When the musical gong sounded for luncheon, and Carmen came down from her
room at one o'clock, she found her guest already in the garden, as lovely
a garden as Angela had seen in her sleep. For a minute Carmen stood on a
step of the brick terrace, looking at the slender figure in white. Angela
did not hear the faint rustling of muslin. Her back was half turned to the
house, and she was watching the aerial architecture of the fountain,
delicate domes and pinnacles built of crystal. Carmen thought reluctantly
that Mrs. May looked very young in her white frock, not more than eighteen
or nineteen. She wondered if the love pirate enjoyed life very much, and
whether she really cared for Nick and wanted to marry him or whether she
was only flirting. Then the profile at which Carmen had been gloomily
gazing turned into a full face. Angela smiled at Mrs. Gaylor. "You must
have hypnotized me," she said. "Suddenly I felt I was being looked at by
some one. Have you been taking a nap, too?"
"No," said her hostess. "I knew I couldn't go to sleep. I'm glad if you
rested. You look very fresh."
Angela could not conscientiously return the compliment. Mrs. Gaylor might
have been travelling for a week instead of one night.
Luncheon was in the pergola, where Carmen and Nick had dined together the
night he went away; the night--as she expressed it to herself of
late--when she had lost him. Angela had never seen a more beautiful place,
and said so, trying to make conversation; for now that Nick was not with
them she felt ill at ease with Mrs. Gaylor. "What a garden!" she
exclaimed. "The other night in the Yosemite I dreamed of just such a
garden--and I think, at the end of the dream there was a woman in
it--rather like you. You must be very happy here."
"Yes, I'm happy enough," said Carmen. "Oh! I mustn't forget to tell
you--Nick came back. Did you hear his automobile?"
"No. I must have been asleep."
"I thought you were. Besides, your room's on the other side of the house."
"It's beautifully quiet and cool. Did Mr. Hilliard come to change the plan
for this afternoon?"
"Yes. He turned round before getting home, because he'd remembered
something he had to do at six, something important, business with the men
who've bought his gusher. They're to look at another one--smaller, but
pretty good--and see if they want to buy it too; a new gusher that's burst
out on the land Nick kept for his own. So he thought perhaps we wouldn't
mind going over to look at the place a good deal earlier, after all, in
spite of the heat. He won't let you be exposed to the sun more than he can
help."
"I don't mind the heat, if you don't," said Angela.
"Oh, as for me, I'm half Spanish, you know. I'm like a salamander. Nick'll
come back between half-past two and three--soon after his lunch. He might
almost as well have stayed with us. But, of course, as he's been away from
home so long, he wants to have a look around and be sure that everything's
all right for a stranger to see. I don't wonder! I told him we'd meet him
at the east gate. It's a short cut, and though it isn't much of a walk for
us, and is in shade over half the way, it cuts off more than two miles of
bad road for him--road that's just being made. I thought you'd rather like
a stroll through the bamboo grove, which everybody admires so much. The
only part of the walk that will be hot is going across a bit of disused
pasture land. But we'll take green-lined parasols. I have a lot of them
about the house, for visitors. We ought to start by two-thirty; and by
three-fifteen, with the motor, we can be coming in sight of the Lucky Star
Gusher, like a huge black geyser. You know Nick's land was once part of
mine, so his place is no distance, really. I hope you don't dislike
walking?"
"No, indeed. I'm very fond of it. I can easily do ten miles."
"Well, you will have only a short mile to meet Nick and his motor this
afternoon. I dare say I shall pick up a little by half-past two. I thought
maybe lunch would make me feel better, but it doesn't. Just the other way!
I can't eat. I've got one of the horrid headaches that turn me almost into
a lunatic once in a blue moon."
"I'm so sorry," said Angela. "Hadn't you better send Mr. Hilliard word
that we can't come to-day? You know, there's most of to-morrow----"
"Oh, no," Carmen broke in hastily. "I wouldn't disappoint him for
anything in the world. A cup of black coffee will do me good."
But apparently it had no such effect. And at two o'clock Mrs. Gaylor said
that she feared she must not venture out, after all, in the hot sun. If
she tried she might faint, and that would be silly. "I'm so sorry, but
you'll have to go alone," she finished, "and when I've had a little rest,
I'll come after you in a carriage, in time to bring you home. That will
save Nick motoring here and back, and give him a chance to keep his
engagement at six, with those men, and no danger of a breakdown with his
car. He might burst a tire on that stony road, you see, and be delayed.
Those men are important to him."
Angela was genuinely sympathetic, and strove to regret that Mrs. Gaylor
could not be with her. But she could not feel as sorry as she wished to
feel. There was a spice of danger in being alone with Nick, danger that he
might take up the thread dropped in the Mariposa Forest--if, indeed, he
really cared to take it up. That was the question. Perhaps, even if he
loved her, he would not think it best to tell her so under his own roof,
where she would have to run away from him to escape, if she did not choose
to listen. Whether he loved her or not, it must come to the same in the
end. But she could not help longing to know the truth. The one thing she
did already know was that she was deliciously frightened, yet glad that
she was to see Nick's ranch without Mrs. Gaylor.
At half-past two she started out, Carmen giving her explicit directions,
which she could not mistake, because, after passing through the bamboos,
the way was straight as far as that stretch of disused pasture land of
which mention had been made.
"You'll be in shade of the orange-trees till you come to a big gate in a
fence," Carmen explained. "Shut it after you, please, because dogs might
stray into the garden if you left it open. No cattle graze on that part of
the ranch any more. They're going to irrigate there and to plant alfalfa,
the soil's likely to be so good. But I've been weak enough to let gipsies
camp on the place once or twice, and there might be some there now, with
their dogs and horses, for all I know. As you go out of the gate you'll
see a kind of track worn in the grass; and all you've got to do is to
follow it for about three quarters of a mile, till you come to a new road
that's just been finished. When the rest of it's made right, motors won't
have any trouble between Nick's ranch and mine."
Angela said that she understood her instructions perfectly, and took the
green-lined parasol which her hostess had found for her. Its outer
covering was scarlet, and it was rather big and heavy. Angela made up her
mind that she would not use it except for the hottest part of the walk,
going across the disused pasture land.
"You'll really be able to come on about five?" she asked.
"Oh, yes, I shall be a different woman by that time." The contralto voice
dropped oddly and suddenly with these words: an effect of the headache, of
course. And the pallor of the dark face was almost ghastly. Angela thought
that her hostess looked very ill. "You may expect me," Carmen finished.
"I know Mr. Hilliard would be disappointed if you didn't come. Good-bye
till five, then."
"Good-bye."
Angela turned away; and Mrs. Gaylor, who had brought her guest as far as
the beginning of the bamboo grove; stood watching the white figure flit
farther and farther away, among the intricate green pillars of the temple.
Then, when the elusive form became ghostlike in the distance, Carmen went
back to the house. She walked slowly and with dignified composure while it
was possible that she might be seen by some servant. But once in her room,
with the door locked, she tottered to the bedside and flung herself down
on her knees.
"O God--O God!" she gasped, her face hidden.
Then, lifting her eyes, with a look of horror, she whispered, "No, not
God--_devil_. He's the only one I can ever pray to now."
Her eyes, glazed and staring, saw again the white figure passing from
sunshine into shadow. So it had been in Madame Vestris's crystal. How soon
would the dark cloud blot it out of sight now--and forever?
Angela had some difficulty in opening the gate that led from an orange
plantation into the disused pasture, for the fence was high and strong,
and the gate, apparently, not often used. As for the pasture, it went
billowing away mile after mile, seemingly, though at a distance she could
see a wire fence, a long vanishing line. And beyond that--safety shut away
by the wire, she was glad to think--a large number of cattle grazing. They
were so far off that their forms were all massed together, and they seemed
very quiet. Nevertheless, she was glad that a wire fence separated them
from her, for though she was not a coward and would not have stopped now
if there had been no fence, there was something rather terrifying about a
great drove of cattle in a lonely place.
"They're much too far off to see my red-covered sunshade," she thought.
"But even if they did see it, and didn't like it, they wouldn't jump over
a fence to get at me, I suppose!"
She walked on, along the track worn by the passing of feet, which had
thinned and flattened the grass. She could not see the new road of which
Carmen had spoken, but she must reach it sooner or later, going this way.
For the present, several low hills, like grass-sown waves, billowed
between her and it. But by and by, perhaps, she would hear the "teuf-teuf"
of Nick's motor coming along the new road, to fetch her and Carmen. Would
he be glad or sorry when he found that she was alone? She hoped that he
would be glad, but Mrs. Gaylor was so beautiful that it was hard to be
sure. Suddenly, just as she reached the top of one of the billowing hills
and caught sight of a rough road about half a mile away, she started at a
sharp sound like a shot. It seemed to come from the direction of the
cattle, and she turned to look toward them, vaguely disturbed. As she
looked, her unformed fears turned to keen and definite terror. The shot,
whether or no it had struck one of their number, had, in an instant,
stirred the drove in panic. Their comfortable peace was broken. Horns
tossed, dark forms reared, and hoofs descended on shining backs. A bull
bellowed wildly. Others followed suit. There was a dreadful roaring, and a
rushing of hoofs that sounded in Angela's horrified ears like the
beginning of an earthquake. The whole troop, hundreds of horned heads and
humpy backs, massed and seethed together. It was as if an irresistible
force from behind impelled them all forward in a pack. She stood still and
watched the black wave of cattle, fascinated, appalled, her heart beating
thickly. No, they could not stop now. Nothing could stop them, except some
great obstacle which they could not pass. And, when they came to that
obstacle, many would be killed by others' trampling hoofs. They would fall
and die, and their brothers would beat them down, not knowing, blind and
mad and merciless. It was a stampede. She had read of such things
happening among wild cattle in the West. Poor creatures, poor stupid
brutes, how sorry, how sickeningly sorry she was for them! Who could have
fired the shot, and why? Men on horses were in sight now--two, she
thought--no, three, galloping fast, but far behind the drove. They could
do no good. Only the fence would stop the rush, she told herself, through
the poundings of her heart. Then--then--it was as if a loud voice cried
the question in her ears--_Would the fence stop it?_
If not--"May God help me!" she heard herself saying. For an instant she
stared at the oncoming black wave which swept on, faster and faster toward
her, so incredibly, terribly fast now that in another second she knew they
would break down the line of wire fence. The cattle, those that were not
trampled to death, would soon pour through the gap, would sweep on and on,
overwhelming this hill where she stood.
Strange, some lines of a poem were saying themselves in Angela's head. She
had read them lately, since she came to America, the story of a stampede
and a girl. Laska--yes, that was the name--loved a man, and saved him
from the rush of wild cattle by covering his body with hers, protecting
it with her bleeding flesh from the blows of the iron hoofs.
Nick had given her the book. She had been in a train when she read the
story of Laska. She saw herself sitting safely and cosily in a stateroom,
all panelled satinwood and green velvet. Now----
Blindly she started to run. It was useless, she knew, for the fence was
certain to go, and she could no more outrun that black billow of death
than she could outrace one of Paolo di Sereno's aeroplanes. Yet instinct
made her run toward the far-off road, away from the plunging, bellowing
cattle. She thought of Hilliard, and how he would hate to hear of the
death she had died. He would give his life for hers, as Laska had given
her life for her lover.