In an angle of the corridor, where from sunrise to sunset a woman
usually sat, selling cigarettes and small glasses of _chia_ to the
passers-by, stood a low _banquito_, which was in fact only a superfluous
adobe jutting out from the massive wall. Ashley withdrew his foot from
this rude stool and greeted Chinita ceremoniously, and yet with an air
of protecting authority, inviting her by a gesture to be seated, saying,
“So you will be less likely to be seen by any chance comer. But from
necessity, I would not have asked you to speak to me here.”
The girl looked at him with a little quiver of laughter rippling her
mouth, though her eyes were anxious. Evidently she was troubled with no
sense of impropriety, and the thought of having eluded Doña Isabel
diverted her. Instead of obeying Ashley’s invitation, she darted to
Pepé’s side, caught a fold of his blanket in her hand, and drew it from
his half-covered face.
“Ah, Pepito, and is it thou?” she cried breathlessly. “What news dost
thou bring me? Hast thou then seen my godfather, and what does he say of
the Señor General? Does he not think the plan a good one?”
Pepé shuffled uneasily to regain possession of the blanket, answering
pettishly and in a stifled voice, “Is the servant to talk when the
master stands by with the words ready? Go now, Chinita, you knew better
than that when Florencia used to pull your ears for a saucy one!”
The girl pouted, turning to Ashley with a lowering face. She felt
instinctively that what had been to her a matter of simple expediency, a
means of securing the fortunes of a man who was in her imagination all
that was noble and great, might have a meaner aspect to this stranger,
who would perhaps think she had meant harm to Doña Isabel. Why had Pepé
dragged this American into the matter at all? Idiot! Ruiz had said
nothing but evil would come of it; and here was the stranger standing so
straight and silent to be questioned,—and looking at her, too, with a
sort of pity in the curious gaze he turned upon her. She felt half
inclined to turn back to the room whence she had come; yet she said
somewhat mockingly,
“It is you, Señor, who must speak, though it was the servant I sent on
my errand; but perhaps you have seen Pedro and asked him my questions?”
“You had better sit down, Chinita,” answered Ashley, severely. “I should
not be here to-night if it were not to tell you things hard for you to
listen to, and only to learn of matters of life or death should you have
consented to come. Heavens! what a strange perversity of fate that you
of all others should be anxious for the welfare, infatuated with the
character, of—Ramirez!”
He spoke the name as though it were a curse, and the ready flame leaped
into Chinita’s eyes and cheek.
“Ah, then,” she said, in a low but intense and penetrating tone, “you
have come to tell me, like the others, that he is a brigand and a
wretch! It is false! He is too brave, too daring, too noble for such
cowardly spirits as yours to understand! Pepé, thou wert a craven.
Stupid, it was Pedro I bade thee go to, not to this pale American, who
has lost all his blood through a single wound!”
Ashley smiled faintly, vexed to find himself stung by a girl’s
unreasoning passion, but interposed quietly, “We lose time, Señorita,
which is prudent neither for you nor for me. I beg you will listen to
what I have to say. You will agree with me then that this is no hour to
talk of my courage or the lack of it.”
He had stepped between her and Pepé, to whom with a strange perversity
she turned as if to show her disdain for the foreigner, whose every word
had a tone of reproach. A mere suggestion that the proprieties which
Doña Feliz and Doña Isabel had attempted to graft upon the rude stalk of
her untrained, unguarded childhood had some other meaning than an
elder’s caprices, touched Chinita’s mind: a young man could know nothing
of woman’s freaks and prejudices; she felt the hot blood rising to her
cheek as she encountered his quiet gaze. All at once the court and
corridor seemed to become wonderfully dark and still. A slight shudder
ran through her frame; she drew back from the American and sat down
where he had directed her, drawing her reboso close around her.
“Señor,” she said, quite humbly, “I am listening.”
Ashley did not speak at once, though Pepé seemed to urge him to do so by
a motion of the head, which betokened readiness to confirm his speech;
and when he began, it was at a point entirely unexpected by either
listener.
“Señorita,” he said, “is it not true that when you think of an American,
you have in your mind a pale-faced, mysterious, unresisting youth,
gliding spectre-like about the hacienda walls, tempting by a love-song
the bloody steel of some dark and daring desperado? In a word, is it not
the vision—distorted, insufficient, faint—of my murdered cousin, John
Ashley, that comes before you?”
The young girl started. “Yes! yes!” she said hurriedly, not knowing what
she said. “At least, once I thought like that. I had not seen an
American then; I did not know—”
“And the first American you have known has had the benefit of the
preconception,” interrupted Ashley, grimly. “Well, it is something to
know the secret of a contemptuous indifference which has always been so
frankly expressed.” This comment was in English, and though Chinita
watched the motion of his lips, their silence could not have given her
better opportunity to recover her confused and startled thoughts.
“Then it is true,” she said. “You are of the family of the poor
American, who was killed like a rabbit by a hawk. Why, they say that he
could not have even clapped his hand on his belt, though a _man_ from
very instinct would draw a knife on his enemy, even in his last gasp. Is
it not so, Pepito? I used to tell Chata that, when she would shed her
soft tears of pity for him. Well, I could not cry, but I have watched at
the mesquite-tree for the coming of his ghost a thousand times; yet I
never saw it—and it was I who found his grave.”
“And it was you who bade Pepé show it me,” interrupted Ashley; “and
perhaps not as a mere jest as he thought.” She nodded, looking up at him
vaguely and keenly. “You thought perhaps I had come these many miles
from my own country to find it?” he added. “Well, that was scarcely so;
it had not presented itself to me as possible that the obscure grave of
a murdered foreigner should be remembered still, and that his name
should be found above it. No, I came for proofs of John Ashley’s life,
not of his death. It was not even to trace his murderer or to avenge him
that I came.”
She looked incredulous. “Why then should you come?” she asked. “Had you
a vow? If I had known and loved the dead man, it would have been to kill
the man who struck him in secret that I would have come. But it is as
Captain Ruiz says,—the blood of an American runs so slowly it cools his
heart, while ours is a burning torrent that causes the soul to leap and
the hand to smite at a word.”
Ashley realized that impatient contempt of him was struggling with a
feeling to which, with sudden apprehension of its importance, she dared
not give utterance; or perhaps the idea that had long been shaping
itself was for the moment obscured, but yet in the darkness and
confusion was growing to an overwhelming certainty in her mind. Chinita
had risen to her feet, but suddenly she sat down, covering her face with
a hand which Ashley saw in the dim light shook with suppressed
excitement. Her attitude was that of a listener; and in a low voice he
told her of his boyhood, of the days when he had come in from school and
stood at the shoulder of his grown cousin,—the young man with the silky
shadow just darkening his upper lip, and with the clear frank eyes of a
boy, who looked so eagerly forward into the active life of manhood,
restive under the restraints and cautions that hampered him, until at
last he broke away, and was no more seen, nor scarcely heard of, until
the news of his early and violent death came to cast an unending gloom
over the household, which before had been captious, foreboding, but ever
loving, ever secretly proud of the bold, irrepressible spirit it could
not chain to its standard of decorum, or tame to walk in the narrow path
of uneventful and passionless existence. The years of his own youth he
passed lightly by; there was nothing in them for comment until he came
to the time of his aunt’s death, his inheritance of the fortune that
should have been John Ashley’s, the reading of those few letters which
had given to Mary Ashley such strange dreams, and which in the
re-reading had filled his mind with thoughts of the same possibilities
that racked her own. He spoke of them briefly in a single sentence: “We
found by his letters that he believed himself married; it was to find
the woman he had loved, or any trace of her, that I came.”
Chinita sat so still one might have doubted if she heard; but that very
stillness convinced Ashley that she listened with an absorbing interest,
too great for questioning. She could but wait breathlessly for what was
to come.
“After long and vexatious wanderings I was taken wounded to Tres
Hermanos,” continued the young man. “There, when my hope was almost
exhausted, I heard the name that had been in my mind so long,—heard it
only to make inquiries which ended in confusion, and threatened to
involve me in endless complications; so at last I was glad to suffer
myself to be convinced that my conjectures were the mere vagaries of an
overburdened fancy, a too scrupulous conscience, and to turn my face
homeward, determined that thereafter I would live my life, and take in
peace the goods fortune sent me. In such a mind I rode with the troop
across the plain and up the desolate hillside, along which the scattered
graves of the poor lay, the mounds scarce noticeable among the rocks and
cacti. Pepé remembered your jesting command; it would give him an
opportunity to withdraw from the troops unheeded. He invited me to go
with him to see something that would interest me. When I saw the grave,
my heart began to beat; when I read the name upon the fallen cross, the
blood rushed into my eyes and suffocated me; every drop in my heart
accused me! There lay my cousin murdered, and in looking for a possible
claimant to his name, I had forgotten him! I had forgotten that his
death was still unatoned for, the murderer undiscovered, unsought,
unpunished.”
Chinita dropped her hand from her face and looked up, her eyes glowing,
her lips apart, her bosom rising and falling with the quick breath that
came and went. Here were words she could understand; here was a spirit
that touched her own.
“And then, then, then?” she muttered; and Pepé leaned out from the wall,
like a gaunt shadow, to hear the narration, as if every word was too
significant to allow a single one to escape him. “Then?”
“Then,” resumed Ashley, “I seemed chained to the spot. I could not tear
myself away, though reason told me that to stay there was useless; to
hasten forward and demand the truth from those I had hitherto shrunk
from offending, the only course open to me. Reason as I would, I could
not force myself to leave the spot. After a time, yielding to necessity
and to my command, Pepé left me. I was alone for hours with the dead. My
mind was full of him; I heard his voice; I looked into the eyes which
death had closed for so many unregarded years. I saw before me that face
which I had so long forgotten; but my fancy pictured him never as in
life, gay, happy, resolute, but pale, bloody, corpse-like, stretching
out dead hands to me and speaking with the soundless voice of those we
dream of. Who remembers the tone of a voice, silent forever? Yet it
echoes in our heart; it awakens our joys, our griefs, our fears; it is
more powerful, more terrible, than any living voice. And so upon that
day was the voice of the dead John Ashley to me. As I listened to it, I
swore never to leave Mexico until the mystery of his death, as well as
that of his life, was open to me; until I had called to account the
villain who had cut him off so secretly, so vilely.
“While I was full of the thought, and the whole world around me seemed
to stretch on every side silent, void, waiting for me to choose whither
I would go, in what direction I would set out to seek the nameless
object of the new absorbing passion, which seemed more vital, more
essential to my being than the air I breathed, I felt a presence near
me. I looked up,—a man was leaning over the wall. I instantly
conjectured he was not the mere peasant his dress indicated. A sense of
mysterious connection between his life and mine seized upon me; it
strengthened as he crossed the wall and strode toward me over the sunken
graves. He came as though under a spell; I looked upon him as if under
the fascination of a serpent-like gaze. I recoiled, yet for worlds I
would not have turned from him. His eyes fell upon the cross; the
expression of his face, the words that sprang from his lips,—vague
though they were,—sped to my brain with an electric thrill. I knew the
man before me was John Ashley’s murderer.”
Chinita had risen. She stretched out her hand and touched the hilt of
the knife in Ashley’s belt. It was the action of a moment, yet it was a
question that the quick beating of her heart and the panting breath made
at the instant impossible from her lips. Ashley answered it by a brief
account of the combat and its interruption.
As he ended, she drew a deep breath of relief. It did not occur to him
that it could be for any other than himself. It flattered and pleased
him, for an instant he realized how deeply, as having in it something of
the tender unreasoning fears of gentle womanhood. Yet the readiness with
which she had comprehended his passion for revenge, while it justified
him, had set her in a harsh and cruel aspect, which made her lithe, dark
beauty forbidding, unrelenting, tiger-like. Yet this strange young
creature, he thought, at once so foreign to him, and still so near,
concealed after all, under the surface of incomprehensible moods and
half barbaric customs, those attributes of gentleness, those instincts
of justness, which amidst the perplexing differences of national manners
and standards of good and evil may be distinguished and understood by
every mind. At that moment Ashley felt her to be less an alien than he
had ever been able before to consider her. She was not only beautiful,
bewitching, but in part, at least, comprehensible.
Chinita stood silent for many moments; she had not even started when he
spoke the name Ramirez. The personality of the man of whom he had spoken
had been a foregone conclusion in her mind.
“It was the amulet I gave him that saved him,” she said simply; and
Ashley stared at her blankly, not comprehending the meaning of her
words, but only that the relief she had experienced had been rather for
the aggressor than for him. Had he then been mistaken? Was she an entire
stranger to the thought which so permeated his own mind that he had
imagined it must be present in hers?
“Yes, the amulet that I gave him must have all the virtues Pedro told me
of,” she said musingly. “So it was the General Ramirez who killed the
American? _Dios mio!_ he must have had good cause; yet it angers me. Ah!
it is well I have time to think what cause he must have had!”
“Cause!” ejaculated Ashley, “cause!”
The girl nodded her head in an argumentative way. In the dim light
Ashley could read the struggle in her mind,—indignation at the deed,
dismay at its consequences, battling with attempted justification of the
perpetrator. “By my patron saint!” she exclaimed at length, “it was the
woman who was to blame. Why did she torture him? He must have loved her;
and what was there in the American to make her false to Ramirez? Strange
she should have preferred another to him!”
“For God’s sake say no more!” cried Ashley, with actual horror in his
voice. “I forgot that this tale has no deeper significance to you than
any other; that the American is to you simply an American, and Ramirez
the hero of your own countrymen, by whose desperate deeds your
imagination is dazzled, and for whom, even in the midst of horror, you
find excuse, admiration, justification. To you he seems but a jealous
lover, taking just revenge upon a successful rival.”
Chinita spoke not a word, but bent her head as though his words were an
accusation. Her face, in the dim light, was so impassive it was
impossible for Ashley to conjecture what was passing in her mind. Did
she remember that he had said he had come to seek a child, and was it
possible that the mystery of her own birth had not suggested to her that
she might have an interest in the ghastly deed of Ramirez far deeper
than would make natural or possible to her the excuse of jealousy in the
perpetrator? He had learned something of the reticence and
self-restraint of these people since he had come among them; yet was it
possible this young girl could suspend judgment in such a cause until
her own relation to it was fully ascertained? Were prejudice, education,
sentiment, so much stronger than the voice of Nature? Did no instinct
cry in her heart, denouncing this man, of whom she had made a hero,—no
womanly pity hover over his victim? What a ready apprehension she had
shown of Ashley’s own desire for vengeance! Was that simply because it
was the passion strongest in her own soul, and so gave to her ready
excuse even for murder?
Under the moonlight it seemed to him that the young girl’s face grew
hard as marble. No, she was not one to yield her faith lightly. This
deed, which had filled the mind of Chata with dismay, and intensified a
thousand-fold the horror in which she held the character of the man whom
she believed it sin not to reverence and love, would in no wise shake
the faith and admiration of this stronger soul, who could condone it
with the thought that a woman had played the murderer false.
“Yet with all this, Señor,” she said at length, looking up, “if you have
no more to tell me, I see not why this should turn me against the Señor
General. For you it is different—oh, quite different; but for me,—” She
paused suddenly, and Ashley saw that the hand which hung at her side was
clenched till the nails marked her flesh.
Yes, the deed itself was nothing,—a trifle, at most,—but in its relation
to her, how great, how terrible, it might become!
Ashley was not deceived. He felt that by a word he might fan into a
resistless flame the fire that lay smouldering in that resolute heart,—a
word which would be no surprise to her, which would but confirm the
conviction against which, in loyalty to Ramirez, she struggled with even
a certain anger against the persistent suspicion that made the legendary
and unheroic figure of the American a mute denouncer, more powerful,
more persuasive, than the living man who had revealed the author of the
tragedy which through all her life had been so dark a mystery. It seemed
to Ashley that she held her breath to listen to his next words; but he
could be as hard as she was herself to this girl, whose heart seemed
incapable of feeling aught but a personal injury, or any passion but
revenge.
“Señorita,” he said, “I went back to the hacienda. My horse had fled;
there was nothing else for me to do, if I would find means to follow
this man who had suddenly become my debtor in all the dues of outraged
kinship. My object was to obtain money, a horse and guide, and to regain
the troop as quickly as should be possible; to denounce this murderer to
Doña Isabel, and reveal the plot against her interests which had
appeared to me so weak, so absolutely absurd, but which now assumed an
importance commensurate with my detestation of him whom it was designed
to serve. But with further thought my resolution changed. If all her
agents were false,—Pedro, Ruiz, as well as you, whom I know to be”
(Chinita winced),—“and Pepé should be successful in inducing Pedro to
play into the hands of Ramirez, what power could Doña Isabel employ to
prevent that change of leadership which it was more than probable the
troops—indifferent to the cause, eager only for action and booty—would
accept with acclamations? Clearly, my only course was to proceed to El
Toro and arouse the too confident Gonzales, who in incomprehensible
inactivity was awaiting the promised succor,—incomprehensible if the
emissaries of Doña Isabel had reached him; for, as I knew, not one word
in reply had been returned.
“I had much to ask of Doña Isabel Garcia,—questions which had burned
upon my lips before; but reflection told me I was no more ready to ask
them now than I had been; that her pride might be still as obdurate. No,
there were months before me in which by gradual assault I might acquire
all the knowledge I would in vain endeavor to gain by sudden force. I
was confident that if by no stratagem or treason Ramirez ultimately
could place himself at the head of these troops, he would be found in
the field against them. I learned that he hated Gonzales as a personal,
no less than a political, foe. Gonzales then was the man for me to
follow. In serving Doña Isabel against the machinations of those she had
so blindly trusted, I should serve myself; keep in view the mocking
fiend whose downfall I had sworn, and perchance satisfy myself in regard
to the still importunate doubts which had led to my presence amid these
strange scenes.
“I had intended to leave the hacienda upon the very night of my return,
but on my way—Well, that is nothing to the purpose; I reached it
exhausted. But the early morning found me in the saddle. My strength
revived with every step toward El Toro. Once we caught sight of the long
line of the hacienda troop crossing the open plain. We had passed
through cañons and byways, and were far in advance of them. More than
once in the mountains we heard the name of Ramirez, and made wide
detours of hamlets where men were gathering in twos and threes and
sixes,—ragged, unkempt, unarmed for the most part, but full of
enthusiasm in their leader, and confident of booty and glory. Without
doubt, the reverse of Ramirez at El Toro would not remain unavenged. I
realized the spell of that potent name, the very echo of which seemed to
be as eloquent as the living voice of most men, chieftains and leaders
though they might be.”
Chinita’s eyes glistened; she raised herself with a proud gesture, as if
the involuntary tribute to the genius of the adventurer was a personal
commendation.
“Though we avoided the villages,” continued Ashley, “I did not hesitate
to question the few passengers we met upon the roads. These were chiefly
wandering traders, stooping under their burdens of clay-ware or
charcoal, adherents of no particular party, and reticent or the
opposite, as their natural impulses or the supposed necessities of the
time prompted. These I plied in vain for news of Pedro, of Pepé, or even
of the noted Ramirez himself. Each and every one seemed to have passed,
and left not even a memory behind; though from these very ranchos and
hamlets I knew Doña Isabel’s troops had been drawn, and that the
followers of Ramirez were daily drawing more,—forcing those they could
not persuade, laughing at the protestations of the women, and feeding
the adventurous ardor of the men with tales of daring exploits and
promises of plunder. All this we heard, and knew the whole country was
in a ferment, yet passed through it undetected, on our own part unable
to catch a glimpse or hear a word of the covert from which Ramirez
directed and inspired the movement. Travelling rapidly, we entered upon
the third day a deep gorge, which cut the foothills of the very mountain
that overshadowed the towers of the convent town toward which I was
journeying. Still a painful stretch of twelve hours, of an almost
pathless labyrinth of rock and sand, I was told, lay before us; and
early in the evening I ordered a halt, intending to set forth before the
day broke. One of my servants spoke of a spring which he knew of; and
though the season was so dry that we had little hope of discovering it,
we decided to push on, although at every step the horses seemed to
protest against the effort,—for they had been ridden mercilessly,
without change and almost without food or rest. As we neared the spot
where we hoped to find water, the aspect of the country seemed to grow
even more forbidding.
“‘The dry season has swallowed it,’ said the servant dejectedly, after a
careful survey of the locality. ‘There is nothing here but sand,—a dry
welcome for our thirsty beasts;’ and at a signal from me he threw
himself from the saddle, and tethering his panting horse, clambered up
the gorge to gather a handful of dry grease-wood with which to light a
fire. Meanwhile, his fellow busied himself in unpacking the few articles
we had brought, and I threw myself on the ground against a rock, feeling
myself more secure in that wild and secluded pass than I had done since
I left the hacienda.
“The place was very still. Although it was yet daylight in the world
without, the whole gorge was in shadow. The crackling of the herbage
under the horses’ feet, or a low word occasionally spoken by the men,
was all that broke the stillness. I suppose from thought I was gradually
falling into slumber, when the sound of horses galloping, of men
laughing and shouting, broke upon the air. I started to my feet and
seized my arms, calling for the men; but they had disappeared; the three
horses were rearing and plunging. I caught and succeeded in mounting my
own; but as the cavalcade drew near, I realized that its members were so
numerous and in such mad humor that it would be worse than folly for me
to approach them. One of my men had recovered from his panic, and stole
up to me with blanched face and wide-staring eyes. I pointed to the
horses, and with wonderful dexterity he bounded into the saddle of one,
and caught the bridle of the other. In as little time as it takes me to
tell it, we gained the shelter of the rock. Calmed by a few low words,
the horses stood motionless, and from our covert we saw the company of
lawless soldiery go by.
“Ramirez was at their head; and by a cord at his bridle-rein was tied a
man, who vainly strove to keep pace with the gallop of his horse. At
almost every step he fell, and was struck by the hoofs of the foremost
horses, whose riders leaning down brought him again to his feet with
blows from the flat sides of their swords. There were perhaps thirty
ruffians engaged in this brutal sport; and after them ran a man at such
a pace as only an Indian could maintain, even for moments, wringing his
hands and praying and crying,—alternately a prayer and a curse. And in
him, more by his voice, gasping and hoarse though it was, than by sight,
I recognized Pepé Ortiz.”
Chinita would have screamed, but the ready hand of the peasant closed
over her mouth. “The man! the man tied to the horse’s rein!” she gasped,
when he released her.
“I could not see his face, and he had no breath to cry out,” said
Ashley. “They passed so closely, I could have shot Ramirez like a dog.
But I seemed paralyzed by horror. It did for me what perhaps a moment’s
reflection would have done had I been capable of it,—it saved me from
suicide. To have moved then would have been certain death. I could not
comprehend the mad jests of those around the victim; but a moment after
they passed I heard a sound which to all ears conveys the same
meaning,—a pistol shot,—and the voice of Ramirez crying,—
“‘_Caramba!_ the next fall would have killed him, and the dog should die
only by my hand. There! I have paid the debt I owed thee,—thou knowest
for what. It should have been paid thee like the other villain’s years
ago. Would that I had dragged him at my horse’s rein as I have thee!’
“The man fell; a soldier, with a laugh, cut the rope; all swept on with
shouts and laughter,—Ramirez the quietest among them. In a few minutes
they were far up the gorge. One glance had satisfied Ramirez that his
shot had reached its aim.
“None seemed to remember the panting wretch behind. I had reached the
prostrate body as soon as he, and together we raised it up. Under the
mask of bruises and blood and the dust of the roadway, I recognized the
man I had been seeking,—Pedro Gomez.”
Pepé caught Chinita on his outstretched arm,—she had staggered as though
struck by a heavy blow. Ashley sprang to her side in remorse,—he had
spared her nothing in the recital; but she had not fainted. She raised
herself slowly, and lifting her arms above her head, wrung her hands in
speechless agony.
The man who had been murdered years before had been a shadow, a myth, in
her mind. He became at that supreme moment a living presence, joining
with, blent with, the martyred Pedro in denunciation of the man whom she
had raised in her admiration to a pinnacle of glory. The idol of years
crashed to the earth, in semblance of a demon,—and with it fell the
stoicism and pride that had encased as in bands of steel the softer
emotions of her nature.
“Murdered! murdered both!” she moaned at length. “Was it not enough he
should bereave me even before I came into the world, but that he should
so vilely slay the only creature who has loved me? Oh, my God!” she
added, shuddering, “why have I been so cursed as to have given one
thought to such a wretch? Oh! forgive, forgive, forgive!”