The sagittary correspondence could not last for long. They are but
lukewarm lovers who can content themselves with a dialogue carried on at
bowshot distance. Hearts brimful of passion must beat and burn
together--in close proximity--each feeling the pulsation of the other.
"If there be an Elysium on earth, it is this!"
Maurice Gerald was not the man--nor Louise Poindexter the woman--to shun
such a consummation.
It came to pass: not under the tell-tale light of the sun, but in the
lone hour of midnight, when but the stars could have been witnesses of
their social dereliction.
Twice had they stood together in that garden grove--twice had they
exchanged love vows--under the steel-grey light of the stars; and a
third interview had been arranged between them.
Little suspected the proud planter--perhaps prouder of his daughter than
anything else he possessed--that she was daily engaged in an act of
rebellion--the wildest against which parental authority may pronounce
itself.
His own daughter--his only daughter--of the best blood of Southern
aristocracy; beautiful, accomplished, everything to secure him a
splendid alliance--holding nightly assignation with a horse-hunter!
Could he have but dreamt it when slumbering upon his soft couch, the
dream would have startled him from his sleep like the call of the
eternal trumpet!
He had no suspicion--not the slightest. The thing was too improbable--
too monstrous, to have given cause for one. Its very monstrosity would
have disarmed him, had the thought been suggested.
He had been pleased at his daughter's compliance with his late
injunctions; though he would have preferred her obeying them to the
letter, and riding out in company with her brother or cousin--which she
still declined to do. This, however, he did not insist upon. He could
well concede so much to her caprice: since her staying at home could be
no disadvantage to the cause that had prompted him to the stern counsel.
Her ready obedience had almost influenced him to regret the prohibition.
Walking in confidence by day, and sleeping in security by night, he
fancied, it might be recalled.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was one of those nights known only to a southern sky, when the full
round moon rolls clear across a canopy of sapphire; when the mountains
have no mist, and look as though you could lay your hand upon them; when
the wind is hushed, and the broad leaves of the tropical trees droop
motionless from their boughs; themselves silent as if listening to the
concert of singular sounds carried on in their midst, and in which
mingle the voices of living creatures belonging to every department of
animated nature--beast, bird, reptile, and insect.
Such a night was it, as you would select for a stroll in company with
the being--the one and only being--who, by the mysterious dictation of
Nature, has entwined herself around your heart--a night upon which you
feel a wayward longing to have white arms entwined around your neck, and
bright eyes before your face, with that voluptuous gleaming that can
only be felt to perfection under the mystic light of the moon.
It was long after the infantry drum had beaten tattoo, and the cavalry
bugle sounded the signal for the garrison of Fort Inge to go to bed--in
fact it was much nearer the hour of midnight--when a horseman rode away
from the door of Oberdoffer's hotel; and, taking the down-river road,
was soon lost to the sight of the latest loiterer who might have been
strolling through the streets of the village.
It is already known, that this road passed the hacienda of Casa del
Corvo, at some distance from the house, and on the opposite side of the
river. It is also known that at the same place it traversed a stretch
of open prairie, with only a piece of copsewood midway between two
extensive tracts of chapparal.
This clump of isolated timber, known in prairie parlance as a "motte" or
"island" of timber, stood by the side of the road, along which the
horseman had continued, after taking his departure from the village.
On reaching the copse he dismounted; led his horse in among the
underwood; "hitched" him, by looping his bridle rein around the topmost
twigs of an elastic bough; then detaching a long rope of twisted
horsehair from the "horn" of his saddle, and inserting his arm into its
coil, he glided out to the edge of the "island," on that side that lay
towards the hacienda.
Before forsaking the shadow of the copse, he cast a glance towards the
sky, and at the moon sailing supremely over it. It was a glance of
inquiry, ending in a look of chagrin, with some muttered phrases that
rendered it more emphatic.
"No use waiting for that beauty to go to bed? She's made up her mind,
she won't go home till morning--ha! ha!"
The droll conceit, which has so oft amused the nocturnal inebriate of
great cities, appeared to produce a like affect upon the night patroller
of the prairie; and for a moment the shadow, late darkening his brow,
disappeared. It returned anon; as he stood gazing across the open space
that separated him from the river bottom--beyond which lay the hacienda
of Casa del Corvo, clearly outlined upon the opposite bluff, "If there
_should_ be any one stirring about the place? It's not likely at this
hour; unless it be the owner of a bad conscience who can't sleep.
Troth! there's one such within those walls. If he be abroad there's a
good chance of his seeing me on the open ground; not that I should care
a straw, if it were only myself to be compromised. By Saint Patrick, I
see no alternative but risk it! It's no use waiting upon the moon,
deuce take her! She don't go down for hours; and there's not the sign
of a cloud. It won't do to keep _her_ waiting. No; I must chance it in
the clear light. Here goes?"
Saying this, with a swift but stealthy step, the dismounted horseman
glided across the treeless tract, and soon readied the escarpment of the
cliff, that formed the second height of land rising above the channel of
the Leona.
He did not stay ten seconds in this conspicuous situation; but by a path
that zigzagged down the bluff--and with which he appeared familiar--he
descended to the river "bottom."
In an instant after he stood upon the bank; at the convexity of the
river's bend, and directly opposite the spot where a skiff was moored,
under the sombre shadow of a gigantic cotton-tree.
For a short while he stood gazing across the stream, with a glance that
told of scrutiny. He was scanning the shrubbery on the other side; in
the endeavour to make out, whether any one was concealed beneath its
shadow.
Becoming satisfied that no one was there, he raised the loop-end of his
lazo--for it was this he carried over his arm--and giving it half a
dozen whirls in the air, cast it across the stream.
The noose settled over the cutwater of the skiff; and closing around the
stem, enabled him to tow the tiny craft to the side on which he stood.
Stepping in, he took hold of a pair of oars that lay along the planking
at the bottom; and, placing them between the thole-pins, pulled the boat
back to its moorings.
Leaping out, he secured it as it had been before, against the drift of
the current; and then, taking stand under the shadow of the cotton-tree,
he appeared to await either a signal, or the appearance of some one,
expected by appointment.
His manoeuvres up to this moment, had they been observed, might have
rendered him amenable to the suspicion that he was a housebreaker, about
to "crack the crib" of Casa del Corvo.
The phrases that fell from his lips, however, could they have been
heard, would have absolved him of any such vile or vulgar intention. It
is true he had designs upon the hacienda; but these did not contemplate
either its cash, plate, or jewellery--if we except the most precious
jewel it contained--the mistress of the mansion herself.
It is scarce necessary to say, that the man who had hidden his horse in
the "motte," and so cleverly effected the crossing of the stream, was
Maurice the mustanger.