The illness which attacked Doña Feliz upon the morning that Ashley Ward
set forth from Tres Hermanos, was the first indication of an epidemic
similar in character and force to that which had devastated the hacienda
fifteen years before. Reminiscences of the time of the great sickness
became the absorbing topic of conversation, until the care of the dying
and the burial of the dead silenced all voices, and turned all thoughts
to the overwhelming cares of the present.
At first with unspeakable remorse Chata attributed the illness of Doña
Feliz to her unwonted exertion in walking to the reduction-works through
the fierce sunshine, and to her grief and shame in discovering her, whom
she believed to be her granddaughter, there in conversation with a
stranger,—from whom a modest maiden would have shrunk in decent coyness,
if not in fear. Chata’s heart burned with grief and remorse. She longed
to throw herself upon her knees, and pour out her soul before the woman
she held in such love and reverence that the thought of her distrust and
displeasure was like a mortal wound in her heart. Yet she was forced to
be silent, before the unconsciousness and delirium which for days and
weeks overpowered the body and mind of the strong, though no longer
youthful, woman.
It was some consolation to the distressed maiden that she was called
upon, almost alone, to bear the labor and responsibility of the care of
Doña Feliz. Don Rafael was almost helpless before his mother’s peril;
the servants were terrified and incompetent. Soon Chata, in the
incessant toil, almost ceased to think of the trials and perplexities of
her own life, save to cry bitterly to herself that had she never known
before that Doña Rita was not her own mother, the difference in her
bearing at that crisis toward Rosario and herself would have betrayed
the truth.
“Even Don Rafael,” she thought, “though he loves me, is content that I,
rather than his own child, should risk the danger of the infected
atmosphere.”
But in truth the alarmed and harassed man was capable of but little
reflection or discrimination as to the actions of those about him. He
gave no heed to the selfishness of his wife or Rosario, while he found
Chata ever at Doña Feliz’s side, tireless, calm, unmurmuring,
ministering with a rare ability, which even natural tact and long
experience seldom combine to produce in such perfection, to the needs
and comfort of the ever delirious patient. He grew speedily to have a
perfect trust and faith in this ministering child; and though once, when
for a little while his mother was silent, and the servants had fallen
asleep, he opened his lips to question her, there was something in the
imploring yet innocent gaze of those clear gray eyes before which he
shrank, as Ashley Ward had done, powerless to utter a word that should
indicate distrust.
“Perhaps my mother knows,—yes, doubtless she knew,” he said to himself,
with a faint attempt to justify his silence. “_Caramba!_ a man must have
a black heart himself who could doubt the whiteness of so pure a soul!”
Almost hourly his perturbation of mind was increased by the report of
some fresh name upon the list of the sick. With a faith as profound as
their own in the decoctions of herbs and roots used by the village
quacks, and a superstitious respect for the alleged virtues of blessed
relics and candles, and even for amulets of less sacred renown, he went
from hut to hut, endeavoring to propitiate the favor of Heaven by
charitable deeds,—thus perhaps gaining for himself a more personal
affection than the mere clannish regard which he in a measure shared
with the actual proprietors of the vast estate, but which was not strong
enough to insure him against the wit or malice of the dependent yet
utterly indifferent and irresponsible host he attempted to govern. A
doctor had been sent for, and also a priest; but neither appeared,—the
priest perhaps because the last one, who had but lately left there, had
given accounts of Doña Isabel’s proceedings little likely to be
acceptable to the Church. This added to the perplexities of Don Rafael.
In the midst of them he was one day accosted by Tomas, the husband of
Florencia, who in tones of genuine distress, which for the time gave
pathos to his usual drunken whine, bewailed the sickness of his wife,
and related how, spurning his care, she called vainly upon her Uncle
Pedro (not a day’s luck had befallen them since he had left them), and
upon the Señorita Chinita (praying his grace’s pardon for mentioning one
whom the Señora Doña Isabel herself had chosen to be a lady), to come
and give her a cup of cold water,—as if he, Tomas, himself had not
spilled over her a jar of honeyed _pulque_ in the vain effort to pour a
draught down her parched throat. It was plain to see that the woman was
doomed, and that it was for her the corpse-candles had been lighted.
“The corpse-candles!” echoed Don Rafael,—for he well knew the popular
superstition at Tres Hermanos, that when the burial lights were to burn
in the great house, their spectral counterfeits were first seen in the
ancient dwelling where the spirits of the early possessors of the
hacienda still guarded treasures, which awaited some daring and
fortunate claimant in a descendant who should combine their faith with a
tenacity of purpose and an untiring energy worthy the riches that had
eluded their own weak and inconstant efforts. Had indeed the conclave of
shades gathered to welcome another unsuccessful toiler among them? Don
Rafael shuddered and crossed himself, and wondered that there was no
news of Doña Isabel. He gave Tomas a silver piece, and told him that it
was not for Florencia, or even for his own mother, that the
corpse-lights of the Garcias would burn blue, and sent him away
comforted.
An hour later, through the medium of the fiery liquors distilled from
the agave, Tomas had so far strengthened his courage that he forgot the
corpse-lights altogether, until he saw them again at midnight glimmering
in the distance, not only behind the hacienda walls, but fitfully in the
darkness of the middle distance. He crossed himself, as he fancied he
caught at intervals glimpses of spectral bearers. His comrade on the
watch jested at the fears that he opined transformed the soft brilliancy
of the large and brilliant firefly into the light of ghostly candles;
and Tomas was content to yield to the soporific charm of the mescal,
rather than contest the matter with his drowsy comrade,—who, with a
regularity which custom made invariable, at certain intervals awoke and
emitted the shrill whistle that proclaimed that the sleepers of Tres
Hermanos were safe beneath his vigilant care.
Just at dawn the man straightened himself suddenly before the rampart
against which he had been leaning, gazed over the landscape with keen
apprehension, and uttered a faint cry of consternation. The sandy line
between the hacienda gates and the village had become a living one.
Whence had the figures stolen? There they stood motionless, horse and
man. The watchman stooped and shook his unconscious comrade. “Mother of
Jesus!” he cried; “your corpse-lights were in the hands of living men.
They are here! they are here! Ah, they are knocking upon the doors! That
fool Felipe is turning the key in the lock! Up! Up!” At the same moment
his whistle sounded shrilly, and the crack of his rifle upon the air
woke the slumbering tenants of the assaulted house.
Too late! the unwary gatekeeper was surprised; the heavy doors were
forced open, the courts in an instant were full of armed men, and Don
Rafael, half dressed, staggering from his scarce tried slumbers, was
seized by a half-dozen soldiers, while a voice he well knew, though it
came as if from the dead, and knew to be that of a man who was as
inflexible in act as unscrupulous in purpose, exclaimed,—
“How now, Don Rafael? Doña Isabel Garcia has at last showed her true
colors. It is for Gonzales and the Liberals the men and treasure of Tres
Hermanos have been accumulating! What, nothing for her Mother the
Church? Ah, it is the old story,—nothing for those of her own
household!”
The unwelcome intruder glanced around him with the air of one familiar
with, yet inimical to, his surroundings; he laughed as he dropped the
point of his sword upon the brick pave, and his spurred heel rang upon
the stone step. Yet a close observer might have noticed a false note in
the light and scornful tone, as though some poignant memory troubled his
present purpose; and it was with a half evasive though still a
threatening glance, that he lifted his eyes to encounter those of the
administrador, who stood a disordered and helpless but resolute prisoner
upon the steps above him.
At the sound of voices and the tramp of men, Chata had run hastily out
from the room of Doña Feliz, whose illness had approached a crisis. The
press of men prevented her from reaching Don Rafael, who imperatively
signed to her to retreat. Still she would have dared much to reach him;
but catching a glimpse of the triumphant countenance of the man at the
foot of the stairs, she drew back, covered her face with her hands and
fled precipitately,—in fear for herself perhaps, but more with an
instinctive feeling that her presence endangered rather than helped her
foster-father. That the General José Ramirez had entered Tres Hermanos
in a mood to seize any pretext to assume toward it and its people the
_rôle_ of an injured and desperate man, was to be seen at a glance. The
very soldiers had already divined as much, and were leading their horses
and mules to drink at the fountain, and invading the arbor and lower
rooms; the sound of their jests and laughter was mingling with the crash
of the great flower-pots, carelessly pushed from their stands, and the
sharp crack of jars of the quaint black and gilded ware of Guadalajara,
which ornamented the corridors.
Chata re-entered the room of the sick woman, with pallid face and lips,
and eyes expanding with a terror such as the mere sight of the imminent
destruction of material things alone could not have occasioned. Terrible
had been the tales she had heard of houses laid waste and property
destroyed; yet even when the horrors seemed about to be repeated around
her, she felt that she could have endured them bravely as among the
chances of war had not this invasion brought to her an intensely dreaded
and peculiar danger. She passed the group of alarmed and excited women
who gathered at the bedside, uttering exclamations of terror, and
kneeling at the head of the couch she clasped in her own the hand of the
unconscious Doña Feliz.
“Grandmother, my dearest!” she murmured in a low voice, yet full of
agony; “surely he will not tear me from thee! Oh, rather may I die with
thee!”
“Oh, by the saints,” cried the voice of Doña Rita in her ear, “for my
child’s sake, Chata, rise and fly to him! It is thou only who canst save
us. What did I tell thee in El Toro? Doña Isabel has ruined us! but for
her foolhardiness in sending aid to Gonzales all might have been well;
but that has brought the wrath of Ramirez upon Rafael!” She turned
toward her prostrate mother-in-law, with something very like fury,
clenching her hand and crying, “Ah! ah! your clever deception will not
seem so happy a one when you wake to find it has killed your son! That
is what you deserve! You deceived even me. Do you think had I known, I
would for all the favor promised me have played mother to the brat of
Leon Vallé?”
The women ceased their cries to listen to this frantic outburst, which
though but Greek to them, had a sound of mystery, which for the moment
deadened their ears to the increasing tumult without. “Leon Vallé!” said
one in an awe-struck voice,—“that was the Señora’s wicked brother.”
“Leon Vallé!” echoed Chata, a new light dawning upon her. “Maria
Sanctissima, can it be?”
“What more natural?” cried Doña Rita, testily. “Was he ever weary of
extorting some proof of Doña Isabel’s devotion? But _Dios mio_, there
was to be an end of her infatuation! Had he not killed her child? What
better chance for vengeance was she to find than to conceal, destroy,
every trace of his, when with devilish mockery he thrust it upon her?
But then he might have known it was like thrusting the lamb into the
jaws of the wolf. On my faith, girl, it maddens me to see you standing
there motionless, when it is as if the legions of Satanas himself were
loose. Go! go! I say, to soothe him. Entreat him to restrain his troops.
The house will be sacked. Who knows what horrors may follow!”
“I will not go to him,” said Chata, slowly, a red spot burning upon
either cheek, her eyes dark with horror. “If he is indeed the man you
say, will he not defend the home of his sister? If I am his child, will
he not claim me? If he does, I must submit; but go to him—No! To save
the hacienda—what has Doña Isabel done for me? To save my life—no!”