As Susy's footsteps died away, Clarence closed the door, walked to the
window, and examined it closely. The bars had been restored since he had
wrenched them off to give ingress to the family on the day of recapture.
He glanced around the room; nothing seemed to have been disturbed.
Nevertheless he was uneasy. The suspicions of a frank, trustful nature
when once aroused are apt to be more general and far-reaching than the
specific distrusts of the disingenuous, for they imply the overthrow of
a whole principle and not a mere detail. Clarence's conviction that Susy
had seen Pedro recently since his dismissal led him into the wildest
surmises of her motives. It was possible that without her having reason
to suspect Pedro's greater crime, he might have confided to her his
intention of reclaiming the property and installing her as the mistress
and chatelaine of the rancho. The idea was one that might have appealed
to Susy's theatrical imagination. He recalled Mrs. McClosky's sneer
at his own pretensions and her vague threats of a rival of more lineal
descent. The possible infidelity of Susy to himself touched him lightly
when the first surprise was over; indeed, it scarcely could be called
infidelity, if she knew and believed Mary Rogers's discovery; and the
conviction that he and she had really never loved each other now enabled
him, as he believed, to look at her conduct dispassionately. Yet it was
her treachery to Mrs. Peyton and not to himself that impressed him most,
and perhaps made him equally unjust, through his affections.
He extinguished the candles, partly from some vague precautions he could
not explain, and partly to think over his fears in the abstraction and
obscurity of the semi-darkness. The higher windows suffused a faint
light on the ceiling, and, assisted by the dark lantern-like glow
cast on the opposite wall by the tunnel of the embrasured window,
the familiar outlines of the room and its furniture came back to him.
Somewhat in this fashion also, in the obscurity and quiet, came back
to him the events he had overlooked and forgotten. He recalled now some
gossip of the servants, and hints dropped by Susy of a violent quarrel
between Peyton and Pedro, which resulted in Pedro's dismissal, but which
now seemed clearly attributable to some graver cause than inattention
and insolence. He recalled Mary Rogers's playful pleasantries with Susy
about Pedro, and Susy's mysterious air, which he had hitherto
regarded only as part of her exaggeration. He remembered Mrs. Peyton's
unwarrantable uneasiness about Susy, which he had either overlooked or
referred entirely to himself; she must have suspected something. To his
quickened imagination, in this ruin of his faith and trust, he believed
that Hooker's defection was either part of the conspiracy, or that he
had run away to avoid being implicated with Susy in its discovery.
This, too, was the significance of Gilroy's parting warning. He and
Mrs. Peyton alone had been blind and confiding in the midst of this
treachery, and even HE had been blind to his own real affections.
The wind had risen again, and the faint light on the opposite wall grew
tremulous and shifting with the movement of the foliage without. But
presently the glow became quite obliterated, as if by the intervention
of some opaque body outside the window. He rose hurriedly and went to
the casement. But at the same moment he fancied he heard the jamming of
a door or window in quite another direction, and his examination of
the casement before him showed him only the silver light of the thinly
clouded sky falling uninterruptedly through the bars and foliage on the
interior of the whitewashed embrasure. Then a conception of his mistake
flashed across him. The line of the casa was long, straggling, and
exposed elsewhere; why should the attempt to enter or communicate
with any one within be confined only to this single point? And why not
satisfy himself at once if any trespassers were lounging around the
walls, and then confront them boldly in the open? Their discovery and
identification was as important as the defeat of their intentions.
He relit the candle, and, placing it on a small table by the wall beyond
the visual range of the window, rearranged the curtain so that, while
it permitted the light to pass out, it left the room in shadow. He then
opened the door softly, locked it behind him, and passed noiselessly
into the hall. Susy's and Mrs. McClosky's rooms were at the further end
of the passage, but between them and the boudoir was the open patio, and
the low murmur of the voices of servants, who still lingered until he
should dismiss them for the night. Turning back, he moved silently down
the passage, until he reached the narrow arched door to the garden.
This he unlocked and opened with the same stealthy caution. The rain had
recommenced. Not daring to risk a return to his room, he took from a
peg in the recess an old waterproof cloak and “sou'wester” of Peyton's,
which still hung there, and passed out into the night, locking the
door behind him. To keep the knowledge of his secret patrol from the
stablemen, he did not attempt to take out his own horse, but trusted to
find some vacquero's mustang in the corral. By good luck an old “Blue
Grass” hack of Peyton's, nearest the stockade as he entered, allowed
itself to be quickly caught. Using its rope headstall for a bridle,
Clarence vaulted on its bare back, and paced cautiously out into the
road. Here he kept the curve of the long line of stockade until he
reached the outlying field where, half hidden in the withered, sapless,
but still standing stalks of grain, he slowly began a circuit of the
casa.
The misty gray dome above him, which an invisible moon seemed to have
quicksilvered over, alternately lightened and darkened with passing
gusts of fine rain. Nevertheless he could see the outline of the broad
quadrangle of the house quite distinctly, except on the west side,
where a fringe of writhing willows beat the brown adobe walls with their
imploring arms at every gust. Elsewhere nothing moved; the view was
uninterrupted to where the shining, watery sky met the equally shining,
watery plain. He had already made a half circuit of the house, and was
still noiselessly picking his way along the furrows, muffled with soaked
and broken-down blades, and the velvety upspringing of the “volunteer”
growth, when suddenly, not fifty yards before him, without sound or
warning, a figure rode out of the grain upon the open crossroad, and
deliberately halted with a listless, abstracted, waiting air. Clarence
instantly recognized one of his own vacqueros, an undersized half-breed,
but he as instantly divined that he was only an outpost or confederate,
stationed to give the alarm. The same precaution had prevented each
hearing the other, and the lesser height of the vacquero had rendered
him indistinguishable as he preceded Clarence among the grain. As the
young man made no doubt that the real trespasser was nearer the casa,
along the line of willows, he wheeled to intercept him without alarming
his sentry. Unfortunately, his horse answered the rope bridle clumsily,
and splashed in striking out. The watcher quickly raised his head, and
Clarence knew that his only chance was now to suppress him. Determined
to do this at any hazard, with a threatening gesture he charged boldly
down upon him.
But he had not crossed half the distance between them when the man
uttered an appalling cry, so wild and despairing that it seemed to chill
even the hot blood in Clarence's veins, and dashed frenziedly down the
cross-road into the interminable plain. Before Clarence could determine
if that cry was a signal or an involuntary outburst, it was followed
instantly by the sound of frightened and struggling hoofs clattering
against the wall of the casa, and a swaying of the shrubbery near the
back gate of the patio. Here was his real quarry! Without hesitation he
dug his heels into the flanks of his horse and rode furiously towards
it. As he approached, a long tremor seemed to pass through the
shrubbery, with the retreating sound of horse hoofs. The unseen
trespasser had evidently taken the alarm and was fleeing, and Clarence
dashed in pursuit. Following the sound, for the shrubbery hid the
fugitive from view, he passed the last wall of the casa; but it soon
became evident that the unknown had the better horse. The hoof-beats
grew fainter and fainter, and at times appeared even to cease, until
his own approach started them again, eventually to fade away in the
distance. In vain Clarence dug his heels into the flanks of his heavier
steed, and regretted his own mustang; and when at last he reached the
edge of the thicket he had lost both sight and sound of the fugitive.
The descent to the lower terrace lay before him empty and desolate. The
man had escaped!
He turned slowly back with baffled anger and vindictiveness. However,
he had prevented something, although he knew not what. The principal had
got away, but he had identified his confederate, and for the first time
held a clue to his mysterious visitant. There was no use to alarm the
household, which did not seem to have been disturbed. The trespassers
were far away by this time, and the attempt would hardly be repeated
that night. He made his way quietly back to the corral, let loose his
horse, and regained the casa unobserved. He unlocked the arched door in
the wall, reentered the darkened passage, stopped a moment to open
the door of the boudoir, glance at the closely fastened casement, and
extinguish the still burning candle, and, relocking the door securely,
made his way to his own room.
But he could not sleep. The whole incident, over so quickly, had
nevertheless impressed him deeply, and yet like a dream. The strange
yell of the vacquero still rang in his ears, but with an unearthly and
superstitious significance that was even more dreamlike in its meaning.
He awakened from a fitful slumber to find the light of morning in the
room, and Incarnacion standing by his bedside.
The yellow face of the steward was greenish with terror, and his lips
were dry.
“Get up, Senor Clarencio; get up at once, my master. Strange things have
happened. Mother of God protect us!”
Clarence rolled to his feet, with the events of the past night
struggling back upon his consciousness.
“What mean you, Nascio?” he said, grasping the man's arm, which
was still mechanically making the sign of the cross, as he muttered
incoherently. “Speak, I command you!”
“It is Jose, the little vacquero, who is even now at the padre's house,
raving as a lunatic, stricken as a madman with terror! He has seen
him,--the dead alive! Save us!”
“Are you mad yourself, Nascio?” said Clarence. “Whom has he seen?”
“Whom? God help us! the old padron--Senor Peyton himself! He rushed
towards him here, in the patio, last night--out of the air, the sky, the
ground, he knew not,--his own self, wrapped in his old storm cloak and
hat, and riding his own horse,--erect, terrible, and menacing, with an
awful hand upholding a rope--so! He saw him with these eyes, as I see
you. What HE said to him, God knows! The priest, perhaps, for he has
made confession!”
In a flash of intelligence Clarence comprehended all. He rose grimly and
began to dress himself.
“Not a word of this to the women,--to any one, Nascio, dost thou
understand?” he said curtly. “It may be that Jose has been partaking too
freely of aguardiente,--it is possible. I will see the priest myself.
But what possesses thee? Collect thyself, good Nascio.”
But the man was still trembling.
“It is not all,--Mother of God! it is not all, master!” he stammered,
dropping to his knees and still crossing himself. “This morning, beside
the corral, they find the horse of Pedro Valdez splashed and spattered
on saddle and bridle, and in the stirrup,--dost thou hear? the
STIRRUP,--hanging, the torn-off boot of Valdez! Ah, God! The same as
HIS! Now do you understand? It is HIS vengeance. No! Jesu forgive me! it
is the vengeance of God!”
Clarence was staggered.
“And you have not found Valdez? You have looked for him?” he said,
hurriedly throwing on his clothes.
“Everywhere,--all over the plain. The whole rancho has been out since
sunrise,--here and there and everywhere. And there is nothing! Of course
not. What would you?” He pointed solemnly to the ground.
“Nonsense!” said Clarence, buttoning his coat and seizing his hat.
“Follow me.”
He ran down the passage, followed by Incarnacion, through the excited,
gesticulating crowd of servants in the patio, and out of the back gate.
He turned first along the wall of the casa towards the barred window of
the boudoir. Then a cry came from Incarnacion.
They ran quickly forward. Hanging from the grating of the window, like
a mass of limp and saturated clothes, was the body of Pedro Valdez, with
one unbooted foot dangling within an inch of the ground. His head was
passed inside the grating and fixed as at that moment when the first
spring of the frightened horse had broken his neck between the bars as
in a garrote, and the second plunge of the terrified animal had carried
off his boot in the caught stirrup when it escaped.