager.
"Dying?" he repeated, "is that what they meant when they said the Indian
had killed a woman?"
"Yes, father," broke in the quavering tones of old Altagrazia, "here it
is--the devil she made!" and she held up the clay image, from which the
head had been broken in the _melee_. "One day ago the lady is well and
rides like a caballero, and this day the sun goes down and she dies. The
Indian from Mexico put on the curse!"
Old Polonia understood, and screamed denials in her native tongue, and
then turned to the padre and pointed to the American.
"It is that man!" she cried, shrilly, "he is a devil! He does not
die--not for anything! And while he lives he breaks the heart of my
mistress. It is he; that is the man! Put on him the curse of the Church,
father! Put on him the curse to send him to a desert where he never can
find a road again!"
The padre smiled grimly. "That is all they use their religion for after
a century of Christianity," he observed. "They still stick to their
devil-worship, and call on the Church only when they want maledictions
or absolution. Woman, you talk like a fool. Did you do this?"
He took the headless clay pin-cushion and held it before him. Polonia
flashed one vindictive glance at him and then nodded her head sullenly.
It was bad luck to lie to a padre.
"It was to save her," she muttered, "but the Americano is a devil, and
nothing kills him."
She turned one glance of hate and fear upon her rescuer, and moved
toward the house.
"She means you?" asked the padre.
"Oh, she is crazy, that old Indian," cried Juanita; "always she makes me
afraid. The Senor Bryton she never perhaps has seen until this minute.
That is her thanks that he pull her from the fire!"
The padre turned for one level look at the pale face of Ana.
"Your name is Bryton?" he then said, quietly. "Will you, Senor Bryton,
see that these savages do not attempt another roasting, while I look to
the woman who is dying?"
Bryton turned to Juanita.
"Is it so bad as that?" he asked. "The Dona Raquel--"
"We think she is better this evening; still, it may be a fever coming;
one never knows. Ah! there are my father and the men."
Don Enrico Cordoba and some vaqueros rode madly through the corral and
into the place of the huge bonfire and the still kneeling Indians. Now
that their white heat of passion was over, they remembered only the
beating they would get, and crouched doggedly where the padre had bidden
them; the younger ones wept with fear when Juanita told her father the
story.
"Holy God!" he shouted in a rage, breaking in on her recital. "In my
house to trample on my family and drag a woman to the fire! Tomas, count
every head and remember every name. In three days every one shall be
tied to a tree and whipped; if one runs away, she shall be caught and
whipped twice,--once here on the ranch, and once on the Mission plaza of
San Juan, on a Sunday after mass. You cattle, you dogs, you devils,
begone from my sight!"
He struck right and left with the green-hide reata, spurring his horse
after those who stumbled along too slowly to suit him, striking old and
young alike as they ran wailing with terror at the promises he had made
them, and which they knew would be kept. The Mexican master was quite as
prone as the Indian servants to find acute methods of torture or
punishment.
When all were despatched he rode back, puffing and laughing, to his
daughters and guest, with whom he shook hands heartily.
"Holy saints! but we did ride when we saw the smoke; it looked like the
house on fire. It winds a man, a ride like that at my age," and he shook
his fat sides with laughter. "Come inside and have a glass of whiskey,
Senor Bryton. We met at the alcalde's last year when the army officers
were in San Juan? Yes, I thought so. I am glad you have come to my
house, and--who knows--you maybe saved my wife and my daughters as well
as the old woman. When these savages get the taste of blood, they are
crazy wolves, never fighters in the open, brave only when there is a mob
like that. Come in, come in! Juanita, go tell your mother we have a
guest who has saved you all. What was it you said of a padre? where is
he?"
"With Dona Raquel, father."
"She is worse?"
"We do not know, but thanks to the Virgin, she no longer laughs or
cries. Ana is there. If she live or die, we all feel the padre has come
if the husband do not."
"Humph! Oh, yes, yes, always the priests!" he grunted. "Women can't keep
house without the padres. I think I build a chapel for my women; then
they can pray all the time to be sure they save my soul," and he laughed
skeptically; then he tossed aside his sombrero, and brought bottles and
glasses to a little table of marble on the veranda. "Will you have
whiskey, or the bottle of wine?"
"I prefer your own wine of the ranch, Don Enrico," and Bryton poured out
the white moselle, of which the Cordoba family was justly proud; "I
think the padre was also off a journey, senor; perhaps a swallow of this
fine wine--"
"Oh, let the women alone to look after the wants of the padre," laughed
his host. "They own my house when they are in it, though sometimes I
never see them. 'How much money do you want?' I say when they come, and
that ends my business with the padres! I buy and sell with them and get
beaten at _monte_ or _malilla_, but I let women do the praying with
them! Here comes my wife. Refugia, this is the preserver of your house,
the Senor Bryton. Have some whiskey, dear; you are still pale."
"Pale! Never shall I get over this day. Think of the shame of it! Dona
Raquel Arteaga has been entertained like a queen by the bishop, and when
she honors our home, her servant is dragged out to be burned! The word
will go out that we are savages. Enrico, never so long as you live do
you leave this house again without a man in it!"
"Surely not. Drink the whiskey, dear, and be composed."
Dona Refugia drank the fiery liquor, and appeared to enjoy it very much,
but it had not a quieting influence. It rather helped her to remember
and recount all the details of her own stages of fear during the
stampede of the self-appointed executioners.
"After the night we all had," she lamented, "to have it followed by such
a day! God grant that Dona Raquel slept or was unconscious through it
all. Had she seen those fiends, it might have killed her or brought back
the fever. Juanita says a padre has come, which is the one lucky thing."
"Senor Bryton came first, which was a more lucky thing," said her
husband; "all the saints could not have saved the woman from the fire if
he had not come when he did. Such a thing has not happened here in this
valley since I was a boy. Have some more of the wine; it will give you
an appetite for supper."
At the mention of supper his wife remembered that all the help of the
kitchen might have deserted the premises under the scourging of Don
Enrico's reata, and calling the girls to help, she left the gentlemen to
their glasses.
At the hall she halted to ask after Raquel, and in the shadow saw her
niece and the padre talking softly. Ana's head was bent as though
weeping, and the hand of the padre was smoothing her hair, and his words
were reassuring.
"There, there! it is not so bad, after all," he was saying. "You did the
best you knew; and now that I am here, there is nothing to do but--"
"Oh, I know," broke in Ana; "you say all this so I will not blame
myself. You would do the same if the worst, the very worst, happened."
"It is not going to happen," he said, quietly; then, as he saw Dona
Refugia in the hall, "Your friend is surely not so dangerously ill as
you fear; by to-morrow--"
Ana looked up quickly at his change of tone, and arose to her feet.
"Here is my aunt," she said. "Aunt Refugia, this is a padre journeying
south to Mexico. He--he came at the right moment to help Senor Bryton,
and I have asked him to stay--and--"
"Of course," said Dona Refugia, promptly. "Thanks to God you are here
this night! Show him to the padre's room, Ana, while I see to supper. Is
she sleeping?" she asked, nodding toward the couch.
They did not know; she lay with closed eyes most of the time, and they
received no replies to queries, but Ana felt that she only slept
fitfully, and then her own muttered words were certain to arouse her to
a sort of half wakefulness in which she was simply conscious of the
presence of some one without caring in the least who it was. The
entrance of the mob had not impressed her mind more clearly than the
visionary pictures of the night before.
Old Polonia had again crouched outside the door, in the hall, wordless
as before, and, except for some slight disarrangement of her clothing,
showing less sign than might have been expected of the horrid scene she
had been a part of. She had gone in to look at her mistress, had
swallowed some wine offered her by Juanita, and with a short guttural
laugh had settled herself outside the door as a sentinel--or near enough
to hear the slightest call from Raquel.
The priest regarded her sharply and turned to Ana.
"You are certain it was not Estevan's daughter she meant to harm?" he
asked, quietly, but not so low but that the sharp ears of the Indian
caught the name. She pulled a corner of the mantilla from across her
eyes and looked at him.
"Sure," said Ana, "why, she was her nurse, and the nurse of her mother
before her. She would make a carpet of herself for Raquel's feet."
"The nurse of her mother before her," said the priest, slowly. "Then she
is of that strange hill tribe of the temple mountain, and she herself is
not a common Indian. To have been nurse to that family of the priests,
means that her own family was entitled to notice. Yet she has followed,
in her old age, to a strange land. Yes, it must mean devotion. But why
does she dislike the American?"
"God knows! She could not have ever seen him before. I thought she
lied."
"The hate in her eyes was no lie," observed the padre. "His presence
here was lucky, but it is not explained, any more than is my own. To me
it looks--well, as I said, he is in with the officers."
"And it is my fault he has seen you--my fault," murmured Ana. "If you
would only go at once--"
"I think not; it is a good chance to watch the gentleman. If I were sure
that old woman meant her hate for him--"
He stared at Polonia a moment, and then nodded his head.
"I'll take the chance," he decided, and went alone to her and pulled the
cover entirely from her face.
"Friend of a daughter of many kings," he said, slowly.
She stared at him, and stumbled to her feet in salutation.
"It is true, my father, but the kings of the hills are dead; and now,"
pointing toward Raquel, "there will be no more in the land."
"Who knows?" said the strange padre. "There still lives a daughter;
guard her better than you did her mother when I carried love messages
from Estevan."
"Ai! I know you now. You have become padre, and you guard her from the
heretics--the heretics, father," and she pointed toward the veranda
where Don Enrico and his guest could be heard in conversation. "That
accursed Americano--"
"Sh--h! quiet, you!" and he placed a hand on her arm authoritatively;
"make no noise, say no words, but watch him all the time--every time
when I am out of sight. Understand?"
She glanced from the padre to Ana, who nodded her head, and at once the
dark old face was illuminated; at last she was not alone in this strange
land! Others were here who hated the Americano, and that made them her
kindred. She caught the hand of the padre and pressed it to her
forehead.
"I watch always," she promised, fervently; and to herself she thought,
"After all, we get him killed some way, if the padre, who was a soldier,
helps."
They left her in her chosen place, crouched in the hall just outside the
door of Raquel, content at last that she was not alone in her hatred of
the man whom she blamed for the weary hours of wretchedness lived
through by her mistress.
Ana showed the padre to the room set aside always for the use of such
priests as travelled from San Gabriel to San Juan. They were not so many
of late years, but in this house they were always honored guests, no
matter what their order, or land, or language.
"I am afraid--afraid!" said Ana, as she opened the door; "if some one
should come who knows--"
"No one will," he said, reassuringly, "and this may be a good chance to
learn much. Go, help your aunt, and forget to fear."
Ana sighed, but went as he bade, to the kitchen, where Dona Refugia was
doing her best to make amends for the distraction of the cooks. They
were like big, fat, frightened children, not one of them of any use that
night.
Still, there chanced to be enchilladas made the day before, and the
tortillas took but a little while to bake, and the bonfire in the yard
had settled to a bed of gleaming coals where the beef could be barbecued
with no delay but the sending of some girls to the creek for spears of
peeled willow. Ana glanced out and saw them squatted peacefully around
the red heap, turning the poles on which the strips of beef were hung,
as phlegmatic as though they had not howled for a human roasting there
not an hour ago.
Juanita had made the table look very nice, in honor of the strange
American guest who had followed her call and saved the family from the
disgrace of such a killing.
He filled her girlish ideal of the heroic, and she was not like some
women who thought that California girls should marry only their own
race: a big American husband seemed the finest thing in the world to
Juanita.
So there were red geraniums on the table, and yellow poppies, and the
best new plates brought from a steamer at San Pedro but a month before;
they were a bright blue, and Juanita thought the color combination very
fine indeed. She ran to put on a new dress, that the stranger might not
think they all looked as if the house had been wrecked. Ana, for a
wonder, was indifferent to her own personal appearance, and kept on an
old black dress with not even a collar of lace to break its severity.
Don Enrico showed Bryton to a room where he could wash and brush a bit,
but so interested was he in his chance guest, that he remained at the
door chatting affably, and recounting the word he had received that day
that Flores and his men had made a big fight with some cattle people
over in Sonora, and had either got a boat at San Onofre and gone out to
sea, or else they were somewhere in the San Juan mountains, and of
course had spies on the outlook for the marshal or the army men. Don
Enrico himself thought it time for the army men to interfere--there were
many army men in Los Angeles, and this was no longer a county affair.
"But the devil of a trouble in this country is that too many Mexican
men, and women too, will help to hide Flores's men because of Capitan,
who has never yet taken a peso from a Mexican, except the Arteagas, and
who never fails to strip an American if he starts on his trail. They
like that, these Mexicans, whose men fought the Americanos; they are not
strong enough to fight in the open, but they like to help this vagabond
Capitan, who should have been priest instead of bandit, and who keeps up
their fight for them under cover."
He had entered the dining-room while talking, and so interested was he
in his pet complaint against the troublesome outlaws, that he did not
notice the tall black figure by the side of his wife.
"Uncle, this is Padre Libertad," said Ana, almost timidly. Don Enrico
did not like priests in general; he made the mistake of classing them
all with the Catalonian padre of San Juan, whom he disliked so much that
he would not eat at the same table. His women folks never knew how he
would receive a man of the Church until he was proven to his taste.
However, the good American whiskey had put him in a cordial mood, and he
nodded amiably as he took his seat.
"A good day to you, padre," he said. "You tramped a long way in the dust
to find trouble, did you? Well, the women are thanking the saints you
came at the right time, you and Senor Bryton. So it is all very well,
and God send that the fight gave you an appetite."
And evidently something did, for the priest ate like a vaquero off the
ranges. Don Enrico felt a growing respect for the man who could eat more
barbecued meat than himself, and drink as much red wine. In fact, all
did ample justice to the beef of the bonfire built for old Polonia,--all
except Ana,--who still looked pale and uneasy, and Bryton, who made a
pretence of eating, but who refused a second glass of wine, a thing the
padre noticed with a smile, and their host commented on vigorously.
"You can't drink--you Americans," he insisted; "and look at your
plate,--not half empty! It takes students and brain-workers like the
padre and me to spoil a side of beef! You are Spanish and of Mexico,
padre?"
"No, not even my grandfather came from Spain; so I cannot claim to be
Spanish," said the padre. "I claim only to be Mexican."
"And good enough too! Across the line, do these bandits of ours make
much trouble these days?"
"No one has complained to me of them. You say they take most from the
Americano, but in our country there are no Americano ranches yet; we do
not expect to find them there for many years."
"Well, Capitan does go down there sometimes," insisted Don Enrico; "I've
heard of it. His family meant him for the Church, but the young devil
ran away and joined the army with his elder brother. The Americans shot
Roberto; this one was only a boy then, light-weight to ride, and he
carried despatches, and never went back to the Church. Oh, he is
Californian, all right,--is cousin to half the country. He is--what
relation should he be to us, Refugia?"
"He is second cousin to me," said Ana.
"So if you hear of him being in trouble for his soul, say a prayer for
him, padre, on account of his loyal cousin," said Juanita, and laughed
teasingly; but Ana lifted troubled, dark eyes to the padre's face.
"Do so, father," she said, simply; "for the sake of his soul, remember
me!"
"These women!" laughed her uncle; "they are always troubling us about
our souls, padre. Don't let them spoil your supper with a list of
prayers!"
"And what would become of some of your souls if we women did not say the
prayers?" retorted his wife. "God knows, Capitan needs them."
"We all need them," said the priest, quietly.
"Still, I always have understood that he is the whitest of the bunch,"
observed Bryton.
"There are, then, different shades of blackness?" asked the padre. "I
believe the law holds all equally guilty."
"El Capitan's motives, at least, have been different, and it has come to
be understood that when extremely brutal things have occurred on their
raids, Capitan is never of the party."
"Is it so? I did not know you Americanos gave Mexicans credit for such
negative virtues?"
Bryton looked up quickly. There was a mocking light in the eyes of the
padre, and he was smiling across the table. The smile puzzled Bryton as
much as the quick alarm in the eyes of Ana. Was she afraid of
controversy over the still warm question of Mexican and United States
rights?
"I think that, individually, we give each other credit," he replied,
"especially to the fighters. It is only the political schemers who make
the troubles between the two factions. As for Capitan, he has too much
daring not to force admiration even from the people he dislikes."
Ana flashed a grateful glance at him, and a slight flush crept to the
forehead of the padre; he gulped down the contents of his glass, and
pushed back his chair.
"Do you fear any trouble with those Indians to-night?" he asked,
abruptly. "Had I better speak with them?"
"It is better, perhaps, that we say a rosary, and bring them together
that way," observed Dona Refugia; "it is the best way. I will have Pedro
ring the bell--"
Ana slipped out of the dining-room beside the padre.
"You will?" she asked.
"Surely; a rosary is easy. Why do you look so frightened? Your Americano
will not eat me."
"But you don't like him?"
"What does that matter? At least, he says no harm of a man behind his
back, and it is true what he says of the politicians. Oh, if he keeps up
the compliments, who knows but that we may be good friends yet--after he
has paid for the horses he took north? Chut!--that is only jest! Smile a
little and help to corral the Indians."
Bryton, with Juanita beside him, had sauntered again to the veranda.
Passing the door of the hall, he noticed Polonia still crouched there,
and Juanita shuddered and drew away.
"I am always frightened at her," she confessed; "not alone would I go in
a room where she is at dark for all the gold they say there is in
Trabuco Mountain. It is not so strange to me that the poor creatures
were afraid and thought her a witch. If you had heard the Dona Raquel
all last night, you also would have thought only witchcraft could make
her so suddenly fall sick with a heart-ache for a ring that would save
her, and a temple where a sacrifice was. Truly, it was pitiful--her
cries. I pulled the pillow over my ears. Only Ana was brave enough to
stay close to her,--Ana and the old mummy."
"And Dona Ana--she thought what of it all--the madness--the--"
"Oh, Ana has no love for Rafael; she blames him in some way; and it may
be that he does make trouble for his wife--he would not be an Arteaga
else. But she never mentioned his name in all her cries, never once. She
called always--always for the ring, and laughed that some one who wore
the ring was again alive. Oh, it was all of queer crazy things like
that--ghostly things--she made laments for. It was like purgatory to
hear her, yet Ana was not afraid. She has courage, that girl!"
"She is asleep now?" he asked, suddenly.
"Who--Ana? why--"
"No, no, I mean Dona--I mean the sick lady. She is better--or--how?"
"She notices nothing, and says nothing, but she does not scream for some
one who was dead and is now alive, as she did last night, when she
laughed and wept; so I think that means the herb teas have checked the
fever. Do not you?"
Just then the bell rang in the patio for the rosary, and Juanita, with a
word of apology, slipped away, saying diffidently, "Though you are
welcome to come and pray with us,"--divided between her wish to have
him, and her reluctance to make it obligatory on a heretical guest to
attend their services.
"I shall pray with you," he said, simply, "but I shall remain here. My
presence might not have a soothing effect on your servants. I shall
smoke a cigar here on the terrace until you return."
Juanita blushed. She would rather have lingered there herself than
joined the others. The dusk was coming on; a few last bars of red lay
along the sky line to the west where the sea was, and at that hour there
was no corner so delightfully appealing as the great veranda where the
gold-of-Ophir roses made a lattice of green and yellow against the warm
sky.
Ana entered and lit a candle in the hall and another in the room of
Raquel, and went out again with a quiet nod to the American guest pacing
the veranda aimlessly, and smoking one of Don Enrico's prime cigarros.
When she had disappeared, he sauntered as aimlessly through the hall to
the patio where the dark people were gathered with bent heads, murmuring
responses sullenly, scarcely daring to lift their eyes to the group on
the veranda.
A few candles had been lit along the wall where the shadows were
deepening, and in their soft light Bryton could see Don Enrico and all
the men of the ranch--vaqueros and ploughmen alike--kneeling back of the
women, and the red light yet showing through the gray of the ashes where
the flames had leaped so lately.
[Music: _El Campo._]
Ya me voy de esta campo querida,
Donde tiernas caricias goce
Y me voy con el alma partida,
Campo ingrata por ti llovare!