To whom was that vain cry addressed? Ashley questioned not, but clasping
in his the icy hands which strove to smite and beat each other, spoke
such words of soothing as came readiest in the stranger tongue he found
so inadequate. He realized that it was not to him Chinita directed that
wail of self-abasement and remorse; and he also apprehended somewhat of
the wild joy that would have been his, had she involuntarily turned to
him in the anguish of her desolation. But she was scarcely conscious of
his presence, and in her frenzy—terrible to witness, though it was not
loud—even Pepé’s rough accents were unheeded.
“_Niña_ of my soul!” he said earnestly, “Pedro is not dead. No, it is
not a lie I tell thee! Who would lie to thee in such an hour as this? I
have come to tell thee that he lives; ’t was he himself who sent me.”
“He himself!”, she echoed at last, turning her wild, tearless eyes upon
Pepé’s face. “Ah, it is because thou art here that I know he is dead,
else thou wouldst not dare to leave him!”
“And by my faith, it is not of my own will I am here!” answered Pepé,
bluntly. “Señor Don ’Guardo, you can tell her that.”
“I can in truth,” replied Ashley, who seeing that the peasant’s words
were received by her but as mere attempts to defer the evil moment when
the inevitable assurance of the death of her foster-father must be given
her,—so well did she know the customs and manners of her country people,
ever prone to useless prevarication, even in their deepest
sorrow,—hastened to describe to her the few scant means they had found
in his extremity to recall the exhausted Pedro to the life that had
apparently been thrust and beaten and driven from him forever.
The ball of the pistol had but grazed the cheek of the tortured man; the
blood and dust had deceived the accustomed eyes of Ramirez, as it had
deceived their own. The greater danger arose from the frightful
condition of laceration and fatigue to which the mad race through the
stony cañon had reduced him.
In a few words Pepé told the tale. He and Pedro had met but the day
before, and it was while hastening to El Toro to apprize Gonzales of the
plot that Pepé, in the petition of Chinita, had revealed to the
indignant Pedro, that they had encountered face to face the irate
chieftain and his followers. Pepé understood little of the cause that
led to their being seized, dragged from their horses, and threatened
with instant death. Both alike protested innocence of any scheme to
baffle or injure the mountain chieftain; but he understood too well the
ease with which a foe too weak to fight could assume the aspect of a
friend. At the worst, however, Pepé imagined they might be forced to
turn back on their way to spend a few unwilling hours among the bandit
followers, until chance should give them opportunity to escape. But
Ramirez’s memory was keen as it was vengeful. Suddenly he bent and gazed
searchingly into the face of the elder prisoner.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, with an oath, “I know thee! Thou art Pedro Gomez.”
Pedro, who till this moment had bent his head to avoid the gaze of his
captors, raised it swiftly with an ejaculation of amazement. A red
handkerchief bound the brows of Ramirez; his face was swarthy and grimed
with hard riding.
“Ah, and thou knowest me, too!” Ramirez cried. “Thou hast called me a
devil more than once in thy lifetime; and now I will prove thy word
true. Hereafter thou wilt have no further chance for that, or for
opening the gate to the man who would make my—” He gnashed his teeth in
speechless rage, and with his sword struck the keeper across the face.
The action spoke louder than words. Some one, in ready comprehension of
the leader’s mood, threw a lasso, and catching the prisoner across the
breast began to mimic the wild shouts of a bull-fighter. But Ramirez was
in no humor for pastime.
“On! on!” he cried. “’T is nearly sunset. Let us see how far on our way
this fellow can accompany us till then; and then by a vow I made to my
patron San Leonidas, more than a score of years ago, he shall die.
_Caramba!_ did ever man play Ramirez false, and he forget to pay him his
dues?”
Pepé, amid the shouts and laughter of the band, heard these words with a
wild sense of terror; but it was only when he beheld Pedro struggling at
the side of the plunging horse, that he realized that the gate-keeper
was to be dragged to his death. He had heard of Ramirez’s wild jests,
and imagined that this might be one, until he beheld the cortège
speeding forward, urging the unhappy Pedro before them with blows and
jeers, or exhibiting their wonderful horsemanship in evading his
prostrate body,—which, however, more than once, as he fell, sounded
under the thud of the horses’ feet.
Pepé could have escaped at any moment, for in the concentration of
attention upon Pedro his companion had been utterly forgotten; but he
followed madly, expostulating, entreating, cursing, while his breath
allowed; and then was swept onward in the whirl, seemingly almost
unconscious, till he heard the shot that ended the mad scene, and found
himself staggering over the body of the bleeding Pedro.
The sight of Ashley, as unexpected as it was reassuring, as though an
angel had arisen, saved the wretched youth from utter collapse of mind
and body. But for the new excitement he would have fallen prone, and had
he ever regained consciousness it would have been to find his comrade
dead. But under the impulse of Ashley’s energetic action and sustaining
words, he even helped to raise the victim, in whom, lacerated though he
was, Ashley soon discovered a feeble flutter of the heart.
“We took him to the shelter of the rock,” said Ashley, who had by signs
hastened Pepé’s conclusion of the account, which, related in his own
profuse manner, was far more agonizing than the brief outline here
given, “and found that his extraordinary powers of endurance, though
strained to the uttermost, had stood him in wonderful stead. An arm was
broken, and every muscle so wrenched and strained that when he regained
his consciousness the resolute will, which during the progress of the
torture had withheld him from uttering protest or groan, utterly gave
way, and he screamed in agony. Happily his persecutors were too far
distant to be recalled by those unrestrainable cries of returning
consciousness. Even while we poured brandy down his throat, and rubbed
and stretched his limbs, it seemed as though it would have been a
thousand times more charitable to suffer him to die than to recall him
to such agony. When he regained full consciousness, however, the cries
ceased,—not because the pain was less, but that the will regained its
mastery. “As his eyes fell upon me, he gazed at me a moment as upon an
apparition. So wild was his look, I thought he was going mad.
“‘Don Juan! here! here!’ he muttered hoarsely. ‘Are we in hell together?
But, no!’ he sprang up, then fell back with a groan. ‘I shall live to
warn her yet. Oh God, that the child should entreat me to turn traitor
for him! But she shall not fall into his accursed hands. Never! never!
Ah, Pepé, thou art here; hasten, hasten! tell her she is the child of
John Ashley, the man Ramirez murdered. What though I die? She will be
saved! Go! go! I pray you!’”
Chinita started. Ward anticipated some outburst of emotion, but the
glance she flashed back at him indicated simply keen intelligence; the
springs of feeling remained untouched. With an effort Ward continued:—
“My recreant servant had returned. It was Stefano, whom you know well.
He is a coward, but ready in resource, and with a kindly heart. He knew
the country well, and told us of a cave he once had slept in, and led us
to it unerringly. To our surprise we found there a scanty supply of
toasted corn, left by some wandering tenant, and a quantity of water,
still fresh enough to show that the cave had not long been empty. There
was a remnant of a woman’s dress in one corner,—heaven knows how brought
there,—and this we used to bind the pistol wound; while Stefano used the
best means available in setting the broken arm. These rancheros are
possessed of strange accomplishments,—I don’t believe a surgeon could
have done it with more skill.
“During the course of our passage through the dusk, bearing as best we
could our groaning burden, Pedro’s hallucination that I was John Ashley
merged into recognition. It was but little I could do for him, but it
filled him with gratitude. ‘You are a good Christian,’ he ejaculated
again and again; and once in the night, when the others slept, he
muttered ‘_Niña, niña_ Herlinda, forgive me! I am dying. You bade me
protect the child! Ah, even in life it has not been possible! Is she not
in the hands you bade me defend her from?’
“These sentences, murmured at intervals, kept me waking while all others
slept, hanging over him with entreaties to disburden his mind of the
secret which weighed so heavily upon him that it seemed under it he
could neither live nor die.
“‘Tell me at least,’ I said, ‘who is this man called Ramirez, whom I saw
this evening wreak upon you so terrible a revenge? How comes it that you
are so hated by the man for whom your foster-daughter is plotting? Have
you not been his follower in by-gone days? Surely it is not Chinita who
has set such enmity between you!’
“‘No, no! it began before she was born,’ answered Pedro shudderingly,
his pale countenance becoming more ghastly still. ‘Oh, Lady of Sorrows!’
he continued, as if forgetful of my presence, ‘was it not enough that
the child should fall again into the power of Doña Isabel,—she who tore
it from its mother’s breast to cast it among the beggars who feed with
the dogs at her gates,—but that her father’s murderer, her mother’s
destroyer, should wield this devil’s witchcraft over her? My God, who
will defend her? Who will rescue her?’”
Chinita raised her head, her nostrils quivering, the veins upon her neck
and temples swollen and palpitating.
“‘Tell her the truth,’ I said! ‘Then she will be her own defender; and
I—you know me; for what other purpose am I here but to shield her? Yes,
Pedro, the secret you have kept so long is mine as well as yours. John
Ashley, my cousin, died because he dared love a woman named Herlinda;
and that Herlinda was the daughter of Doña Isabel Garcia.’” A look of
indescribable hauteur and triumph passed over Chinita’s rigid face,
while Ashley continued,—
“Pedro stared at me in wild dismay, ‘_Niña, niña!_’ he muttered,
piteously, ‘I have not betrayed thee; and Doña Isabel, though you have
taken the child from me which you thrust upon me in such mockery, have I
not borne the torture meekly? No, even to this man, so like the other
that he needed not to tell his name and kin, I have told nothing to
shame you!’
“His words sprang from his lips in spite of the will that would have
kept them back; for a time he was like a man under the influence of a
maddening draught. Striving to calm him by the assurance that I would
never use the knowledge he might give me to dishonor the family to which
his whole life had been devoted, I drew from him little by little his
strange tale. It concerns neither you nor me, Chinita, until in
recompense for secret service done her in the cause of her wretched
brother Leon, Doña Isabel Garcia made Pedro gate-keeper at Tres
Hermanos. There my unfortunate cousin gained his good offices in his
secret meetings with the young Herlinda. The man seems in truth to have
been conscious of no serious offence against Doña Isabel in lending his
aid to the tender intercourse of the young lovers, although he was
cognizant of her plans regarding the marriage of Herlinda and Gonzales.
My cousin claimed the right to visit his wife; and Pedro took his gold
and was silent, if not convinced.
“‘Ah, how joyously Ashley left his wife—for the last time,’ Pedro
exclaimed at length, ceasing to expect my questions and taking the tone
of narrative. ‘Yes, Don Juan called Herlinda always his wife: what was
the keeper of the gate to demand,—the word of a priest forsooth, rather
than that of the man whom his mistress loved? Ah! Doña Isabel I knew
would ask all, or the young Gonzales. One cannot do worse than put his
hand in a boiling pot, and wherefore do that when it hangs over his
neighbor’s fire? Yes, never had Ashley seemed more confident, more gay.
“I shall not again need to waken thee at midnight to let me pass like a
thief who leaves a bribe,” he said; “to-morrow I shall be free to come
and go as I will.”
“‘Alas!’ the remorseful Pedro continued, ‘as my eyes followed the young
American, I thought any woman might be pardoned for loving him: had he
not beguiled my own heart? for I swear I loved him. Yet I wondered at
the courage of the _Niña_ Herlinda,—she who had seemed so timid, so
yielding to her mother’s every wish. _Caramba!_ it is true,—“There is
nothing too strong for love or death.” I laughed as Ashley stepped
forth, to think how youth in its folly can baffle caution, when a voice
behind me echoed the sound. The blood froze in my veins, so overpowering
was the very presence near me even before it touched me. Almighty
powers! when I looked up, the man in the peasant’s dress, whom only a
few hours before I had admitted as a stranger within the walls, hurled
himself upon me; but the blaze in his eyes could burn only from the
fierce and terrible rage of the evil spirit of that house. It was Leon
Vallé who dashed me down and rushed out into the night.’”
Chinita uttered an exclamation; then repeating the name, “Leon! Leon
Vallé,” listened with bated breath, while Ashley continued in the words
of Pedro:—
“‘I knew at the moment that Ashley was lost. Not a thousand prayers, nor
the swiftest aid my cries could have gained him, would have saved him. I
waited, scarce daring to breathe; with strained ears I listened. Would
the murderer, his first work accomplished, return? I knew then he held
my life forfeit; yet had he returned, I should have opened the gate to
him. Ah, you know not the power of that man! As it was in Leon Vallé
then, so it is now in Ramirez. God, what power in those terrible eyes! I
felt it then, I felt it to-day. What resistance was possible? The
morning came. I was still alive, but the people came to me crying of the
dead. What need had I to ask the name? In the midst of the tumult a
terrible shriek rang on my ears. I thought my brain was turning. There
was but one thought that steadied it,—confession, confession to Doña
Isabel.
“‘As soon as it was possible I sought her presence. I cannot tell you
what passed; I only know the words I would have spoken died on my lips.
Whether Doña Isabel had known of it or not, I could not determine; but
that the love of Herlinda Garcia and the young American was to die with
him, and that the terrible vengeance which had been worked for her was
not to be in vain, seared itself upon my mind. The preservation of that
secret was to atone for my sins, and not confession. Never to mortal was
my knowledge to be breathed. This was the penitence laid upon me. And
so, despairing, I left her. What was the immortal soul of a poor peasant
in comparison to the honor of the family of Garcia?
“‘It was well! Why should a servant gainsay his mistress? So months went
on, Señor. Within and around the hacienda people were dying. They told
me the _niña_ Herlinda herself was pining,—some whispered for the
American; but a terror seized even on the boldest, and the American’s
name ceased to be heard, and that of the young Gonzales took its place.
The gossips were content to blame any name unchid for her wan cheeks and
sunken eyes. But I knew that no man had scorned her love, and that no
living man had aught to answer for had she loved too well. I had not
seen her for weeks and weeks; but one night a creature so pale and wan I
thought it her ghost, accosted me. Strange, strange the mission that
brought her. It was to entreat my protection—that of the worthless
Pedro—for the child which in secret and in banishment she was about to
bring into the world.
“‘Well! well! I promised all she asked. I should have done so even had I
thought it possible the dire need she pleaded would be hers. Oh! I had
heard strange and fearful tales of deeds that have been wrought within
the walls of these great and solitary haciendas; but that Doña Isabel
would stoop to crime, and that I should find it in my power to save a
child which she would strive to sacrifice, I could not believe. Trouble,
I thought, had made Herlinda mad. But she was mad only with the frenzy
of a prophetess.
“‘With terrible forebodings I saw her taken from her home. Day and night
I thought of her, and my heart was like ice; but one day, when worn out
with watching and expectancy I sat at the gate, I fell into a doze, and
in my dream heard the voice of Herlinda calling me. It changed to that
of a man. I woke with a start, and a child was dropped into my hands.
Strange and wonderful must have been the means by which the hunted and
distracted Herlinda had evaded the mother she feared! Who had been her
friends, Señor? The wonder is with me still. I saw the face of her
messenger but for a moment, yet it has haunted me. Yes, more than once,
when I have thought of new faces that have passed before me, I have
said, “Such an one was like the man; why was I blind to it when he stood
before me?”’ Pedro started up, and clasped my arm so powerfully that I
shrank. ‘Señor!’ he cried, ‘As God lives, I saw such a face to-day! It
was that of the man who rode behind him they call Ramirez.’
“‘Reyes!’ I ejaculated. ‘Reyes!’ What strange sport made the messenger
of Herlinda the follower of Ramirez? I—”
Ashley paused, for Chinita echoed the name with an intense surprise far
greater than his own. She clasped her hands to her temples, as though
fearing the mad bewilderment of her thoughts was crazing her. “Tell me
no more,” she said faintly. “Do I not know the unnatural wretch that I
have been? But what of Pedro? Why did you leave him? How dared you leave
him? You!” She turned upon Pepé, accusingly. “He lives, you say, and yet
you are here!”
“No less would content him,” interposed Ashley, while Pepé muttered an
inarticulate remonstrance. “It was Pepé you had sent upon your errand;
it was Pepé whom Pedro would dispatch with his answer.”
“Ay!” said Pepé, grumblingly, “and with you I must remain. I am sworn to
that, whether you like it or loathe it.”
“I,” said Ashley, “have ridden thus far out of the direct path I would
have taken to El Toro, to warn you of the character of the man you have
made your hero; to tell you I believe you to be the daughter of my
cousin, to offer you the home and the fortune that would have been his.”
He spoke unhesitatingly, yet a strange sense of bewilderment swept over
him. He was conscious that it was no fear of material loss that troubled
him, though not for an instant did he dream of using the advantage of
the law against this defenceless girl; but that this strange impulsive
creature should be of the same blood as he, as the calm and gentle Mary;
that she should come into their life with her wayward passions, her
erratic genius, her weird beauty,—was a thing incomprehensible, almost
terrible. Yet the blood leaped stronger in the young man’s veins as he
beheld her; and his heart bounded as he said, “Yes, I must go; for I
have certain news that the enemy is massing his forces for attack. I go
to warn Gonzales; but I shall return to claim you as my cousin’s child.
Meanwhile, be silent—patient. Pedro prays you keep the secret of your
birth. He believes as firmly as ever that only thus can you be safe. And
for that mother’s sake I pray you be silent. Right may be won for you,
and her good name be still left untainted. There may be a mystery still
to be unravelled.”
“I will be silent; I will wait,” Chinita said in a cold, hollow voice.
Ashley noticed that she had no word of sympathy for him, no recognition
of the endeavors that had led to her discovery. Apparently the thought
that he was aught to her was as far from her mind as any grief had ever
been for that other American,—as far indeed as such was at that moment.
For, strangely, Ashley seemed to penetrate the inmost shrine of her
thought; and still the figures around which centred her love, her hopes,
her passions were only those of Pedro, of Ramirez, of Doña Isabel.
“I will be silent,” she repeated. “Ah, it will be easier now! Yes,
hasten to El Toro, bring Gonzales; he will be a surer, safer leader than
Ruiz—though I will turn him again to my will. Yes, yes, more than once I
have thought Ruiz wavering, uncertain! Now at a word I will make him
what before he has only affected to others to be,—the undying enemy of
Ramirez!”
Ashley was silent. He would have had this girl passive, supine, womanly;
yet from the very necessity of warning her, he had been forced to arouse
in her this vindictive wrath against the man who had done her
unwittingly such foul wrong.
“Listen!” he said hurriedly, after a pause. “It is Pedro who implores,
who commands, that until he gives you leave, nothing of what I have told
you shall pass your lips. I might have had your promise before I would
speak. See, the stars are shining that must see me on my way. Give me
two promises before we part,—one that you will be silent; the other that
Pepé shall be continually within your sight or call. For this he was
sent from the side of the suffering, perhaps dying, Pedro. He would have
you safe,—safe from Ramirez.”
“And I will kill you before you shall fall into his hands,” interposed
Pepé, grimly.
Chinita smiled with cynical bitterness, and said indifferently, “I
promise. Yes, I promise. Ah, yes, Señor, you will see I have been silent
when you come again. And now I will go back. What if the Señora Doña
Isabel should wake and find me missing?—the child she loves so well!”
She waved her hand, and stepped backward through the darkness. At the
door of the chamber where Doña Isabel lay, she seemed to vanish into
air, so swift, so silent, was her going.
Ashley gazed after her long in silence,—so long that another spectral
figure stole through the doorway, and with noiseless steps reached
Pepé’s side. “The Señora slept like the dead,” Juana whispered; “but not
for a thousand hard dollars would I lie in Chinita’s place again, while
she forgets time in lover’s chat. I wonder at thee, Pepé! thou hast not
a man’s heart in thee. I thought thou lovedst her thyself!”
“Fool!” said Pepé, sulkily, and turned away; while Juana, ill paid for
her devotion, sought a corner of the corridor in which to sink to sleep.
“Strange, incomprehensible creature!” muttered Ashley at length. “What
emotions, what thoughts are hers? At least it is certain that the
fascination of Ramirez is dissolved,—horror, hatred perhaps, has taken
its place. She is safe. And now Pepé, my horse; I must take the road.
And if it be true that Juarez is at hand, even Ramirez himself may
tremble; the combined forces of Gonzales and Ruiz will hold him at bay,
and keep an open road for the intrepid Liberal to the capital.”
It was scarcely two hours past midnight, though his interview with
Chinita had lasted long, when Ashley cautiously emerged from the inn,
and took his way toward the open country. The troops lay at the east end
of the town; but giving the watchword to the few sentinels who
challenged him, he avoided them, and soon found himself in the vast
solitude of the night. He had taken the precaution to procure a fresh
horse, and for some leagues the way lay across a level country, so he
made such speed as brought him by dawn within sight of the mountain upon
which Pedro lay,—but on a side many miles nearer El Toro, his
destination, where Gonzales, with his insufficient garrison, was
anxiously awaiting the reinforcements without which he could neither
dare to advance, nor hope to maintain his position in case of attack.
As Ashley glanced toward the ragged and solitary cliffs where like a
hunted animal the man was lying, he remembered that after the first
horror was passed, Chinita had spoken no more of her foster-father, had
asked no question as to what hands were set to tend him, nor in what
direction lay the cave in which he was sheltered. Such queries would
have been useless,—she could do nothing; yet it would have been but
natural that she should have made them. Even if the gate-keeper’s care
of her neglected infancy was forgotten, or accepted as a matter of
course, and though her mind was absorbed by thoughts of her own history
and her wrongs, yet his very connection with them should have made him
an object of interest if not of tenderness.
“Heavens!” murmured Ashley, “can it be that this strange creature, as
different in her instincts as in her appearance and education, is of the
same blood as Mary? A bewildering charge shall I take to her, if Doña
Isabel still, to save the reputation of her daughter, lays no claim to
this beautiful girl, and denies her such scanty justice as she can give!
For a daughter of an Ashley must not be left to the sport of
chance,—neither to be sold to the first who bargains for her beauty;
nor, worse still, to be consigned to a convent, as the unhappy Herlinda
was.” He reasoned calmly, yet his heart and temples beat hotly. “Let me
think. If this Gonzales but proves a man of honor, I may gain some aid
from him; he, at least, may know in which convent this woman—whom he
also loved—is immured. By the way, he is a fanatic upon this new scheme
of Juarez, of secularizing the property of the clergy. Ah, in event of
the success of the Liberal arms, that might work countless and
unimagined changes!”
The thought was full of suggestion. Ashley gave rein to his horse, and
dashed forward with fresh vigor. Afterward he scarce remembered how the
day passed; but its close found him, spent and weary, alighting at the
door of the inn of El Toro.
Almost at the same moment, far on the other side of the mountain, two
travellers, so wrapped in long striped blankets and covered by wide
sombreros as to be almost indistinguishable, the man from the woman,
drew rein before a mass of cactus and gray rock; and while the one gazed
furtively around, vainly seeking a sign of human contiguity, the other
dismounted, and bending to a mere crevice in the rock gave a long, low
whistle, then turned to help his companion, saying, “That will bring
Stefano. Chinita, thou wilt see that, though a coward, he is no fool,
and has cared well for thy foster-father. Said I not so? Ah, here he
comes.”
Chinita was cramped by long riding, and was fain to cling to her guide.
She looked around her with a shudder. The wild solitude of the place was
terrible. She feared to move, lest she should find herself face to face
with death. Her head swam, the world turned black before her eyes; and
in the midst a strange hand touched her own. A low laugh sounded on her
ear,—it was that of a woman.
“Santa Maria!” she heard Pepé exclaim. “It is the Virgin of Guadalupe
herself. It is then that we are too late to serve the poor _padron_!”
The low laugh sounded again,—there was in it more of madness than
sanctity. Chinita, with superstitious fear and desperation, sought to
wrench her hand from the hot clasp in which it was held. The close air
of the entrance of the cave closed round her, as with persistent force
she was drawn within; and with a scream of terror she fell fainting,
overcome by the excitement and exertion of many hours, and by the
unexpected apparition which had greeted her.